With the Iran War, two men determined America’s attack on Iran, and one was a foreign leader. The latest aggression against Iran is inconceivable without Bibi Netanyahu and Donald Trump. Of course, there are plenty of operators and schemers and interests behind these men, but they are proud to take credit as the deciders.
This isn’t supposed to be how America goes to war. War is supposed to be a constitutional process involving the Congress and the people. There is to be no war without the consent of the governed. And there should be no wars of aggression, for a democracy should know that persistent wars are an insidious and pernicious enemy of freedom and liberty.
In spite of that, war persists in America. If you’re 25 years old or younger in America, you’ve never known a time when your country has been at peace. Nor is there any prospect of peace in the next three years. I’ve lost track of the countries the Trump administration has bombed or attacked or snatched the leader of, but besides Iran the list would include Venezuela, Somalia, Nigeria, and Yemen. And let us not forget U.S. efforts in the Russia-Ukraine War, for nuclear-armed Russia surely won’t forget.
There’s simply no end to America’s wars partly because it’s all just so easy.
A common expression inside the Washington Beltway is that “all options are on the table,” meaning the worst option, that of deadly attacks and even war, is always an option. A harsh truth is that it’s increasingly the only option considered in DC circles.
The U.S. State Department has become a tiny branch of the Pentagon. Diplomacy takes time. Patience. Expertise. Empathy. A willingness to compromise. Within the Trump administration, these are qualities in short supply, even as they’re not respected. Washington sees itself as a hegemon, the lone and dominant superpower, barking out orders and threats with unrestrained profligacy.
It’s a recipe for disaster and that is what it’s produced: disaster after disaster.
Yesterday, the House finally and narrowly approved a resolution to halt military action against Iran. Its immediate impact is limited and mainly symbolic. As usual, the Democrats fumbled the messaging, making it about gas and grocery prices:
“Enough is enough,” said Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, who led the effort.
“It is time for the president to do the right thing,” he said. “The people are tired of suffering because of his war of choice — suffering at the gas pump, suffering at the supermarkets.”
Let’s not focus on the unconstitutional nature of the war, the needless deaths of thousands of Iranians, the enormous price tag of $100 billion or more. It’s really about Americans having to pay more to gas up their steroidal SUVs and monster trucks.
As America approaches its 250th birthday, it’s enduring a tyranny of the warmongers. Yet again, Americans find themselves under the thumb of a tyrannical and foreign government. It is exceedingly difficult to see how we chart a new course when we are so hopelessly lost.
Take heart, America: At least there will be cage fighting soon on the White House lawn. Bread is dear, but the circuses are here.
UFC cage fight to celebrate Trump’s 80th birthday on June 14th!
I woke up this morning with a depressing reality in my head: Americans may have freedom of speech (be careful criticizing Zionist Israel, though), but we have no say. Those who have a say in (and sway over) “our” government are those with the most money and power. AIPAC is just one example of a powerful, highly organized, lobby that wields say and sway over “our” elected representatives. Other powerful lobbyists hail from Big Pharmaceutical companies, fossil fuels, Wall Street in general, the banks, and of course the military-industrial complex.
Generally speaking, Americans don’t want wars (Trump’s war on Iran is deeply unpopular) and they don’t want $1.5 trillion war budgets. Sorry, you have no say here. I may be able to write critiques of disastrous wars, bloated Pentagon budgets, and kleptocratic insiders, but it doesn’t move the needle because I have no say.
This reminds me of when I wrote to my senator back in 2018 about endless wars and the military-industrial complex. The response I received is recounted in the article below.
(Re-reading my article for TomDispatch in 2018, I noted that the Trump administration was scheming for war with Iran back then, which led me to a letter I cited signed by Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), warning that such a war would be catastrophic. The VIPS, professionals like Larry C. Johnson and Ray McGovern, have been proven right, but even they have no say. When it comes to the Iran War, Israel and AIPAC arguably have had the most say of all.)
