This Carbon Based Life

By David Glenn Cox

It really doesn’t seem possible. The US finds itself embroiled in another Middle Eastern war. A war for? A war to? An Orwellian war. The enemy is bad because Big Brother says they are. The enemy is going to build a bomb, but hasn’t done so yet in forty-six years. But this week! Or maybe next week, they’ll have it ready. Do you know what that looks like? It looks like twelve thirty or quarter to thirteen. Of course, Goldstein is bad! How could you ask such a question?

The boogeyman is going to get you if you don’t watch out! Be afraid, be very afraid. Saddam has weapons of mass destruction. Stalin is coming to get you! The uni-power superpower discovers it must have an adversary to shadow box to justify its existence. The United States and Israel bomb Iran unilaterally and arbitrarily, but I’m sure the Iranians are despicable people too. Once we forget that we’re the aggressor nation here.

Somehow Iran has reached red-headed stepchild nation status. Iran is not allowed to have a missile program. Says who? The United States earns billions of dollars selling missiles and rockets. There is nothing illegal about building missiles for sale. Daddy says you can’t have a chemistry set. You can’t do this and you can’t do that. Clean up your room! Why won’t they see reason? When will they understand Big Brother will call all the shots and they will do as they’re told? Why are they so stubborn?

The US and Iran had a bad breakup a few years back, and the US holds a grudge. A hard-on forty-seven years in the making with the US mumbling. “You just wait! You just let me catch you out alone!” We must stop Iran from building a bomb! But Iran doesn’t seem to be building a bomb. One hundred pounds of half-way enriched uranium after forty-six years? That’s not a nuclear program; that’s leftovers from wishful thinking daydream. It’s not next week, next month, or even next year. Your kitchen is a greater danger to you than Iran.

Donald Trump is a far greater danger to you than the Iranian mullahs. The US destroyed the Iranian air force. A collection of thirty or so aging Soviet aircraft of mixed vintages. That is to say, realistically that Iran never had an air force. Ditto the Iranian navy, an aging collection of a few frigates and coastal craft. “We whooped em good!” You really begin to see the spin. They’re tough and evil, and it was a bitterly hard fight, but the US Air Force managed to take out the Iranian air force.

They brag about this like it’s some sort of accomplishment. They brag because they misunderstand how the score is being kept. Fast approaching a month on a war that was supposed to take four days. A war unresolved in a month of a superpower unsuccessfully dumping hundreds of millions of dollars in munitions on a sanctioned third-rate military power. Every day Iran stands is a victory. The problem with decapitation strikes is that after killing the leadership, there is no telling who will rise from the ooze of now energized leadership. Chances are that assassination is counterproductive and contagious.

Uncle Samuel must show strength and never show weakness, even when weakness is the order of the day. Mr. Trump blusters and bellows. Illustrating his own weakness. He’s going to escort the tankers. Then it’s explained why that can’t happen. Then Mr.Trump is going to bomb the power plants. Then, they explain to him why he can’t do that. There have been repeated air strikes on Iranian and Israeli nuclear facilities. Playing chicken with nuclear facilities. Good idea, yes or no? But this is where we are.

Iran’s plan is to draw the US into a long, costly war, breaking the power of the US in the Middle East for at least a generation. Meanwhile, keeping the strait closed. Iran has closed the strait. How can it be reopened? Just by declaring the strait closed, the insurance companies will see it as closed.

So Iran is achieving its war goals daily while the US is not. The administration flusters and blusters about sending in troops. Two Marine detachments and maybe the 82^nd Airborne and maybe 10,000 troops. Against a standing Iranian army of 600,000. Will the administration now snowball a major policy mistake into a worldwide catastrophe?

The reason the US estimates twenty or thirty thousand troops will be needed is the same thinking that brought us here. “Once they see GI Joe, all-American action hero. They’ll drop their weapons and surrender! But something tells me it won’t happen like that. The Iranians will fight for hearth and home. Meanwhile, Hormuz will remain closed.

A war without a domestic purpose. The nail that sticks up must be hammered down? A war you lose just by fighting it. None may stand before the super-power! All must bow and kiss the ring. I was watching a news report about NATO holding emergency meetings in France when it occurred to me that France is now the leader of the Free world. The US could withdraw, and make a deal with Iran behind closed doors. They could do that or they could figure this is the last big fight. Have it out with Iran, send in troops and fight it out to the bitter end.

Russia is too weak for the foreseeable future. China always seeks to gain without war. It is better to receive a small advantage at no cost than a great advantage at great cost. The US and Israel will reign supreme. But it will never last for long. A peace imposed on the world by a force of arms can’t last. An Orwellian war of chess pieces pushed on a global chessboard.

An American government I don’t recognize. [Free] only as a brand name as opposed to occupied, taken or unfriendly. You’re free to do what, exactly? Mom, apple pie and Chevrolet have left us. It’s just a naked, ugly, power projection. Not for truth, justice, or the American way, but because it seemed like a good time to do it. Trump has reached for the brass ring and missed, and got his nose out in front of his skates.

The power divide . Negotiate peace or fight a pointless war? Onward into the breach.

“Cannon to right of them,

Cannon to left of them,

Cannon behind them

   Volleyed and thundered;

Stormed at with shot and shell,

While horse and hero fell.

They that had fought so well

Came through the jaws of Death,

Back from the mouth of hell,

All that was left of them,

   Left of six hundred.

When can their glory fade?

O the wild charge they made!

   All the world wondered.

Honour the charge they made!

Honour the Light Brigade,

   Noble six hundred!”

-Alfred Lord Tennyson