An article at the New York Times today cites the creative accounting of the Trump administration on U.S. casualties in the Iran War. That count now exceeds 600 wounded, with eighteen service members killed. And for what, exactly?
Words fail…
President Trump claims America’s service members are being killed and wounded so that Iran doesn’t get a nuclear bomb. However, his former Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, testified that Iran wasn’t actively trying to acquire said bomb. In fact, because of the Iran War and U.S. and Israeli attacks, Iran now seems much more determined to acquire nuclear weapons. Can’t say that I blame them.
U.S. and Iran attacks in the region are suspended for the moment, which is one small bit of good news. However, with Netanyahu set to visit the White House tomorrow, we should expect more bellicose rhetoric and surely more bellicose action soon.
One more point: Iranian attacks have done far more damage to U.S. bases and facilities in the region than the Trump administration is prepared to admit. The New York Times also did a story on that. Here’s a report on that from March and a recent onethis month.
America truly has its very own Orwellian Ministry of Truth.
Donald Trump’s vision as president is aggressively retrograde. He wants to make America more white, less diverse, more violent, less tolerant, more fearful, less accepting, again. In short, he wants to make America far less great.
When it comes to the U.S. Constitution, the Trump administration is assertively renegade.
The U.S. government has become something of a moral midget with a distastefully large military hammer. Under such conditions, what could possibly go wrong?
Authorizing war is supposed to be a Congressional act, an exercise of the people’s will. While Trump can’t get Iran’s unconditional surrender, he has certainly gained the unconditional surrender of Congress.
Maybe the Biden and Trump administrations’ blank-check support of Israel’s genocide in Gaza has something to do with the fact that America knows something about being a genocidal expansionist state that sees indigenous people as “savages.”
Data, data, everywhere, but intelligence, empathy, judgment and compassion are increasingly difficult to find.
Two or three times a year, I buy a couple of lottery tickets for fun. They are of course a regressive tax on the working classes. They represent the selling of (largely) false hope. And my state of Massachusetts has something like 100 or so lottery tickets you can buy with a face value from $1 to $50. Yes — $50 lottery tickets! Something about this is so wrong and exploitative. And of course now you have “Draft Kings” and all the “legal” betting on sports. It’s a system designed to impoverish workers and enrich the already rich, the reverse of what we should have. And it’s the working classes who get sent to die in America’s various illegal wars, also for the benefit of the rich, as the latter stay home with heel spurs and “other priorities.”
It’s fascinating that as oil and gas prices soar due to the Trump administration’s warmongering policies, there’s been absolutely no talk of conservation or cutting back on consumption of fossil fuels. It’s “drill, baby, drill” or even steal, baby, steal (as in commandeering oil tankers on the high seas).
I find it shameful that dead American troops are used to justify further attacks on Iran that might lead to yet more dead American troops. For what, exactly?
The proposed merger of the Israeli and U.S. militaries (Section 224, now 219, of the NDAA, and Section 1217 in the Senate) includes an Executive Agent who’d report directly to the Secretary of Defense, in this case Pete Hegseth, with no Congressional oversight. Once again, Congress willingly abdicates its responsibilities, this time to a foreign power. The U.S. military and intelligence agencies should not be intermingled with those of any foreign power, yet Congress is preparing to do exactly that with Israel.
Pete Hegseth testified the Iran War has cost roughly $38 billion so far. The true figure is closer to $100 billion. The self-styled Secretary of War can’t do basic math.
When escalation is seen as a way to end wars, whether with Iran or between Russia and Ukraine, my mind goes back to the Yom Kippur War of 1973 and the Israeli warning: An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Deep penetrations will be met with deep penetrations. (That was the Israeli response to Egyptian incursions in the Sinai Peninsula.) Which brings me to an eye for an eye and pretty soon we’ll all be blind.
Put differently, as David Bowie sang for the movie “Cat People,” it’s like putting out fire with gasoline. Or with Tomahawk and Hellfire missiles. It doesn’t work.
War is too easy in America today. We’ve come to accept it as normal. Peace is now aberrant. As war grows ever easier, peace becomes ever harder.
“Escalation,” not diplomacy, is touted as the smart way to end wars. Logic doesn’t seem to matter. How do you end a war by launching more damaging and deadly strikes? How is killing even more people a way to peace?
President Trump now seems to believe that climbing the “escalation ladder” in the Iran War and in the Russia-Ukraine War is the best way to resolve these deadly conflicts. It reminds me of that Vietnam-era quip that waging war for peace is like screwing for virginity.
Journalist Aaron Maté’s piece today also cites Washington’s belief in escalation:
Shortly before returning to the White House for a second term, Donald Trump criticized the exiting president, Joe Biden, for letting Ukraine fire long-range US missiles into Russia. “Why are we doing that?” Trump complained. “We’re just escalating this war and making it worse.”
