Day five - US attack on Iran

The shakeup has begun.  Kristi Noem gets an advisory council.  First appointments: Rudy Giuliani and Corey Lewandowski.  Wow.

An adversarial one.

It is what he says it is.  Stop asking.

Hmmm.  Which is it?  Somebody get this man on better meds.  Point of interest:  The war is not done.

Iran has a Supreme Leader.  We have a Supreme Idiot.

Thanks, Trump.

Is he simply lying or are people telling him this and he believes it?  Is "we" the royal "we"?

UPDATE 05:02 pm:

I don't know how complex it was, but it wasn't secretive.  At all.

His alter ego starts rumors.  He just repeats them.

The infographics were everywhere in the run-up to Sunday's early-morning strike on Iran's nuclear facilities by American stealth bombers.

They depicted America's bunker-busting bomb, known as the Massive Ordnance Penetrator, or GBU-57. It was being dropped from high above the Earth by a B-2 Spirit bomber. Then, the graphics showed it plowing a narrow channel deep beneath the ground — around 60 meters, or 200 feet — and erupting in an illustrated explosion.

Only America had this 30,000-pound weapon. Only America could hit Iran's most deeply buried uranium enrichment site at a place called Fordo. It was buried beneath nearly 90 meters (around 300 feet) of rock, far deeper than Israeli bombs could penetrate.

[...]

According to a still-classified assessment by the Defense Intelligence Agency, the bombs did not "obliterate" Iran's Fordo enrichment site as President Trump initially claimed. Instead, the strike did only limited damage to the advanced centrifuges kept there. At most, the program was set back "a few months," according to a U.S. official who confirmed the assessment's existence to NPR but remained anonymous because they were not authorized to speak to the press.

[...]

In the aftermath of Sept. 11, with an eye toward the caves of Afghanistan, where Osama bin Laden was believed to be hiding, then-President George W. Bush's administration looked at whether a nuclear weapon could be dropped from a plane into the ground. The Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator, as the concept was known, would deliver a powerful shock to underground tunnels and bunkers.

But when scientists got involved, they found there was no way to get a nuclear weapon nearly deep enough to contain the blast and radioactive fallout, and the program was eventually abandoned.

[...]

The so-called penetration equations have existed since the 1960s and depend on a limited number of factors, including the shape of the nose cone, the weight and diameter of the weapon, the speed at which it hits the ground, and — crucially — the type of earth it gets dropped on.

[...]

Changes in the geologic structure can also cause the bomb to change direction even as it moves through the Earth.

[...]

When I ran the calculations, using a key equation from that study, I found out that the GBU-57 could go up to 80 meters (262 feet) underground if it was dropped in silty clay.

In medium-strength rock, things looked far different. The GBU-57 could only go around 7.9 meters (about 25 feet) beneath the earth — far short of the 60 meters claimed by the infographics.

[...]

This may be an important part of the reason the weapon failed to destroy its target — if indeed the bombs did fail as the DIA assessment claims.

[...]

It's clear that American planners were aware of these kinds of challenges. Rather than dispatching one or two GBU-57s, they sent 12 to drop on Fordo. Based on satellite imagery, it looks like they may have been dropped in pairs, with the first weapon fracturing the rock to increase the penetrating depth of the second. The bombers also appeared to target Fordo's ventilation system, a possible weak point.

[...]

But [...] those shockwaves weaken quickly as they move into the rock. Fordo's position directly under the ridge of the mountain probably maximized that protection.

[...]

A major conclusion from the 2005 study was that "it's cheaper and easier for someone to dig deeper than it is to penetrate through that depth."

  NPR

Day two - US war crimes in Iran

I started this blog when the US invaded Iraq under W Bush with bullshit intelligence, 22 years ago. I can hardly believe it's been that long. And here I am again, back in the same insane spot while we're bombing Iran. How do we think this will go?

Three B-2 bombers flying from the United States dropped six 13.6-ton Massive Ordnance Penetrator “bunker-busters” on the underground Fordow plant, while a US submarine fired about 30 Tomahawk cruise missiles at Natanz and Isfahan. President Donald Trump later declared the targets “completely and totally obliterated,” warning that “far greater” strikes could follow if Iran retaliates.

