King Donald's War, Part 5. Quagmire. The $25,000,000,000 and thirteen American lives later, "So we (but not Donald) were in Vietnam for 18 years. Iraq, many, many years....I've been doing this for...six weeks" Edition.

 

King Donny before he was a national embarrassment, and just working on being a family one.

April 30, 2026

Secretary of Defense Hegseth testified the war had cost the US $25B so far.

We clearly have absolutely no idea how to get out of it or win it.

May 1, 2026

Iran responded to King Donny's threats to ramp up the war on Iran, now in a ceasefire, with threats of their own.

They seemed rather unimpressed by Donny.

Donny's administration says it doesn't have to comply with the sixty day provision of the War Powers Act due to the ceasefire.

May 3, 2026

Iran sent the US a fourteen point peace plan.  

May 4, 2026

The U.S. rejected Iranian peace proposals and is now going to escort ships through the Straits of Hormoz.  Iran threatened to strike the ships and has already claimed to have hit a U.S. Navy craft with missiles, which the U.S. denies.

cont:

Iran attacked ships in the straits today with small surface vehicles and it resumed drone strikes on the UAE.

May 6, 2026

Yesterday was Taco Tuesday, and so we have this headline from the Tribune.

Well of course we do.  Trump's an ignorant man with extremely limited world experience with a cabinet of sycophants.  This was a war run by ignoramuses.

Trump paused his latest version of the illegal war with his escort program in the Straits of Hormuz.  We have no way out of the war that anyone in D.C. grasps.

The US has clearly and absolutely lost this war, not succeeding in a single one of its objectives.  At this point, absent ground operations, this is humiliating US defeat, worse than the loss in Vietnam.

May 7, 2026

Taco's flip on the most recent operation is because Saudi Arabia denied the US use of its airspace.

It seems to be the case that Taco didn't inform the kingdom of the operation before coming up with it.

cont:

So, now we're hitting targets in Iran again, the war we won several weeks ago, and which was definitely over before we started blockading Iran.

Compared to this, the Allied landings at Gallipoli in World War One were an absolutely stunning success.

May 10, 2026

Headline from the CST:

Let's be honest, the Administration is incompetent.  Governed by flaky theories, linked to a romantic image of the past in more ways than one, and headed by a person with dementia.  Of course it's no closer to an end.

The US sent a counter proposal to Iran. They haven't replied.

What is new is that the UK and France are deploying ships to the region in anticipation of using them to keep shipping lanes open.

We'll remind everyone once again that this war is completely illegal, and Trump should be impeached and removed from office for the illegality.

May 11, 2026

Iran's counter proposal was rejected by the US.

May 18, 2026

The UAE was hit by drones yesterday, and an attempt was made on Saudi Arabia.

Donald Trump warned Iran it was running out of time.

The New York Times informed readers that Israel had constructed a secret base over a period of a year in Iraq for the war.

May 19, 2026

Trump threatened Iran with massive devastation and then called it off claiming that regional states asked him to. 

Whatever.

The ignoramus has backed himself and the entire country into a corner and has no idea what to do.

May 20, 2026

Aided by a defecting Bill Cassidy and some other defecting Republicans who finally decided they weren't a complete pack of cowardly little sissies, Congress advanced a War Powers bill.

This isn't the same as voting on it, they're just advancing it so it can be voted on. Still, it's a blow to the Big Sissie.

May 24, 2026

Contrary to what reports are holding, no lasting solution to the conflict with Iran has been reached, particularly in regard to the nuclear material.

We appear to be on our way to something no better than what Trump ripped up in the form of what President Obama had negotiated.

And he didn't have to kill a bunch of Iranian school girls to get it.

May 26, 2026

Americans are waking up the news of more war in the war that Trump said he'd already won and a couple of days ago said a deal was close to ending.

These strikes were on missile locations and boat launching sites.

Last edition:

King Donald's War, Part 5. After 13/15 U.S. deaths, Hundreds of Iranian deaths, $50B spent fighting it, and a massive increase in the price of oil, King Donny surrenders to the Iranians. The "If any question why we died, Tell them, because our fathers lied" edition.