Endless War and the Lack of a Progressive Critique of the Pentagon
The Pentagon has won the war that matters most
W.J. Astore (Written in 2018)
In my latest article for TomDispatch.com, I argue the Pentagon has won the war that matters: the struggle for the “hearts and minds” of America. Pentagon budgets are soaring even as wars in places like Afghanistan continue to go poorly. Despite poor results, criticism of the Pentagon is rare indeed, whether in the mainstream U.S. media or even among so-called liberals and progressives, a point hammered home to me when I contacted my senator. Here’s an excerpt from TomDispatch; you can read my article in full here.
A Letter From My Senator
A few months back, I wrote a note to one of my senators to complain about America’s endless wars and received a signed reply via email. I’m sure you won’t be surprised to learn that it was a canned response, but no less telling for that. My senator began by praising American troops as “tough, smart, and courageous, and they make huge sacrifices to keep our families safe. We owe them all a true debt of gratitude for their service.” OK, I got an instant warm and fuzzy feeling, but seeking applause wasn’t exactly the purpose of my note.
My senator then expressed support for counterterror operations, for, that is, “conducting limited, targeted operations designed to deter violent extremists that pose a credible threat to America’s national security, including al-Qaeda and its affiliates, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), localized extremist groups, and homegrown terrorists.” My senator then added a caveat, suggesting that the military should obey “the law of armed conflict” and that the authorization for the use of military force (AUMF) that Congress hastily approved in the aftermath of 9/11 should not be interpreted as an “open-ended mandate” for perpetual war.
Finally, my senator voiced support for diplomacy as well as military action, writing, “I believe that our foreign policy should be smart, tough, and pragmatic, using every tool in the toolbox — including defense, diplomacy, and development — to advance U.S. security and economic interests around the world.” The conclusion: “robust” diplomacy must be combined with a “strong” military.
Now, can you guess the name and party affiliation of that senator? Could it have been Lindsey Graham or Jeff Flake, Republicans who favor a beyond-strong military and endlessly aggressive counterterror operations? Of course, from that little critical comment on the AUMF, you’ve probably already figured out that my senator is a Democrat. But did you guess that my military-praising, counterterror-waging representative was Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts?
Full disclosure: I like Warren and have made small contributions to her campaign. And her letter did stipulate that she believed “military action should always be a last resort.” Still, nowhere in it was there any critique of, or even passingly critical commentary about, the U.S. military, or the still-spreading war on terror, or the never-ending Afghan War, or the wastefulness of Pentagon spending, or the devastation wrought in these years by the last superpower on this planet. Everything was anodyne and safe — and this from a senator who’s been pilloried by the right as a flaming liberal and caricatured as yet another socialist out to destroy America.
I know what you’re thinking: What choice does Warren have but to play it safe? She can’t go on record criticizing the military. (She’s already gotten in enough trouble in my home state for daring to criticize the police.) If she doesn’t support a “strong” U.S. military presence globally, how could she remain a viable presidential candidate in 2020?
And I would agree with you, but with this little addendum: Isn’t that proof that the Pentagon has won its most important war, the one that captured — to steal a phrase from another losing war — the “hearts and minds” of America? In this country in 2018, as in 2017, 2016, and so on, the U.S. military and its leaders dictate what is acceptable for us to say and do when it comes to our prodigal pursuit of weapons and wars.
So, while it’s true that the military establishment failed to win those “hearts and minds” in Vietnam or more recently in Iraq and Afghanistan, they sure as hell didn’t fail to win them here. In Homeland, U.S.A., in fact, victory has been achieved and, judging by the latest Pentagon budgets, it couldn’t be more overwhelming.
If you ask — and few Americans do these days — why this country’s losing wars persist, the answer should be, at least in part: because there’s no accountability. The losers in those wars have seized control of our national narrative. They now define how the military is seen (as an investment, a boon, a good and great thing); they now shape how we view our wars abroad (as regrettable perhaps, but necessary and also a sign of national toughness); they now assign all serious criticism of the Pentagon to what they might term the defeatist fringe.
In their hearts, America’s self-professed warriors know they’re right. But the wrongs they’ve committed, and continue to commit, in our name will not be truly righted until Americans begin to reject the madness of rampant militarism, bloated militaries, and endless wars.
When it comes to war (and more war), the USA is a dictatorship.
