I believe the last time the US fought a war that was on its own land, was the civil war. The US doesn't seem to understand that the citizens of foreign nations will fight for their own land beyond all reason. They didn't learn that in Kenya or Vietnam, though the CIA understood it to arm the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan. There is no win condition in Iran. None
She is wrong about the Iranian Missles. They are not deep underground. They are dispersed in Warehouses. Only have 2-3 Trucks in one Warehouse drive them out, launch the missiles and then park them in the Warehouse. If they are one Day later still there, load them somewhere else up and launch missles. One big underground Warehouse is a target to destroy the entrance. 400-600 smaller storage sides are a big problem. As you need to get every storage. Russian learned it and passed the lesson.
Iranian leadership was not ready, that's why half of them got killed. They didn't expect the US to get this stupid. Anyway, the war is unsustainable for Iran too. The ones who really benefit are Russia (who can now sell their oil) and China (whose odds of taking Taiwan are looking better every day).
I'm sorry to say, it's been too late since Amy Coney Barrett's confirmation in 2020, or maybe since Brett Kavanaugh's in 2018. The entire administration could be replace with lefties and the SCOTUS impact will live on for at least 30 years.
This war will be the American equivalent of russia's three days long "special military operation" that lasted over 4 years, destroyed much of their war machine, and exposed a once-feared world power as a crumbling, hopelessly corrupt banana republic ruled by a mafia boss who has surrounded himself with incompetent Yes Men. While the US has more toys to throw at Iran, it's not exactly next door and the logistics will be getting trickier after the loss of important bases (and soon regional allies)
Waiting to see long lines at the borders as young men and women look to flee the coming draft, much like Russians rushed to cross the border into Kazakhstan, Serbia and Georgia soon after Pukin invaded Ukraine.
11k a second means that while you were watching this video, 1.85 million dollars were spent on the war. I'm sorry, I meant the Super Duper Special Military Operation Electric Boogaloo.
Of course there’s no money for social security. Funding that doesn’t let bigots torture and murder undersireables. Giving out multibillion a year handout to corporations, the military and the local nazi gangs that the government call police forces does enable that.
Putin has lost influence : unable to protect Syria, Venezuela, Iran, unable to help the African countries it help owrththrow gvts to replace by military dictators Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger or puppets (CenterAfrican Republic) solve the jihadists insurgents problems.
The challenging power setback of all this turmoil is CHINA : they already benefir of all Trumps blatant errors (withdrawn from W.H.O., replaced by China, etc)
So destroying America's military bases, Radar systems, forcing us to expend resources for a losing fight? This didn't hurt Putin. It means that the US is losing its grip on Middle Eastern affairs, it also means that even if the US wanted to send aid to Ukraine, it's less likely to happen because of this bullshit illegal war.
Yeah, a destroying components of a single THAAD radar system isn't a huge blow to the US military. In fact of the 900bllion dollar annual budget it represents 1/4% of a _single years_ expenditure.
Fuck trump. But we haven't lost any bases thats also misrepresentation of whats occurring. The concern right now is our burn rate of missile interceptors versus Iranian missiles and drones. The good news? Is that Iran has lost most of their launchers. The number of attacks launched is decreasing. Bad news. They still have cheap easy to launch drones
It's a DPS race to see which runs out first: Iran's missiles and drones or American radars and interceptors. Neither belligerent will say if or when this happens, but both belligerents can be expected to claim their opponent is destroyed.
Im aware. But im just calling out the bullshit that lady is saying too. The radar in Jordon is basically irreplaceable. There are only 9 total THAAD systems total and we deployed 2 to Israel and a few across the region and just lost one of the critical radar systems (and maybe a second in the UAE j think)
One week in and the US has lost hundreds of billions in military assets and is already begging its congress for more money for a war that supposedly isn’t even a war. Have a nice bankruptcy America. Stupidest country on earth.
Where do you think those hundreds of billions went? The production of those assets is (mostly) done in American factories by workers. The money doesn't just vaporize. The American military-industrial complex requires assets to be used so we can make more.
America didn't go bankrupt after WW2. The economy boomed from all the government spending on military stuff. It's a fucked up system, but it won't bankrupt us.
No, it just vaporizes from the pockets of the middle and lower class and goes straight to military contractors for their fifth yacht and private islands.
You think the contractors build all those systems without any help? Raytheon employs 185,000 people. Of course the profits are obscene, but it's not like all the money goes directly to the ceo
At this point, the only way for America to even mildly recover any international respect is to literally pull every single Rep out of government and tar and feather them. If they are just voted out or even arrested, they are still part of the system...
The mistake was assuming America was some shining beacon on a hill to begin with. We aren't the first nor will we be the last country to fall into this kind of bullshit. Idk how you're supposed to just write off an entire country. You really can't. Just like we don't look at Germany and go "Hitler therefore they bad until end of time.". The population doesn't just go away. If they destabilize you just have loose nukes. No one actually wins.
Tbf, the idea of loose nukes is literally only slightly scarier than the idea of Trump having nukes. And the gap is closing by the day. There is literally no check on his power that he hasn't challenged and subverted. Even as the tariff thing eventually got reduced, monumental damage has already been done, rich ppl have been enriched. Give him enough time and Trump WILL make it so his word is the only one needed to launch a nuke. Literally everyone who's said 'Trump can't do that' has been wrong
Like, the big fear of loose nukes is that some madman with delusional beliefs, a dictator with a an ego the size of Mars, or a crook with intent of starting a war for profit got the nukes. Trump is literally all three and every appointment he makes, every competent person he replaces with a toady, brings him one step closer to actually becoming king of the USA. And even if he doesn't succeed, the Reps will consider this great practice.
