But what was the point of starting this illegal war in the first place? That's never been satisfactorily explained. There have been vague, shifting, unconvincing half-justifications and belligerence. Congress has been missing in action and the Republicans controlling both houses seem to like it that way. Starting a war so Trump can look tough and Hegseth can exercise his bloodlust isn't good enough, sorry.
It doesn't really make sense to ponder the strategy of continuing to conduct a war that is unnecessary, stupid and started without a strategy to begin with.
The point was to make the orange dumpster clan (himself, family, donors, robber baron billionaires, oil executives, etc. - I did not list "friends," because he doesn't have any) richer.
Netanyahu came in, stroked the Felon's ego, told the Felon it would be as easy as Venezuela and the Felon said ok. There's no strategy in anything the Felon does except as Arkansas Blue says; make himself, his family and the American oligarchs richer.
With the full support of the six Christian Nationalists on the Supreme Court and GOP Congressional members, the Felon is making the United States an authoritarian theocracy, with the Felon as leader and the American oligarchs running the Country (Putin's Russia).
I've been watching "Queer Eye" quite a bit lately. Dear Tan, please come back and just to do something about Hegseth's suits. Dear Jonathan, his face. Dear Bobby, his glass house. Dear Antoni, his distasteful rhetoric. And Dear Karamo ... everything else.
Maybe all of the wars Hegseth mentioned are relevant--they all evolved into a quagmire and a humiliating US defeat except for Korea. Eisenhower negotiated a settlement to get us out of the Korean conflict. Time for a settlement in Iran. Accept the terms, lick our wounds, and try to be smarter next time.
"Try to be smarter next time, eh?" And then there was Iraq and Afghanistan. The MIC (moron in charge) learned nothing, and neither did the legislators who abetted his action.
The model for winning (or losing) "forever wars" isn't new- it was exemplified by our own revolution.
Washington fought exactly 9 battles, and he lost 6 of them. So how come we sing "The Star-Spangled Banner" rather than "God Save the King"?
Easy. Somewhere along the line, Washington realized that Britain had to win, but America needed only not to lose, and there's a difference. So what happened: First, Washington won when his back was to the wall and he absolutely needed to win. And second, after each defeat he managed to get his army out in one piece, able to fight again.
So after Yorktown in 1781, the British took stock of the situation:
The revolution had been going on for 6 years, and Britain was no closer to winning in 1781 than they were in 1775.
The British controlled some of the big cities (NYC, Charleston), but they were unable to control the vast countryside were most of the people lived.
The war was never particularly popular with the British public and especially with Parliament
Maintaining an army and navy across 3500 miles of the stormy North Atlantic was a drain on all of Britain's resources, especially the treasury.
And now the French and Spanish were allied with the US, putting the entire British Empire at risk of naval raids.
And finally, Britain was establishing it's setup in INdia, so it had bigger fish to fry.
So at the end of all of it, Britiain was not defeated in the sense that they could no longer fight. They were defeated in the sense that it just wasn't worth it to continue in a quagmire.
That was exactly what happened to the US in Vietnam. We certainly had the capacity to continue fighting almost ad infinitum. But we were not getting any closer to winning, the war was increasingly unpopular, and it just was no longer worth it to continue.
And a major factor, Ivan, was that we were in the streets protesting. The anti-war movement made it impossible for the government to continue fighting, even though they could have done so militarily and even though vanity might have kept the generals and government warmongers going.
We cannot afford the war costs for this unnecessary war with Iran.Trump should be immediately removed for starting a war without imminent attack, without notifying the heads of Congress and then for attacking a country with whom we have delicately worked on relations. Thank you for this article well summed in the 6th to the last paragraph.
He [Hegseth] argued that criticism of the war after only a few weeks was unfair: Vietnam lasted years. Judgment should wait."
No Petey, criticism should not and cannot wait. To do so would normalize an illegal and unconstitutional preemptive attack on a country. It was quasi-sold to us as an 'immanent threat' where none existed, more similar to the Iraq WMDs [that did't exist] than Vietnam.
It would be incompetent on congress's part to support this war either financially or actively, but that's all that we have today - incompetence and willful negligence. With no exit strategy and moving goalposts, this fiasco could drag on for quite a spell, costing us and the world plenty.
We’re winning, we’ve won what’s up with this? It’s a way to say I’ve screwed up and now I’m looking for a way out and now I can’t get out of it because nobody will bail me out.
All of the wars listed are not, NOT, modern wars. Despite the use of tech-guided munitions, aircraft, and all the rest, the thing these wars have in common also have commonality with medieval sieges. In a seige the attacker had to keep up a barrage of offensive actions which was really hard to do given medieval roads and logistics. Usually, the attacked lived in a walled city that was always stocked with provisions for withstanding a long seige. The attacker lived off the countryside until it was barren and the people were starving or moved away. Modern seige warfare has good logistics, at least from the US. But there is already disquieting discussion of running out of the munitions that make modern warfare modern. That brings us to a decision point which is also circulating: when or if one should put boots on the ground. The answer is: before congress grows a backbone and pulls the plug. That’s why these are such dangerous times.
