During Trump 1.0 - the AP had a headline that was something like “Could anyone stop Trump from starting a nuclear war? The answer: no.” I’m sure they wrote “Trump” instead of “President Trump” to keep the headline short but it made things even more surreal. In the weeks that followed dems like Pelosi made one bald-faced lie after another about “safeguards”. There were and there still are no such things.
If Trump wants to start a nuclear war - he’ll call the nuclear football guy over and then they’ll do their song-and-dance routine that will take a few minutes. That’s it. No one can do a fucking thing to stop him and once the missiles are airborne - they can’t be recalled or stopped. And - of course - nobody in the chain of command is ever going to disobey a direct order from the president.
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Ninja edit
The actual headline is even more conversional than I remembered. Somebody had some fun with it. Ack.
If Trump starts a horrific nuclear war - I’m certain he’ll post about it before the missiles start flying. He won’t be able to resist bragging. He’ll post something like “I am ending Iran for good,” or something.
Pretty much yeah, nobody is going to lift a finger. At this point a military coup is starting to look like one of the better options for the burger reich.
I seriously wonder what it would take. I’m always willing to make a wild guess if I have at least a tiny hunch. But for at least a partially realistic scenario - this time I’m coming up with nada.
I don’t think it’s a likely scenario at the moment either, but if things keep deteriorating then who knows. Maybe starting a nuclear holocaust will be the red line for the military.
I don’t know any American military people now and I’ve never had more than a passing acquaintanceship with anybody in the military. I have no idea or vibe at all what anybody from enlisted people to the generals think of Trump. But Trump is the president and “orders are orders” and I wonder how percentage of the troops are insanely devoted chuds at all levels. People have a bizarre cult-like level of devotion to him. I’ll never understand that. Plus the GOP is Trump’s party and it’s under his thumb.
Ninja edit. I thought I had almost had a simpler scenario. I sautéed some vegetables and while I was cooking them and then as I was eating them in front of my screen I kept waiting for inspiration to find the job. But that didn’t happen.
All I’ve got is something not likely that happens over many months. Trump starts something insane plus not only does he show the injured and dead no respect - he literally does stuff like laugh at them over and over. He could start a ground war that clearly is a meat grinder for troops from the first few hours. This goes on and on for weeks then months. Trump says it’s their duty to die for him. Maybe by next year a coup is an actual possibility.
Given that dollar store templar just fires 8 high ranking generals, I’m guessing the mood in the military is pretty sour. It’s harder to say what the feelings are like at grunt level. I do recall reading how there is a lot of disillusionment after all the forever wars though. And yeah if there’s another Vietnam style meat grinder, that certainly could lead to that sort of an outcome. Incidentally, it turns out that one of the reasons they had to pull out of Vietnam was because the military was getting close to the point of mutiny. A fun thread about it https://web.archive.org/web/20210905142700/https://twitter.com/mmabeuf/status/1322790035935141891
I thought I knew about fragging but the reality is I had no idea it was that bad. The “U.S. Forces in Vietnam” section of the Wikipedia page for fragging has some stuff that’s sobering and/or unintentionally funny.
In the Vietnam War, the threat of fragging caused many officers and NCOs to go armed in rear areas and to change their sleeping arrangements as fragging often consisted of throwing a grenade into a tent where the target was sleeping.
During the Iraq War the American military masterfully controlled the narrative. Concepts like “embedded” became part of pop culture. Very few corpses ever made it on the news. It was an antiseptic war. It was war as a video game. I’m not in the mood to read it now but I’ll definitely read the “The Collapse of the Armed Forces” later. It didn’t occur to me that a full scale invasion of Iran could be like the Vietnam War on steroids.
In other words - due to our digital war - losses, setbacks, fuck-ups are going to known very quickly to the public and to the troops themselves. If there’s such a war - the mood of the public and the troops could sour extremely fast. Footage of captured American troops could be shown on the internet by the end of the day. Iranian footage of an overrun American position indicating a massively humiliating loss will be too.
Trump and Hegseth will actually believe they can create an Iraq War 2.0. That’s not possible for myriad reasons. Plus - of course - they’re foolish, stupid, and delusional. Everything they do will make things even worse.
