The Flog of War
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth dropped a few bunker busters on the media today as he blamed outlets for questioning the outcome of the Iran strikes (the media didn’t, a leaked Pentagon assessment did), but he never actually provided any evidence that the Iranian nuclear program (which was obviously damaged by endless bombing, US bunker busters, and the killing of hundreds of scientists working on the program) was obliterated. Pentagon chief: Iran strike was a ‘historically successful attack.’ Trump and Hegseth are trying to turn legitimate questions about the nuclear program we all hope was destroyed into attacks on the military. As Trump said, “They tried to demean the great work our B-2 pilots did.” It’s time to stop pretending anyone criticized the military. We love the fliers. We hate the liars.
+ NYT (Gift Article): Iran’s Khamenei Strikes Defiant Tone in First Public Comments Since U.S. Attack. “The United States joined the war because Israel would have been ‘completely destroyed’ if it did not, he said. ‘But it did not gain anything, he said, adding that Iran ‘gave America a severe slap.'” (Can you imagine living under the rule of a leader who lies so obviously and unashamedly?)
+ “In the summer of 2018, Iran was experiencing a drought. This is not an uncommon occurrence in the Middle East and would not have made international news if not for the response of a regime functionary, who blamed the weather on Israel. ‘The changing climate in Iran is suspect,’ Brigadier General Gholam Reza Jalali said at a press conference. ‘Israel and another country in the region have joint teams which work to ensure clouds entering Iranian skies are unable to release rain.’ He went on to accuse the Jewish state of ‘cloud and snow theft.’ This story seems like a silly bit of trivia until one realizes that Jalali was also the head of Iran’s Civil Defense Organization, tasked with combating sabotage. In other words, a key person in charge of thwarting Israeli spies in Iran was an incompetent conspiracy theorist obsessed with Jewish climate control.” Yair Rosenberg in The Atlantic (Gift Article): What America Can Learn From Iran’s Failure.
