King Donald's War, Part 13. A Second Rate Military lead by a Third Rate Clown College with a Secretary of War who should be impeached.

As we noted yesterday, Thomas Massie has introduced articles of impeachment upon Pete Hegseth.

They actually stand a chance of passing.

They provide, in relevant part:

Massie needs a simple majority in the House to pass the resolution.  It would require 2/3ds in the Senate to impeach and remove Hegseth.

Massie is nothing if not independent.  I don't agree with him on everything, but he's been one of the few Republicans in Congress, as opposed to the pack of willing sycophantic cowards that claim to be Republicans.  When the history of this era is written, he'll be a hero, whereas people like Mike Johnson will be pathetic weirdos, and people like John Barrasso spineless wimps.

Everything in this bill is correct.

One thing that isn't is incompetence, which this administration has shown itself to be on military matters.  The US Military has been revealed to be, frankly, pathetically bad, or at least its Navy has has been.  We're losing the war against a power that has outfought us, and out thought us.

Hegseth promised a renewal, of sorts, in the U.S. Military. Frankly, it needs one, and has for a long time.

Hegseth seems to have imagined a military that was pre 1948 in some ways.  All white, and mostly men.  The date we really need to look back to is this one:

Today In Wyoming's History: September 16, 1940. Conscription starts and the National Guard mobilized.

September 16, 1940 is the day the US went from a peacetime establishment and peacetime military to a wartime establishment and a wartime military.  We've been there ever since.  To at least some degree, we've kept a huge military with a huge military establishment, massive arms requirement, and a very large professional military class.

That needs to end.

What Hegseth got right, sort of, is that the Military began to be used for odd social experiments and it never stopped.  People look back to the 1948 integration of the military as being when that started, but that really misses the point. Segregation of the Army (not the Navy) started during the Civil War when the Army took in large number of black troops for the first time. With the inherent racism of the country, it simply would not have been possible to integrate black soldiers into regular units.  They would have been killed.  Establishing black units in and of themselves was a major accomplishment, and one only the war could have brought about.

Some efforts to integrate the military more fully occured in the 19th Century, but inherent racism in American society really just didn't make it possible until World War Two when it started to occur on a smaller and localized scale.  American reaction to German racism reflected back in the face of Americans and made integration of the military not only fully possible, but inevitable, after the war.

Minorities have always been a huge success story in the military, and that's been the case all along.  It simply provided opportunities to them that didn't exist elsewhere.  That lesson was learned but started to be misapplied in the 1970s when the Carter Administration saw the military as a way to advance the cause of women in society.  That evolved into allowing women into combat MOS's which was a huge mistake. Women and men are different. And then the Obama Administration allowed "transgendered" individuals into the military starting in 2016, which was turning a blind eye to a medically enhanced mental illness.

Women in combat units did create an internal reaction in military units that went unnoticed to some degree.  Male combat troops didn't and don't like it, and react accordingly whereas the influence of young women had a feminizing and softening, even cutsey, impact on the military.  Look up "Battle Boo" on Youtube and you'll see what I mean.  

Having troops set against their political leaders is a bad thing. But that has occured.  This created the perfect situation for a sort of Curragh Mutiny, and it's happened.

The thing here is that this all needed correction, but competent correction, which would have required a an actually conservative administration to bring about.  We don't have one of those.  In stead we have a demented megalomaniac octogenarian who is surrounded by sycophants, weirdos, and dimwits. Pete Hegseth is a good example.  A Evangelical Protestant Zealot with tattoos recalling the Crusades, which weren't done by Evangelical Protestants, a record of hard drinking and philandering, he presents himself like an insecure frat boy trying to hang out with college football players.  He also, as noted, not only claims to want to restore the "warrior" ethos to the military, he seems to have something against minorities and a bias against women that extend to their just being women.  

Like much of the overgrown bloated U.S. Military, he doesn't seem to have grasped that its not 1941 any longer either.  The war in Ukraine has shown that the age of drones is here.  Iran and the Houthis have shown an ability to launch missile strikes that would have made Peenemunde pound.  Believing that the US could take on Iran with Naval air alone, something GMT Games had already shown you could not, US forces were left heavily exposed in Middle Eastern bases which were wiped out by Iran nearly immediately.  Logistical tails were stepped on and the USS Abraham Lincoln became a symbol for the entire country, a rusting psychologically stressed hulk.

There doesn't seem to have been a lot of clear thinking going on.

Speaking of not thinking, and related to this war:

But with your money.  

What the crap?

President Trump’s administration is planning to sell to Israel a munitions package worth $2.8 including 2,000-pound bombs which will be funded by a Foreign Military Financing (FMF) grant.

That's right.  The heavily indebted United States will be spending money it doesn't have for Israel's military.

One thing that this war has caused and is causing is a rethinking of the US relationship with Israel.  It's long overdue.

The common line is that "Israel is our only ally in the Middle East".  Israel isn't a formal US ally at all.  Indeed, in terms of formal allies, the only Middle Eastern one we have is Turkey, not Israel.  

