This Carbon Based Life

By David Glenn Cox

Someone get me a hanky. Percolated Pete Hegseth gives us his little motivational speech this morning about winning or whining or something. We’re winning! Look at the maps! Iranian strikes are down by 90%! They’ve been that way now for two weeks. That last 10% seems a bit elusive. Here’s the problem with Pate’s speech. If you’re winning like you say you are, why are you making a speech about winning? Like a company motivational speaker trying to help us all reach our sales quotas and help us  finish our TPS reports before finding the cheese.

It all depends on how you want to define winning. If knocking down targets is your definition of winning, we’re indeed winning. But history is very clear: no one has ever bombed someone into surrender except for that one time, and I don’t think we want to go there. And the score after 19 days, Iran has the world’s economy in a headlock and the US has nothing to show for all its good works.

I am accused by the Duh fence secretary of having TDS. Questioning tactics in the face of overwhelming failure and loss is indeed a sign of TDS. But it’s also a sign of, What the hell are you doing? This administration started a real live shooty, shooty war and now they appear to be surprised by the outcome. We’re winning so much that Pete was sent out by his boss to blame the media and his critics. The media is making a big deal out of US defeats. And is more worried about telling the bad old truth. Instead of being a team player and telling them the Good news. We’ve hit 7,000 targets!

But what’s the magic number? 7,001 or 7,003? The US bombed the shit out of North Vietnam for over a decade, but that did not defeat them. Assume a barrel of oil will increase by ten dollars per day. These prices that you’re seeing now on TV haven’t hit the pump yet. And now, we have an escalation. Thus far, both sides had abstained from striking each other’s oil infrastructure. That would be self-defeating. Destroying the gulf’s oil infrastructure while trying to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

But Israel decided to bomb an Iranian gas field, anyway. The Trumpty dumpty administration said that they didn’t know anything about it. Maybe you shouldn’t ought to come right out and admit to that publicly. So Israel doesn’t tell you its plans? Not even for a serious escalation of the war? Because attacking oil infrastructure is a very serious escalation. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth will leave us all blind and toothless. Why would Israel do that? Why would Pete and King Midas Muffler tolerate it?

Either we resolve this quickly or it will resolve itself. Two companion wars going on side by side. The US and Iran and Israel and all of her enemies in the region. Lebanon, Gaza, Syria, and every now and then, helping us out by escalating the war for us. Making our difficulties treble, and without even asking us first. Thanks a lot!

This war is as much of a strategic defeat for Israel as it is for us, and exacerbating the situation won’t help it any. It’s almost like Israel was trying to do Mr. Trump a favor and escalate the war for him. I truly believe the administration is looking for a way out. If they can find a way without any public humiliation involved. They’re supposed to be John Wayne, Matt Dillion or Bruce Lee and they just can’t be seen to lose a fight.

How come Mr. Trump doesn’t know what our “allies” might be planning. That was an unconscionable thing for Israel to do. But who is lying? Both parties are excellently skilled liars who struggle to tell the truth even when it doesn’t matter. We just don’t need our “allies” dragging us into World War III without asking us first. But it’s just as likely some overzealous Captain who authorized the strike and Cent-com paid little attention until it was too late.

Executing the Ayatollah was murder. Just plain murder. It was a war crime under the former international law. An aggressive war for control or colonization is a war crime. But in Pete’s dimension there is no law. He believes, like Ludwig von Mises that the only right is property and the only justice is violence.

We attacked Venezuela because we could and because they couldn’t stop us. We took their oil and let them keep the rest. Now, we’re bombing Iran and then Cuba! We can because we want to! There’s no law or justice anymore. You just do what you feel. If you want to invade, invade! And if you wanna bomb, just bomb!

What will Trump do in the face of defeat? What will Israel do in the face of defeat? They’ve set the world on fire senselessly and needlessly. And given the choice of whether to escalate or mitigate, Israel helps us with our decision. Do we really want months of attacking oil fields, refineries and dock facilities? Maybe the US is winning, but Israel is not. Maybe our goals are similar to theirs, but not the same as theirs. Maybe we just want a friendlier regime in Iran, and Israel wants to see Iran obliterated for a generation.

History declares such interference to be bad juju, as choosing a surrogate  never works and always ends up worse than if they had left it alone. After military defeat comes financial defeat. Wall Street is being tortured by stress positions. Up 300 points! Down 760! Back up 450 and down another two hundred. This is the uncertainty; wait until the certainty hits. Wait until they finally know how high the price of oil will go. In between escalation and international disintegration comes this little tidbit from our friends at the Federal Reserve. The US had ZERO job growth. Nada, zip, zilch.

Now, we not only have to worry about the Trump administration and their incompetence, but we now have to worry about Israeli incompetence, Israeli intensions and Israel’s long-term goals in the region.

To escalate by striking each other’s oil facilities is admitting to the opening salvos of World War III. Oil fields on fire and refineries in ruins, with loading port facilities destroyed. We’re winning!

“The statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception.”
― Mark Twain