Ruin and merciless hatred

I don't really have much to add to what all of you know. The Iranian "leadership" has proved nearly as stupid and impulsive as my own.

There really is no "win" here. The U.S. cannot possibly invade and occupy Iran in order to effect a dramatic change in the nation of Iran as it did in Germany and Japan after 1945. Iran cannot possibly force the United States to back down without the U.S. choosing to back down.

Instead there will simply be killing and maiming, destruction and chaos. In the end the combatants will remain, richer in nothing but ruin and merciless hatred.

You know I was a soldier. I cannot in good faith preach to anyone the virtues of pacifism.

But there are times and reasons when wars must be fought. Often those reasons are bad ones, and those times are never right. There never was, as Benjamin Franklin wrote, a good war or a bad peace.

But there are worse wars. Stupid, pointless, needless wars, and this is surely a very, very bad war, in that nothing good can ever come of the "peace" that will finally follow it.

I will say more tomorrow.

But for tonight, I will leave you with the rest of Doctor Franklin's quote for you to ponder as we wait uncertainly for the news that will come with the dawn.

"What vast additions to the conveniences and comforts of living might mankind have acquired, if the money spent in wars had been employed in works of public utility. What an extension of agriculture even to the tops of our mountains; what rivers rendered navigable, or joined by canals; what bridges, aqueducts, new roads and other public works, edifices and improvements, rendering England a complete paradise, might not have been obtained by spending those millions in doing good which in the last war have been spent in doing mischief! In bringing misery into thousands of families, and destroying the lives of so many thousands of working people who might have performed the useful labor."

Update 1/9/: Well, color me surprised. Both sides sorta-kinda walked this back from the abyss. The mullahs made it clear that all these missiles were warning shots, targeted to make big booms but not kill anyone. And Trumpy Bear, looking and sounding like a kid forced to eat his vegetables, produced a brief statement that made it clear that he was doing nothing to ratchet the tensions down. The punitive U.S. sanctions on Iran remain in place, "sanctions" that amount to a level of blockade that would be considered warfare if it were being done to the U.S. by another nations. The GIs aren't moving out of Iraq regardless of what the Iraqis may say. All the elements needed for an utterly weapons-grade-moron-level war are still there.

And, worse yet, in my opinion, the airwaves are full of the same fucking idiots - Bloody Bill Kristol, Hannity, Coulter, Rushbo, the loathsome Cheney and Trump spawn, pimping as hard for that moronic war as possible.

So we dodged that bullet. But these dumb fuckers are waving the gun around, and if it goes off and shoots my country in the foot I will be as shocked as when my kid announced that Cap'n Crunch abraded the roof of his mouth.