Whose War?

He continues to insist on calling it “a small excursion.”

Unless someone can prove to me otherwise, I will continue to believe that either he can’t remember the correct word, doesn’t understand its meaning, or misunderstood when his briefers referred to the “incursion.”

Incursion. A sudden, often brief, hostile invasion, raid, or intrusion into a territory, place, or domain.

Excursion. A short, usually organized trip or outing taken for pleasure, sightseeing, or education.

To me it just adds to the insurmountable trove of evidence that Donald John Trump is not a “stable genius”, but an unstable imbecile.

The two times this week that I heard him describe his war as “a little excursion” I thought of the families who will have empty chairs at the Thanksgiving table this November. I wonder how his ham-handed malapropism lands with them.

Will they think that it is as inappropriate, impolite, and ill-timed as bringing up Pearl Harbor to the Prime Minister of Japan in the Oval Office yesterday? She reacted with grace, diplomacy, and calm assurance; all the things that we used to associate with meetings in that special space. But like President Zelensky, Prime Minister Carney, and so many others, when you walk into that room, you are just a prop in the Trump circus. Just look at the walls, the urns, the almost life-sized Air Force One on the coffee table. It is a freak show, but the host doesn’t realize that history will judge HIM as the freak.

The only thing that I have written since the Trump War began was my observations of its parallel with Wag the Dog, the great 1997 Barry Levinson film. https://www.constancelyhoping.com/post/wag-the-dog

It was early enough that some levity seemed in order.

That didn’t last long.

On day one of Trumps War, a US Tomahawk Missile hit the Shajareh Tayyebeh girl’s elementary school in Minab killing between 175 and 180 schoolgirls.  As an American I believe that it was accidental targeting. As an American I am ashamed that the President of the United States said 1) it was an Iranian missile, then 2) many countries have Tomahawk Missiles, so we’re not sure it’s ours.

A five-minute call or a glance at Google could have established that currently only the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia have the missile. The Tomahawk is not generic”, and Iran does not have one or even the means to deploy one. Lies, all lies.

While we “continue to investigate”, the world knows that it was ours. The international press stepped into the void and pieced together the evidence. But still, no apology. Still no word. We must be too busy investigating the second shot (41 minutes after the first) that killed the dangerous Venezuelan drug runners clinging to the wreckage of their disabled boat. Declassification of those results is just around the corner.

As we watch the gas prices soar and await the impact of fuel increases on virtually every other thing we buy, I am convinced that this war (Trump’s War), sadly lacked two things. It lacked process and it lacked contingency plans.

As to process, it commenced without the combined expertise, knowledge, intelligence, and deep interagency coordination that any American military action deserves. When you ask America’s young men and women in arms to risk everything and to do their job, you must assure them you’ve done everything within your power to lower risk. In short Mr. President, did you do YOUR job?

When you kick all the people out of the room who may disagree with you and your Fox News SecDef; when you have made the decision that Russian and Israeli intel is better than ours; when you take the word of Vladimir Putin (“he says he’s not assisting Iran”) and think that Netanyahu has the best interests of the United States at heart; then you can shrink the inner circle and have more empty seats in the Situation Room than at any comparable time in US History. Oh, and you can put on a goofy white baseball cap and scream “charge” into the microphone. 

And no one, I mean no one in the room can say, “Wait Mr. President, I don’t think we have adequate proof of an imminent threat,” or “for God’s sake Donald, take off the stupid hat.”

We are now faced with the second missing element in Trump’s War. Contingency plans.

They didn’t have adequate plans going in and with the avoidable surprises they encounter every day, they lack adequate plans on how to get out.

If you accept that one goal (ours or Israel’s) was to take out Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities, that appears to have been largely achieved. However, the daily havoc being rained down on Iran’s neighbors and shipping in the Strait of Hormuz by a seemingly endless supply of deadly Iranian drones would point to a gross underestimation of the capabilities and will of the enemy.

So, to say, “mission accomplished” and come home now would have a lingering foul bouquet of Vietnam or Afghanistan.  

Also, it is clear that our partner Israel is far from finishing their mission of annihilation. The most unsophisticated of observers could have predicted this diversion of goals at the start. Netanyahu’s post October 7 pattern of scorched earth pursuit of national interests made his short and long term strategies an open book. Attack until all of the leaders are dead, all of the infrastructure is gone, and all of the offensive capabilities of your enemy are eliminated. And oh, by the way, in the infamous words of Walter White in Breaking Bad, “We’re done when I say we’re done.”

So, to summarize, Trump started his war without an adequate intellectual, intelligence-based strategic process, and totally lacking in contingency plans to extract America from a conflict that was not in our self-interest to initiate in the first place.

History will judge this war as a volatile result of ignorance, bravado, and international manipulation.

Place in a beaker a president who thinks he is “smarter than all the generals.” Add one yes-man, tough-bro Secretary of Defense with a total lack of trust in or appreciation for the sophisticated strategic planning apparatus at his fingertips. And finally throw in a manipulative world leader who from his first meeting with Trump understood that flattery and praise could achieve the impossible…lead Trump to do something not in his own political interest.

Put it all together and boom. Trump’s War rises from the smoke and the broken glass.

A novice poll reader could see that the American people did not want to go to war. A C student in political science knew that the promise to end wars was one important factor that got Trump elected. An economics major thinking about making a change because he can’t hack the math understood that war in the Middle East means an increase in fuel prices. My granddaughters might not have known that November 3 is Election Day, but ChatGPT could tell them that it’s only 227 days away.

They say that the worst mistake you can make in Washington is getting caught telling the truth. In those confused days after the start of Trump’s War when he was in hiding and the administration's reasons for invading Iran were changing by the news cycle, one moment stands out for me.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio was standing in the foyer of the Rayburn House Office Building, having belatedly made the congressional rounds regarding the Trump-declared war. He once again tried an explanation of the causes for our attack and oops, the truth escaped his lips.

Simply put. Israel felt imminently threatened (their intel?) and were going to preemptively attack Iran. We knew that among Iran’s automatic counterattack targets were American bases in the Middle East. So, we joined Israel in the attack to protect our interests.

The truth.

But you had to be listening carefully because you’ve never heard it again. Not from the podium in daily press briefings at the White House or the Pentagon. Not from the President’s untethered social media posts. Not in a Presidential Address to the Nation.

It tore back the curtain and admitted that Bibi was running the show. Trump’s War is really Bibi’s War, and we are helmetless riders in the sidecar.

The good news is that the Pentagon’s $200 billion request for war funding has even awakened the Republican Congress. They can still say they never voted for the war as they approach the folks back home, but being asked to pick up the tab is essentially the same thing. Some of the MAGA faithful have already announced they are a no vote. Even if the President doesn’t understand the unpopularity of a war that is impacting America at the gas pump and grocery store, the congress is getting it full force whether the state is red or blue.

So, what to do?

Tell your congressmen and senators that you are against this war and do not support continued funding.

Tell your congressmen and senators that you do not support the Save America Act (it is truly a Save Trump Act). Voter fraud is NOT a problem in America. We have a competent, decentralized, state-based voting system. I have been a part of it in Maryland and North Carolina and stand by its integrity. Requiring costly documentation for voter registration is like a return to the Poll Tax. It will disproportionately impact low income Americans and silence their voices.

Keep reading, please share this post with others, and let me know what you think.