It's well-known in smaller towns with a nearby IC/Military component that large orders of pizzas signal a major military operation and/or war is about to kick off. Especially if the pizza guy has to wait outside the razor wire fence for someone to accept it!
Shame on you, Bill Kristol, for The Bulwark's slanderous, conspiratorialnattack on the company Palantir and its CEO, Alex Karp (long June 17 article by JVL). "oooh they're watching everyone; oooh, be scared; oooh, they have your data; oooh, oooh."
Palantir is a great and uncompromisingly patriotic American company. I hope they sue you. The double calumny is that you launch this attack on Palantir at the very moment when its tools are so crucial to the Israeli effort against Iran (as they also have been in Ukraine).
Cleanse your palette by watching these short interviews with Dr. Karp:
And then, of course, there was Wednesday's very friendly, jovial interview with Momdani. When he equated "Globalize the Intifada" with language used to describe the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Tim Miller agreeably responded, "Sure." (watch it, if you doubt me) What are you doing??? What sort of bizarre political perspective are you pushing???
Our own intelligence has stated Iran is not on the precipice of having nuclear weapons. Netanyahu has been “chicken little” for 30 years claiming a strike is imminent. We have decades of evidence that our wars in the mideast only lead to worse outcomes for us and usually for the people in those countries.
I believe it is David Frum who presciently made the point months ago that what Trump is doing to ICE is training them as his political secret police. He wants his own Brownshirts, Gestapo, Stasi, GRU equivalent.
Creating that from the ground up is tough, but taking a mid sized federal law enforcement agency, filling the top ranks with personal loyalists and flooding the bottom ranks with new hires who specifically are joining up with the understanding that their job will be to terrorize brown people is a much smarter and more sinister way to go about it. At first, there are going to be a lot of career professionals in ICE who aren't comfortable with this, but very quickly they are going to be outnumbered and outranked by the sadistic goons.
Moreover, the mere act of going along on these raids and seeing more vicious people rewarded for their cruelty is going to change them. Trump is creating an agency that is rapidly becoming accustomed to escalating every confrontation, acting with total impunity, and being rewarded for it. And they of course won't stop with illegal immigrants. They are arresting citizens, including elected officials from comptrollers to mayors to representatives and even senators. They are doing it while wearing masks, refusing to show any kind of ID, badge, or warrant, and as far as anyone can tell, the officers involved aren't reprimanded. We can only assume they are in fact being rewarded.
If this isn't stopped soon, Trump is going to have his very own American Secret Police.
Trump and MAGA have been grooming ICE and Border Control to be his personal Interior Ministry Force since the first Administration. There's a different more professional more disciplined "culture" in the Military and the FBI...in terms of obeying the Law and structures to avoid domestic politics. ICE and BP operate in enforcement of non citizens and there is a lot more "grey" area in terms of Constitutional protections or accountability. That's how they get away with sliding over to manhandling protesters and Democratic politicians
It is clear where this is going. The goal is to get the crowd to overwhelm the ICE agents as they are vastly outnumbered. If they want to press State charges, too bad, so sad, we don't care. Putting Trump and ICE in an impossible bind.
Maybe best not to overreach. Neutralizing Iran's nuclear capacity through diplomacy would be ideal, if it can done well. Bunker bombing their nuke capacity away is the less desirable plan. Because this will require our bombs and bombers, and creates a war involvement for our country.
No more nuke potential for Iran? Sounds great. But the very inadvisable overreach is also pining for regime change. Thomas Friedman said a brilliant thing today on that: autocratic regime replacement in the middle east tends not to usher in reliable, functional and durable democracies. IOW, keep your wishlist simple. Only the people of Iran can do this next level of work. And that won't - and shouldn't be- happening on anyone else's schedule.
"It also makes sense for the United States to be willing to step in and finish the job of denuclearization—if necessary. It would make no sense to stop now, with the job only partly done, leaving in place a wounded regime thirsting for revenge, with its capacity for terrorism retained and with enriched uranium and missiles still on hand. If that regime is to stay in power, it needs to be thoroughly neutralized."
This remark surprises me a little. I don't want Iran to have nuclear weapons, but I think Kristol is downplaying the (in)competence of Trump and his team. So many things can go wrong if the U.S. intervenes militarily. In my opinion, Trump handling this well would be close to a miracle.
"If you thought the ensuing backlash might make federal agents more cautious about manhandling opposition politicians, you thought wrong."
Even if one is uncertain about whether the actions of these federal agents were justified or not, what seems clear is that the Trump administration doesn't care if their actions seem political--i.e., acting aggressively against political opponents. Indeed, we can make the case that Trump wants to create this impression, to intimidate and scare Democrats and others who oppose him.
