Doomsday Delusions, Iran Eschaton Edition
There are a lot of deciders driving the US-Iran War who believe they are bringing on The End Times
It is important to remember that many players driving the Ramadan War, including senior members of the U.S. cabinets, are operating in a mental frame work of apocalyptic religious fervor, end-times eschaton and are gripped by doomsday delusions.
Don’t Call It Operation Epstein Fury, Traitor!
Even the name of the conflict is a field for dueling psyops.
Some call it the Ramadan War, others use its ridiculous American Government official title Operation Epic Fury, and some even choose to participate in what the ADL calls “conspiratorial rebranding” by calling it Operation Epstein Fury.
Please, I beg of you do NOT click on the AI created conspiracy video below
Washington Post bot-like entity scribe Will Oremus has more to say about evil Iranian propaganda, citing leading “disinformation researchers,” and referring to “Epstein conspiracy theories” (because US Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel both swore under oath that there’s no evidence of criminal conspiracy and there aren’t even any such thing as the Epstein files, and now stand accused of perjury by Rep. Ted Lieu, but I digress):
To erode public support for the joint U.S.-Israel military operation, Iranian state media has sought to portray those countries’ leaders as part of a corrupt and depraved “Epstein class” or “Epstein regime.” While such content often fails to gain much traction outside Iran, the message is spreading through generically named “news” accounts that researchers say appear to be using the Epstein conspiracy theories to serve pro-Iran talking points to a global audience.
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The Epstein posts are part of a maelstrom of Iran-related misinformation that has engulfed social media since Feb. 28, when strikes by the United States and Israel killed the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and touched off a conflict that has spread across the Middle East. Mixed in with real footage of the conflict are dramatic videos of missile strikes, downed fighter jets and earth-shaking explosions that have racked up millions of views on X, TikTok, Instagram and Telegram, only to be debunked as AI-generated fakes, real footage from past conflicts being passed off as new, or scenes from video games.HDX News was part of a network of at least 15 anonymous X accounts churning out content that aligns with the messaging of Iran’s Islamist regime and resharing one another’s posts, according to ISD researchers who identified the campaign. Another, called GPX News, posted the same fake Epstein video — a mishmash of imaginary, AI-generated scenes with bits of real footage — and received more than 4.7 million views, according to X’s publicly viewable metrics.
Both accounts were suspended by X after The Post reached out for comment, though others in the network remained active as of Monday. X did not respond other than asking for examples of the posts and accounts.
Schafer said it’s not clear whether the accounts are working on behalf of Iran’s government or merely support it. But he added that the pro-regime propaganda they promoted was “not subtle.”Their posts included triumphant reports of successful Iranian strikes on American and Israeli targets; calls for followers to “stand with Iran”; and suggestions that China and Russia stand ready to back Iran in a cataclysmic world war. All 15 accounts ISD found were created in the past two years, and nine of them were verified on X, meaning they pay a subscription fee to Elon Musk’s social network in return for features that can include greater visibility, a blue checkmark verifying their authenticity and the chance to generate revenue from their posts.
And to think it was just a decade ago that the WaPo was publishing false and defamatory claims that this very web site was “pushing fake news and Russian propaganda” that they never retracted.
Too bad that Jeff Bezos has gutted the glorious defenders against Democracy Dying in Darkness, because they seem to be defending a distinctively minority opinion, per Drop Site News:
Old tricks seem to be all the US government and MSM have left to sustain the Interregnum of Unreality.
But eventually things that cannot last forever, like fraud-based credit cycles, cease.
The Dangers of Deliberate Lies and Delusions
Former USMC Captain and State Department Officer, Iraq War combat veteran and Afghanistan War State Department officer Matthew Hoh who in 2009, “resigned in protest from his post in Afghanistan with the State Department over the American escalation of the war” was on Judge Napolitano’s show today and warned that the undying lies of the 2000s are still leading us into wars 23 years later.
But he also points out the big difference between the GW Bush and Trump administrations’ lies:
Judge Andrew Napolitano: I do want to talk to you (about) the persistence of these lies about Iraq, lies push nations toward war. You fought in Iraq, a war you now regret. Nevertheless, you have firsthand knowledge of the killings there and the lies that got us there. and the lies persist to this day. Please address the core Trump and Lindsey Graham lies that Americans were killed by Iraqis on orders from Iran.
