Tag Archives: Iran war

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Redefining ‘winning’ and ‘losing’

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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.

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Still waiting for that ‘atta boy!’ moment

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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.

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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.

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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.

military news

War will end … but why did we fight it?

Few things in this world would make me happier than to heap unqualified praise on Donald J. Trump for negotiating a possible end to the Iran war … except that isn’t possible.

You see, I am still baffled beyond belief over why he and the Israeli Defense Fund began bombing the stuffing out of Iranian military targets. Was it to change regimes? Was it to end Iranian designs on developing an A-bmb? Was it to quell terrorists who continue to operate out of Iran?

Was it all of the above? Or none of the above?

Trump appears set to announce a deal to end the Iran war. So are the Iranian mullahs.

The price of oil might plummet. The Strait of Hormuz might reopen soon, giving the Iranian oil a place to go to markets overseas.

Our casualties were light. Still, they were tragic for the dozen or so American families who lost someone in the bombing campaign.

Here’s the question of the moment: Are we any safer now than we were when the bombs and missiles started flying into Iran? Trump said the Iranian nukes have been “obliterated,” but he said the same thing when we bombed ’em earlier. The Obama administration, led by Secretary of State John Kerry, had worked out a comprehensive plan to rid Iran of nucllear weapons.

OK, Wall Street likely will jump with news of a pending deal to end the war. I appreciate what that will do to our retirement account. Who gets credit for it? Donald Trump. That’s OK with me. I had deep concerns when the bombs and missiles started flying. Those concerns will prevent me from suggesting it was OK to go to war in the first place.

International news

Ceasefire? Uhhh, where?

I am acutely aware that at times I can be painfully slow on the uptake, that things happen long before I realize it.

However, I know a ceasefire when I hear about one. Two sides are exchanging fire, killing each other, then they say “Stop the shooting!” Then it stops, giving the sides time to talk to each other to settle the issues that resulted in the shooting and bombing in the first place.

Some weeks ago, they declared a ceasefire in the Iran war, launched by Donald Trump for reasons that remain a mystery. It’s a three-way battle. The United States has teamed with Israel to bomb the daylights out of Iran. The ceasefire seems to involve only American and Iranian forces, or at least it did.

Israel has started firing missiles at Iran, which has returned fire to Israel. So has the United States returned to the bombing campaign. But wait! The media keep referring to the “ceasefire” which they report is still in effect.

C’mon, man! The ceasefire has vanished under the hail of missiles launched by both sides!

Those of us watching from a distance are growing increasingly frustrated by the messages being conveyed from Washington, Jerusalem and Tehran. Israel keeps talking tough. U.S. rhetoric is tough, but is laced with hopeful language from the POTUS that the end of fighting is in sight. Iranians keep blustering about their intense anger at the United States, which started this war.

I want an end to this damn war!

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Interest grows in wanting Iran war to end

I have an interest in seeing the Iran war come to an end and it has nothing to do with whether I would be called up or whether my sons would face the same future.

Hey, they’re both too old as I certainly am.

My interest in the war’s end is rooted in my retirement account. I read just a few minutes ago that consumers are now bracing for the biggest monthly decline in oil prices in six years, that June might signal a stellar month for retirement accounts across the land. The war that Donald Trump launched has cost us all a ton of money. Why launch a war remains the question of the day … and Trump appears none too ready to explain a damn thing about why he did it.

When word leaks out that negotiators are getting close to a deal, the market goes bonkers. When we hear from Trump about plans to bomb the hell out of Iran, markets tank dramatically.

The rumor mill now is grinding out reports of a deal in the works. If it’s true, then I will be among the first to offer Donald Trump some qualified praise. Ending the Iran war will allow me to breathe more easily as I look farther down the retirement road. The only qualification I will have will be in learning why in the hell we went to war with Iran in the first place.

It had better be worth it.

national news

Clearing the air on Trump

Donald Trump is the least fit man ever to occupy the office of president of the United States.

There, I have just repeated a mantra I have been declaring on this blog since the moment it became clear that Trump was considering a run for the nation’s highest elected office.

However, I now am going to state what hasn’t been repeated … which is that I and many other critics take no joy in blasting the POTUS over the way he has conducted himself. I now will clear the air.

When President Bush invited all the living former POTUSes to the White House to honor his successor, President-elect Barack Obama, he did so with grace and dignity. Bush turned to Obama and said that despite deep political differences, he wanted Obama to succeed. He wished him well, as did all the former presidents.

This is worth mentioning because of the criticism that has been tossed at the Trump foes over the course of his time as POTUS. These “never Trumpers” don’t “hate America.” They don’t want the nation to fail. They don’t seek to destroy this nation’s standing as the lone military superpower.

They don’t criticize Trump with gleams in their eyes and warm feelings in their tummies.

They are angry with Trump. They dislike the nation denigrating itself by allowing the president to make a fool of himself on the world stage. They understand that when the president criticizes our allies, or salutes dictators for their strength he is speaking ostensibly on behalf of 300-plus million Americans. This pluralistic society of ours cannot stand in synchronized lockstep with a man who states his desire to wipe a nation off the face of the Earth … which is what Trump has done with Iran.

No one with an ounce of conscience should support such a notion. I possess more than an ounce of it, so I am adamantly opposed to the idea of wiping a civilization off the planet.

I oppose Trump not because I detest him personally. I do so because I love my country. I want us to succeed. I actually want Trump to succeed. However, it is abundantly clear that POTUS 47 lacks the thread of compassion to do the right thing for the nation he was chosen to lead.

I take no joy in acknowledging that truth.