The war with Iran will have consequences far beyond the battlefield and its immediate destruction, regardless of how it ends. It is both a turning point and a catalyst. What will come after, we can only guess; but what is breaking, we can already see.
Many of us are trying to make sense of the “Ramadan War.” There are multiple theories about the reasons, the timing, the objectives, and its progress. Some of those theories are contradictory; most are complementary—different dimensions of the same event.
Some frame this as being all about China, arguing the U.S. is trying to curb China’s rise by controlling the energy resources it needs; Venezuela and Iran would serve that purpose. Others claim it is all about Israel seizing the opportunity to continue its hegemonic project or avoid collapse. Some see it as a planned transition to a multipolar war, while others view it as a distraction from the Epstein files (it seems to have worked!). Others focus on keeping the dollar hegemony or the transition to a new economic paradigm based on stablecoins. Some just blame it on the everlasting bloodthirst of a decaying empire.
All of these angles hold some truth. The emphasis usually falls on the area of expertise of the person speaking, or the factor they are most convinced is the driver of events. It is difficult to discard any completely, though some have more of a basis than others. It is also difficult to conclusively select one. Only with time will tell.
However, what we can say with a degree of certainty—because we are seeing it happen in real time—is that this war is the catalyst of many processes that were already ongoing. Some of those processes strike directly at the very foundation upon which much of the modern world was built—an unspoken agreement that is now breaking.
Lying and deceit are part of war. Leaders minimize their losses and maximize their gains to keep up the morale of the troops and the population. They also try to confuse the enemy. But when those who are supposed to be in charge of the war actually believe their own lies, they are not propperl lying anymore. In the U.S., this seems to be the case.
Donald Trump was warned that Iran would close the Strait of Hormuz, and he dismissed the warnings, saying that they would either surrender beforehand or that the American navy would deal with it quickly and reopen it. So, no one made a plan. And when Iran closed it, he was first astonished that they did not surrender and then demanded that the U.S. Navy reopen it. He’s either a complete fool—which I doubt—or he really believed his own rhetoric, which is even worse.
When he comes out in public and says that Iran is decimated or that their nuclear program was “obliterated”, I don’t think he’s lying, as in saying something he knows is not true; he actually believes it. Someone might be lying to him, or he constructs his own interpretation of the facts, and that becomes his truth—and by extension, the truth that most of his administration acts upon.
What happened in 2002, when the U.S. conducted the military drill “Millennium Challenge,” was a convenient construction of truth. It was one of the largest and most ambitious military drills to date for the U.S. army. The objective was to demonstrate the effectiveness of the transition to a technologically centered war. Against the Blue Team (the U.S.) was the Red Team, representing an undefined country in West Asia, but modeled on Iran.
Leading the Red Team was Marine Corps Lieutenant General Paul K. Van Riper, a combat-hardened, old-school marine known for his shrewdness. Van Riper designed an asymmetrical defense strategy to counter the technological superiority of the Blue Team. For example, he used old communication methods to evade Blue’s sophisticated electronic surveillance network. The initial defeat of the Blue Team was catastrophic. As per by Wikipedia:
Red received an ultimatum from Blue, essentially a surrender document, demanding a response within 24 hours. Thus warned of Blue’s approach, Red used a fleet of small boats to determine the position of Blue’s fleet by the second day of the exercise. In a preemptive strike, Red launched a massive salvo of cruise missiles that overwhelmed the Blue forces’ electronic sensors and destroyed sixteen warships: one aircraft carrier, ten cruisers, and five of Blue’s six amphibious ships. An equivalent success in a real conflict would have resulted in the deaths of over 20,000 service personnel. Soon after the cruise missile offensive, another significant portion of Blue’s navy was “sunk” by an armada of small Red boats, which carried out both conventional and suicide attacks that capitalized on Blue’s inability to detect them.
After Blue’s defeat, the exercise was restarted, and Red was given precise orders and constraints to ensure Blue’s victory.
The similarities between this exercise and what is happening in the Iran War are uncanny. One would have hoped that, from that expensive exercise, the U.S. would have learnt. But it does not seem that way. Iran is using a very similar tactic to that deployed by Van Riper, and it is working. It seems the U.S. intelligentsia learned their lessons from the Blue Team’s fake victory—a lie that they believed.
These two examples seem to suggest that both the structure and the command has accepted a narrative of an all-powerful military capable of anything. To be clear, I think that the U.S. has a powerful army, and that they can, as they are doing, cause a lot of harm to Iran. However, its strength is not as great as they seem to believe. For example, they are not capable of forcibly reopening the Strait of Hormuz, much less launching a ground invasion of Iran.