Matthew Hoh: It is just astounding and sickening that they’re still lying about Iraq.
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You have a lie that was started by the Bush administration in order to justify a war on Iran by the Bush administration 20 some odd years ago. This idea was that we are going to blame Iran for the violence in Iraq, for the killing and wounding of our soldiers in Iraq on Iran and that’s going to be one of our justifications to launch (a) war on Iran. And the George W. Bush administration to be clear, the Bush administration uh went to great lengths to set up this lie and to orchestrate this lie and then to present it publicly and it was a humiliation.
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What is maybe more maddening to me than anything else is the fact that you have so many in the United States, including the media, who just accept(the lie that Iran was responsible for violence against U.S. troops in Iraq in the Second Gulf War) They hear the president say this. They hear members of Congress say it. they hear Pete Hegseth say it or whoever and they just allow it. They accept it as if it’s true and it’s simply not true.
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Here’s one of the differences. In 2003, the men and women in charge were competent liars. And here we have incompetent liars. And so I think that’s one of the great differences between these two wars.
One of the problems we may be dealing with is that what were once knowing deceptions are now full-blown delusions.
Danny Haiphong warned about delusional Western leadership on his show last night.
Danny Haiphong: all we have are delusions at this point coming out of the political leadership in Washington right now and and look this is this is another delusion (from Trump):
POTUS Trump: everything’s fine our country is uh doing really Well, I stronger and our country is uh doing really well. I mean, at a level that nobody thought. We took a little excursion because we felt we had to do that to get rid of some evil. And uh I think you’ll see it’s going to be a short-term excursion. How good? It’ll be a short-term excursion. Everything is going well.
Danny goes on to debunk Trump’s various claims about the success of the war and how limited its impact will be on the global economy.
Trump’s delusional beliefs are likely more related to his rapidly declining mental faculties, Chief of Staff Susie Wile’s increasingly tight control of his informational intake, and his deeply-held belief in his own cult of personality.
Unfortunately, many of those around Trump actually believe he is a genuine religious leader and coincidentally some of them are believers in end-times cults. Like Secretary of War Pete Hegseth.
Fox News Warmonger Idiot Believes What?
Here’s how Hegseth’s public expressions of his delusions and derangements are covered in the Guardian:
Hegseth, 45, a former Fox News TV host who now commands the world’s most powerful military, has this week become the face of Donald Trump’s war in Iran. That has set off alarm bells for critics who warn that the Secretary of Defense – pointedly rebranded “Secretary of War” – has rapidly transformed the Pentagon into the staging ground for an ideological and religious crusade.
With machismo, Christian nationalism and callousness toward the lives of US troops, they say, Hegseth’s puerile displays on TV are aimed at sating Trump’s desire for a warmonger worthy of the manosphere.
They also have some good background from Pete’s CV:
Hegseth’s rise would have been unthinkable under any other commander-in-chief. Born in Minneapolis, he studied politics at Princeton University and became publisher and editor of the Princeton Tory, a conservative student journal, where he frequently waded into culture-war issues such as feminism and homosexuality.
After leaving Princeton, Hegseth joined the US army national guard as an infantry officer. His service included deployments to Guantánamo Bay in Cuba and tours of Iraq and Afghanistan. He later revealed in a book that he told soldiers under his command in Iraq to ignore legal advice about when they were permitted to kill enemy combatants under their rules of engagement.
Hegseth became chief executive of Concerned Veterans for America, a conservative advocacy group, but departed in 2016 amid allegations of financial mismanagement, sexual impropriety and personal misconduct.
And just a little bit about his actual beliefs:
There was another aspect of Hegseth’s personality barely addressed by the Senate: his sympathy for Christian nationalism. Photos have shown him bearing two tattoos associated with crusader imagery. One depicts the Jerusalem cross – a cluster of five crosses long connected to medieval crusader iconography – on his chest.