Consider Trump’s words that he will make “the final determination” whether the Iran War will persist. Roughly 342 million Americans and 93 million Iranians await Trump’s decision. The decision of an egotistical narcissist who’s convinced he must always be seen to be “winning”—that all that really matters is his own self-image.
How Trump sees himself (courtesy of the Guardian)
Trump, America’s de facto dictator, if not yet de jure, recently told the American people he didn’t care if the war was hurting their finances or making life more difficult for them. As Dick Cheney once said about American opposition to the Iraq War: “So?” So what? Who cares what the people think. What matters is what the dictators think.
What’s especially shameful here is mainstream media coverage, which presents Trump’s absolute power over war as completely normal—even legal.
Remember when wars were supposed to be declared only by Congress in the name of the people?
Saying when to fight, when to go to war, when to send U.S. troops into harm’s way, is the ultimate power, literally the power over life and death, and we the people, as much as I hate to say this, have accepted with little protest that Trump has total power here.
Meanwhile, the Democrats mutter something about affordability. And there’s always a Democrat or two (“the rotating villain”) in Congress who prevents any curb to Trump’s war-making authority.
Welcome to America’s shamocracy. We might be able to remove Trump’s name from the JFK Center for the Performing Arts, but we can’t remove Trump from sending U.S. troops to their deaths in an illegal war. Where’s Congress? Where’s SCOTUS? Why do they leave war-making to the whims of one greedy and power-driven man?
Can you win a war that isn’t really about the country you’re fighting? Where the aims keep shifting and the motivations are dishonest? We know from Secretary of State Marco Rubio that Israel more or less forced the Trump administration’s hand in attacking Iran. We know from Joe Kent’s testimony that Iran posed no imminent threat to the U.S. We know from President Trump himself that Iran’s nuclear program had been “obliterated” in previous strikes. So why wage war on Iran?
The way we label wars is illustrative of our confusion and dishonesty. “The Vietnam War”: more accurately, it was the U.S. government’s war on Vietnam. “The Iraq War”: again, the U.S. government’s war on Iraq. Same with Afghanistan. Same with Iran. America wages constant wars against other nations and peoples; these wars are really variations on a theme of militarism, imperialism, and profiteering.
Cui bono, who benefits, is always the question to ask. The answer is usually some combination of the military-industrial complex, U.S. oligarchical corporate interests, and, in the case of wars in the Middle East, Zionist Israel and fossil fuel interests.
By its nature, a constant state of warfare feeds authoritarianism and stifles freedom and democracy. Wars favor oligarchs and dictators and feed fascist tendencies. No nation can preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare, James Madison warned.
There is no “victory” to be had in these wars, not for the American people. This was true of the Vietnam War and it’s also true of the current war on Iran. America is losing and will lose because these wars weaken freedom and democracy while reinforcing authoritarian and fascistic elements.
America, as in people like us, can only “win” when these wars are ended.
All this has been on my mind as I recalled this review that I wrote (see below) on why the U.S. lost the Vietnam War.
*****
American Reckoning: Why the U.S. Lost the Vietnam War
Written in 2015.
Christian G. Appy, professor of history at U-Mass Amherst, has written a new and telling book on the Vietnam War: American Reckoning: The Vietnam War and Our National Identity (New York, Viking Press). Reading his book made me realize a key reason why the U.S. lost the war: for U.S. leaders it was never about Vietnam and the Vietnamese people. Rather, for these men the war was always about something else, a “something else” that constantly shifted and changed. Whereas for North Vietnam and its leaders, the goal was simple and unchanging: expel the foreign intruder, whether it was the Japanese or the French or the Americans, and unify Vietnam, no matter the cost.
Appy’s account is outstanding in showing the shifting goals of U.S. foreign policy vis-à-vis Vietnam. In the aftermath of World War II, the U.S. first supported the French in their attempts to reassert control over their former colony. When the French failed, the U.S. saw Vietnam through a thoroughly red-tinted lens. The “fall” of a newly created South Vietnam was seen as the first domino in a series of potential Communist victories in Asia. Vietnam itself meant little economically to American interests, but U.S. leaders were concerned about Malaysia and Indonesia and their resources. So to stop that first domino from falling, the U.S. intervened to prop up a “democratic” government in South Vietnam that was never democratic, a client state whose staying power rested entirely on U.S. “advisers” (troops) and weapons and aid.