That is an epistemic truth that the war on Iran is breaking. The U.S. can’t impose its will purely by force, which was the main reason for the feudal contract of protection that it had with many states, including the Gulf nations. They are suffering the fallout of a failed agreement. The military bases in their countries were supposed to be an insurance policy but have become the reason they are targeted, while the U.S. cannot ensure their defense. I find it hypocritical that they complain of being attacked while hosting U.S. bases. What did they expect?
This is an epistemic break because much of the now-defunct world order was predicated on that premise. If the U.S. can’t adequately enforce its will nor protect allies from the consequences, then the strategic calculus will change for many countries. Taiwan would do well to accept China’s offer of unlimited gas supplies for a diplomatic resolution. Or does anyone think that, when the Chinese decide that the time to take the island has come, the U.S. would be able to stop them?
The world order that the U.S. and its allies built was already declared dead—even by themselves—but the real consequences, the reality check, had not yet come. As I read on my feed: Who would have thought that it would be Iran, and not Russia or China, who would break the U.S. illusion of power?
The same applies to the power that the U.S. financial system projects. When that illusion confronts reality—either through the crash of the AI bubble, the collapse of private credit, or the structural crisis created by oil prices at $140–$150 per barrel (which is what is being paid in the real, non-manipulable world)—it will burst in the same way that the military illusion is bursting.
This will send shockwaves through the entire world. Not only because most countries are dependent on the financial system created by the U.S. and its Western allies, but because that system had apparently become a permanent “truth” upon which to build societies. Some leaders, like Argentina’s Milei, still believe it.
Perhaps part of that selective composition of truth is owed to the effect of social media echo chambers on our perception, as well as algorithms and, now, generative AI. It is difficult, if not impossible, to assess with certainty if Netanyahu is alive or dead. I don’t particularly think that he is dead; I think it’s more probable that he is hiding, but that’s beside the point. For how could I know?
We are at a point where no video will ever be conclusive proof of life—or death, for that matter. Even if he is alive, and even if all those videos that have come out were true, there would still be many people who would doubt them. It is actually possible that some of those videos were made with AI and that he is alive, which makes matters even more confusing. Similarly, it is confusing to discern which videos of attacks and explosions are real and which ones are AI-generated.
AI has much to do with the belief in the invincibility of the U.S. army and financial system because it’s propping up both. It guides the weapons and selects the targets. It can also decide that war is necessary. It has already happened. Between June 6 and 12, 2025, Mosaic—a Palantir-developed AI model—flagged an apparent surge of enriched uranium at Iranian facilities.
The AI’s conclusion: Iran was weeks away from producing not just one, but potentially five nuclear bombs. This dramatic assertion led to the war. Yet it was based on inference, not verifiable facts.
That is the world into which we are venturing: a world where what many held to be indisputable truths are breaking down and are being replaced by AI models.
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https://www.foreignaffairs.com/iran/stunning-failure-iranian-deterrence
“Although it was the United States and Israel that instigated attacks on Iran on February 28, leaders in Tehran deserve some of the blame for failing to effectively deter their adversaries.”
Amazing
That is amazing. As if the whole mess is Iran’s fault because they did not acquire nukes?
[Shakes head in disbelief at the insanity of the propaganda]
Not wrong.
Iran made a mistake in not retaliating fully the first time.
Extreme pain is the only thing that can deter the US.
At least they seem to have realized their mistake this time.
“What was Iran wearing at the time?”
Perfect response. Cracked me up.
hats off
Doesn’t matter. US/Israel are the kind of rapists that it doesn’t matter the clothing, the sex, the age, or the live status. They would rape any body, dead or alive, man or woman, young or old, dressed or undressed. You are a 3,500 old mummy burried in a double sarcophagus, you will be raped.
Yeah I think they are faking. It is all going according to plan. They just can’t admit it, or everyone would recognize them as the enemies of humanity.
Damn, I initially read “The Epsteinic Break”…
As the fitting term “epistemic” is concerned perhaps of interest yesterday´s conversation by Pascal Lottaz with Manuel J. Ramos anthropologist from University Institute of Lisbon on “epistemic”, “truth”, “fact”, “event” etc. for NEUTRALITY STUDIES
The actual cause for discussion is Bucha and Ramos´s analysis of the various groups that offer conflicting “narratives” of the event but he gets into the meta and methodology of it and that is of interest not only re: Iran but the general “epistemic” turn we may witness these days.
The Lies of the West Come to Haunt Europe | Prof. Manuel J. Ramos
60 min.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmXROwDHM4g
Incredible discussion. Thanks for the link.
I had re-read that Wikipedia article about the 2002 Millenium Challenge just a couple of weeks ago, I think shortly after the start of the war. The whole thing is worth reading in full because it’s a legendary failure. Blue team only won after they a) reset the whole thing and “unsunk” blue team’s several ships that had been “sunk” and b) they put severe limits on what red team could do, in order to essentially guarantee a blue win.
