The US military has developed new strike plans that include potentially using the so-called “mother of all bombs” to target Iranian energy infrastructure and nuclear sites should President Donald Trump give the order to resume combat operations either before or after the midterm elections, according to multiple US officials familiar with the matter.

Using the GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb or MOAB, the largest non-nuclear bomb in the US arsenal, for the first time in the conflict with Iran would mark a notable escalation, even though there are doubts over how effective it would be in accomplishing any of Trump’s stated strategic objectives or tipping the balance of the war, multiple sources familiar with internal military planning discussions about potentially deploying the weapon said.

Trump is facing pressure to bring an end to the deeply unpopular war — as Republicans brace for potential political backlash from voters in the upcoming midterm elections and there is little indication the two countries are close to a negotiated resolution after more than six months of US bombing.

      • ghost_laptop@lemmy.ml
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        yeah i understand. i didn’t mean to say that regular joe is to blame. rather than the us as a colonial project is to blame. saying trump is a bad apple is essentially whitewashing decades long genocide of different people committed by the us war machine. i think understanding this (and that the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie is not a democracy for the proletariat) are one of the most valuable things people in the us can do given the limitation you mention to voice yourselves.

        • DjangoFett@lemmy.zipBanned from community
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          It is an almost daily discussion. However the health of my wife’s parents is not in a place where anyone can really go anywhere right now, especially since my wife is the only member of her family in the medical field.

          If not for family, we would very much be elsewhere.

          • XiJinpingStanAccount@lemmy.ml
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            Don’t assume just because you can’t leave you can’t do anything. Fortify your situation. Have plenty of supplies stocked up. Have go bags ready. Have a plan to get you and your kids out of the area you are in on short notice if need be (like literally have a route to take). Go to the shooting range and practice. Keep a gun in a safe. Keep a well supplied first aid kit (make sure to get quick-clot guaze). If things go to shit your one job is keeping your kids alive. Be prepared to do that by any means necessary.

            • DjangoFett@lemmy.zipBanned from community
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              Where oh where do I mention any country but my own? And all I said there was that I disagree with my own.

              The chip you carry on your shoulder isn’t my problem, and don’t try to make it mine.

              My opinion is that anybody with white skin doesn’t belong in the middle east. Israel doesn’t belong there. It was a ham-fisted European solution to a European problem, and now because of that idiocy we have a bunch of rich fuckers who can’t get their dicks hard for anything but little boys - and I’m now talking about the Iranian government in addition to my own - making innocent people like you and me pay in a myriad of ways for their own greed.

              I am not your enemy. I never was and never wanted to be.

              Edit: You also didn’t ask a question, you made an assumption.

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        pero recontrarequetere chupame bien la verga pedazo de tarro de bosta. dont even know what you think i said. but you trying to whitewash a nazi empire is sus. this isn’t a bad apple, this isn’t a corrupt system. this is capitalism working as intented. you gringos saying shit like “orange man bad”, bru you fascists been doin the same shit for a century and for some fucking reason think trump is the outlier. go fuck yoself gringuito cracker.

          • rumimevlevi@sh.itjust.works
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            He never talked about supporting collective punishment while the usa is doing it in multiple countries currently. He is right that the United Snakes has been a terrorist state for multiples decades

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            again, maybe the radioactive burguers are poisoning your gringo brain. i never asked for collective punishment. what i ask is for gringos like you to own the actions of your terrorist nazi empire, and to not blame one single guy. this is a project that exists for 2 centuries. i cannot meet black americans because i dont live in the burguer reich, but i know plenty in my country, dont worry.

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    He wants to start bombing civilians basically. Since that will be who is most affected. Using large bombs isn’t a surgical strike

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      He wants to start bombing [MORE] civilians basically. Since that will be who is most affected. Using large bombs isn’t a surgical strike

      fixed it for you – we’ve been bombing civilians since we’ve been putting bombs on rockets and there’s nothing different happening in iran.

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    The ‘Mother of All Bombs’ is an 11-ton blast weapon built to collapse cave mouths, and the US has dropped it once, on Afghanistan in 2017. Iran’s enrichment halls at Fordow sit under 80 to 90 meters of rock, which is deeper than any blast weapon reaches. Leaks about the MOAB against nuclear sites are political signaling, and the bunker-buster that matters is the GBU-57, which Washington has avoided using on Fordow so far.

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      It’s disheartening to read history and how America–one of the most technologically advanced nations in the world–just bomb and terrorize Afghanistan and then to see the same thing occurring with Israel and Palestine. A technologically superior nation just pummeling a severely disadvantaged–comically so–‘nation’. It’s a waste of everything. War never stopped. There’s just one after another.

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        They literally had a hit-list of 7 countries in West Asia they wanted destroyed and they went through them one by one. Iran is number 7.