On Sunday, February 23, Martha Raddatz did a special piece on the children of Ukraine and how they have been viciously ravaged by Putin’s war. It’s a devastating piece despite the fact that it doesn’t even get into how Putin’s war is often aimed directly at civilians, a war crime in any civilized world. Anyone who watches Raddatz work is forced to ask themselves why Trump doesn’t order the sale of offensive weapons to the Ukrainians. Sure, we all know about Putin’s hinted threats on the use of nuclear weapons, but does anyone except Trump think they are real? That is, of course, the big question. Trump wants that threat to be real because it will keep him from having to go to the edge of a nuclear war. This is, after all, Russia, not Venezuela or Iran. But just as this is Russia, so they are facing the United States, not Ukraine or Finland. Everyone knows that a nuclear war involving the U.S. or Russia is the end of civilization. That will solve no one’s problem. The damage done by a nuclear attack by the U.S. or Russia will not fulfill Putin’s dreams. He has already lost far more assets than he had planned. It’s time to give him something that will make him happy without costing too much. That’s our problem. Because Trump just isn’t smart enough to solve the puzzle. Who is?
Looking over the Trump team, it’s hard to come up with a likely candidate. Much as it pains me, I am forced to pick Steve Miller. He will, at least, be able to get the spelling right.
*****
So much for another Trump promise. Remember when he was declaring that he would not start another war for regime change. Well, he just did, and he did it with no plan on how to achieve that change, which is the whole reason for the current attack. Yes, it’s a typical Trump clusterfuck. He has started a war for the express purpose of changing the regime in Iran with no potential force in place to accomplish that change.
Is it possible that Trump is actually so stupid that he thinks that a torrent of martyrs, who flooded the streets a couple of weeks ago and allowed themselves to be massacred, is a force to run the country? Only those who killed them have the potential to do that, and that means a protracted war because they are the same ones who have followed the now deceased ayatollah to this destructive point. It’s very simple, not like Syria or Iraq, where there already existed potential governing groups who possessed arms and the organization to use them. The only Iranians with guns now are the ones who got them from the dead leadership, and we really don’t want them to take charge.
If Trump wanted regime change, he had to set up a government in absentia, which could step in after he had decimated the existing government and take over— but as usual, he was just too stupid and lazy to do the job right. Now he has endangered local allies and American forces, which he had moved to the region to help the non-existent replacement government take over.
The only possible outcome of this disastrous strike is for the existing forces to take over the government with the generals already in place and stand against the Israeli and American forces until they are able to regroup and begin a long, disastrous war. Hopefully, by that time Trump will have been indicted and arrested and we will be dealing with establishing a functioning government in this country to replace the stumbling idiots who followed the disaster of the last election to Washington.
*****
Lindsey Graham went batshit on Meet the Press with orgasmic praise of Donald Trump for his attack on Iran. In some small sense he was right. But that does not negate the criticism in the previous section, as Trump did something that I, and many like me, have hoped numerous previous presidents would do and didn’t.
This was clearly pointed out by Senator Mark Kelly on the same show, as was the fact that Trump, in his rush to bomb, failed to create any kind of plan for the aftermath of the bombing. This, while successful in the bombing stage, has left a huge vacuum into which the Iranian military can easily step to resuscitate the now destroyed fascist government.
A little prior planning, and he could have set up the basis for a new and much friendlier government in a nation that has been outside the fold for almost fifty years.
*****
On Tuesday, February 24, Donald Trump exposed the nation to the longest State of the Union message in modern history. No, like his message, that statement is a lie. It was actually about twenty minutes of lies about the state of the union, and the rest was self-indulgent soap opera. Don’t get me wrong, all presidents bring along a couple of guests with good war stores that can make us all feel good and show what a great country America really is, but Donald really outdid himself with his hour-long lineup of war heroes, domestic victims, sports stars and just people he likes. It as inspiring for about the first trio or so of guests, but then it became ludicrous, when the number of guests (seemingly) reached triple digits.
The opening salvo in which Trump told us all about the wonderful things he has done to save the country and make us the best little fantasy on the planet was, of course, mostly lies, but Donald diligently waded through them, making sure that Abigail Spanberger, Governor of Virginia, had plenty of shaky material to attack in her post-speech rebuttal.
So I’m watching this unbelievably boring mess and I’m wondering why I’m wasting my time on it, and it occurs to me that Trump really hadn’t given short shrift to his triumphs, the fact was just there weren’t many of them, and even the ones he chose to lie about weren’t impressive lies. So what he was left with was the U.S. hockey team, those who showed up, anyway. It looked like a little less than half were there—and none of the women, who also won gold and whom Donald promised a visit to the White House, which they probably won’t show up for, either.
The audience didn’t seem to know what their role was in this farce. They applauded dutifully but un-enthusiastically. They gave curious glances to the members of the Supreme Court who sat, as they usually do, off to one side, refraining from applauding, having just nailed Trump on his own tariff bullshit.
An epic example of bad timing was Trump holding onto the announcement of the completion of the documentary about whatever it is that his wife was doing that required a documentary to be made about it. Saving the announcement for the eleven o’clock spot was poor timing, poor taste, and poor Melania. There was, however, serious money on the table as to whether or not she would reward the Donald with a smile as he fought for her approval.