Chris Riedel

People don't go to the gym because those freeweights can only be lifted by human arms.
Asking AI to do your thinking for you will make you stupid.

When I say career technocrats, I mean CIA analysts.

I have mostly deprogrammed myself. Mostly.

Yes, that's the sense I got. And as the child of career technocrats, I'm very pro-government.
Sane government, obviously.

Thank you. I'd heard of them in Europe where third parties are viable. I like the general idea, but it gives me Libertarian vibes, and that is more worrisome in the US.

What are people's thoughts on the Pirate Party in the US? Say if a school chapter asked you to be their faculty advisor, are there any concerns you would have?

Other than my general distrust of third parties in the US generally (for purely practical reasons), I just don't know much about the group.

Their incompetence is matched only by their cruelty.

I think the failure of the Arab Spring shows that kind of major change sweeping the region is not happening in the medium term.

Maybe if the gulf monarchies all fell at once lump them together in the east and put the Hijaz in with a democratized Jordan? But after seventy years of national consciousness and the definitive death of pan-Arabism, it's probably too late.

The only place I absolutely would redraw the borders would be to make a Kurdish state, but the Turks would never allow it, even if it didn't affect their own territory.

I'm not sure you could now. That said I wouldn't mourn the collapse of any of the monarchies, and that would be the moment to do it.

The Middle East is not "always violent" anymore than Europe is. Arabs, Persians, Turks, etc etc are just as capable of getting along with each other as French, Italians, and Germans.
And that's pretty much what imperialists were afraid of back in 1918 when they drew the current map.

Further point: hurting our short-term interests will be well worth it to create a more democratic, stable, and peaceful Middle East in the long run.

Everyone has been too afraid to play the long game for over a century now. And all that's gotten us is a century of blood.

We've never really tried to stop Bibi. We should. It would work.

I don't think "stop bombing" is the same as getting out of the war. And again, given most of what the Israelis and Gulf monarchies have to bomb Iran with comes from American factories, we have at least some leverage over their further involvement.

Yes. The Islamic Republic was a horrific tyranny, but it never attacked American soil.

As for Iran, we were doing what we should have under Obama - creating more normal relations and finding ways to extend the carrot and relax the stick. That's all f*cked to hell now though. Who the Hell knows what to do going forward. Not bombing them would be a good start though.

At the very least, if they want our military tech, there should be humanitarian and democratic strings attached. That goes for the Gulf monarchies, the Egyptian military dictatorship, and the Israelis.
And if that forces us to wean ourselves off of oil imports, so much the better.

Disengagement at this point would not abnegate our responsibility to clean up our own mess. I think at minimum we should practice what we preach and actually pressure our supposed allies to be less oppressive, with all means at our disposal.

I feel like the Late Republic starts in 146, and the later Roman Revolution starts in 78?
Nitpicking periodization is fun!

TL;DR: this war with Iran is unjust, but all of us in the US are to blame for it given decades of both parties meddling in the region, and we shouldn't stop caring when the bombs stop dropping. We need to change US foreign policy, even if it hurts us.

We should absolutely be decrying this current unjust war. But when it is over, if we simply go back to the status quo that has benefitted America for over seventy years, then we will continue to be complicit in our past injustices, and all who complained only in the moment will be proven hypocrites.

Why is an Iranian tyranny our enemy but a Saudi one is our friend? How can we claim to support freedom when our firmest allies in the region oppress their own people?
That is a sin of both Democrats & Republicans, & all of us bear complicity. Trump is worse than usual, but he is not an anomaly.

Americans have an especially poor memory for the injustices we have committed abroad. But the peoples we have wronged do remember, because they still live with the consequences of our selfishness.
It is hard to see how we can have any credibility left with any oppressed people in the Middle East.

The Iranian people remember Operation Ajax, even if Trump doesn't. They won't believe the US would initiate regime change for anything but selfish reasons. If anything, the US attacking is the best possible propaganda the Islamist government could hope for to get the people back on their side.

I was born in an Iranian prison. My parents were held in their jails. My uncles lie in their mass graves. Nothing you can tell me about the crimes of the Iranian regime that I haven't lived in blood and bone. That doesn't mean I want my people bombed, maimed, killed, their homes in ruins. If your vision of liberation comes only through the destruction of innocent lives, then it's not freedom you're after. Sahar Delijani, Iranian author

I am pro Iranian people. I stand with them against their own government’s repression AND against the imperial violence in the form of bombs dropped from the sky from Israel & the US who have already killed hundreds.

I support neither imperialism or dictatorship.

Sahar Delijani said it best:

YouTube video by American Medieval Theory is a weapon. Historians should use it to help understand the past #podcast #medieval #history

Theory is a weapon! the great @rachelschine.bsky.social talks about how those who study the past can productively think WITH contemporary theory. #medievalsky

watch/ listen to the clip below --> youtube.com/shorts/2CJoO...

GribblesGoBag @GribblesGoBag Follow .•• Smascbyjeffchastair Remember who we are fighting for! 10:42 AM • Feb 28, 2026 • 2,893 Views

it’s probably fine that this meme is one of the top posts on every military Reddit sub right now

A mad king’s illegal war on Iran is a cry for regime change...in Washington | Will Bunch Democracy really did die in darkness as Donald Trump’s unconstitutional war on Iran stamps America as a dictatorship.

My instant reaction at 3 a.m. yesterday was not whether Khamenei would be killed or oil prices or anything else but this

This undeclared, unexplained war is illegal. Full stop

28 hours later, it is still the worse abuse of power in U.S. history. Impeach

My column www.inquirer.com/opinion/trum...

Someone asked for a thread of my medieval story times (twist my arm!), so here they are. I’ll pin and add as I go!

The thing I'm repeatedly struck by in life is how being in a good conversation, being pushed to articulate myself, leads to revelations I would never have come to on my own. It's why we need each other. We're better together.
I need to incorporate this more intentionally into my pedagogy.