Labels: 2020s, 2026, F. E. Warren AFB, Food, Hypocrisy, Iran, Israel, King Donald's War, Lebanon, Lies, Sic transit Gloria Mundi, Straits of Hormuz, Trump Derangement Syndrome, United States, United States and Israel v. Iran, War

Thursday, May 25, 1911. Díaz resigns and USS Wyoming launched.

The long dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz came to an end with his resignation.  At 4:25 p.m. the Chamber of Deputies accepted it, and the resignation of his Vice President, Ramón Corral.

Born in 1830, Diaz had initially studied to become a priest but eventually switched his studies to law.  He served under Benito Juarez in the war against France in which he proved to be an effective military officer.  He seized power in in a coup in 1876, and was elected to office the following year, serving until 1880.  He resumed holding the office in 1884.  The period of 1876 to 1911 is generally regarded as one of continual rule by Diaz and is referred to as the Porfirismo.

Diaz was actually a surprisingly good leader and granted Mexico a long period of stability and economic reform.  His rule favored industry and technocrats.  Wealth generally increased and there was some advancement of the rights of the underclass, but he was generally conservative in his overall approach.  He was on generally friendly terms with the Church, which is not surprising given his early life.

He'd be well remembered today if it wasn't for his inability to trust anyone else to run the country.  

He went into exile in France with his wife and son, the only child from two marriages and one affair that lived until adulthood.  Ramón Corral was already in Europe seeking medical attention for terminal cancer and went into exile in France.

Francisco León de la Barra y Quijano became the Provisional President of Mexico.

Diaz provides a warning about leaders and movements based on a leader assuming that only one man can advance them.  His long reign ended up not only ending in an unnecessary revolution, but radicalizing both his supporters and opponents.

The USS Wyoming was launched.

USS Wyoming in its original configuration.

The second US vessel to that date to bear the name Wyoming, the battleship would serve until 1947.

Last edition:

Wednesday, May 24, 1911. Magonistas say no to the Treaty of Ciudad Juárez.

Labels: 1910, 1911, Colorado, Colorado National Monument, Federal Reserve, Magonistas, Mexican Revolution, Mexico, nature, Treaty of Ciudad Juárez

Saturday, May 8, 1926. First color feature film, testing a famous torpedo fuse, fire at Fenway Park, birth of Sir David Aattenborough.

The first color feature film, The Black Pirate, was released.

Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin addressed the British public about the ongoing strike in the UK, the first such emergency radio broadcast of that type in that nation.

The first test of the Mark 6 torpedo exploder was conducted.

The secret device would not receive much in the field testing before World War Two, at which time it was learned that it had extremely dangerous flaws and defects that needed to be fixed immediately, although they were rapidly learned of and corrected early in the war.

Sir David Frederick Attenborough was born, and turns 100 years old today.  

A major fire broke out at Fenway Park.

It was a Saturday.

Last edition:

Friday, May 7, 1926. Resumed wars.

Labels: 1920s, 1926, Banana Wars, French Air Force, Morocco, Navy, Nicaragua, Rif War

Wednesday, April 24 1946. Firsts.

The Aerodrome: Wednesday, April 24 1946. Firsts.: The Blue Angels, flying F6F Hellcats, were formed. The first Blue Angels. The MiG-9 and the Yak-15 flew for the first time.

Wednesday, April 24 1946. Firsts.

The Blue Angels, flying F6F Hellcats, were formed.

The first Blue Angels.

The MiG-9 and the Yak-15 flew for the first time.

The French Constituent Assembly voted 487 to 63 to nationalize the insurance industry.

Last edition:

Saturday, April 20, 1946. Report of the Anglo-American Committee of Enquiry regarding the problems of European Jewry and Palestine.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, British League of Nations Mandates, It was because of World War Two, Judaism, Palestine

Monday, April 1, 1946. The April 1, 1946 Aleutian Islands Earthquake

The April 1, 1946 Aleutian Islands earthquake occurred which resulted in an tsunami that devastated parts of Hawaii, most notably Hilo.  Up to 173 people were killed, mostly in Hawaii.

People fleeing the tsunami in Hilo.

Warnings were given but many ignored them, thinking them an April Fools Day joke.  The event is responsible for a much improved warning system.

Bituminous coal miners went on strike in the U.S.

The U.S. Navy destroyed 24 Japanese submarines.  Seems like a terrible waste really.

