Ep 98: Who Suffers Better?
Hey FRs,
So American sailors are jumping off a carrier that hasn't seen port in 260 days. That seems bad, right?
Just needed to ask that question. Anyway, this week we welcomed doctor/comedian Hesam Torr to the show to discuss the latest on the war with Iran and some other batshit things going on in the world:
Why is the Iran ceasefire even called a ceasefire anymore?
Excellent question. It was never even a signed agreement, just a memorandum of understanding that both sides violated almost immediately. Despite Trump's proclamations of dominance, Iran's IRGC continues asserting control over the Strait of Hormuz. There's gotta be a better way to resolve this....
What is happening to sailors on the USS Abraham Lincoln?
Multiple sailors have reportedly attempted to jump overboard after 260-plus days at sea without returning to port. The ship has reportedly been facing plumbing failures and water rationing, but the Pentagon has not disclosed this in any press briefing. While the ship is now returning to San Diego, in a terribly disguised shell game, it has been replaced by the USS George Washington.
The tangible burden of a poorly planned war begun with little to no forethought resting on the people with the least power is not new; it's just tremendously frustrating that we never learn. There were 7,000 combat deaths in the post-9/11 wars. Tragic, yes, but there were 30,000 US service member suicides following those conflicts. The human cost of open-ended deployment is not a footnote; it is the actual bill nobody wants itemized.
Why did Trump scale back military drills with South Korea?
Because the Iran war has stretched US military readiness thin enough that Trump called decades-old joint exercises with South Korea "costly" and "inappropriate," while getting zero concessions from North Korea in return. Kim Jong Un was called "respectful" for doing nothing.
The practical result: South Korea is now openly discussing becoming a nuclear power, and Japan is accelerating rearmament under its revised constitution. An American retreat from deterrence commitments is not neutral; it restructures the entire regional arms balance.
What does Trump's new cyberattack memo actually authorize?
This is truly bonkers. ICYMI, a new presidential memo would let private US companies, functionally digital privateers, run offensive cyberattacks on foreign targets, without any public definition of how these companies are being "vetted," what legal authority allows for this, or who is accountable if the wrong target gets hit. The memo permits companies to "manipulate, disrupt, deny, degrade, or destroy" foreign systems under government contract. The memo states no liability structure if a strike hits a hospital network or even the wrong country entirely.
Privatizing offensive cyberwar removes the one thing that made state action reviewable: the state doing it.
For more context (and laughs), watch the full episode:
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