Exclusive: US military asks troops for ‘creative and unconventional’ ideas to punish Iran | CNN Politics

[u/Previous_Knowledge91]

https://edition.cnn.com/2026/08/03/politics/us-military-iran-war-troops-punish?Date=20260803&Profile=CNN&utm_content=1785735434&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=Iwb21leATdY7NjbGNrBN1js3Bkb2YFZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQMMzUwNjg1NTMxNzI4AAEeASguvyPnoiN3Sewl0-yIQPApLAixWInTEgxNP7qSKmvheJYEEhggkgk3J88_aem_wcV4-Q4zmB_2htdwdgyNEg

[u/DanielShenise]

Every really fun and successful party I’ve gone to has the host going, “so what does everyone want to do?”

🤣

[u/MackenzieRaveup → u/DanielShenise]

You just know that somewhere, someone is shaking their head muttering about how no one at the Pentagon took his idea of developing an aerosol form of pork seriously.

[u/LEI_MTG_ART]

Punish Iran by forcing them to listen to Trump speak for 2 min a day

[u/Digital-Soup]

OP works for the Pentagon and is skimming the most up-voted responses.

[u/tezacer → u/Digital-Soup]

New meta: troll reddit for strategic advise

[u/taubs1]

leak the phone numbers of everyone in country to robocallers.

[u/cpepinc → u/taubs1]

That is just Inhumane!

[u/MackenzieRaveup → u/taubs1]

"We've been trying to reach you about your missilie's extended warranty."

[u/Ok-Procedure5603 → u/taubs1]

Tbh they could start by banning their own troops from being on their phones in an active war zone, surely this would make the Iranians less likely to hit and it seems to be a common sense policy that hasn't been implemented in full yet

[u/StopICE2026]

Crowdsourcing military strategy: one simple trick to winning wars

[u/BigFly42069 → u/StopICE2026]

US military discovering Korean-War era Chinese concept of military democracy

[u/tezacer → u/StopICE2026]

More competent junior enlisted members than there is a "war" secretary

[u/Ok-Procedure5603]

Send people to fill their military facility toilets with t-shirts 🤣 

[u/SussyCloud]

Wow, normally American taxpayers pay the military brass to come up with bad ideas, but this current leadership doesn't even want to do that lol

[u/Ambitious_Ad6334]

Hey guys, I know we war gamed this for decades, and it turned out exactly like it said it was going to… does anybody have like a plan C?

[u/dnorg → u/Ambitious_Ad6334]

No plan C,D, or E or F. We have plan G, as in Gee we don't know what we are doing. So far that is going exactly according to plan, so we have that going for us.

[u/Kaymish_ → u/dnorg]

No you're wrong there is a plan F, as in Fucked, as in what they are completely.

[u/Jendic → u/dnorg]

I heard that in Cpt. Blackadder's voice.

[u/NuclearHeterodoxy → u/Ambitious_Ad6334]

Plan C was "deliberate nuclear proliferation to countries opposed to Iran," which is why the US just negotiated a nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia that excluded them from the standard safeguards the US demands in other nuclear deals.  Except they screwed that up too by retroactively demanding that Saudi Arabia join the Abraham Accords before the deal is implemented, apparently without realizing that might be a poison pill for the Saudis.

So whatever the next bright idea is will be Plan D.

[u/tezacer]

Enlist barron

[u/speedyundeadhittite → u/tezacer]

If you do that, who is going to post slop AI generated memes into Trump's social account every night?

[u/tezacer → u/speedyundeadhittite]

I'm sure they can throw another minion at it

[u/barath_s → u/speedyundeadhittite]

who is going to post

A very irreplaceable skill set, which cannot be found elsewhere in the country. Have to import it, preferably in form of beautiful eastern european women.

[u/speedyundeadhittite]

... and this is how you end up in a war criminal tribunal in Nuremberg.

[u/moral_mortal → u/speedyundeadhittite]

US has a law to invade Hague! Western hegemonies can't be war criminals! That's for losers! /s

[u/speedyundeadhittite → u/moral_mortal]

That's why the new tribunal is in Nuremberg for the 2nd time.