The UK made Singapore a Crown Colony and separated it and its mostly Chinese ethnic population from Malaya.

What does Russia want was a question that was posed (from more than one Reddit sub).

Last edition:

Sunday, March 31, 1946. Arresting Nazis, Russia pays up, you have to wonder about Дональд, Field Marshall Gort passes.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, Allied Occupation of Germany, British Army, Disease, Donald Trump, Greece, Heroes, Nazi Party, Russia, USSR, World War One, Дональд Трамп — агент России

Tuesday, March 25, 1946. Crisis in Iran averted. Navy veteran turns out to be 10th Mountain Division deserter.

 A Second World War, over Iran, was averted.

An sailor about to receive an honorable discharged confessed to deserting from the 10th Mountain Division.

The day's cartoons.

Last edition:

Saturday, March 23, 1946. Marilyn Monroe and the Wedding Industrial Complex. Truman warns Stalin, and holds up testing the bomb. No public necking in Japan.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, Antarctic, Indonesian National Revolution, Iran, J.R. Williams, Marilyn Monroe, Marriage, Occupation of Japan, Playboy, pornography, The Cold War, The relationship between men and women, Women, Work

Two Weapons stories as the US heads towards ground troops deploying, again, in the middle east.

The Marine Corps, which insists on avoiding equipment adopted first by the Army, looked at the M7,and said, nah. . . 

M7 Rifle.

Marines not interested in switching from M27 to Army’s M7 anytime soon

Chances are good, I'd rate them as overwhelming, that the USMC will be using M27s within a week or two in Iran.  This will be the modified HK416's first major combat use, maybe its first use at all.

M27 Automatic Rifle.

It's a mistake, the M7 is definitely the better rifle with better ammunition.  But the Marines, if allowed to have a different rifle, will always do so.

Marines in China with M1895 Navy Lee, at the time at which the Army was using the Krag.  They didn't use it long.

And there's now drone killing ammunition:

U.S. Military Unveils "Drone Killer" Rifle Cartridges | An Official Journal Of The NRA

The pelletized ammunition sort of resembles "snake shot" for pistols used by outdoorsmen in the summer months.  It was developed by the Navy.

Monday, March 15, 1926. Boxer Rebellion Echoes, Manhunt ends, National Guard Cavalry Inspection.

The signatories to the Boxer Protocol gave China an ultimatum for the commanders of the Taku Forts, who had just fired on the Japanese, to remove all mines placed at the mouth of the Pei River and to end their blockade of Tianjin by noon on Friday, March 19. 

At least 12 ships from the U.S. Navy, the Royal Navy, the Imperial Japanese Navy, France and Italy were blocked from traveling into the Pei River to Tianjin.  They were authorized to end the blockade by force if necessary.

A manhunt came to an end:

Of interest to us here, an inspection of National Guard cavalry was taking place in what was a unit that comprised Idaho and Wyoming National Guardsmen.  I knew that had happened later (the joint command), but I wasn't aware of it being so early, well before the 115th Cavalry Regiment came into existence.

Last edition:

Sunday, March 14, 1926. Reddy Kilowatt introduced. Manhunt in Natrona County.

Labels: 1920s, 1926, Advertising, Alabama, Cartoons, Costa Rica, Country & Western Music, Crime, Disaster, Electrical Power, Hillbilly Music, Music, Personalities, Railroads, Wyoming (Casper), Wyoming (Natrona County)

Wednesday, February 27, 1946. What is Russia up to now?

Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal lifted restrictions on assignments for Black sailors.

Republican Senator Arthur Vandenberg delivered his "What is Russia up to now" speech in which he criticized the Truman Administration's policy of cozying up to the Soviet Union.

Who would guess that 80 years later the GOP President would have the biggest crush possible on the leader of Russia?  But then who would guess that the GOP would evolve into a party of sycophantic stooges?

Truman asked Herbert Hoover to help convince Americans to aid in worldwide famine relief.

Last edition:

Friday, February 22, 1946. The Long Telegram.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, The Cold War, United States, USSR

Instead of invading Greenland, maybe they should fix the head.

 

The toilets on the Navy’s largest aircraft carrier keep failing

The USS Gerald R. Ford, currently taking part in operations in the Caribbean, sees some of toilets fail nearly every day.

