Bored of Peace? Let's Mambo! - Trump Thread #158

[Spandauer]

Cuba - the appetiser to Greenland?

Previous thread:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5501326-war-huh-good-god-what-is-it-good-for-absolutely-nothing-trump-thread-157

https://x.com/allenanalysis/status/2038354280613048546

White House statement tonight: “President Trump does not bluff. He is prepared to unleash hell. Iran should not miscalculate again.” “Iran has been defeated militarily. Any violence beyond this point will be because Iran refused to understand they have already been defeated.”

I told you you were defeated god dammit.

They're intereptation of the meaning of defeated must be different to the rest of the worlds.

How many missiles has Iran fired since they were defeated? How planes and boats have they hit?

How many should we expect a defeated country to fire?

I’ve no idea. But if he goes mad and actually dies send ground troops in I suspect we might be about to discover that defeated countries can kill a lot of soldiers.

I'm finding Jeremy Bowen's long articles quite insightful. Of course he has decades of experience in the Middle East.

He also benefits from being outside the frothing of Washington / Mar A Lago, so his reporting isn't dictated by the febrile daily frenzy of Trump-watching which distracts from the big picture.

Jeremy Bowen: Trump is waging war based on instinct and it isn't working
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y969pnxgvo

From that article:

Some old truths about warfare have been knocking on the door of the Oval Office [...]
The oldest of the old truths comes from the Prussian military strategist Helmuth von Moltke the Elder: "No plan survives first contact with the enemy." He was writing in 1871, the year Germany was unified as an empire, a moment that was as consequential for the security of Europe as this war might be for the security of the Middle East.

Maybe Trump prefers the boxer Mike Tyson's modern version: "Everyone has a plan until they get hit." Even more relevant for Trump are the words of one of his predecessors, Dwight D. Eisenhower, the American general who commanded the D-Day landings in 1944 and went on to serve two terms as a Republican president of the United States in the 1950s.

Eisenhower's version was "plans are worthless, but planning is everything". He meant that the discipline and process of making plans to fight a war make it possible to change course when the unexpected happens.
[...]
He went on to explain that when an unexpected emergency arises "the first thing you do is to take all the plans off the top shelf and throw them out the window and start once more. But if you haven't been planning you can't start to work, intelligently at least".

"That is the reason it is so important to plan, to keep yourselves steeped in the character of the problem that you may one day be called upon to solve – or to help to solve."

Gordon Carrera's recent article, also in the BBC's In Depth series, was also very good.

Mission accomplished? The 2003 boast that haunts today's Iran conflict
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1e9yy84we8o

On the one hand, I see what you mean but on the other hand, if I were an average Iranian person?

I would be absolutely terrified, heightened by the fact that there is no where to go.

I am SURE that Israel got him taken off the Israeli Gaza story.

He is excellent, and has the benefit of decades of experience as you say.

As such, he can decode and historically frame everything.

He is sorely missed as a reporter on this I think.

The Iranian people are the biggest losers in this. Attacked by their own regime and have US/Israel dropping bombs on them. I don’t really see how this ends up well for them at all.

Yes, after Trump encouraged them to stand up to the regime. I don't think it's possible to be more cavalier about human lives than these shitstains on humanity.

And Vance appears to have the Pope on his back. The first American Pope at that.

I admit, I am usually dismissive, without evidence. of politicians who proclaim faith. But I am thinking it might just be possible that Vance does take his Catholicism seriously.

I think Biden was more of a "cultural Catholic". Took it serious but not devout. If that makes sense. So he was able to grapple with the abortion issue being against his faith easier.

But Vance converted later in life (as did Blair), so maybe he really is grappling with the contradictions. Remember too, Trump sets records for the US death sentence on top of all this. And he is a warmonger, anti immigrant, a false prophet even ?

But hey, I am atheist. So come on Leo, get your Papal sharpie out and start signing some of the excommunication executive orders. And make sure you send Vance the sharpie you use to sign his.

( Disclaimer - I mean no offence to anyone of faith, apart from Vance, Goebbels Barbie, Kegsbreath etc)

Here is a timely news article about issues with AI, just as the UN Human Rights folk pile pressure on the Trump admin re the School missile attack. Kegsbreath being a known super fan of using AI to identify bombing targets. Remember, there is an ongoing spat because an AI company does not want it product used in the way Kegsbreath wants to use it : to pick people to kill.

Police used AI facial recognition to arrest a Tennessee woman for crimes committed in a state she says she’s never visited | CNN

Hmm. From the usual Sky and CNN feeds. Yup, I have edited it to take the journalists bits out. These are his words. I see no mention of any radical ideas, such as stopping the bombing. It's not that I have not included it. He appears not to have mentioned it.

"To be honest with you, my favourite thing is to take the oil in Iran, But some stupid people back in the US say, 'why are you doing that?' But they're stupid people."

"Maybe we take Kharg Island, maybe we don't. We have a lot of options.
It would also mean we had to be there for a while. I don't think they have any defence. We could take it very easily."

