A whole civilization might die tonight
nbcnews.com104 points by hedayet 3 hours ago
104 points by hedayet 3 hours ago
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?
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.
Response from Iran: "Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) says it will respond outside the region and deprive the United States and its allies of oil and gas “for many years” if the US crosses “red lines” and attacks civilian facilities."[1]
"Iran has closed all diplomatic and indirect channels of communication with the United States, the state-run Tehran Times reported ..." US media does not seem to have picked up on this, but media in India and China have.[2] But the common source seems to be "Tehran Times", and it's unclear who runs that or where they get their info. New York Times, AP, and AlJazeera are not saying that. Xinhua has a one-line note with no source. The US White House says Vance is talking to somebody. Politico says Vance is on "standby".[3]
A negotiated cease-fire seems unlikely now.
[1] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2026/4/7/iran-war-li...
[2] https://www.the-independent.com/bulletin/news/iran-mediators...
[3] https://www.politico.com/news/2026/04/06/vance-is-on-standby...
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.
As depressing as it sounds, this seems to pretty much sum up the objective of the 2nd Trump admin.
As anticipated - this post got flagged.
An existential crisis as big as this can't be discussed on HN?
If many people 'vouch' for it, it will get unflagged.
If you 'vouch' or 'flag' things the mods don't approve of, it gets disabled on your account.
Confirmed in private conversation with dang [1], he restored it after I promised to behave, and now it stopped working again as I didn't properly toe the line.
Quite hypocritical to give power to the user with the tacit expectation that you share the same opinions and political bent as the moderation team.
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1: quote: "I'm afraid we took vouching privileges away from your account because you vouched for too many comments that were unsubstantive and/or flamebait and/or otherwise broke the site guidelines"
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.
This is what happens when there's no effective opposition. Where are the dems? Where's the press?
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.
Are you trying to say that the majority of dems don't support this war? Cause they do.
Also are you going to ignore the propaganda pushed by the press leading up to the initial attack? Or that they are still breathlessly parroting propaganda and self censoring right now?
The entire ruling class is responsible for this. The military carrying it out is responsible for it. Anyone in positions of power that have done nothing to stop this but post some strongly worded tweets is responsible.
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.
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?
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?
What's truly shocking is that a large part of what got Trump elected in 2024 (and the world in this mess now) was that the GOP cleverly stoked the fears of transgenderism via local-market ad buys during the election. This very play was the reason for much of Trump's gains with various demo's such as black males and hispanics/latinos. So many of these folks were completely triggered by 'grooming' and the ideas that girls are having to compete against transgender girls in their sports. The fact that folks were willing to elect Trump so that a very small number of women wouldn't have to compete against transgenders, is sad beyond words. Perhaps this (will turn into) a lesson well learned, although voters have notoriously short memories. Sophistication of this type among the masses is sorely lacking.
The ruling class has us just where they want us -- so focused on & fearful of losing our little jobs that we don't have context around much else so that we can do a thoughtful job of performing as an electorate. This is how you elect a Donald Trump, as THEY have now learned.
What are they supposed to do here, exactly?
Country wide strike would be a nice start.
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
Managed opposition requires qualitatively different resources than a general strike.
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.
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.
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.
> I don't see this de-escalating soon unless Europe shows more teeth.
Can you describe what you have in mind?
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.
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.