Jump to content

Recommended Posts

Posted
42 minutes ago, linux said:

Also centrifuges are delicate if they are running, I don't think them being in a stored position makes them delicate.

They certainly are finely crafted, but if they're not spinning I would imagine they can be "packed" into a storage/shippable state. What makes them so vulnerable while spinning is that they spin at >50,000 RPM and the smallest bump can send all that kinetic energy out of control. 

Given the degree of saber rattling leading up to this attack I would be shocked if Iran had em spun up. No doubt getting bombed is not great for high grade technical equipment, but once they're that far up the enrichment cascade it doesn't take as many centrifuges to get to bomb grade so they could probably lose a few without severely setting things back. 

  • Hook 'Em 2
Posted
1 hour ago, Dahobbs said:

Oh, I don't think we were necessarily aiming for a vent shaft or anything like that. But we were definitely aiming to have each pair of bombs follow the other to maximize the overall penetration. 

hd dating GIF

  • Haha 2
Posted
8 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

What the former Intel leaders said was that a mysterious laptop, with no digital forensic chain of custody, shows up with a bunch of embarrassing, but not criminally inculpatory information on it has the earmarks of a Russian disinformation campaign.

They were, ultimately, wrong.  Unlike Fox News and election disinfo and half the other shit they spew, they did not know they were wrong ahead of time and spew it anyway.

The only people that knew the Steele Dossier was bullshit were Steele and I guess some of his sources.  People were credulous of it, but, again, unlike Fox News, they didn't KNOW it was bullshit before they started spewing.

What Fox News routinely does is disinformation, intentionally wrong information.  The rest is just being conventionally wrong, something Fox rarely admits to.

Below is part of the wiki description of the steele dossier.  It was raw intelligence and many of the allegations were confirmed by Mueller.  There is real journalistic criticism towards Buzzfeed concerning their decision to release the document. 

 

image.png.0e61d41e8a57257b5a3bf422bf2c3a18.png

  • Hook 'Em 1
  • Like 1
  • Haha 1
Posted
9 hours ago, Dahobbs said:

...Top Gun Maverick style (aiming for the same hole).

Put a pic of South Austin's mom on the target and the Surly Horns horn dogs will take care of it.

  • Hook 'Em 1
Posted (edited)

Are we sure it’s a good thing to shatter the President’s notion that he successfully nuked Iran into the Stone Age?  I mean, we either did, in which case there’s no need for us to get further entangled, or he thinks we did, in which case there’s no need for us to get further entangled.

Edited by Goredho
  • Hook 'Em 6
Posted
9 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

What the former Intel leaders said was that a mysterious laptop, with no digital forensic chain of custody, shows up with a bunch of embarrassing, but not criminally inculpatory information on it has the earmarks of a Russian disinformation campaign.

They were, ultimately, wrong.  Unlike Fox News and election disinfo and half the other shit they spew, they did not know they were wrong ahead of time and spew it anyway.

The only people that knew the Steele Dossier was bullshit were Steele and I guess some of his sources.  People were credulous of it, but, again, unlike Fox News, they didn't KNOW it was bullshit before they started spewing.

What Fox News routinely does is disinformation, intentionally wrong information.  The rest is just being conventionally wrong, something Fox rarely admits to.

Not to sidetrack the thread further, but I think this is misleading. Nobody actually knows what happened. The most likely theory has always been that someone hacked Hunter's email and loaded up genuine emails along with a bunch of bullshit on a laptop that might have been stolen from Hunter or might've been another laptop entirely. What's pretty clear is someone tampered with the data on the laptop.  It might've been Russians, it might've been GOP operatives. We don't know and probably never will. Marcy Wheeler has a good summary of all the knowns and unknowns here: https://www.emptywheel.net/2025/01/24/embarrassingly-wrong-the-ongoing-misinformation-campaign-about-the-hunter-biden-hard-drive/.

