Live Thread: War With Iran Continues #5

[mystery-ak]

Very long at link

https://twitter.com/ConceptualJames/status/2066709526573629514

[Bigun]

I’m not using my methodology. I’m using his.

I don’t believe Christianity is responsible for every death resulting from wars, conquests, political conflicts, colonial expansion, or atrocities committed by people who happened to be Christian. That would be an absurd standard.

The point is that Warner applies exactly that standard to Islam.

So when I use the same methodology to produce enormous death tolls for Christianity, I’m not endorsing the result. I’m demonstrating the flaw in the method.

A methodology that produces absurd conclusions when applied consistently is evidence against the methodology, not evidence for it.

If Warner’s approach is valid for Islam, then it must also be valid for Christianity, Judaism, communism, nationalism, and every other belief system. If that conclusion seems ridiculous, then perhaps the methodology is the problem.

Here is my methodology @Luis Gonzalez

I lived and worked with Arabs in the Middle East for more than eleven years and studied their "religion" out of respect for who's country I was then living in. Got to know a few of them very well and fewer still I still call friends. In private moments, they, to a man, have all told me the same thing. "If push comes to shove, I'll be the guy holding your feet while my brother cuts your head off!" I seriously doubt that they lied to me.

What you miss in what I quoted is that they are REQUIRED to kill us where the find us. I cannot find a Christian parallel but perhaps you can enlighten me.

[Luis Gonzalez]

This is a refutation by misdirection. The Christian strawman. It will not work.

No, it is not a strawman, and it is not misdirection.

A strawman would be attributing a position to Warner that he does not hold and then attacking that position. I am doing the opposite. I am accepting his methodology as stated and applying it consistently to other religions and ideologies.

That is a standard test of any historical methodology.
If Warner’s method is valid, then it should produce meaningful results regardless of whether it is applied to Islam, Christianity, communism, nationalism, or any other belief system. If applying the same method elsewhere produces obviously inflated or absurd conclusions, that is evidence that the methodology itself is flawed.

You call it a “Christian strawman,” but notice that you are not defending the methodology. You are objecting to where the methodology leads when applied equally

[mystery-ak]

Trey Yingst
@TreyYingst
·
1h
President Trump spoke with the Iranians overnight warning them not to close the Strait.

"You close it and you won't have a country," Trump said he told Iranian officials. "You won't even make it back to your fu*king country."

[mystery-ak]

https://twitter.com/sentdefender/status/2068699192466260108

[mystery-ak]

https://twitter.com/Osint613/status/2068686706258182452

[Luis Gonzalez]

Name all those historians or at least the first dozen. You keep making claims without evidence. You sound like you must be a muslim yourself.

Do your own work to prove me wrong.

I don't mind that you hold on to whatever misinformation you want to hold on to, but here... around me... you will be challenged.

So... go, prove his methodology correct and show me all the historians that agree with him.

[Luis Gonzalez]

Here is my methodology @Luis Gonzalez

I lived and worked with Arabs in the Middle East for more than eleven years and studied their "religion" out of respect for who's country I was then living in. Got to know a few of them very well and fewer still I still call friends. In private moments, they, to a man, have all told me the same thing. "If push comes to shove, I'll be the guy holding your feet while my brother cuts your head off!" I seriously doubt that they lied to me.

What you miss in what I quoted is that they are REQUIRED to kill us where the find us. I cannot find a Christian parallel but perhaps you can enlighten me.

Warner’s method isn’t history; it’s aggregation without causation.

If a war happens in a Christian empire, it becomes “Christian deaths.” If it happens in a Muslim empire, it becomes “Islamic deaths.” Political, economic, dynastic, and territorial causes are stripped out, then everything gets relabeled as religious.

That’s not analysis. That’s pre-loading the conclusion and counting backward from it.