You also get the clownshoes who believe conservative lies. 'huh, nothing's in my pocket even though my town in Bumbleweed has now gotten stoplights and proper parking spaces. I guess I'm voting for the GOP, again!'. :/
Not American, but it's a very capitalist and csuite mentality to scoff at tangible individual benefits that better everyone's lives and then sink 10x that into AI, management training, "capabilities" regardless of effectiveness, and so on.
Losing it actually saves money, as long as they are not built back. But, after this operation, there will be peace in the Middle East, so no need for them any more! /s
I hate to say the reason I stopped going to church and became a communist pinko was because my parents did a better job raising me as a Christian than they think.
Honestly church just seems like a way to extract money out of people that for the large part don't really have it to give in the first place. Plus you said we ever needed these stupid buildings in the first place didn't Jesus himself say a church was anywhere you gathered in his name.
I think the question that answers the justification here is: Is it likely that Iran smuggles a nuke into a big US city and detonates it a likely scenario or not? And of course the US can pay for all the stuff you mentioned, but neither Democrats nor Republicans want to... because their rich donors don't want it. Everyone should understand this.
I mean, if Iran's intelligence is as good as I've heard... they would blow up the deep south, the place that put the shittiest president in office and keeps feeding his ego.
The chances go up exponentially if Iran goes the way of Libya and there's essentially a free for all with the nations vast arsenal of horrible tools of death and destruction.
Let me put it to you this way, very early on in my career I went into Central asia as security and liaison between certain western intelligence agents and local post soviet governments.
This is a region of the world where the concept of borders is theoretical at best and we found local 1/
Here we differ. I think it is a possibility, a looming threat. They gave all of Iran's wealth away to pay for radical proxy groups. They attacked everyone around them, even Oman, who wanted to mediate. How can we let these people develop a nuke?
Look at Pakistan. There is enough evidence that the massacre in India was orchestrated by the Pakistani government and India can't really do something about it because of the nukes. The fewer countries have them, the better.
Tribal leaders willing to sell us a shed full of enriched uranium for $500 thousand. We found local town councils who had warehouses with rooms the Soviets had warned them not to open. We found fucking bunkers where the local garrison had gone into business for themselves and was selling what was inside.
Over the course of a decade we got a lot of stuff out of there, but do I think we got it all? With Iran on the doorstep? Willing to pay an awful lot more than $500k. Fuck no.
Terrorist nuke are probably wide of the mark, but a terrorist dirty bomb able to render downtown New York uninhabitable for 150 years? Totally.
Terrorist sarin gas? Absolutely, the hardest part of that stuff isnt even getting your hands on it its keeping it stable long enough to not melt yourself.
And thats just the big ticket items, the US navy has already run the numbers on a cargo ship full of suicide drones doing a pearl harbour rerun and it didn't end well for the navy. 3
Seeing how much shit American dominance brings for democracies in Europe and South America... yay?
At least finally there are (rapid) steps taken in the EU to dethrone Mastercard and Visa from payment methods to stop both leakage of personal data and their mentally disturbed puritan ideals, As well as rapidly progressing steps to replace Teams and Zoom for security reasons (France has released a government backed Teams called La Suite looks awesome),
Correct. The american dollar will not be replaced by krypto. The rest of the world has finally caught on to the money printing scam that the US has been doing since 1950. American hedgemony is already over. Its done.
Sorry, but that is nonsense. US (or some nation) Hegemony was a necessary bridge between post WW2 and what we hope will be a Global Roundtable that comes next. That said, I'm not convinced we (humans, Earthicans) are quite ready for that next step. MAGA shot its wad early, to the shock of no one.
Just like Russia in Ukraine, the world is learning that with this administration’s prioritization of hiring supremely unqualified people in all positions, the actual effectiveness of the US military has become a shadow of what it projects to the world.
Any country that was previously avoiding military action based on fear of a US response is now reevaluating that stance.
The issue has always existed in the sense of overextended military. You can't fight parallel wars and Russia's air campaign is draining the same resources dry as Israel currently needs and Taiwan potentially. Patriot missiles don't grow on trees, they replenish in very low numbers and stockpile is low.
Shahed drone costs $30k. Patriot missile is $3-4m and take much longer to manufacture. They cant come up with the $166b to refund tariffs let alone let this drag out. This is worst case scenario.
The gulf states stupidly blasted off more patriots in the opening days of this shitstorm than Ukraine has had for the entirety of the Russian invasion.
I'mma guess its gonna get even worse. Not as in losing power kind of way. I'm gonna call it. Trump doesn't give a shit about the losses cos he legits wants to use a nuke. Don't anyone dare tell me he isn't stupid enough. Tiny pp man wants to commit the greatest act of overcompensation in history, and thinks billions of losses and untold death will get him the approval to launch it.
While nothing is ever totally off the table with this administration, the odds of even a tactical nuke, much less a strategic nuke being used in Iran is vanishingly small, and it's not because Trump or his cronies aren't stupid enough to do it; it's because military leadership won't sign off on it. It's no secret that Hegseth and Trump are loathed by the Pentagon, and despite popular perception, it takes more than just the president and secretary to sanction a nuke.
They're not able to replace a boomer driver in the middle of the ocean (AND his XO!). :) And they can't just slot any asshole into running the most devastating weapon man has ever devised. Submariners are a different breed of men, and boomer skippers? Fuck me. Think those crews would cooperate with anything but the best of the best?
