US Attacks Iran 2026

[temporal1]

P.2:

I am against the attack.
No one asked me before they launched. Not sure why. ..

No one asks me, either.
i pray for the least misery and best outcomes for all.

[temporal1]

More trouble at CBS, this time over Iran reporting.

Daily Mail UK / CBS boss 'OUTRAGED' by clip showing Texas TV reporter being told not to cover jubilant Iranian protests
after Trump had Ayatollah killed
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/media/artic ... weiss.html

CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss is 'fuming' over a viral video that appears to show a CBS Austin reporter being instructed to downplay coverage of a pro-Israel-US protest then occurring behind him, it is claimed.

Weiss, 41, saw the footage and wants a network-wide crackdown as a result, a well-placed source told the Daily Mail.

CBS affiliates will not be exempt from the effort, the insider said Monday, speaking on condition of anonymity. .. ..

The news clip is in the article.

[Justfiguringitout]

I am still mostly reading and not replying so much. But I follow all this with great interest, especially the discussion about serving your country by being willing to die for it, but preferably letting your enemy die for theirs.
This part is the part I have been unable to resolve.

All the same, a friend of my son's is now in the USA army. And I was thinking about WWII. To think that he should come over to Europe and die so I could be free, feels rather horrible. I'd rather die myself.

[Valerie]

I am still mostly reading and not replying so much. But I follow all this with great interest, especially the discussion about serving your country by being willing to die for it, but preferably letting your enemy die for theirs.
This part is the part I have been unable to resolve.

All the same, a friend of my son's is now in the USA army. And I was thinking about WWII. To think that he should come over to Europe and die so I could be free, feels rather horrible. I'd rather die myself.

We are all here in America maybe wrongly? It’s hard for me to undo decades of what I was taught about our military being why we live in a free country by way of fighting for it or defending it- every nation (or almost all) has to have a military while we are still under the curse (so to speak).
Perhaps since I was little I was taught to appreciate that we are “the land of the free because of the brave” otherwise we might live under leaders like communist countries (which was a real threat to all the world).
Those that serve the country do so with the understanding that it could cost their life but we all enjoy our freedom in America, even fled to it for safety (our ancestors) and yet we criticize those willing to lose their life to protect our freedom.
Jesus said we would always have wars, not that we want them of course! But it seems unavoidable on this side.

[JohnH]

I am still mostly reading and not replying so much. But I follow all this with great interest, especially the discussion about serving your country by being willing to die for it, but preferably letting your enemy die for theirs.

This part is the part I have been unable to resolve.

The mythos surrounding "die for your country" is a relatively new invention, particularly amongst European peoples; people used to be basically be loyal to their own family and their town / perhaps their language dialect group, but not much beyond that (and there used to be far, far more dialects). Napoleon was the first to figure out how to create a "national identity" at the empire level and recruit commoners to fight in his army. Before that, soldiers were generally professional soldiers and were often even mercenaries. (One could argue the U.S. Revolutionary War was a preview of this, but America had been disproportionately settled by people who had fought on the British's side in earlier wars; the fact they could so easily switch sides shows that there was very little desire to "fight for one's country" back then.)

By the era of World War II, the idea of an existential threat that one must need enlist for to fight was deeply embedded in both the Axis and Allied sides of the conflict. There was a draft, but there wasn't much need for one - my one grandfather tried to enlist three times (he was denied each time since he had an essential coal mining related job). Japan also had a rather extreme level of portraying the nation, military, emperor, people as almost one, and it wasn't even a question that every Japanese person was willing to die and fight for this.

Ultimately, the old European system of small professional armies mostly composed of mercenaries, knights, and so forth going and having battlefield skirmishes is far more civilised than the system of mass bloodshed we have today. Wars were also considered far less virtuous back then than they are now.

All the same, a friend of my son's is now in the USA army. And I was thinking about WWII. To think that he should come over to Europe and die so I could be free, feels rather horrible. I'd rather die myself.

That is interesting. My other grandpa was involved in WWII in the 101st Airborne on D-Day, and ended up seeing significant combat action. He had to stay in Europe an extra few months in a Dutch hospital. However, I would have to say that from an American / Australian perspective, it is hard to feel anything other than a great sense of pride about that.

[Wesleyb]

I found this interesting:

How is this legal?? Someone just made a fortune betting on the exact date the U.S. would bomb Iran, placing their wagers hours before the first missiles hit Tehran, on a platform where Donald Trump Jr. sits on the advisory board. . . .'

What I wonder is why anyone would risk money betting in a system like this knowing it is rigged? The only way the corrupt guys keep making money is if suckers keep throwing it at them. It is voluntary unlike our taxes which they take by force and use for personal enrichment.

[JohnH]

What I wonder is why anyone would risk money betting in a system like this knowing it is rigged? The only way the corrupt guys keep making money is if suckers keep throwing it at them. It is voluntary unlike our taxes which they take by force and use for personal enrichment.

I've often wondered the same thing. Kalshi welshed on their bets for a prediction market of "Khamenei out by the end of February" (and another one for end of March). They just unilaterally decided that him dying meant they could get out of paying out the winning side, as if "Khamenei out" was going to resolve some other way.