[BobfromWB]

Atlas of Iran’s Missile Cities

How the Islamic Republic built a hidden missile network across Iran - and how two wars exposed its limits

The missiles the Islamic Republic has today owe much to early models purchased from Ukrainian arms dealers, North Korea and China during Mohammad Khatami’s presidency (1997 to 2005).

Under Khatami, Iran unveiled the Shahab-3, the first Iranian missile with enough range to reach Israel. While Khatami spoke of a “dialogue among civilizations,” Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, then commander of the IRGC Air Force, was digging tunnels and building underground missile depots in the Zagros Mountains - facilities that were later given the grandiose title of “missile cities.”

While Hassan Rouhani, Iran’s president from 2013 to 2021, and his foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, sold the nuclear agreement with world powers as a “win-win” diplomatic breakthrough, another project was advancing out of view. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the IRGC Aerospace Force commander later killed in an Israeli strike, was expanding the underground depots Ghalibaf had dug across Iran and building new missile production and assembly complexes in the deserts around Shahroud, northeast of Tehran, and in the valleys of Khojir, one of the Islamic Republic’s key missile-production zones east of the capital.

During the same period, Iran expanded its southern missile cluster, designed to threaten shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf states.

This is the story of the Islamic Republic’s missile program inside Iran.

https://exclusive.iranintl.com/iran-missile-cities/en/

This article is very long and detailed, with maps and time-lapse satellite photos of many of these “Missile Cities”.

[Timber Rattler]

He added that he is seriously considering shifting responsibility to Syria and has discussed empowering Syrian President Ahmad al Sharaa, a former al Qaeda commander, to enter southern Lebanon and take on Hezbollah directly.

Oh, and create another Bin Laden in the process.  Just great!

Every time I check the news to see how low Trump can go in this stupid "deal" of his, he never fails to meet my expectations.

[Idiot]

For a few minutes I watched the AM cable news, and there was Ollie North's butt boy, Jenkins, spouting about JDV telling him that if all goes well in the negotiations today, then "Iran has a chance of becoming a normal country" ... whereupon the TV went off.

What "normal country" slaughters 40,000 of its own citizens? What "normal country" cuts off and sells their dead women's hair"?
  

The Chinese likely do much worse.

[Idiot]

Trey Yingst
@TreyYingst
·
1h
President Trump spoke with the Iranians overnight warning them not to close the Strait.

"You close it and you won't have a country," Trump said he told Iranian officials. "You won't even make it back to your fu*king country."

Trump the statesman.

[mystery-ak]

This is going well.../s
Why the US puts up with this shit is beyond me!

https://twitter.com/AmitSegal/status/2068692986699841949

[Idiot]

This is going well.../s
Why the US puts up with this shit is beyond me!

https://twitter.com/AmitSegal/status/2068692986699841949

Yup.....this is getting very tiresome.

[mystery-ak]

https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2068703519230558635

[Timber Rattler]

This is going well.../s
Why the US puts up with this shit is beyond me!

Great job, JD!   

[mystery-ak]

https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2068703888488669485

[BobfromWB]

The Chinese likely do much worse.

They only did 20,000 in one go. Of course, many other Chinese went away over time, but not in a matter of a few days.

Iran holds the record for most kills in a few days of its own citizens. Chinese very angry at being dethroned to 2nd place!

[BobfromWB]

"OR WE'LL TAKE OVER THE REST OF THE COUNTRY!"

Asking for a friend: which part of Iran has the US taken over?

[Timber Rattler]

Asking for a friend: which part of Iran has the US taken over?

Hmmmm...that seems to be a problem, doesn't it?

[mystery-ak]

Asking for a friend: which part of Iran has the US taken over?

Just like *bombing them into the stone age* 

[Luis Gonzalez]

Just like *bombing them into the stone age* 

Actually, we should bomb them out of it.

[mystery-ak]

Actually, we should bomb them out of it.

That is so true...