 

 

  • Hook 'Em 3
Posted

You have to know that communications are being monitored at all times in the region, most likely everywhere actually, and some higher up asked about the condition of the facility after the strike and the reply was “Everything is perfectly all right now. We’re fine. We’re all fine here now, thank you. How are you?”

Between satellite imagery of the activity around the sites and recovered conversations about the work to be done they’ll know in short order how effective the strikes were. I doubt the Iranians are sophisticated enough or have the organizational discipline to keep it quiet for long. 

  • Haha 2
Posted
5 minutes ago, Bobby_Batronic said:

I doubt the Iranians are sophisticated enough or have the organizational discipline to keep it quiet for long. 

[Laughs in whiskeyleaks]

  • Hook 'Em 1
Posted
2 hours ago, victory88 said:

Daily reminder of that Netanyahu is charged with numerous war crimes and is starving an entire population.  Not only are they starving an entire population, they are using food trucks as bait to shoot civilians.  Want to know how sick this gets, Israel has observation decks where their citizens can watch this happen.  

Israel has murdered and killed more journalists than world war 1, world war 2, Vietnam war, and Afghanistan war, Iraq war combined.

Israel has killed 233 UN aid workers.  Most recent one was shot driving a UN aid truck.  Who is the terrorist again?  Or is that word only for Muslims?

 

 

 

Thanks for sharing this.  Anyone who is extremely hawkish needs to volunteer themselves and their sons and daughters for these wars moving forward.  It always amazes me that people like Mark Levin, for instance, are ready to volunteer everyone else but themselves in conflicts such as these.

  • Drool 1
Posted
6 minutes ago, Bobby_Batronic said:

You have to know that communications are being monitored at all times in the region, most likely everywhere actually, and some higher up asked about the condition of the facility after the strike and the reply was “Everything is perfectly all right now. We’re fine. We’re all fine here now, thank you. How are you?”

Between satellite imagery of the activity around the sites and recovered conversations about the work to be done they’ll know in short order how effective the strikes were. I doubt the Iranians are sophisticated enough or have the organizational discipline to keep it quiet for long. 

Vast portions of this thread are dedicated to the idea that Iranians hid information on their nuclear program from inspectors with the IAEA under the previous agreement despite all audited and reported findings suggesting compliance with the agreement. No substantive proof of their non-compliance as ever been publicly disclosed. Assuming all of this was correct, it would be foolish to believe that Iran isn't sophisticated enough to continue to hide the true state of their nuclear program. 

  • Hook 'Em 1
Posted

I figured it would be good to plug one of the really good youtube channels that started up with the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The end of this particular video discusses the most recent strike. 

 

 

 

  • Hook 'Em 3
Posted (edited)
24 minutes ago, Bobby_Batronic said:

You have to know that communications are being monitored at all times in the region, most likely everywhere actually, and some higher up asked about the condition of the facility after the strike and the reply was “Everything is perfectly all right now. We’re fine. We’re all fine here now, thank you. How are you?”

Between satellite imagery of the activity around the sites and recovered conversations about the work to be done they’ll know in short order how effective the strikes were. I doubt the Iranians are sophisticated enough or have the organizational discipline to keep it quiet for long. 

Just gotta circle back on this for another datapoint - NYT has reported that the pentagon (link to mediaite's story, because I don't have a NYT sub) was literally feeding trump fake attack plans because they were so worried about him leaking on truth social

So, once again, lol at "organizational discipline". Lmao, even.

 

Our so-called """organizational discipline""" resulted in Iran having plenty of heads up to relocate their nuclear stockpile and us not materially slowing down their ability to produce a bomb. So we spent probably upwards of a couple billion dollars between all the support crew and equipment used, didn't achieve the stated strategic goal, and did it all without congressional approval. Wow what sophistication!!!

Edited by Captainant
  • Rage+1 2
  • Drool 1
Posted
11 hours ago, Dahobbs said:

I don't think it is fair to call it a failure even if it didn't result in complete destruction of the facility. I also don't know what the purpose of randomly dropping smaller bombs are dirt would be. By all accounts, this was an extraordinary tactical success and a well coordinated strike. I doubt any of the military planners seriously expected there to be a high chance of complete destruction of the facility. 