[Justfiguringitout]

I am still mostly reading and not replying so much. But I follow all this with great interest, especially the discussion about serving your country by being willing to die for it, but preferably letting your enemy die for theirs.

This part is the part I have been unable to resolve.

The mythos surrounding "die for your country" is a relatively new invention, particularly amongst European peoples; people used to be basically be loyal to their own family and their town / perhaps their language dialect group, but not much beyond that (and there used to be far, far more dialects). Napoleon was the first to figure out how to create a "national identity" at the empire level and recruit commoners to fight in his army. Before that, soldiers were generally professional soldiers and were often even mercenaries. (One could argue the U.S. Revolutionary War was a preview of this, but America had been disproportionately settled by people who had fought on the British's side in earlier wars; the fact they could so easily switch sides shows that there was very little desire to "fight for one's country" back then.)

By the era of World War II, the idea of an existential threat that one must need enlist for to fight was deeply embedded in both the Axis and Allied sides of the conflict. There was a draft, but there wasn't much need for one - my one grandfather tried to enlist three times (he was denied each time since he had an essential coal mining related job). Japan also had a rather extreme level of portraying the nation, military, emperor, people as almost one, and it wasn't even a question that every Japanese person was willing to die and fight for this.

Ultimately, the old European system of small professional armies mostly composed of mercenaries, knights, and so forth going and having battlefield skirmishes is far more civilised than the system of mass bloodshed we have today. Wars were also considered far less virtuous back then than they are now.

All the same, a friend of my son's is now in the USA army. And I was thinking about WWII. To think that he should come over to Europe and die so I could be free, feels rather horrible. I'd rather die myself.

That is interesting. My other grandpa was involved in WWII in the 101st Airborne on D-Day, and ended up seeing significant combat action. He had to stay in Europe an extra few months in a Dutch hospital. However, I would have to say that from an American / Australian perspective, it is hard to feel anything other than a great sense of pride about that.

That's very interesting. Thanks for this overview. I never thought about it much how this whole thing came about.

Well, I am grateful that I live in a free country. By extension I am grateful to those who made it happen. But last summer we went to a military graveyard, and there were so very many young men buried, that it made me feel so uncomfortable! Young men, with a whole life ahead of them, could have had families. The whole generational line snuffed out, in a conflict that wasn't even their own.

And now their talking all over Europe about reinstating conscription....

[Soloist]

Ultimately, the old European system of small professional armies mostly composed of mercenaries, knights, and so forth going and having battlefield skirmishes is far more civilised than the system of mass bloodshed we have today. Wars were also considered far less virtuous back then than they are now.

From what I know each lord was required to levy peasants to fight and what pointedly argues against back then being any different would be the sieges and then the banning of the cross bow because it could kill the Nobel knight…

[Justfiguringitout]

I am still mostly reading and not replying so much. But I follow all this with great interest, especially the discussion about serving your country by being willing to die for it, but preferably letting your enemy die for theirs.
This part is the part I have been unable to resolve.

All the same, a friend of my son's is now in the USA army. And I was thinking about WWII. To think that he should come over to Europe and die so I could be free, feels rather horrible. I'd rather die myself.

We are all here in America maybe wrongly? It’s hard for me to undo decades of what I was taught about our military being why we live in a free country by way of fighting for it or defending it- every nation (or almost all) has to have a military while we are still under the curse (so to speak).
Perhaps since I was little I was taught to appreciate that we are “the land of the free because of the brave” otherwise we might live under leaders like communist countries (which was a real threat to all the world).
Those that serve the country do so with the understanding that it could cost their life but we all enjoy our freedom in America, even fled to it for safety (our ancestors) and yet we criticize those willing to lose their life to protect our freedom.
Jesus said we would always have wars, not that we want them of course! But it seems unavoidable on this side.

I don't know how to make quotes shorter or how to cut them and have them displayed as short quotes. I am sorry if this looks messy)
I wouldn't want to say it's wrong. What do I know? I am new to this thing, so that's why I joined the forum, to learn more about it and ask questions. But the military here is not as big a deal as it is in the USA. They're not treated special like what I have heard with American military when they're traveling. So it's hard for me to grasp how Americans have been raised. But in my family, who wasn't remotely pacifist, nobody was encouraged to join the army, because of all the temptation army life would bring to young men.

Of course there will always be war. But I thought that Christian pacifists were not denying that. But that war and the army is of the systems of the world, and Christians are not. You're trained to kill other human beings as efficiently as possible. That doesn't seem a Christian thing to do. It's hard to see how loving your enemy would include killing them. Which doesn't mean that pacifists don't give their lives, right? Or fight for what's right. Just not in combat and by killing. Now it's hard to think of ways to get in harms way in a war that isn't fought on your own soil. So I wouldn't know how you can fight for the good cause in that context. But our own Corrie ten Boom is a good example of someone who was willing to lay down her life, without killing (I don't know if she was a pacifist, but it's example of doing well and being ready to lay down your life.