Didn't a US Base Commander just give a speech to his troops how Jesus was acting through Trump to start the apocolypse? Wanna bet your life on there not being a *SINGLE* Evangelical and his friend in the ENTIRE USA military with ability to launch something nuclear (if given permission by command)?
If the government spends 1 billion to buy a radar, then the radar gets blown up by Iran, the radar is gone. THE 1 BILLION IS NOT GONE. The 1 billion just moved from place A (US treasury or wherever they keep the money) to place B (the pockets of a few CEO's and stockholders). What Americans are witnessing is a gigantic transfer of community money (your tax dollars) going from A to B.
Actually that’s not totally still in America, it’s going to have a lot of it transferred to China and other places because you need factories to build things, and America does not have many of those anymore today. And China uses that money to help Iran maybe. So trump is fight a war and paying somebody to help the opponent.
Soooo much of that money is right now being hoarded waiting for a stock market and housing market collapse. Then all that money is going to flow back into those markets where it will grow more money for the already rich.
You are trying to tell me that if I take a dollar and pay it to someone then the dollar is not gone. Of course it is. I don’t have it anymore, so it is gone. I cannot get it back.
If I take a dollar and set it on fire, do you believe that it went to god? What twisted logic do you follow?
You literally said 'pay it to someone'. So the dollar still exists. Just not in your pocket, but in the pocket of 'someone'. Same with the tax dollar. That dollar you paid in taxes still exists. But it's not in your pocket anymore. Its not in the government pocket anymore. It's in the pocket of the CEO of the weapons factory. It's in the pockets of the stockholders. When Uncle Sam buys a 1 billion dollar radar, the rich get a LOT more rich. That is where the money goes.
And i can guarantee you, if Trump survives till 2028 he'll win again because concervatives will go "yeah ok he crashed the economy and he fukced some kids and kill a few million people... BUT.... Gavin Newsom is even worse" (and Democrats will stay home because they dont like Newsom either)
There's still time to come up with a better candidate...They don't have to hit an iceberg that's 3 years out. I don't get how people act like this path is set in stone. Like the dems need to close ranks already.
Someone needs to kick the DNC's door down - with force, actual literal force - and tell them that if they push a "presumptive nominee" instead of being COMPLETELY FUCKING HANDS OFF AND LETTING THIS PLAY OUT, and PREVENTING ANY KIND OF BACKDOOR DEALING, they will fucking lose their lives in the next administration because they aren't going to be as nice as Trump.
Yes and no. Money spent on expensive equipment destroyed IS money lost, because we COULD have spent a billion dollars on a radar, OR a billion dollars on anything else. In both scenarios, the money itself would circulate in the economy, but with the radar the thing the money was spent on is gone, making the value we were supposed to get from the money transfer also gone.
Also yes and no. If the billion is spend to in the Affordable Health Care Act, the money goes to poor people who will spend that money immediately. Then that money comes back into circulation. If the billion is spend on a radar, a large part of that money will vanish into the pockets of millionaires and billionaires, who do not spend. They only hoard. It doesnt come back into circulation and destroys thee economy for lower wages.
When we're talking about money lost, we don't mean the actual literal currency, we are talking about the value generated from the man-hours that the exchange of currency represented and in turn the opportunity-cost of the man-hours being spent on the thing we then lose instead of on another thing.
Yes so the man-hours generated buying healthcare is a LOT more than the man-hours generated buying radars, because almost 100% of the money from health care gets re-circulated, but when buying a radar, a large portion of the money goes to millionaires and billionaires and then it;s gone. It gets hoarded. Its taken out of the lower 'normal people' economy and stashed into the higher economy where it;s only being used as leverage, never spend.
That ignores the Americans employed making, deploying, and using said radar system. The 1 billion didn't just go straight into a CEO's pocket and it didn't burn up. I'm not defending overpaid CEOs or the merits of this war - only pointing out the fallacy that the money is 'gone' when in reality most of it fed back into the American economy that produced it.
The fucked up reality is that war can boost the economy. Eisenhower tried to warn us not to depend on it but we haven't learned.
Do you really think that money wouldn't be spent if it wasn't spent on that radar? Also, where do you think the money goes when you build things in the middle east, most of it is to whoever actually built it in the middle east, you don't ship anything but the bits that can't be fabricated out there across the world in a more expensive country to fabricate things.
You're absolutely correct about building stuff overseas. But this example cited a hypothetical billion-dollar radar system that would almost certainly be designed and manufactured by American workers. I was responding to that.
designed yes, built, no, it's in the middle east, probably only the things too difficult to fab out there were made here, and that one piece the CEO charged 200 million dollars for is not even a fraction of that to make.
Also, it's not a hypothetical radar, it's the actual radar station that got knocked out in Qatar. This is a real 1.1 billion dollar station that the states paid for in the middle east that got blown up already.
This shit is almost as bad as Fox News. The US is not suffering losses on the scale she's claiming. Yes people were killed and yes some facilities got hit but like 95% of US based are intact.
Iran is not winning, nor can it "win" this war. The best they can do is make it hurt and they are doing that certainly. The reality is US will exhaust it's arsenal before Iran could ever do any meaningful damage.
That said, the US cannot "win" this war either. They're running out of ammo and even if /1
Basically what every prediction says will or would happen. I remember I asked Kimi AI this weeks before the attack and this was exactly what was predicted. The US will burn out on this. Iran is not a small country and they will not be conquered by the US.
