23 hours ago, Lord Ratner said:

Jonathan Taylor Thomas?

This one. Zero stars. Do not recommend. IYKYK

Definitely not the child. You're a little weird bro.

22 hours ago, brabus said:

@No One You're not wrong. However, my distaste for this article is far more general - the fact an American company is happy to put out propaganda for the enemy. That is morally corrupt and wrong, even if not illegal in the law’s eyes. In closing, those Wapo douche bags.

Someone writing something you don’t like doesn’t make it propaganda. Someone writing something anti administration doesn’t make it propaganda. Nor does it make it morally wrong.

As Teddy Roosevelt said, Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official, save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country.

You probably are also initially upset that the NYT has correctly ID’d Chinese perceptions that the US are making poor strategic choices. Like expending half of our cruise missile inventory.

archive.is

China Sees a ‘Giant With a Limp’ as U.S. Drains Weapons o...

I’d reassess. It is a fact that the American people - who live in a democratic republic - deserve to know what their country is doing and have a right to impact that course.

As a reminder, the Iran war is at a -20 point net favorability in this country. It is not the duty of the media to propagandize every state action and return favorability. That’s what happens in North Korea and Iran.

I’d also reflect and realize that you have no counters at all to the factuality of the articles. You just attack that they exist - precisely because you can’t point out how they are wrong. It is the mark of someone who does not have a valid counter argument to devolve to calling something they don’t like propaganda.

War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength, eh?

10 minutes ago, Negat0ry said:

Someone writing something you don’t like doesn’t make it propaganda. Someone writing something anti administration doesn’t make it propaganda. Nor does it make it morally wrong.

Let’s start with the definition of propaganda: “ideas, facts, or allegations spread deliberately to further one's cause or to damage an opposing cause.”

Whose cause are they furthering and whose cause are they attempting to damage? There are easy, obvious answers to those questions.

Additionally, it is written and curated to push a narrative that Iran has dealt significant blows to the US, the US has been decently hurt/licking its wounds, etc. That implied narrative is not accurate at all. There is also some 100% false stuff in it - but obviously nobody is confirming that publicly due to classification/opsec. Overall, the narrative is very misleading at best, and actually full up false in some instances (but, I won’t say the false parts are purposeful, as a journalist/think tank talking out their ass is nothing new).

There’s the right, patriotic thing to do, and then there’s this bullshit. The fact you can’t see the difference is not surprising, but still disappointing.

Would the WaPo reporting be any different with a Democrat administration? Was there outage at the Afghanistan withdrawal with 13 killed by a VBIED? The killing of an ambassador in Libya? I don't recall the published moral outage or pronouncements of national failure for those or any other Democrat admin led military action.

20 hours ago, TreeA10 said:

Would the WaPo reporting be any different with a Democrat administration? Was there outage at the Afghanistan withdrawal with 13 killed by a VBIED? The killing of an ambassador in Libya? I don't recall the published moral outage or pronouncements of national failure for those or any other Democrat admin led military action.

Probably.. but also other than bickering about partisanship why does it matter? Facts are facts. Those assets were struck by Iran and now we don't have them anymore. Trying to tease out the argument here.. is it: "wapo was soft on hillary/benghazi/biden, therefore current factual reporting is invalid?" Or is it: "other things were clown shows too so that makes this one fine?"

Anyways.. just doing my occasional check in to see how our victory lap is going

strait: still closed

regime: still in power

iranian people: still oppressed

tbm capability: still intact

nuclear material: still at large

deal with iran: still nonexistent despite claims they're desperate for one

ceasefire: continual rolex on the deadline, also not even really a ceasefire

gas prices: worse than last time I was here

Just so tired of all the winning guys, but please by all means tell me how my TDS invalidates all these basic facts

Edited yesterday at 09:14 PM1 day by Pooter

2 hours ago, Pooter said:

Trying to tease out the argument here.. is it

Neither. Is an American company running propaganda for the enemy OK or not? I argue it’s not, certainly in the moral sense.

Also, your list is not accurate and lacks the full picture…by a long shot.

1 hour ago, brabus said:

Neither. Is an American company running propaganda for the enemy OK or not? I argue it’s not, certainly in the moral sense.

