Trump: ‘A Whole Civilization Will Die Tonight’
The President has threatened massive war crimes.
So this happened on my drive into work this morning:
His previous declarations certainly evoked concerns about the possibility of war crimes being committed. But sending them “back to the stone ages” could be dismissed as hyperbole. While destroying all roads and power plants would be a crime against humanity, any given target could potentially be justified. But this is rather clearly a threat of mass murder of the civilian population.
It should also be noted that this is the same President who vowed to come to the aid of these very same people if their government cracked down violently on protestors. Now, he’s threatening to kill them at a scale that makes the regime look moderate.
If an actual Go order is given along these lines, a whole lot of people are going to have to make some very hard decisions. I do not envy them.
“A Whole Civilization Will Die Tonight”
Reminiscent of the Oracle of Delphi’s advice, “The Oracle suggested vaguely that, “if King Croesus crosses the Halys River, a great empire will be destroyed.” Croesus received these words most favorably, instigating a war that ironically would eventually end not the Persian Empire but his own.”
He’s going to wipe out 92M people?
Good luck, Fatso.
He could drop a nuke. Or he could TACO. Which is more likely?
I really don’t understand whats going on here. The dystopia goes beyond just Mr. Trumps words. I don’t care what anyone says about Hitler cliches but we have been at that level for some time now. I don’t see the alarm at the highest levels of government, from either party. The enablers are all around – everywhere – and the closer to the top you get the more enabling they are.
Keep in mind this whole thing started because he had a “feeling.”
He’s never given a good reason for this shit-show.
So he wants to destroy a civilization for no reason.
But, “her emails….”
@HelloWorld:
It’s like watching a car accident. Horrifying but all you can do is watch.
There is an off-ramp still in play. Maybe?
“Wajeeh Lion”
The following paragraph has some bogus numbers that slipped in somehow.
We may kill you all, we may not, WHO KNOWS. God Bless you.
We bombed North Korea “into the Stone Age”. End result? They got nukes.
Steve
“However, now that we have Complete and Total Regime Change, where different, smarter, less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen”
What on earth is he talking about? What regime change? You mean the new boss, which is same as the old boss, from what I can tell?
I think this is his offramp story. They did the decapitation, they got a new leadership. He wants to posture a lot and remind everyone that he can nuke them. But they changed, so he won. He’ll take the settlement.
Mind you, I don’t know, and I certainly wouldn’t want to make him think the story isn’t working…
In Trump’s mind he is the only person in the world with agency, someone who actually exists with an inner mind. The rest of all people are merely NPC’s, non-playable characters in gamer talk.
That’s part of being Trump’s special sort of nut job.
Sure, but the alternative was listening to conversations about diversity!
I want to think that if nukes were being seriously considered, someone would have leaked it by now.
But I’m old enough to know what I want and what actually happens tend to be different things.
@Gavin:
LATINX!!
I wonder how deep the purge in the Pentagon and Armed Forces has gone.
Which Senior Military Officers Were Removed or Asked to Retire Under the Trump Administration — and Why?
The latest Generals purged were the Army Chief of Staff Randy George and the Army Chief of Chaplains Maj Gen William Green.
And the guy who holds the football?
Our government is ruled by fanatics who think Armageddon would be just peachy.
If he doesn’t like being called a taco, then he should stop making threats that he won’t back up. Surely* this one will be another taco, although I expect some attack that he will claim is what he meant to do all along.
Iran will probably respond to any major escalation with its own escalation, as they seem to have dry powder. They have made numerous recent strikes on Israel and on petroleum, financial, and high tech targets in GCC countries, demonstrating they are able to evade defenses that may be facing interceptor shortages. And the Houthis are still in reserve, so Iran may still call on them to shut down ship traffic in/out of the southern Red Sea.
*Okay, not 100% sure, and something so consequential should not rely on a roll of the dice or the spin of the roulette wheel, or wherever the bouncing ball in his head stops.
@Moosebreath:
Arguably American civilization died on November 5th 2024.
War crimes?! He’s literally threatening genocide. We may argue about exact definitions of the g-word, but this is pretty unambiguous.
Not that I believe this is actually going to happen. Trump is perhaps the weakest monster the world has ever seen. He’s not saying any of this from a position of strength; he is simply a cornered rat.
Milley, in Trump’s first term, reportedly took precautions against Trump using nukes. One hopes Caine has done something similar.
WRT hitting civilian infrastructure, Adam Silverman at Balloon Juice writes,
The same may be true of nukes, at least tactical nukes. I’m not really expecting any refusal of questionably legal orders beyond maybe a few more quiet resignations.
Supposedly Fatso just told one of the entertainers at Fox that it’s on at 8:00.
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-iran-2676674839/
I just left phone messages — for the first time in my life — for my two useless senators, demanding to know where they are and what they’re doing while the president of the United States literally announces he will be ordering genocide in six hours, making me and them and everyone in this country party to the biggest act of mass murder in the history of the world.