We have SANDALS on the ground! Seriously, the Kurds have joined in the fighting. They've been getting kicked around by Iran and Iraq for decades, and they're eager to change things for the better for themselves.
No arguments there. Especially when we gave chemical weapons to Saddam Hussein, and he used them on the Kurds.
People tend to forget that U.S. behavior in the middle east in particular is so horrible that Trump's current actions can be summed up as "hard factory reset." Iran is like a festering pustule that WE helped create, and now the cleanup is inevitably... messy.
TerminalInterface
I don't want to hear we can't afford universal healthcare ever again.
HolyFreakingToast
republicans have fucked the republic
Evi1Gav
I believe the last time the US fought a war that was on its own land, was the civil war. The US doesn't seem to understand that the citizens of foreign nations will fight for their own land beyond all reason. They didn't learn that in Kenya or Vietnam, though the CIA understood it to arm the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan. There is no win condition in Iran. None
aoshistark
Oh and we ran out of tomahawk missiles like, 2 days ago. Lol
MonsterGrendel
But we can't have health-care. Thanks MAGA. Thanks Republicans. Thanks SCOTUS.
Elkarlo77
She is wrong about the Iranian Missles. They are not deep underground. They are dispersed in Warehouses. Only have 2-3 Trucks in one Warehouse drive them out, launch the missiles and then park them in the Warehouse. If they are one Day later still there, load them somewhere else up and launch missles. One big underground Warehouse is a target to destroy the entrance. 400-600 smaller storage sides are a big problem. As you need to get every storage. Russian learned it and passed the lesson.
Sakkura
Iranian leadership was not ready, that's why half of them got killed. They didn't expect the US to get this stupid. Anyway, the war is unsustainable for Iran too. The ones who really benefit are Russia (who can now sell their oil) and China (whose odds of taking Taiwan are looking better every day).
vonHoopla
And Trump, who is gonna get a huge cut from all those ppl except China.
wazeewa
Its hilarious how they were all complaining how with Kamala there would be this war in Iran and ridiculous corruption and spending...umm......
Roqinn
I have been saying this since he became president the first time: everything he does is to weaken and destroy the USA.
anonanonsnake
25th amendment before it’s too late
MarsIsAfire
I'm sorry to say, it's been too late since Amy Coney Barrett's confirmation in 2020, or maybe since Brett Kavanaugh's in 2018. The entire administration could be replace with lefties and the SCOTUS impact will live on for at least 30 years.
jadanks
Do you know who’s happy about this? Everyone in the military industrial complex that gets the profit off the rebuilding once again…
rulek
Putin, Xi, Kim Jong are all enjoying their popcorn too.
FiftyShadesOfCauliflower
This war will be the American equivalent of russia's three days long "special military operation" that lasted over 4 years, destroyed much of their war machine, and exposed a once-feared world power as a crumbling, hopelessly corrupt banana republic ruled by a mafia boss who has surrounded himself with incompetent Yes Men. While the US has more toys to throw at Iran, it's not exactly next door and the logistics will be getting trickier after the loss of important bases (and soon regional allies)
Blackfinity
Waiting to see long lines at the borders as young men and women look to flee the coming draft, much like Russians rushed to cross the border into Kazakhstan, Serbia and Georgia soon after Pukin invaded Ukraine.
BreakfastWithCountChocula
daguq
A basic misunderstanding of American adventurism. A military base is destroyed? Well, I guess we're gonna have to SPEND millions rebuilding.
datphone777365
Billions*
Agatsu74
11k a second means that while you were watching this video, 1.85 million dollars were spent on the war.
I'm sorry, I meant the Super Duper Special Military Operation Electric Boogaloo.
DownUpUpDown
Hey remember 2002 and us going in to Iraq and everyone, including the military, said "thank god it's Iraq and not Iran"? Good times man, good times.
chewmaca2
Plus we are all out of allies.
TheGhostofElizabethShue
That can't be right, I was reliably informed you destroyed all their missiles?
Alektrauniccountermeasures
Yes, with our radar installations, those missiles are gone
NeverDownvoteMelBrooks
Obliterated. It's not the same. You're mistaken. Fake news. Checkmate.
Whitewolf30
Well, you see, that's actually because, um... Biden! Her emails! Hunter's laptop!
fractalsphere
A billion dollars a day MINIMUM for this war, but not a dime for social services right here at home. So much for "america first"
SmashedYourGlasses
That 1000 million dollars a day. Imagine every day a thousand schools across the country getting a million dollars.
Khanamana324
Of course there’s no money for social security. Funding that doesn’t let bigots torture and murder undersireables. Giving out multibillion a year handout to corporations, the military and the local nazi gangs that the government call police forces does enable that.
extraDimensionalAnxiety
Everybody should be screaming that last line.
MandaloreTheDefiler
"Well here it is!" /s
ReverseSyzygy
"THAT LAST LINE!!!" /s
FaeVikingPrincess
Hrm sounds like it plays right into Putin's hands to sweep in and take the middle east into their sphere of influence.
Frencheeseater
Putin has lost influence : unable to protect Syria, Venezuela, Iran, unable to help the African countries it help owrththrow gvts to replace by military dictators Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger or puppets (CenterAfrican Republic) solve the jihadists insurgents problems.
The challenging power setback of all this turmoil is CHINA : they already benefir of all Trumps blatant errors (withdrawn from W.H.O., replaced by China, etc)
ArkoneAxon
Iran was a major ally for Russia (and China). This HURT Putin. Badly.