Saturday, January 9, 1926. A different train attack.

Oddly enough, given the events that had happened ten years prior, Mexican rebels, under Colonel Manuel Núñez, opened fire on board a train  traveling from Guadalajara to Mexico City, ultimately destroying it and making away with 300,000 pesos. Eleven people were killed.

The Navy League of the United States released a report finding the United States Navy to be unprepared for war and short of the tonnage limitation set by the Washington Naval Treaty.

It was a Saturday.

Last edition:

Friday, January 8, 1926. Crownings.

Labels: 1920s, 1926, Abdul-Aziz ibn Saud, Bảo Đại, French Indochina, Kingdom of Hejaz, Mecca, Monarchy, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Vietnam (Huế)

 

The Navy is struggling to build ships

Wednesday, December 26, 1945. Boxing Day.

Seagulls surround the USS Wisconsin after it dumping of Christmas meal leftovers.

Former Vietnamese Emperor Duy Tân, 45, (Nguyễn Phúc Vĩnh San) was killed in an airplane crash in Central Africa.

As Emperor, he had participated in an anti French rebellion while only 16 years old, an event which lead to the French removing him from his throne.  He thereafter went into exile on Réunion Island, where he retained pro independence views.  During World War Two he held anti Vichy views and entered the Free French Navy, and then Army, when the island was liberated from Vichy.  DeGaulle, realizing how desperate the situation in French Indochina was, was having  him returned to Vietnam where he would have been re-installed as Emperor, which would have amounted to deposing Boa Dai, who had sided with Vichy.  His untimely death left the Communist dominated Viet Minh as the only real functioning anti colonial force in the region.

Still highly regarded in Vietnam, most Vietnamese cities have streets named after him.  His remains were reinterred in Vietnam in 1987.

The Red Chinese won the Gaoyou–Shaobo Campaign in which the Nationalist troops were principally made up of units that had formerly collaborated with the Japanese.

Admiral of the Fleet Roger John Brownlow Keyes, 1st Baron Keyes, who in spite of his age saw some service in World War Two, died at age 73.

Last edition:

Tuesday, December 25, 1945. Christmas.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Cartoons, Cheesecake, Christianity, Christmas, Holidays, Imperial Japanese Navy, It was because of World War Two, Newspapers, religion, The Cold War, Wake Island, War, War Crimes, Women

The ghosts of Billy Mitchell and António de Oliveira Salazar visit Donald Trump.

Donald Trump, graduate of the Wharton School of Business, has no grasp of mathematics or history.  He's become the poster boy for questioning the intellectual value of an Ivy League education.

And very clearly, one of the things he doesn't understand is shipbuilding and naval warfare.

Fantasy class warship, probably in the cruiser class, maybe, which the Trump administration plans on building as part of a "Gold Fleet", some naval marketing genius' terms for a vanity suck up project that will never get built, but which appeals to Trump's edge of death vanity.  The artwork heavily resembles a Revell model box for one of their cheaper modells from the 1970s.

2025 is the 100th anniversary of the court marital of Billy Mitchell.  Mitchell, a World War One aviator, accused the Navy Department and the War Department (which was more or less the Army Department) of “incompetency, criminal negligence and almost treasonable administration of the National Defense.”  He had more than one point, but his big point was that the biggest ship could be sunk by aircraft.  The battleship Navy was horrified.

The British attack on the Italian port of Taranto in 1940 proved Mitchell quite right.  Pearl Harbor proved him right beyond a shadow of a doubt.  Mitchell was convicted in his court martial and went on to retirement the following year, but by 1941 he had been proven so right that he was lauded as a hero and the U.S. Army Air Corps named a bomber after him, the B-25 Mitchell.

Mitchell is still right, there's only one thing that's really changed. Aircraft have evolved.

They've evolved from mannered bombers and fighters to a new class of aircraft, the unmanned drone.  This event has been anticipated since late World War Two, and by the 1950s the British already assumed that the day of unmanned aircraft was about to arrive. The predictions on the speed of the evolution of such craft were wildly off, but the Russo Ukrainian War proves the day is now here, and not just in the air, but on the sea.  The Ukrainians have sunk or damaged about 24 Russian ships through the use of drones during the war and pretty much rendered Russia's Black Sea Fleet a nullity.

