Week of War Moves
Bombs Away, Why Bomb, Bomb Results, Peace‑No Peace

As does Patrick Chappatte:

Key military contrast:
These airstrikes have been precisely targeted, with an eye to minimizing civilian casualties as Israel always does — inevitably there have been some, but remarkably few for an attack of this scale. The Iranian theocracy’s response has been to fire missiles into Israel apparently more or less at random. Most of these have been intercepted, and those that got through have mainly hit civilian areas, killing some people but doing no damage to Israel’s military.

Key longer term objective:
Of much greater long-term significance, Israel has also struck at many political targets, clearly aiming to weaken the regime’s grip on Iran. Netanyahu has always recognized the Iranian people as potential allies against the hated theocracy. “Regime change” imposed from outside is probably impossible and would be unlikely to produce enduring or positive results if it happened, but if Israel can inflict serious damage on the theocracy’s thugs and its sadistic machinery of enforcement, it can create a window of opportunity for organic change from within.

Key popular incitement:
Israel destroyed the gates of the notorious Evin Prison, and attacked various local headquarters of the Revolutionary Guards (see one such strike here) and of the Basij militia, the theocracy’s famously brutal internal Gestapo force.

Infidel’s choice of Evin prison is a good one. The place has a well deserved reputation as a center of torture of political opponents and religious non‑adherents.

Infidel also provides a helpful, and quite believable, chart on Iranian opinion:

Key caution:
As the war unfolded, I feared that Trump would come blundering in with some massive indiscriminate attack and kill a lot of civilians, thus destroying the chance for positive change by triggering a wave of anti-Western outrage. So far, at least, that hasn’t happened. Trump has bombed a few nuclear targets, but not attacked population centers.

A few thoughts of my own:

I refuse to compete with my friend’s knowledge and research, knowing any factual points I make will face demolition.
I will express a few points of partial skepticism.

The hope that Trump’s blundering approach will not make things worse, and the fear that he will, strikes me as rational. He is reliably reported as motivated by Fox praise of Netanyahu and his wish to share in what he sees as the glory of war.

One key stated motivation for Israel’s attack was that Iran was within weeks of having operational nuclear weapons. So far, this appears to be untrue. Could a more dominant motive be Netanyahu’s political future?

The contrast of Israel’s avoiding civilian casualties with Iran’s targeting civilians strikes me as significant, but more strategic than moral on Israel’s side.

That contrast also exists in Gaza, but to a much lesser extent:

Hamas targeted October 7 civilians with glee, boastfully exhibiting videos of their victims.

Netanyahu does not target civilians in Gaza but does not exert much discernible effort to avoid sacrificing them. After all, it seems, they happen to be in the way – and life is filled with little trade-offs.

The hope of aiding an incipient popular revolt within Iran seems counter to patterns throughout history.

One illustration:
Well after the Shah was overthrown, Iran’s rulers wanted him assassinated.
Still, when Saddam’s Iraq attacked Iran, the Shah’s very loyal son volunteered to help fight Iraq.

Key read:
This nitwit of a President seems to do the stupid stuff on the weekends, whether it be a failed “perade” of out of step soldiers walking along or bombing Iran because he was jealous of the positive Fox News coverage of Bibi Netanyahu bombing Iran. The President, a man desperate to show how much of an alpha he is (spoiler–Hés not), allegedly told Putin what he intended to do so Vlad could warn the Iranians to get their nuclear crap out of harms way, started saying “two weeks” again, and then once there was zero chance of being effective, launched the raid.

Key wish:
It’s all bullshit as we all know. Iran suffered no damage, the response today from Iran, attacking Qatar (after telling them) and did no damage. It’s all face saving of course. Trump has his exit ramp now, whether he will be smart enough to take it is debatable. Iran has its exit ramp, and the world will go back to normal. Kissing Netanyahu’s ass on our part and Iran posturing for the crazies on theirs. Lets hope it over, for now.

A more detailed podcast version is also an informative alternative presented in entertaining fashion.