The US has a close relationship to Israel for historic and demographic reasons.  The US was horrified to a greater extent than any other nation to what happened to Jews during World War Two and reacted by giving its strong support to the establishment of Israel, ignoring the fact that importing thousands of immigrants into a land already occupied by somebody else would result in problems.

Put another way, if Europe demanded that thousands of Mexican immigrants be allowed into Texas to create a new country, we'd freak out.

Added to that, the US has a substantial Jewish minority, although it has not been and has never been huge.  It's about 2.4% of the population today.  Somewhat ignored in this is that the US also has notable population of Middle Eastern immigrants, most of whom up until a couple of decades ago were Lebanese and Syrian Christians and Armenians.  Perhaps because they were all members of Apostolic Christian faiths, that was just easy to ignore in some ways.  It's France, for instance, that has traditionally defended the rights of the Lebanese.  The US once concerned itself with the plight of Armenians, but that's been a long time ago.  To some extent, perhaps because they were a more distinct minority, Jewish populations in the US have tended to be relatively better organized.

Anyhow, almost from day 1 Americans really bought off on the concept of the establishment of Israel being a really noble cause.  In my household growing up I remember my mother feeling that way, although my father had a much more nuanced opinion.  The plight of Arabs in the same region was generally ignored by Americans up until relatively recently, and only because populations of Palestinian and other Arabs have immigrated into the US. They're still a much smaller percentage of the population than Jewish Americans are.

Added to that, Islam has tended to really freak Americans out, and for good reason.  

Israel has very divided politics and is going through something akin to what the US is, with the current Israeli government being, in my view, extreme.  Nobody has ever stated it, but it seems relatively clear that there are those in Israel who would outright force Palestinians out of what had been Mandatory Palestine.  There are Americans who have equally extreme views about modern Israel and its place in the world from a religious perspective.

Whatever brought the current Israeli government to power, it's also clear that there are huge numbers of Israelis who are horrified by recent events and would take Israel in another direction.

At this point, I'm with those who, like my father so many decades ago, take a much more nuanced view on Israel.  Like Ukrainian born Argentinian-Israeli author Jacobo Timerman, I view Israel as a Middle Eastern state that has to learn to live in that neighborhood.  It also, at this point, has to learn to get by on its own.  It can build its own weapons and pay for them itself.

For that matter, while its a topic for another thread, the US wasn't a serious supplier of arms around the world until World War Two.  It needs to stop being one now.  Selling arms to some countries is, okay, in my view, but not to as many as we do, and for cash, not best wishes.

I'll note that it is interesting that a lot of our former arms client states have stepped out on its own in recent years.  South Korea, for example, manufactures its own armored vehicles, artillery and small arms.  Israel does produce some weapons of its own, but not all that many.  I'm not for selling them arms anymore.

When people are killed by American arms, no matter who uses them, we're implicated.

Back to the illegal war in the Middle East that Israel got us into.

A resolution requiring the US to get out of that war passed the House yesterday.

H. CON. RES. 93

Directing the President, pursuant to section 5(c) of the War Powers Resolution, to remove United States Armed Forces from hostilities with Iran.

---

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

April 28, 2026

Mr. Moulton (for himself, Mr. Crow, Mr. Ryan, Ms. Houlahan, Mr. Panetta, Mr. Auchincloss, Ms. Goodlander, Mr. Vindman, and Mr. Scott of Virginia) submitted the following concurrent resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs

---

CONCURRENT RESOLUTION

Directing the President, pursuant to section 5(c) of the War Powers Resolution, to remove United States Armed Forces from hostilities with Iran.

Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That, pursuant to section 5(c) of the War Powers Resolution (50 U.S.C. 1544(c)), Congress directs the President to remove United States Armed Forces from hostilities against the Islamic Republic of Iran, other than those elements of the Armed Forces that may be necessary to defend the United States or an ally or partner of the United States from imminent attack provided that the President complies fully with the requirements of section 5(b) the War Powers Resolution (50 U.S.C. 1544(b)) with respect to any such use of the Armed Forces, unless explicitly authorized by a declaration of war or a specific congressional authorization for use of military force against Iran.

It's not going to go anywhere, but it's not irrelevant.  At least some are speaking up and standing out.

And some who claim to adhere to certain values should take note.  In the Particular Judgement Mike Johnson is going to have to explain supporting all this killing and standing with Israel isn't going to excuse it.  But then Johnson will have a lot to answer for.

cont:

The Houthis shot down a Saudi F-15 with a domestically produced missile today.

cont:

And Mike Johnson sent the House home early to avoid the impeachment vote.

That'd suggest either there were enough votes to pass it, or there were Republican Congressmen afraid to go on record.

They won't be back until November 9. They'd only been working for seven days since they came back from their last recess.

September 17, 2026

So it turns out the administration sent representatives to meet with the Houthis.

The same man who betrayed the Afghanis and surrendered their country to the Taliban is now negotiating with the Houthis while refusing support to Saudi Arabia.

Figures.

cont:

Apparently a deal was reached:

Yemen’s Houthis have agreed to allow US shipping unfettered Red Sea access if Washington refrains from direct military involvement in the Saudi-led war. That’s according to US reports which say the two sides struck the deal amid a Houthi offensive along Yemen’s Red Sea coast.

Al Jazeera.   

So King Donny stabbed Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the back, not that he is a nice guy.

Not that the Houthis are either.

The Houthis (Ansar Allah) are a Zaydi revivalist and Shia Islamist organization allied with Iran, which supports them.  They've been a player in the Israel/Hezbollah War, as was Iran, and are attempting to gain control of all of Yemen.  

Their emblem:

The phrase on it translates as "God is the Greatest, Death to America, Death to Israel, Curse be upon the Jews, Victory to Islam".

Some deluded sots who supported the Trump participation in the ongoing war against Iran maintained early on that it was sort of a Protestant crusade. The US had a Divine mission, some argued who were in the military, or the Department of Defense, to take on Shi'a Islam.

Well, apparently not so much.

For the second time, Trump has surrendered to an Islamist organization and betrayed somebody we supported.

Anyone relying on Trump  for support is a fool.

And with this stab in the back, we will conclude this edition.

Last edition:

King Donald's War, Part 12. The "Economic D-Day" edition. CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist 152nd Edition, the irony edition.

Wars and Rumors of War, 2026. Part 8. Donald Trump, China's (and Russia's) greatest ally edition.

You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom

Matthew, Chapter 24.

Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

July 26, 2026

China v. Taiwan

The Houthis hit oil infrastructure in Saudi Arabia yesterday.

News reports hold that the administration has put on hold an escalation of the war due to a shortage of air defense munitions.  Savvy analysts, including yours truly, have been warning about that occurring for months, and not it's here.

So, in keeping with that, a prediction.

This is also likely a moment that Putin and Xi have been waiting for as well.  Our weapons stockpile has been built up over years, and now we've wasted it on a war fought for Israel and Trump's vanity.  Both Putin and Xi know that the next President, assuming at Trump 2028 coup to be unsuccessful, and assuming that we don't have another President before 2028, is much less likely to be a complete patsy and geopolitical dimwit.  

For Russia, that means Russia needs to fight on in hopes it can win before the next administration comes on.  For Xi, that means the time to invade Taiwan is. . . now.

July 29, 2026

Russo Ukrainian War

The U.S. Senate advanced Russian energy sanctions legislation Tuesday as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy visited the Capitol. The vote was seen as a tribute to the bill’s author, the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, on the day of his funeral, which was widely attended by politicos. 

Trump fell asleep during it as J. D. Vance seemed oblivious to the dozing octogenarian and Bessent looked nervous about it, but then he always looks nervous.

July 31, 2026

Israeli Hamas War

The Bored of Peas has supposedly worked out a peace plan in Gaza.  Sober analysts a 4th Grade level have severe doubts about it.

August 1, 2026

Russo Ukrainian War

Now Trump is backtracking and saying the US won't license Patriot missile production to Ukraine.

August 2, 2026

Russo Ukrainian War

Ukraine has run out of ballistic missile interceptors.  This comes at the same time that the US supply is seriously depleted due to Donald Trump's illegal moronic war against Iran.

King Donny should free up what remains of the US supply and give them to Ukraine, and start emergency production for the US.  As for Iran, we can solve that problem simply by pulling out.  Better yet, pulling out, putting every senior commander who agreed to fight in a clearly illegal war on trial, and impeaching Donald Trump.

Crisis in Ceuta

Not a war but requiring Spanish military deployment, a mass flood of immigrants crashed into the Spanish North African city of Ceuta.

About 50,000 North African immigrants stormed the city, leading to dramatic news footage and MAGA "see, it could happen here" claims.  Missed in the story is that 48,000 of them returned to Morocco within 48 hours.

A bigger question may be why Spain retains a city that you would figure should be part of Morocco, but it does.

Italy defensively suspended the EU's border-free Schengen arrangements with Spain.

August 10, 2026

Israel v. Hamas.

Israel had rejected the "Board of Peace" peace plan, refusing to enter into a peace deal with Hamas until it is definitely disarmed.

Another blow to King Donny.

August 17, 2026

Russo Ukrainian War

Both sides exchanged heavy missile and drone attacks yesterday.  A NATO jet on patrol shot down a drone that had strayed into Romania.  

August 18, 2026

Russo Ukrainian War

Robert Shaheiev, 49, formerly of the Ukrainian Navy who defected to Russia early in the war died in an explosion in Sevastopol.

Whether he was targeted or not, Ukrainian operatives have proven effective at hunting down figures in the Russian military that they find particularly responsible for various matters.  Shaheiev defected with a submarine.

Korean War

Donald Trump has signaled that the US is going to scale back it's participation in joint exercises with the South Korean Army.

What's going on here is terribly unclear.  The US has maintained troops in the ROK since the 1945 and the threat of North Korean invasion is very real.  

