Drag him out of office in handcuffs NOW.

He’s not even aware that he’s tweeting out promises of war crimes.

The UN passed a resolution in 2017 prohibiting this sort of thing, you know. As explained by UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova:

“The deliberate destruction of heritage is a war crime, it has become a tactic of war to tear societies over the long term, in a strategy of cultural cleansing. This is why defending cultural heritage is more than a cultural issue, it is a security imperative, inseparable from that of defending human lives,” Director-General Bokova told the Security Council, as she spoke in support of the resolution, with Executive Director of UNODC Youri Fedotov and Commander Fabrizio Parrulli of the Carabinieri Italiani.

“Weapons are not enough to defeat violent extremism. Building peace requires culture also; it requires education, prevention, and the transmission of heritage. This is the message of this historic resolution,” she added.

The resolution was prompted by a number of tragic acts of cultural vandalism, many of them by Islamic state fanatics. Now we’re planning to be just like them.

The resolution urges nations to increase efforts to preserve historic monuments and sites in conflict zones. The onset of the 21st century witnessed attacks against global heritage sites increase significantly, including the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan and Timbuktu’s ancient shrines in Mali.

Previous efforts by the Council to safeguard cultural heritage focused on the illicit trafficking of looted cultural relics to fund terrorist activities in Iraq and Syria, where the “Islamic State” militant group destroyed UNESCO World Heritage sites, including Roman ruins at Palmyra.

However, Friday’s resolution called for further international cooperation in investigations and prosecutions of individuals and groups committing attacks against cultural heritage sites, monuments and relics.

The resolution affirmed that “directing unlawful attacks against sites and buildings dedicated to religion, education, art, science or charitable purposes, or historic monuments may constitute, under certain circumstances and pursuant to international law, a war crime and that perpetrators of such attacks must be brought to justice.”

You may recall that religious fanatics in the US, particularly the likes of the Hobby Lobby fundamentalists, were actively looting cultural artifacts from Iraq…also a crime. Now Trump is threatening to bomb major cultural sites in Iran, confirming our status as a rogue state run by barbarians.

Do I need to point out the dishonor of using the Iranian hostages from forty years ago as a justification for destroying art and history, or the hypocrisy of telling Iran to not threaten us by threatening Iran? Very well, I do. Trump is a dishonorable hypocrite and a lying barbarian. He has to go. Soon.

What do these nine people have in common?

Let’s see…they’re all men.

They’re all white men.

They’re all smiling, and in suits.

Some additional information: they’re all from Pennsylvania.

They’re all politicians.

They’re all Republican politicians.

I wonder what they’re up to?

I don’t think anyone will be surprised if I tell you that all 9 signed an amicus brief filed with the Supreme Court to repeal Roe v. Wade.

Obviously these are the best people to control women’s bodies.

When you start a donnybrook is when you find out who your friends are

Actually, you should look around the bar before you throw that first punch, to make sure someone has your back. Theoretically, that is — not that I’ve ever been one to leap into bar fights.

In totally unrelated news, Iran, China, and Russia are teaming up in a joint military exercise.

Iran has kicked off the first joint naval drill with Russia and China in the northern part of the Indian Ocean, Iranian state TV has reported.

The four-day exercise comes at a time of heightened tensions since the United States withdrew from a landmark 2015 nuclear deal with Iran in May last year.

“The message of this exercise is peace, friendship and lasting security through cooperation and unity … and its effect will be to show that Iran cannot be isolated,” Rear Admiral Gholamreza Tahani said on state television.

Well, our European friends have pledged their undying loyalty to us, I’m sure.

The US reimposed crippling sanctions on Iran after quitting the nuclear deal last year, prompting Tehran to hit back with countermeasures by dropping nuclear commitments.

Remaining parties to the badly weakened agreement include the UK, France and Germany, as well as China and Russia.

I can take on all of youse, c’mon. Just let me down a couple more shots first, ‘k?

We’ve already lost the war

There was never any way we could win it. The latest phase began with Trump blustering at Iran:

Iran will be held fully responsible for lives lost, or damage incurred, at any of our facilities. They will pay a very BIG PRICE! This is not a Warning, it is a Threat. Happy New Year!

The man sounds like a child having a temper tantrum. Khameini responded with this:

1st: You can’t do anything. 2nd: If you were logical – which you’re not—you’d see that your crimes in Iraq, Afghanistan… have made nations hate you.

He was right, you know. 100% absolutely surefire correct. The US has the technology to wreck the infrastructure of a country, but Iran and Iraq can easily throw a million fanatical, righteously outraged people armed with AK-47s at our troops. Their casualties will be enormous, but we only have about a thousand soldiers in Iraq. They will be overwhelmed. We can pour more men in, but they will only be meat for the furious grinder. The US does not have an appetite for huge casualty lists. We will not succeed. We cannot succeed with conventional warfare. 80 million people live in Iran, almost 40 million in Iraq. Is the plan to hold every citizen at gunpoint?