Just as his campaign pledge of “no new wars” gave way to a regime-change war on Iran, Trump’s professed aversion to a US-fueled escalation in Ukraine is no more. At this month’s NATO summit in Turkey, Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio endorsed Ukraine’s drone attacks deep inside Russia. With the Russians “finding it more difficult to defend their own airspace,” Rubio explained, this will “create the space now to negotiate the end of this war.” Added Trump: “It’s an escalation, but it’s also an escalation that could help lead to an end.”
How often do “escalations” help to end wars? Does anyone remember how escalation in Vietnam turned out?
Maybe if we truly seek to end a war, we should deescalate attacks, then engage in diplomacy. No, that makes too much sense.
Spock learns that logic often doesn’t apply to murder or war
There’s a great line in an old Star Trek episode, “Journey to Babel,” where Spock is advised he’d do well to “forget logic and devote yourself to motivations of passion and gain,” for “those are the reasons for murder” — and often for war as well.
Of course, these aren’t the only reasons for war, but logic often has little to do with how and why wars are waged. That much is obvious as “climbing the escalation ladder” is seen or sold by Washington as the best way to deescalate in Iran and in Russia and Ukraine.
An argument the Trump administration is using to justify massive increases in war spending is that the U.S. military is short on munitions. What a surprise! After the Iran War, attacks on Yemen and Somalia, supplying Israel with all sorts of air defense missiles as well as bombs and who knows what else (some of it is classified), the ongoing Russia-Ukraine War, and so on, it’s no wonder munitions are in short supply.
Bottles of nips may be in short supply after an alcoholic raids a hotel minibar. Is it wise to resupply it while the drinker is still there, intoxicated, begging for more?
Fascinating to me are the lack of moral arguments against America’s orgy of murderous weapons. The Bible says “Thou shalt not kill.” Killing is immoral and a crime unless as a last resort in self-defense. When our nation goes to war, it is also supposed to be in self-defense to uphold our Constitution and our highest ideals.
We always hear about a shared Judeo-Christian tradition—there’s a moral imperative here that demands fewer swords and more ploughshares. A God-given mandate to make war no more. To be peacemakers, not warfighters.
America, the shining city on a hill, should celebrate the sanctity of life rather than building more weapons to destroy life. But today’s America is much more akin to a heavily armed garrison-state, bristling with weapons, with satellite garrisons around the world.
Anyhow, Professor David Vine served as point man for a point paper on the unwisdom of using a shortage of munitions as leverage to justify more orgiastic Pentagon spending. It’s available online and I’ve pasted it below:
*****
Not Another Nickel for Bombs and War: Why the “Munitions Shortfall” Is No Reason to Boost the Pentagon Budget
★ Buying more weapons now would reward Trump for using tens of thousands of missiles, bombs, and interceptors in his reckless, illegal war of choice in Iran and would encourage more endless war and more out-of-control Pentagon spending.
★ The Pentagon is sitting on nearly $118 billion in unobligated reconciliation funds, including more than $44 billion for procurement, as of April, according to the Senate Budget Committee. Before Congress provides another dollar for munitions, it should ensure the Pentagon spends what it already has.
★ The Pentagon’s current budget is already far too large. It could easilybuy additional bombs and missiles by canceling unnecessary weapons contracts, including Trump’s Golden Dome, the Trump-class destroyer, the Sentinel ICBM, and the F-35.
★ Even without replacing a single weapon, the U.S. military remains the world’s most powerful and fully capable of defending the country. We shouldn’t be preparing for war with China or any other nation. We should be pursuing diplomacy, arms control, and international cooperation to end endless wars and avoid new ones.
★ The wars in Iran and Ukraine show that the U.S. should prioritize inexpensive drones and remote technologies, not costly legacy systems that pad contractor profits.
★ Voting for a $1.15 trillion Pentagon budget is a vote for Trump’s full $1.5 trillion war budget since Republicans can pass the additional $350 billion in reconciliation funds on their own.
★ A $1.15 trillion Pentagon budget, alone, is a 28% increase over last year. A $1.5 trillion budget would be the largest in U.S. history.
★ Enough is enough. Congress should reject demands for a bigger Pentagon budget, including to buy more bombs and missiles. We should be cutting the Pentagon budget, not fueling more endless war.
More Background: For two decades or more, the U.S. has faced a persistent munitions shortfall. The services have long favored costly platforms like F-35s and destroyers over munitions, which are routinely placed at the bottom of funding priority lists. This was well‑known before Trump launched his illegal war of choice against Iran. Trump’s own advisors warned him that going to war with Iran while the U.S. had low munitions stockpiles would be reckless. In other words, today’s shortfall is not a surprise—rather it’s the direct result of long‑standing U.S. policy choices.