Again, as Appy convincingly demonstrates, for U.S. leaders the war was never about Vietnam. Under Eisenhower, it was about stopping the first domino from falling; under Kennedy, it was a test case for U.S. military counterinsurgency tactics and Flexible Response; under Johnson, it was a test of American resolve and credibility and “balls”; and under Nixon, it was the pursuit of “peace with honor” (honor, that is, for the Nixon Administration). And this remained true even after South Vietnam collapsed in 1975. Then the Vietnam War, as Appy shows, was reinterpreted as a uniquely American tragedy. Rather than a full accounting of the war and America’s mistakes and crimes in it, the focus was on recovering American pride, to be accomplished in part by righting an alleged betrayal of America’s Vietnam veterans.
In the Reagan years, as Appy writes, American veterans, not the Vietnamese people, were:
portrayed as the primary victims of the Vietnam War. The long, complex history of the war was typically reduced to a set of stock images that highlighted the hardships faced by U.S. combat soldiers—snake-infested jungles, terrifying ambushes, elusive guerrillas, inscrutable civilians, invisible booby traps, hostile antiwar activists. Few reports informed readers that at least four of five American troops in Vietnam carried out noncombat duties on large bases far away from those snake-infested jungles. Nor did they focus sustained attention on the Vietnamese victims of U.S. warfare. By the 1980s, mainstream culture and politics promoted the idea that the deepest shame related to the Vietnam War was not the war itself, but America’s failure to embrace its military veterans.” (p. 241)
Again, the Vietnam War for U.S. leaders was never truly about Vietnam. It was about them. This is powerfully shown by LBJ’s crude comments and gestures about the war. Johnson acted to protect his Great Society initiatives; he didn’t want to suffer the political consequences of having been seen as having “lost” Vietnam to communism; but he also saw Vietnam as a straightforward test of his manhood. When asked by reporters why he continued to wage war in Vietnam, what it was really all about, LBJ unzipped his pants, pulled out his penis, and declared, “This is why!” (p. 82).
Withdrawal, of course, was never an option. As Appy insightfully notes,
LBJ and most of the other key Vietnam policymakers never imagined that withdrawal from Vietnam would be an act of courage. In one sense this moral blindness is baffling because these same men prided themselves on their pragmatic, hardheaded realism, their ability to cut through sentiment and softhearted idealism to face the most difficult realities of foreign affairs. They could see that the war was failing. But they could not pull out. A deeper set of values trumped their most coherent understandings of the war. They simply could not accept being viewed as losers. A ‘manly man’ must always keep fighting.” (p. 84)
A few pages later, Appy cites Nixon’s speech on the bombing of Cambodia, when Nixon insisted the U.S. must not stand by “like a pitiful, helpless giant,” as further evidence of this “primal” fear of presidential impotence and defeat.
Even when defeat stared American leaders in the face, they blinked, then closed their eyes and denied what they had seen. Beginning with Gerald Ford in 1975, America shifted the blame for defeat onto the South Vietnamese, with some responsibility being assigned to allegedly traitorous elements on the homefront, such as “Hanoi Jane” (Fonda). As Appy writes, “Instead of calling for a great national reckoning of U.S. responsibility in Vietnam, Ford called for a ‘great national reconciliation.’ It was really a call for a national forgetting, a willful amnesia.” (p. 224)
As a result of this “willful amnesia,” most Americans never fully faced the murderous legacies of the Vietnam War, especially the cost to the peoples of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. Instead, our leaders and government encouraged us to focus on America’ssuffering. They told us to look forward, not backward, while keeping faith in America as the exceptional nation.
Appy notes in his introduction that America needs “an honest accounting of our history” if we are “to reject—fully and finally—the stubborn insistence that our nation has been a unique and unrivaled force for good in the world.” (p. xix) American Reckoning provides such an honest accounting. But are Americans truly ready and willing to put aside national pride, nurtured by a willed amnesia and government propaganda, to confront the limits as well as the horrors of American power as it is exercised in foreign lands?