I should note that this isn't entirely unprecedented.  Jimmy Carter actually campaigned on the idea in 1976 and tried to implement a phased withdrawal, which was abandoned over conservative and military objections.  Since the 1980s, military support of South Korea has been very strong.

Trumps move comes at a time when the US is losing an illegal war with Iran and is having to pull naval assets out of the Pacific.  It also comes at a point at which the longtime Red Chinese goal of forcibly reunited Taiwan with the mainland is at its highest point. Combined with that, Trump's administration is packed with National Conservatives who have a sort of Neo Nineteenth Century view of where the U.S.'s foreign policy should be focused.

Given that, Trump's decision could be the result of his listening to National Conservatives, or it could be because or logistical situation is much worse than admitted.

It could also be because South Korea refused to participate in the illegal war, like every other nation on earth did.  Trump has not taken that well.  Nobody seems to be pointing out that South Korea did participate in the Vietnam War, which Trump did not.  Trump himself, at any rate, referenced South Korea's lack of willingness to get into the losing war with Iran.

Because of Trump's other actions, however, there's widespread commentary about whether Trump is a Russian asset and this is influencing him on the world stage.  As radical as that sounds, there are reason to raise this question.  Certainly no other President has hurt US interest, and just the US in general, more than Trump, and he's a fanboy of Putin.

We've noted it elsewhere, but we've been worried about a Chinese strike on Taiwan in the near future.  The combination of the failed Iran War and Trump's other actions make that inevitable . The question is whether that will come this Fall, or next Spring.

September 4, 2026

Russo Ukrainian War

In an attack Ukraine is an intentional Russian signal to the United States, Russia hit a Coca Cola plant in a drone strike.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson has killed a House vote on Lindsey Graham’s Russia sanctions bill which passed the Senate in July, stating “We have to build consensus around that final product".

Oh, um, . . . not hat doesn't look a little weird. . . .  and doesn't raise any questions, um, like  Дональд Трамп — агент России?

What is it with this administration and Russia?  Why is Дональд Трамп a Russian asset?  Just stupidity and a like for flashy gold things?

Related threads:

King Donald's War, Part 10. "If any question why we died, Tell them, because our fathers lied." Donald Trump, the killer edition.

Last edition:

King Donald's War, Part 10. "If any question why we died, Tell them, because our fathers lied." Donald Trump, the killer edition.Labels: 119th Congress, 2020s, 2026, Death, Donald Trump, Houthi, Jordan, King Donald's War, Lies, Red Sea, Saudi Arabia, The roles of men and women, United States and Israel v. Iran, War Warnings, Women, You heard it here first

King Donald's War, Part 11. The worst defeat in American History. Sic transit Gloria Mundi.

Israeli paratrooper near the Mitla Pass, 1958.  Read on, it'll make sense.

Donald Trump is about to become what he never wanted to be: Jimmy Carter. Held hostage by Iran. And it was all voluntary.

Chris Christie.

We've never seen anything like it.  It's an existential defeat.  We're never going to recover as a country from this.

This is our 1958 Suez Crisis.

We've lost wars before, of course, in spite of what Americans like to believe. The War of 1812 was a loss.  The Korean War ended in a stalemate, which certainly isn't a win, if it's not a loss.  The Vietnam War was a flat out loss. And the war in Afghanistan, which didn't have to be a loss, became one as Donald Trump surrendered to the Taliban.  So, we've lost wars before.

But not like this.

People may be tempted to draw parallels to Vietnam, which was a really bad loss.  It was touch and go if the country would recover from for about a decade, and with the complete failure of Operation Eagle Claw, the attempt to get the hostages out by force in 1980, it really looked like we'd faded beyond repair.

Importantly, however, the United States didn't lose any allied because of Vietnam, in no small part because it didn't ask for any to participate in the war.  Some did, such as South Korea.*

The Reagan Administration, which I frequently criticize here, turned things around.  It rebuilt the military and made a calculation that it could spend the Soviet Union to death in the Cold War, which it did.  The Soviets collapsed and the Cold War ended, a major American victory. . . without fighting.

The fighting we've done since Vietnam has been impressive, right up until now. And that's the military that Reagan built.  A military designed to take on the USSR.  It still basically is.  It's a big war military.  So was our military in Vietnam.  

In Vietnam the military learned that it wasn't good at asymmetric wars.  And it finally learned the lesson that should have been clear in 1945 that airpower can't win a war.

In came Trump, and Hegseth, who have proven incompetent.

In a few short months they've lost the war to a second rate power, destroyed our relationship with our allies, eliminated our position in the globe as a superpower, emboldened the Chinese and probably the Russians, and made war with China, which we now stand a good chance of losing, inevitable.

There were signs that we were in trouble already, but they were mostly economic.  Between 1945 and the 2000s the US had lost control of its budget.  When the Cold War ended we did not return to a rationally sized military, even though we did go to a smaller one.  We maintained quasi colonial connections with some countries, notably those in the Middle East, which we did not need to.  At home we let education decline.  