Key additional quote (actual suck up – Pete Hegseth):
“Let me read the bottom line here. President Trump directed the most complex and secretive military operation in history, and it was a resounding success resulting in a ceasefire agreement and the end of the 12 day war.”

Key motive:
Trump wanted in on the optics of what seemed to be Israel’s successful strikes against Iran.

Key trigger:
…Trump had warned Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu against striking Iran but changed his mind after seeing how Israel’s military action was “playing” on television. The reporters write: “The president was closely monitoring Fox News, which was airing wall-to-wall praise of Israel’s military operation and featuring guests urging Mr. Trump to get more involved.”

The same analysis is now available in audio format, as Richardson narrates in podcast.

Key fictitious boast:
“They said nobody could start a war as quickly as me, and as we all know, war and peace are two sides of the same coin,” Trump wrote from a guest bathroom at his Mar-A-Lago resort.

Key additional satiric quote:
Pete Hegseth: “Iran’s nuclear sites got bombed on Saturday night, and trust me, I know what that feels like.”

Key contender (not quite the winner):
Michele Bachman says hold her beer: “We should all kiss the ground and be so grateful that Benjamin Netanyahu is prime minister.”

Key reason deterrence won’t work:
When we put into perspective the prospect of Iran having a nuclear weapon in its arsenal, we have to start with the nature of the regime. We cannot assume that mutually assured destruction, between Iran and Israel for example, would be a deterrence to the Iranian government actually using a nuclear bomb. Nor could we trust that Iran wouldn’t use a nuclear weapon to inflict as much death and destruction on a civilian population for reasons that we in the west would consider to be completely irrational.
 
When the whims of an Iranian God inspire the state to call for the death of an author over a book or the deaths of cartoon creators, we can cease pretending the state is a rational actor.

Key failures:
President Barack Obama and President Joe Biden attempted a rapprochement with Iran only to see those efforts fail to stop Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

Key Constitutional issue:
Would it have been better for the decision to bomb Iran to have been debated in Congress? Probably.

Key conclusion:
If we set the unfortunate existence of the Trump Administration aside, complete with that amateur foreign policy team, we have to conclude that bombing those sites was the correct decision.

My response:
As far as I can tell, Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden never hoped for a rapprochement with Iran, only for a limitation of nuclear development under strict supervision and inspection.

This was achieved by Obama, but torpedoed by Trump. Trump’s principle objection was not that Iran had failed to comply or might in the future. Rather he complained that releasing seized Iranian funds would be used to promote terrorism. He ignored (or as likely was ignorant) that those funds were released only for humanitarian aid, and then only under direct control of dependable US allies.

According credible reports, every intelligence expert and Trump’s own Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard (Yeah Tulsi – really!) insisted that Iran was years away from even having the ability to develop nuclear weapons grade materials.

Approval by Congress was not just probably better.
It was mandated by law and by the Constitution, something conservatives once considered more critical than probably better.

Right Wing Watch brings us Representative Randy Weber from Texas, who tells us to ignore all that bothersome pre‑bombing intelligence (that showed it wasn’t necessary) and post‑bombing evidence (that showed it wasn’t effective).

We ought to get actively involved in that war because Israel is the apple of God’s eye.

Key headline:
Congress, Now More Than Ever, Our Nation Needs Your Cowardice

Key value:
Democracy? Equality? The U.S. Constitution? These are hollow phrases. They mean nothing. But money—delicious money? That is solid. You can hold it in your hands.

Key word play:
According to many members of Congress — both Republicans and Democrats — and every president in my lifetime, the United States is NOT at war. In their minds, what common folks call “war” is something else: police action, hostilities, skirmish, collateral damage, surge, overseas contingency operations, shock and awe, pacification, nation-building, authorization for the use of force — anything but what it is, WAR.

He adds Trump’s bizarre social media post announcing the act of war, ending weirdly with an all caps counterpoint NOW IS THE TIME FOR PEACE! then a standard business letter close: Thank you for your attention to this matter.