One thinks of the pre-1914 maneuvers held by the German army which were orchestrated so that the Kaiser’s side would always win.
And it would always end with the arme blanche (cavalry, Kaiser Bill’s favourite corps) conducting a victorious charge completely routing the losers.
“Mission Accomplished” indeed!
Speaking of the Great war, If I remember this correctly, the German general stab analysis about war with Russia went something like this:
* Because of industrialistation, we are right now stronger than the Russians
* In a couple of decades this will shift as Russia industrialises
* If Russia wants a conflict with us, it is better that it comes earlier rather than later
* Therefore it is better to support Austria-Hungary in the Balkans than not
While their Russian counterparts reasoned thusly:
* We have been more than fair to Austria-Hungary in the Balkans
* If they attack Serbia it is because they want to pick of our allies in the Balkans one by one
* If Germany supports this, it is because it wants war
* Better to get the war when we have an alliance with France and still have allies in the Balkans
Both arguments are reasonable, though the end result was the fall of both their empires.
As I don’t remember the source, I will freely admit that my memory or the author may have polished the arguments a bit to make the point sharper.
“he actually believes it”
Isn’t this the George Costanza rule–it isn’t lying if you actually believe it? Whoever’s rule it is it seems to be the universal rule of our elites (see “responsibility to protect”).
So yes they all lie but Trump likes to cruise the paradoxical such as “I’m a stable genius” versus don’t blame me if I’m dumb and poorly informed like many of my peeps.
I’ve never been in sales but supposedly one axiom is that a good salesman has to believe in the product. This doesn’t make me feel better about them. It’s the more subtle lie of overselling your qualifications.
well im kinda wondering if trump is for the closure of the strait of hormutz because he thinks it will bring back manufacturing to the united states. bit of an insane hear me out, but hear me out. pre-iran invasion, trump was throwing out all those tariffs and trying to get the united states to be a net exporter instead of a net importer or whatever. now, with the closure of the strait of hormutz, a lot of supply chains that deliver things to the united states are cut off. this would theoretically force the united states to produce more things at home, thus becoming a net exporter and getting trump what he wants.
to me, the clear logical fallacy here is that it takes so much time to develop both manufacturing plants and supply chains and expertise. i dont think he’ll be able to do enough in the span of 4 years to actually destroy supply chains so he can build new usa centric ones. everyone will want to go back to global trade because it is cheaper and easier.
but ofc i might just be overthinking things, and the real reason for everything is actually israel or oil or something.
I don’t think he is capable of thinking that far ahead.
“It ain’t five dimensional chess / it’s dementia doing its best”
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nm8T-vqtdNk
Brilliant.
I’m sharing that everywhere.
Good one, but I will note that Welles does repeat the “ties to Russia” canard which I’m quite sick of. How many billions worth of weapons does the US need to ship to Ukraine, how many Russian leaders need to be assassinated, how many Russian targets does the US need to provide to the Ukrainian nationalists, before it dawns on people that maybe Trump is not Putin’s BFF?
You are not the only person to propose this. I have seen other parts of Realist-War-Twitter float this, with more or less tinfoil on top.
In its minimally tinfoily form, you could argue that the new US security strategy already commits to retreating into its Western hemisphere heartland as preparation for a coming struggle with China. Europe and NATO are merely there for fighting a rearguard campaign to contain and distract Russia with war in the Ukraine (yes, I know, it is really training and constructing them!).
War on Iran therefore either takes out a source of China’s petrochemicals if the US wins and keeps control of the strait or destroys the terms of trade of its vassal competitors if the US loses and Iran controls the strait. Remember, those vassals (Gulf, Europe) are major creditors of the USA. If they have to liquidate their sovereign funds and Treasury holdings paying for oil, too bad. It will look like lend lease where Roosevelt vowed to drain Britain of every pound before anything would be provided on credit and we had to make over our gold reserves, our foreign equity holdings, our German sequestrations, our technologies (radar etc) and our Western hemisphere bases.
The latter outcome makes little sense as a strategy to compete with China unless you believe in disaster capitalism, zero-sum economics and a US plan to control and loot a geopolitical block through controlling its oil, which will in future come from Canada and Venezuela (heavy) and the US (light). When the shale oil runs out, the US will need other sources of light oil to process with Orinoco and Athabasca crudes. My guess is that Mexico, Brazil and West Africa had better watch out!
Of course, if the Iran war is not five dimensional chess, it is an enormous, cheery, corn-fed, blue jean, all-American clusterfuck!
I just listened to Brian Berletic on Glenn Diesen’s podcast and he made a very compelling argument that this is a decades-long culmination of China containment policy for which the window is closing. He expects the US to start intercepting the un-sanctioned Iranian tankers leaving the Persian Gulf soon and they actually want to keep Hormuz closed.