FaeVikingPrincess
So destroying America's military bases, Radar systems, forcing us to expend resources for a losing fight? This didn't hurt Putin. It means that the US is losing its grip on Middle Eastern affairs, it also means that even if the US wanted to send aid to Ukraine, it's less likely to happen because of this bullshit illegal war.
ArkoneAxon
They have not destroyed our military bases, they have not destroyed our radar systems, and it is hardly a losing fight.
fivefrozenfishfingers
His ultimate goal is probably for Russian to own all of the Americas and Greenland.
mchococakes
Sauce ?
Gibleteousjack
https://www.cnn.com/2026/03/05/middleeast/radar-bases-us-missile-defense-iran-war-intl-invs
zbobet2012
Yeah, a destroying components of a single THAAD radar system isn't a huge blow to the US military. In fact of the 900bllion dollar annual budget it represents 1/4% of a _single years_ expenditure.
zbobet2012
Just to be clear, this invasion was massively stupid.
Gibleteousjack
Yeah, it's extra dumb when we could be spending that money on things to make life better instead of more efficient ways to blow up brown people.
Mack1986
Fuck trump. But we haven't lost any bases thats also misrepresentation of whats occurring. The concern right now is our burn rate of missile interceptors versus Iranian missiles and drones. The good news? Is that Iran has lost most of their launchers. The number of attacks launched is decreasing. Bad news. They still have cheap easy to launch drones
HitandRyan
It's a DPS race to see which runs out first: Iran's missiles and drones or American radars and interceptors. Neither belligerent will say if or when this happens, but both belligerents can be expected to claim their opponent is destroyed.
Sakkura
Not exactly losing bases, but losing some really expensive and hard to replace equipment: https://edition.cnn.com/2026/03/05/middleeast/radar-bases-us-missile-defense-iran-war-intl-invs
Mack1986
Im aware. But im just calling out the bullshit that lady is saying too. The radar in Jordon is basically irreplaceable. There are only 9 total THAAD systems total and we deployed 2 to Israel and a few across the region and just lost one of the critical radar systems (and maybe a second in the UAE j think)
Jace99
One week in and the US has lost hundreds of billions in military assets and is already begging its congress for more money for a war that supposedly isn’t even a war. Have a nice bankruptcy America. Stupidest country on earth.
zbobet2012
"hundreds of billions"? More like ~8billion: https://iran-cost-ticker.com/
bottledham
Where do you think those hundreds of billions went? The production of those assets is (mostly) done in American factories by workers. The money doesn't just vaporize. The American military-industrial complex requires assets to be used so we can make more.
America didn't go bankrupt after WW2. The economy boomed from all the government spending on military stuff. It's a fucked up system, but it won't bankrupt us.
Jace99
No, it just vaporizes from the pockets of the middle and lower class and goes straight to military contractors for their fifth yacht and private islands.
bottledham
You think the contractors build all those systems without any help? Raytheon employs 185,000 people. Of course the profits are obscene, but it's not like all the money goes directly to the ceo
VitaminJay
A conservative gets in power, trashes the domestic economy for billionaires, starts a foreign war to distract the citizens, repeat.
vonHoopla
At this point, the only way for America to even mildly recover any international respect is to literally pull every single Rep out of government and tar and feather them. If they are just voted out or even arrested, they are still part of the system...
ChiefRunningFridge
The mistake was assuming America was some shining beacon on a hill to begin with. We aren't the first nor will we be the last country to fall into this kind of bullshit. Idk how you're supposed to just write off an entire country. You really can't. Just like we don't look at Germany and go "Hitler therefore they bad until end of time.". The population doesn't just go away. If they destabilize you just have loose nukes. No one actually wins.
vonHoopla
Tbf, the idea of loose nukes is literally only slightly scarier than the idea of Trump having nukes. And the gap is closing by the day. There is literally no check on his power that he hasn't challenged and subverted. Even as the tariff thing eventually got reduced, monumental damage has already been done, rich ppl have been enriched. Give him enough time and Trump WILL make it so his word is the only one needed to launch a nuke. Literally everyone who's said 'Trump can't do that' has been wrong
vonHoopla
Like, the big fear of loose nukes is that some madman with delusional beliefs, a dictator with a an ego the size of Mars, or a crook with intent of starting a war for profit got the nukes. Trump is literally all three and every appointment he makes, every competent person he replaces with a toady, brings him one step closer to actually becoming king of the USA. And even if he doesn't succeed, the Reps will consider this great practice.
Frencheeseater
VitaminJay
You also get the clownshoes who believe conservative lies. 'huh, nothing's in my pocket even though my town in Bumbleweed has now gotten stoplights and proper parking spaces. I guess I'm voting for the GOP, again!'. :/
ChiefRunningFridge
Minimum wage? That's socialism!
Frencheeseater
I'm in favor of a MAXIMUM Net Worth.
Too much money in ONE person's pockets makes LOTS of persons needing it to survive !
GarmBlack
We can afford to lose all that, but can't pay off student debt, give medical care, food stamps, etc.
NeverDownvoteMelBrooks
Not the socialism!!!1!!
buddhanature
you got it right, but backwards... we can't pay for those things because we need to spend it on targets for Iran.
Anfalicious
In a month of this war the US could have funded universal healthcare and cancelled student debt. A billion bucks a day
Clockworkdancerobot
It's the republican way. Spend all the money on wars and giving tax breaks to the rich, then cry poverty when people need food, shelter, etc
Rockafella83
(Perceived) Freedom isn’t free… Because to be fair over the last 3 decades, and in the last 3y, it shrank by a lot.