[mystery-ak]

https://twitter.com/Osint613/status/2068711982711148772

[mystery-ak]

https://twitter.com/TousiTVOfficial/status/2068726699143856508

[mystery-ak]

https://twitter.com/amjadt25/status/2068717308965531894

[mystery-ak]

https://twitter.com/TreyYingst/status/2068683480993542470

[Timber Rattler]

I can't help but wonder if JD is being advised behind the scenes by his old buddy Tucker Carlson...because JD is looking like a complete chump and sucker in Geneva this morning.

[Luis Gonzalez]

On Iran, none of us are working with the full picture, and pretending otherwise is the first mistake.

What we see is a curated surface layer. Official statements, selective leaks, press briefings, and media narratives that are all shaped by institutions with incentives, including governments, intelligence services, and aligned media ecosystems on every side.

In conflicts like this, information is not just reporting reality. It is part of the strategy. What gets released publicly often reflects what each side wants the other side and domestic audiences to believe.

The real negotiations, signaling, and de-escalation happen off camera. Back channels, third party intermediaries, intelligence to intelligence messaging, and diplomatic exchanges that are deliberately kept out of public view.

So when people argue confidently from headlines or official quotes, they are often reacting to managed information flows, not the actual decision making process.

We are not seeing the war. We are seeing what each side allows to be seen about the war.

[mystery-ak]

https://twitter.com/sentdefender/status/2068723335727325290

[BobfromWB]

https://twitter.com/amjadt25/status/2068717308965531894

Instead, Iran demanded that the United States stop Israel from responding to Hezbollah terrorists, support statehood for the Yemen-based terrorists, and accept Iran's control over the Strait of Hormuz, which it is already attempting to assert.

This is not a nuclear deal. It is one of the most shameful and disastrous negotiations imaginable.

[Timber Rattler]

What we see is a curated surface layer.

The problem with that is that it assumes that Trump knows what he's doing with diplomacy.  I have no confidence that he, or Vance, actually does.

[Lando Lincoln]

On Iran, none of us are working with the full picture, and pretending otherwise is the first mistake.

What we see is a curated surface layer. Official statements, selective leaks, press briefings, and media narratives that are all shaped by institutions with incentives, including governments, intelligence services, and aligned media ecosystems on every side.

In conflicts like this, information is not just reporting reality. It is part of the strategy. What gets released publicly often reflects what each side wants the other side and domestic audiences to believe.

The real negotiations, signaling, and de-escalation happen off camera. Back channels, third party intermediaries, intelligence to intelligence messaging, and diplomatic exchanges that are deliberately kept out of public view.

So when people argue confidently from headlines or official quotes, they are often reacting to managed information flows, not the actual decision making process.

We are not seeing the war. We are seeing what each side allows to be seen about the war.

I agree with you Luis. While I don’t like some things that I “see”, I realize that I am looking at a picture that is mostly incomplete. We can’t possibly know the back channel communications that are taking place or those that are flowing through third party conduits. Then, there are likely “demands” from allies that the President wishes to appear to consider.

As it looks right now, it seems we have capitulated. Only time will tell.

[Luis Gonzalez]

The problem with that is that it assumes that Trump knows what he's doing with diplomacy.  I have no confidence that he, or Vance, actually does.

Trump is in charge of sending the bombs and missiles and drones, any time the people having a go at Diplomacy lane throw their hands up in frustration.

[Luis Gonzalez]

I agree with you Luis. While I don’t like some things that I “see”, I realize that I am looking at a picture that is mostly incomplete. We can’t possibly know the back channel communications that are taking place or those that are flowing through third party conduits. Then, there are likely “demands” from allies that the President wishes to appear to consider.

As it looks right now, it seems we have capitulated. Only time will tell.

I don’t even know what I don’t know yet. Hard to wrap my head around what’s going on right now.

I have a difficult time thinking that Trump capitulated to anything.

[Hoodat]

The Iran Watcher 🇮🇷
@TheIranWatcher

🚨 Hezbollah recruitment ads are now appearing in Tehran, offering salaries of around $1,000 per month - a substantial amount given the collapse of Iran’s currency.