Is that accurate though? The evidence seems to point to the US doing everything they can think of to keep oil moving, including removing sanctions on Iranian oil entirely
I think Berletic may be too wedded to his “Israel is America’s proxy” theory of the US-Israel relationship and is interpreting what’s happening incorrectly as a result.
Berletic has been so correct for so long about the US and its long term plans that I think he overstates the deliberative abilities of the Empire under Trump.
Berletic is also dismissive over the part that Israel plays in all this and says that it is all about the US trying to establish dominance in the 21st century. Yeah, nah. Since it was Israel that told the US to go to war against Iran 3 weeks ago, it is definitely the tail wagging the dog.
Berletic (on Glenn Diesen) credits reading think tank policy papers for the success of his predictions.
Ok, but I then find it difficult to understand why the empire is so self defeating in its actions. If the empire has this long-term plan, why do they allow US deinstrialization to continue? Why are resources (e.g., rare earths) not identified as critical to the success of their plan? Why give SO much to defense industry corporations that produce under-performing products?
If you’re playing for global domination, why allow shortcuts to decrease your chance of success?
Maybe Empire is a tool for the transnational Epstein class, who use Nation-states as chess pieces?
There is a ton of money being made in war, the MIC, ‘investments’ in utility commodities, trading.
The nation states, and the tax mule indentured citizens, are the packing and cannon fodder. “Go Die” resonates.
If we all die, who will buy their products and wipe their butts of the Jasmine -scented ice cream poop?
Oh that? It’s just a chip on my shoulder. Pay no mind…
Western élites have been trained to look for the big picture that will benefit them and, having found it, wrap it in a narrative that they can sell to the masses as well as each other and provides some easy to remember slogans and soundbites as acceptable substitutes for thought however little the big picture relates to the underlying and changing realities.
He reads the think tank policy papers so we do not have to. He does not pull this out of thin air, this is what RAND has written. The papers may seem old, but they are not out of date. Empire is a long game. Brian is pointing out this is a pattern in US history.
If containing China was the reason for this war it must have been a plan both parties have agreed to because no one around here in big “R” Kansas really cared about the war or they were all for it until diesel and gas prices spiked. Now they care or are talking about “America First” again.
So maybe the democrats will come in and continue the China Containment policy with an LGTBQ+ cape around their neck?
“That is an epistemic truth that the war on Iran is breaking. The U.S. can’t impose its will purely by force.” Let’s not declare victory yet, the same could have been said of Syria in 2018.
I wonder if Trump will finance this war by imposing massive LNG export taxes on European buyers. That would be karma for the EU for so many reasons.
A big rise in domestic American natural gas prices, natural gas being a fungible commodity, could spell doom for the Republican Party chances in the Mid-Term elections.
Expect to see price controls imposed on domestic energy markets in the US soon.
Not much heating use before the mid-terms. But certainly residential NG price rises will be a major factor in electricity rate increases obfuscated by “need to update infrastructure” and “data centers for AI” corporate spins at utility hearings. Former is mysterious to most, latter has big $$$ to entice the nominal regulators (who are often crony appointments).
I don’t see Nat gas price increase, at least domestically in the lower 48. We are swimming in it.
I believe the price structure, distribution is completely different and not as ‘global’ for nat gas as for oil.
LNG, while it is Nat gas, has added process that adds cost/ price.
Very different than depleting oil. But I have been wrong so often
Back to the article, and a comment, I was thinking as I woke this morning that we may see some knock-on effects that create local markets, local production, and creation of systems that create the vaunted notion of resilient local communities. (Case that prompted… where am I going to get cracked corn scratch for our hens?)
There will be pain getting there, and there are an awful lot of dollars/ power at stake that do not want distributed, localized resilience At All.
Same could have been said for Iraq, Afghanistan, Bietnam, Korea. I doubt America will learn tjis time either.
There is a qualitative and quantitative difference between Syria and Iran. In Syria, the Syrian Army was outperformed by Hezbollah and by Iranian support. Poverty has hollowed out completely Syria. The army just dropped their guns and their uniforms. At which Iranians and Russians bailed out. In Iran, I see no sign of bending, au contraire. I think the more they will resist, the more Russia and China will help.
And, and, there is no enemy bridghead in Iran as it was in Syria in several directions. My bet is that the Iranian military that lost their children in the first day of attack will form a beserker spearhead against any invading troops and that would be awsome. I could see myself opening the chest of the first American victim and taking the heart out and biting from it (acts like that were recorded for instace in Italy in late1700 hubdreds). After the fall of Antioch in the second (?!) crusade, after a stiff resistence, the European knights have resoreted to widespred canibalistic acts, well reported. As such, a similar Iranian response should rattle a bit the western nerves.
Donald Trump had never really been a liar, he’s a chronic b*llsh*tter. Whether it’s true or not has no bearing on what he says.