In short, we lost the self discipline and sense of purpose a democratic nation should have.  And that lead to the election of Donald Trump, twice.  And in his second term, Trump has so accelerated American decline it leads to rational questions on whether or not he's a foreign agent.

Whatever he is, Donald Trump and his defense secretary Pete Hegseth aren't students.  They're not smart people.  They certainly aren't students of history.

Indeed, if they had, they might have realized this has happened before.

Following the Second World War the United Kingdom and France retained claims to being wold powers, indeed superpowers.  But the end of that is now clear in retrospect.  Both were losing control of their colonial empires rapidly.  The United Kingdom retained food rationing until 1954.  Both nations still fought colonial wars, although the French could really only do it with American help, which was only reluctantly given, if given at all.

In 1956 Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal.  The UK, France and Israel, the latter of which had its own issues with Egypt, decided to militarily intervene.  Israel attacked first, on October 29, with the objective of re-opening the Straits of Tiran and the Gulf of Aqaba. The United Kingdom and France joined in on October 311 seeking to depose Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser and regain control of the Suez Canal.  France and the UK expected the Eisenhower Administration to support it, but it didn't.

The net result was that Israel gained in the war, although the US forced it to give back the parts of the Sinai it too.  The US and France proved incapable of carrying on without US support.

Israeli paratroopers near the Parker Memorial, Mitla Pass.  The paratroopers here are quipped with K98k rifles, likely Czechoslovakian built, although they could also be World War Two German production.  By אברהם ורד / IDF Spokesperson's Unit, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=33261678

In short, Israel got what it wanted from the war.  France and the United Kingdom were shown to be impotent without the US, and their status as global powers was severely retarded.

Sound familiar?  A major power that has Allies acts without them, and loses.  Those Allies regard them as now being second rate.

Just what happened to us against Iran, except the fall is so much more severe.

So, where from here?

Trump can't get us out of Iran.  We can't build anti missile missiles quickly enough.  Iran won't open the strait.  We can't make the open it.

We have only two choices.

The first one is to mount a full-scale ground invasion of Iran.  Completely setting aside the immorality of the current war and the immorality of escalating an immoral war, militarily, that's actually the only thing that makes sense.  If you were playing (the nonexistent) Avalon Hill United States v. Iran hex and counter board game, that's what you'd do.  You'd marshal ground forces in Kuwait (and maybe Iraq), call up National Guard divisions, and launch a multi division invasion.  

We could still win such a war.  The casualties would be massive, 50,000 dead or more, and the net result would make us a colonial administrator in Iran for at least a decade.

And we have to do it, if we're going to, soon. Basically in no more than a month. After that, our supply of anti missile AAA will be so depleted we will not be able to marshal in the region.

It couldn't be ignored as a real war, however.

Trump would have to finally go to Congress for authorization.  If he didn't, he'd be successfully impeached without a doubt.  And Congress is not going to authorize such a war.  So he won't.

Probably.

He could, and as he has no regard for the law at all, muster the multi division strength force necessary and launch the invasion wholly illegally.  That's really risky for him, however, and he's very unlikely to take that sort of risk.  If he did it, he'd be impeached.

The other choice is to surrender.  At this point, with the Strait closed, that's a defeat.  Indeed, it's worse than a defeat as while it would end the fighting, it wouldn't repair the de facto state of war between the countries. 

So a formal surrender is the only option.

And that will be a political disaster for Trump.

It also cements the geopolitical disaster for the United States.

Just as France and the UK went into Egypt without support from the US, and went into decline thereafter, we've gone into Iran's skies without support from our allies, including the UK and France.  They've moved on without us. At one time, they looked to us. . . now we'll look to them.

For the time being, however, we're hostages to Iran.  Iran knows it. This will just drag on and on while we deplete our weapons stores.  It won't resolve at all until after the November election.  It won't be possible to ignore it after that.

Sic transit Gloria Mundi.  

The US as a superpower, 1945-2026.  Cause of death.  Neglect, hubris, and the vanity and stupidity of Donald J. Trump.

August 12, 2026

Headline in the CST:

Iran has said the Strait will remain closed u ntil the US accepts its terms.

August 14, 2026

The US and Iran both claimed to control the Straits of Hormuz yesterday, which means that the US doesn't control them.  Pete Hegseth claimed that the US can remain deployed in the region's waters indefinitely.

Iran has very clearly determined not to enter into any deal with Donny, at least one that isn't abject humiliating defeat.  And they don't have to. They're winning the war.  At this point, the only way the US can actually win would be a ground invasion, which appears unlikely so far.

The USS Abraham Lincoln is headed home to be replaced by the USS George Washington.  We wrote on this story yesterday:

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist 149th Edition. Abandoning Ship.

There's more to this than meets the eye, but what it is we don't really know.  One sailor attempting to leap overboard, which is now acknowledged, would actually not be that unusual in a deployment.  It was two that we know of, but one was with a life vest.  It's clear that morale problems have become severe. The ship hasn't had a port call in over 200 days, and that appears to be part of it.  Ships have had long deployments before, however, which raises questions.

