Did Israel just start a world war?

losthighway wrote: Fri Jun 13, 2025 12:46 am Did Israel just start a world war?

The kindling has been being placed all over this planet for decades. Not sure any one action now could be seen as the "start" of the conflagration that's coming.

losthighway wrote: Fri Jun 13, 2025 12:46 am Did Israel just start a world war?

America. America started a world war.

It seems like Trump is using Kaiser Netanyahu as his proxy like never before.

Krev wrote: Fri Jun 13, 2025 11:19 am It seems like Trump is using Kaiser Netanyahu as his proxy like never before.

Yeah, there's a back room element to this. It's not particularly important to the incendiary outcome, but it's either Netenyahu is so far beyond Trump's control that he won't keep his guns holstered while Trump is stupidly spinning his art of the deal, or (more likely) this is a transparent good cop/bad cop operation where Trump says, "These guys are rough. We'd better work something out before they torch ya." Netenyahu and Trump high five off camera.

losthighway wrote: Fri Jun 13, 2025 11:44 am

Krev wrote: Fri Jun 13, 2025 11:19 am It seems like Trump is using Kaiser Netanyahu as his proxy like never before.

Yeah, there's a back room element to this. It's not particularly important to the incendiary outcome, but it's either Netenyahu is so far beyond Trump's control that he won't keep his guns holstered while Trump is stupidly spinning his art of the deal, or (more likely) this is a transparent good cop/bad cop operation where Trump says, "These guys are rough. We'd better work something out before they torch ya." Netenyahu and Trump high five off camera.

The second for sure, to dispel any doubts all 200 of the fighter jets taking part in this are US made, Boeing still being a world leader in killing people.

...and while he's certainly enjoying himself, it's important to note that all of this was inherited by Trump...twice over.

I think you're on to something with the good cop/bad cop thing, zorg.

zorg wrote: Fri Jun 13, 2025 12:26 pm

losthighway wrote: Fri Jun 13, 2025 11:44 am

Krev wrote: Fri Jun 13, 2025 11:19 am It seems like Trump is using Kaiser Netanyahu as his proxy like never before.

Yeah, there's a back room element to this. It's not particularly important to the incendiary outcome, but it's either Netenyahu is so far beyond Trump's control that he won't keep his guns holstered while Trump is stupidly spinning his art of the deal, or (more likely) this is a transparent good cop/bad cop operation where Trump says, "These guys are rough. We'd better work something out before they torch ya." Netenyahu and Trump high five off camera.

The second for sure, to dispel any doubts all 200 of the fighter jets taking part in this are US made, Boeing still being a world leader in killing people.

...and while he's certainly enjoying himself, it's important to note that all of this was inherited by Trump...twice over.

Right. And again, different psychology/same outcome: Biden didn't seem to love any of this, but he didn't have any political courage to change course. He just kept enabling. In fact Clintons, Obama and Biden are all people who I think did not want to see these developments, but still set up Netenyahu and Trump for this moment. They seemed to have believed that providing weapons to people means you can tell them how and when to use them.

Great episode of Behind the Bastards about Carl Schmidt. I'd encourage you to give it a listen.



He was the sort of Philosopher in Chief of the Third Reich. His idea, as I understand it, is that Liberal Democracies are bad and must be destroyed. They are, by their nature, comprised of an in-group and an out-group. The in-group is people with full enfranchisement: the ability to vote, own property, have businesses, etc.

The out-group is denied these rights. Schmidt's recipe for destroying Liberal Democracies is to find the outermost edge of this in-group and start pushing inward, trying to contract the circle. In doing so, a tension erupts, as progressives and supporters of universal enfranchisement fight to protect people that the in-group's core find distasteful or not worthy of protection. As the circle contracts, those people deemed insufficiently loyal to the core of the in-group can also be disenfranchised, due to their lack of fealty to the Myth of Dear Leader and the Great Nation. Power must be concentrated into the hands of a strong man, which he refers to as "The Sovereign," and this is the way.

You're watching it in real time. It's why that "first they came for" poem has more than one verse. They peel off the vulnerable first, and liberals decrying the detested minority's violent self-defense really have no idea what's at stake and what forces are in play.

losthighway wrote: Fri Jun 13, 2025 11:44 am Netenyahu and Trump high five off camera.

zorg wrote: inherited by Trump...twice over.

I think it's important to remember that presidents don't operate in a vacuum. While the 'deep state' has become an overused term and simplifies things too much, it doesn't mean that there aren't people operating in the shadows that the majority of the public wouldn't recognise if they bumped into them in the street. PNAC, heritage foundation etc. US foreign policy to a large extent is a long game and doesn't change depending on who's in the whitehouse.
Trump is an authoritarian asshole but if he didn't look like he was going to play ball on foreign policy he wouldn't have got anywhere near the top spot.

While I would believe netanyahu is capable of acting unilaterally on occasion, I don't think he did here. The US told diplomats to evacuate Iran before the attack occurred, just like they did in Lebanon before the pager attacks, indicating foreknowledge. On top of that Israeli officials are claiming they had the green light from Washington.