It’s a most confusing time to be in the U.S. military. Who knows why we fight?
At the top, there’s a lack of principles, a lack of clarity, a lack of care.
There’s no accountability for losses and bad decisions.
The government keeps the people isolated from war’s true costs. There’s no call for sacrifice. No war bonds, no draft, no increase in taxes. Costs are largely kicked into the future as the national debt soars ever higher.
An all-volunteer military is essentially told to follow orders. Never mind about the morality or legality of the same.
The people are encouraged to cheer on or otherwise to support their warriors and warfighters. Basically, to wave the flag but otherwise to go about their business.
A divided Congress has essentially rendered itself powerless over war-making. Meanwhile, Members of Congress fight for their share of an expanding Pentagon pie of money (or pork) for their districts.
The Secretary of State says we went to war with Iran because Israel forced the U.S. government’s hand. So apparently in this case the U.S. military fights for Israel.
So far, the main beneficiaries of the war appear to be defense contractors, fossil fuel companies and banks, so apparently the U.S. military is fighting for them as well.
Clearly, with Iran the U.S. military is not fighting to defend the American people or to support and defend the U.S. Constitution.
Again, who knows why we fight?
The HAL 9000 knows the score
It’s always useful to ask Cui bono? while following the money. I asked my AI friends who’s benefiting from this war, and this was the answer the HAL 9000 spit out:
*****
The primary beneficiaries of the Iran war are Western defense contractors, major oil and gas corporations, and geopolitical rivals like Russia and China. The conflict has resulted in billions of dollars in windfalls for arms manufacturers and energy producers, while simultaneously shifting regional power balances. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
Defense Contractors
Stock Surges: Arms manufacturers like Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman have seen multi-billion dollar gains.
Missile & Defense Demand: High demand for THAAD interceptors and other Raytheon systems drives excess revenue. [1, 2]
Oil & Gas Majors
Record Profits: Surging crude prices have boosted revenues for producers like ExxonMobil and Chevron.
Energy Traders: European giants like Shell and BP capitalized on market chaos and sharp price movements. [1, 2, 3, 4]
Geopolitical Rivals
Russia: The conflict acts as a fiscal rescue by diverting Western attention and skyrocketing global energy prices.
China: China’s regional strategic influence is strengthened as the US is forced to divert military resources to the Middle East. [1]
Regional Powers
Israel: The war has neutralized immediate adversaries and solidified the country’s military posture in the region.
*****
Certainly, it’s indisputable how much the weapons makers and fossil fuel companies are profiting here.
Famously, Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler confessed in the 1930s he’d served as a gangster for capitalism with Standard Oil being one of his biggest clients. The Iran War seems to have benefited Israel, oil and gas interests, and military contractors the most, even as the average American has been hurt by inflation with much higher prices for gas, oil, groceries, and the like.
Interestingly, my AI friend didn’t list Iran as a major beneficiary of the war, but many have argued persuasively that Iran will emerge stronger from this conflict.
Again, it’s a most confusing time to be in the U.S. military.
PS: I thought I’d add this response I made to TomR’s comment below:
In 1985, when I pinned on those 2LT bars, I thought I had some clarity. America, though hardly perfect, was better than the model offered by the Soviet Union. Then the USSR collapsed in 1991, and the government went looking for new dragons to slay. And we found them and we keep finding them because we keep sowing the dragon’s teeth.
So the U.S. military has become a perpetual fighting machine, never mind the Constitution, never mind democracy, never mind morality or legality. If we don’t have enemies, we’ll create them.
America’s leaders are always boasting of precision weaponry. Yet the NYT suggests that a precision strike against an Iranian water facility was possibly unintentional, an accident, I guess. Since an intentional strike against critical infrastructure (you can’t get more critical than potable water) for civilians would constitute a war crime—and obviously America would never do that!
Even asking that question, self-styled Secretary of War Pete Hegseth bloviated, is both “disingenuous” and “impugning” the motives of America’s military professionals.
We can’t have reporters asking questions that might impugn the motives of our brave leaders.
Hegseth seems to enjoy himself the most when he’s attacking the media for their lack of faith in him.
The Iran War, yet another disastrous war for the American people (and of course even more so for Iranians), may continue until President Trump’s morale improves. And that may prove to be a very long time. Remember when Hegseth suggested that the war would last eight weeks at most? It’s already roughly double that with no end in sight.
Check out the Iran War Clock. And the war clock keeps ticking …
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?
It’s increasingly hard to remember how and why America is supposed to go to war. First, war is supposed to be a last resort, not a knee-jerk reaction to Israeli actions. Second, war is supposed to be a deliberative process, a constitutional one, involving Congress and needing its approval since war is declared in the name of the American people and only in response to America itself being directly threatened. Of course, presidents are expected to take the lead here, but prosecuting wars is supposed to be a national act of will requiring the mobilization of consent.