You’re more of a contributor to the big corporations than a citizen at this point. Either as a consumer or a tax payer.
This time the American Military-Industrial Complex and big oils companies thanks you..
Bobbobbobobbananafanafobob
Not American, but it's a very capitalist and csuite mentality to scoff at tangible individual benefits that better everyone's lives and then sink 10x that into AI, management training, "capabilities" regardless of effectiveness, and so on.
darkninja2992
Yup, and rebuilding those bases will be an excuse to funnel more and more money to contractors
Broonstar
They get some good kickbacks on military spending.
WhatisBug
Well, yeah. That money would go to the poors. The money on defense goes to the pigs feeding at the slop trought
HIVp0sit1ve69
Welcome to the k shaped economy.
One808
Now you know why.
HarbingerOfThis
Losing it actually saves money, as long as they are not built back. But, after this operation, there will be peace in the Middle East, so no need for them any more! /s
DragonThunderUndertaking
But helping people is socialism....
indyliberal
Helping POOR people is socialism.
Pokegeologist
As Jesus commanded.
DragonThunderUndertaking
Jesus is woke and weak .... I'm a Christian!!! /s
Pokegeologist
I hate to say the reason I stopped going to church and became a communist pinko was because my parents did a better job raising me as a Christian than they think.
DragonThunderUndertaking
Honestly church just seems like a way to extract money out of people that for the large part don't really have it to give in the first place. Plus you said we ever needed these stupid buildings in the first place didn't Jesus himself say a church was anywhere you gathered in his name.
Khairos
Saaaaaame
AlwaysCloudyInGermany
I think the question that answers the justification here is:
Is it likely that Iran smuggles a nuke into a big US city and detonates it a likely scenario or not?
And of course the US can pay for all the stuff you mentioned, but neither Democrats nor Republicans want to... because their rich donors don't want it. Everyone should understand this.
zigbigidorlu
I'm sure MAGAts would see that as a win. After all, population centers are very blue.
buddhanature
I mean, if Iran's intelligence is as good as I've heard... they would blow up the deep south, the place that put the shittiest president in office and keeps feeding his ego.
FrancsTireur
Likely? No, impossible? Also no.
The chances go up exponentially if Iran goes the way of Libya and there's essentially a free for all with the nations vast arsenal of horrible tools of death and destruction.
Let me put it to you this way, very early on in my career I went into Central asia as security and liaison between certain western intelligence agents and local post soviet governments.
This is a region of the world where the concept of borders is theoretical at best and we found local 1/
AlwaysCloudyInGermany
Here we differ. I think it is a possibility, a looming threat. They gave all of Iran's wealth away to pay for radical proxy groups. They attacked everyone around them, even Oman, who wanted to mediate. How can we let these people develop a nuke?
Look at Pakistan. There is enough evidence that the massacre in India was orchestrated by the Pakistani government and India can't really do something about it because of the nukes. The fewer countries have them, the better.
FrancsTireur
Tribal leaders willing to sell us a shed full of enriched uranium for $500 thousand. We found local town councils who had warehouses with rooms the Soviets had warned them not to open. We found fucking bunkers where the local garrison had gone into business for themselves and was selling what was inside.
Over the course of a decade we got a lot of stuff out of there, but do I think we got it all? With Iran on the doorstep? Willing to pay an awful lot more than $500k. Fuck no.
Dreams of a 2/
FrancsTireur
Terrorist nuke are probably wide of the mark, but a terrorist dirty bomb able to render downtown New York uninhabitable for 150 years? Totally.
Terrorist sarin gas? Absolutely, the hardest part of that stuff isnt even getting your hands on it its keeping it stable long enough to not melt yourself.
And thats just the big ticket items, the US navy has already run the numbers on a cargo ship full of suicide drones doing a pearl harbour rerun and it didn't end well for the navy. 3
Johnsky
This is it, we're watching the collapse of American power in general, no longer just soft power.
Beardedgeek72
Seeing how much shit American dominance brings for democracies in Europe and South America... yay?
At least finally there are (rapid) steps taken in the EU to dethrone Mastercard and Visa from payment methods to stop both leakage of personal data and their mentally disturbed puritan ideals, As well as rapidly progressing steps to replace Teams and Zoom for security reasons (France has released a government backed Teams called La Suite looks awesome),
JohnSmithterms
Correct. The american dollar will not be replaced by krypto. The rest of the world has finally caught on to the money printing scam that the US has been doing since 1950. American hedgemony is already over. Its done.
ButtblasterMcAssmaster
Good riddance. The collapse of the United States would be the single most beneficial event in the history of human civilization.
Donfolstar
Sorry, but that is nonsense. US (or some nation) Hegemony was a necessary bridge between post WW2 and what we hope will be a Global Roundtable that comes next. That said, I'm not convinced we (humans, Earthicans) are quite ready for that next step. MAGA shot its wad early, to the shock of no one.
LazerSpacePirate
modis
Just like Russia in Ukraine, the world is learning that with this administration’s prioritization of hiring supremely unqualified people in all positions, the actual effectiveness of the US military has become a shadow of what it projects to the world.
Any country that was previously avoiding military action based on fear of a US response is now reevaluating that stance.
Septcanmat
As is any country that was depending on US military protection, which is where much of the US soft power came from.
