Tag Archives: Iran war

national news, political news

This POTUS takes job lightly

When the president of the United States spends hours each night sending out social media digs at political foes, or concentrates his anger at media reporters, or takes time to lament who’s to blame for a reflecting pool fiasco, or can’t complete construction of a billion-dollar ballroom where the East Wing once stood …

Well, you have a POTUS who cannot possibly be up to the job to which he was elected to do.

You have in Donald Trump an overfed showman who has started a war with Iran, backed an aggressor in the Kremlin for launching an illegal and immoral war against Ukraine and has alienated just about every valuable ally this nation has worked for decades to count on as a friend.

President Barack Obama recently said that a president who is serious about his job has — at minimum — perhaps 10 issues on his plate that require his undivided attention. And they have nothing to do with beautifying the White House.

It should be abundantly clear that Donald Trump was far more interested in becoming the POTUS than actually being that person. To be the commander in chief, the head of government and head of state requires laser-like focus. Trump exhibits none of that trait as he stumbles, bumbles and blathers his way through each day he is in office.

He continues to bitch about losing the 2020 election to President Joe Biden … and cannot bring himself to say a single empathetic word about the former president’s struggle against cancer. He continues to lie about presiding over the “the greatest economy the world has ever seen” when in fact the USA is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy.

This individual has sought to destroy our democratic republic. He cheapens the presidency every single day he sits in the Oval Office. Donald Trump has no business holding the office to which he was elected twice. What in the world is wrong with this nation?

national news

GOP: out of ideas and running out of luck

A political party that keeps harping on the past only can mean one thing about the present and the future, and it doesn’t bode well for the party I’m about to mention.

The Republican Party, led by Donald Trump, is flat out of ideas. It is running out of steam. Its luck is damn near spent.

What does this mean for its future? The immediate future is looking grim every passing day. The GOP small margin in the House of Representatives looks quite vulnerable these days, as Democrats appear poised to seize the majority from its “friends” on the other side of the aisle. The hill toward majority control in the Senate still looks more formidable than in the House, but there appear to be more avenues for Democratic success than for Republicans.

As for the Republicans’ leader, Donald Trump, well … all I can offer there is a word of caution that he is facing a near-certain impeachment in the House. It might come even during the first year of the pending Democratic victory at the ballot box. This individual has all but acted like he is committing impeachable acts on purpose, that he’s secretly hoping to be impeached. He violates the Constitution with impunity.

We can set aside the ridiculous nonsense he prattles on with regard to Presidents Biden and Obama; it’s the unconstitutional actions he takes regularly that ought to become the targets of those intending to file impeachment articles. The Iran war, the tariffs he imposes on all Americans are two actions that come to mind immediately.

Trump’s legacy is hardening each day. It is built on chaos, malfeasance and corruption. Thus, it is becoming virtually impossible for the POTUS’s political heirs to advance any sort of political agenda … even if they had one.

military news

War president, my ass!

Donald Trump calls himself a “war president,” to which I say plainly, clearly and without apology: my ass!

To be fair, Trump isn’t the first POTUS to never have worn the uniform, but he needs to follow the lead blazed by men who have worn it and who have acted with considerable reluctance to commit men and women to battle.

I am thinking at this moment of seven such men. Theodore Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, George H.W. Bush and Jimmy Carter have entered my mind. TR saw combat during the Spanish-American War, Ike was supreme Allied commander of forces in Europe during World War II, “Give ‘Em Hell” Harry saw combat in WWI. JFK served as a combat naval officer in the Pacific during WWII. GHW Bush was a naval aviator in the Pacific and was shot down by Japanese gunners. Jimmy Carter graduated from the Naval Academy and served on nuclear submarines.

Three Republicans and three Democrats all saw war as the same hideous endeavor. No partisanship entered their discussions about warfare.

Yet now we have Trump. He evaded service during the Vietnam War. He has referred to those who served there as “losers and suckers.” Thanks, Donald. I’m one of ’em. He has instructed his staff to avoid showing him in the presence of wounded warriors.

He promised the nation he would avoid future wars. He broke that pledge by launching the war against Iran. Eighteen Americans have died — so far! — in that war.

This individual has zero understanding of the cost of man’s most insane act.

military news

Trump ruins a presidential act

Donald Trump today performed a supreme presidential act by going to Dover, Del., to receive the remains of three American service personnel who died in our nation’s Iran war.

Then he ruined the moment by lying about what he said was coursing through the souls of these valiant American servicemen and women. He said all of them “said that Iran should not have nuclear weapons.”