God knows it’s not usually hard for Schumer to find an available TV camera, and Gillibrand managed to summon up plenty of moral outrage when it came to getting Al Franken out of the senate. But now that Donald Trump is threatening to outdo Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot, I guess they’re too busy having fun on their vacation.
@wr: Usually my Senators (Cornyn and Cruz) (or their interns) are busy putting out Facebook posts. They’ve been strangely silent yesterday and today. They were busy putting out Happy Easter posts on Sunday but nothing since then.
And thanks for reminding me to call and yell at them.
Malcom Nance was especially animated in today’s Warcast Podcast, with an expletive-laced rant of a half hour plus on trump’s genocide threat. The second half hour is an update on the Iran war from Nance and his co-hosts (Jacob Kaarsbo, Waijeeh Lion). For those with limited time, this podcast can be comfortably listened to at 1.25X speed (maybe greater?), as the hosts speak deliberately and reasonably clearly.
Beneath it all, there’s the sneaking suspicion El Taco is just manipulating the markets and pocketing loads of money on each trade.
Utterly mad, and quite sickening.
Both
and
and
Bloody hell.
I have very little faith that any of them will not follow illegal orders abroad. At home, maybe, but foreign lives don’t really have much value in the moral calculus.
You inspired me to do the same with my senators. Given the fact that I live in Missouri, I have a pretty strong suspicion that they won’t care, even though Josh Hawley flirted with the idea of caring about Congress’s war powers earlier this year before he remembered who he was. Kinda feel the same way about this I did about No Kings–can’t imagine it will help, but can’t bear not to do something.
CNN reports El Taco claims to be in “heated negotiations” with Iran, and Pakistan is pleading for a 2 week extension to the genocide deadline.
I think that’s a mix for TACO on a silver platter.
Damn, I hope that’s what it is.
UK government state US forces will NOT be permitted to use UK bases for strikes on Iranian civlian infrastructure targets.
Good for Starmer.
I’ve been a pro-Atlantic Alliance type all my adult life, but the UK must not be party to war crimes of this sort in Trump’s “war of choice”, and with sod all operational or strategic justification.
It doesn’t even have the dubious merit of being likely to make the Iranian regime cave in on the Straits.
And it’s increasingly clear that Trump is flailing about, and on the verge of being totally unhinged.
At LGM Robert Farley excerpts a new piece at NYT.
I expect Vance and Rubio are leaking furiously to Haberman, trying to distance from Trump without actually opposing Trump.
@gVOR10:
Gotta hand it to Bibi. You want to persuade El Taco, you have to speak his language.
@gVOR10: Gift link to the Swan and Haberman piece at NYT.
@gVOR10:
Well, good for Ratcliffe, because farcical it was.
The Kurds have plainly decided to nope this out (being screwed over by thw US reapeatedly being a learming experience, even for the ever-optimistic Kurds).
And even if they had been able to secure Iranian Kurdistan, that would do sod all to remove Pasdaran predominance over core Iran.
My gut feeling is that Netanyahu (via Witkoff and Kushner?) sold Trump on a near-maximal plan.
Then Netanyahu bounced him into full-on regime kill on February 28th. With Trump too damn stupid to appreciate the consequences himself, and Netanyahu probably deliberately forcing the pace to get Trump’s approval before others in DC had the chance to persuade him that he was being cornered into an all-out war by Bibi.
Apparently it is TACO Tuesday. Pakistan cleverly offered a two week cease fire knowing Trump’s affection for two week delays.
Just a reminder that we are one week from a new moon.
@gVOR10:
Harris wasn’t able to distance herself from Biden, and I don’t think these two will have any more luck.
They gave up Senate seats for this.
Might work out for Vance — Trump is an old sick man, and if he drops dead, Vance will undoubtedly try to reshape Trump’s legacy to whatever he wants (“transgenderism is all about regulation on AI” or whatever). I don’t see anything for Rubio, unless he can somehow become the King of Cuba.
@Michael Reynolds:
Trump accepted the 2 week extension contingent on Iran fully opening the Strait. I have seen no Iranian response. How long would it take for Iran to be able to respond? Also, opening the Strait seems like a pretty big ask.
@Kylopod:
Except that, and notably, in his own mind, he has a loud cheering section that confirms he is both strong and smart and right. A virtual reality position of strength, albeit hallucinating. Which would be fine if he had just dropped acid and stood on the roof of one of his buildings, contemplating his own ability to fly. But here we are, shackled to this nutjob.
@Kathy:
Or at the very least, some insider pals.
@Michael Reynolds:
His minders and whisperers determined that it was time to tweak his medication. Look for new bruising on his hands.
So, what are the odds that this last minute proposition from Pakistan has been on the table for some time, and all this rhetoric was more theater? Stay tuned, Pauline is tied to the railroad tracks, and the intrepid hero might not get there in time to save her!
If this is not market manipulation I don’t know what is….2 weeks until the next whatever the fuck this is we are doing….TACO Tuesday. I’m done, I wish I could just stop watching…..everything!