Hey, let’s start at the end. What’s after Iran? Well, according to Lindsey Graham, the answer is Cuba. People may not always take Graham seriously with regard to Trump, but let’s not be so quick to write off any confirmed bachelor who has been winning elections in South by-god Carolina for over 30 years. Secretary of State Rubio is going to be pushing at least as hard as Lindsey.
Where were we? Right, before the names of dead American soldiers start getting announced, it’s a good time to revisit these insights on Trump’s attitude toward the military from former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly. As the saying kinda goes, character is what you say when the microphones are off.
Kelly reminds me — let’s raise a glass to all the first-term Trump employees who thought they could curb DJT’s excesses and the catastrophes from the inside. Generally, they failed. This time, Trump learned his lesson in hiring: strict adherence to fealty over competence. This time, we have diehards arguing for and serving Trump out of dumb, destructive passion.
Related, let’s raise a glass to all the folks you know who have voted for the Chaos Agent two or three times now and due to one idiotic decision or another have found themselves thinking, “Oh, wait, I didn’t want that chaos.” I’d say “found themselves saying” but let’s face it, 99% of them are too chickenshit to say it out loud where any non-MAGA can hear it.
Early polls suggest about one-sixth of Trump’s standard 30% MAGA core has dared to tell a pollster they disapprove of the Iran invasion. That’s probably good enough for POTUS.
As for the remaining 25% of America too far gone and too bigoted to mind, maybe they’re just the dedicated Huckabee-level zealots. Sure, I have my opinions, but I prefer to live and let live when it comes to religion. Harder to keep that up when the live-and-let’s-apocalypse crowd gets into positions of real power.
I suggest forwarding your pro-war acquaintances this enlistment link to share with their children and grandchildren. My standard Veterans Day take is admiration bordering on awe for people who put themselves in harm’s way with no idea of who their boss will be or the worthiness of the eventual cause at hand. But lucky MAGAs can now urge their own flesh and blood to serve with the confidence of another nearly three years in office.
Frankly, the persistent supporters who put this latest clusterfuck in motion owe us some warm bodies, and because we’re decent, we’ll all hope they stay that way.
Not that the rest of us are getting anything out of this other than higher gas prices and an increased risk of terrorism.
Oh, I almost forgot to hand it to Mr. Netanyahu. Between cutting off water to Gaza and bombing a school in Iran, he has managed to kick off yet another campaign with a war crime. His people deserve better.
Speaking of war crimes … has asked Mr. Hegseth what’s really going on? It’s either a totally epic “precision” bombing operation and he’s a war criminal, or he screwed up and murdered a bunch of children right off the bat. Given Hegseth’s disdain for pesky guardrails like historical conventions of warfare, a lot of us are ashamed to admit it’s a coin flip at best.
I was going to mention the historical folly of orchestrating regime change in Iran, but instead, read the recent Adrastos column. It went so well the last time we put a Shah in power to help out the oil companies.