Trump Bombed Iranian Nuclear Site Fordo Today. Are We in WW 3?

[canpakes]

They don't think, unless you count whatever intellectualism it requires to parrot what dear leader is saying. They are paralyzed from the neck up.

There may also be some function paralysis happening below the neck.

[Chap]

All this craziness points to a rather worrying question.

In the first Trump Presidency, there was at least a belief that should Trump wake up up in the night and start screaming 'NUKE TEHERAN! NOW!!!! BRING ME THE F*****G CODE FOOTBALL!!!!!'

... the top military would contrive to suggest that there was a technical fault, so that they couldn't do that right away, unfortunately, thus giving them a chance to get Article 25 into action.

I gather, however, that he has since then ensured that if he says 'nuke', then nuking will happen. Do better informed board members agree that this is the case?

What’s the source for the top military contrivance?

I am sorry, but that was all some time ago. I don't want to spend an hour searching, but I did find this - which is of course not all that I seem to recall from the first Trump term. And in any case, my memory may have 'improved' the story somewhat - that can happen!

Anyway, where are we now? The last line of the article says:

If a general said "no" to the president, he could've course fire that general. But their replacement would be equally obliged to obey the law

I suspect that in the second Trump term generals who might ask themselves if an order is legal have been removed from the vicinity of the President.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-42065714

Can US generals say 'no' to Trump if he orders a nuclear strike?

The claim: US military personnel could resist President Trump if he ordered an illegal nuclear strike.

Reality Check verdict: Although normally nobody is allowed to refuse the president's order, in practice, generals would expect a good explanation for the strike - and would be obliged to say "no" to an illegal order.

In recent months, with tensions rising between the US and North Korea, people have been asking what's to stop President Trump launching nuclear weapons.

A retired general told Congress that the military may be able to say "no" to the President, under certain circumstances.

Now, Gen John Hyten, who leads US Strategic Command, has told the Halifax International Security Forum that he would advise against a strike if he considered it was illegal., external
But is anyone allowed to say "no" to the president if he orders a nuclear strike?

Access codes

If President Trump wanted to fire nuclear weapons, he could first discuss a range of options with his advisers.
He'd then issue an order to top military officials at the Pentagon.
They would confirm the president's identity by exchanging codes printed on a card called the "biscuit", which the president carries wherever he goes.
The order would pass to US Strategic Command, which would then send further instructions and access codes to crews on the ground (or, perhaps, underwater in a submarine.)
Those crews would then launch the missiles.
The BBC's Inquiry podcast covered the practicalities of launching a nuclear strike in much more detail.
Is there anyone, at any of those stages, who'd be allowed to say "no" to the president?

Chain of command

A briefing from the Congressional Research Service makes the legal situation plain, external. "The US president has sole authority to authorise the use of US nuclear weapons."
Ordinarily, nobody is allowed to over-rule the president's decision - it's part of his role as Commander-in-Chief.
In theory, the vice-president could oust the president if a majority of the cabinet agreed, external that the president was unfit to serve.
In practice, that would be difficult to organise in time to stop the president launching nuclear weapons.
But Peter Feaver, professor of political science at Duke University in North Carolina, says it's not true that President Trump could launch a nuclear strike as easily as he could fire off a tweet.
"The president is giving an order which is transmitted down a chain of command. Someone further down that chain of command turns the key or presses the button."

Prof Feaver says that if the president went to the military to order a strike, this would trigger a "consultation process" - generals wanting to know what the president was trying to achieve, why the president wanted to use nuclear weapons and so on.
President Trump would have the legal authority to order the strike all the same, against any advice he receives.
But he'd still need to persuade the military to carry that order out.

Legal orders


Gen Hyten argued that if a nuclear order was illegal, he wouldn't carry it out.
"If you execute an unlawful order, you will go to jail. You could go to jail for the rest of your life."

What would make a nuclear order unlawful?

Some argue that all uses of nuclear weapons would be unlawful.
But even if you dispute that, there may be certain circumstances where it would be illegal to fire nuclear weapons.
Anthony Colangelo, professor of law at the Southern Methodist University in Dallas, argues that certain kinds of nuclear strikes could break international humanitarian law, external.
International humanitarian law governs how countries must behave when at war. It comes from treaties the US has signed, such as the Geneva Conventions, but also from custom and case law, too.
You might break the law by using nuclear weapons when conventional weapons could achieve the same objective or by using nuclear weapons somewhere where they would kill combatants and civilians indiscriminately.

This isn't just Prof Colangelo's opinion. The US Department of Defense acknowledges in its law manual , externalthat "the law of war governs the use of nuclear weapons".
Prof Colangelo says the responsibility to obey the law "runs from the top down - right down to the crew member on the submarine".
If the president orders an illegal strike, anyone who carries out that order is potentially liable for war crimes.
They'd have a duty to say "no".
Would officers disobey?
Not everyone is equally able to spot an illegal order, though.
The submarine crews, for example, won't have access to all the information that the president and his top military officials do. They might not be in a position to tell whether an order is legal.
And Prof Colangelo points out it might not be a good thing to encourage those crew members to question any order that comes their way. "The entire structure of military command would crumble if subordinates started second-guessing orders."

Gen John Hyten has said he would refuse to carry out an illegal order.
If a general said "no" to the president, he could've course fire that general. But their replacement would be equally obliged to obey the law.

[Limnor]

I remember when Hyten said that now.

I’d say his comments were accurate and apply today.

Whatever the view of Trump, the alternative of having military officers deciding for themselves whether to obey lawful orders from elected civilian leadership isn't something we’d want either.

[ajax18]

If the war in Iran is driving up the price of gasoline, you should be happy given your environmental alarmist nature that leads you to embrace policies and unilateral carbon emission reduction agreements which disproportionately hurt the American people. Because in your view, we're responsible for bearing the cost of environmental regulations because we have more money than other nations. When Democrats take power, gasoline, electricity, and even fresh potable water will be heavily taxed for two reasons. It's part of income redistribution from working to nonworking people, which is the fundamental goal of democratic socialism. But it's also to punish American and only American people who use fossil fuels that are destroying the planet.

The only way you're going to make green energy competitive is to drive up the price of fossil fuels. So why aren't you jumping up and down happy about the price of gasoline, when it's literally saving the planet according to yodpur logic?

Chap is so right! You are so way out of date! Your ignorant rejection of the scientific reality of climate change and environmental degradation, both of which are driven by our exponentially increasing reliance on fossil fuels, is every bit as irrational as insisting that the world is flat!

Yes, it is true that the increasing cost of fossil fuels is an effective motivation to drive us to cheaper, greener, and safer energy technologies, but fossil fuels are unavoidably going to get more expensive, Iran war or not, simply because of their exponentially rapid depletion and expense of finding and extracting them. Do you deny that?

Besides that, as already pointed out to you numerous times, renewable energy is already cheaper than fossil fuels and is getting cheaper still as our technology advances and becomes more efficient. Even if it were not getting progressively less expensive relatively (which it is), is preventing destructive climate change and promoting a safer and healthier environment not worth some additional expense and effort?

Another valid and powerful motivation for transitioning to renewable energy technology is that our chief rival, China is massively out-competing us in that area very much to their future benefit and dominance and our inevitable demise, if we don't massively step up our own efforts in that area. We are in extreme danger of losing our scientific, technological and economic leadership, if we haven't already lost it! If you doubt that, you are a flaming idiot!

Did you even attempt to look at the references I linked to that unequivocally document my claims? Why not? Why do you doubt that the fossil fuel industry is lying to us about their denial of adverse consequences of fossil fuels and advantages of reducing our dependence on them? Do you really think they wouldn't lie to protect their massive profits? Do you own a massive amount of stock shares in the fossil fuel industry or something related?

And why to you single out me for attack on green and environmental issues? Don't you realize that others on this forum, such as Chap, canpakes, Philo Sofee, Physics Guy, Res Ipsa et al, with whom I am largely in agreement, probably know considerably more about these same issues than I do?

So why are you complaining about higher gasoline prices? You should be thanking DJT for delivering what you want.

[canpakes]

So why are you complaining about higher gasoline prices? You should be thanking DJT for delivering what you want.

Appreciating that alternative energy choices are available is not the same as actively trying to squelch alternatives while making the only remaining choice 50% more expensive, as Trump has.

Complaining about gasoline prices when Trump was out of office has been MAGA’s hobby, along with bitching about EVs, bicycles and public transportation, in between thinking that rolling coal on cyclists and Prius owners is somehow a measure of manhood.

[canpakes]

I’m sorry, ajax. MAGA got played again.

[Gunnar]

So why are you complaining about higher gasoline prices? You should be thanking DJT for delivering what you want.

Because rapidly rising gas prices shouldn't be the sole or main justification for transitioning to cleaner, safer, more environmentally benign green energy alternatives and policies. Rapidly rising gasoline prices are disproportionately more harmful to the poorest, most economically disadvantaged and are gleefully taken advantage of by the fossil fuel industry to both raise their profits enormously and dishonestly blame them on their justly concerned environmentally knowledgeable and conscionable opponents. We should be more persuaded by the scientifically established and increasingly obvious undesirable environmental consequences of our massive reliance on fossil fuels, that fossil fuel corporations are desperately trying to distract us from with their multimillion-dollar propaganda efforts to discredit or squash any honest scientific documentation and discussion of them. The fact that rising fuel prices are also hurting us, in addition to the worsening environmental consequences, is just incidental layer of pain on top of that resulting from those consequences. Or are just gleeful that those higher fuel prices are also hurting those with whom you disagree?

And you, Ajax, why are you so seemingly unconcerned or, perhaps, even gleeful about rising gasoline prices? Are you massively invested in fossil fuel stocks?

[Gunnar]

So why are you complaining about higher gasoline prices? You should be thanking DJT for delivering what you want.

Appreciating that alternative energy choices are available is not the same as actively trying to squelch alternatives while making the only remaining choice 50% more expensive, as Trump has.

Complaining about gasoline prices when Trump was out of office has been MAGA’s hobby, along with bitching about EVs, bicycles and public transportation, in between thinking that rolling coal on cyclists and Prius owners is somehow a measure of manhood.

Excellent additional points! Thanks!

[Gunnar]

I’m sorry, ajax. MAGA got played again.

What an incredible turn-around!

ETA: Ajax, is your head spinning?

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

This is a ‘normal’ person back in 2010 explaining exactly what would happen if we got into a war with Iran:

https://youtu.be/tbCtOZJu_I4?is=j60uD1_Wt0VWK1en

FYI: That guy is a libertarian anti-interventionist.

To my point, he wasn’t alone in making those warnings. In 2010, analysts from a wide range of institutions, including the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Brookings Institution, and other mainstream foreign policy circles, were also discussing many of the same risks: retaliation, attacks on US assets, disruption in the Strait of Hormuz, broader regional conflict, and the greater economic effects.

This was all known, and completely avoidable. US politicians are controlled by AIPAC, their allegiance is to a foreign power, and it’s destroying us. We have to get out of this arrangement.