Just An Earth-Bound Misfit, I
(No Kings, Ever!)

"The Peace President". "No More Foreign Wars". All shit bleated by the Orange Sundowner-in-Chief and his acolytes.

But no. Cadet Bone Spurs, the Aged Draft-Dodger, has no problems with sending American kids into wars around the globe. He and his Pithed Secretary of State are yammering about intervening in Columbia, Mexico, Cuba, Iran, Denmark and Lord knows where else.

Between his taste for military action and his destruction of American excellence in science and medicine, he and his MAGA morons are turning America into a shithole nation.

Which may be Pee-Wee German's idea of how to make it so nobody wants to come here. Like Russia, North Korea or Iran.

The United States captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and flew him out of the country in an extraordinary nighttime operation that was accompanied by a flurry of strikes following months of escalating Trump administration pressure on the oil-rich South American nation.

The U.S. is now deciding next steps for Venezuela, President Donald Trump said Saturday on Fox News, adding, “We’ll be involved in it very much.”

Second paragraph, above: Yet another war/intervention for oil.

Invading another country and abducting its leader, even with the fig-leaf of a federal indictment is kidnapping. Imagine another country grapping Trump and putting him on trial-- I doubt if we'd sit still for that. But, as the old saying goes, Providence is usually on the side of the country with the biggest battalions.

Anyway, looks like the Demented Criminal's campaign for a Nobel is officially over.

It's funny that Trump and Bondi argue that Maduro's being indicted as a justification. Because Trump, himself, was indicted and convicted of 34 felonies. But hell, sell-reflection and irony are not things in this maladministration.

It's also funny that Trump pardoned former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández for pretty much the same charges he's slobbering about prosecuting Maduro.

US forces have seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, in a major escalation of Donald Trump’s four-month pressure campaign against the South American country’s dictator, Nicolás Maduro.

It'll be interesting to see how this plays out, but I'm not about to give The Orange Sundowner the benefit of the doubt.

ETA: MAybe someone will explain what seizing tankers has to do with fighting the export of drugs to Europe.

First it was Iraq. Then the Orange Warmonger sends a bunch of ships to threaten/attack Venezuela. But nos somebody must have told him that Nigeria has sweet cruide, because he's threatening them.

It's all about the oil for him.

Beyond that, a military strike into Venezuela will poison relations with every country south of the border (excpet maybe Argentina) for a generation.

Time to resurect Tom Lehrer

That was then:

This is now:

President Donald Trump said Saturday that the U.S. military struck three sites in Iran, directly joining Israel ’s effort to decapitate the country’s nuclear program in a risky gambit to weaken a longtime foe amid Tehran’s threat of reprisals that could spark a wider regional conflict.

So off to another half-baked Sandbox war. Trump didn't even bothered to try and sell the need for this war to his supporters, much less American people. He just went ahead and did it. Because he believes that his supporters will back him no matter what he does or to whom. He could strangle Melania on primetime TV and he wouldn't lose more than one percent of his supporters.

Everything happening in Iran traces back to the American and British governments staging a coup in 1953, because the government nationalized the oil industry. The CIA and MI6 installed a puppet, the Shah. That did not sit well with the Iranian people. The Shah and his secret police, the SAVAK brutally suppressed dissent until they no longer could. The Iranian Revolution was the result, bringing about the theocratic quasi-dictatorship that isn't terribly popular in its own right.

The neo-cons may yet achieve their wet dream of regime change, having converted "no more wars" tRump to their view. But then what? We're not going to be able to occupy a country of 92 million people, not unless we send the entire army. For it's pretty evident that nobody's going to help us this time around in occupation duty. The resentment that will follow will persist into the 22nd Century.

And while the U.S. is then fully tied up fucking around in Iran, China may see its chance to deal with Taiwan.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Israel took “unilateral action against Iran” and that Israel advised the U.S. that it believed the strikes were necessary for its self-defense.

“We are not involved in strikes against Iran and our top priority is protecting American forces in the region,” Rubio said in a statement released by the White House.

Anyone who belives that has rocks for brains. We're Israel's patron, we supply most of their weapons, we give them billions in aid. The chances that Bibi would do this without express clearance from Trump is infintesimally small.

No, we are involved and once again, a Republican president has involved us in a Muddle Eastern war that could easily turn into not only a quagmire, but this time, it could blow up into a global conflagration.

Heckuvajob, Donnie.

The Felon seems to be prepping the ground for military action against our neighbors by declaing fentanyl a WMD.

If I were a military commander in our neighbors, I'd be looking to disperse AGTM and MANPAD teams as soon as possible, and maybe shipping in more very quickly from Arms Я Us.

One thing comes to my mind, first off: The skin in the game of the average Ukrainian as compared to the average Russian.

