Lone Candle
Champion of Truth
If we take the literal purported lives of certain historical religious figures like Muhammad as a way to live our own lives, then that leads to immoral and barbarous behavior. It is better to see them as inspirations in some spiritual or mystical way.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5slk97ss2Q
More empty oil tankers are coming to the US due to the Iran war, but the US can’t produce, refine, and load oil fast enough to fill them. At least not in a timely manner.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGQVhnP0POE
The two-state solution seems dead. After the second intifada, Israel gave up on it, and has resolved on a one-state solution where Israel dominates the entire territory and Palestinians not living in Israel proper are second-class citizens.
The October 7th terrorist attacks accelerated this. They don’t see the Islamist terrorists as deterrable, so the only option is to dominate them. They can’t make peace because a small group of terrorists can always explode any peace.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPCvEHtBSp0
The ships and crews that Trump is blockading are not just Iranian ships and crews. Is the US going to steal or sink foreign ships? What if Pakistani or Chinese military vessels escort their ships? Will the US start a war with these countries to enforce the blockade? Ships’ crews can lock themselves in the bridge and engine rooms, which will stop boarders from controlling the ship, what will the US do then?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mHpmTN86-Q
Trump may have gotten the US into a trap. He left the deal Obama made with Japan, and similar ones were on the offer, but he rejected them and instead chose war. Now the US may be stuck between either a massive ground invasion of Iran or Iran as a new great power.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDKlaJM_vys
In Vietnam, there were a lot of public briefings about the counts of death and destruction the US military had wrought. The US still lost the war.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVhKjPvvh4E
Israel made a hard sell for the war to Trump. Trump bought it, even though many of his advisers were skeptical of Israel’s arguments.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIfeHpqjTlA
For Iran to win, all they have to do is survive and maintain an ability to commit terror attacks. Thus far, the US has failed to end Iran’s ability to hit Israel, hit gulf states, hit US bases, and stop shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QoNbWhZClM
After a war, the Secretary of Defense goes to the public, and repeatedly lies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNKRg9l7Avo
So far, the US has failed to achieve any objectives obviously worth the costs of the war. Iran is still unfriendly. Iran hasn’t agreed to any long-term commitments. They still have the ability to strike death and terror in the region and to damage the global economy.
If regime change or a long-term commitment is not going to be reached, then continuing to mow the lawn is likely not worth the costs, so it’s better to quit now than to take further costs. But, quitting now does mean the US failed in anything but destroying a bunch of stuff. Iran will quickly rebuild their drones and missiles and remain a terrorist state.
Let’s see what negotiations result in.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6jHFTjTRAA