Evidence from recent wars and military interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere still suggests that Americans prefer amnesia, or to see other peoples through a tightly restricted field of view. Far too often, that field of view is a thoroughly militarized one, most recently captured in the crosshairs of an American sniper’s scope. Appy challenges us to broaden that view while removing those crosshairs.
*****
Addendum (2026): Self-styled Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has already floated the lie that Democrats (and a few Republicans) are betraying the country by seeking to constrain the Trump administration in its disastrous war on Iran. What Hegseth is saying, essentially, is that Congress is committing treason in attempting to exercise its constitutional duties.
Always when the warmongers lose a war, they resort to the hoary “stab-in-the-back” myth. Rare indeed is someone like Robert McNamara, who admitted decades after the Vietnam War that he had been wrong, terribly wrong, to prosecute that war.
Usually in America, those who are most unrepentant about war are the ones hired to comment on or wage the next one.
The other day, I was reading an old Atlantic Monthly and came across the following cartoon:
That is one powerful image. I like the tiny heads on the pallbearers. They make me think of the posturing politicians who tell us to “support our troops” while sending them to die in illegal, immoral, and unconstitutional wars.
That cartoon was published near the end of 2007, when America’s disastrous war of choice in Iraq was supposedly improving due to the Petraeus Surge. Of course, General David Petraeus qualified his surge by saying its gains might prove “fragile” and “reversible.” And so they proved.
“Support our troops” is a catchphrase, almost a mantra, often used by cynical politicians to suppress dissent about their disastrous wars of choice. Basically, dissenters are accused of being unpatriotic because their criticism allegedly betrays the troops and weakens national resolve. It’s a BS argument but it’s often compelling and even convincing to some.
Americans have a civic religion defined by the Pledge of Allegiance, the flag, the National Anthem, military parades and pageantry, and U.S. history taught as heritage and as a celebration of American goodness and greatness. When you step outside of that, when you criticize it, dissent from it, you must be prepared to be attacked as a heretic.
Back in 2010, I wrote an article for TomDispatch in which I argued that not every American troop is a hero. I argued instead that real heroes are few and far between, and that the ideal of heroism shouldn’t be associated so closely, even almost exclusively, with military service. These are obvious points (to me, at least), but I took some flak for suggesting that merely donning a military uniform doesn’t and shouldn’t make one a “hero.”
I remain convinced that hyping the troops as universal “heroes” isn’t a form of support. The troops know better. If you truly want to support them, listen to them. Be an informed and knowledgeable citizen. Speak your mind and don’t be afraid to criticize those who seek to use the military for dishonorable or indefensible purposes.
Since this is America, theoretically land of the free, feel free as well to speak out against the military. Our founders were suspicious of large standing armies and were wary of wars as being especially pernicious to democracy.
We Americans celebrate our troops for defending freedom, yet we paradoxically attack those who try to exercise their freedom by denouncing war and militarism. You can’t have it both ways. Unless you want hypocrisy instead of democracy, you can’t celebrate freedom while denying it.
This was, of course, the so-called original sin of the American republic: celebrating freedom while also enshrining the institution of slavery. Rank hypocrisy led inexorably to the U.S. Civil War.
As a retired U.S. military officer, I’ve been thanked for my service more often than I’ve been denounced as a murderous agent of American empire. It’s easy to accept the thanks; slurs and attacks are what they are. People sometimes think to defame or demean others is a way to elevate themselves. So be it.
Another aspect of “support our troops” is communal ritual to mark the passing of local “heroes.” Such rituals take various forms. In my community, one involves a mass motorcycle ride in memory of “fallen” troops killed since 9/11. The language used is that of America’s civic religion, celebrating our “great country” and those “heroes” who’ve made the “ultimate sacrifice.”
It’s easy to acquiesce to that language and sentiment. It’s also easy to attack it and dismiss it as patriotic claptrap.
I see it as something else: a communal rite. A recognition of sacrifice. Even if that sacrifice was not in a worthy cause.
I’m not a fan of these communal rituals and the often cynical uses to which they’re put, but I recognize their potency and the need of some people to participate in them. It’s a collective expression of belonging, of grief, of community. A place to find meaning.