My first reaction was one of horror. How in this war-ravaged world does the commander in chief know what fallen warriors believed to be right about the war that Trump started for reasons to be revealed? How in the name of God Almighty can he pretend to make such a declaration?

He doesn’t know and he cannot possibly speak for these brave warriors … because he made it up!

Allow me to speak briefly for the millions of Americans who have gone to war for our country. There could not possibly be unanimous in support for the policy that sends them to war. There damn sure wasn’t in 1969 when I reported for duty as part of an Army aviation unit at Marble Mountain, Da Nang, South Vietnam. I was confused about the war. My beliefs about the correctness of the policy we were following to prosecute that war were still forming. By the time I returned home in 1970, those feelings became clear: I opposed the Vietnam War.

I strongly believe such is the case now, decades later, with young Americans being ordered to do battle with an adversary. And yet, Trump decided in this moment of grief and mourning to put words into the mouths of young Americans he didn’t know and declare that they support his policy of going to war with no clear strategy for conducting it … and no idea of how to end it.

military news

Redefining ‘winning’ and ‘losing’

It seems safe to say that Donald J. Trump has reinforced something I have believed for the past 50 years or so, which is that we have redefined winning and losing wars.

I took part briefly in the Vietnam War, which is generally considered to be a conflict that the United States lost to a determined enemy. We won virtually every major engagement on the battlefield. We inflicted far more casualties on the enemy than they inflicted on us.

But we ended the war because we ran out of patience. We ran out of time. Vietnam was fighting to preserve its existence against a foreign power. I now accept the idea that we actually lost the Vietnam War. I am no less proud that I spent some time there doing my duty as ordered by my government.

Trump launched a war with Iran a few months ago. He decided to bomb the crap out of the place. Our aviators along with those from Israel sent bombs crashing into military facilities. Trump declared the war essentially to be over a few weeks after he started it. He kinda/sorta declared victory as well.

Then we entered talks to end the war. The sides emerged with a “memorandum of understanding” that they would stop the fighting. Iran wouldn’t obtain nuclear weapons, according to the MOU. Iran also would be able to sell its oil on the open market. The United States would lift the sanctions it imposed on Iran during the Barack Obama administration.

I have to ask: Is that winning?

Trump’s strategy looks more like that of a loser than a winner.

Now we’re back to bombing Iran. The Iranians have shut down the Strait of Hormuz — again! The price of oil is inching back up. We might lose more American lives; to date, 14 Americans service personnel have died.

To make matters even more maddening to American patriots … such as me: We don’t yet have a detailed explanation from the commander in chief as to our strategy for going to war, nor do we know of an exit strategy that Trump has cooked up in his feeble brain.

national news

Still waiting for that ‘atta boy!’ moment

I believe I once wrote on my blog that I would welcome the opportunity to offer praise to Donald Trump when the moment presented itself.

It might have been during his first term as POTUS. I’m still waiting for that moment.

Believe me when I say this, even though many of you might doubt my sincerity, but I truly want Trump to succeed at something, anything that advances the nation’s cause. However, the longer it goes without such an occurrence, the more difficult it becomes.

We’re now fairly deep into this individual’s second term in the White House. He promised it would be worse for many Americans than his first go-round. He vowed to be take revenge against those who have wronged him, that he would be the nation’s “retribution.” You remember that? Sure you do. Because he has delivered on that pledge. The way I figure it, that is about the only promise he made that he’s kept. The rest of ’em? Fuhgetaboutit!

Dude promised to end wars. He said he would end the Ukraine war on the first day of his second term. He said prices would come down immediately. He vowed to cure all our nation’s ills by executive fiat. During his first inaugural, he said the “the American carnage” on our streets ends “right here, right now.”

The guy is zero for whatever on his agenda.

Meanwhile, critics like me are waiting to offer him praise. Dang it, but it’s getting harder each week that goes by.

I’m a patient old man. However, everything has its limits.

International news

We saw this coming long ago

Watching Donald Trump fumble, bumble and blunder his way through a second term in the White House admittedly has become quite a painful spectacle to watch.

To be brutally frank, though, many of us saw it coming long ago, long before he ever took the oath of office for his first term as the head of the nation’s exeutive branch of government.

I feel the need to remind readers of this blog that I declared long before he took the oath that Trump had spent his entire professional life pursuing personal wealth, aggrandizement and never once devoted a single moment of his waking hours to serving the public. Here we are today as Trump’s personal wealth is expanding before our eyes with sweetheart deals with foreign governments.

