The key nuclear allegation that started the war was coaxed from a Palantir counter-intelligence algorithm
Trump sided with the Israelis, asserting that Iran was ‘very close’ to having a bomb, and added that he didn’t care what Gabbard thinks. The IAEA Board’s ‘Non-Compliance’ Resolution on 12 June 2025 was the planned precursor for Israel’s ‘bolt from the blue...
Palantir founders: Peter Thiel, Alex Karp, Joe Lonsdale, Stephen Cohen, Nathan Gettings.
Infer what you will without any AI magic.
Marco Rubio's argument with the MSM on this was far more informative.
To be honest, it looks like Iran is in the weakest position it's ever been in, so the lowest possible cost option to strike Iran's nuclear program without significant blow-back presented itself and the admin took it.
A couple days ago I said, very explicitly, that if enriched uranium was in the facility and detonated, we'd see fallout. There's been no fallout. As such, it seems that we have our biggest intel failure of the war, and that the facility was evacuated prior to the strike.
The administration isn't concerned how soon the Iranians could get a bomb, just that they have the capacity to make one at all. So, the Trump admin attacked because this was basically the first time in about 2 decades where that seems to have been a real option without severe blowback from the rest of the Arab world.
it reminds me of one of my favorite turn-based strategy games: Imperialism.
The thing about this game that makes it stand out is how extremely aggressive the AI is. "Weakness Invites Attack" is basically the mantra of this game. Weak players that can't defend themselves get attacked by anyone near them that has strength and sees a resource acquisition possible, even if that could provoke a larger war with other Great Powers. If a Great Power starts to lose the war badly enough, every other Great Power in the game will declare war. Your inability to defend your resources creates a positive feedback loop where weakness invites attack, causing an invasion, which causes weakness, which causes an attack, which causes weakness, which causes an attack. The game's mechanics basically make world wars impossible to avoid because it's a kind of Geo-Political Darwinism simulator.
Trump's actions remind me of this: weakness invites attack. The US has pre-set objectives for Iran, and since Iran has been mostly abandoned, not only by it's neighbors, but even by many of it's own proxies, they are in the weakest possible state where some of these objectives could be achieved militarily without significant cost. So fuck it, we'll do it live. In Imperialism, this is a real cost you have to consider. You must expand to win. You will win with intimidation as well. If someone can't defend their coal mines, or god for bid, their oil mines, then you must take it or someone else will once they notice, even if it hurts you diplomatically.
I think the funniest thing about this is from the reactionary philosophical perspective. Lots of people on the right, and many on this forum, will claim to be reactionaries and illiberals. But, this is what illiberal politics looked like! This is American Imperial Hegemony asserting itself. A true, anti-Liberal from the 19th century would have looked at this situation and said: "As a stronger civilization, we have a moral imperative to dominate weak and disorderly civilizations, and bring our order to them. With our invasion, we will glorify our civilization, and bring order to savagery. We were blessed by God with our strength and we will now use it to secure both His and our glory."
Now, I get the complaint against that. I'm effectively a dirty lolbert so this is antithetical to my position. But no one ever said Trump was a Libertarian. Trump is acting like a 19th century president with this. The geo-politics here isn't just Realism, but nearly Darwinist. I'm just surprised the reactionaries aren't seeing this.
That's not how that works, it's not a movie where you kill the super smart scientist and be done with it, this shit spreads. Are you implying the only way going forward is bombing Iran's infraestructure every other year or so or... More "nation building"?
Yes, it is how it works. It takes a decade or more of extreme effort to make an atomic weapon. You need LOTS of "parts" like scientists, technicians, infrastructure & materials. Losing one "piece" can set the program back by years.
Every step of the process is VERY obvious to outside observers. You cannot build structures housing thousands of centrifuges & keep them hidden. You cannot build a breeder reactor in secret, they kind of stand out, eh?
But also yes! If Iran went right back to it? They could reach this point again in just a few years & "reminding them" with MOABs may be required.
Is that point "weeks away" or months or years? Doesn't matter, they could get back a lot faster than getting there took because, like you say, we cannot destroy EVERYTHING required: just the hardest to get parts.
Imperialism! (1997) I played that back in the day 😃
You are correct, the Ai was hyper-aggressive. It's free to play online, but IDK if any of its flaws were ever fixed. Not "bugs" per-se, but mechanics that were just... wonky at times. Annoying.
No we wouldn't. This isn't an atomic bomb exploding in the air. This is uranium stored deep underground having it's containers blown up. It's isn't like TNT! The uranium won't "blow up" like a boxcar full of TNT will if you drop a bomb on it. It isn't THAT radioactive, and would raise background radiation so slightly it would be tough to detect. You'd see some increase in BGR IF there was a team THERE at the site, which there is NOT.
When an A-bomb goes off? The reason it goes "boom" is because a chain reaction inside it makes lots of really nasty atoms & isotopes which releases a LOT of energy all at once. After the first second or so? The chain reaction stops. The "fallout" is from those nasty things (like Strontium 90 for example) & isotopes continuing to breakdown into various radioactive or non-radioactive atoms.
SO: no "fallout" from this attack. It's isn't an atomic bomb, it's just uranium.
There's not much point in cheering on illiberalism when it's only used in service to your enemies.
Except your an illiberal, and you support Illiberaism, so you pretending not to support it is an obvious fraud.
That's dumb. I have no obligation to support policies against my interests. My interests are the basis for my positions in the first place.
Also, you yourself support illiberalism. You will continue to support Trump despite openly acknowledging his illiberalism here. You will also continue to use liberal against me.
It's not dumb, it's what you are, you're just not honest about it.
It is dumb. Being illiberal doesn't mean just doing the opposite of what a liberal would do. It means being unconstrained by liberalism.
Illiberals would almost never do anything any liberal would do, because liberals do things explicitly as a result of their ideology. Illiberals work off of an entirely separate philosophy that never even acknowledges the core tenets of Liberalism.
It would be no different from an illiberal saying that something needed to be done for "equality" among people. No. No illiberal would ever tolerate such an excuse. No groups are equal, and each group should be treated differently in all cases.
Illiberal isn't an ideology. It describes ideologies that are not liberal.