Trump’s war in Iran appears to be heading for a T.S. Eliot ending — not with a bang, but a whimper. But not right away. Someday, though, it will just whimper out.
This week Trump has gone from deciding to just ignore the war for a while, to claiming that the Strait of Hormuz is under U.S. control. Objective reality at the Strait appears to suggest otherwise.
Yesterday Trump wrote on Truth Social that the U.S. has “total control” over the Strait, and “I THINK WE WILL KEEP IT.” Today Tehran announced that the Strait of Hormuz is “under Iran’s control and management.” (I understand the potential deal for a joint operation with Oman fell apart over details. A shame.)
But maybe Trump should stick to just ignoring the war. Did he think people would believe him when he said the U.S. controls the Strait? Because anybody following the news knows that’s not true. This is not something a halfway rational person would have claimed.
Trump has few options left. The depletion of our weapons is putting our military personnel deployed to the region in greater danger.
Shrunken inventories of Patriot and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) interceptors may force the US and its Middle Eastern allies to take greater risks to conserve those air defences, according to an analysis by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank. For example, it said, American forces may launch fewer missiles against incoming Iranian drones and missiles, raising the chance of one getting through.
The Pentagon now is pushing the defense industry to crank out more missiles as fast as possible. But I understand the high tech stuff takes several months, maybe a couple of years, to be ready to use. Trump isn’t gong to get his big stockpile back anytime soon.
You’ve probably heard about what’s been going on with the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln. The aircraft carrier has been at sea way too long. The crew is burned out. Families are reporting that the crew isn’t getting enough to eat. There are sewage and other sanitation problems with the ship. Recently several crew members have attempted to jump overboard, and one actually did (he survived). Naturally Pete Hegseth has been brushing off these issues as no big deal. Then several Democrats in Congress made noises about an investigation. Today it was announed that the U.S.S. George Washington would be relieving the Abraham Lincoln.
These bozos had better not start World War III, because none of them can manage their way out of a rusty mess kit. Under Hegseth it’s not the Department of War but the Department of What the Bleep Are We Doing?.
But as there aren’t many options left I’m predicting the war will just whimper along as a low-grade hostility until Trump leaves office. Let’s just hope no one else has to die for it.
And I have nothing original to say about Operation Catering Truck, so I’ll just quote this bit from Heather Cox Richardson:
National security reporter David Rothkopf wrote: “The man who cowered hiding from the Iranians in a catering truck and who has personally done more to increase Iran’s strategic influence than anyone in its own government ever has, is now blathering nonsense via social media. The world sees him more as an impotent fool today than ever before.”
In other news, but related:
The first news story I saw this morning was headlined Homeland Security Paid $464 Million for Airplanes. Then It Parked Them. This is a gift article from the New York Times.
Starting last fall, the Department of Homeland Security spent $464 million on a no-bid contract to buy 10 used airplanes from a firm in Northern Virginia.
That was an enormous price tag, but the department said it had no time to consider other offers. The planes were needed urgently for deportation flights.
But since then, the department has barely used this new fleet — for deportations, or anything else.
Apparently the agency doesn’t have the staff to operate the plans.
The contract also illuminated a broader trend within the second Trump administration: no-bid contracts awarded to people with connections to Mr. Trump or his cabinet secretaries. The company that received this contract, Daedalus Aviation Corporation, is led by a chairman who had donated to a political committee supporting the previous Homeland Security Secretary, Kristi Noem. …
… The situation with the planes was reminiscent of the department’s about-face on a plan to acquire warehouses to hold detainees. The department spent heavily on those when Ms. Noem was secretary, but reversed itself just months later under Mr. Mullin. The department is now giving away or selling seven warehouses that it bought for more than $700 million.
I remember reading that the agency was offering amounts way above the market price for those warehouses. Yet The Gnome was the same person who caused huge delays in releasing disaster relief funds by insisting on new layers of review, creating a $17 billion bottleneck. .
And then there’s Trump, spending taxpayer money lavishly on his monuments projects and on covering perfectly presentable statues in gold leaf while we can’t afford health care. But I’m beginning to think even Americans who don’t pay attention to politics are starting to notice something is very screwy. And a big part of that screwiness is that the people in charge of critical government departments are grossly unqualified for their jobs. The Gnome is gone, but I don’t see the overall situation improving
And I honestly don’t think Trump is living in the same time-space continuum as the rest of us.
And you’ve probably heard Karoline Leavitt is leaving at the end of this month. I can’t get too excited because I’m sure whoever replaces her will be just as bad. But I am mildly curious as to why, since she just heroically came back from having a baby, her second child. I certainly appreciate how hard that is. But she’s the one who came back. Maybe there’s another reason. Well, someday somebody will write a book and spill the beans.
Oh one more thing. See Kennedy Center Board Decides to Inscribe Trump’s Name on Building. Seriously.
I suggested elsewhere on the intertubes that she was fleeing now, in case King Tubby has a complete meltdown on Election Night and orders his Secret Service detail to kill everyone who failed him.
These days, that's a perfectly reasonable theory.
With regards to Trump's ignominious retreat, I sort of imagined a Secret Service agent trying not to smile too broadly as he gestures towards a wheelie bin saying "Just get into the emergency evacuation vehicle, sir, and we'll have everything under control." We need an updated West Wing.
Leavitt got left on the decoy plane. 'Nuff said.