Part of the aspect of this is, however, that a nuclear submarine can stay out indefinitely.  Oil fired ships like those of the Second World War could deploy for extremely long times, but they would make port calls.

August 15, 2026

The always empathetic Donald Trump:

Reporter: Family members of service members are concerned about conditions on the LIncoln. 

Trump: No they’re not. 

Reporter: Has the deployment gone on too long?

Trump: No. Not nearly long enough.

August 16, 2026

This strait will be opened and closed only under Iran’s command, and so long as you do not accept the reality of defeat and stop indulging in fantasies, Iran will

continue to enforce the blockade.

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi August 15, 2026.

According to a NYT article behind a paywall, so I wasn't able to read it, part of the USS Abraham Lincoln's problems stem from Iran taking out a US Navy installation in Bahrain at the beginning of the war, requiring the Navy to switch it's regional logistical center to Diego Garcia.  If that's correct, it's another example of who the US was caught really flat footed when it started this war with Israel.

August 17, 2026

CNN reports that  there have in fact been multiple attempts to jump overboard from the USS Abraham Lincoln and ties low morale to there being no defined mission.

It's unlikely, we'd note, that the morale problem and resupply problems impact just one ship.

In an interview on Fox Trump threatened to "bomb the shit out of Oman" if it somehow interferes with whatever it is that we're going.

Reports are growing that Gulf states have become increasingly irritated with Trump.

August 21, 2025

King Donny threatened to expand economic sanctions against Iran by extending sanctions to its trading partners if it doesn't come to heel.

It won't.

That will impact the global economy, however, and make it slightly worse.

Footnotes:

*Australia and New Zealand fought in the war, but very rarely noted is that Australia had indicated it was going into Vietnam whether or not the US did and its somewhat responsible for the US going into the country.  New Zealand participated as it felt obligated to Australia.

Last edition:

King Donald's War, Part 10. "If any question why we died, Tell them, because our fathers lied." Donald Trump, the killer edition.

Labels: 2020s, 2026, Chris Christie, Iran, Israel, King Donald's War, Oman, Rudyard Kipling, Straits of Hormuz, The roles of men and women, The Second Trump Administration, United States, United States and Israel v. Iran, Wars

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist 148th Edition. The Aerodrome: Substitute. The C-32A and Donald Trump.

The Aerodrome: Substitute. The C-32A and Donald Trump.: It's been revealed (leaked?) that Trump flew out of Turkey not an an older Air Force One, as he'd claimed, but on a C-32A . The C-32...

We'll note something that wasn't noted when this was originally posted.  The report of an Iranian threat was from Israel. The CIA regarded had "low confidence in the report.

Hmmm. . .

Well, it's not like most of us have to worry about such threats in general.  I guess I can't, therefore, gauge the reaction to it.  It is interesting that man with such fatalistic comments about the threat of death earlier has this reaction. .   or is it?  We're sometimes told that when threats happen, as in the January 6 insurrection when Trump tried to go down to his fellow Confederates, the Secret Service will completely take over.

It also sort of puts the whole who goes, and who risks getting killed matter, in a different light.  Or does it?

Well, with all of this, I don't believe there was ever an Iranian threat.  I suspect that Israel was picking up background noise from Iran.  It's not impossible that a rogue Iranian unit might have attempted to assassinate Trump, and of course he made himself an Iranian target by participating in the assassination of their leadership.  But I bet there was never a central effort to do it.

Indeed, it's not in their best interests.  Iran is a lot better off with Trump in charge.  The incompetence of the Trump Administration and the abject cowardice of the Republican Party has proven to be their best ally.  They'll dictate terms to us by November which the Trump Administration will accept.

Substitute. The C-32A and Donald Trump.

It's been revealed (leaked?) that Trump flew out of Turkey not an an older Air Force One, as he'd claimed, but on a C-32A .

The C-32A is a militarized 757.

This would indicate that the Iranian threat against Trump must have been deemed fairly serious, which would necessarily give rise to the question of whether or not the threat still exists.  

This behavior would suggest it does:

We didn’t have Avenger air defense missiles in Kuwait and Jordan and Saudi Arabia, but Trump has them at his Bedminster golf club

While I'm a frequent Trump critic, and don't even believe he's actually a legitimate President, I don't blame the efforts to sneak Trump out on another plane if the threats were deemed credible.  I do regard the stationing of AAA at a New Jersey golf course to be questionable while we're running out of AAA in the Middle East due to Trump's illegal war there.  He could just skip golfing or risk it.

Perhaps of more interest is who was put on the catering van to make the switch in aircraft with Trump. They were Dan Scavino, Walt Nauta and Natalie Harp.  The only one you may have heard of is Harp, whose a tall blond fitting into the general Trump harem appearance profile and who has some sort of flunky job with Trump.  The White House Press Corps rode the substituted Air Force One back as did some senior White House officials.

Now, I'm not saying everyone should have been on the 757.  I do find it interesting that the figures who were allowed to ride the substitute C-32A were not really important people.  I'm also not saying that Harp and Trump are doing anything illicit, although I do find Harp to be an odd figure.

I also wonder if every President would have taken this option.  I suspect not, but I suspect some would have.

I'm also noting how embarrassing this is. The claimed most powerful military in the world has been defeated by Iran, whose Air Force is so depleted it rarely gets anything in the air, although contrary to some claims, it has during this war, having put an F-14 in the skies on at least one occasion.

It's an existential defeat.

Last edition:

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist 147th Edition. Have we reached an "Is Paris burning?" moment?

Labels: 119th Congress, 1940s, 1943, 1944, 1945, 2020s, 2026, Beer Hall Putsch, Disease, Donald Trump, It was because of COVID 19, law, Lies, Ötzi, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., The Second Trump Administration, World War Two, Zeitgeist

King Donald's War, Part 10. "If any question why we died, Tell them, because our fathers lied." Donald Trump, the killer edition.

 July 21, 2026.

If any question why we died, 

Tell them, because our fathers lied.

Kipling. 

Pvt. Isabella Gonzales, age 19, killed in Jordan. 1st Lt. Tyler James Feehan also died.  Both were assigned to Air Defense Artillery units.

Just 19 years old. She died, not so that Iran would not have a nuclear weapon, not for liberal democracy in Iran, but because a demented old narcassist duped by a prime minister of a desperately minoritarian regime in the Middle East could spill her blood for its purposes.*

Donald Trump, Pete Hegseth, and every American supporting this war has blood on their hands.

And not just hers.

Isabella Gonzales.  A life cut short, and a life taken on behalf a regime that would likely send her to Mexico on the basis that she has a Spanish last name, if it could, for a war that most Americans don't want, and which is being fought for Israel.

I'm not, as I've noted before, in favor of women in combat.  Pvt. Gonzales left a few social media type posts of herself, in uniform, acting very cute, and very feminine.  She did not deserve this.  It sounds brutal to say this, but this is a man's role.

But more than that, this is a role that should be filled, if it had to be, by those who brought it about.  Why are the Trumps not in action? 

Why have they never been?

A person who did.

1st Lt. Tyler James Feehan, 25, 2nd Battalion, 55th Air Defense Artillery Regiment, 32nd Army Air and Missile Defense Command, 25 years of age.

The classic look of a lieutenant.  Too bad he died for utterly nothing.  He deserved better.

A third serviceman was killed but has yet to be identified.  It taking this long probably says something about the nature of his wartime death, a war that we're waging and which we're waging illegally, with no declaration of war.

Not one prominent MAGA, we'd note, has stepped up to the plate.  Barron, Eric, Donald Trump Jr.,.Ivanka Trump and Tiffany Trump.  Won't you?  You can join Pete Hegseth in our new colonial escapade, and;

Take up the White Man’s burden—
Send forth the best ye breed—
Go send your sons to exile
To serve your captives’ need*

Nah, that's not going to happen.

Most days now, it won't even be the main headline.  Troops will go on killing and dying, and for what?  A goal never clearly expressed, and which cannot be obtained without massive loss of life.

July 22, 2026

The third soldier:

Sgt. Angel S. Rampersad, age 28.

And killed elsewhere in Iraq.

Sgt. Michael Emmanuel Swinton, age 30.

I suppose their faces look like America as it is. . . but not really the America that people like some in the Trump seem to want it to look like.

CST  headline:

Well, like they say, freedom isn't free, and apparently giving up your freedoms for a demented narcissist isn't either.

The Houthis are threatening to close the Red Sea.

July 24, 2026

From the CST:

Waist deep in the big muddy.

July 26, 2026

The Houthis hit oil infrastructure in Saudi Arabia yesterday.

News reports hold that the administration has put on hold an escalation of the war due to a shortage of air defense munitions.  Savvy analysts, including yours truly, have been warning about that occurring for months, and not it's here.

So, in keeping with that, a prediction.

This is also likely a moment that Putin and Xi have been waiting for as well.  Our weapons stockpile has been built up over years, and now we've wasted it on a war fought for Israel and Trump's vanity.  Both Putin and Xi know that the next President, assuming at Trump 2028 coup to be unsuccessful, and assuming that we don't have another President before 2028, is much less likely to be a complete patsy and geopolitical dimwit.  

For Russia, that means Russia needs to fight on in hopes it can win before the next administration comes on.  For Xi, that means the time to invade Taiwan is. . . now.

July 27, 2026

We're really back to, if not surpassing, the Vietnam War era administration fibbing levels.

Pentagon reveals hundreds of new Iran war casualties

More than 600 troops have been wounded in the Iran war, officials disclosed Saturday, almost 200 more than previously known.

July 29, 2026

Trump openly showed frustration with Netanyahu who was in town for Lindsey Graham's funeral as Bibi announced ahead of time that he wanted to share Israeli intelligence on Pickaxe Mountain. 

That intelligence would reportedly show that the Iranians are reconstituting their nuclear program there and have no plans to give it up, which is obvious.  That frustrates Donny, however, who was basically suckered into the war by Bibi and now can't find a way out.  Bibi is trying to keep him focused and involved.

Iran launched a series of missile strikes on US targets yesterday.  The missiles were reportedly alls hot down, but they cause the US to burn through it's depleting anti missile supply.

July 30, 2026

Well worth reading.  We're not only losing, recent actions have made us even weaker than we were before.

Midweek Update #21: Iran Is Toying With The USA

Plus: Iranian Strategy; How Does This End?

We really have a evered amateurs at war problem going on.  Hegseth apparently just feels that bombing wins wars, which has never worked.  Trumps managed to go from having a horror of war into being nearly bloodthirsty, at least in his rhetoric.  We're depleting weapons like crazy when we're already broke.

The war not only will have a losing result, but this is going to have a severely bad end for the country.

July 31, 2026

The U.S. resumed strikes on Iran yesterday.  A drone strike on gas vessels in Egypt’s Mediterranean port of Damietta occurred which is fairly clearly linked to the war, but the details have yet to be developed.

As an aside, I've already noted that the recent dead are half female and 3/4s minorities.  It's also the case that one, Sgt. Angel S. Rampersad, was  lesbian in a same gender union.

I'm noting that as the dead do not line up with Pete Hegseth's and MAGAs world view of who are Americans, yet they're the ones dying.

Iran has conducted a cyber attack on the Minnesota public water systems.

Cont:

The dipshit in the Oval Office blamed Minnesota for the Iranian attack on that state's public water systems.

He really doesn't care about you folks.

August 1, 2026

The illegitimate Trump Administration is meeting at Camp David today to discuss the illegal war it started.

August 3, 2026

Trump called off attacks and promised not to resume if a deal could be reached quickly.

It's won't be.

Iran and Oman are apparently in separate discussions on the Strait of Hormuz.

August 4, 2026

Trump claimed yesterday that talks were "underway".  Iran denied that any were going on.

In fact, last night, Iran has launched a drone attack on a U.S. military base in Kuwait. and Iran struck a cargo vessel off the coast of Oman, all after King Donny  claimed the U.S. and Iran have resumed negotiations.

Nobody knows for sure what the story is here, but we all know that Trump is an outrageous liar.

Trump is showing signs of getting increasingly frustrated with the war and clearly doesn't have any idea what to do.  Iran knows that and has zero incentive in working with him on anything.  More likely than not this is going to drag on for many more months.

The critical breaking point may prove to be a military one.  The US cannot sustain the war and it's now very clear that's the case.  Every single day of active fighting in the Middle East brings war with China, now inevitable in my view, closer.

"Amateurs talk tactics, professionals study logistics" is the phrase that come to mind.  Trump isn't a student of either.  Neither is Hegseth, by observation . Trump listened to armature hawks like Hegseth whose war philosophy seemed boil down to "make big boom, kill people, opponents surrender" which would demonstrate that he wasn't much of a student of history.

The U.S. Army has used up most of its stockpile of highly accurate long-range missiles in the war.

August 6, 2026

Apparently Hegseth and Trump got into a raging argument about the war at Camp David.

August 8, 2026

Iran has announced that the Strait of Hormuz will remain closed until the United States meets certain conditions, including lifting the U.S. naval blockade and sanctions, withdrawing U.S. forces from around Iran, paying war reparations, releasing frozen Iranian assets, and ending attacks on Iran’s allies and threats against the country.

Yup, they're dictating terms to the U.S.

Those responsible for this debacle, from the Secretary of Defense down to the military planners, need to go, and need to go right away.  Fire them.

August 10, 2026

Leaks from the Administration indicate that Trump is now at the point that the US will end the war if Iran only promises to keep the Strait of Hormuz open.

Iran is refusing that offer, wanting the US to pay reparations.

This is a complete defeat.

Donald Trump is about to become what he never wanted to be: Jimmy Carter. Held hostage by Iran. And it was all voluntary.

Chris Christie.

This is such a humiliating turning point that we will close this edition out with this.

Footnotes:

*“The White Man’s Burden" by Kipling, quote in part. 

I don't admire the sentiments in this poem at all.  It's racist.  But it expresses the type of WASP colonialism, sans the Protestantism which at least moderated it a bit, of the colonial 19th Century, that the US is now experiencing under Donald Trump.

Related threads:

Wars and Rumors of War, 2026. Part 8. Donald Trump, China's (and Russia's) greatest ally edition.

Last edition:

King Donald's War, Part 9. The paper tiger edition.

Labels: 2020s, 2025 Israel v. Iran War, 2026, Barbary Pirates, Donald Trump, Gaza, Iran, Israel, King Donald's War, Rudyard Kipling, Straits of Hormuz, Stupidity, The Second Trump Administration, United States