The obvious question is: why is Hezbollah recruiting in Iran?

For decades, Hezbollah relied primarily on Lebanon’s Shiite population for manpower. But after years of fighting in Syria and repeated wars with Israel, the organization appears to be facing new challenges.

Israel has inflicted significant damage on Hezbollah’s leadership, infrastructure, and military capabilities.

If Hezbollah is now recruiting on the streets of Tehran, it raises serious questions about the state of its ranks and its ability to replenish losses from within Lebanon alone.

For an organization that once projected strength across the region, looking to Iran for recruits may be a sign of deeper problems beneath the surface.

https://x.com/TheIranWatcher/status/2068291611180560788/video/1

6:15 AM  ·  Jun 20, 2026  ·  184.6K Views

https://x.com/TheIranWatcher/status/2068291611180560788

[bigheadfred]

The Iran Watcher 🇮🇷
@TheIranWatcher

🚨 Hezbollah recruitment ads are now appearing in Tehran, offering salaries of around $1,000 per month - a substantial amount given the collapse of Iran’s currency.

The obvious question is: why is Hezbollah recruiting in Iran?

For decades, Hezbollah relied primarily on Lebanon’s Shiite population for manpower. But after years of fighting in Syria and repeated wars with Israel, the organization appears to be facing new challenges.

Israel has inflicted significant damage on Hezbollah’s leadership, infrastructure, and military capabilities.

If Hezbollah is now recruiting on the streets of Tehran, it raises serious questions about the state of its ranks and its ability to replenish losses from within Lebanon alone.

For an organization that once projected strength across the region, looking to Iran for recruits may be a sign of deeper problems beneath the surface.

https://x.com/TheIranWatcher/status/2068291611180560788/video/1

6:15 AM  ·  Jun 20, 2026  ·  184.6K Views

https://x.com/TheIranWatcher/status/2068291611180560788

LOL

"Neither side can kill their way out of this."

[Hoodat]

Very long at link

https://x.com/ConceptualJames/status/2066709526573629514

Re: the Anaconda Strategy

Allowing Iran to again sell its oil on the open market (bringing in $60 billion annually) is not my idea of tightening the noose.  We actually loosened our hold on the IRGC by doing so.  If this process does not advance another step from this point forward, Iran still would have gained that - a return to the Biden years.  It was that $60 billion in oil revenues that funded both their nuclear and missile programs.

[Hoodat]

Asking for a friend: which part of Iran has the US taken over?

Better yet, which of Trump's original demands have we gotten from Iran?

[Hoodat]

WarMonitor🇺🇦🇬🇧
@WarMonitor3

Iran reportedly attempted to smuggle members of the IRGC into the US as part of their World Cup team according to US homeland security.

12:17 PM  ·  Jun 21, 2026  ·  66K Views

https://x.com/WarMonitor3/status/2068745208825585917

[Hoodat]

World Source News
@Worldsource24

UKMTO: A boat carrying armed individuals approached a commercial vessel about 50 nautical miles southeast of Yemen’s eastern coast and attempted to board it.
Last edited



10:13 AM  ·  Jun 21, 2026  ·  1,858 Views

[Hoodat]

World Source News
@Worldsource24

Iranian Parliament Speaker Ghalibaf:

Do they not realize that if their threats had been effective, they would not have reached today's state of desperation? We do not take the Americans' threats seriously.

They would do better to be careful about their statements. Our armed forces are prepared to respond in a different manner.

No matter how much they talk, we are the ones who act.



11:22 AM  ·  Jun 21, 2026  ·  2,631 Views

https://x.com/Worldsource24/status/2068731210746978636

[Smokin Joe]

Warner’s method isn’t history; it’s aggregation without causation.

If a war happens in a Christian empire, it becomes “Christian deaths.” If it happens in a Muslim empire, it becomes “Islamic deaths.” Political, economic, dynastic, and territorial causes are stripped out, then everything gets relabeled as religious.