For the Ukraininas, it's pretty clear. Their country has been invaded, twice, by the Russians. Strategy Page has reported that even the so-called Russified Ukrainians in Crimea and the Donbas are, more and more, choosing to throw in with Ukraine than with their occupiers.

For the Russians, I have not seen anything to indicate that Ivan Ivanov in either Moscow or St. Petersburg, let alone Vladivostok, could give two shits about Ukraine. This can be seen by the troubles that the Russian military is having getting men to enlist in their army. The reports are that the Russians have been greatly loosening their eligibility requirements for joining the army, with few takers.[1] They need people, as their casualty rate may be horrific.[2]

The Russians have been trying to make up the shortfall with private military contractors and with foreign troops. That has the age-old problem of fighting a war with mercenaries: They are willing to fight for a paycheck, but they are not inclined to die for one. The recruitment of criminals from Russian prisons by the mercenaries has additional problems with maintaining the good order and dsciple necessary for a competent combat force.[3]

On the other side of the coin, while both economies are suffering, Russia's potentially better suited to rebound. Putler can turn the taps wide and sell oil, along with coal, forest products, steel and gold. Russia may find that the market for Russian military weapon systems will have taken a beating, as nothing that they have has shown to be particularly impressive in this war (unlike LockMart). The future for advanced Russian weapons systems is rather grim.

For Ukraine, the situation may be more dire over the near term. The Russians, whether by accident or design, are poisoning/ruining a portion of Ukraine's fields.[4] Much of Ukraine's exports are agricultural. Their industry is being destroyed by Russian attacks under the toddler's principle of "if I can't have it, SMASH". So Ukraine may be an economic basket case for some years.

But in the longer term, if Ukraine can keep corruption under check,[5], then, with the assistance of the rest of Europe, they can recover to a point of having a more modern industrial base than they inherited from the fall of the USSR. Russia will continue down the road of mediocrity and inferior goods that they have been on for a century or more, with its citizens looking over the border towards Russia's more prosperous neighbors to the west and wondering why they can't ever have those nice things.[6]
_______________________
[1] Does that sound familiar?
[2] Reports are that their casualty-care methods have been bad by US Army standards for the Second World War.
[3] The Soviets did this by having penal battalions that were tightly overseen by the NKVD, who would kill those soldiers whenever it suited them.
[4] Besides stealing all the grain those fucling orcs can get their hands upon.
[5] Something that the donor nations can enforce.
[6] Which is an argument for making it easy for Russians to travel to the rest of Europe.

In a dramatic escalation of East-West tensions over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin ordered Russian nuclear forces put on high alert Sunday in response to what he called “aggressive statements” by leading NATO powers.
...
Putin, in giving the nuclear alert directive, cited not only the alleged statements by NATO members but the hard-hitting financial sanctions imposed by the West against Russia, including the Russian leader himself.

This is madness on a scale unseen since Putin's intellectual ancestor was still yammering about ultimate victory in April of 1945 as his capital city was being shelled and bombed into heaps of rubble.

Meanwhile, the members of Putin's fan club in western Europe are trying to dissemble and step back from their full-throated embrace of the New Butcher of Ukraine. We should never forget who they are.

Also, the fucking Norks are clamoring for attention.

#Iraq is reconsidering its relationship with the U.S.?

A relationship in which we give them $2 billion a year & they privately beg us to stay & help them fight #ISIS & counter-balance #Iran. But they get to publicly condemn us for protecting our troops?https://t.co/Qu8zhKhGS8

— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) January 4, 2020

Let's review, shall we? We invaded their country on false pretenses, killed maybe a half-million of their citizens, made several million homeless, wrecked much of their infrastructure, loosed the demons of sectarian warfare, effectively facilitated the existence of ISIS and AQiI, shot motorists for no goddamned good reason, installed a corrupt government that couldn't even put together an effective army (lots of corruption and ghost soldiers on the payrolls) and which has edged into the Iranian orbit, bulldozed a good part of their capital city for an occupation HQ, and for all that, they are insufficiently grateful, according to little Marco?

OK, sure, Saddam is gone. Fat lot of good that has done us.

But hey, don't worry, Mike Pence, the second-dumbest of Trump's lieutenants, is peddling a bullshit conspiracy theory that Iran was behind the 9-11 attacks. Hey, Mikey, you dipwad, remember when you clowns were saying that it was Iraq? Now it's Iran?

Fucking imbeciles. The 9-11 conspiracy theories do have a purpose; for they are handy for signaling which politicians have an IQ in the mid-two-digit range.

Iran's most powerful military commander, Gen Qasem Soleimani, has been killed by a US air strike in Iraq.

The 62-year-old spearheaded Iranian military operations in the Middle East as head of Iran's elite Quds Force.

He was killed at Baghdad airport, along with other Iran-backed militia figures, early on Friday in a strike ordered by US President Donald Trump.

Mr Trump said the general was "directly and indirectly responsible for the deaths of millions of people".

Let's dispense with Trump's comments: Everything Trump says about anything is either hyperbole or a flat-out lie. This is no different.

You don't kill a senior general of another nation outside of a war. That we did means not that there will be war, but that we are already in one. It would have been nice to be reassured that our government had thought of the question "if we do then, then what", but I have no confidence in that. Trump has the impulse control of a toddler on a sugar high. Somebody on Fox News probably mentioned that Soleimani was responsible, Trump asked "can we kill this guy", was answered in the affirmative and he said "whack him" and that was all of the consideration that went into it.

Trump doesn't do consequences. His entire life has been about creating havoc and then letting other people clean up his messes, whether it's having a business go bankrupt, stiffing suppliers, or paying off women with whom he had affairs.

The Iranians will respond. To not respond would be to look weak in a region of the world where appearing weak is viewed as a terminal disease.

American flag officers around the world might be well advised to look to their own security.

Iran "made a very big mistake" in shooting down a US military surveillance drone over the Strait of Hormuz, President Donald Trump says.

However, he told reporters it could have been the result of human error, saying: "I find it hard to believe it was intentional."

Iran said the drone had violated Iranian airspace, but the US military denied this.

Right now, I'm not believing anyone. It's quite possible that the drone was being used to probe Iranian reaction by flying it as close as possible to Iranian airspace.

Those who would say "why, US would never do that" has no understanding of history.

Those who would say that "no such mistake is possible" also are revealing their ignorance.

One thing that keeps getting lost in the noise is that oil coming via the Persian Gulf isn't that critical for the United States. It is more important for Europe and Asia. Those nations need to step up their involvement, for if Iran does threaten oil shipment, this one is not our circus.

Bleeding John Bolton Stumbles Into Capitol Building Claiming That Iran Shot Him https://t.co/FodHlv7aZN pic.twitter.com/pTscfruFZH

— The Onion (@TheOnion) June 13, 2019

The Coalition of the (Un)Willing is going to be small this time around. For one thing, all of the players arguing that Something Must Be Done are, well, biased as all fuck.

• Benjamin Netanyahu has been trying to get America to shed its blood and treasure on Iran for decades. If he were to trip over a curb, he'd blame Iran.
• John Bolton similarly has been trying to cook up a war with Iran for a very long time.  On the other hand, Bolton's been trying to start wars with everyone he can, other than possibly Liechtenstein and Andorra.  And I'm not sure about Andorra.
• Crown Prince Mohammed bin Sultan, a/k/a Prince Bone Saw, is another of the "let's let the Americans die for us" caucus.  
• Donald Trump, a man who lies only less frequently than he exhales. But only because he breathes in his sleep. Alost every day, you can find a news item that fact-checks Trump, which probably should be titled "Stupid Shit That Trump Said Today." The point being is that Trump lies about everything. You would have to be an idiot to buy anything from Trump, including a #2 pencil

These are the guys who are agitating for PG War 3.0. Only an utter fool would believe anything they say.

Which is something that the Iranians are well aware of and are exploiting.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said at a news conference in Washington: "It is the assessment of the United States that the Islamic Republic of Iran is responsible for the attacks.

"This assessment is based on intelligence, the weapons used, the level of expertise needed to execute the operation, recent similar Iranian attacks on shipping, and the fact that no proxy group operating in the area has the resources and proficiency to act with such a high degree of sophistication."

Right. My dim recollection of Pompeo is that, when he was a congressman, he was part of the Benghazi Conspiracy Caucus and that he was one of the "Bomb Iran" wingnuts.

So, do I trust Pompeo? Nope. We've been down this road before, when chickenhawks in the Bush-II Aministration cherry-picked and/or flat-out lied about intelligence to gin up their Extra Special Iraq War, a way which destabilized the region and led to the birth of ISIS.

And then there is this:

The UK Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said his country's "starting point" was to "believe our US allies".

Slow learners, the Brits.

So, was Iran behind these attacks? I don't know. But "who else coulda done it" isn't evidence.

UPDATE: One might want to read CDR Sal's take on this.

UPDATE II: Something that didn't occur to me until later is this-- look at the blast points on those tankers. If you are going to try and sink a ship, you would attach a limpet mine below the waterline, not several feet above it. Those blasts were also set to occur in places of the ship where it would be highly unlikely that any sailor would be present. Keep in mind that those ships have a total crew of maybe 25 hands, from the captain down to the cook.

The U.S. on Wednesday ordered all nonessential government staff to leave Iraq, and Germany and the Netherlands both suspended their military assistance programs in the country in the latest sign of tensions sweeping the Persian Gulf region over still-unspecified threats that the Trump administration says are linked to Iran.
...
The U.S. on Wednesday ordered all nonessential government staff to leave Iraq, and Germany and the Netherlands both suspended their military assistance programs in the country in the latest sign of tensions sweeping the Persian Gulf region over still-unspecified threats that the Trump administration says are linked to Iran.

Pompeo, of course, is lying like a senior Trump official:

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said the United States does not seek a war with Iran, amid rapidly growing tensions between the two countries.

The Iran nuclear deal was not perfect. But Trump blew it up because of his childish opposition to anything and everything that President Obama did. That is the bottom line for Trump: He's opposed to everything Obama did. It is a level of childish vindictiveness that normal people outgrow by the time their age reaches double digits.

If a war ensues, the U.S. is likely going to be largely going it alone. The rest of the Western world is blaming Trump for ratcheting up tensions with Iran. Bolton, in particular, is trying to engineer a war. It has apparently been Bolton's lifelong dream to mastermind a war, and now he seems to be achieving his goal.

In a just world, Bolton would be in a jail cell in The Hague for war mongering.

Trump, who has criticized other presidents for getting into wars in the Middle East, is on the verge of making the mother of all foreign policy fuckups.

North Korea has said it is considering carrying out missile strikes on the US Pacific territory of Guam.
The North's official news agency said it was considering a plan to fire medium-to-long-range rockets at Guam, where US strategic bombers are based.

It quoted an earlier military statement from Tuesday. President* Donald Trump threatened Pyongyang with "fire and fury" on the same day.

The exchanges mark a sharp rise in rhetoric between the two countries.

What we have, now, are two unhinged men with the power to order nuclear strikes and who are yelling at each other. One of them is vicious enough to essentially be a Bond villain. The other is a semi-literate braggart who gets 95% of his news from a warmonger propaganda feed and whose thought processes have been described as "six fireflies beeping randomly in a jar".

We are so screwed.

Erik Prince, founder of the private security firm Blackwater Worldwide, is still calling to replace U.S. troops in Afghanistan with private military contractors. In an interview on MSNBC on Tuesday, Prince pointed to the East India Company in India during British colonization as a source of emulation for U.S. policy in Afghanistan.

First off, if that would have worked in Afghanistan, one would have reasonably expected that Her Majesty's Government would have done that when they installed Shah Shuja in 1839. Indeed, that first war between Afghanistan and the Brits was, on the British side, largely overseen by the British East India Company. So if colonizing Afghanistan was possible, they had centuries' worth of expertise.

Second, I really doubt that there is much support for giving Afghanistan to a fucking greedy mercenary. I have little doubt that they would fuck things up, even worse than now exists, and then a certain mercenary commander would go whining to his sister, a high government official, to try and get a bailout by the American military.

Third, I suppose I can think of little that would inflame support for the Taliban more than turning over the conduct of the war to the Butcher of Nisour Square. (Other than turning it over to the IDF.)

I was at a party when a retired military officer began exclaiming: "After VE Day, we should have allied with the Germans to crush the Soviet Union." I kept my yap shut because the party was being held in a good friend's house. I don't like to cause scenes in private spaces.

But Sweet Mother of Bastet, when is this old tired line of John Bircher horseshit ever going to die out? Other than those mouth-breathing morons, does anyone truly believe that the American people had an appetite to try and conquer the USSR?

Look at the distances involved in both fighting such a war and logistically supplying the conflict. Look at the number of men the Germans committed to the Eastern Front-- in comparison, the amount of men they committed to fight the Western Front against the Anglo-American forces was almost paltry.

The American people were solidly behind the war effort because the perfidious Japanese had attacked us and the Germans had declared war. The American people were willing to do what it took to win. Americans wanted their men to come home in 1945, not engage in another tough war. Attacking the Soviet Union would have been an act that surpassed the Japanese for treachery.

It would have been akin to Wyatt Earp shooting Doc Holliday in the back immediately after the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. The American people would have never stood for it and certainly wouldn't once the butcher's bill began coming due.

Those who believe such a war would have been a good idea, let alone winnable, probably should be living in a padded room with an IV feeding them a mixture of thorazine and morphine.

Almost all of the GOP candidates want to establish a no-fly zone (NFZ) over Syria, except Rafael Cruz, Rand Paul and The Donald. Hillary Clinton also wants to establish one.

They are all idiots.

Syria is, like or not, a sovereign nation. The United States has no legal authority to proclaim a NFZ over another nation. Doing so is an act of war. The Unites States has as much right to declare a NFZ over Syria as the Russians have to declare a NFZ over Ukraine.