I suspect that unless Don the Con and Hegseth have a falling out (always a possibility with Don the Con, who changes his mind more often than he changes his socks), Hegseth will get a preemptive pardon when he leaves office, so he can't be prosecuted for war crimes, crimes against humanity and other specific criminal acts here in the US.
But Trump's pardon won't be worth the paper it's printed on in other countries that recognize the juristiction of the International Criminal Court. Pete's pretty young and I expect he'll travel to other countries once he leaves office. And if there is any justice in this world, then one of those countries will arrest him, charge him with war crimes and crimes against humanity, and send him-- in chains-- to The Hague to stand trial. Remember that war crimes and crimes against humanity are like piracy under international law-- any country can prosecute someone for those crimes.
A surgeon friend told me about her three year old teaching her two year old how to “double-click” the mouse. That’s like the teenager asking the mom, what is a floppy disk? That same surgeon said she got sued once. The patient had been in a terrible motor vehicle accident not so much his fault. He developed complications from his injuries and decided to sue my “consultant” surgeon friend. Her and her attorney’s retort was we didn’t cause the infection that resulted from the injury you received prior to your infection. Lesson: with every problem look at what led to that problem and argue that point. So…with the two year old mouse learning problem, I suppose pregnancy was the real culprit and we all know what the problem is before that :) May all our problems be happy. With Iran, how many problems and years do we look back? I am never on the orange moron’s and kegsbreath’s sides but this was born out of numerous problems that preceded the current catastrophe. Our entire world will be changed. Bandaids will be ripped off. Really, if you think about it, America would not be the superpower healer of the free world if it were not for Churchill. Remember, the Nazis came to America to study racial suppression in the 30’s-early 40’s to perfect their purity purge. And what did we do the minute the kamikazes murderously destroyed Pearl Harbor? Yep, created poorly constructed and run concentration camps for Japanese American landowning citizens. So yeh, look at what came before our current catastrophe of murder in the streets, mass deportations, goon squads, moron dictator leaders and yes-men cabinets who are all rapists and pedophiles and drunkards, subjugated whore women who will do and suffer anything for their man. Quite simply we have become who we were, only worse. Reference the Stanford prison project. Practice makes perfect and I would say we are almost perfect fascists. Be sure you are registered to vote and choose someone who will try to correct this monstrosity that America has perfected.
But what was the point of starting this illegal war in the first place? That's never been satisfactorily explained. There have been vague, shifting, unconvincing half-justifications and belligerence. Congress has been missing in action and the Republicans controlling both houses seem to like it that way. Starting a war so Trump can look tough and Hegseth can exercise his bloodlust isn't good enough, sorry.
It doesn't really make sense to ponder the strategy of continuing to conduct a war that is unnecessary, stupid and started without a strategy to begin with.
The point was to make the orange dumpster clan (himself, family, donors, robber baron billionaires, oil executives, etc. - I did not list "friends," because he doesn't have any) richer.
It's also a damned expensive and irresponsible deflection from the Epstein coverup.
Netanyahu came in, stroked the Felon's ego, told the Felon it would be as easy as Venezuela and the Felon said ok. There's no strategy in anything the Felon does except as Arkansas Blue says; make himself, his family and the American oligarchs richer.
With the full support of the six Christian Nationalists on the Supreme Court and GOP Congressional members, the Felon is making the United States an authoritarian theocracy, with the Felon as leader and the American oligarchs running the Country (Putin's Russia).
Why this war? I wish we could ask Epstein but that fellow is already dead.
I've been watching "Queer Eye" quite a bit lately. Dear Tan, please come back and just to do something about Hegseth's suits. Dear Jonathan, his face. Dear Bobby, his glass house. Dear Antoni, his distasteful rhetoric. And Dear Karamo ... everything else.
Maybe all of the wars Hegseth mentioned are relevant--they all evolved into a quagmire and a humiliating US defeat except for Korea. Eisenhower negotiated a settlement to get us out of the Korean conflict. Time for a settlement in Iran. Accept the terms, lick our wounds, and try to be smarter next time.
"Try to be smarter next time, eh?" And then there was Iraq and Afghanistan. The MIC (moron in charge) learned nothing, and neither did the legislators who abetted his action.
The model for winning (or losing) "forever wars" isn't new- it was exemplified by our own revolution.
Washington fought exactly 9 battles, and he lost 6 of them. So how come we sing "The Star-Spangled Banner" rather than "God Save the King"?
Easy. Somewhere along the line, Washington realized that Britain had to win, but America needed only not to lose, and there's a difference. So what happened: First, Washington won when his back was to the wall and he absolutely needed to win. And second, after each defeat he managed to get his army out in one piece, able to fight again.
So after Yorktown in 1781, the British took stock of the situation:
The revolution had been going on for 6 years, and Britain was no closer to winning in 1781 than they were in 1775.
The British controlled some of the big cities (NYC, Charleston), but they were unable to control the vast countryside were most of the people lived.
