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.

Contrapoints and the test of endurance

A one hour and forty minute video! As always, Contrapoints is engaging, intelligent, and dynamic, but whoa, this one will take you while to sit through, and probably would have been more effective at half the length. She has a lot to say about “cancel culture” and the reign of terror.

I liked it and thought she made some good points, which I think means I now have another target painted on my back.

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.

Australia has spiders? Shocking!

I’ve had so many people tell me about this new spider, Dolomedes briangreenei, and the news makes it sound like a surprise that it can dive under water and eat small aquatic vertebrates.

Spiders have been known to do all kinds of amazing things, and there’s nothing surprising about any of that. We have several species of Dolomedes right here in Minnesota, and they’re semi-aquatic and kill and eat tadpoles and small fish all the time. The Australian Academy of Science has announced the discovery of 51 new species of spiders just this past year! I’m relatively new to this taxonomy stuff, and one thing I know is that finding new species is routine, as is discovering that species have gone extinct.

A Christian Conservative Liberty Loving Republican

Am I the only person who remembers the movie Nothing But Trouble, with Dan Akroyd as Judge Alvin Valkenheiser, the presiding tyrant of a small town? For some reason, that was the first thing that I thought of when I saw this photo of this Texan Republican.

Give him a few years, that’s him. Jonathan Stickland has been ranting about vaccines. He told a professor of medicine at Baylor University to Make the case for your sorcery to consumers on your own dime, and that Parental rights mean more to us than your self enriching ‘science.’.

Sounds like another Tex-ass pustule has popped.

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.

2020 is off to a cracking start

Just a few omens and portents:

  • Freezing rain, in Minnesota. I’m stuck at home another day.
  • Our version of a celebration was to watch a movie together. The first (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo) so repulsed her she made me turn it off after 45 minutes, the second (Clue) was so boring that she fell asleep halfway through and didn’t see the multiple endings.
  • I knew we had freezing rain because my car alarm went off twice in the middle of the night, and we had to scurry out on the ice to shut it up. We got that instead of fireworks.
  • I got texts from my siblings letting me know that my mother was celebrating the New Year in the hospital. She’s going to be OK, but they’re keeping her in for further observations.
  • I woke up and Donald Trump is still president.

I may just go back to bed and wake up again when the signs are less dismal. See you in 2120!