Compare this to the Biden administration, especially Merrick Garland. I know some Democrats believe they cared too much about not seeming political (e.g., taking too long to prosecute Trump).
What is maddening is Trump bemoans the politicization of the federal government, using this as a justification to fire and remove federal government workers, but so much of what he does, at bare minimum, has the appearance of politicizing the federal government.
Once again we find ourselves as a country watching the war mongers try to down play the intelligence regarding Iran's lack of a nuclear weapon...what is it with rethugnicans and sending young men off to die in worthless wars?
as a for as pizza counts-- this is very true. talk to any counter-intelligence expert and they will tell you those adversaries watching places like the Pentagon will notice an increase in deliveries and try to discern why...
Please explain how bombing Iran would result in regime change? The Russians have been bombing the hell out of Ukraine yet the Ukrainian government still stands.
Iran is a country of over 90 million people. It is the home to a people and a culture (nominally Persian) that stretches back over 5,000 years. There may be plenty of resentment among the population, especially among the educated urban population, of the Islamic State. Good. Let it simmer. But I'm pretty sure any attempt at regime change by Israel, the Americans or any other foreign entity would result in Iranians closing ranks against them. We've already played this game anyway. In 1953, the U.S. overthrew a democratically elected prime minister who nationalized Iran's oil industry, displeasing us and the Brits. The result was the Shah's increasingly corrupt and dictatorial regime, which was overthrown in a highly popular revolution in 1979. Now the current regime is undoubtedly less popular today, but it's still in charge, and Americans are still hated for their past meddling in the country's affairs.
Thank you for pointing out how we started this horrible chain of events and these brutal regimes with our coup against PM Mosadedegh in 1953. The Persian people lost their democracy. This is left out of all the news coverage.
Although I’ve come to respect much of Bill Krystol’s current thinking, my memory is long and I won’t be condoning any present-day warmongering from him.
Trump's abrupt exit from G7 and dithering drama since is cover from a striking line of domestic and international failures. Consumer prices, DOGE, tariffs, Ukraine-Russia, Gaza, Houthis, trade deals, lawful deportation of criminals, sympathetic mass deportations, Iran deal, and more. On the heels of the pathetic failure of his military display and deployment, as well as the success of the opposition to all of his actions, the current drama is meant to distract from dramatic failures in just the past week.
I have confidence that our military will effectively carry out whatever mission is assigned . However, I also am confident that Trump and his sycophantic toads will make choices which lead to yet another failure requiring a new distraction.
Regarding Trump at this time: It's not a huge leap for him to claim Iran shouldn't have a nuclear weapon, even a stopped clock is right twice every day.
Meanwhile, his words were not lost on me when he said them, his liberal use of "we" rang out. Whatever dude! Way to claim credit, when you don't deserve such. This probably needed to happen since the Iranian regime wasn't going anywhere and, to it's detriment, does not appear interested in assuming a place at the table of stable nation states. That's too bad too, since it's clear that the Iranian people have a lot to offer the world (same too of Russia, North Korea, etc).
This is certainly a fraught period though moving forward. The "feels" and "vibes" are not going to be useful here. While Mertz may have been right in principle, these actions create a whole host of possible outcomes that could be bad for everyone. With respect to Trump inserting himself into the fray, I have far more confidence in other world leaders than I do in DJT (or his cronies). My worry is that Trump will force his way into the room where it's happening and fuck everything up, thus taking us down a very bad path.
Trump is trapped. He is a loser no matter what. One big bomb in Iran will very likely lead to American deaths. If it's only "headaches," Trump won't respond. If American die, then what?
If he does nothing, which is what she should do here, but not in Ukraine, he will be out of the loop forever. If he goes in he will look like Bibi's tool -- just like he is already Putin's tool. Weak, fool, ignorant, TACO, blowhard -- no substance. no plan, no strategy, no morals, Tariffs?
I agree. It's not our fight, per se, but it's sort of our fight, since we basically created the regime to begin with and Iran's been a major nuisance for the world for decades (again, sad state of affairs, all things considered).
Better minds than mine would know how to thread this needle. Sadly, Trump's made it clear he isn't interested in those folks helping him out (as evidenced by his dismissal of Tulsi's assessment of the state of Iran's nuclear program).
So, this is going down, no matter what. The question is...who then is next to strike and how many will die. I have a sense that a nuke is going to be used soon, by someone. Or, we'll have some 9/11 scale attack (physical/cyber). It's going to get much uglier before it gets better.
It's well-known in smaller towns with a nearby IC/Military component that large orders of pizzas signal a major military operation and/or war is about to kick off. Especially if the pizza guy has to wait outside the razor wire fence for someone to accept it!