They didn’t need to completely destroy the place, they knew dear leader would just say it was and half the country will believe it or pretend it’s true. And don’t @ me about fucking cloak room, this is the President of the fucking United States reporting on matters of international conflict with nuclear implications. 
 

image.thumb.jpeg.8d8409bd2dad4e32635eecbf1d4c932f.jpeg

  • Hook 'Em 1
  • Haha 3
  • Drool 2
Posted
35 minutes ago, Bobby_Batronic said:

You have to know that communications are being monitored at all times in the region, most likely everywhere actually, and some higher up asked about the condition of the facility after the strike and the reply was “Everything is perfectly all right now. We’re fine. We’re all fine here now, thank you. How are you?”

Between satellite imagery of the activity around the sites and recovered conversations about the work to be done they’ll know in short order how effective the strikes were. I doubt the Iranians are sophisticated enough or have the organizational discipline to keep it quiet for long. 

I have no doubt that we have a reasonably accurate damage assessment in hand.  I’m just not sure it’s in the President's hand, and if it is, if it would be allowed to contradict the result he proclaimed shortly after the attack.

  • Hook 'Em 2
Posted
6 minutes ago, Captainant said:

Just gotta circle back on this for another datapoint - NYT has reported that the pentagon (link to mediaite's story, because I don't have a NYT sub) was literally feeding trump fake attack plans because they were so worried about him leaking on truth social

So, once again, lol at "organizational discipline". Lmao, even.

 

Our so-called """organizational discipline""" resulted in Iran having plenty of heads up to relocate their nuclear stockpile and us not materially slowing down their ability to produce a bomb. So we spent probably upwards of a couple billion dollars between all the support crew and equipment used, didn't achieve the stated strategic goal, and did it all without congressional approval. Wow what sophistication!!!

I get it. You hate all things associated with the current administration. I made no assessment of our own organizational discipline. You can point out the gaffes with Signal, and I would point out that no one saw the B2 raid coming when it did. 
 

Iran moving what material it had produced isn’t some 4D chess move. It was the obvious thing to do once they realized that their air defenses were useless and that their nuclear sites were targeted. The very fact that they were moved at all suggests the Iranians weren’t as confident in the bomb proof nature of their facilities as many on this board or knew at the very least that they’d have to dig it out. 
 

Supposing that that material did in fact make its way out of Fordow then there is still value in destroying or at least significantly delaying the use of those and other facilities for the foreseeable future. You don’t just throw you hands up and say “Fuck it” if one cow makes it out of the barn.

Lastly, it doesn’t take a lot of creative signals intelligence or satellite imagery to determine if a lot of concrete rebar etc is being ordered, sent to and delivered to places like Fordow or Natanz.

 

Posted
29 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

it would be foolish to believe that Iran isn't sophisticated enough to continue to hide the true state of their nuclear program. 

Hope for the best and plan for the worst, but as a spectator, it’d be foolish to think Iran can do anything right after watching them repeatedly get owned by a tiny nation over the last 3 months. Iran is a pariah a step above the Norks, but not much. 

Posted
7 minutes ago, Goredho said:

I have no doubt that we have a reasonably accurate damage assessment in hand.  I’m just not sure it’s in the President's hand, and if it is, if it would be allowed to contradict the result he proclaimed shortly after the attack.

That’s fair. Now take the other view and suggest that SigInt probably picked up someone saying everything is fine, someone who knew they were being monitored, and that someone at DIA decided to leak that in a report because they don’t like the POTUs. 
 

That’s why I said the truth is that the program probably wasn’t destroyed, but was knocked on it ass for a while. 