During Trump 1.0 - the AP had a headline that was something like “Could anyone stop Trump from starting a nuclear war? The answer: no.” I’m sure they wrote “Trump” instead of “President Trump” to keep the headline short but it made things even more surreal. In the weeks that followed dems like Pelosi made one bald-faced lie after another about “safeguards”. There were and there still are no such things.
If Trump wants to start a nuclear war - he’ll call the nuclear football guy over and then they’ll do their song-and-dance routine that will take a few minutes. That’s it. No one can do a fucking thing to stop him and once the missiles are airborne - they can’t be recalled or stopped. And - of course - nobody in the chain of command is ever going to disobey a direct order from the president.
-–
Ninja edit
The actual headline is even more conversional than I remembered. Somebody had some fun with it. Ack.
If Trump starts a horrific nuclear war - I’m certain he’ll post about it before the missiles start flying. He won’t be able to resist bragging. He’ll post something like “I am ending Iran for good,” or something.
Pretty much yeah, nobody is going to lift a finger. At this point a military coup is starting to look like one of the better options for the burger reich.
I seriously wonder what it would take. I’m always willing to make a wild guess if I have at least a tiny hunch. But for at least a partially realistic scenario - this time I’m coming up with nada.
I don’t think it’s a likely scenario at the moment either, but if things keep deteriorating then who knows. Maybe starting a nuclear holocaust will be the red line for the military.
I don’t know any American military people now and I’ve never had more than a passing acquaintanceship with anybody in the military. I have no idea or vibe at all what anybody from enlisted people to the generals think of Trump. But Trump is the president and “orders are orders” and I wonder how percentage of the troops are insanely devoted chuds at all levels. People have a bizarre cult-like level of devotion to him. I’ll never understand that. Plus the GOP is Trump’s party and it’s under his thumb.
Ninja edit. I thought I had almost had a simpler scenario. I sautéed some vegetables and while I was cooking them and then as I was eating them in front of my screen I kept waiting for inspiration to find the job. But that didn’t happen.
All I’ve got is something not likely that happens over many months. Trump starts something insane plus not only does he show the injured and dead no respect - he literally does stuff like laugh at them over and over. He could start a ground war that clearly is a meat grinder for troops from the first few hours. This goes on and on for weeks then months. Trump says it’s their duty to die for him. Maybe by next year a coup is an actual possibility.
Given that dollar store templar just fires 8 high ranking generals, I’m guessing the mood in the military is pretty sour. It’s harder to say what the feelings are like at grunt level. I do recall reading how there is a lot of disillusionment after all the forever wars though. And yeah if there’s another Vietnam style meat grinder, that certainly could lead to that sort of an outcome. Incidentally, it turns out that one of the reasons they had to pull out of Vietnam was because the military was getting close to the point of mutiny. A fun thread about it https://web.archive.org/web/20210905142700/https://twitter.com/mmabeuf/status/1322790035935141891
and a bit more info here https://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/Vietnam/heinl.html
Every day I discover a new way our timeline could have gone so much better
I thought I knew about fragging but the reality is I had no idea it was that bad. The “U.S. Forces in Vietnam” section of the Wikipedia page for fragging has some stuff that’s sobering and/or unintentionally funny.
if there’s a full scale invasion of Iran, that could definitely create similar conditions
During the Iraq War the American military masterfully controlled the narrative. Concepts like “embedded” became part of pop culture. Very few corpses ever made it on the news. It was an antiseptic war. It was war as a video game. I’m not in the mood to read it now but I’ll definitely read the “The Collapse of the Armed Forces” later. It didn’t occur to me that a full scale invasion of Iran could be like the Vietnam War on steroids.
In other words - due to our digital war - losses, setbacks, fuck-ups are going to known very quickly to the public and to the troops themselves. If there’s such a war - the mood of the public and the troops could sour extremely fast. Footage of captured American troops could be shown on the internet by the end of the day. Iranian footage of an overrun American position indicating a massively humiliating loss will be too.
Trump and Hegseth will actually believe they can create an Iraq War 2.0. That’s not possible for myriad reasons. Plus - of course - they’re foolish, stupid, and delusional. Everything they do will make things even worse.