This Carbon Based Life

By David Glenn Cox

And so it begins: asymmetrical attrition. “Their antiaircraft is decimated. We can fly wherever we want!” It’s becoming a bellwether. If Trump says it, it’s wrong. Not probably wrong, but no shit, wrong. With serious questions afoot. Are they just not telling Trump the truth? Or, Is he so out of his mind that it doesn’t matter what they tell him? Then Trump excretes, “We could just take the oil and make a fortune!” Like sneaking into the kitchen while mother’s isn’t looking and stealing cookies! “Let’s steal everyone!”

Once there was a time when some White House spokesperson would rise and say, “He’s only joking or speaking metaphorically, folks.” That person got DOGE’d! The White House no longer makes excuses for the king’s verbal gymnastics anymore. The President of the United States suggests we use piracy on the high seas for fun and profit. Use the United States military for self-enrichment. This is what the old duffer actually says in public. Can you imagine the stuff that he doesn’t tweet?

Like the last act of a Wagner opera, the failed warrior makes one wrong choice after another wrong choice. Almost like being magnetically drawn by fate to making wrong choices. The king brags about committing a new war crime. Is that brazen enough for you? The king could have said “no” when he was shown the operation to bomb a busy public bridge in Iran. With the weak excuse that the military uses that bridge to cross sometimes. You could target anything with a mantra like that. We hit the baby food factory because babies grow up to be soldiers. Ditto, the hospital and the elementary school.

We’re ascending the escalation ladder again. The US military struck two university campuses in Tehran yesterday because universities make smarter soldiers, of course. That was a war crime, targeting a school. They’re running out of targets, and Iran still hasn’t folded. So they creep towards the forbidden fruit of power stations. Given a choice between moderation and escalation, they choose escalation? The President could at any time call for a unilateral ceasefire. If Iran didn’t comply, the onus for aggression would be on them. So the shooting could stop any time shit for brains wants it.

Politically, Trumpism is taking a hit even among the stalwarts. The polling is terrible, and yet he perseveres at it. Napoleon must take Moscow, no matter what the cost. Given the choice of a tactical, strategic retreat or falling further into the trap, he perseveres ever onward towards escalation. Why? Why not take an offramp? Arrogance? Stubbornness? Fit of pique?

Don’t these guys understand who we are? We’ve got airplanes, ships, and bombs, and bombs, ships, and airplanes for every occasion for days! We’ve got everything in spades! Are you guys ready to surrender yet? Or do we start in on your power plants? No, it’s not a war crime; soldiers use electricity sometimes, so it’s all right. But Iran promises to respond in kind on gulf states by attacking power, oil, and desalinization plants. In other words, it’s a tripwire. One more dangerous step on the escalation ladder.

Mr. Trump is playing poker with other people’s futures. Hundreds of millions of innocent people all over the world adversely affected with nations tottering and economies trembling, and yet he perseveres and continues moving forward. He could back off and hope for the best to develop. He could do nothing and hope for the best and yet he perseveres. Der Fuhrer must take Stalingrad. It’s fate!

Drawn to it like a moth to a flame. Unwilling to accept a small defeat, he makes war towards a larger defeat. Mr. Trump has already abrogated his responsibilities. By telling the world the Strait of Hormuz was their problem now, not his. Mr. Trump wanted the world’s help pulling his chestnuts out of the fire. The world refused. So like any average vexed six-year-old, Mr. Trump is very angry and answers, “Well, fuck you then! You’re all on your own from now on!” Let the sky fall, let the devil take a holiday, let Nero play! Mr. Trump sees the world’s refusal to help him as disloyal and treasonous. (You would have helped Obama!) Trump illegalities? What illegalities? He doesn’t see it. Trump sees it that he made a command, and it was refused. Don Corleon rarely makes a second request after being refused.

Now, they’re fighting for precedent. If the bully doesn’t beat the shit out of everybody, he can’t be the bully anymore. The whole structure of US Middle East alliances could collapse. So, it’s not just an old man with dementia playing “Call of War.” It’s everything that has been built up over a generation in danger. Old Grandad’s defeat will ignite an arms race in the Middle East. From a self-inflicted war; a pusillanimous paternal power grab to the US now holding onto the rope for dear life. Act in haste and repent in Mar-A-Lago.

Like the Rocky Mountains, are a fact. Iran shutting down the Strait of Hormuz is a fact. The two downed US fighter planes make that point clear. The strait is closed, and there is no power outside of a full military invasion that could open it. And by the time they accomplished that feat, the world economy would be a burnt-out cinder.

Would you surrender your country if the terms were “unconditional surrender?” Would you surrender your country to a country that commits war crimes against you and brags about it? Why won’t Iran be reasonable and come to terms? Because Iran faces an unreasonable and untrustworthy criminal adversary. An adversary that bombs and assassinates leaders in the middle of negotiations.  

For Iran, they don’t really have a choice. Iran can’t arbitrarily stop the war. They must fight the war out to the end or hand over their national sovereignty to lawless war criminals. For the US, it’s simple; the bully has to win every fight or he can’t be the bully anymore.

The superpower kicked in the nuts and frustrated. Six Pentagon generals fired, and Pete Hegseth is staying tells you all you need to know about how well the war is going.

“There are roads which must not be followed, armies which must not be attacked, towns which must not be besieged, positions which must not be contested, commands of the sovereign which must not be obeyed.” ― Sun Tzu