Confabulation
The rise of trump parallels the rise of AI; both are confabulators providing plausible, syntactically logical responses valid for a narrow subset of data but with no coherent world model.
Must be a zeitgeist thing.
“On Bullshit” by Harry G. Frankfurt is the seminal text here. Shorter version:
Joliet Jake: You lied to me!
Elwood: It wasn’t lying; it was just . . . bullshit.
Salesman, liar, b*llsh*tter…whatever you want to call it, we all know it when we see it.
The only antidote to a salesman is the complete lack of desire.
Watching and reading contemporary “Western” media and commentators I find it beyond belief that there is no mention of resistance and revolutionary thought. A cursory reading of Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Mao, General Võ Nguyên Giáp Viet Nam, Che Guevera, Amilcar Cabral, etc. would more than give an inkling of what the objectives of the Iranian state are at this time. The writers cited above put forward placed emphasis on the short term goals necessary to achieve the task at hand. In this case it is obvious given the US/European history in the “Levant” that the imperial states, the US, European and their vassals, want the total destruction of Iran, not regime change. The current war is as has been explained, by the US military, on the “last” of 7 Middle Eastern states: it is to be destroyed in a fight to the end — just as it was for Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, Irak, Lebanon, etc. Iran is the last domino. I am not sure if the current political, economic and mainstream media elite (and a large chunk of the progressive media) are willfully ignorant or just plain stupid in their surprise of Iranian resistance. Just wars on “empty lands” began with Columbus: the European powers from the 15th century have waged imperial wars and their goal has been to fragment whatever state(s) existed and continue to exist. There is no other credible theory given the historical record. That is, Trump is acting out the modus vivendi of the previous colonial powers at the end of their “run” and hegemony. What is different is the sheer scale of violence, but as Miliband wrote in his last book, what has changed today is the level of consent given to the imperial powers: abroad and at home. Consent has lessened and hence the horror registers faster and greater depth than in the past on the 90%. Expect blowback for years to come internally and externally with regard to the “homeland” of the latest empire: the USA.
Don’t tell them you’ve been reading stuff like that, those are “psychopaths”.
Little Narco’s speech at the Munich Security Conference is proof that these dead-eyed psychopaths will never let the “dream” (nightmare) of White Supremacist Empire die. They will burn down their own nations (happening to USA this very minute) for this sincere delusion.
These clowns don’t think, they don’t learn, the US Epstein Class and the Zio-Masters are united. We are “the Master Race”, we will conquer, enslave and rape the Inferiors. That is a Titanic they will go down on, never once considering basic facts (USA is 4.5% of Global population, and very divided; Israel is a New Jersey-sized artificial apartheid state which globally isn’t a pimple on the earth’s ass. They are very good at extermination Indigenous people in their region, however.)
Private credit and the AI bubble both depend on “Number go up” and LOTS of dumb Money.
Much of the $ for AI has been coming from the Gulf and that money just went away, perhaps as much as $100,000,000,000 was expected to come from the Gulf over the next year.
AI has NO ROI and no path to profitability, it’s still twitching but it is dead.
And Private Credit has been making very sketchy deals for quite a while, chasing yield.
Erm.
$7 or $8 or $10 per gallon gas is going to harsh a lot of mellow
It’s a lovely day, time for a walk and a few minutes flirting with a pretty barista who is young enough to be my grand daughter.
The AI bubble increasingly depends on technocrats inducing people/bankers to invest in the technocrats’ dreams as if the dreams were safely probable, when possible is remote!
AI killed the 170 girls in Iran “inferring” over faulty/outdated data. Parsing inference with an LLM trained by people who never did “targeting” nor worry about pedigree of data the LLM is drawing closeness to fact over…..
Add epistemic failure of AI to the effects of the Ramadan war, if the media would stop unquestioningly sharing screeds by AI sellers as inferable forecasts.
AI shows strong disdain for epistemology!
AI is no way to run a war!
So, will this mean a return to the renewable projects that were cancelled?
(Looking for an upside…)
Best…H
> He’s either a complete fool—which I doubt.
Have to disagree with you here. He’s a complete fool.
No–it means we will take the rare earths from those renewable projects and use them for weapons
I feel that “Ramadan War” is an unfortunate choice of name. Ramadan ends today (March 19) but the war will not.
Better “Gulf War III” for now. This name serves as a reminder that the “collective West” has been bringing horrific violence to the region for decades.
Let’s hope it doesn’t become WW III.
Gulf War IV. Before 1991, the Iran-Iraq War was often called the Gulf War–I remember doing a few double takes while reading books written in late 1980s.
I’m hoping the history books call this “The Stupid War”, and hang this albatross carcass on Trump’s and Bibi’s necks.
I’m hoping its named the US Empire’s Last War.
As the US is always at war (16 years of 250 years without an active war) – internal wars would be the least damaging to the rest of the planet.
