Continuing with reactions to the reactions of Donald Trump delivering on promises to the Mullahs, the following addresses some of the loudest cries. Its worth noting that while the Democrats and a few select Islamist parties with ties to woke socialism were the most indignant initially, the bigger war may ultimately be within MAGA. The ‘Establishment’ is also divided; on the one hand they hate Trump but they also love wars of all varieties, so they’re hardly of one voice.
The vast majority of Americans (Six Pack Joe) are clueless about everything but actions that happen in their back yard or that show up in their mailbox or bank account. They have no stomach at all for foreign relations matters no matter how urgent. At election time, foreign relations consistently poll well down to the single digits for importance. Most Americans can’t see past their next Dominos pizza order. This isn’t just abstract insults here, that’s the numbers. Ignorance of Trumps foreign policy responsibilities doesn’t make them go away. Based on some of the chatter I’ve seen quoted this week, the average person and some elected officials have no idea why the military exists. They believe it’s a social service to help disadvantaged people enter a lifelong relationship of government training, employment, and or assistance (and that’s not just minorities). The notion that it should be used for anything is shocking and unjust to them as is the notion that a chief executive often chooses capricious causes to put them in harms way. When a real cause arises, it’s hard to tell the difference. I understand that they got burned by the Bush/Obama forever wars and nation building, but this is where having a little discretion about foreign policy would come in handy as would some remedial understanding of the ethos of war; and yes, there is an ethos of war.
The titan of industry and finance get a special call this week. The stock market is taking a hit. I’d compare traders to distempered cats needing anti-anxiety meds. They’re also devoid of morals and possibly souls, making decisions based solely on calculations of price movements, mostly on a twelve-hour time horizon, and with little or no regard for any strategic long-term gains. The past few days, I was reading a quote from JP Morgan Chase CEO, Jamie Dimon and realized, I can’t recall when I’ve heard him say a single thing positive about the any and every last thing that Trump has initiated, from trade deals to the economy, to war actions. He’s the ultimate nervous nelly naysayer. It also means he has been wrong about virtually everything Trump has done thus far. The only thing that would be acceptable in his sight is to return to incompetent administrations presiding over our own not so slow decline, domestically and internationally, just as long as he could exercise his stock options.
Overall, there seems to be some short-term sense of favor for the removal of wild clerics yelling to crowds about the Great Satan, but that favor will have a very short fuse. Moreso, there seems to be a lot of confusion and misinformation about our goals and objectives as in the case of the libertarians, (see the statements of Cato and Reason and folks like Rand Paul and Tucker Carlson), it’s absolutely disingenuous ignorance. They haven’t a clue as to why we would ever need to bomb a theocratic wanna-be nuclear power that promised to blackmail the entire global economy over oil and Israel and just happens to sit on the Straight of Hormuz. No clue whatsoever. Clearly they would have vetoed Jefferson sinking Barbary pirates back in the day if they had been around to do so. No understanding of American history, no clue whatsoever.
Even more intuitive and nuanced people have some confusion or doubts. Just for clarification, the following description of objectives, attributable to Pete Hegseth, seems to be more than clear:
“Obliterate Iran’s missiles and drones and facilities that produce them, annihilate its navy and critical security infrastructure, and sever their pathway to nuclear weapons.”
I can’t argue with that, truth be told. I don’t see anything in their about spreading democracy around the globe.
Clearly, about 40% of this country is automatically opposed to anything done by Donald Trump but they are far more scared shitless of Donald Trump pulling off a generational success, and for that you must be whipped into a frenzy. You were told to hate his ‘Donroe Doctrine’ isolationism last year and this year you are directed to hate wiping out the enemies of our strategic interests.
For nearly fifty years, the Iranian regimes have been murdering Americans and out allies. During that entire span, our response has been underwhelming. We’d send a $1.5 million cruise missile into a market or daycare center or empty warehouse and kill a few beggars or children. We’d call ourselves avenged and move on until the next time, rinse and repeat. The big one had not happened yet, but it would not wait forever, certainly not when traitors like Obama were sending them pallets of hard cash to help them toward that goal. Finally, someone put a stop to it.
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