Author’s Note: Of all the examples of hubristic hypocrisy exhibited by Trump, Hegseth and the other administration sycophants, nothing – NOTHING – so clearly portrayed Trump’s Vietnam cowardice and Hegseth’s carefully coiffed “combat service” (how much of the DOD budget does Hegseth spend on hair gel and facials?) than posing for cameras during the transfer of remains for the four most recent service members killed as a result of Trumph’s and Hegseth’s war of choice – all the while thinking as the coffins passed them by how to manipulate the dead to control the political damage.
Their solution? To remove the fallen service members’ names from the official Pentagon’s list of KIA combat casualties.
This ultimate insult to every American who has ever served his country has earned Trumph and Hegseth a special place in Hell:
Trump v. Iran
As predicted, the body count continues to rise.
Trumph’s threat to inflict greater “pain” on Iran for every American service member killed is bullshit. Iran doesn’t feel pain. It’s the American people who feel the pain – or should. Polls show MAGA minions don’t care about the war as long as it doesn’t affect the economy. That hedonism is why Trump is getting away with murdering our troops for no viable, achievable strategic interest.
Trump / Hegseth remind those of a certain age of the 1959 song High Hopes containing the phrase “Everyone knows a Ram can’t. Punch a hole in the dam – But he’s got HIGH HOPES!”
Back before The Left and the Counterfeit Conservative media performed their Social / Political frontal lobotomy on American society, sterilizing Disney and our multi-cultural American heritage, folk tales with moral lessons abounded in literature.
One of these was Walt Disney’s Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings created by white journalist Joel Chandler Harris in his 1886 book containing stories he heard told by black slaves working on a plantation in the South. The book became a massive bestseller in the late 19th century. It brought southern black folklore into mainstream global literature.
“Tar Baby: a situation or problem from which it is virtually impossible to disentangle oneself; a difficult, sticky problem that gets worse the more you try to fix it.” – AI Wikipedia
The underlying moral messages of the stories show:
– a small, less physically strong force can win using intelligence instead of muscle.
– stories (like parables) send messages that can be used as hidden weapons of protest against masters and oppressive systems.
– stories proving mental agility and creativity can navigate dangerous “sticky” traps like the Tar Baby story.
Neither Trump nor Hegseth have learned from millenia of history that overwhelming force never permanently triumphs over idiology.
Trumph and Hegseth chose to start a war on fictitious pretexts using outdated and feckless World War II Eighth Army Air Corps massive bombing tactics. FYI: the Normandy beaches were flat as a pancake on D-Day because the mission commander of the Air Force squadron who led the pre-invasion bombing of the beaches (in order to set off land mines and create craters for soldiers to maneuver toward cover) decided to delay dropping his bombs by a few seconds for “safety reasons.”
This not only left the beaches a killing zone (earning the nickname “Bloody Omaha“) but killed thousands of innocent French civilians instead of Germans.]
World War II bombing raids cost more American lives than were lost by Marines in the entire Pacific campaign. Massive bombing raids in which thousands of American crewmen died had negligible effect in shortening the war – even when they hit their target. The Schweinfurt ball bearing factories cost over a thousand lives and were quickly rebuilt. The oil fields at Ploesti cost hundreds more and were quickly rebuilt.
Westmoreland and McNamara depended on the same tactics during Vietnam – and lost.
Bush, Jr. depended on air power to degrade Afghanistan and Iraq only to lie about “Mission Accomplished” while thousands more American service members died for a fictitious definition of “victory”.
Trump and Hegseth are operating under three misconceptions:
1. air power alone will cause the Iranian regime to capitulate.
It won’t.
2. America will continue to support a president during a time of war.
They won’t. Not when Trumph and Hegseth are lying to (or hiding from) the American people about everything regarding this war.
Just like Lyndon Johnson and McNamara did during Vietnam.
Iran won’t capitulate for the same reason Vietnam didn’t during Operation Rolling Thunder or Iraq and Afghanistan during Shock and Awe.
The U.S. may have occupied the ground for decades but it never had the moral high ground nor the perceived legitimacy of the population – and ended up retreating with their tails between their legs just like Vietnam.
Even with a massive ground force occupying hostile, Muslim terrain for decades Iraq and Afghanistan never capitulated.
Muslims don’t surrender. They go low tech and win with “death by a thousand cuts” in the best Oriental tradition of Tsun Tsu.
Just like the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese.
That translates into a climbing body count for no real definable victory.
Trump’s and Hegseth’s Iran Tar Baby nascent quamire has all the earmarks of another Vietnam and Afghanistan.
The third major misconception Trumph and Hegseth are operating under is that Black Propaganda will win this war.
Trumph and Hegseth are operating under the same principle as Hitler’s propaganda chief Goebbels “If you tell a Lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”
Before political correctness overtook military doctrine, the Field Manual on Psychological Operations classified Propaganda (now called “Information Operations“) as White, Grey and Black.
White propaganda consists of true and accurate information disseminated to a target audience to influence them to support U.S. geo-political interests.
Grey propaganda is a mixture of true information embellished to a degree to slant the opinion of a targeted audience in favor of U.S. interests.
Black propaganda is totally false information disseminated to a target audience with with the intent to at least prevent their active participation against U.S. efforts. Trumph has accomplished this with his control of the GOP testicles in the Senate and “House of Representatives“.
Another commonality with Vietnam and Afghanistan. (see: The Pentagon Papers and The Afghanistan Papers)
As long as Americans remain brainwashed thinking the United States government can’t function without just two monopolistic, oligarchic political Parties, all U.S. administrations will continue using black propaganda to maintain power.
And both The Left and MAGA media are complicit in the deception.
“Most brainwashing is done by Party leaders aimed at Party members.” – Posner, Public Intellectuals: A Study of Decline, 2003; 464 pgs.
Trumph and Hegseth, hoping to drive the Iranian population to rise up against the regime by bombing “strategic infrastructure”, are only setting up the unarmed and oppressed Iranian people for another massacre.
In the meantime, the body count will continue to rise – regardless of how many times Trump and Hegseth gerrymander the official toll in American blood.*
* The Pentagon did the same thing to the four Marines who were left behind on Koh Tang Island after the botched rescue of the Mayaguez crew. The Mayaguez crew was returned safely but the abandoned Marines were tortured and killed.