“We’ve had regime change, if you look already, because the one regime was decimated, destroyed, they’re all dead. The next regime is mostly dead, and the third regime, we’re dealing with different people than anybody’s dealt with before. It’s a whole different group of people. So I would consider that regime change, and frankly, they’ve been very reasonable,”

“They gave us most of the points. Why wouldn’t they? They’re agreeing with us on the plan. We asked for 15 things, and for the most part, we’re going to be asking for a couple of other things,”

“And today they gave us another present. They gave us 20 boatloads of oil that starts being shipped tomorrow,”

"The oil that Tehran said it will give to the US will be shipped tomorrow to “prove they’re serious,” They gave us 20 boatloads of oil that starts being shipped tomorrow.”

“We’re having very good meetings, both directly and indirectly, and I think we’re getting a lot of very important point.”

Absolutely he hung them out to dry as long as the Dollars keep coming in.
He's fucked up big time with this escapade.

Ah a good old AF1 diatribe of drivel. Had a few shandies before take off did he?
15 things, 20 boats, 2 weeks. All about the oil.

ETA. And the “nuclear dust” as he’s apparently considering a mission to seize half a tonne of Uranium.

He is all heart isn't he .

“If a country wants to send some oil into Cuba right now, I have no problem. I prefer letting it in, whether it’s Russia or anybody else, because the people need heat and cooling and all of the other things that you need,”

Trump suggests US will allow Russian oil tanker to reach Cuba | CNN

Just musing…
Bearing in mind how illiterate and stupid the tangoturd seems, he’s supposedly in charge of the game so do his Generals etc follow his instructions or are they doing their own thing?
If the latter then who really is running this whole shitshow?

Same sort of musing I often do with how nations Governments work. I sort of picture them as things.

China. The PRC. the CPC, The Party. An elephant with eternal energy running through the jungle. Only just under control, barging down trees and bushes, a mind of it's own. Near impossible to stop, difficult to steer.

Trumps USA. A snowball on a hill. He pushed it, and now it's a snow ball running down a hill getting bigger.

The UK. A box full of spinning tops, spinning around in the bottom of a big wok. Always spinning, bumping into each other. Nothing really changing because no individual top can quite spin far enough up the side.

:-)

The Kharg Island stuff worries me. We know Trump has no filter, if he’s talking about sending troops in then he is genuinely considering it. If, as @Tiddlywinks63 also suggests, the Joint Chiefs et al are too chicken shit to stand up to his orders, I fear an absolute bloodbath for US troops. Do they seriously think Iran won’t boobytrap the place to hell or aren’t planning on swarming the place with small inexpensive drones carrying explosives?

We’re talking about an ideology that embraces death. They will very much have the attitude of “if we’re going down we’ll take as many of you with us as possible”.

It’s akin to sending WWI trooos over the top of the trenches as machine gun fodder. No better than Putin and his “meat grinder” policy in Ukraine.

Oh and don’t get me started on “uranium extraction” idea. That’s going to take weeks and thousands of troops - you don’t just parachute in, extract and leave. They’re going to need to secure the area first, bring in the capability to dig it out from under the mountain, contain it safely then get it out if there.

Either Hegseth has watched too many Hollywood movies where the Yanks always win despite the odds, or he’s expecting The Almighty to split the mountain open for the troops à la Moses and the Red Sea.

They have 440 Kg of 60% U-235 apparently. About the size of 14 gold bars. That would easily fit in the boot of a 1960's Mini Cooper and be driven away at speed through sewers and over weirs.

I can just imagine it now. The US marines at the vault. The sergeant yelling " Your'e only supposed to blow the bloody doors off !"

Sorry if that post has put a tune into anyone's heads :-)

@CaveMum I read somewhere that Kharg is honeycombed with tunnels, many of which run into the sea so I suspect that it’s pretty impenetrable and Trump’s acolytes must know that. Unless he totally obliterates the island then I imagine it’s not going to be overcome any time soon.
According to the BBC News on now, Trump says it ‘doesn’t have any defences’. Deluded doesn’t begin to describe him.

On Sky News this morning, the expression on the face of the reporter based in Dubai as she talked about Trump and US actions was one of exasperation! It was obvious that she wasn't a disinterested observer.

Trump says peace talks are going well.
Iran responds that they will respond to any attempt to attack Kharg etc and desalination plants are a legit target.
Iraq, while being bombed from Iran, is stuck between wanting to keep their relationships with both Iran and the US.

Iran:
"We have permitted certain countries that we consider friendly to pass through (Strait of Hormuz). We allowed China, Russia, India, Iraq and Pakistan to transit," Iranian foreign minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi said, according to Iranian State TV. At the same time, he made it clear that ships linked to Iran's adversaries will not be allowed to transit through the strategic waterway. "The region is a war zone, and there is no reason to allow the ships of our enemies .

New checkpoints put up in Kuwait and people now being stopped in the streets for phone checks.
In UAE, random people being hauled out of public transport for phone checks, and anyone outside during alerts will be arrested.
Even sharing photos of current flooding will result in arrest.

Unintended consequences sure, but how is all this fitting into Trump's unknown aims for his ME junket?
Answers on a postcard plse.