Iran is still the top issue, even if it's dropped off the radar to the media. Iran is not letting Trump save face no matter how much it costs them to deny Trump the illusion of a victory. Trump does have the power to close the Straight, but he needs Iran to open it. As long as a few ships are being targeted by drones each month for not asking Iran, "Mothetr, may I?", the insurance companies will take the Straight off the map. I understand the number of tankers per day, which once averaged 100, is peaking at the low teens.
People will quit the military for this kind of disrespect when their terms are up. I'm reminded of the nuclear power specialist I knew in the Navy. As his time for discharge was approaching, he was interviewed by a series of officers up the Engineering chain of command to re-enlist. He politely declined, getting more irritated by the higher pressure from even more senior gold braid. He told the Engineering Officer he would not say in because he had a better job offer. The officer took offense, "What job could be better than working in/for the USN?" His answer was classic. "I'm giving blow jobs to elephants at a nickle a herd."
That ended it.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is ordering the U.S. Navy to remove the advanced system used to launch fighter jets from its newest type of aircraft carrier and return to using older steam catapults that he has long said he prefers, according to a directive issued Thursday.
The new mandate would likely cost billions of dollars and revert the Navy’s most advanced ships to a system that takes more sailors to operate and is more difficult to maintain.
Congress could stop that. It won’t.
Having a Secretary of Defense or CNO capable of challenging Trump would be beneficial. What is his reasoning?
I dunno, Trump MIGHT actually be right on this issue. USN has a terrible record recently (last few decades…) with designing & purchasing new ships (see: LCS, "Little Crappy Ship").
The Gerald W. Ford (CVN 78) looks like another example of this; the design plans included several sub-systems (catapult, super-duper New Improved Radar) which were barely in experimental phases; essentially, the Ford is a test platform, not warship. They MIGHT be able to use data from the Ford to perfect the electrical catapult system; OTOH, they might not.
OTOOH, Trump is *certainly* not qualified to understand the technical problems and make good decisions on such complex problems.
I'm a rather hard-core Peacenik, but also enough of a patriotic realist – and Map Geek – to see that the USA can't escape being a Maritime Power. I want us to have a strong Navy – I just don't us to use it for attacking countries that haven't attacked us.
Bonus link, to track where US Carriers are:
CV Locations
While Trump is looking to roll back the latest technology, the newest Chinese aircraft carriers employ electromagnetic catapults and France said it plans to use the system on its new carrier. Trump’s memo directs the fourth Ford-class carrier, the USS Doris Miller, to be the first ship to include the new changes. That will leave the USS Gerald R. Ford, as well as the forthcoming USS John F. Kennedy and USS Enterprise, untouched. However, redesigning an already finalized ship for such a major system change will not be an easy task.
(Associated Press)
So the Washington is a week away from the S. Arabian Sea. I suspect when the sailors get home, there will be a gag order issued before they disembark. The families won't have signed that order, so truth should leak out next month.
It's good that the Lincoln is returning to port, finally, but what about the other navy ships escorting her? Apparently they, who have been at sea far too long also, are not being allowed to return to port. Maybe the families of those sailors need to turn up the heat?
Yes…the regime will certainly try to prevent the sailors from telling their stories…and I imagine they will even arrest some and charge them, if they do. 47 treats the military like playing with toy soldiers or a video game…disgusting.
I am not the first to make this point but imagine a woman president obsessing constantly over her “ballroom” as the economy imploded and her war spun out of control
– Asawin Suebsaeng
Somewhere, at times quite hidden, in every organization, there was essential work that had to be done for the very survival of the organization. That was true for organizations in both the private or private sectors or those in between public and private.
The federal government is a very large organization that has essential work of that nature. It exists to assure states and territories can operate in a cooperative and mutually beneficial manner for all of its entities.
The present federal government is flagrantly playing favorites among those entities. Help flows preferentially to crony entities. Pay to play dominates domestic and foreign affairs. Neither fosters a cooperative or mutually beneficial manner.
A "great" ballroom's construction gets priority. The essential work gets ignored. The bar gets lowered. We have certainly achieved semi-incompetence as a country. It would not hurt to show a few signs of semi-competency.
Sure, it is by accident and not design, and no way a design of a Trump world vision, but there is an international economic boom in electric motorcycles.
An Electric Motorcycle Revolution – The New York Times
On These Motorcycles, the Thrill Is Truly Electric – The New York Times
Comment from Fred @ small town SO California.
The first requirement for making government competent again is ridding it root and branch of Trump and MAGA influence. MAGA is less a movement than a ten year racist backlash and fever tantrum against America having had a black president. They've made corruption, economic and financial excess, and willful incompetence features of governing. What we've experienced over the last two worst years of a Trump administration can't be allowed to become institutionally ingrained to the extent that going forward the lying, disinformation and petty distractions, the things they've done to achieve political success, don't become institutionalized as legitimate tools to approach "governing."
Secondly, we need to have a post South African apartheid style, Truth and Reconciliation commission, to identify and document acts of the Trump administration, including the deaths at the hands of ICE on the streets and detention centers, abuses of US citizens constitutional rights, the sending of immigrants to countries not of their origin to be imprisoned without charge or legal recourse, as a means of punishment. We need to document cases where Trump illegally redirected fund allocated by congress away from states and jurisdictions for purely political purposes, because they didn't vote for him, and the impact these diversions had. We need to document the corruption that enriched Trump family, cronies and political allies at the expense of taxpayers. We need to document the lies told by this administration that cost people their lies, and taxpayers money. This needs to be done so that the public and our allies can build confidence that we won't let this happen again.