...I should add, all of which makes me reeeeeeaaaallllllly frustrated with the folks who just say "Biden/Harris could stop this but they choose not to." Like, nofuckingshit they could. But they'd be absolute morons if they ignored the potentially humanity-erasing consequences of doing so. This conflict doesn't exist in a fucking vacuum.
Oh yeah the narratives are all performative bullshit. The DoD is absolutely evil, but in the sense that they won't hesitate to use evil means to accomplish what they'd call "good" (i.e. self-interested) ends. Also their list of "good" ends is ludicrously expansive, but I just happen to agree with them in this instance that averting nuclear war is incontrovertibly "good." It's the politicians' job to figure out how to walk out of a classified meeting and sell their decisions to the public, and that requires a lot of contorted pandering when the stakes are so high and the information so secretive and potentially catastrophic. If these weren't two nuclear powers who wanted to erase one another from the surface of the planet, I might be more judgmental of the US government's motives, but whether we like it or not (and thanks to the orange dipshit and his stupid fucking advisors) Iran is likely already a nuclear power. This is absolutely not a 20th century middle east conflict. This is a whole new ballgame that potentially threatens the survival of all of humanity.
I'm 100% with you. It's easy for us to judge their decision making from the outside, but if I were sitting in a classified meeting and my SoS told me, "if you turn on Israel, Netanyahu's government will nuke Iran", I would do everything I could do not to piss off Bibi's government, because I'd be preventing nuclear war. If they also told me, "if you tell anyone you're thinking about turning on Israel, Iran will nuke them because they already have a weapon", I would do everything I could do not to reveal a hint of reservation about supporting Israel, because I'd be preventing nuclear war. I sincerely think they've been backed into a corner because any alternate course of action risks actual nuclear Armageddon. I think they're less concerned with how criticism of Israel would play politically than they are about how what happens next would play politically. Maybe I'm wrong, but that situation perfectly explains a LOT of the weird posturing.
If it were a binary choice between allowing genocide and nuclear Armageddon, then I would do absolutely nothing to intervene. I would simultaneously explore EVERY diplomatic channel at my disposal to try to come up with a third option, even if it meant tens of thousands of Gazans are going to die in the process. It's sad but true.
The media still haven't realized that they're a bunch of highly educated puppies. They write well and can form a compelling story, but at the end of the day they get distracted by, and tend to focus on, any flashy or squeaky object in their periphery.
I think NC is definitely a prime target for better outreach because demographics are sorta kinda shifting in the right direction, but the number of Trump flotillas and skyscraper-sized MAGA flags I've seen over the past few years has kept me from getting my hopes up. I'd love to be convinced we could go blue, but I just don't see any realistic chance of that happening any time soon.
...I should add, all of which makes me reeeeeeaaaallllllly frustrated with the folks who just say "Biden/Harris could stop this but they choose not to." Like, nofuckingshit they could. But they'd be absolute morons if they ignored the potentially humanity-erasing consequences of doing so. This conflict doesn't exist in a fucking vacuum.
/rant