Also, your list is not accurate and lacks the full picture…by a long shot.

We know we've struck a lot more (13,000+) targets in Iran from SECDEF press conferences, but is admitting we've had things hit too somehow propaganda? What exactly is your definition of propaganda. As a taxpayer I feel knowing the full extent of damage (within the limits of opsec) taken by our side is absolutely not propaganda.. If anything, lying about the war and saying it's going better than it is, is propaganda.

And which part of the list is inaccurate

@Pooter See my reply to Negatory.

Strait is not closed

We were never after no “regime” in power, we were after people change. And that has occurred, multiple times actually.

TBMs - Never was the goal to take 100% of the capability (unattainable goal). We’ve met our desired goal.

Iranian people - Liberating gen pop was never a pri objective. Sure we’d like to see them get out of their situation, and we’ll help them indirectly when it’s convenient, but is not a pri objective.

Nukes - Sure, believe whatever you want…

Turns out your list was mostly poorly informed opinion and not “basic facts.”

Edited 20 hours ago20 hr by brabus

11 hours ago, brabus said:

Strait is not closed

Hey google how many ships are stranded in the strait right now? “As of May 10th 2026, an estimated 1,600 to 2,000 ships are trapped or stranded in the Persian Gulf and around the Strait of Hormuz”

11 hours ago, brabus said:

We were never after no “regime” in power, we were after people change. And that has occurred, multiple times actually.

… the IRGC and the previous ayatollahs son are in charge. And they have all the exact same goals. Are you seriously saying that since we killed some dudes we can check this one off the list despite their replacements pursuing the exact same things?

11 hours ago, brabus said:

TBMs - Never was the goal to take 100% of the capability (unattainable goal). We’ve met our desired goal.

Trump said at the beginning of the war:“U.S. would destroy Iran’s missiles and raze the country’s missile infrastructure “to the ground.”

I’ll cut you some slack on this because the admin themselves have shifted the goalposts on this one changing from words like “obliterate” and “totally destroy” at the beginning of the conflict, to “degrade” more recently. Regardless, initial goal not met. Iran still holds our assets and allies in the region at risk with significant missile stockpiles

11 hours ago, brabus said:

Iranian people - Liberating gen pop was never a pri objective.

Yes it was. The protest crackdowns were a primary justification, the president tweeted that the people should rise up, and it went hand in hand with the goal of achieving a regime change. None of which happened.

12 hours ago, brabus said:

Nukes - Sure, believe whatever you want…

.. our own government is saying the nuke material is still at large

In summary, that was a pretty wild public display of mental gymnastics and cope. I really hope this isn’t how you grade mission objectives in your debriefs.. explaining everything away with semantics or BS technicalities while none of the intent is actually met.

7 hours ago, Pooter said:

Hey google how many ships are stranded in the strait right now? “As of May 10th 2026, an estimated 1,600 to 2,000 ships are trapped or stranded in the Persian Gulf and around the Strait of Hormuz”

… the IRGC and the previous ayatollahs son are in charge. And they have all the exact same goals. Are you seriously saying that since we killed some dudes we can check this one off the list despite their replacements pursuing the exact same things?

Trump said at the beginning of the war:“U.S. would destroy Iran’s missiles and raze the country’s missile infrastructure “to the ground.”

I’ll cut you some slack on this because the admin themselves have shifted the goalposts on this one changing from words like “obliterate” and “totally destroy” at the beginning of the conflict, to “degrade” more recently. Regardless, initial goal not met. Iran still holds our assets and allies in the region at risk with significant missile stockpiles

Yes it was. The protest crackdowns were a primary justification, the president tweeted that the people should rise up, and it went hand in hand with the goal of achieving a regime change. None of which happened.

.. our own government is saying the nuke material is still at large

In summary, that was a pretty wild public display of mental gymnastics and cope. I really hope this isn’t how you grade mission objectives in your debriefs.. explaining everything away with semantics or BS technicalities while none of the intent is actually met.

I allowed this post because I don't want the forum to become an echo chamber. However, please discontinue the ad hominems. Just because folks disagree about things doesn't mean their debrief of a mission sucks.