The US Soldiers Killed In This War Were Not Heroes, And Other Notes
The US soldiers who are getting killed in the war with Iran were not heroes. They did not die defending their country. They did not die fighting to protect Americans. They died advancing the geostrategic agendas of oligarchs and empire managers which benefit ordinary Americans in no way.
It’s important not to valorize these people for two reasons. Firstly, it assists US military recruitment by falsely portraying these imperial stormtrooper careers as noble and heroic. Secondly, it falsely frames the war they died in as a righteous cause which is making the world a better place, rather than as a war of aggression against a nation that posed literally zero threat to their homeland.
These are not harmless little white lies. They are extremely destructive propaganda narratives which facilitate acts of mass military slaughter on real human beings.
Don’t assist the warmongers in circulating these lies. Don’t pretend they are true to help people feel nice feelings about the dead soldiers. People should not be feeling nice feelings about the dead soldiers. People should be angry and upset, and they should be demanding that this horrific war end immediately.
Those soldiers did not die for any noble reason. They died for money, for power, and for Israel. They wasted their lives, and they died for stupid, unworthy reasons. Don’t let anyone claim otherwise.
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On February 28, President Trump told Axios that the war on Iran could end “in two or three days”.
On March 1, Trump released a video message saying the war would “take four weeks or less.”
On March 2, Trump said from the White House that the war is “projected four to five weeks”, adding the US military has the “capability to go far longer than that”.
On March 4, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth told the press, “you can say four weeks, but it could be six, it could be eight.”
On March 6, Politico reported that the Pentagon is planning for the war to run through September.
I wonder what they’ll be saying after September?
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The left’s resistance to the Iran war has been relatively muted and inadequate up to this point. One reason for this is because a lot of pro-regime change voices inserted themselves into the pro-Palestine movement and have been promoting their view for three years.
I used to follow a few pro-Palestine accounts on TikTok and Instagram who sound great when they’re talking about Gaza but suddenly transform into Lindsey Graham whenever they’re talking about Iran. I mean I’m exaggerating slightly — they dress it up in leftist-sounding language etc — but functionally their position hasn’t been much different from that of Marco Rubio. I don’t have time to get into a big flame war with minor internet personalities so I’m not going to call anyone out or cite specific examples, but the long and short of it is they wanted regime change and promoted the idea that we should all “center Iranian voices,” ie the voices of warmongering Iranian diaspora.
That’s been happening throughout the pro-Palestine movement, both online and off, and it’s put a wobble on people’s confidence when it comes to resisting Trump’s latest mass atrocity.
This idea that we need to defer to Iranian diaspora about the morality of this war is bat shit insane, and does not deserve to be taken seriously. Too many leftists have let warmongers of Iranian descent bully them into silence on this front, in exactly the same way they let western Jews bully them into silence about Palestine for decades. Their wholesome leftist sensibilities get exploited by cynical manipulators because they want to be receptive to what they perceive as a marginalized group, and it leads them to espouse the exact same foreign policy positions as the CIA and the US State Department.
This is stupid, and it needs to stop. Your instincts about the horrific nature of this war are correct. Anyone who told you not to oppose this is an asshole. Don’t let anyone shout you down and shut you up, regardless of where their family happens to come from. Shout right back at them. Tell them to shut up. You are right, and they are wrong. Get out there and start resisting this thing.
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I don’t understand people who fret about sending American boots on the ground in a war of aggression that’s already slaughtering hundreds of civilians every day. These people are like space aliens to me. I cannot for the life of me imagine what it would be like to inhabit a mind that sees bombing civilians as fine, and only becomes “fearful” of a horrific military conflict if it will kill a lot of soldiers from the same country as you.
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CNN has a write-up titled “One Tehran resident was hoping for war, but the death of a friend in a bombing raid ‘destroyed’ him”, which reports the following:
“A resident of Tehran who spoke with CNN on Friday said that he had been hoping for a war that would topple Iran’s ruling government, but the death of his friend in a bombing raid ‘destroyed’ him.
“‘I was waiting for war, I was begging for it,’ he told CNN. ‘I knew that there will be sadness and pain, but I didn’t expect to get involved so quick.’”
I’m sorry to be insensitive but what the fuck did pro-war Iranians think “please bomb our country” was asking for? What did they think that would look like in practice?
This is why you need to be dismissive of EVERYONE who supports this war. Even Iranian diaspora, and even Iranians in Iran. Nobody who wants the US and Israel to bomb the place where their family lives truly understands what it is they’re asking for.
They’re not interfacing with reality in their worldview; they’ve bought into the war propaganda and ingested a fantasy, just like all the shitbrained warmongering westerners. Nobody with a truth-based relationship with reality would ever ask for this.
Now they’ve got what they asked for, and they’re probably going to watch their country get bombed to rubble and then plunged into chaos and instability for the foreseeable future as the US and Israel try to create a gigantic Libya in west Asia.
Sometimes you need to tell people to shut the fuck up and stop demanding crazy acts of war, regardless of what country their family happens to be from.
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About time our military make a stand and say no more.
But like the politicians, this is where their checks come from.
How unfortunate.
Thank you for stating the truth. I feel exactly the same way. We would be murdered by Nazi 'murKKKans for this. The military is a VOLUNTEER organization. CLARITY: Members have agency: RESIGN. Members who CHOOSE to slaughter Iranians?They are terrorists.