For decades now military theorist have wondered if the pride of the US Navy, the supercarrier, is actually obsolete. The speculation began as early as the 1970s when really good long range air to surface and surface to surface anti shipping missiles appeared on the scene.  The viability of such missiles was proven during the Falklands War when Exocet missiles in Argentine hands sank the HMS Sheffield and the cargo ship Atlantic Conveyor and severely damaged the HMS Glamorgan.  The Exocet went into production in 1975, and while still around, it's undoubtedly the case that it's improved over the last 50 years and there are other missiles around that are just as good or better.  The U.S. Navy started worrying about such missiles just as soon as they were produced, but the Navy's large supercarriers have never had to encounter them.

That is, in part, because we have not fought a peer to peer conflict since World War Two.  In spite of that, it's worth noting that the U.S. military has not exactly shown itself invincible in wars less than that.  The North Koreans and Chinese, the former of which only had an army from around 1946 or so, and the latter of which had just come out of a largescale civil war and which chose to deploy, to no small degree, troops who were conscripted out of the losing side of that war, fought us and our UN allies to a standstill in Korea.  Starting about a decade later we fought and ultimately were defeated by an Army that was quite primitive in comparison to our own, although a lot of that defeat was a morale issue.  Since that time we've fought and beat Iraq twice, but we were never able to prevail in Afghanistan, in no small part due to a major strategic miscalculation by Donald Rumsfeld, and our current Oval Office occupant ended up surrendering to the Taliban.

Now, of course, there's been very little naval action in anything that I've mentioned, but that shouldn't really give us any comfort. What naval action that has occured since 1945 shows that long distance anti ship warfare had improved remarkably since 1945.  The Argentines, not wanting to be exposed to it, didn't evey deploy an aircraft carrier it had during the Falklands War.  

Now, of course, people are pointing out that the awkwardly named Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) has the most combat ships in the world, although its not regarded as the most powerful. That would be the U.S. Navy.  The U.S. Navy, with its supercarriers, holds that title, and it should.  But it can't be ignored that Ukraine has proven that sinking ships is now pretty possible with air and sea drones.

That's where the future of naval warfare is, not with vanity "battleships".

Indeed, that was proven in 1941.

The Navy knows that, but senior military officers right now know that if they want to keep their jobs they have to feed the demented monkey in Trump's brain.  And that brain isn't pegging out on the smarts meter by any means.  Statements by Donald Trump show him to be in the full grasp of dementia and raise questions on whether he was every very sharp.  

He's also incredibly vain.

And more than a little scared.

Being vain and scared, he's quite easy to manipulate.  Given the chance to name something after himself, and believe that it will be around after his body is rotting in its grave, which will be quite soon, he'll take the bait.  And hence the Trump Class of "battleship".

It'll never happen.

It takes at least two year to design a warship, and often multiples of that.  And then it takes another two to five years to build it. Trump no doubt plans on being living at age 90, but he won't be, and his demented brain will be reduced to complete mush should he live that long.  The Navy knows that, but the Navy likes to have money and ship projects bring in money.  Every since World War Two the U.S. military has engaged in acquisitions of things it didn't need for one reason or another, and the Army has proven that even a simple project like designing an assault rifle can take so long that a person who entered the overall task early in his career can retire before its done.

And hence António de Oliveira Salazar.

Salazar was the Portuguese dictator who came into power in 1932 and who fell into ill health and suffered a stroke in 1968.  The Portuguese government replaced him and he died 1970. But they never told him.  He was simply given glowing reports on how well everything was going and assured he was still running the show.

I'm pretty convinced that's more or less what's going on with Trump right now.

The Navy is simply going to slow roll this project.  Glowing reports are going to be given to the Demented Dear Leader.  The entire project will go swimmingly.  Meanwhile, others will report the same on the White House Ballroom.  Neither will ever be built.

Indeed, already the palace intrigue is on.  J.D. Vance is gathering allies.  Mike Pence is scooping up Heritage Foundation defectors.  Congressmen and Senators who are too tainted with the stench of MAGA, or who don't want to be there when Trump falls and takes MAGA out with it, are abandoning their offices to go on to new pursuits, readying themselves to reemerge cleansed from the inevitable bunker scenes that are already beginning to happen.