A reader put it very well to me in response to my article on heroes in 2010. I saved the letter and have never quoted from it before but I’d like to do so now:
I think the reason we see the “heroification” of so many is a desperate need of so many to feel a sense of self worth. This is especially true in the working class, who have seen their cultural value, their hopes for the future and the quality of their lives decline so radically in recent decades.
This week here in town we see the massive outpouring for the fallen Marine by those who need so desperately to feel a part of something bigger than themselves, when someone like themselves is honored. I see this as poignant in ways that go far beyond the family’s loss.
This is well and sensitively put. How often in our communal settings are “ordinary” people celebrated for anything? Our culture most often celebrates the rich, the powerful, Hollywood and sports “stars,” while neglecting the everyday heroism (or, if not heroism, acts of generosity) of people from all walks of life.
In sum, “our” troops don’t want to put on pedestals and plinths. They certainly don’t want to be carried in flag-draped caskets. And most don’t want to be celebrated as heroes because they know they haven’t earned it. What they want, I think, is to be understood. What they don’t want is to be wasted, to be betrayed, to be misused.
Who among us would want to see their life as a waste, who would wish to be betrayed, who would seek to be misused?
With Memorial Day approaching, it is good to ponder the wise words of Andy Rooney in the video below. Troops don’t give their lives. Their lives are taken from them. Something so precious shouldn’t be taken so lightly by leaders with neither compassion nor conscience. Even better, as Andy Rooney suggests, is a future where war withers away and peace brings out the very best in us.
News out of the Pentagon is that the great retreat from Germany is beginning. Five thousand U.S. troops are being withdrawn at the request of a petulant president who can’t stand criticism of his disastrous war of choice with Iran. (Then again, maybe it wasn’t a war of choice, as it appears his commander-in-chief, Bibi Netanyahu, gave him none.)
Other countries to have annoyed Trump include Spain and Italy. In Trump’s words: “Italy has not been of any help to us and Spain has been horrible, absolutely horrible.”And we might cite Denmark here as well for refusing to hand over Greenland. Look for more U.S. troop withdrawals as “punishment.”
America! Bad Boy! Get your hand out of that cookie jar!
And wouldn’t that be a wonderful thing! The U.S. empire, to use an expression by my smarter wife today, simply has its hands in too many cookie jars. All those overseas bases (750 or more), all those overseas troop deployments, why, exactly, do we have all these? Perhaps during the height of the Cold War, an extensive network of overseas bases had a certain strategic logic in efforts to contain Soviet expansion, but ever since 1991, most of these bases have made little sense strategically. Much like Topsy, they just grew, and grew some more.
An uncontained U.S. empire features an increasingly unconstrained military-industrial complex flush with cash. This is not a good thing. The complex is drunk on money and power; future disasters are guaranteed.
Paradoxically, if America wants stronger, saner, national defense, we must make major cuts to the imperial war budget. Giving the empire yet more cash, yet more power, is a recipe for continual failure on the grandest of scales.
I don’t like the saying, but sometimes less really can be more. Less (as in lower) spending on the military will produce more (as in safer) conditions here in the U.S. and across the world.
My message to world leaders: If you have U.S. military bases in your country, please, please, insult and annoy Trump. It might be the most effective way to downsize the U.S. empire and to bring the troops home.
How representative of the people is the U.S. Congress and the Supreme Court? If you’re a corporate-friendly lawyer aged seventy or older, the U.S. government truly represents you and your interests.
There are 24 members of Congress who are 80 or older. About 120 are 70 or older. 184 members of Congress have law degrees, including 47 Senators, or nearly half the Senate.
Out of curiosity, I asked our kindly AI friends how many members of Congress had some experience with firefighting? Exactly two. How about plumbers? Exactly one. How about nursing? Exactly three. How many janitors? Exactly none. Surprise!
Three nurses, two firefighters, one plumber, no janitors, and 184 lawyers. There’s a very bad joke in there, somewhere, and the joke’s on us.
Of course, all members of SCOTUS have law degrees, but what matters is their allegiance. Recent “conservative” judges like Roberts, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Coney Barrett were elevated to their positions because of their corporate-friendly policies and positions. The Roberts Court will never issue a decision that challenges the corporatocracy in the United States. This is entirely by design.
