This has become a Really Bad soap opera. The White House can’t even agree on what they’re going to say about the war. The question is, who gets more embarrassed? Or is it both of them? The White House really needs to get its messaging straight. This back-and-forth is confusing and not helpful. Make up your minds, guys! With appreciation to Raw Story:
President Donald Trump’s inconsistent messaging about the Iran war is creating a credibility crisis, with his own Pentagon publicly contradicting him about the conflict’s status, according to reporting from The Guardian. The contradictions have become stark and immediate. During a CBS News phone interview, Trump declared: “I think the war is very complete, pretty much.” Yet that same day, the Pentagon’s official X account posted: “This is just the beginning – we will not be deterred until the mission is over,” and “We have Only Just Begun to Fight.”
Which is it? And why can’t they discuss news releases *before* talking, truthing, or Xittering? It reminds me of kids arguing back and forth about who is right and who is wrong. We can’t trust Donnie or Petey Boy. It seems it would be better to look for others in the world to find out what’s *actually* happening in this lame, stupid, ridiculous, ill-advised, illegal war.
At a campaign rally in Kentucky, Trump compounded the confusion by claiming, “We won. The first hour, it was over,” before immediately contradicting himself moments later, stating, “We don’t want to leave early, do we? We got to finish the job.” Janessa Goldbeck, a Marine Corps veteran and leader of the Vet Voice Foundation, warned that such contradictions send dangerous signals. “That contradiction sends dangerous signals to adversaries about US resolve,” she told The Guardian. “When the president says the war is basically over and his Pentagon says it’s just the beginning, that tells the world the strategy is not under control.”
It sure as hail isn’t under control. There’s no strategy. It doesn’t exist. Just blow things up. Do we actually have targets? Do we have up-to-date intel? Remember, it may have been outdated intel that caused our systems to attack that school. And in a sideways but related note, has anyone thought about how much of Iran is *desert* if we start a ground war? That’s insane!
Presidential historian Jonathan Alter noted that Trump’s approach reflects his characteristic style: “He doesn’t think any further ahead than the next news cycle and so you get an on-again off-again zigzag foreign policy.” The muddled messaging threatens to undermine congressional support for potential supplemental war funding and damage American credibility with both allies and adversaries, according to the report.
Time for the Slap Machine™. And muddled is an understatement. This is great for our enemies and wretched for our allies. Kinda wish it was the other way around, but that’s not possible. We are not the Great and Powerful. We are Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain. At least things came out well in the movie, even if I showed it too many times and don’t want to see it ever again. I’m worse about the Sound of Music. Had to do stage musicals with bratty, asshole, don’t listen kids. AND I had to project it multiple times. *ahem*. Now that I’ve gone sideways, time to close. We’re a mess.
See you soon!
Friends, I know everyone begs you for money. I promise that among all those asking for spare change, we are the smallest and the hardest-working. We’re a group of old, disabled people, except for one writer in his mid-50s. The rest of us are in our sixties and seventies, and this is a labor of love. All we’re asking for is the chance to keep telling the truth about Trump and help ensure democracy survives. If you can help, please do. Thank you. Ursula
The problem with waging war in Iran is that it isn’t a desert, it’s mostly mountainous, with all that entails with respect to troop movement, surveillance, and logistics. This mountainous terrain is easily seen in the map in the lede image. Some of the mountains are continuances of terrain in neighboring Afghanistan, which, surely, by now, is known as mountainous.
And a bigger problem is that people in the regime, who are theoretically in charge, don’t seem to realize this.
They think ‘Middle East = desert’.
And ‘Desert = easy traversal’.
I stand corrected.