not being stoked at trump having created the situation where we needed to sacrifice so much equipment for a needless war in the first place and having created the need for a rescue in the first place
Dude, I get where you're coming from. With all due respect, however,
fuck off. Resident brownoid here who doomed like crazy when Operation Midnight Hammer happened and when the war broke out back in February. The Pentagon is a wretched hive of corruption and excess that I would gleefully celebrate defunding... but that damn sure ain't happening in my lifetime, especially with like 7-8 audits failed consecutively over the years.
You wanna know what's actually keeping me
sane? Two things:
a) The Pentagon under Trump 47 and Pete Hegseth genuinely does appear to be committed to culling the egregious wastes of the Department of War (formerly Department of Defense). Instead of wasting money egregiously on dubious administrative expenses and gender surgeries for disturbed veterans who never once saw combat, they're actually prioritising combat readiness, tightening procurement standards, and forcing contractors to play ball instead of handing out blank cheques. This is a stark departure from the status quo of Obama and Dubya that I grew up vilifying the Pentagon over.
b) The Islamic Republic of Iran, as it exists in the Year of Our Lord 2026, is
not the same as it was in 2006, 1996, let alone 1986. If Dubya tried instigating a war with Iran in 2006, the outcome would be far worse. Part of why the current military operations in the Gulf and the Iranian Plateau right now are so successful is precisely
because no ground troops have been committed as of yet, air superiority's been achieved, and military hardware advanced significantly. Not to mention that so many of the IRGC's upper echelons were completely and utterly
slaughtered. Even their proxies were grossly weakened or outright destroyed over the last 20 years. Imad Mughniyeh, the yin to Hasan Nasrallah's yang, was
murdered by the IDF in 2008. Hizbullah hasn't ever been the same since Mughniyeh died, and now Nasrallah's dead too. Even before that, Soleimani's murder in 2020 was already the writing on the walls for Iranian hegemony within the Persian Gulf. The Houthis posed an inordinate threat under Biden's tenure, but Trump's tenure saw airstrikes killing off the bulk of their threat capacity. Even now, with all these victories, the
Islamic Republic of Iran itself still remains a huge threat precisely because they're unable and unwilling to course-correct.
If the only choices we have are the Pentagon's institutional excesses perpetuating the status quo but no military hardware our tax dollars
are already paying for vs culling the waste altogether and actually
using our equipment for a tangible goal... the latter is clearly preferable. I still do feel some type of way about the war, but my biases keep getting checked at every turn by developments happening on the ground.
= yes I understand people jokingly invoke the name of allah to mock their foes
inshallah she shall be collared