Shame on you, Bill Kristol, for The Bulwark's slanderous, conspiratorialnattack on the company Palantir and its CEO, Alex Karp (long June 17 article by JVL). "oooh they're watching everyone; oooh, be scared; oooh, they have your data; oooh, oooh."
Palantir is a great and uncompromisingly patriotic American company. I hope they sue you. The double calumny is that you launch this attack on Palantir at the very moment when its tools are so crucial to the Israeli effort against Iran (as they also have been in Ukraine).
Cleanse your palette by watching these short interviews with Dr. Karp:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOKxGT2womY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbF8fTSybi0&t=74s
__________________
And then, of course, there was Wednesday's very friendly, jovial interview with Momdani. When he equated "Globalize the Intifada" with language used to describe the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Tim Miller agreeably responded, "Sure." (watch it, if you doubt me) What are you doing??? What sort of bizarre political perspective are you pushing???
You're fearmongering while complaining about fearmongering.
Our own intelligence has stated Iran is not on the precipice of having nuclear weapons. Netanyahu has been “chicken little” for 30 years claiming a strike is imminent. We have decades of evidence that our wars in the mideast only lead to worse outcomes for us and usually for the people in those countries.
I believe it is David Frum who presciently made the point months ago that what Trump is doing to ICE is training them as his political secret police. He wants his own Brownshirts, Gestapo, Stasi, GRU equivalent.
Creating that from the ground up is tough, but taking a mid sized federal law enforcement agency, filling the top ranks with personal loyalists and flooding the bottom ranks with new hires who specifically are joining up with the understanding that their job will be to terrorize brown people is a much smarter and more sinister way to go about it. At first, there are going to be a lot of career professionals in ICE who aren't comfortable with this, but very quickly they are going to be outnumbered and outranked by the sadistic goons.
Moreover, the mere act of going along on these raids and seeing more vicious people rewarded for their cruelty is going to change them. Trump is creating an agency that is rapidly becoming accustomed to escalating every confrontation, acting with total impunity, and being rewarded for it. And they of course won't stop with illegal immigrants. They are arresting citizens, including elected officials from comptrollers to mayors to representatives and even senators. They are doing it while wearing masks, refusing to show any kind of ID, badge, or warrant, and as far as anyone can tell, the officers involved aren't reprimanded. We can only assume they are in fact being rewarded.
If this isn't stopped soon, Trump is going to have his very own American Secret Police.
Trump and MAGA have been grooming ICE and Border Control to be his personal Interior Ministry Force since the first Administration. There's a different more professional more disciplined "culture" in the Military and the FBI...in terms of obeying the Law and structures to avoid domestic politics. ICE and BP operate in enforcement of non citizens and there is a lot more "grey" area in terms of Constitutional protections or accountability. That's how they get away with sliding over to manhandling protesters and Democratic politicians
I read that one of Trump’s campaign donors has a stake in ByteDance, the company that owns TikTok.
It is clear where this is going. The goal is to get the crowd to overwhelm the ICE agents as they are vastly outnumbered. If they want to press State charges, too bad, so sad, we don't care. Putting Trump and ICE in an impossible bind.
Maybe best not to overreach. Neutralizing Iran's nuclear capacity through diplomacy would be ideal, if it can done well. Bunker bombing their nuke capacity away is the less desirable plan. Because this will require our bombs and bombers, and creates a war involvement for our country.
No more nuke potential for Iran? Sounds great. But the very inadvisable overreach is also pining for regime change. Thomas Friedman said a brilliant thing today on that: autocratic regime replacement in the middle east tends not to usher in reliable, functional and durable democracies. IOW, keep your wishlist simple. Only the people of Iran can do this next level of work. And that won't - and shouldn't be- happening on anyone else's schedule.
During COVID most of Court hearings happened via Zoom.
Perhaps we can get the courts to switch to doing Zoom immigration hearings too,
so the ICE-thugs will not know where the immigrants are.
"It also makes sense for the United States to be willing to step in and finish the job of denuclearization—if necessary. It would make no sense to stop now, with the job only partly done, leaving in place a wounded regime thirsting for revenge, with its capacity for terrorism retained and with enriched uranium and missiles still on hand. If that regime is to stay in power, it needs to be thoroughly neutralized."
This remark surprises me a little. I don't want Iran to have nuclear weapons, but I think Kristol is downplaying the (in)competence of Trump and his team. So many things can go wrong if the U.S. intervenes militarily. In my opinion, Trump handling this well would be close to a miracle.
"If you thought the ensuing backlash might make federal agents more cautious about manhandling opposition politicians, you thought wrong."
Even if one is uncertain about whether the actions of these federal agents were justified or not, what seems clear is that the Trump administration doesn't care if their actions seem political--i.e., acting aggressively against political opponents. Indeed, we can make the case that Trump wants to create this impression, to intimidate and scare Democrats and others who oppose him.
