If you were wondering why US actions seem completely self-defeating and make no strategic sense whatsoever, it’s because they are led by lunatics:
A combat-unit commander told non-commissioned officers at a briefing Monday that the Iran war is part of God’s plan and that Pres. Donald Trump was “anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth,” according to a complaint by a non-commissioned officer.
From Saturday morning through Monday night, more than 110 similar complaints about commanders in every branch of the military had been logged by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF).
The complaints came from more than 40 different units spread across at least 30 military installations, the MRFF told me Monday night
[…]
The NCO wrote to the MRFF that their commander “urged us to tell our troops that this was ‘all part of God’s divine plan’ and he specifically referenced numerous citations out of the Book of Revelation referring to Armageddon and the imminent return of Jesus Christ.”
[…]
“These calls have one damn thing in freaking common; our MRFF clients [service members who seek MRFF aid] report the unrestricted euphoria of their commanders and command chains as to how this new “biblically-sanctioned” war is clearly the undeniable sign of the expeditious approach of the fundamentalist Christian “End Times” as vividly described in the New Testament Book of Revelation.
Many of their commanders are especially delighted with how graphic this battle will be zeroing in on how bloody all of this must become in order to fulfill and be in 100% accordance with fundamentalist Christian end of the world eschatology."
[…]
“This morning our commander opened up the combat readiness status briefing by urging us to not be “afraid” as to what is happening with our combat operations in Iran right now. He urged us to tell our troops that this was “all part of God’s divine plan” and he specifically referenced numerous citations out of the Book of Revelation referring to Armageddon and the imminent return of Jesus Christ. He said that “President Trump has been anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth”. He had a big grin on his face when he said all of this which made his message seem even more crazy.”
Nah. Liberal “humanitarianism” works much better as a religious motivation to get Westerners on board with a crusade against “the barbarians”. Liberalism is the real unifying religious ideology of the US rather than fundamentalist Christianity.
This armageddon cult thing only works on those who already believe in it. It’s pretty hard to convert someone to this nonsense who hasn’t been indoctrinated from birth. The US military is also too diverse, this shit just undermines morale.
All in all, a win-win for us if our enemies are so detached from reality…my only worry is if they decide to accelerate armageddon by using nukes.
That’s I guess the crux of it for me and why I’m maybe a bit in denial. But also, like, if the death cult fanaticism is there from the top down, then why not set off nukes? That’d be the easiest way to trigger a doomsday scenario. That they (so far, thankfully) aren’t doing that makes me doubt how much of it is true believer at the higher levels of command. I can believe some lower levels are true believers, but I’m doubtful about the top brass.
If we look at it materially, the top brass has a lot more to lose as cushiness of their life goes and insulation from the consequences of what they order members of the military to do. But if they actually push for “armageddon”, that can fast stop being true.
That said, maybe both are true to an extent. That the ones at the highest levels of power are more self-preservation than they are death cult, but that there are elements of them that are true believer death cult.