Thomas and Alito are approaching their late seventies with no urge to retire soon. SCOTUS has a strong 6-3 majority that will support corporations against all efforts to limit their power.
Meanwhile, SCOTUS ruled yesterday against the Voting Rights Act with a predictable 6-3 vote. Basically, the court argued that efforts to ensure greater equity in minority representation within Congress amount to “racial gerrymandering.” But the main issue isn’t about race, it’s about greed. SCOTUS doesn’t care much about Black, brown, or white. Like Congress, what it cares about is green. Money. Profit. The supremacy of corporatism.
The effect of SCOTUS’ latest decision is likely to be more white Republicans (and corporate-friendly lawyers) elected to Congress and fewer minorities. Again, the main issue here isn’t white supremacy but corporate supremacy.
A government of the people, by the people, for the people is a noble ideal. It’s obviously not what America has.
Sorry—we have no janitors to clean house in Congress.
In the New York Times send-out this morning, the pope and president are described as “clashing.” That’s one way of putting it. Actually, the pope is arguing for peace and against war and the death of innocents while Trump has been railing about exterminating an entire civilization. A “clash” for sure.
In Algiers. Guglielmo Mangiapane/Reuters
With his usual conceit, which is colossal, Trump posted an image of himself (since deleted) as a Christ-like healer. The image is a fascinating depiction of megalomaniacal Americana:
A curious tableau
Trump claimed no Christ-like comparisons were intended. “I thought it was me as a doctor,” Trump said.
The semiotics of that image would take decades to unpack. Seriously, the flag, the eagles, the military jets, fireworks, angels (?), troops and veterans: the mind boggles. I’m guessing Trump asked AI to produce a patriotic image showing himself as a Christ-like healer, surrounded by white people showcasing prayer and upholding traditional gender roles and norms. It’s an exercise in colossal chutzpah, that’s for sure.
On “60 Minutes” this past weekend, three American Catholic cardinals spoke about the Church’s stance on the Iran War. The cardinals declared the war wasn’t just.
I wish the cardinals had gone further. I can’t think of a “just” war fought by the United States since World War II.
Of course, the moderator for “60 Minutes” had to assert that Iran is the world’s chief exporter of terror, as if the United States, with all its murderous wars and extensive bombing and killing, doesn’t export terror. I guess the moderator wants to keep her job at CBS.
The cardinals make many good points about war as dehumanizing and the sickening nature of pro-war propaganda coming from the Trump administration. It would have been valuable if they’d mentioned the imperative of “Love thy neighbor,” the commandment that “Thou shalt not kill,” and the identity of Christ as the Prince of Peace.
Still, I commend the pope and the Church for taking a stand for peace.
My thanks to Jim and Harvey for having me on their show.
*****
In other news, Joe Kent, the Director of the National Counterterrorism Center in the Trump administration, has resigned in protest against the war with Iran. His resignation letter is well worth reading.
Many Trump loyalists are mystified by the president’s tight embrace of Zionist Israel and his pursuit of war against Iran. Whatever Trump is up to, it’s not MAGA.
Back in 2008, I wrote an article for Neiman Watchdog calling for war salesmen and cheerleaders on the mainstream media to be replaced. Of course, nothing of the sort happened, and today I saw a new article by Ken Klippenstein: “The TV Generals Have Something to Sell You About Iran,” and that something is war and more war (and weapons too).
You can trust him — he’s a general!
In the article, Klippenstein has a great line about retired general David Petraeus: “Can anyone fit more stars up their asses?” Clearly not.
Anyhow, here’s my article from 2008, unchanged because the dynamic of TV and cable networks using retired senior military officers to sell wars and weapons also remains unchanged.
Networks should replace Pentagon cheerleaders with independent military analysts
COMMENTARY| December 04, 2008
Even without special Pentagon briefings and corrupting financial relationships, former top military brass simply are too conflicted to be relied upon for tough-minded analysis, writes a former Air Force officer.
By William J. Astore
Media outlets must develop their own, independent, military analysts, ones not beholden to the military-industrial complex, ones whose very sense of self is not defined, nourished, and sustained by the U.S. military.