  Jerusalem Post

And, perhaps that's because, as reported, Iranians moved their stockpile before the hit.  And, it's reported, that the US told Iran beforehand that we were going to drop the bomb -- but only the one time.  So much bullshit.  

It was reported that US officials “reached out to Iran diplomatically on Saturday” to say the strikes were all the United States planned and that no wider war was intended.

  Jerusalem Post

Dimplomatically!

No war was intended! Insanity.

CBS reported that US officials “reached out to Iran diplomatically on Saturday” to say the strikes were all the United States planned and that no wider war was intended. Reuters quoted US sources repeating the same message and noting it was passed hours before the first bombs fell.

Iranian officials subsequently evacuated “most” enriched-uranium stocks from Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan before impact, an Iranian source told the regional site Amwaj media. The Indian NDTV also reported on Sunday that the US updated the Iranian regime before the attack, about 24 hours beforehand. According to the report, the information was passed on to Iran through a third Middle Eastern country.

Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization denounced the raid as a “brutal act” violating the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and vowed to rebuild its nuclear industry.

Officials have not detailed casualties or damage, but Iranian state television said the sites had been partly evacuated beforehand.

I don't think that's it.  They don't care about Congress or laws.  They care about the fact that Trump told his loyal followers that he wouldn't get us into wars.

And now, maybe we'll stop talking about ICE raids.  And we're not talking about the MAGA assassinations in Minnesota.

That's General Dan 'Raisin' Caine.  Trumped loved that.  He's there for his name.

So...more bullshit.

We will attack, unprovoked, and then defend ourselves.

A decoy!  For whom?  We already told Iran what we were going to do!  Must have been a decoy for "the people in Washington."

Without WASHINGTON knowing.  A man in Missouri reported that he saw the B-2s leaving Whiteman Airforce base.  And the US TOLD apparently several Mideast countries what was coming.  And yesterday, before the attack was reported, I even posted the ridiculous Bloomberg report that B-2s had launched while Trump was "weighing" whether to bomb Iran, noting that the decision had obviously already been made.

After it was over, in other words.  Never mind that Congress is supposed to be the agency to approve war.  Oh yeah, it's not war.  It's just a "one-off" bombing.

CNN, finger on the pulse. On the very DAY of the attack.  Kevin Liptak should go back to school, and CNN needs an editor who's awake.

No. No, you idiot asshole, they have not.

A little late for that, Chuck.

Of course!

Trump didn't plan anything, but thanks for putting the responsibility - which he sees as credit, asskisser - on him.

You know what was a deterrence?  The JCPOA that Trump trashed.

I wonder what Pakistan was promised to get them to nominate him.

Too late.  

 In a nutshell...

AIPAC was a huge player in the Iraq invasion.

This post will be updated below throughout the day.

UPDATE 09:35 am:

War is peace.

Yeah, we didn't declare war on Cambodia, either.

I don't know why they wouldn't believe that.

Well, we don't want THEM to engage.

And now we have a genius.  Who, by the way, was one of those presidents "back then."

UPDATE 01:49 pm:

While Trump recently publicly disputed Gabbard’s testimony [that the intel community believes Iran is NOT building a nuclear weapon], according to two administration officials with knowledge of internal deliberations in recent weeks, the president’s decision to strike was not driven by any new U.S. intelligence on Iran.

“There is no intel,” says one of the officials, who were granted anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. “Nothing new, that I’m aware of… The president is protecting the United States and our interests, [but] the intelligence assessments have not really changed from what they were before.”

  Rolling Stone

Not to mention the crazy tariffs.  Maybe China would like to make a deal.

Weeeeelllllll...

Somehow, little tough man and AI are going to keep us safe.  No worries.

My posts on American involvement in war since the beginning of the blog have carried a tag of "perpetual war".

Every Sunday show Republican has said we are not interested in regime change in Iran.

Every. Time.

UPDATE 06/23/2025: