Tuesday's Gone

 "Tuesday will be power plant day and bridge day, all wrapped up in one in Iran. There will be nothing like it. Open the fuckin strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in hell. Just watch. Praise be to Allah."

--Donald J. Trump, President of the United States of America

During the Second World War, the United States Navy unleashed naval bombardment on Japanese troops who were protected deep inside cement tunnels, only to emerge to slaughter American marines once the bombing stopped. 

During the Cuban Missile Crisis, as President Kennedy considered his options, the possibility of simply launching a quick strike with Marines to depose Castro and to defeat the Cuban government was considered. Marine Commandant David Shoup briefed President Kennedy and his advisors. General Shoup displayed a large map of Cuba, and in the middle of the island was a red dot. That red dot was to scale representing the island of Tarawa. "It took us 18,000 Marines," he said and the casualties were enormous. What do you think, he asked, the cost of invading Cuba would be, and how long would it take? 

Charlottesville Rambos

JFK was a veteran of the Pacific war, where Guadalcanal, another small island, claimed the lives of seven thousand Marines and took 6 months to subdue.

 JFK took invasion off the table. 

Donald J. Trump's bone spurs precluded any chance he would have first hand knowledge of what combat can and cannot achieve. 

There is an old adage in the Pentagon: "Never allow an air force general to be chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff when you are facing a ground war: They only know what you can see from ten thousand feet." Which is to say, you cannot win a war with air power alone.  When air force generals argue that World War Two was ended by the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, they are wrong.  Japan was already defeated by naval blockade, and an island hopping grinding war and when the Russians entered the war and overwhelmed  the Japanese army in Manchuria, the Japanese finally capitulated. The atomic bombs were not decisive. 

What really worries most of the true cognoscenti is that Israel may use a score of atomic bombs against Iran, as Israel faces effective missile and drone strikes from Iran which Israel's "Iron Dome" cannot defend against.

And, of course, Trump's threats are empty. Even if he damaged Iran's economy and infrastructure severely, the damage to Western, and yes, to America's economy would be worse.

The question is: Can Trump's advisors put together a video to show him which might help him understand this.

Russia expected a quick victory in Ukraine. They did not expect drones would decimate their columns of tanks.

The best we can hope for is a TACO (Trump always chickens out) Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Renee Good and Alex Pretti are still dead.

And so, for that matter, is Jeffrey Epstein.

Terrorist killed by Submarine

 Barney Frank, the former Massachusetts Congressman, once remarked that he could not recall a terrorist ever being killed by a submarine.

What he was talking about is you have to use the right weapon for a particular enemy, and more generally, you have to fight a war with the right weapons.

There is that indelible scene in David Lean's movie, "Lawrence of Arabia" where an Arab king on horseback pursues a Turkish airplane strafing his village frantically waving his sword at the plane as it disappears off into the sky.

During the war in Vietnam, American military officials repeated the reassuring phrase, "We are bombing them back to the Stone Age," as the Viet Cong sheltered safely in their tunnels only to emerge during the Tet Offensive of 1968 to over run American and South Vietnamese positions.

Bombed Back to the Stone Age

Stone Aged Victory Entering Saigon

North Vietnam Emerges from Stone Age

In our current war on Iran, Secretary of Excursion, Pete Hegseth takes the podium to assure his bros in the sports bars that we are bombing them back to the Stone Age, hitting them while they're down, eviscerating the Iranian Air Force and Navy, which means, of course, we must be winning.

The Real Casualties of US Power

Of course, no mention is made of the Iranian's successful attack which set afire the Gerald Ford aircraft carrier, using a $20,000 drone to defeat a $3 billion aircraft carrier. The Ford has fled the field of battle as has the rest of the US Navy, effectively. We have only a show Navy there now. They are too vulnerable to cheapie drones and missiles to risk. Fourth rate powers like Iran and Yemen can take them out with dime store weapons.

Robert MacNamara, a hawk on Vietnam, lost faith in the ability of the United States to win that war no matter how many battles it won because he calculated it cost $20,000 to kill a single Viet Cong.

By that sort of analysis, we have already lost the war with Iran, which uses drones and missiles which cost tens of thousands of dollars while the U.S. and Israel spend missiles costing millions to bring down each of those Iranian weapons.

It is also likely that the Iranians can replace these cheap missiles more rapidly than the Americans can replace their million dollar Patriots.

Beyond all that, the real end point is who controls the Strait of Hormuz, which clearly the United States cannot do, and has, tacitly, admitted it has no chance of doing. The Strait is lined with mountainous caves from which missiles cannot be dislodged, and, in any event, the Iranians can close the Strait without missiles, using fast boats armed with drones or simply mines. So Trump has shrugged his shoulders and said, "We don't need the Strait of Hormuz. Let NATO worry about Hormuz."

Which is to say, we cannot beat Iran. Iran will still be there no matter how many Iranians we kill or how many power plants we bomb and we, eventually, have to go back to from where we came.

But, we beat them! USA! USA! 

Sieg Heil!

And once again, America has won a non touch war, fought on the other side of an ocean costing only money and few expendable middle class lives of hero servicemen and women who we solemnly welcome back in their coffins to Andrews Air Force Base, having made the ultimate sacrifice for a President who thinks them fools and losers.

The average MAGA mob guy will grumble about paying more for gas at the pump, but he knows that won't last long, as his President has reminded him: A short war we can declare we won is not really a war, but only an excursion and we won it, and moved on.

MAGA. MAGA.

And who was that fellow Jeffrey Epstein anyway? So last week's news.