Why Now?
I actually had something different planned for today’s post, but wars can really fuck up your schedule—just ask Ayatollah Ali Khamenei—and writing about anything else at this point seemed off-target, so here’s an essay about the first of what I assume will be far too many cartoons about Donald Trump starting a war we didn’t have to fight.
As you might already be aware (but I pointed it out in this cartoon anyway) the guy who is responsible for innocent protesters getting shot in Minneapolis, for killing people he only suspects of drug-running, for kidnapping the President of Venezuela and now starting a war with Iran, thinks he deserves a Nobel Peace Prize.
I’m sure a sizeable number of psychiatrists and psychologists would love to get Donald Trump on a couch and explore the Moral Wasteland between his ears, but until someone more qualified shows up, I’ll give it a shot:
Donald Trump exhibits symptoms of ADHD (Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder) which is demonstrated by his inability to finish a sentence, his constant stream of random social media posts and forgetting that he ran on an “America First” platform and promised to:
“Abandon the failed policy of nation building and regime change.”
Just last year Trump said: “so-called ‘nation-builders’ wrecked far more nations than they built — and the interventionists were intervening in complex societies that they did not even understand themselves.”
It has become clear that Donald Trump doesn’t understand how democracy works in this country, so what are the odds he can build a democracy somewhere else?
Look, if you haven’t already figured out Donald Trump believes in just one thing—whatever’s good for Donald Trump at the moment—you haven’t been paying attention.
And while I’m analyzing Trump: he also appears to engage in “zero-sum thinking” which is the belief that there’s only so much good stuff to go around, so anything good that happens to anybody else happens at his expense.
Which is why it chaps Donald Trump’s ample ass when someone else gets a Nobel Peace Prize and I’m kind of amazed Trump hasn’t also demanded a Grammy, an Oscar and to be named the 2026 MVP of the National League even though they haven’t played the baseball season yet.
In my admittedly-limited experience, there are two kinds of people:
People who believe there are two kinds of people.
People who don’t.
(Just kidding, there are probably a jillion kinds of people with all kinds of problems and personality traits, but I still think most of those people fall into two broad categories and this time I’m serious.)
People who realize they’re an asshole and are trying to do better.
People who don’t realize they’re an asshole and will be the exact same kind of asshole until Death Do Us Part.
Donald Trump’s in the second category.
Why Now?
The people who know about this stuff are asking why attack Iran now because not much has changed recently and even though Trump is claiming he had to take action because Iran is working on missiles that could reach the United States, according to U.S. intelligence, that isn’t so.
In fact, last year the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency said Iran could develop ICBMs by 2035 “should Tehran decide to pursue the capability.”
Here’s a useful hint: when someone offers you more than one excuse for doing something fucked-up, there’s a really good chance they’re lying.
When the first excuse didn’t convince anybody, Trump offered another one and this time he started the war because Iran was about to attack us, but Trump and Marco Rubio didn’t coordinate their lies because Rubio said Israel was about to attack Iran so we decided to join them and Trump said he attacked Iran so Israel decided to join him.
We still need an answer to “why now” and I’ll answer that question with another question:
How much have you heard about the Epstein Files in the last 48 hours?
(P.S. The news about the Clintons’ testimony doesn’t count because in my estimation that’s just another distraction to keep the media too busy to ask about Trump’s involvement with Epstein.)
Today’s Lesson
On more than one occasion the United States has fallen for the idea that everyone in the world wants to be just like us and if we topple the government of:
Iran
Iraq
Vietnam
Cuba
Take your choice…
The people will rise up and be grateful and love Americans and we listen to asshole/con men like Ahmed Chalabi tell us what we want to hear: “The people of Iraq will be eternally grateful and by the way, they’d really like it if I was in charge” and decide we’re going to “fix” a country we don’t understand.
Then we’re surprised when the majority of people aren’t thrilled with us dropping bombs on them and here’s a cartoon sketch from my book “The Stuff They Wouldn’t Print” which—as the book title suggests—the Kansas City Star wouldn’t print:
We were told the Iraqis would greet us with flowers and instead over 4,400 of our soldiers got killed.
Before starting a war here’s a question we ought to ask ourselves:
What do we do if we win?
How long do we stay, what government will replace the one we toppled, who will be the leaders and what are the odds the people of that country are going to be grateful that we dropped bombs on them?
Initial projections for the Vietnam War did not envision a long, drawn out conflict; we were there for most of two decades.
According to the internet, we thought Operation Iraqi Freedom would last six weeks; we were there for nine years.
In February of 2022 Russia invaded Ukraine and the Kremlin predicted it would install a new government within three-to-10 days; four years later Russia’s still fighting.
And if you need any more evidence that “Operation Epic Fury”—and, Jesus, what high school sophomore cooked up that name?—is poorly thought out, Trump was asked who he envisioned leading Iran after we killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Trump said they hadn’t given it much thought. And then added:
“Well, most of the people we had in mind are dead.”
And they’re dead because we killed them with our bombs and we may have killed a second group of possible leaders—Trump wasn’t sure—and then, because he doesn’t appear to understand how bad all that sounds, kept right on going and said:
“We’re not going to know anybody.”
Really thought this one out, huh?
Hang in there, this one might get bumpy.
I don't have words. So I restacked, and I'm telling all my Facebook friends to read...I know Kansas City friends of mine will read it. At least.
Thank you for your clarity today, Lee. No coffee snorting, a little too sobering, but that's okay for these days.
It's actually Operation Epstein Fury.
Epic Failure in the making.