  • Hook 'Em 1
Posted
19 minutes ago, 'stache said:

They didn’t need to completely destroy the place, they knew dear leader would just say it was and half the country will believe it or pretend it’s true. And don’t @ me about fucking cloak room, this is the President of the fucking United States reporting on matters of international conflict with nuclear implications. 
 

image.thumb.jpeg.8d8409bd2dad4e32635eecbf1d4c932f.jpeg

Isn’t the assessment based on satellite radar that’s accurate down to like a couple inches or better? Like… the fuck?

Posted
37 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

Vast portions of this thread are dedicated to the idea that Iranians hid information on their nuclear program from inspectors with the IAEA under the previous agreement despite all audited and reported findings suggesting compliance with the agreement. No substantive proof of their non-compliance as ever been publicly disclosed. Assuming all of this was correct, it would be foolish to believe that Iran isn't sophisticated enough to continue to hide the true state of their nuclear program. 

That’s a lot of assuming, and the Israelis have shown both the willingness and ability to hack their systems, track their personnel and lure their leadership into target sites. 
 

All that to say that such absolutism is dangerous. 

Posted
2 minutes ago, B00M said:

Isn’t the assessment based on satellite radar that’s accurate down to like a couple inches or better? Like… the fuck?

Signals intelligence means people talk, and we capture the conversations. They’re most certainly talking about the damage to those facilities. The only question is whether they’re being caught out or if they’re making deceptive communications. Add that to other observable means. 

  • Drool 1
Posted
7 minutes ago, Bobby_Batronic said:

Signals intelligence means people talk, and we capture the conversations. They’re most certainly talking about the damage to those facilities. The only question is whether they’re being caught out or if they’re making deceptive communications. Add that to other observable means. 

The radar doesn’t lie. We either caved the shit in or we didn’t 

  • Fuck Around and Find Out 1
Posted
5 minutes ago, Bobby_Batronic said:

Supposing that that material did in fact make its way out of Fordow then there is still value in destroying or at least significantly delaying the use of those and other facilities for the foreseeable future. You don’t just throw you hands up and say “Fuck it” if one cow makes it out of the barn.

This is my concern, dude. Once we made the decision Israel forced us to back out of negotiations by unilaterally and preemptively bombing Iran before talks were complete, which set us on a course to end the program by kinetic means.

If we didn't get the job done for whatever reason, we're more likely to continue using force to complete the mission, which means more bombing. That said, if we don't have the intestinal fortitude to drop more bombs, then it was only a half-measure and all for naught.

Moreover, you've kind of convinced the Iranian regime -- if it wasn't already apparent -- that developing a nuke truly is the only path forward to saving your own skin.

  • Hook 'Em 4
  • Drool 1
Posted
26 minutes ago, Bobby_Batronic said:

Iran moving what material it had produced isn’t some 4D chess move. It was the obvious thing to do once they realized that their air defenses were useless and that their nuclear sites were targeted. The very fact that they were moved at all suggests the Iranians weren’t as confident in the bomb proof nature of their facilities as many on this board or knew at the very least that they’d have to dig it out. 

There was no way for anyone to be confident in what would happen. These weapons had never been used in a real world operation before. Whatever they thought or didn't think about the structural stability of their facility is entirely irrelevant, moving the material was the only move to make in the face of such uncertainty.

Posted
9 minutes ago, B00M said:

The radar doesn’t lie. We either caved the shit in or we didn’t 

It would be impressive if we have the ability to see through severaL hundred feet of rock and bunker concrete from space and make that assessment. 

8 minutes ago, bolverk said:

This is my concern, dude. Once we made the decision Israel forced us to back out of negotiations by unilaterally and preemptively bombing Iran before talks were complete, which set us on a course to end the program by kinetic means.

If we didn't get the job done for whatever reason, we're more likely to continue using force to complete the mission, which means more bombing. That said, if we don't have the intestinal fortitude to drop more bombs, then it was only a half-measure and all for naught.

Moreover, you've kind of convinced the Iranian regime -- if it wasn't already apparent -- that developing a nuke truly is the only path forward to saving your own skin.

