As things stand now, the U.S. (despite being 2-0) is still not guaranteed to make it out of pool play. Critical support to Italy and uncritical support to Mexico, who could deeply embarrass the U.S. here.
I think the problem was much larger: she was threatening much of the Essosi economy by freeing slaves. Old Ghis wasn't touched by her army and she was ultimately headed west, but they still sent troops to Mereen and that other city she freed. Although it almost certainly wasn't intended this way, there are shades of the imperialist countries invading the Soviet Union after the October Revolution.
Didn't watch the show, but the books sound like they have a much better take on this storyline. The slaves do in fact enjoy being freed, and the problems are essentially the result of not planning for reaction from the nearby slave cities.
If a variety of people with various degrees of leftist credibility all raise a similar idea, it at least shouldn't be dismissed out of hand.
How easy is it to fool someone who's 17 or 18?
"I was propagandized" is not an absolution from all personal responsibility, but when the vast majority of entertainment and cultural/political/religious leaders in the U.S. tell people joining the military is fine (or even noble), that carries some weight.
Education is a huge part of building a political movement, and education implies your audience doesn't have all the right answers to start.
It's really hard to think of revolutionary movements that did not have a lot of help from people who once worked for the enemy. Maybe Cuba?
It's really easy to think of examples of revolutionary movements that took revolutionary stances on how they treated even potential enemy turncoats. Mao: "Our policy towards prisoners captured from the Japanese, puppet or anti-Communist troops is to set them all free, except for those who have incurred the bitter hatred of the masses and must receive capital punishment and whose death sentence has been approved by the higher authorities."
There's a contradiction between identifying structural problems and attributing them to the capitalist class, but also insisting on harsh treatment of low-level individual servants of the capitalist class.
There's a contradiction between leftist views on criminal justice generally and an insistence on harsh treatment of those same low-level servants of capitalism.
Telling a bunch of guys with guns that they deserve to die and there's nothing they can do to change that will get them to continue to fight. The way to get them to quit is to tell them there's a way they can go home.
The gap between the harshest rhetoric and actually trying to build a real-world movement reminds me of this line from Parenti: "They do not explain how the manifold functions of a revolutionary society would be organized, how external attack and internal sabotage would be thwarted, how bureaucracy would be avoided, scarce resources allocated, policy differences settled, priorities set, and production and distribution conducted."
I "get" the genocide denial in that I understand the vast, decades-long propaganda effort that led to it.
But claiming Pahlavi was somehow chosen by Iranians? What? Monarchs don't devise their claim from popular support, the last time his family was in control the populace revolted... even if you're in the camp that the legitimate government must be overthrown, it's a head scratcher.
I don't think any missile defense system is 100% effective, and I haven't seen any reporting on if these were destroyed by the types of missiles they are designed to intercept, or by drones or some other means.
Not too confident, but from what I've read, the THAAD system is on the more advanced side of a web of missile defense systems (another defense option being Patriot missiles). Looks like it offers better defense against short- to intermediate-range ballistic missiles specifically. I think other, less advanced interceptors can still challenge those types of missiles, but probably at a lower success rate. So the effect may be making it easier for Iranian missiles to get through, but it's not a complete destruction of any U.S. ability to intercept.
It may have second-order effects if the U.S. planned on these systems lasting indefinitely: maybe they stocked up on THAAD missiles they can no longer launch, and have comparatively smaller stockpiles of other interceptors like Patriot missiles. Maybe those less-effective missiles will be spent more quickly if they successfully intercept less often, but I'm really guessing at this point.
A THAAD battery consists of 90 soldiers, six truck-mounted launchers and 48 interceptors – eight per launcher – one TPY-2 radar, as well as a tactical fire control and communication unit.
Really makes me question the total of 6 U.S. deaths reported so far.
Any path to a meaningfully better future is going to involve a radical change in U.S. politics unlike anything we've seen in the country's history. If we're entertaining changes as massive as Balkanization or something like the Carnation Revolution, we're talking about politics so far from today that you have to admit we have no idea what form they'll take.
For minor personal computing, "eh it partially works OK" is extremely annoying, but maybe worth it if it's dirt cheap. For anything more complex or important, that level of unreliability is an enormous net negative no matter how low the cost.
Reminds me of what I say when people ask if I believe in conspiracy theories: are you talking about psychic lizards in the Hollow Earth, or stuff the CIA straight-up admitted?
Iran might have hypersonics? Trying to remember the news I've seen in the past few years, and of course the secrecy makes the magin of error huge.
If they do, I can see a few reasons for not using them already:
Maybe they don't have a bunch, and think they can fight off the U.S. without using them. And if they use them all and the U.S. keeps at it, that's not good.
Maybe they are less "guaranteed" and more "high success," and the odds of success improve if you deplete a bunch of anti-missle defenses first.
Iran is fighting two nuclear-armed countries that have very recently shown they don't care about civilian deaths at all. Trading Tehran for an aircraft carrier is not something Iran wants to do.
"Man, imagine if we fought for 20 years and the Taliban came in to replace the Taliban!"
I think the real reveal here is that the worst scenario they can imagine isn't that bad for the empire. It's inconceivable to them that a carrier goes down and the bubble of U.S. invulnerability pops. It's inconceivable to them that Iran fights off the U.S. and decides it's time to build nukes. It's inconceivable to them that there's some real paradigm shift with Israel, Saudi Arabia, or Europe. It's inconceivable that Iran gets a couple of guys with ARs in front of the right substations and takes down a chunk of the U.S. electrical grid.
As things stand now, the U.S. (despite being 2-0) is still not guaranteed to make it out of pool play. Critical support to Italy and uncritical support to Mexico, who could deeply embarrass the U.S. here.