GuyWithDog
The issue has always existed in the sense of overextended military. You can't fight parallel wars and Russia's air campaign is draining the same resources dry as Israel currently needs and Taiwan potentially.
Patriot missiles don't grow on trees, they replenish in very low numbers and stockpile is low.
shalafi71
We USED to have a doctrine that we could support two major fronts and a skirmish in a third location. No longer.
SackTheRipper
Shahed drone costs $30k. Patriot missile is $3-4m and take much longer to manufacture. They cant come up with the $166b to refund tariffs let alone let this drag out. This is worst case scenario.
getthismanabeer
The gulf states stupidly blasted off more patriots in the opening days of this shitstorm than Ukraine has had for the entirety of the Russian invasion.
Johnsky
B-but Trump told us he has unlimited ammunition. /S
shalafi71
Holy shit. You made me realize why Trump, out of the blue, was saying we have sufficient materiel. Hint: It's because we don't.
Johnsky
Trump projects. Everything he thinks is either said outright, or projected through accusations and denials.
Lynkfox
https://media2.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPWE1NzM3M2U1emx0eTdnMW41ZDhyMnZrNG9vYnN4bHV0M293bXdjYWt5eGIwNWQwMSZlcD12MV9naWZzX3NlYXJjaCZjdD1n/J8FZIm9VoBU6Q/200w.webp
damogen
Well... kinda... I suspect Taiwan is going to have a very bad time at some point in the not so distant future.
SavageDrums
I had heard that they have all their chip factories wired to blow as a failsafe against invasion. But I haven't actually confirmed that.
Lynkfox
Given any other foundaries are years from being up and running... Seems a good idea
SedatedSl0th
I feel bad for them. Genuinely. But currently? We’ve got our own shit to swim through. No longer proud to be an American here.
vonHoopla
I'mma guess its gonna get even worse. Not as in losing power kind of way. I'm gonna call it. Trump doesn't give a shit about the losses cos he legits wants to use a nuke. Don't anyone dare tell me he isn't stupid enough. Tiny pp man wants to commit the greatest act of overcompensation in history, and thinks billions of losses and untold death will get him the approval to launch it.
Zamiel77
While nothing is ever totally off the table with this administration, the odds of even a tactical nuke, much less a strategic nuke being used in Iran is vanishingly small, and it's not because Trump or his cronies aren't stupid enough to do it; it's because military leadership won't sign off on it. It's no secret that Hegseth and Trump are loathed by the Pentagon, and despite popular perception, it takes more than just the president and secretary to sanction a nuke.
shalafi71
Launch orders from this White House will not make it through the command-and-control systems. No boomer skipper is keying that with his XO.
Neanderthalersutopiaphilandrousanteatersotherbrother
'Ok Boomer Skipper, you'll be placed on temporary leave and this is nodick rubberneck, your replacement'
shalafi71
They're not able to replace a boomer driver in the middle of the ocean (AND his XO!). :) And they can't just slot any asshole into running the most devastating weapon man has ever devised. Submariners are a different breed of men, and boomer skippers? Fuck me. Think those crews would cooperate with anything but the best of the best?
Fashtas
Didn't a US Base Commander just give a speech to his troops how Jesus was acting through Trump to start the apocolypse?
Wanna bet your life on there not being a *SINGLE* Evangelical and his friend in the ENTIRE USA military with ability to launch something nuclear (if given permission by command)?
Neanderthalersutopiaphilandrousanteatersotherbrother
The biggest, dumbesr asshole runs the most devastating weapon man has ever devised:)
For all the rest: very good point
GrandmasterSpank
If the government spends 1 billion to buy a radar, then the radar gets blown up by Iran, the radar is gone. THE 1 BILLION IS NOT GONE. The 1 billion just moved from place A (US treasury or wherever they keep the money) to place B (the pockets of a few CEO's and stockholders). What Americans are witnessing is a gigantic transfer of community money (your tax dollars) going from A to B.
FentuckyCriedKhicken
Actually that’s not totally still in America, it’s going to have a lot of it transferred to China and other places because you need factories to build things, and America does not have many of those anymore today. And China uses that money to help Iran maybe. So trump is fight a war and paying somebody to help the opponent.
ReverseSyzygy
The added implication is that the DoD will then buy ANOTHER, replacement, radar.
TicoGuy
Soooo much of that money is right now being hoarded waiting for a stock market and housing market collapse. Then all that money is going to flow back into those markets where it will grow more money for the already rich.
TopBananna999
You are trying to tell me that if I take a dollar and pay it to someone then the dollar is not gone. Of course it is. I don’t have it anymore, so it is gone. I cannot get it back.
If I take a dollar and set it on fire, do you believe that it went to god? What twisted logic do you follow?
GrandmasterSpank
You literally said 'pay it to someone'. So the dollar still exists. Just not in your pocket, but in the pocket of 'someone'. Same with the tax dollar. That dollar you paid in taxes still exists. But it's not in your pocket anymore. Its not in the government pocket anymore. It's in the pocket of the CEO of the weapons factory. It's in the pockets of the stockholders. When Uncle Sam buys a 1 billion dollar radar, the rich get a LOT more rich. That is where the money goes.
AllegedlyTonyDutch
Also murder. We're also witnessing a lot of murder.
thedarkcanuck
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8E9l_i6HPYM
GrandmasterSpank
And i can guarantee you, if Trump survives till 2028 he'll win again because concervatives will go "yeah ok he crashed the economy and he fukced some kids and kill a few million people... BUT.... Gavin Newsom is even worse" (and Democrats will stay home because they dont like Newsom either)
MechanicalRomance
We aren't even at the midterms. Stop resigning yourself to Gavin Newsom. He can still be primaried. There is time for a better option still
Osgarth
There's still time to come up with a better candidate...They don't have to hit an iceberg that's 3 years out. I don't get how people act like this path is set in stone. Like the dems need to close ranks already.