He is fighting now openly with Republican senators. He is ignoring his Cabinet officials’ best advice, although admittedly it is quite scarce with the crowd he has assembled around him for the second term. Fellow heads of state are laughing out loud at Trump’s pronouncements.

Then he went to war with Iran and is trying to hammer out a deal that strengthens the nation he hates and puts the United States in a weaker position with regard to Iran.

This is “winning”? It makes me laugh. Loudly.

military news, national news, national security

Well … at least this war won’t last forever

I am going to give Donald Trump a shot-glass full of credit for the war with Iran — that he started — but which is about to come to an inglorious end.

The war that Trump began was thought to be a “forever war,” which he said during the 2024 campaign he would avoid. It’s coming to an end, but with Trump getting virtually nothing from the Iranians.

I am delighted to see progress moving clumsily forward on a peace deal with Iran. We lost 13 American service personnel’s lives. Thousands of Iranians died during the course of our bombing and missile strikes and I am sorry about that terrible loss of life. The war, though, appears to nearly over.

The Strait of Hormuz will reopen soon, one hopes. But get a load of this: The Iranians will be able to sell their oil on the open market, earning billions of dollars to shore up their shattered economy. The sides are arguing over an inspection protocol designed to ensure that Iran keeps its promise to not seek to develop a nuclear bomb.

Trump called the deal hammered out over years of negotiation to deny Iran a nuclear arsenal the “worst in history.” He tore it up upon taking office in January 2017. The only problem with that deal — in Trump’s view — was that it had President Obama’s name on it, along with Secretary of State John Kerry. But here we are, nine years later, and we’re back to where we began with an arrangement that looks a great deal like the one that Kerry and the president hammered out with out allies in the region.

Trump wanted regime change in Iran. He didn’t get it, although he is able to boast about killing the ayatollah in an airstrike during the first week of the war.

All the while, we hear from Trump about that moronic idea of dying the DC Mall Reflecting Pool blue to commemorate the nation’s 250th birthday; we watch the JFK Center for the Performing Arts take down Trump’s name from the edifice and Trump launching into this idiotic wee-hour social media rants about Cabinet officials and Democrats seeking to undermine him.

This isn’t anyone’s definition of “winning,” Mr. POTUS.

At least the war he started, though, is about to end. I would offer a wish that we could get down to actual governing … but I know that’s an impossible task.

national news

Obama center is now open!

Barack H. Obama today opened his presidential library, museum and educational center in Chicago … and it seems to carry an extra layer of significance.

It’s likely not the contents within this center, but rather the atmospherics surrounding its opening.

The Obamas — Barack and former first lady Michelle — invited three former presidents and their wives to the event. They stood proudly with the 44th president. They were President Bill and Hillary Clinton, President George and Laura Bush and President Joe and Jill Biden. And, yes, there was a conspicuous absence. There was no sign of Donald and Melania Trump.

Therein lies the atmospherics that tend to give this presidential museum opening its special significance.

Donald Trump, through his hideous conduct over the course of more than a term in office, has disqualified himself from event of such joy and accomplishment. Now we have the war he started with Iran, which is about to end (in a fashion) and the belief by many Republican pols and leaders that this country got taken to the cleaners. Think for a moment about this notion: Trump started a war, then backed away from it without gaining anything from the stated goals Donald Trump sought when he started dropping bombs and firing missiles.

Trump’s absence from this joyous event should serve notice to him — not that he’ll pay a shred of attention — that the world is going to function without him. He is becoming more of a lame duck every single day he remains in office.

International news

Wait for the boasts from POTUS 47

Wait for it, ladies and gents, because I am fairly certain they will fly out of the mouth of POTUS 47.

That would be … what?

Donald Trump is likely to declare he is the greatest negotiator in human history by ending the Iran war … which he began some weeks ago with missile strikes and aerial bombardments.

What Trump will be hard pressed to answer is this: What did we get out of this ill-advised war. My guess? Not a damn thing.

It appears that we now are just about where we were when Trump took office and tore up the agreement that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry worked out to deny Iran the nuclear weaponry it had sought for decades.

Trump did manage to all but destroy the world economy by sending the price of oil into outer space, causing inflation across the board to skyrocket and inflicting pain on U.S. families. Oh, wait … he said he wasn’t thinking about that.

Trump is a master at seeking to spin any argument to make him look better. The astonishing aspect of that skill is how he gets so many Americans to believe it. That’s what he will do with the pending end of the Iran war. He will seek to cast the end of the war as a product of his negotiating skills.

I will shake my head out of sheer astonishment.