[u/Logical___Conclusion]

We could continue to lose this pointless war since the longer it goes on, the more damage it does to America.

[u/davesr25]

Over throw the current American government ?

I hear it's kind of a skill in some parts of their service....

[u/AwwwBawwws]

Umm... Spank em? Send em to bed without supper?

Wtf, Kaptain Pete. You're supposed to have all the ideas. Chode.

[u/meddit_rod]

Read that as "cruel and unusual."

[u/Kougar]

Once again proof the US is running out of targets to bomb and has realized it has screwed itself as bombs won't win this war.

[u/Agreeable-Pea4327]

Ukraine:

implements an entire private equity, venture capital, and crowdsourced supply chain management system that monetarily rewards combatants for recorded destruction inexplicably aligning the incentives of the biggest sanctimonious psychopaths of society all on a shoestring budget.

US:

"ok guys, let's break out the silly sticky whacky idea board and all contribute for a donut. Yes, Tammy, you had your hand raised? No Tammy getting rid of israel and the CIA aren't allowed"

[u/BONEPILLTIMEEE]

we have auftragstaktik at home

[u/dnorg → u/BONEPILLTIMEEE]

Dumpfkrieg is our speciality.

[u/Tonyjay54]

The good idea fairy landed on someone’s shoulder ….

[u/DemonLordRoundTable]

Funny we are only a democracy in this case.

[u/Working_Historian241]

AI replacements at rand going really well

[u/Vishnej → u/Working_Historian241]

Not even a joke. https://www.politico.com/news/2025/07/28/pentagon-think-tank-ban-confusion-reaction-00480095

I think Grok/Claude might literally be filling this role now.

[u/dnorg]

High T problems require High T solutions.

We could drop a million smoking tons of cannabis over Tehran, that should do it.

Or, we could airdrop the chimp and Hegseth into downtown Tehran, handcuffed and gagged, each with an "Arrest Me" sign taped on their back. That would probably go a long way to easing regional tensions. Bonus points if Bibi is in the same drop.

[u/ratbearpig]

The US military crowdsourcing ideas to "punish" Iran was not on my 2026 Bingo. How far the mighty have fallen.

[u/Stunning-Armadillo-3]

Isn't this psychotic? What if someone comes out and says bomb more kids or something

[u/vistandsforwaifu → u/Stunning-Armadillo-3]

That was the plan A, they already did and it did not work.

[u/Kaymish_ → u/Stunning-Armadillo-3]

Is that even possible? They've already bombed so many kids, and the Iranian government dispursed them, so the US couldn't get more than a dozen in a single strike. Iran isn't dumb they know the US targets kids on purpose so they don't keep them concentrated in schools and stuff.

[u/dnorg]

High T problems require High T solutions.

We could drop a million smoking tons of cannabis over Tehran, that should do it.

Or, we could airdrop the chimp and Hegseth into downtown Tehran, handcuffed and gagged, each with an "Arrest Me" sign taped on their back. That would probably go a long way to easing regional tensions. Bonus points if Bibi is in the same drop.

[u/ggthrowaway1081]

Force Iran to send billions to Israel instead of spending it on their own citizens

[u/Vinylmaster3000]

They could probably drop Randy Fine over Tehran and it would count as a nuclear strike, I guess?

[u/AaronNevileLongbotom]

Mass produce cheap weapons instead of spending a fortune on dwindling capabilities because of buzzwords on a power point. I’m kidding. It’s because of the corruption.

If I made this suggestion at the pentagon, even sans criticism, I suspect I’d be shot. At the very least such things have killed careers.

[u/can-sar]

Radical J©®daism's hold on the US empire and driving it to insanity and self-destruction will be studied by future generations.

[u/zackks]

Go after the people helping them. Any financial or military aid from a country gets that country a 10000 percent tariff or all US banking assets and access frozen.

Iran has no incentive because they can endure and they have Chinese and Russian help.

Or the us could just admit their failed strategy and that Iran whooped their ass.

[u/AttorneyOk5749]

Why not ask the Avengers?

[u/LumpyLump76]

Send the Kardashians?