The war was never particularly popular with the British public and especially with Parliament
Maintaining an army and navy across 3500 miles of the stormy North Atlantic was a drain on all of Britain's resources, especially the treasury.
And now the French and Spanish were allied with the US, putting the entire British Empire at risk of naval raids.
And finally, Britain was establishing it's setup in INdia, so it had bigger fish to fry.
So at the end of all of it, Britiain was not defeated in the sense that they could no longer fight. They were defeated in the sense that it just wasn't worth it to continue in a quagmire.
That was exactly what happened to the US in Vietnam. We certainly had the capacity to continue fighting almost ad infinitum. But we were not getting any closer to winning, the war was increasingly unpopular, and it just was no longer worth it to continue.
And a major factor, Ivan, was that we were in the streets protesting. The anti-war movement made it impossible for the government to continue fighting, even though they could have done so militarily and even though vanity might have kept the generals and government warmongers going.
We cannot afford the war costs for this unnecessary war with Iran.Trump should be immediately removed for starting a war without imminent attack, without notifying the heads of Congress and then for attacking a country with whom we have delicately worked on relations. Thank you for this article well summed in the 6th to the last paragraph.
He [Hegseth] argued that criticism of the war after only a few weeks was unfair: Vietnam lasted years. Judgment should wait."
No Petey, criticism should not and cannot wait. To do so would normalize an illegal and unconstitutional preemptive attack on a country. It was quasi-sold to us as an 'immanent threat' where none existed, more similar to the Iraq WMDs [that did't exist] than Vietnam.
It would be incompetent on congress's part to support this war either financially or actively, but that's all that we have today - incompetence and willful negligence. With no exit strategy and moving goalposts, this fiasco could drag on for quite a spell, costing us and the world plenty.
This is the Schroedinger's Cat of warfare.
Congress does not know how to cross exam a witness.
We’re winning, we’ve won what’s up with this? It’s a way to say I’ve screwed up and now I’m looking for a way out and now I can’t get out of it because nobody will bail me out.
All of the wars listed are not, NOT, modern wars. Despite the use of tech-guided munitions, aircraft, and all the rest, the thing these wars have in common also have commonality with medieval sieges. In a seige the attacker had to keep up a barrage of offensive actions which was really hard to do given medieval roads and logistics. Usually, the attacked lived in a walled city that was always stocked with provisions for withstanding a long seige. The attacker lived off the countryside until it was barren and the people were starving or moved away. Modern seige warfare has good logistics, at least from the US. But there is already disquieting discussion of running out of the munitions that make modern warfare modern. That brings us to a decision point which is also circulating: when or if one should put boots on the ground. The answer is: before congress grows a backbone and pulls the plug. That’s why these are such dangerous times.
I suspect that unless Don the Con and Hegseth have a falling out (always a possibility with Don the Con, who changes his mind more often than he changes his socks), Hegseth will get a preemptive pardon when he leaves office, so he can't be prosecuted for war crimes, crimes against humanity and other specific criminal acts here in the US.
But Trump's pardon won't be worth the paper it's printed on in other countries that recognize the juristiction of the International Criminal Court. Pete's pretty young and I expect he'll travel to other countries once he leaves office. And if there is any justice in this world, then one of those countries will arrest him, charge him with war crimes and crimes against humanity, and send him-- in chains-- to The Hague to stand trial. Remember that war crimes and crimes against humanity are like piracy under international law-- any country can prosecute someone for those crimes.
War crimes could also be tried at The Hague.
Kegseth's argumentation “completely and totally obliterated” the truth.
A surgeon friend told me about her three year old teaching her two year old how to “double-click” the mouse. That’s like the teenager asking the mom, what is a floppy disk? That same surgeon said she got sued once. The patient had been in a terrible motor vehicle accident not so much his fault. He developed complications from his injuries and decided to sue my “consultant” surgeon friend. Her and her attorney’s retort was we didn’t cause the infection that resulted from the injury you received prior to your infection. Lesson: with every problem look at what led to that problem and argue that point. So…with the two year old mouse learning problem, I suppose pregnancy was the real culprit and we all know what the problem is before that :) May all our problems be happy. With Iran, how many problems and years do we look back? I am never on the orange moron’s and kegsbreath’s sides but this was born out of numerous problems that preceded the current catastrophe. Our entire world will be changed. Bandaids will be ripped off. Really, if you think about it, America would not be the superpower healer of the free world if it were not for Churchill. Remember, the Nazis came to America to study racial suppression in the 30’s-early 40’s to perfect their purity purge. And what did we do the minute the kamikazes murderously destroyed Pearl Harbor? Yep, created poorly constructed and run concentration camps for Japanese American landowning citizens. So yeh, look at what came before our current catastrophe of murder in the streets, mass deportations, goon squads, moron dictator leaders and yes-men cabinets who are all rapists and pedophiles and drunkards, subjugated whore women who will do and suffer anything for their man. Quite simply we have become who we were, only worse. Reference the Stanford prison project. Practice makes perfect and I would say we are almost perfect fascists. Be sure you are registered to vote and choose someone who will try to correct this monstrosity that America has perfected.