That’s not analysis. That’s pre-loading the conclusion and counting backward from it.

Granted. So let's toss Warner aside for the moment and consider one thing. Nowhere in the New Testament (The truly Christian half of the Bible) does it call for believers to kill others, believers or not.

The Koran prescribes killing non-believers, apostates, even daughters who were not properly escorted, and anyone who makes any change to the book.

There is a wee bit of a difference, no matter who invoked God in history while trying to justify wholesale slaughter, except as an existential defense of their .

One side prescribes it, the other does not.
You can be a good Christian without ever harming another.
In Islam, that window of opportunity is much narrower.
So while I'm not saying there haven't been Papal Bulls with as much weight as Fatwahs, with their respective believers, Christian rules generally abstain from slaughter in the name of God, while Islam prescribes it.

[BobfromWB]

The Iran Watcher 🇮🇷
@TheIranWatcher

🚨 Hezbollah recruitment ads are now appearing in Tehran, offering salaries of around $1,000 per month - a substantial amount given the collapse of Iran’s currency.

The obvious question is: why is Hezbollah recruiting in Iran?

Because the Al Qods division of the IRGS is running Hezbollah - they need more bodies to replace the ones Israel ended.

[mystery-ak]

https://twitter.com/BuzzPatterson/status/2068757265927348453

[Luis Gonzalez]

Granted. So let's toss Warner aside for the moment and consider one thing. Nowhere in the New Testament (The truly Christian half of the Bible) does it call for believers to kill others, believers or not.

The Koran prescribes killing non-believers, apostates, even daughters who were not properly escorted, and anyone who makes any change to the book.

There is a wee bit of a difference, no matter who invoked God in history while trying to justify wholesale slaughter, except as an existential defense of their .

One side prescribes it, the other does not.
You can be a good Christian without ever harming another.
In Islam, that window of opportunity is much narrower.
So while I'm not saying there haven't been Papal Bulls with as much weight as Fatwahs, with their respective believers, Christian rules generally abstain from slaughter in the name of God, while Islam prescribes it.

I don’t defend Islam, and I’m not interested in excusing real-world behavior or historical violence. But I also don’t have much patience for how this topic is often discussed.

There are three separate problems that get mixed together… all three clearly evident on this very thread:

1. People who manufacture or selectively frame claims
2. People who repeat them without even basic verification
3. People who accept them uncritically because the conclusion already fits their bias

Once that chain is in place, misinformation doesn’t need to be “proven,” it just needs to be repeated often enough to feel established (GODWYN’S Law infraction avoided).

That’s the issue here. Not whether people have criticisms or concerns, but whether those concerns are built on actual texts and context, or on simplified narratives that collapse complex religious traditions into slogans.

You don’t have to defend any religion to still insist on basic intellectual standards. In fact, if the subject is serious enough to matter, it deserves more scrutiny, not less.

[mystery-ak]

https://twitter.com/Breaking911/status/2068751723649237367

[libertybele]

World Source News
@Worldsource24

Iranian Parliament Speaker Ghalibaf:

Do they not realize that if their threats had been effective, they would not have reached today's state of desperation? We do not take the Americans' threats seriously.

They would do better to be careful about their statements. Our armed forces are prepared to respond in a different manner.

No matter how much they talk, we are the ones who act.



11:22 AM  ·  Jun 21, 2026  ·  2,631 Views

https://x.com/Worldsource24/status/2068731210746978636

I think he needs to be taken seriously.  Just my opinion.

[Cyber Liberty]

I think he needs to be taken seriously.  Just my opinion.

Ghalibaf's head needs to be the first to roll when we resume bombing.

[240B]

Trump is now BLUFFING again. I WILL BLOW UP YOUR CONTRY!! (yep, of course you will heheheheha, clown)
Trump is a fool. You can only bluff so many times until they want to see your cards.