Would it be? I'd argue the current US administration is entirely propped up by television. Hell, the president seems to "rule" based on what Fox News said last night.
A slightly different and no more charitable perspective is that the people pulling the president's strings are the same people pulling Fox News's strings.
Let's see, during Stalin's Rule 18 million people went through forced labor camps and roughly 10% died, around 1.8 million
Let's add around 5 million for man made famine, and probably a 2 million for arbitrary executions and deportations, while many estimate the full death count as between 15-20 million
As far I can understand the top range of estimates for CECOT, which is a non American facility, are that 500 died, of around imprisoned 20,000 inmates. So the scale is a bit... different
I think the issue here is that contrary to popular belief, not every wrong thing is the same
Death rates are particularly hard to compare because part of the idea of El Salvador's system is that people are expected to die there - there is no release policy - yet most of them are young healthy men recently detained.
If we just look at incarceration rates:
CECOT is one facility, but around 2% of El Salvador's population has been imprisoned by Bukele's operation.
In 1950 the USSR had a population of around 180 million, and the gulag system was at its height with a population of 2.5 million, very similar.
The US prison system has been around 1% from the peak of the War On Drugs until recent fads in liberalized sentencing, currently holding at 0.7%, one of the highest in the world if you exclude ethnic purges like Xinjiang or Gaza.
Imagine how lost your morale compass needs to be to defend Stalin because you don't like Trump.
Apart for the fact that people were released from El Salvador system, the population percentage is wrong for El Salvador, USSR and US, the difference between slavery camps and a penal system, Gaza not being a prison.
But what are you really saying, that the 200-500 dead in El Salvador, most non associated with Trump, makes Trump equivalent with Stalin's 15 million dead? Does that make sense?
This thread is bizzare, full of commenters who pretend not to understand why the OP post doesn't prove anything. It's not the first pro-Lebanon anti-Israel post either in the last few days.
> But the thing that gets them rioting is economic failure. Which the strikes have exacerbated.
Past riots were related to women rights or election fraud. The last one were related to the economic situation, but there is a large young population in Iran which aren't religious anymore, and living in an oppressive theocracy
If you look at the chances, there's a far greater chance of dying in the hands of SUV mounted machine guns firing at crowds than precision bombs that mostly hit regime forces
Your links talk about the places that were bombed, but I don't see anything apart for conjecture that this was the product of AI targeting.
Also this is a vast underestimate of the ability of organizations that were able to locate most of Iranian leadership throughout the war in their hiding places, but suddenly their Farsi is so bad they need a twitter account to tell them this is a Park
It's a popular conspiracy theory, without evidence, and without any perspective on any information that intelligence had. Using civilians as shields is well documented/known for Iranian military and groups they sponsor. For example, hospitals [1].
> Gatestone Institute is an American far-right think tank known for publishing anti-Muslim articles.
> The organization has attracted attention for publishing false or inaccurate articles, some of which were shared widely.
> The Gatestone Institute has been frequently described as anti-Muslim, regularly publishes false reports to stoke anti-Muslim fears, and has published false stories pertaining to Muslims and Islam.
The US and Israel have repeatedly claimed that schools and hospitals are legitimate military targets with no evidence. A highly partisan think tank which is known for putting out misinformation is not a valid source.
If you're going to destroy hospitals and target civilian infrastructure and kill children, you should be accountable on a world stage and provide evidence. Unless you would you accept Iran bombing elementary schools in the US because they claim to have intel that there are terrorists hiding under them?
There are MANY examples of Iranian backed terrorist organizations doing this (which I thought might be too indirect), but here's something more recent [1].
Regardless, left leaning news reports things that make them look good and the opposition look bad. Right leaning news reports things that make them look good and the opposition look bad. Both are needed to find truth because they're all biased for profit corporate entities owned by 6 different billionaires that will only report what's convenient for that bias.
And no, I have no trust in the claims of the Iranian government. Do you? Who do you believe does?
At least so against Israel and other countries actively engaging in open warfare against sovereign nations, as a European I'm very happy we're not getting pulled into those senseless conflicts.
I am talking about actively hindering the war effort while getting closer to Iran, a country that repeatedly kidnapped europeans, or caving in for China again and again.
Europe has always managed to make the wrong choice historically, and that's how it still continues
How has Europe actively hindered the war effort? Not volunteering for demining duties under fire in a very narrow straight, and preferring diplomatic solutions seems eminently sensible, and not at all the same as 'getting closer to Iran'. Why doesn't the US send frigates and destroyers into the straight to open it and escort ships out? The answer is that it's pretty high risk, and not one worth taking (unless you are Trump and looking to save face).
Generally speaking: Spain, Italy, Austria, France and Switzerland prevented the US from using its airbases or airspaces to transit their planes to the Middle East.
The UK at times also blocked use of its air bases.
France probably cut a separate deal with Iran, evident from the release of the French hostages, the call Macron had with the Iranian FM and the fact Iran lets their ship cross
At the beginning it was fairly clear to everyone outside the US that this was an illegal war of aggression. That we waited until Iran had struck Israel and gulf countries was at least a fig leaf for the pretence we were doing something reasonable.
What source do you have for French ships being allowed to pass?
I think you're reading too much into this report. It was one ship that according to the story passed by hugging the French coastline. My memory from a radio report at the time was these ships also passed at night.
There's no sense that French ships are consistently getting special treatment.
Their entire leadership, navy, airforce, petrochemical and steel industries as well as the entire supply chain for the ballistic and drones industries which is also a lucrative export to Russia.
I am not sure they "lost a little else". When looking at what the US lost, it's pretty small in comparison
Russia and China would likely disagree as they count their gains:
- yet another massive blow to their trust and reputation among allies
- again massively undermining NATO thereby fostering global instability
- weakened credibility vis a vis defending Taiwan
It's not a complete US success, but what the OP said was a huge understatement. Iran situation had gotten much worse during this war.
Regarding NATO, this is a European effort of undermining the alliance no more than it is the US.
Europe is rightfully saying that Ukraine is our, the entire western world, war.
However, when the US bombs the very factories that manufacture these drones used in Ukraine, and the nation that quite frequently kidnaps european citizens as political chips, the europeans say "this is not our war".
> Regarding NATO, this is a European effort of undermining the alliance no more than it is the US.
> [...]
> when the US bombs the very factories that manufacture these drones used in Ukraine, and the nation that quite frequently kidnaps european citizens as political chips
That's a US decision. The United States never invoked Article 4 over Iran, and neither did Europe. NATO has nothing to do with it.
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