Trump named the last one calling it the 12 Day War after Israel’s 6 day War. The Ramadan War name is ideal as Trump launched it during a religious holiday and the religious implications, including martyrdom, describes it perfectly.
> … Mosaic—a Palantir-developed AI model—flagged an apparent surge of enriched uranium at Iranian facilities.
An engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician are travelling by train through Scotland.
The engineer looks out the window and exclaims, “Look! Scottish sheep are black!”
The physicist adds, “No, No. Some Scottish sheep are black.”
The mathematician looked irritated. “There is at least one field, containing at least one sheep, of which at least one side is black.”
An entity, presumably a human, made the claim that an AI system flagged a
thing, a claim that immediately or later became public, presumably immediately,
either intentionally or accidentally, presumably intentionally.
For the purpose of manufacturing consent, a human, in concert with a strategy
team, and drawing from the zeitgeist, asserted that an AI system did [ … ]
In hindsight, “obliterated”:
* Trump continued to declare himself a “peacemaker”!
=
Perhaps the most powerful / most feared critic of war with Iran was Charlie Kirk (who was also a critic of Netanyahu’s Gaza cruelty). Some are now calling him the first American casualty of the Epstein Regime war on Iran.
Former counter-terrorism Director Joe Kent (who just resigned) was not allowed to investigate the Kirk assassination as potential terrorism;
the FBI blessed an official story that makes no sense;
Trump promotes Erika Kirk (Charlie’s widow) who pretends that Charlie didn’t have objections to the Zionist agenda.
I know some are calling Charlie Kirk “the first American casualty of the Epstein Regime war on Iran” – but my viewpoint is different.
I think that the “official story” blessed by the FBI is a concatenation of improbabilities – but so are many things which also happen to be true.
Most of all, it seems to me very improbable that Charlie Kirk could ever have swayed the course of the American government’s complicity with the settler state. Nevertheless, I don’t deny that people might have feared that, and acted to avoid that danger that America might waver. I just don’t think that’s what happened.
And while there is a sense in which it is true that said entity “is a New Jersey-sized artificial apartheid state which globally isn’t a pimple on the earth’s ass. They are very good at extermination [of the] Indigenous people in their region.” But keep in mind it is not the size or natural resources of the real estate that has made them so powerful – they are very good at many other things, and have many connections and many resources.
In the last couple of years I’ve come to call myself a “slow doomer”. I regard Nate Hagens’ term for “The Great Simplification” that must occur as the carbon pulse fizzles out, and all the consequences of ecological overshoot keep accumulating, as accurate – but much too mild to describe the slow train that is on its way. A different phrase is being used these days by Tom Murphy, whose freely available book on Energy and Human Ambitions on a Finite Planet is described at
A Textbook Case for Heeding Planetary Limits
https://dailynous.com/2021/05/17/textbook-heeding-planetary-limits/
Murphy says “modernity is metastatic”. I find his argument convincing.
The details of what happens in the next several decades could take many different turnings. Earth will abide, and new ways of life for talking apes, or entirely new forms of dominant species, will emerge.
In the meantime, one could try to act justly, love tenderly, and walk humbly with one’s understanding of what one is called to do. What ways of thinking, feeling, and acting might help? Stoicism? MBSR? Taoism? A life-affirming variation of one of the Abrahamic religions? Music? Art? Finding a way to work together to create communities that just might have a chance to carry on through the storm – with food sufficiency as a first step?
As for me, I like to read stuff on the web, and type something sometimes.
With the Iran war we seem to be moving far beyond the realm of rationality, beyond the desire of somehow defending our empire– to an accelerating generalized will to kill.
The larger the number of bodies the greater the glee–a glorious tumble into the abyss of pure pleasure in increased violence and destruction.
Give us Nihilism and give us death.
Consider this, the order to look into the murder of Charlie Kirk came from Tulsi Gabbard. The DNI was following a line of inquiry that might lead to a foreign government being responsible or implicated. This line of investigation was quashed by the FBI on the orders of Kash Patel, that same Hindu “Deer in a Headlight” guy we all know…..
What is also known is that Joe Kent knew Charlie and had contact with him shortly before he was killed.
It’s possible that Tulsi has not resigned because she can be of more help as a “mole” within the Trump administration.
I know, this sounds like 5D chess again and I do not subscribe to QAnon or “Trust the Plan”, but I don’t think this is outside the realm of possiblity.
Joe Kent said that his last contact with Charlie Kirk was in June, so months before he was killed
I think you’re wrong about one thing – Trump is a complete fool.
In my local region if you get out of your car, go for a short walk into the bush, anywhere you care to look there are signs of Indigenous cultural places/phenomena. Even though I grew up here, it took me years to come to this conclusion. That said, not far from my current camp, there are several large caves. Some have the typical hand stenciling, that indicates a place of teaching and ritual, but the bigger cave seems clear it was used for habitation and campsite occupancy.
But, the empire used explosives to blast the rock away, and made a road straight through the middle and cut it in half, to get down to a shale and coal deposit in the nearby valley. Note, not just divert 300 meters where the grade was smooth and easy!
I spoke to an anthropologist who has been trying for decades to get funding to assess and ‘dig’ the site, (with Elder’s permission) but how strange no money seems to arrive.
My point is, success as an invading power, has to both, occupy AND destroy to be permanent, because if you just occupy, after you get kicked out, the situation just goes back to the use case from before. When you destroy, and get some dibs on the redesign for the time you are in power, then the modus vivendi is difficult to shift (particularly back).
I think this is what Marx really meant by alienation from the means of production. Not just in the English clearing the commons episode, from pasture/subsistence livelihood to factory work in cities weaving cotton or casting ivory cutlery. Its no wonder re-wilding is the go to fantasy of urban people on a rung lower than they image they were going to be.
After very wide reading, it seems to me cutting down forests, or burning them in some cases, was how the pattern of ‘how you displace a group of people’ and render their way of life untenable was formalised into the colonial rubric, and now globally unsafe for all of us it seems.
There is the horrible taking of life going on, but there is also what is a staggering amount of concrete dismantled by bombs…..
The latest future/military/action movie to rhyme with the current moment starring hulking Alan Ritchson, though a luke-warm rip off of Predator, says it all in the title…“War Machine”.
Maybe that’s the modern fear, alone in the wilderness,(after some thinning of the squad) hunted down by a huge military robot, ( maybe form out space?)
Maybe not an entirely unjustified fear…?
…apologies, I forgot to relate this to the topic of epistemic ambiguity…
If destroy, you are not just raiding, but intend to alter the narratives by destroying the evidence(s) of who was there, and how they lived.
In the present context its not going to work in the same way as before, simply because the majority can see most of it in real-time, so its almost like we decide our episteme by what and who we DON’T watch or listen to.
Shouts to Yves for compiling so much here.
I wonder if you’re familiar with the organization “Librarians and Archivists with Palestine” formed for a delegation to Palestine of librarians and archivists in 2013 as (if memory serves) reports were coming out around Israel damaging, closing, or appropriating libraries in Gaza and the West Bank.
It’s a peculiar and disturbing form of erasure during the genocidal project where Palestinian texts can be a) destroyed, b) re-cataloged and assimilated into Israeli libraries, or c) ‘disappeared’ which apparently happened to a subset of historically significant texts that were ‘so Palestinian’ that they couldn’t be re-branded as generic or Israeli, nor was there a will to destroy them, so they were stored without record in a real-world Raiders of the Lost Arc Ending way.
I’m not beginning to do justice to the dedication and passion of the people working on this project, but you can check out their work and writing here: https://librarianswithpalestine.org/
mzza
No, I’ve not heard of it, so thanks heaps, I’m looking over it now.
I think something like that project happened in the Sarajevo and across Bosnia, with religious texts in Mosques and Libraries were being targeted in the early 90’s. (The irony the manuscripts were able to be ‘saved’ but not many people)But it was less formalised- I think some few people who knew the collection, and therefor its global ‘value’ (crude way of meanings), organised to sneak the manuscripts out over some months, or when that was no possible, to copy them, maybe even by hand.
Is that not in kind what Winston Smiths primary job was in the book 1984, to alter the historical records? In his case he would simply throw the paper(s) into an incinerator chute….puff, gone!
(I note but don’t really get it, the link I supplied is from a site called aramcoworld ? Maybe its their philanthropy project of doing-good-while-also-destroying from one big oil player…? )
That epic deep cave in OZ with the ritualistic hand stenciling* at the bottom is – in my book – more profound than any western religious iconography I know of ….. *in this case its not a pigment applied over the hand on a rock face, its an impression in a clay wall.
The generations that it took to produce such a 3D effect, which would be illuminated by torchlight, hand/s pressed and slightly dragged down, all those people before you …
skippy
…right, I don’t know that one…these are red and yellow ocher spit-spray on the hand outlines…but they are fading.
I often wanted to find the mining company who built the road through the cave I mentioned, because as far as I can see, they may be the only ones to have any photographic evidence of how it looked before they blasted it… They keep records, many filing cabinets full of them…
“Either Trump is a complete fool — which I doubt…”
I subscribe to the Substack of Michael Wolff, who is not some armchair pundit fellating the stem of his pipe after too many glasses of port, but an actual person who has agency in the real world and who actually knows Donald Trump personally and on an intimate level. Mr. Wolff has been at pains to convey to the few who will listen that Donald Trump is indeed a complete fool.
There is such a thing as an objective and discernible reality. It takes work. A couple of nights ago I watched Bao Nguyen’s documentary film The Stringer about the making of the iconic 1972 Napalm Girl photograph. Bao Nguyen masterfully shows how a constructed reality can often be forensically deconstructed when a simple effort is made to objectively discern and analyze objective facts. It is incumbent on us all here at NC to dig through the bullshit that defines our culture in order to discern objective reality.
What I am able to comprehend today of that objective and discernible reality is that the “mission” of the Revisionist Zionists and their tools and stooges in Washington is to reduce the nations of West Asia to dust and to leave the few survivors of their murderous rampage as enslaved shadows of human beings reduced picking through the rubble for their bare subsistence. As a humanist I hope for their failure.
Yes Curro … the question does beg ….
So much history to consider, short story is post WWII and Westren notions of why and how the world should be organized. Politics and Law post WWII followed the agenda by industrial/financial elites/FEE/Powell memo/Corporatism et al/ which is summarized as neoliberalism. Yet this agenda and its system began and evolved over a period unlike any other in human history. Advances in knowledge blew right past societies ability to understand let alone ponder if it was the right way to go about things = consumers[Bernays] and not social humans. Add on full spectrum advertising over decades and then made manifold by digital device behavioral interface.
Per the thrust of your post the world outside the core in the U.S. is its exceptionalism is wearing thin … e.g. Mexico will send oil to Cuba, Asian nations looking at Russian oil, so much decoupling …. perceived notions of U.S. military equipment/kill chain superiority are being shown as expensive toys foist on them in some wonky trade deal = decoupling.
Best yet is the idea that Trump is the anti corruption/drain the swamp bloke considering his entire life in business and socially. Joke is on the voters ….
So far, the epistemic break remains hidden in the dark as Trump asks for more money (and may be technology?) to wage the war, one guesses “as usual”. The money is asked without any explanation on how it will change the current course of events. Looks like more of the same. If, as you state, the epistemic break consists on bringing (more) AI to model the war, then what? What if AI makes better friends with Iranians than with it’s current handlers? Weren’t AI models built in this way?
5 star general: How do we attack this time?
AI: Do as you wish because I have found that you are loosing anyway.
5 star general: not if you find what we can destroy.
AI: sorry general, i haver decided to work only for the winners.
Trump and the US elite have such cunning, awesome plans, their think tanks are so brilliant, just like in the movies, they kick everyone’s behind and they think out plans within plans several moves ahead.
This only exists in Hollywood, not in real life.
T
hey truly believed in “Taking Tehran in 3 Days” and it failed.
The government in Iran has not been broken. The people have rallied against external aggression and didn’t overthrow the leadership.
The American have lost billions of dollars’ worth of equipment and hardware in this war. They demonstrated their utter impotence to their allies in the Middle East.
The U.S. has failed and they have no solutions that don’t make things worse.
The Iranians are carrying out network-centric warfare. Meanwhile the U.S. is still frozen in 2003. Armies do learn, the Russians have since the autumn 2022, and most likely the U.S. will, but for now it’s the Iranian’s who hold all the keys.
No doubt when the Iranian missile strikes decrease for a week people will say they have run out of missiles. Again wrong conclusions will be drawn.
Trump had a chance to go down in history as a peace president, but he’ll go down in history as Epstein’s friend and the murderer of Iranian girls.
Russia and some other countries are frequently accused of respecting only the power of force. Now we have countries who would not respect even that. Pay heed to forceful realities? Perish the thought, be it geopolitical or ecological hazards!
Everyone loves own hyper-reality, own Schopenhauerian will and representation, own Vedantic Maya.
Gods are tools. Deify the messenger and you can switch out the message.
“Forgive them their debts” becomes “Forgive them their sins.” The Golden Rule becomes Kill all the Amaleks.
Keep in mind democracy and republicanism originated in pantheistic cultures. The purpose of this absent father figure was as the eschatological basis for rule from above. Divine right of kings.
The cracks go far deeper than anyone understands.
True reality, unless someone is driven by an unrealistic emotion or mindset, is that iran is now running around like a headless chicken as long as some of its organs continue to function and react as best they can. Top heads are going, going, and gone. Slowly surely all will end as originally planned – be patient. Rome cannot be built in one single day.
And how much do you have in Polymarket on this?
Or is it just talk?
Thanks Curro, I admit to struggling with what the world looks like when this is “over”. The speed with which this is all happening and the dearth of a good MSM to factually report the news is crazy.
I’d also recommend starting here for puzzling out what happen in America to make this Iran war possible:
Trump’s SHOCKING Iran War Power Grab w/ David Sirota
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8wJlQnn7vU
The whole Master Plan series at The Lever is just fantastic investigative reporting on how this latest iteration of the imperial Presidency came about:
The Lever – Master Plan https://www.levernews.com/tag/master-plan/