The current cease fire an anything that comes from it with regard to Irans nuclear program will make it clear if the attack was just an expense firework show. 
 

The fact that Iran has produced some fissile material at the very least and possibly smuggled it out of Fordow ahead of any attack suggests that they weren’t deterred from the goal of a nuclear weapon before Israel started bombing them. 

  • Hook 'Em 1
Posted
26 minutes ago, Captainant said:

Just gotta circle back on this for another datapoint - NYT has reported that the pentagon (link to mediaite's story, because I don't have a NYT sub) was literally feeding trump fake attack plans because they were so worried about him leaking on truth social

You should try reading the article because that is not what it says at all. 

  • Hook 'Em 1
Posted
1 minute ago, Brian Fantana said:

There was no way for anyone to be confident in what would happen. These weapons had never been used in a real world operation before. Whatever they thought or didn't think about the structural stability of their facility is entirely irrelevant, moving the material was the only move to make in the face of such uncertainty.

Having any material at all produced at a facility who’s sole purpose was the manufacture of fuel for nuclear bombs be snuck out is kinda damning on its own. 

Posted
5 minutes ago, Bobby_Batronic said:

It would be impressive if we have the ability to see through severaL hundred feet of rock and bunker concrete from space and make that assessment. 

The current cease fire an anything that comes from it with regard to Irans nuclear program will make it clear if the attack was just an expense firework show. 
 

The fact that Iran has produced some fissile material at the very least and possibly smuggled it out of Fordow ahead of any attack suggests that they weren’t deterred from the goal of a nuclear weapon before Israel started bombing them. 

And, yet, they were compliant when a deal was in place. But now that Bibi has revealed his hand that regime change was his intent with Operation Rising Lion, the Iranian regime now knows their days are numbered if they don't get the bomb.

  • Hook 'Em 2
Posted
5 minutes ago, Bobby_Batronic said:

It would be impressive if we have the ability to see through severaL hundred feet of rock and bunker concrete from space and make that assessment. 

 

You don’t think we can measure the height of the ground in the area before and after the strikes? We can, very accurately. It takes a lot of math to know if we caved the shit in, but thankfully we have computers and shit. Trump doesn’t trust it and I guess you don’t either 

Posted
11 minutes ago, Bobby_Batronic said:

That’s fair. Now take the other view and suggest that SigInt probably picked up someone saying everything is fine, someone who knew they were being monitored, and that someone at DIA decided to leak that in a report because they don’t like the POTUs. 
 

That’s why I said the truth is that the program probably wasn’t destroyed, but was knocked on it ass for a while. 

There’s literally no way to know if the messaging from our government is representative of the truth or more eating the dogs/eating the cats nonsense.  All any of us  can say is “the information sources I’ve chosen to put blind faith in have led me to believe X.”  Maybe Trump’s right, maybe he’s wrong, but nevar forget this quote from our VP:

”The American media totally ignored this stuff until Donald Trump and I started talking about cat memes. If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do.”

Where does that any means to an end attitude toward voter influence end?  At cats and dogs in an election year?  With strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities amidst sagging approval and horrific headlines?  You don't know and neither do I.  But what I do know is that a government that is willing to so brazenly mislead its people is not one I personally can put much faith in.

  • Hook 'Em 7
  • Drool 1
Posted
2 minutes ago, bolverk said:

And, yet, they were compliant when a deal was in place. But now that Bibi has revealed his hand that regime change was his intent with Operation Rising Lion, the Iranian regime now knows their days are numbered if they don't get the bomb.

I’m not sure compliance of the “Ima hang onto this weapons grade fuel (or precursor to) just in case” nature is comforting in their hands. 
 

Again, I don’t know how close or not they were. None of us, as has been pointed out in this thread, were up all night worrying about Iranian nukes for years on end. 
 

OTOH, I can’t think of a time when I or most of the world wouldn’t have been overjoyed to find out that they Iranians have given up their nuclear ambitions for good. 
 

