This Carbon Based Life

By David Glenn Cox

 Gosh, I’m so torn. Stories of hunger among the sailors in the world’s most powerful military. Stories, texts and photos of meager rations from such left leaning publications as the “The Military Times.” (Damn liberals!) But when they asked prickly Pete Hegseth directly about the stories, he insisted they weren’t true and the “rumors” were overblown. The USS Abraham Lincoln was on station in the Persian Gulf for 266 days when scheduled for a 180-day deployment. I’m sure they haven’t run out of anything yet, especially if Pete says so.

It’s like a snapshot from the Trump family album for us all to remember. The same President who lies, cheats, and steals also doesn’t give a shit about hungry sailors. The Lincoln headed for home yesterday, but only because the story was starting  to blow up in the media. They still don’t give a shit about hungry sailors; they just don’t want any more bad press, if they could help it. How many other Abe Lincoln’s or SS Donner Parties are out there?

There’s more to food than just calories. A well-fed sailor is a happy sailor, and happy sailors do a better job. Hunger has a psychology all its own. I knew of a WW2 POW held in a Japanese camp. What he remembered more than the cruel treatment was the hunger. He later filled his basement with food, with barrels of rice and canned goods. He said that he did it so he could sleep at night knowing that there was plenty of food in the house. Permanent psychological damage by hunger. Who’s ready to reenlist?

Group psychology in a captive and confined space. One person alone can go hungry, but when you put a group together, they reinforce the group dynamic. Think Donner Party. Two different effects. You ask your soldiers and sailors for extra determined service, but you treat them very well. Or, you ask them for superhuman efforts, but you treat them like shit. The grind and the endless routine, but at least there’s a good meal waiting for you at day’s end.

It is a clear case of the Stanford experiment. Leaders who don’t take responsibility and don’t witness the depredations themselves will only allow it to get worse. Famously, General Hans Guderian ate what his soldiers ate in the field. It was a perfect barometer of the condition of his troops. But narcissist alert! They don’t care! They only want what they want and don’t give a shit about you and your pissy little problems. In World War II, larger navy ships had ice cream machines. A US destroyer’s reward for rescuing a downed pilot was five gallons of ice cream when the pilot was returned to his carrier. In that war, service people were respected and fed well.

It should be clear by now that Donald Trump would keep the Lincoln at sea until all the sailors had dropped dead. Let’s see; either the well-being of 5,000 sailors or doing what Donald Trump and prickly Pete want? This is the administration that called soldiers injured in a rocket attack in Iraq with brain injuries, “headaches.” See? You can tell, they really care.

Peterless Pete has a job well over his qualifications. He is only in that job because of Donald Trump, and he knows it. Which would be more important to Pete? The well-being of 5,000 sailors six thousand miles away from home or pleasing Donald Trump? A qualified officer would stand up for his people, while a worm doesn’t know how. His job isn’t the care and feeding of lowly swabs and jarheads, it’s keeping Donald Trump happy.

But as the commissary begins running out of candy bars, the mood slowly changes. They could feed them and they could restock the ship’s larder and the commissary. If they really wanted to, if it was really important to them. You load up a few C-17s with food and you fly them into a friendly country with a port. Then you ferry the supplies out to the Lincoln. Does anyone remember the Berlin Airlift? But that’s just the point. They could have restocked the Lincoln, if it had been important to them. But that would be inconvenient since they were certain Iran would fold any minute now.

The information is starting to leak at the seams of corporate media. 25% of our MQ-9  Reaper drones have been shot down. Thirty million dollars each times forty-six. Military bases hammered and abandoned. Retreating our way to victory! But during the opening week of hostilities, Iran using antique, aging aircraft bombed our bases in Saudi Arabia. The same air force Donald Trump had told us had been destroyed at least three times over had bombed us. I’ll bet you didn’t know that! On TV, it’s only victory after victory. No real news is really good news, Winston!

What they don’t know won’t hurt us.

For Donald Trump, when the going gets tough, quit and go do something else. Mr. Trump seems to have largely abandoned the Iran war. Park some supercarriers in the area. Call it victory and go play golf! Trump claims a competing naval blockade of the Persian Gulf. That’s his answer; this is hard. Let’s do something else. Denial isn’t a river in Egypt, you know. Mr. Trump has no answers and shuts down like a child who won’t eat his spinach.

For the United States, this is our Stalingrad. Militarily and geo-politically, this is a Chernobyl-sized shit sandwich disaster. Our bases are ruined and our prestige is destroyed, and might never return to the same level again. I almost hate to write this. After a military defeat inevitably come an economic crash. As all the Trump chickens begin coming home to roost. A stock market oblivious to the deteriorating economic conditions on Main Street. You can almost see it coming, can’t you?

 “When you do battle, even if you are winning, if you continue for a long time. It will dull your forces and blunt your edge, if you besiege a citadel, your strength will be exhausted, if you keep your armies out in the field for a long time, your supplies will be insufficient.

When your forces are dulled, your edge blunted, your strength exhausted and your supplies are gone. Then others will take advantage of your debility and rise up. Then even if you have wise advisors, you cannot make things turn out well in the end.” – Sun Tzu