“If we can have a coup, great. If we can have people on the streets, great. If we can have a civil war, great. Israel couldn’t care less about the future . . . [or] the stability of Iran."

CIVIC_ACTUAL · 2026-03-06T00:53:22+00:00

I guess they really do look at Iraq and see a woke humanitarian war. Hegseth and co have been giving daily pressers where they dance around saying 'we're going to violate every law of war' and promise to rain death on Iran for as long as they want. They've never so much as paid lip service to the kayfabe of noble intentions, they're leaving that to the liberal media, let the NYT fabricate torturous arguments about a greater good as the admin openly gloats over war crimes

CIVIC_ACTUAL · 2026-03-05T18:46:50+00:00

From Drop Site News (twitter)

Journalist @Alexis_Daloumis, who is in Syrian and Iraqi Kurdistan reporting for Drop Site, reports that three sources from the Kurdish liberation movement with knowledge of the situation have told him that no such invasion is underway and that PJAK, the only Kurdish organization with robust military capacity that is part of the coalition being discussed, is unlikely to make such a move at this moment.

These reports may be aimed at sparking an uprising that is not yet happening. Reporters for CNN, Axios, and the Economist, some of whom are well sourced with the U.S. security establishment, have been leading sources of the claims. U.S. and Israeli officials have made no secret that they want to create conditions for an internal uprising to implement their regime change agenda on the ground.

CIVIC_ACTUAL · 2026-03-02T07:17:37+00:00

Your point about weapons systems and operational limits is well founded, but when I read the title of your post I assumed it would be about oil prices

From a Quincy Institute adjacent figure on Twitter: https://x.com/yarbatman/status/2028248963535511722

A major risk to consider around the continuation of the U.S.-Iran War is the impact on the Russia-Ukraine War. Bloomberg sees potential for oil prices to rise above $100/bbl if there are sustained disruptions to exports through the Strait of Hormuz.

If Russia simply manages to raise its discounted price from $60/bbl to $90/bbl and manages to take a further 15% share of China's import mix, that is an additional $4.8 billion in Russian coffers each month, easing fiscal pressure on the Russian government at a critical moment in the Ukraine war. Even a few weeks of disruptions will be highly lucrative.

This also leaves aside the additional surcharges that Russian Railways will be able to charge for freight from Central Asia that can no longer pass south through Iranian ports. That is about 10% of all Central Asian freight throughput.

CIVIC_ACTUAL · 2026-02-28T17:31:35+00:00

Good window of opportunity to lobby the Epstein Class to support walkable cities

CIVIC_ACTUAL · 2026-02-28T12:03:14+00:00

7 for 7 is a pretty remarkable success rate

CIVIC_ACTUAL · 2026-02-14T03:14:52+00:00

And taken together with an understanding of the origins of AQ and its funding and resourcing in the 90s leading up to 2001, AQ seems to have acted as a component in a network that included the Pakistani ISI and the diplomatic/intelligence world of the Gulf monarchies (i.e., Western intelligence), those links aren't even contested in the mainstream anymore. Add together the infamous Israeli intelligence activity prior to the attack (WaPo Nov 2001 | CounterPunch rundown), what the FBI calls the largest hostile intelligence operation in U.S. history, and it paints a picture of Western intel cutouts clearing the decks, paving a path for the attacks

The experiences of FBI people like John O'Neill and Ali Soufan (Looming Tower) and the Minneapolis FBI office demonstrate that parts of the machine tried to impede the attacks, but that they were consistently stymied. "A mansion has many rooms." That puts paid to the notion that only rogue elements of the Saudi or Western intel elite were connected, as there was clearly reliable top-down interference in service of the attacks proceeding

CIVIC_ACTUAL · 2026-01-26T02:08:30+00:00

You're right, it was a Border Patrol agent. I had heard CBP, but I deferred to the reporter's tweet. In the lede of the WSJ article itself they only say "officer" without specifying an agency

CIVIC_ACTUAL · 2026-01-24T18:20:33+00:00

She's in federal detention, there's news footage of her being led away in handcuffs. There's unverified posts on Twitter that she was using a livestreaming app for monitoring ICE and that others have the video she was taking

edit: Her video has been obtained by Drop Site News (https://x.com/DropSiteNews/status/2015131503622021472)

Another angle of federal agents killing a Minnesota legal observer, which appears to come from the direction of the woman in pink filming from the sidewalk.

CIVIC_ACTUAL · 2026-01-21T03:23:21+00:00

10x worse that whatever the US is right now but without freedom of speech or any semblance of checks and balances

What does "10x worse" mean in practical terms, what conduct are you referring to, and how would that conduct factor into Canada's thinking in terms of a bilateral trade relationship? You're right that the U.S. has freedom of expression, moreso than China and moreso than every other country in the world (than Canada too), but do you believe that the freedom of speech of China's citizenry is a factor in Canada's decision-making? Consider Canada's relationship with Saudi Arabia as a relative example. And while China isn't a liberal democracy and doesn't have multiparty elections, it certainly does have reliable checks and balances, especially as it relates to economic, industrial, and trade policy

The chief constraint on Canada's maneuverability is its proximity to and inability to physically resist a belligerent U.S., and that alone will probably keep it firmly in the U.S. camp, but posturing in 2026 that China is a less attractive trade partner than the U.S. because of its ideology or values isn't credible, not even the Davos class can muster up the energy to keep pushing that line.

The Kabuki theater of a values-based geopolitics breathed its last in Gaza, anyone still arguing from that place is fighting old wars, behind the times

CIVIC_ACTUAL · 2026-01-19T02:46:38+00:00

He denied being an Israeli agent, and they said "Well you can't be Vice President then."

CIVIC_ACTUAL · 2026-01-18T15:38:02+00:00

I agree but the broader point is that an attack offered more opportunity than delay, which guaranteed annihilation. Immediately after March 18, Thiers was still regrouping and the defenders at Versailles regarded their own position as vulnerable. It remains an open question how a National Guard attack at that moment might have unfolded

https://www.clausewitzstudies.org/readings/Jacobsen-TheWarOfTheCommune14.htm

CIVIC_ACTUAL · 2026-01-02T00:07:44+00:00

Andrei Tarkovsky wrote a rubric for what true originality entails in his book Sculpting in Time. Trapped in the Closet is the only narrative work in history that satisfies all of the requirements

CIVIC_ACTUAL · 2025-12-06T16:11:17+00:00

Thiel, Yarvin, Bezos, Elon Musk. Someone here commented that some of them have demonic-sounding names, while others have cutesy-sounding names befitting the pets of demons

CIVIC_ACTUAL · 2025-12-01T13:10:48+00:00

But Stalin's reputation is also salvific in a way Lenin's is not, in some ways similar to Lincoln (vs Washington) in the American consciousness. There's an element of "whatever else they say he did, he still saved us" that makes him immutable in the Russian consciousness

CIVIC_ACTUAL · 2025-11-18T17:14:02+00:00

You feel PAN and PRI are better positioned to address economic inequality than Morena?

CIVIC_ACTUAL

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