Nearby is an image of a sword accompanied by the Latin phrase “Deus vult”, meaning “God wills it”, a slogan historically linked to the crusades and revived in recent years by various far-right groups. It appeared on clothing and flags carried by some participants in the January 6 Capitol attack.
Nor are the references merely symbolic. In his 2020 book, American Crusade, Hegseth wrote that those who benefit from “western civilisation” should “thank a crusader”. The book suggests that democratic politics alone may not suffice to achieve the goals of his political allies, declaring: “Voting is a weapon, but it’s not enough. We don’t want to fight, but, like our fellow Christians one thousand years ago, we must.”
The Guardian points us to a 2024 New Yorker piece that adds alleged drunkenness to the Secretary’s list of mental maladies:
A previously undisclosed whistle-blower report on Hegseth’s tenure as the president of Concerned Veterans for America, from 2013 until 2016, describes him as being repeatedly intoxicated while acting in his official capacity—to the point of needing to be carried out of the organization’s events. The detailed seven-page report—which was compiled by multiple former C.V.A. employees and sent to the organization’s senior management in February, 2015—states that, at one point, Hegseth had to be restrained while drunk from joining the dancers on the stage of a Louisiana strip club, where he had brought his team.
But others say he’s just drunk on Jesus and eager to expedite a fiery Second Coming (TM).
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has enshrined evangelical Christianity at the uppermost levels of the U.S. military, airing monthly prayer meetings throughout the Pentagon. Last year, the Pentagon confirmed to me that Hegseth attends a weekly White House Bible study. It’s led by a preacher who says God commands America to support Israel.
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Some Christians claim biblical prophecy requires Israel to exist for Jesus to return. But Hegseth’s Bible study leader, preacher Ralph Drollinger, teaches that the reason to support Israel is that God still blesses Israel’s allies and curses Israel’s enemies, even though Israel killed Jesus (this smear, the historic root of antisemitism, has been rejected by every major religion).After Israel’s attack on Iran last year, Drollinger dedicated two weeks of lessons to preaching support for Israel. His lessons went out to White House cabinet members and members of Congress even as Israel, too, was lobbying for U.S. engagement.
Larson only mentions Drollinger, but it turns out Hegseth features a rotating cast of God-talkers at his breakfasts including the charming and delightful Doug Wilson, about whom Word & Way reports:
Controversial Christian Nationalist preacher Doug Wilson stood at a podium inside the Pentagon on Tuesday (Feb. 17) as the guest preacher for the latest monthly Christian worship service held there for leaders of the U.S. military. The Idaho pastor and self-described “paleo-Confederate” preached about the importance of trusting God for protection in battle and praised the monthly worship services as perhaps a sign of a new revival like the Great Awakening or the biblical Day of Pentecost.
Once considered a fringe far-right Christian figure, Wilson in recent years has found himself increasingly embraced by the broader evangelical world and the conservative political movement in the age of Donald Trump. The biggest evidence of his rise is that Pete Hegseth, who likes to call himself the “Secretary of War,” is part of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, a denomination founded by Wilson. Brooks Potteiger, Hegseth’s CREC pastor in Tennessee from before joining the Trump administration, preached at the first Pentagon worship service in May and again last month. Wilson recently announced he’s sending Potteiger to Washington, D.C., to lead the new CREC church plant there, which Hegseth has been attending.
Wilson, an outspoken proponent of Christian Nationalism, has sparked numerous controversies over the years for what he preaches and teaches. He has downplayed the horrors of slavery and defended enslavers. He also pushes a hardline version of patriarchy, not just insisting only men can serve as pastors or in other church leadership roles but also that they should rule in families. That latter belief bleeds into civic life as Wilson argues the United States should adopt household voting, where the male head of the household casts the votes for everyone in the family. Wilson also pushes for codifying in U.S. law other theological beliefs he holds, including bans on abortion, same-sex marriage, and Pride parades. Additionally, he garnered headlines for leading his church members in Moscow, Idaho, to disobey public health measures during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Interestingly, the word Israel isn’t mentioned in that article, so I’m not sure that Wilson is a Christian Zionist in addition to his other fascinating beliefs, but his insights into military theory are of note:
“We should not want God simply to win. We want God to get great glory in winning, getting great glory in and through winning. And getting great glory means that Gideon goes into battle with 300 instead of with 10,000. Getting great glory means Jehoshaphat goes into battle with the choir out in the vanguard,” Wilson added. “When you learn how to stand firm in the Lord and in the strength of his might, you are going to start sounding to your wife like a spiritual version of Chesty Puller after the Chinese came into the Korean War: ‘We’ve been looking for the enemy for some time now. We finally found him. We’re surrounded. That simplifies things.’ And he also said, of course, ‘All right, they’re on our left, they’re on our right, they’re in front of us, they’re behind us, they can’t get away from us now.’ And your wife is going to stare at you and say, ‘What have you been reading?’ Your Bible.”