They may well be more determined than ever. If so their facilities are at the very least buried and likely damaged to some extent, and much of their military and nuclear program leadership has graduated to fully dead. 
 

We’ll see how it plays out until the next thing for everyone to get hysterical about is served up this week. 

Posted

The Bombing of Iran May Teach an Unwelcome Lesson on Nuclear Weapons
Will America’s pre-emptive strike discourage other countries from pursuing a weapon — or just the opposite?

It has been nearly two decades since any country elbowed its way into the club of nuclear-armed nations. President Trump, with his bombing of three Iranian nuclear installations last weekend, has vowed to keep the door shut.

Whether Mr. Trump’s pre-emptive strike will succeed in doing that is hard to predict, so soon after the attack and the fragile cease-fire that has followed. But already it is stirring fears that Iran, and other countries, will draw a very different conclusion than the one the White House intended: that having a bomb is the only protection in a threatening world.

The last country to get one, North Korea, has never faced such an attack. After years of defying demands to dismantle its nuclear program, it is now viewed as largely impregnable. Mr. Trump exchanged friendly letters with its dictator, Kim Jong-un, and met him twice in a fruitless effort to negotiate a deal. In Iran’s case, Mr. Trump deployed B-2 bombers just weeks after making a fresh diplomatic overture to its leaders.

“The risks of Iran acquiring a small nuclear arsenal are now higher than they were before the events of last week,” said Robert J. Einhorn, an arms control expert who negotiated with Iran during the Obama administration. “We can assume there are a number of hard-liners who are arguing that they should cross that nuclear threshold.”

Iran would face formidable hurdles to producing a bomb even if it made a concerted dash for one, Mr. Einhorn said, not least the knowledge that if the United States and Israel detect such a move, they will strike again. It is far from clear that Iran’s leaders, isolated, weakened and in disarray, want to provoke them.

Yet the logic of proliferation looms large in a world where the nuclear-armed great powers — the United States, Russia and China — are viewed as increasingly unreliable and even predatory toward their neighbors. From the Persian Gulf and Central Europe to East Asia, analysts said, nonnuclear countries are watching Iran’s plight and calculating lessons they should learn from it.

“Certainly, North Korea doesn’t rue the day it acquired nuclear weapons,” said Christopher R. Hill, who led lengthy, ultimately unsuccessful, talks with Pyongyang in 2007 and 2008 to try to persuade it to dismantle its nuclear program.

The lure of the bomb, Mr. Hill said, has become stronger for America’s allies in the Middle East and Asia. Since World War II, they have sheltered under an American security umbrella. But they now confront a president, in Mr. Trump, who views alliances as incompatible with his vision of “America First.”

“I’d be very careful with the assumption that there is a U.S. nuclear umbrella,” said Mr. Hill, who served as ambassador to South Korea, Iraq, Poland, and Serbia under Democratic and Republican presidents. “Countries like Japan and South Korea are wondering whether they can rely on the U.S.”

Quote

 

Support for developing nuclear weapons has risen in South Korea, though its newly elected president, Lee Jae-myung, has vowed to improve relations with North Korea. In 2023, President Joseph R. Biden Jr. signed a deal with Seoul to involve it more in nuclear planning with the United States, in part to head off a push by South Korean politicians and scientists to develop their own nuclear weapons capability.

In Japan, the public has long favored disarmament, a legacy of the American atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. But it has begun debating whether to store nuclear weapons from the United States on its soil, as some members of NATO do. Shinzo Abe, a former prime minister, said that if Ukraine had kept some of its Soviet-era bombs, it might have avoided a Russian invasion.

President Vladimir V. Putin’s threats to use tactical nuclear weapons early in that conflict gave pause to the Biden administration about how aggressively to arm the Ukrainian military. It also deepened fears that other revisionist powers could use nuclear blackmail to intimidate their neighbors.

The lesson of Ukraine could end up being, “If you have nuclear weapons, keep them. If you don’t have them yet, get them, especially if you lack a strong defender like the U.S. as your ally and if you have a beef with a big country that could plausibly lead to war,” wrote Bruce Riedel and Michael E. O’Hanlon, analysts at the Brookings Institution, a research group in Washington, in 2022.

Saudi Arabia, an ally of the United States and archrival of Iran, has watched Tehran’s nuclear ambitions with alarm. Experts say it would feel huge pressure to develop its own weapon if Iran ever obtained one. The United States has tried to reassure the Saudis by dangling assistance to a civil nuclear program, but those negotiations were interrupted by Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.

And yet, for all the predictions of a regional arms race, it has yet to occur. Experts say that is a testament to the success of nonproliferation policies, as well as to the checkered history of countries that pursued weapons.

The Middle East is a messy landscape of dashed nuclear dreams. Iraq, Syria and Libya all had their programs dismantled by diplomacy, sanctions or military force. In the category of cautionary tales, Libya’s is perhaps the most vivid: Muammar el-Qaddafi gave up his weapons of mass destruction in 2003. Eight years later, after a NATO-backed military operation toppled his government, he crawled out of a drainpipe to face a brutal death at the hands of his own people.

Iran’s strategy of aggressively enriching uranium, while stopping short of a bomb, did not ultimately protect it either.

“To the extent that people are looking at Iran as a test case, Trump has shown that its strategy is not a guarantee that you will prevent a military attack,” said Gary Samore, a professor at Brandeis University who worked on arms control negotiations in the Obama and Clinton administrations.

Mr. Samore said it was too soon to say how the Israeli and American strikes on Iran would affect the calculus of other countries. “How does this end?” he said. “Does it end with a deal? Or is Iran left to pursue a nuclear weapon?”

Experts on proliferation are, by nature, wary. But some are trying to find a silver lining in the events of the last week. Mr. Einhorn said that in delivering on his threat to bomb a nuclear-minded Iran, Mr. Trump had sent a reassuring message to American allies facing their own nuclear insecurities.

“In Moscow, Pyongyang and Beijing,” Mr. Einhorn said, “they’ve taken notice not just of the reach and capacity of the U.S. military, but the willingness of this president to use that capability.”

 

 

  • Hook 'Em 1
Posted
7 minutes ago, B00M said:

You don’t think we can measure the height of the ground in the area before and after the strikes? We can, very accurately. It takes a lot of math to know if we caved the shit in, but thankfully we have computers and shit. Trump doesn’t trust it and I guess you don’t either 

That’s not necessarily how mountains and caves work. They may have collapsed the facilities inside without the rock above losing an inch. Or they may have damaged the building inside with pressure and blast eaves without collapsing the excavated spaces. Or they may have just created a big pile of slag on the outside. 

  • Hook 'Em 1
Posted
8 minutes ago, Goredho said:

There’s literally no way to know if the messaging from our government is representative of the truth or more eating the dogs/eating the cats nonsense.  All any of us  can say is “the information sources I’ve chosen to put blind faith in have led me to believe X.”  Maybe Trump’s right, maybe he’s wrong, but nevar forget this quote from our VP:

”The American media totally ignored this stuff until Donald Trump and I started talking about cat memes. If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do.”

Where does that any means to an end attitude toward voter influence end?  At cats and dogs in an election year?  With strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities amidst sagging approval and horrific headlines?  You don't know and neither do I.  But what I do know is that a government that is willing to so brazenly mislead its people is not one I personally can put much faith in.

I would suggest that governments have been brazenly misleading their populaces since time immemorial. That’s this administration, and the one before it and so on and so forth. It would behoove all of us to entertain the idea that we are being lied to even when the lies agree with our viewpoints. 

  • Hook 'Em 2
Posted
2 minutes ago, Bobby_Batronic said:

I get it. You hate all things associated with the current administration. I made no assessment of our own organizational discipline. You can point out the gaffes with Signal, and I would point out that no one saw the B2 raid coming when it did. 

No one tactically knew when it was coming, but they strategically knew it was coming. The attack was a tactical success, and a (seeming, tbd) strategic failure. 

