US preparing war with Iran

even if you are a footless substitute gym teacher from Arkansas? Too bad this is only comedy. I am pretty sure @Dayton3 would make a great ied and land mine finder being he has no feet to blow off, and there is no reason to damage any drones, equipment, or useful people doing the job.

Dayton is a tentacle monster like trump not a soldier!

You tarnish the reputation of tentacle rape monsters by associating them with @Dayton3 and his idol twitler.

Sorry tentacle monster jesus the taxi cab driver.

Ah, the wingnuts are coming out in the sun, bless them! And Limbaugh is there to stoke their ardour:

Note he had to walk the bit about Kerry's daughter back (because it isn't true or anywhere near true) but made sure to get the words "Revolutionary Guard assassin" in again. Twice.

Why are people so easily convinced by these people who can barely form sentences and make absurd statements which they themselves admit are guesses?

In a just world, any president signing a declaration to start a war would be required to immediately kill himself, in order to join in the sacrifice of the soldiers under his command, as its first casualty.

Any member of the senate voting in favor would be forced to do the same as its second.

Any member of the press cheerleading for it as its third.

Nations do not declare war any more. IIRC there have been only two anywhere in the world since World War Two.

at any rate that is a horrendously stupid idea by any possible measure.

I guess then you would've been in favor of FDR and almost all of Congress killing themselves in 1941.

Doing that would've probably cost the lives of far more Americans in World War Two.

I feel there might be more here than the literal.

@armalyte's post did not seem to leave room for much ambiguity. Its like those people saying stuff like "any politician who supports going to war should have their children or other loved ones sent first".

Ignoring the obvious. At least in the U.S. the loved ones of American politicians have pretty frequently gone off to war. While he was president Lyndon Johnson's son in law served in Vietnam. Former president Theodore Roosevelt was a big supporter of U.S. involvement in World War One. One of his sons was a fighter pilot in World War One and was killed in action.

I would have to agree somewhat. However, I would accept leading our troops into war on the ground while being issued the minimum in equipment any of our armed forces received. Our troops in the Iraq war might not have had to buy their own body armor and go around in trucks not adapted for ieds and the desert had bush jr been the last to receive any of that.

I took it as a much broader tonal attack on the idea of people who advocate strongly for war whilst risking little if anything themselves. After all he said "they should be killed", not "they should be made to fight". I don't imagine that was a serious suggestion.

Might be wrong though.

No, I was speaking literally. I do not believe that anyone can have a moral right to order people to suffer horrors or inflict horrors that he or she isn't willing to endure him-or-herself. So yes, to prove your seriousness and your conviction of the necessity for other people to die to fight your stupid wars... go fucking kill yourselves.

How many declarations of war, or of what amounts to war (which I felt was obvious but which Dayton decided to nitpick about) would've been avoided by that type of legislation?`

Not talking defensive wars. Talking Gulf-of-Tonkin situations. Talking Iraq.

You see I was going to run against my usual grain here and offer a justification for defensive wars, but then got to the last sentence.

I completely agree that the cost of war is rarely truly realised by those who make the decision to initiate it. That being said there's a long tradition of monarchs, royalty and aristocracy not only fighting in wars but seeking recognition of honour and status by doing so. For much of human history monarchies relied not only on strength of arms but the perception that the king or emperor was personally the alpha male who could lead the clan/kingdom/empire in conquest.

That didn't prevent wars being fought, nor did it (as far as I can tell) reduce their frequency or relative severity given the available means of the time.

I'm not sure if there's a one size fits all solution here, but I do feel the common portrayal of war as a glorious test of manhood, a noble thing which brings out the heroic nature of humanity is not only misdirected but irresponsible in an age where we know very well what war looks like without actually being present. It's not waving a flag and proudly championing justice, it's tears, mud guts and shit. It's rape, murder, disease and untold misery for thousands of innocents. It's generations suffering the after effects and if it serves anyones' interests they are very much a privileged minority.

None of them.

You believe Bush and Blair would have been willing to die in order to make Iraq happen?

Yes.

Amended. I don't know about Blair but the Bush family hasn't exactly had a shortage of people willing to serve in war zones. George H.W. Bush lying to join up and become the youngest or second youngest navy combat pilot in World War Two.

George P. Bush serving in Afghanistan. Prescott Bush as a field artillery officer in World War One.

Which isn't what I asked. Do you believe W would have willingly been executed in order to make Iraq happen?

Of course not. I didn't think that was the point of the stupid post I was responding to.

That seems to be what @armalyte is suggesting though, that wars would be less common if those who ordered them faced execution for doing so.

Do you see many circumstances where world leaders would be willing to die (not risk their lives in combat, but literally be killed outright) for deciding to initiate a war regardless of the morality of their decision?

this would make a GREAT Twilight Zone episode! But not knowing how things will work out in the long run (since you volunteered to be executed duh) would be a difficult situation indeed.

Yes.

You have a lot of faith in the selflessness of people who have usually spent a life being anything but selfless.

I don't even think that Joseph Stalin would've allowed the Molotov Ribbentrop Pact and invaded Poland if he knew he'd face automatic execution for it.

... and whatever his many flaws, "Uncle Joe" was way, way tougher than Tony Fucking Blair or George Bush...

Yes, there's an amount of tongue in cheek to my argument, but it's quite small.

I think you pose an interesting point. Would the person who is so Hell bent on killing others rely on his anger and hate being truly brought about by whoever follows him, and it directly attacks the narcissistic nature of a warlord commander. There is a reason why I don't think it would actually work to lower human wars is that we always see a manipulation of things behind the scenes of war. All the person who was in the power structure would have to do is manipulate someone into a rage where they would sacrifice their own life to go to war and then be around to command afterwards. Noble idiots and vengeful haters are pretty easy to find and influence. The factions that want war would surely find someone willing to die to start it.

In the end that is almost too easy of a way out. You are not going to have to live in the aftermath or rebuild. You are not going to have to face any of the hardship and horror of war if you were the one who had to start it with your execution. It is interesting to wonder what a George Bush would do to get his war, which he was a somewhat impulsive person with Cheney whispering in his ear you might have gotten him to kill himself to start the war. OTOH what would happen in a country who's victory was not assured? Let us say it was north Korea and little kim had to face execution to have his people attack America. We insulted him and made him look really bad and now he is going to show us by killing himself to drive his people to a war which will crush them.

Interesting idea, but it needs more definition.

What with all the talk about Trump and certain classified documents, I thought this might deserve another look...

Oh yeah, the Iran war.
What did we call it?
Did we win?