Apocalyptic Belief Trickles Down on the Troops
The Military Religious Freedom Foundation has been doing the work on this aspect of our collective psychosis:
“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.”
— MRFF active duty NCO client, writing on behalf of themself and 15 other unit members
MRFF has received over 200 calls from more than 50 military installations across all the services since Saturday reporting similar disturbing pronouncements from their Christian zealot commanders.
Before we wrap this up, we have to detour to my home state of Texas.
From the latest issue of Texas Monthly, headlined “One Man’s Quest for the End of the World Started on a Ranch in Texas” and subheaded, “A Texas businessman believes he was divinely chosen to help usher in the Second Coming of Christ—by finding unblemished red heifers and getting them to Israel.”
The piece focuses on Texas rancher Jerome Urbanosky’s experience with a delegation “high-ranking rabbis who’d flown straight from Israel, a U.S. documentary crew toting multiple cameras, and a Texas businessman named Byron Stinson” who wished to purchase a very special heifer from him.
Four men dressed in black tactical gear and carrying military rifles approached and told him they needed to sweep the property to make sure no “foreign agents” were present. “They were armed to the teeth,” Urbanosky remembered. He wasn’t inclined to stand in their way. His wife, Jane, who was in the kitchen preparing the weekly Sunday meal, stared saucer-eyed as the armed men entered her home.
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Four men dressed in black tactical gear and carrying military rifles approached and told him they needed to sweep the property to make sure no “foreign agents” were present. “They were armed to the teeth,” Urbanosky remembered. He wasn’t inclined to stand in their way. His wife, Jane, who was in the kitchen preparing the weekly Sunday meal, stared saucer-eyed as the armed men entered her home.Once the security team cleared the property, Urbanosky led the rabbis to a red barn, where two calves awaited. Urbanosky Ranch is home to a herd of more than 450 Santa Gertrudis cattle, a hardy breed that’s known to produce good beef and whose origins trace back to the King Ranch, in South Texas. But as Urbanosky knew, this delegation wasn’t here for a steak.
Santa Gertrudis cattle also have striking coats of deep rusty red, which is what had initially attracted Stinson’s attention. A seventy-year-old Glen Rose business owner who’s described himself as a “Jesus zealot,” Stinson had visited Urbanosky at his ranch once before and explained that he was in search of an unblemished, completely red heifer—a scratch or a single white hair, and it wouldn’t do. Such a heifer hadn’t been identified in two thousand years, but it was key to unlocking an ancient Jewish ritual described in the book of Numbers, a necessary precursor to constructing the Third Temple in Jerusalem and, ultimately, bringing about the Second Coming of Christ. It’s a fringe but nonetheless influential belief, and Stinson’s Israeli associate, Yitshak Mamo, had convinced Urbanosky that he, too, was essential to this journey.
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Fantastical as Stinson’s end-time scheme may sound, its real-world consequences are grave—and have the potential to become far more explosive. The pursuit has already heightened tensions in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and was cited by Hamas as one reason for the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel. Stinson’s efforts have sparked headlines across the Middle East, been criticized by international Christian leaders, and made him an unlikely but consequential figure in one of the most delicate and contentious religiopolitical issues in the world.
The crazy is real and it’s got money and guns.
In future editions, I hope to post on the apocalyptic beliefs of several Israeli cabinet members and what some are thinking on the Islamic side of the fence.
Originally posted at Naked Capitalism.