But don’t worry. Dave Columbo has advice ready for how Trump and Trumpers can spin it:

Key juxtaposition (one of several)
This is America under the Trump regime…
 
Normal lives alongside the incredibly abnormal these days. A small town parade juxtaposed with bombs. Candy and another forever war. Fishing poles and deployments. A nice back porch conversation and the threat of a nuclear war.
 
Horrifying alongside the mundane.

Key concerns:
Are we still a democracy? Are we living under a dictator? Are we slipping or are we already gone?
 
Also, what’s for supper? And, I know we are out of towels because I am two loads of laundry behind. And, all the kids will be over tomorrow to celebrate a belated Father’s Day. I need groceries and I need to mop the kitchen and bathrooms.
 
I am fixated on the armed and masked men kidnapping people from American streets while making a sandwich for my daughter.

Key blame cast:
“I said the last four years my biggest concern was this open border was the biggest national security vulnerability this country’s ever seen,” Homan lied about. “So I pulled numbers this morning just from a CBP under Joe Biden, there was 1,272 nationals from Iran. And you compare that in the Trump administration, zero, right? Zero releases.”

Key supremacist hope:
However, what white supremacists Charlie Kirk and Stephen Miller want is for armed white mobs to harass women in headscarfs and to break windows with Farsi script on them.

Key Republican objective:
Because Republicans are going to use the phony fear of homeland Iranian terrorist attacks in the US as a pretext to crack down violently on anti-War and anti-Trump protests. Plus, the added bonus will be to send those “terrorists” to El Salvador and the other Republican concentration camps.

NBC News correspondent Jacob Soboroff interviews US combat veteran Alejandro Barranco about ICE treatment of his father:

tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors reveals the underreported non-lethal, somewhat comical, surprisingly effective weapon increasingly used against illegal ICE activities.

That threat is a direct Trump quote.

It isn’t because of his views or his public record. It is because he is Muslim and his kind brought down the Twin Towers.

Although Brian writes behind a paywall, he prints a portion that reveals part of how they intended to attack preexisting conditions.

Key flow:
Among Trump’s most transparently dishonest ventures is his stake in the Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG), which is the parent corporation of his Twitter ripoff, Truth Social. TMTG has been a disastrous investment that has lost billions of dollars for Trump’s faithful, while funneling untraceable cash – perhaps from conflicted businesses and foreign agents – into Trump’s personal accounts. And he has a whole network dedicated to that pursuit.

Key price:
Unfortunately for those who trusted Dear Leader, the stock value of TMTG has crated more than 50% since Trump’s inauguration. Which is to be expected from a company that has done nothing but lose money from the day it opened for business.

Key causes:
There are lots of reasons for our blunders of belief: an insular church culture that naturally resists difference, a rigid theology steeped in fear that tends to mark out a hard line between those who are in and those who are out, or plain old-fashioned ego that insists on being right in matters of faith.

Key harm:
…our religion can become weaponized, and we can totally jack people up in the name of God and feel fully righteous in the process.

Key religious regulation:
We are witnessing the quiet, coordinated rise of Christian nationalism inside the U.S. government — and it’s not a theory anymore. It’s policy.

Key example:
The Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Doug Collins, recently sent out an agency-wide email under the subject line: “Task Force on Anti-Christian Bias.” It wasn’t about defending religious liberty. It was a loyalty test. Collins called on employees to report “policies, procedures, or unofficial understandings hostile to Christian views.”

Key original intent:
The United States is a secular nation. It was designed that way — on purpose. Our founders, deeply flawed though they were, knew what it meant to live under the boot of state religion. That’s why they built a Constitution that separates church and state.

PZ Myers finds a study of sorts that seems to indicate an economic relationship with personal morality. The more money folks have the more they tend toward sociopathy.

Key method:
Over the course of several weekends, Piff and his research team crouched behind bushes at the intersection of Interstate 80 and Lincoln Highway in Berkeley, California. When a vehicle passed, they would catalog it — “five” for a brand-new BMW, for instance; “one” for a beat-up Honda. Then the researchers would observe the behavior of the car’s driver.