Remember, these two countries suffered at least a half million casualties in the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. They have the will to die for their countries; I don’t think Americans have the will to die for Iraq. We don’t want to win a war there, while Iranians and Iraqis are fighting for their lives.

And most importantly, Khameini is right that we have made nations hate us. Increasing our involvement will only increase the hatred of every citizen in the region, and this latest step is going to alienate them further. We have no friends there; are we going to ask the Kurds to help us? Israel could declare their support to our face, but you know their diplomats and responsible politicians are all seething behind the scenes at the fact that America has stirred up the hornets’ nest.

Except, maybe, for the delusional ones, like our Republicans, who are thrilled with the idea of sending young men and women to die for their glory.

War

I tried this.

I set my expectations at rock bottom. The problem is that no matter how low I set them, somehow the universe drops through the floor.

Surprise! The reports have been confirmed by Iranian news sources. As for that bit about whether the US is responsible…

Yes, it is. Our country has committed a bloody assassination of a major figure in Iran, an attack launched at our idiot president’s order and unauthorized by congress. This will have repercussions.

I wonder if impeachment has destabilized our president as much as our president’s actions have destabilized the Middle East? We’re living in a madhouse.

Under capitalism, evil is just another brand

Eddie Gallagher is one of the baddies: he was a murderous Navy Seal in Iraq.

In a lengthy criminal investigation report, the navy detectives laid out other allegations against Gallagher, including shooting a schoolgirl and elderly man from a sniper’s roost. Members of Alpha Platoon’s Seal Team 7 alarmed by their leader’s conduct said they were initially shut down by military chiefs when they first spoke up, and told their own careers would suffer if they continued to talk about it.

Eventually, the Navy Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) began an inquiry and the platoon members were called to give evidence.

“The guy is freaking evil,” special operator first class Craig Miller, one of the platoon’s most experienced members, told investigators in sometimes tearful testimony. “I think Eddie was proud of it, and that was, like, part of it for him.”

Miller said Gallagher, who had the nickname Blade, went on to stage a bizarre “re-enlistment ceremony” over the body of the captive. “I was listening to it and I was just thinking, like, this is the most disgraceful thing I have ever seen in my life,” he said.

At his court martial, the panel heard evidence that Gallagher had emailed a photograph to a friend in the US containing a photograph of him holding up the dead captive’s head with the words: “Good story behind this, got him with my hunting knife.”

These are actions more appropriate to a nightmarish anti-Nazi documentary, yet he’s an American, he actually did these things, and he was pardoned by the US president for murdering children and mutilating bodies. The man is a monster, and he has been embraced by our corrupt government. He is what the people of Iraq will remember about America, and that we have no sense of shame.

However, there is no embarrassment so devastating that capitalism can’t find a way to monetize it, and for the NY Times to sanitize it. He has founded a clothing line and sells all kinds of militaristic crap.

Right. The NY Times calls murder and terrorism a “distinct brand of patriotism”. I guess you could say that if you were willing to downplay horror.

Julian Castro is out

We need more candidates to drop out of the Democratic field, but I’m not happy at seeing some of the more interesting candidates dropping out, like Julian Castro. We still have 14 people spreading confusion and acting as spoilers! Get rid of Steyer and Bloomberg, we don’t need any more narcissistic billionaires. Williamson is a flake, Yang is an oblivious entrepreneur, Gabbard is a mole, Bennet, Delaney, and Patrick are negligible nobodies who don’t have a chance. It’s incomprehensible that anyone is still promoting Buttigieg. I wish I could fling Biden into a dumpster somewhere, but he has a polling advantage and needs to be taken seriously. There were 15 candidates who dropped out!

The process is generating a lot of noise and the winnowing that is happening isn’t based on merit, at all.

ACAB

A police officer in Kansas stirs up outrage by posting a photo of a McDonald’s coffee cup labeled with the words “fucking pig”. He made it all up. He claims it was “just a joke”. He has been dismissed from the police force.

A class of correctional officers in training (prison guards, that is) included all of the members giving a Nazi salute in the class picture, claiming it was “simply a greeting”, and that “there is nothing wrong with it, we have people of all colors and backgrounds in the picture and every one of them are participating.” The training officer, Byrd, also said that it was an honor because she was “a hard-ass like Hitler.” All of them, including two officers, have been fired.

As a capstone to this demonstration of historical ignorance, the cadets say they were just following orders.

The report states some cadets “only followed what they perceived to be an order from Instructor Byrd to do the ‘Hail Byrd’ for the photograph because they feared they would not graduate, or would be disciplined for failure to follow the order of a superior.”

These are not the worst things the police have done and are doing — murdering citizens for being black has to top that list. It does tell you that there is something deeply wrong in the training of the police, or the kind of people who sign up to “serve”–they seem to think they’ve joined up to be tinplate authoritarians.