In separate exposés in The New York Times (April 20 and November 30), David Barstow showed how major media outlets came to rely on retired generals like Barry McCaffrey for analysis. Predictably, many of these men (they were all men) continued as paid advisors to defense contractors even as they appeared on TV. They also often accepted favors from the Pentagon, to include special, often classified, briefings; overseas junkets; and, most valuable of all, access to the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
But such influence-peddling and collusion are hardly surprising. Relying on high-ranking, retired military officers to serve as frank and disinterested critics is a bit like inviting Paul von Hindenburg, ex-Field Marshal of the German Army, to testify in 1919 on why his army lost World War I. You’ll get some interesting testimony — just don’t expect it to be critical or for that matter even true.
So why did the networks hire so many retired colonels and generals? Perhaps they followed a rationale analogous to that used in hiring retired professional athletes to cover sports — to provide hard-earned, technical commentary, leavened with occasional anecdotes.
But in the “forever war” in which we became engaged, these retired military officers soon provided not just the color commentary but the play-by-play. And network anchors, lacking first-hand military experience, were reduced to bobble-heads, nodding in respectful agreement.
But war is not a sport. Nor should we cover it as such. We need tough-minded military analysts, not “Team America” boosters and Pentagon spin-meisters.
Why Relying on Senior Military Officers Is Wrongheaded
Our media’s concept of relying on retired senior colonels and generals for frank and unbiased analysis was deeply flawed from the beginning. Let’s consider five facets to the problem:
Despite their civilian coat-and-tie camouflage, these officers are not ex-generals and ex-colonels: they are retired generals and colonels. They still carry their rank; they still wear the uniform at military functions; they’re still deferentially called “sir” by the rank-and-file. They enjoy constant reminders of their privileged military status. It’s not that these men over-identify with the U.S. military — they are the military.
The senior colonels and generals I’ve known despise Monday-morning quarterbacks. Loath to criticize commanders in the field, they tend to defer to the commander-in-chief. Putting on mufti doesn’t change this mindset. Rather than airing their most critical thoughts, they tend to keep them private, especially in cases where service loyalty is perceived to be involved.
Military officers are especially averse to airing criticism if they perceive it might undermine troop morale in the field. Related to this is the belief that “negative” media criticism led to America’s defeat in Vietnam, the hoary but nevertheless powerful “stab-in-the-back” myth. Thus, these men see Pentagon boosterism as a service to the nation — one that they believe is desperately needed to redress the balance of negatively-charged, “liberal,” anti-war coverage.
Paradoxically, that the “War on Terror” has gone badly is a reason why some retired military officers believe we can’tafford serious criticism. If you believe the war can and must be won, as most of them do, you may suppress your own doubts, fearing that, if you air them, you’ll be responsible for tipping the balance in favor of the enemy.
The fifth, perhaps most telling, reason why networks should not rely on retired colonels and generals is that it’s extremely difficult for anyone, let alone a die-hard military man, to criticize our military because such criticism is taken so personally by so many Americans. When you criticize the military, even abstractly, people hear you attacking Johnny or Suzy — their son or daughter, or the boy or girl next door, who selflessly enlisted to defend America. Who wants to hear that Johnny or Suzy may possibly be fighting (even dying) for a mistake? And, assuming he believed it, what senior military man wants to appear on TV to pass along thatmessage to America’s mothers and fathers?
The Next Step
It’s not that retired colonels and generals lack integrity [well, some do, I’d add in 2026], but they are often deeply conflicted and lacking in self-awareness. And you certainly can’t profess to be an objective media analyst while representing contractors vying for funding from the Pentagon.
So what should the media do? Since it will take time for networks to develop their own corps of independent military analysts, they should consider hiring junior officers and NCOs, with recent combat experience, who have left the military after a few years of honorable service. Civilian military historians could also provide critical commentary. Even foreign military officers might be queried; at least they need not worry about their patriotism being impugned each time they hazard a criticism of the Pentagon.
French premier Georges Clemenceau famously noted that “War is too important to be left to generals.” So too is the TV and cable networks’ analysis of our wars.
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Quick comment in 2026: I wasn’t critical enough in 2008. Some of these “cheerleaders” are shameless sales- and pitchmen who are profiting from war.
Bracing Views 