Yet when it comes to Iran today war just seemingly happens based on the whims of President Trump, a small network of loyal advisers, and the wishes of Bibi Netanyahu and Israel. The American people aren’t even asked if they approve. Little effort is made to mobilize national will. We’re simply told by the POTUS that “Iran can’t have a nuclear weapon.” Never mind that the DNI, Tulsi Gabbard, testified that Iran wasn’t actively pursuing such a weapon. Never mind that America has thousands of nukes and Israel a hundred or more. Iran simply can’t have one, apparently because that country can’t be trusted. America and Israel, of course, can have all the nukes they want.
The Iran War, put bluntly, might be the dumbest war ever for America. It has strengthened hardliners in Iran, weakened America’s economy and moral stature (what’s left of it), and arguably revived and accelerated Iran’s nuclear ambitions. It’s done the exact opposite of what the Trump administration claimed it was supposed to do and at enormous cost.
Nevertheless, despite this dumbass war (to put it in Trumpian terms), a frustrated U.S. president seems determined to double down on more war. If only those pesky Arab allies would stop getting in the way, what with all their concerns about getting hit by Iranian drones and missiles in retaliation for U.S. and Israeli attacks. How dare Iran defend itself!
War is the first refuge of the brain dead, to coin a phrase, which led me back to a book I read as a teenager, Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy. Asimov wrote that Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Springing into action, blowing things up, kicking and punching people when they’re down (to cite the noble sentiment of Pete Hegseth), is surely the refuge of the incompetents in the Trump administration.
If only we could put this confederacy of very unstable dunces in time out until they grew up and smartened up.
I watched President Trump’s speech to the nation last night on the Iran War. The lies and boasts flew thick. According to Trump, America is winning and winning big. Under Joe Biden, America was “crippled” and “dead,” but Trump has reanimated the dead and healed it. (An obvious aside: Trump has a serious Christ complex.)
From dead and crippled, America is now the meanest, toughest, hombre in the valley. We take what we want and if you resist we’ll bomb you back to the Stone Age. As the New York Times reported: “We are going to hit them extremely hard,” Trump said. “Over the next two to three weeks, we’re going to bring them back to the Stone Ages, where they belong.”
The proud Iranian people, with Persia as one of the cradles of civilization—they mean less than zero to Trump. It doesn’t matter how many people have to die for Trump to feel like a winner.
“Beautiful” damage in Tehran (Majid Saeed/Getty)
A transcript of the speech is here. You’ll read about America’s “beautiful” B-2 bombers and how they’ve performed “magnificently.” You’ll read about America’s “warriors” and “heroes” who “laid down their lives” to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. You’ll read about their families who, even as they grieve the loss of loved ones in this war, are beseeching Trump to “Please, sir, please finish the job.” Every one of them, Trump added.
There were many reasons to be offended by Trump’s speech last night, but the idea of every grieving family member begging the president to “finish the job” by continuing to bomb and kill Iranians is certainly high on the list of offenses to morality and truth.
More than anything, what Trump’s speech told us is what he values. First, of course, himself and his identity as a man of action—a winner. The economy and the stock market. Oil and gas. Military might. And taking cheap shots at perceived opponents.
This sentence was especially revealing: The most violent and thuggish regime on earth would be free to carry out their campaigns of terror, coercion, conquest and mass murder from behind a nuclear shield.
Trump was referring to Iran here, but what he’s really saying is that only one violent and thuggish regime merits such a blank check on inflicting global violence protected by a nuclear shield. It’s not Iran’s, it’s his.
Trump weighing several options for U.S. troops inside Iran
Discussions about possible ground troops have focused on missions aimed at escalating the war in attempt to end it, sources say, but no decisions have been made.
*****
Somebody please explain to me how committing ground troops to Iran and escalating the war is in any way a sane method of deescalating the war.
The Trump administration is out-Orwelling George Orwell. Rather than a sobering warning, Orwell’s “1984” has become a user’s manual for autocrats like Trump and Hegseth, where war is waged in the name of peace and escalation is deescalation.
Meanwhile, Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence, told us that it’s not America’s 18 (!) intelligence agencies that determine whether we face an “imminent threat.” No—only the president can make that determination.
Can somebody please tell me why we have 18 intelligence agencies that we spend scores of billions on? All we really need is the president’s gut. I suggest we eliminate America’s entire intelligence “community” and replace it with Trump’s intestines.
If Trump has any sense left in his gut, he should declare victory and end this colossal mistake of a war.
Residential building in Iran. Just imagine if Iran was raining bombs and missiles on the USA. (Majid Saeedi, Getty Images)
Bracing Views 