The whole stated end goal has been to "PREVENT IRAN FROM GETTING NUKES!!!!" and yet now our big grand opening move is to not to a whole lot to affect that, and strongly motivate Iran to work even faster at it.

 

Wow-ee! So glad we're in this position thanks to President Trump deciding to tear up the agreement in 2018.

Posted (edited)

Here's the problem. Even if we did destroy everything including the uranium (which we most likely didn't), it doesn't matter as long as the Iranian regime is still in power. They can just say they have uranium and capabilities to produce quickly. You think we'll just say "we don't believe you" and assume they're lying? Khameini and his cronies lie about everything. To the point where we bombed them even though there was no real proof they were close to a nuclear weapon.

We tore up the Obama deal and no one is going inside Iran anymore to assess/inspect. All of this is a bunch of bullshit that doesn't move the needle until the regime is gone.

Edited by Hank Kingsley
  • Hook 'Em 6
Posted
31 minutes ago, bolverk said:

And, yet, they were compliant when a deal was in place. But now that Bibi has revealed his hand that regime change was his intent with Operation Rising Lion, the Iranian regime now knows their days are numbered if they don't get the bomb.

this-pointing-finger.gif

Succinct and spot-on.  

  • Hook 'Em 1
Posted (edited)


Were they?

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/12/world/middleeast/un-iaea-iran-nuclear-program.html
 

Iran Is Breaking Rules on Nuclear Activity, U.N. Watchdog Says

The decision comes as officials say they believe that Israel is preparing to launch a military attack on Iran. Tehran condemned the vote.

 

*could be bullshit as well 

Edited by ChickenSandwich
Posted
17 minutes ago, Bobby_Batronic said:

I would suggest that governments have been brazenly misleading their populaces since time immemorial. That’s this administration, and the one before it and so on and so forth. It would behoove all of us to entertain the idea that we are being lied to even when the lies agree with our viewpoints. 

I would say we are in an unprecedented golden age of American propaganda and misinformation.  As for entertaining the idea we are being lied to by our institutions, absolutely.  Make sure you apply the same standards you want from others to the institutions you choose to put your own faith into and hold them accountable when they engage in obvious bullshittery.

  • Hook 'Em 2
Posted
6 minutes ago, Goredho said:

I would say we are in an unprecedented golden age of American propaganda and misinformation.  As for entertaining the idea we are being lied to by our institutions, absolutely.  Make sure you apply the same standards you want from others to the institutions you choose to put your own faith into and hold them accountable when they engage in obvious bullshittery.

My only caveat being that I think the golden age has been going on longer than any of us would like to to think. 

  • Hook 'Em 2
Posted
43 minutes ago, B00M said:

You don’t think we can measure the height of the ground in the area before and after the strikes? We can, very accurately. It takes a lot of math to know if we caved the shit in, but thankfully we have computers and shit. Trump doesn’t trust it and I guess you don’t either 

we're not assessing damage by measuring ground height.

Posted
26 minutes ago, Hank Kingsley said:

Here's the problem.

We tore up the Obama deal and no one is going inside Iran anymore to assess/inspect. All of this is a bunch of bullshit that doesn't move the needle until the regime is gone.

Which regime, ours, theirs, or both?

  • Hook 'Em 4
  • Like 2
Posted

This site, and who knows how many others, noticed the b-2s leave Missouri and began theorizing where they were going and what they were doing. So not exactly a surprise that they ended up flying to Iran and dropping ordinance.  That we were even paying attention to it is because of the posture of the US and potus over the previous week. So tough to claim great opsec or surprise. Yeah, Iran had some time to do some preventative work. 
 

on mission results, we also have Israeli reports that are lukewarm at best about destruction of facilities.  Playing the game of who can you trust and when, is difficult.  I mean we know what Iran would say irrespective of the facts, and even that you can’t know whether or not they are lying exactly for that reason. 

  • Hook 'Em 1

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.



×
×
  • Create New...