NKato
Someone needs to kick the DNC's door down - with force, actual literal force - and tell them that if they push a "presumptive nominee" instead of being COMPLETELY FUCKING HANDS OFF AND LETTING THIS PLAY OUT, and PREVENTING ANY KIND OF BACKDOOR DEALING, they will fucking lose their lives in the next administration because they aren't going to be as nice as Trump.
Trondason
Yes and no. Money spent on expensive equipment destroyed IS money lost, because we COULD have spent a billion dollars on a radar, OR a billion dollars on anything else. In both scenarios, the money itself would circulate in the economy, but with the radar the thing the money was spent on is gone, making the value we were supposed to get from the money transfer also gone.
GrandmasterSpank
Also yes and no. If the billion is spend to in the Affordable Health Care Act, the money goes to poor people who will spend that money immediately. Then that money comes back into circulation. If the billion is spend on a radar, a large part of that money will vanish into the pockets of millionaires and billionaires, who do not spend. They only hoard. It doesnt come back into circulation and destroys thee economy for lower wages.
Trondason
When we're talking about money lost, we don't mean the actual literal currency, we are talking about the value generated from the man-hours that the exchange of currency represented and in turn the opportunity-cost of the man-hours being spent on the thing we then lose instead of on another thing.
GrandmasterSpank
Yes so the man-hours generated buying healthcare is a LOT more than the man-hours generated buying radars, because almost 100% of the money from health care gets re-circulated, but when buying a radar, a large portion of the money goes to millionaires and billionaires and then it;s gone. It gets hoarded. Its taken out of the lower 'normal people' economy and stashed into the higher economy where it;s only being used as leverage, never spend.
bottledham
That ignores the Americans employed making, deploying, and using said radar system. The 1 billion didn't just go straight into a CEO's pocket and it didn't burn up. I'm not defending overpaid CEOs or the merits of this war - only pointing out the fallacy that the money is 'gone' when in reality most of it fed back into the American economy that produced it.
The fucked up reality is that war can boost the economy. Eisenhower tried to warn us not to depend on it but we haven't learned.
BDD85
Yeah it can boost a nations economy, temporarily.
Germany was riding a wave of that during world war 2, though IIRC that wave died out somewhere halfway through the war.
Russias numbers look pretty hot for a while too, but there are cracks in the seams there as well now.
akafluffy
Do you really think that money wouldn't be spent if it wasn't spent on that radar? Also, where do you think the money goes when you build things in the middle east, most of it is to whoever actually built it in the middle east, you don't ship anything but the bits that can't be fabricated out there across the world in a more expensive country to fabricate things.
akafluffy
Most of it that doesn't go to said greedy CEO I should say.
bottledham
You're absolutely correct about building stuff overseas. But this example cited a hypothetical billion-dollar radar system that would almost certainly be designed and manufactured by American workers. I was responding to that.
akafluffy
designed yes, built, no, it's in the middle east, probably only the things too difficult to fab out there were made here, and that one piece the CEO charged 200 million dollars for is not even a fraction of that to make.
akafluffy
Also, it's not a hypothetical radar, it's the actual radar station that got knocked out in Qatar. This is a real 1.1 billion dollar station that the states paid for in the middle east that got blown up already.
mrthewhitee
This shit is almost as bad as Fox News. The US is not suffering losses on the scale she's claiming. Yes people were killed and yes some facilities got hit but like 95% of US based are intact.
Iran is not winning, nor can it "win" this war. The best they can do is make it hurt and they are doing that certainly. The reality is US will exhaust it's arsenal before Iran could ever do any meaningful damage.
That said, the US cannot "win" this war either. They're running out of ammo and even if /1
Detacheddavid
Even 5% damage sounds like a gross exaggeration. For embassies, the damage might be bigger though. And the part of "not having a plan" is true.
mrthewhitee
They had all the ammo in the world, it's impossible for them to bomb Iran into submission. No war has ever been won by air strikes alone.
They have to put boots on the ground, which will turn into a quagmire worse than Iraq most likely. /2
mllecamill3
Basically what every prediction says will or would happen. I remember I asked Kimi AI this weeks before the attack and this was exactly what was predicted. The US will burn out on this. Iran is not a small country and they will not be conquered by the US.
ArkoneAxon
We have SANDALS on the ground! Seriously, the Kurds have joined in the fighting. They've been getting kicked around by Iran and Iraq for decades, and they're eager to change things for the better for themselves.
Detacheddavid
The Kurds have been treated poorly by the US in several occasions.
ArkoneAxon
No arguments there. Especially when we gave chemical weapons to Saddam Hussein, and he used them on the Kurds.
People tend to forget that U.S. behavior in the middle east in particular is so horrible that Trump's current actions can be summed up as "hard factory reset." Iran is like a festering pustule that WE helped create, and now the cleanup is inevitably... messy.
mrthewhitee
The Kurds have not joined the fighting
ArkoneAxon
The Kurds have indeed joined the fighting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UN3eaXeuDoc
mrthewhitee
Any source that isn't Israeli propaganda?
https://www.axios.com/2026/03/07/iran-kurds-iraq-israel-trump-cia-mossad