The risks for President Trump from the assault on Iran are escalating as casualties mount, oil prices rise and the war expands across the region.
Six American service members were killed, and U.S. military jets were shot out of the sky. Investors are bracing for market turmoil, fearing prolonged disruption to oil supplies. President Trump says the military campaign against Iran could extend for weeks, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Monday that “the hardest hits are yet to come from the U.S. military.”
With his decision Friday to authorize war against Iran, Mr. Trump is taking the biggest gamble of his presidency, risking the lives of American troops, more deaths and instability in the world’s most volatile region, and his own political standing.
Mr. Trump, facing declining approval ratings and staring down the possibility that Republicans will lose control of Congress in the midterms, plunged the United States into what is shaping up to be its most expansive military conflict since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Realistically the general population endure so much misinformation, manipulation, lies and deceit that i find it hard to not blame the people who produce it for how their victims behave. They’ll tell you a narrative over decades about some bullshit to get you to say, vote Democrat, and don’t really care what else that disinformation campaign does to people. Bunch of vicious, selfish and cruel pieces of shit manipulating us like we’re just things.
That’s a fair evaluation, but it removes agency from the American populace.
From my time in the US, I got the impression the roots of the current oligarchic regime mostly lie in the cultural attitudes of the American population. It’s not like the US got invaded by an external force or it had to deal with extraordinary circumstances.
Just one example, is the superficial attitude to things like “freedom of speech” or “free markets”. IMO, that the real source of oligarchic/criminal power in the US.
It’s perfectly fair to debate the degree of responsibility individuals have. However, there is a limit to the effective resistance and wisdom each individual is capable of when constantly bombarded by propaganda all day every day. It sim your elementary schools, your media and entertainment, the news, the marketing campaigns or corporations, the politicians, even academics and science is used to propogate falsehoods and distortions. It is not reasonable in my view to expect an individual, especially in the education and science hostile red states, to be capable of navigating the labyrinth of propaganda and deceit to find truth. We are shaped and molded by our cultural environment from birth and just being capable of acknowledging your own culture is maybe bullshit is a significant feat.
We are not built to resist the intensity, frequency or repetition of the messages we are bombarded with. These campaign are also pouring billions into finding more sophisticated and effective ways to shape our beliefs and behaviors. We are, from beith, under siege from a relentless attempt to make us behave one ways that benefit others and not ourselves.
I don’t know how much is whose responsibility but the individual isn’t the one who is creating the situation that necessitates the question. So primarily it’s the fault of those manipulating that population for creating the situation in the first place. Their goal is control. The more effective they are at that, the more responsibility they have.