^Apples and oranges. 9/11 is not the kind of attack you deter by striking a country. Instead it's generally the kind of attack you might *incur* by striking a country.

5/8/2026 6:17:56 PM

The comparison is more about the need to act preventively when there is not 100% certainty about when, where, and how an attack will occur. The 9/11 attackers were adherents to radical Islam. Are you trying to justify their religiously motivated violence against civilians?

5/8/2026 6:39:57 PM

In which heelfan refuses to acknowledge the possibility (really, probability) of a preemptive strike making things worse.



[Edited on May 8, 2026 at 7:11 PM. Reason : a]

5/8/2026 7:09:43 PM

Quote :

"We never trained or gave weapons to Al Qaeda or ISIS."

Uhhh. Yes, we did. It"s a known fact. Stop deflecting from your facile arguments. We do the same shit that Iran does. You give us a pass for it, though.

5/8/2026 11:10:32 PM

Not directly, not intentionally. I think you wish we did so you could hate your country even more.

5/9/2026 5:53:27 AM

Heelfan, in history, are there more examples of preventive strikes/regime changes going the way they were intended or more examples of them massively backfiring.

Let's say last 60 years as the time frame

5/9/2026 3:02:30 PM

I don't know. That's a good question for @clawai when he is revived.

5/10/2026 8:47:00 AM

Don't you think you might want to know that before forming your opinion and advocating for this?

5/10/2026 9:26:15 AM

^^^^ a distinction without a difference. We gave money and training to militias of dubious origin to go kill people. It very likely helped them coalesce into formidable terrorist organizations, something we equally should have anticipated. Handing a gun to a mentally unstable guy who rants online about wanting to kill a person is no better than hiring a hitman to kill that same person.

^ of course not. He's either a troll; or he's an actual Trumper, at which point the only thing that matters is blind obedience to whatever comes out of the orange guy's mouth. Logical consistency is an afterthought

[Edited on May 10, 2026 at 9:36 PM. Reason : ]

5/10/2026 9:34:00 PM

Let's ask Japan about preemptive strikes going the way they intended. Yea it's going back a little further than 60 years, but that was a pretty damned strong preemptive attack. And it took four years, but that preemptive strike earned them two destroyed and irradiated cities.

History doesn't matter here though. What matters is that our preemptive strike on Iran has gained us nothing yet. The goalposts keep moving. We'll get a deal this week. Next week. I'll send them a memo in three weeks and they better respond or else.....or else....um, I'll do more blockades! Yea, that's what I'll do. More blockades. We do have the best blockades in the world you know. Hey look at my ballroom plans!

5/11/2026 9:22:57 AM

The constant claims that Iran is begging to "make a deal" are so juvenile.

5/11/2026 9:34:15 AM

I'll admit it hasn't been as effective as our preemptive action in Venezuela. Iran's population is 3.26 times larger than Venezuela's, their active military personnel is double Venezuela's, and their military budget is 10 times higher. Obviously toppling the IRGC will take time without a devastating blow that endangers thousands of civilian lives.

5/11/2026 10:24:55 AM

Beyond the tactical objective, why do you think Venezuela was successful? What metrics have improved? We removed Maduro and his number 2 immediately was put in charge, we didn't topple a regime much like killing Khamenei didn't topple Iran.


[Edited on May 11, 2026 at 11:35 AM. Reason : A]

5/11/2026 11:32:14 AM

^^its almost like our dumbass in chief should have recognized some of those dynamics before his stupid “excursion”

[Edited on May 11, 2026 at 11:54 AM. Reason : But keep sucking his knob, acting like these things couldn’t have possibly been known beforehand]

5/11/2026 11:53:38 AM

Rodriguez is much more amenable to US interests and willing to negotiate us on economic matters. The Iranian #2, on the other hand, may not even be alive. The IRGC appears to be in control and is definitely not amendable to US interests.

5/11/2026 1:53:54 PM

Quote :

"I'll admit it hasn't been as effective as our preemptive action in Venezuela. Iran's population is 3.26 times larger than Venezuela's, their active military personnel is double Venezuela's, and their military budget is 10 times higher. Obviously toppling the IRGC will take time without a devastating blow that endangers thousands of civilian lives."

You're admitting something else here. Either one of two things happened:

1. The administration was just too dumb to realize what kind of quagmire into which they were getting themselves or

2. They knew and just lied to the public about how long it would take.

Either one is worthy of walking someone out the door.

5/11/2026 1:57:58 PM