Compare this to the Biden administration, especially Merrick Garland. I know some Democrats believe they cared too much about not seeming political (e.g., taking too long to prosecute Trump).
What is maddening is Trump bemoans the politicization of the federal government, using this as a justification to fire and remove federal government workers, but so much of what he does, at bare minimum, has the appearance of politicizing the federal government.
Once again we find ourselves as a country watching the war mongers try to down play the intelligence regarding Iran's lack of a nuclear weapon...what is it with rethugnicans and sending young men off to die in worthless wars?
as a for as pizza counts-- this is very true. talk to any counter-intelligence expert and they will tell you those adversaries watching places like the Pentagon will notice an increase in deliveries and try to discern why...
Please explain how bombing Iran would result in regime change? The Russians have been bombing the hell out of Ukraine yet the Ukrainian government still stands.
Iran is a country of over 90 million people. It is the home to a people and a culture (nominally Persian) that stretches back over 5,000 years. There may be plenty of resentment among the population, especially among the educated urban population, of the Islamic State. Good. Let it simmer. But I'm pretty sure any attempt at regime change by Israel, the Americans or any other foreign entity would result in Iranians closing ranks against them. We've already played this game anyway. In 1953, the U.S. overthrew a democratically elected prime minister who nationalized Iran's oil industry, displeasing us and the Brits. The result was the Shah's increasingly corrupt and dictatorial regime, which was overthrown in a highly popular revolution in 1979. Now the current regime is undoubtedly less popular today, but it's still in charge, and Americans are still hated for their past meddling in the country's affairs.
Thank you for pointing out how we started this horrible chain of events and these brutal regimes with our coup against PM Mosadedegh in 1953. The Persian people lost their democracy. This is left out of all the news coverage.
Although I’ve come to respect much of Bill Krystol’s current thinking, my memory is long and I won’t be condoning any present-day warmongering from him.
Trump's dithering because he's figured out he can't be accused of TACO if he doesn't take a stand (TACO stand?) on the conflict.
Trump's abrupt exit from G7 and dithering drama since is cover from a striking line of domestic and international failures. Consumer prices, DOGE, tariffs, Ukraine-Russia, Gaza, Houthis, trade deals, lawful deportation of criminals, sympathetic mass deportations, Iran deal, and more. On the heels of the pathetic failure of his military display and deployment, as well as the success of the opposition to all of his actions, the current drama is meant to distract from dramatic failures in just the past week.
I have confidence that our military will effectively carry out whatever mission is assigned . However, I also am confident that Trump and his sycophantic toads will make choices which lead to yet another failure requiring a new distraction.
Regarding Trump at this time: It's not a huge leap for him to claim Iran shouldn't have a nuclear weapon, even a stopped clock is right twice every day.
Meanwhile, his words were not lost on me when he said them, his liberal use of "we" rang out. Whatever dude! Way to claim credit, when you don't deserve such. This probably needed to happen since the Iranian regime wasn't going anywhere and, to it's detriment, does not appear interested in assuming a place at the table of stable nation states. That's too bad too, since it's clear that the Iranian people have a lot to offer the world (same too of Russia, North Korea, etc).
This is certainly a fraught period though moving forward. The "feels" and "vibes" are not going to be useful here. While Mertz may have been right in principle, these actions create a whole host of possible outcomes that could be bad for everyone. With respect to Trump inserting himself into the fray, I have far more confidence in other world leaders than I do in DJT (or his cronies). My worry is that Trump will force his way into the room where it's happening and fuck everything up, thus taking us down a very bad path.
Trump is trapped. He is a loser no matter what. One big bomb in Iran will very likely lead to American deaths. If it's only "headaches," Trump won't respond. If American die, then what?
If he does nothing, which is what she should do here, but not in Ukraine, he will be out of the loop forever. If he goes in he will look like Bibi's tool -- just like he is already Putin's tool. Weak, fool, ignorant, TACO, blowhard -- no substance. no plan, no strategy, no morals, Tariffs?
I agree. It's not our fight, per se, but it's sort of our fight, since we basically created the regime to begin with and Iran's been a major nuisance for the world for decades (again, sad state of affairs, all things considered).
Better minds than mine would know how to thread this needle. Sadly, Trump's made it clear he isn't interested in those folks helping him out (as evidenced by his dismissal of Tulsi's assessment of the state of Iran's nuclear program).
So, this is going down, no matter what. The question is...who then is next to strike and how many will die. I have a sense that a nuke is going to be used soon, by someone. Or, we'll have some 9/11 scale attack (physical/cyber). It's going to get much uglier before it gets better.