you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [S] 31 points 1 day ago (14 children)

This part of the letter is cooking. Let us remember that Americans don't know what it's like to have respected leaders because they only have fake heroes like Spider-man and Spongebob.

The Main Cause Responsible for the Defeat of the U.S. and Israel

The defeat of a military comprised of forces that suffer from low morale and lack a strong sense of purpose and is led by arrogant commanders who are blinded by a complacent sense of self-assurance stemming from their confidence in their vast arsenal and abundant resources should come as no surprise to anyone. The U.S. military has been continuously engaged in pointless and fruitless wars for 70 years, with the consequence that American service members have grown increasingly disillusioned over the decades, as evidenced by the high suicide and drug-abuse rates among veterans.

The main problem afflicting the U.S. military is that its forces have no clear idea why they are asked over and over to fight for causes that are utterly meaningless and irrelevant to them. American service members cannot fathom why their leaders deploy them to far-flung regions throughout the world to participate in confrontations that have not produced a favorable or beneficial outcome. Why should underprivileged American men and women risk their lives for opaque objectives that seem to mean nothing to anyone except the ruling elite, who seem to have no qualms blithely sacrificing the lives of their fellow countrymen and -women while they go on with their ordinary lives pursuing their personal interests at the expense of ordinary Americans? Why should the U.S. military throw its weight around for Israel, a racist and murderous regime that is not constrained by any moral boundaries and has no commitment to human rights?

The U.S. military is governed by a crooked ethos that condones cruelty, violence, and the killing of innocent children, an ethos that has no truly inspiring models in the real world. It is for this reason that American officials have to resort to fictional movies and computer games to motivate the rank-and-file of the armed forces. In other words, American forces are intellectually and morally hollow, and consequently, when the U.S. military is confronted by an able opponent, it is shamefully incompetent—a paper tiger, if you will. Little wonder, then, that Iran defeated the mighty U.S. military.

If we were to boil down all of the problems that have caused the defeat of the American military, we would have to point to one glaring deficiency—a deficiency in competent leadership. If you wish to assess the validity of this statement, one quick and easy comparison would suffice: Gauge the current commander-in-chief of the United States against the same criteria on the basis of which Iran’s commander-in-chief is selected—knowledge, justness, piety, social and political insight, and courage. The result that such comparison yields is, without any exaggeration, jarring: Not only is the commander-in-chief of the American armed forces lacking in these virtues; he embodies their polar opposites.

America’s national security and the lives of its servicemembers are entrusted to someone who is not only an inveterate liar but is also an insanely avaricious man whose only motivation in life is the accumulation of greater wealth. He conducts American foreign policy in accordance with his personal interests, flaunting the bribes he takes from the heads of wealthy nations. Rather than managing international relations through official government institutions, he appoints members of his family and his business partners to function as his representatives on the international stage. He calibrates the pace of war not on the basis of American national interests but in line with factors conducive to compounding his personal wealth, making announcements and publishing social-media posts pertaining to the war that are intended solely to make his purchase and sale of stocks more lucrative.

It is perfectly clear which of the two leaders God supports. And it is equally clear that in a confrontation between oppressed believers who seek nothing more than justice and an overbearing and oppressive power, the United States, which does not hesitate to murder innocent women and children, God will not stand by the oppressor’s side.

The president of the United States constantly boasts of commanding the mightiest military in the history of the world. He fails to understand that this very fact is the greatest proof of his incompetence and that of all his predecessors, because despite possessing such a mighty military, the U.S. has time and time again been defeated. In Vietnam, American forces left behind an enduring legacy of disgrace; in Afghanistan, they were forced to flee; in Iraq, they were practically expelled; in Yemen, they had to back out before being bogged down in another “forever war”; and today, they have suffered their greatest defeat at the hands of the beleaguered but resilient and faithful forces of Iran.

Victory does not result from superior material capabilities. God is more powerful than any and all worldly powers, and whichever side He supports is undoubtedly victorious. It was God’s power that enabled Noah to prevail over the oppressors by means of the Deluge, that rescued Abraham from Nimrod’s fire, that delivered Joseph from the depths of the well and made him ruler of Egypt, and that led Moses and his people across the sea while drowning Pharaoh and his mighty army. The same God who empowered Jesus to bring the dead back to life now wishes to drown the Pharaoh of our age, and He will.

