Discussion
Trump says 'a whole civilization will die tonight' ahead of deadline for Iran
elzbardico: Chill down folks, not even Trump or Bibi would be crazy enough to use nukes./EDIT: I am being sarcastic here
10xDev: Israel is currently discussing a Hiroshima / Nagasaki model.
jghn: In a lot of ways I feel the discourse that he means a nuclear attack buries the lede. This is not likely to happen.What is more likely to happen is just as bad. Devastating civil infrastructure would put 10s of millions of lives at risk.And even if one were to look at this from a myopic USA centric lens, has anyone considered how many of these people we were told needed liberation are now radicalized against us?
CommanderData: Contaminating the region with radiation including Israels supply chain and exports wasn't something on my bingo cards.I guess Israel would just import everything from the US, and expect AIPAC to do it's job at increasing funding once it's own farming sector has been decimated.
twen_ty: This is what happens when there's no effective opposition. Where are the dems? Where's the press?
jghn: What are they supposed to do here, exactly?
jacquesm: Country wide strike would be a nice start.
sheikhnbake: That would require a level of class consciousness that has been violently suppressed for decades. Although maybe there's some hope based on continual record breaking no kings numbers
Barrin92: It's wrong to even frame this as a partisan question. When the leader of a democratic country threatens a nation of 90 million people with genocide, that should be the end of that government on that same day. Where is the entire US population? You hear nothing but crickets, what an utterly passive, terminally ill society.
srean: This is Israel's war and the American democrats have traditionally been very supportive. Last place to expect anything like what you are calling for.
baal80spam: Why is the post miquoted?It says: "A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again."Will. Not might.
sheikhnbake: The fatal flaw in our separation of powers is that even if congressional dems had a super majority, congress is powerless to enforce anything.And the press has been covering Trump's rhetoric and the war pretty heavily.
lebuffon: So the "checks and balances" we were taught in school was just nonsense?
kubb: How could it be that a political system which remained largely structurally unchanged since the freaking 18th century isn't equipped to deal with everything that has been going on in the world since then?It must be due to bad actors.
jfrororkforor: Yet another genocidal threat. Now Iran needs nukes. Congratulation on amazing diplomacy!
iwontberude: I take this seriously and it's made me sick. I can't get any work done when my stomach feels like its doing flips.
TimorousBestie: I’ve approved like a single PR today. It’s not great.
jacquesm: Another thread that got 'buried':https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47674286
sheikhnbake: Protests have been steadily breaking records each time they occur. Protests have been occurring across the country since he took office. This has all been widely publicized
jghn: One side controls all branches of the federal government and by and large it controls the media as well.So how do you propose this strike happen?
egeozcan: From where I'm looking, any kind of resistance is becomes a target to divert the guilt from any failure.
jacquesm: No, this is now America's war. Israel has a part in it but the US is the main belligerent at this point and if Trump follows through on his threats he all but guarantees the downfall of the United States. This has gone way too far already and since the internal checks and balances of the United States appear not to be working it will be up to the rest of the world to draw a line. We can not afford to let this spiral into another world war, especially not with multiple nuclear powers involved.Think of it this way: Iran is isolated on the world stage. But turn it into a significant enough victim and there will be two major religions on either side of a war. That's a recipe for something that could potentially make WWII look 'mild'. I know there are people that actually want this, but let's at least see clearly here: nobody, and I mean absolutely nobody will benefit from that. Even the ones who think they will benefit. Democrats that are supportive of this are hopefully a small enough minority that sanity will prevail.Think avalanche: you can start one, but you can't stop one. Avalanches stop themselves, but only when all potential energy is expended.
pipo234: The technical term seems to be: entrapment. The war could have ended after the first few "successful" days.And still every day it continues, it becomes a little bit harder to back out. Like Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan this war cannot be won.
dylan604: The best example I've seen of things working correctly was with South Korea removing the leader that declared martial law. The South Koreans said nope to that, and removed the head of their government. They just had the moral fortitude to do it.
hedayet: I'd also ask what can we regular Joes and Janes do to avoid this disaster?I can't think of anything other than going out and standing on a street with a placard. can we do anything better than that?
nathanaldensr: The question isn't what must be done; look to the very founding of the United States for wisdom on that topic. The only question is, do people have the collective courage to do it?
msabalau: Where are you?What precisely are you doing other than posting stuff that pretends that a party in minority in both houses of Congress could actually stop a president, unless some politicians in the majority chose to join them.And, as underwhelming as the press are, the facts are that surveys show that American's broadly disapprove of the war. Presumably because of what they have learned about it from the press and the opposition.The people who are responsible are the people in power and their remaining supporters. Aided, arguably, by people who espouse cynical, self-soothing complaints that ignore what most people learn about civics in middle school.
nathanaldensr: The US government hasn't been in control of the People for decades and decades. Maybe even longer than that. It doesn't matter what "parties" have been in control. We all know why this war is happening, who benefits, who's lobbying for it, who they bought off, and who Trump answers to. We all know, but people are afraid to say it because they stand to lose once they're targeted for saying it. Voting hasn't stopped it. Party control of Congress hasn't stopped it. Presidents haven't stopped it. It's happening and this was the plan all along from both parties.
ChrisArchitect: [dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47674286
dylan604: > the internal checks and balances of the United States appear not to be workingThere is one last test, but it's not until November. Until then, Trump is on a speed run to destroy everything he can
jacquesm: You need to get to November first.
dylan604: Hence the speed running part of the comment
srean: I agree.What I mean by Israel's war is that the motivation was Israel's, they got Americans to be their grunts.I don't see this de-escalating soon unless Europe shows more teeth.It's pretty much nightmare fuel out there.
jacquesm: > I don't see this de-escalating soon unless Europe shows more teeth.Can you describe what you have in mind?
srean: Unless Trump perceives a new unexpected threat I don't see him backing down. Russian and Chinese opposition has been accounted for.Europe's more belligerent opposition as opposed toothless diplomatic speeches may give them a reason to pause. Say, cancellations of major contracts where the primary beneficiary would have been the US.Don't know whether it will happen, but am happy to see some European countries to take a stand and back their stand with more than words.
jacquesm: Europe has one 'weapon' they can use but they can use it just once: dump the bonds. The problem with that is that you need a reason big enough that by the time you're going to do it it will likely be too late to be effective and as a punitive measure it makes little sense, it's just one step short of a declaration of war. If Trump goes ahead with this madness then tomorrow morning the world economy will be in shambles, no matter what. Note that we got here ostensibly to 'free the Iranian people', apparently they need to be murdered to make them free. It's grotesque.
srean: There's the 25th too but I dont think anyone with access to that option has the spine.
akagusu: Corporations run the US government. Elected officials are just proxies.
srean: They made me incredibly proud that day !
Mr_Eri_Atlov: The world will be engulfed in nuclear hellfire, and Hacker News mods will be flagging final sign-off posts as too political.
comrade1234: The markets dropped. He and his cronies are buying up stocks. Tomorrow he'll say Iran is negotiating and offering something amazing. The stocks will go up and they'll sell. Iran will say they have no idea what he's talking about. Wash and repeat.
hedayet: As anticipated - this post got flagged.An existential crisis as big as this can't be discussed on HN?
srean: If many people 'vouch' for it, it will get unflagged.
nkurz: Unfortunately that's not the way it works. If it's [flagged] [dead] because of user flagging, some users can vouch for it to revive it.But if it's merely [flagged] (with associated penalties keeping it off the front pages) there is no option for vouching to remove the penalty.This one is currently [flagged] with no option for vouching.