  • source
  • hideshow 14 child comments
  • [–] 31 points 1 day ago* (11 children)

    Victory does not result from superior material capabilities.

    I suppose I can't expect the IRGC to be historical materialists

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 11 child comments
  • [–] [S] 17 points 1 day ago (1 child)

    A materialist explanation for why the US has an inferior military, despite being more expensive, is that the US military is driven by profit for the capitalist class. The excess cost is stolen by the capitalists.

    Here is a section of the letter which is more about historical materialism. It talks about how the US extracts resources from underdeveloped countries, which leads people from those countries to migrate to the US, and then the US uses violence against those migrants.

    The ignorance of American leaders leads to a cascade of problems—a vicious cycle creating a whirlpool of catastrophe. They spend billions of dollars interfering in and destabilizing independent countries—countries that wish to preserve their self-autonomy and national values—to plunder their natural resources. As a result, a flood of homeless people from those countries pours into the United States. Then they spend billions more to control illegal immigration and return immigrants to their countries. The plundered riches end up in the pockets of the elite, while all the costs of this vicious cycle are borne by the American taxpayers.

    Driven by the ambition to dominate the world economy, they put in place policies to facilitate economic globalization without considering the long-term consequences. They sing the praises of free trade and rant against the evils of tariffs. Then, after two decades, when they realize that the United States has lost great swathes of its manufacturing landscape to developing countries, they once again shift gears abruptly and—again without considering the long-term consequences—go into knee-jerk-reaction mode and start indiscriminately smacking tariffs on all sorts of countries, making matters even worse. And it’s the American people who are left holding the bag.

    The same ignorance is evident in how the U.S. pulled out of its international environmental commitments to allow the government more leeway to pursue growth in the hope that it could boost its manufacturing sector. Then, when they have to deal with the costs of mitigating the consequences of pollution, they again lay all the economic burden at the feet of the American taxpayers. The rich keep getting richer, and the poor poorer. It’s the American taxpayers that always pay the price of their leaders’ incompetence. The leaders themselves are never held accountable.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 15 points 23 hours ago*

    While they certainly believe that God wanted them to win and arranged that they would, I believe that "superior material capabilities" here refers to military infrastructure, weaponry, etc. and they are correct that there are many other factors to the outcome of a war that are compatible with historical materialism and, minimally, part of what is being referred to.

    Take for example the social circumstances of the Iranian people being broadly united in an existential struggle against an invader while domestically in the US the war is unpopular and morale is so shit that there are widespread stories of sabotage not on "real" political identical grounds but just because people rightly see the war as them risking their health and lives over literally nothing except maybe a promotion. These are critical to a Marxist account and I don't believe they fit entirely in "material capabilities" in the sense being used here (even if, taking the words in the phrase literally, you could call them that).

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 13 points 1 day ago (2 children)

    Well does the US' continent sized country with x5 Iran's population, and control over the global financial system mean it is going to win this war?

    No. Because in addition to materialism, there is dialectics.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 16 points 23 hours ago*

    Iran's missile and drone programs and the underground missile cities seem more relevant material factors (not to mention geography and the strait) to me than population and a financial system which was already weaponized against them for decades. however I still agree with your overall point

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 15 points 23 hours ago

    Materialism doesn't just mean stuff you have weighed by mass, a materialistic, deterministic account of the world is totally compatible with what has happened (also there are crassly materialist factors that are also important, like Iran having highly favorable geography for defending from invasion).

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 8 points 1 day ago (2 children)

    I mean it was a religious revolution not a socialist one.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] [S] 10 points 1 day ago

    A big portion of the letter is about Islam. I'm choosing to not copy/paste that part because it doesn't interest me. If people want to read the religious parts of the letter, it's linked in the OP.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 6 points 20 hours ago (1 child)

    I don't agree with the religious sentiment. The #1 beef Americans have with Iranian culture is treatment of women based on religion. That part might not go over well with secular Americans who believe in nothing other than "don't be a dick."

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment