Iran has been chanting “Death to America!,” since 1979, when the people of Iran deposed the dictator we installed back in 1953.
Our illicit and sometimes outright illegal activities, not to mention the bombings and economic sanctions, have not led to peace. Now we’re in a full fledged war with a country incapable of doing much stronger than chanting at us.
Until now.
Trump had blustered and blundered his way into a war he cannot extract himself from and cannot claim victory and walk away. A man who bone spurred Vietnam five times has created a new endless war he cannot get out of, and each day he stays in things get much worse for both Trump and America.
Iran has a legitimate opportunity of doing real damage to the Unites States of America, and they’re getting plenty of help. By lifting sanctions on Iran, while he’s bombing the same country, Trump has assured the world Iran’s economy is booming. Whatever damage we can inflict, Iran will have the money to pay for.
Infinitely worse, Russia’s futures have likewise brightened. Russian oil is flowing again, with buyers in the Pacific ignoring Trump’s admonishments not to buy. Russia can now fully fund their destruction of Ukraine thanks to Trump.
China and Russia can now both send intel to Iran as to where to hit the Americans, how to hit them, and maybe even pay them to strike American positions throughout the Middle East.
Suddenly, Trump decided to call up the Marines.
If there is anything more asinine than a war in the Middle East, it’s a ground war in the Middle East. Recruitment numbers were already crashing and now very real possibility of a bloodbath, with American blood flowing, looms large.
Once we establish any sort of infrastructure anywhere close to Iran, it’s going to make the previous Gulf Wars look like Disney. Bereft of allies willing to join in the stupidity, Marines and the American Army will be sitting ducks for any armed group in the Middle East who has a grievance against America, or Israel.
In the meantime, Israel is burning through billions of American dollars bombing people anywhere they think someone might die. By targeting oil fields and energy infrastructure, it’s only a matter of time before oil prices reach a point Americans are walking to work, if they can find a job.
How will this affect Trump and his family? Not at all. They’ve grifted their way through this war as if it were money for the taking. Qatar gave Trump a billion dollar plane and in return he allowed them a base in America. We have no idea what’s other deals he’s making or with who or for how much, but we do know Congress doesn’t have the balls to do anything about it.
As long as the Epstein files keep pinging the headlines, Trump will cause wars. It’s his way of distracting the county from the idea he ought to be serving life sentences without the possibility of parole.
Are we great again yet?
Take Care,
Mike
“Congress doesn’t have the balls to do anything”
Just to be clear, it’s the Republiclans in Congress, as they are the ones in control of both chambers.
I stand corrected. The Republicans don’t have the balls to do anything.
Dems had 4 years to prosecute Trump for trying to overthrow the election and they didn’t have the balls to do anything either.
They impeached him!
if you’re talking criminal charges, that’s not on Congress, that’s on Merrick Garland, who seemingly dragged his feet for two years. And before you blame Biden, it’s the Attorney General’s duty is to uphold the law and represent the public interest, rather than acting as a personal attorney for the President.
Biden didn’t put his attorney general on puppet strings like Pam Blondi. Just there to defend Trump and do his bidding like she has since taking his $25,000 “campaign contribution” bribe to drop the investigation of Trump University in Florida.
But Garland worked way too slow and not at Biden’s bidding to actually do the “lawfare” that the Trump propaganda outlets accused Biden of doing.
I don’t wish to take away the significance of your connection to the circus peanut starting a war to divert attention from his pedophile past, but I do wish to present a secondary motive to this war in which he is unknowingly taking part of. By this I mean, it’s no secret that Putin is pulling his strings and manipulating his actions to the detriment of the USA. The plot to destroy America, is a simple one. Destroy it financially and it’s dominance around the world diminishes.
The importance of the dollar being the world’s global reserve currency and how so much of what we can see has been happening with global politics over the last decade has been, or can be better understood through a lens of understanding as an attack on that.
What does the global reserve currency even means and why does it matter? And why does it matter to you? Why does it matter to any American? And I don’t just mean liberals. I don’t just mean progressives. I don’t even just mean people who value democracy. I just mean people who live in this country who care about it. I even mean people who live outside this country who like the idea of a Western alliance wielding influence more than a regime from China or from Russia running things or growing in influence. So what it means, is that central banks hold over half, over 58%, somewhere between a half and two thirds of their foreign exchange reserves in US dollars. Second, it is the medium of exchange. It is the dominant currency for international trade and financial transactions, roughly 90% of global transactions.
It means we’re going to shift this major thing for this major pot of capital that usually happens in dollars. It means commodity pricing. Key commodities, oil, gold, et cetera, are priced in US dollars. During global economic instability, investors treat the dollar as a secure store of value. It is the safe haven asset.
Why does it matter? Here’s some of the reasons it matters. It lowers borrowing costs. It means that demand for US treasuries enables the United States government to borrow money at lower interest rates. Why do we care about that? Because that means you pay lower interest rates on your mortgage, on your car payment. It means that American companies are able to access capital at lower rates, meaning they can not only be more profitable, but even before profits, they’re in a better position to pay wages. It means there is a greater ability to attract foreign investment, which also increases access to capital for American companies, which means American companies can do more things, build more things, hire more people. It means the dollar is more stable. That’s the reason it becomes a little bit circular, but that’s the reason that that stability enables it further to be the global reserve currency AND that dollar stability offers huge value to all of us. Think about the countries where they don’t have stability in their currency.
Think about Weimar Germany when they were bringing wheelbarrows of almost worthless money to buy a cup of milk. What could go wrong if it’s lost? Higher interest rates, debt stress. The government could have to offer higher interest rates to attract buyers of our money, which would raise the cost of servicing an already large federal debt. a weaker dollar and greater risk of inflation. You think the prices have gone up now? Imagine what those prices will be if the dollar is no longer the global reserve currency, if Putin gets what he wants, if now Iran gets what they want. They don’t want it to be the global reserve currency anymore. The enemies want to attack America. This is the way to attack America. A hit to financial markets and the United States wealth. And by the way, impacts to American wealth negatively do trickle outwards. Their benefits don’t always trickle down because they hoard, but the negative impacts do trickle downwards. Higher costs for imports and credit, lower real wages, impacting living standards, less global leverage.
I root for the United States power over the power of the other global competitive power options that I see. I’d rather us be strong than China be strong. I’d rather us be strong rather than Russia be strong. And by that, I don’t mean them to be weaker or worse for their people, but in terms of who is projecting power out to the rest of the world. I’m a little bit selfish in that regard. I’m a little bit patriotic in that regard. I’m a little bit jingoistic in that regard.
I don’t want the United States to be an overwhelming, bullish empire, but I don’t want us to hasten our demise either. I’m grateful for the benefits that we get from it, but I also see the benefits of democracies having more influence. And to me, the best parts of after World War II when democracies got together and say, hey, let’s make sure democracies have more power rather than autocracies having more power.
So when I’m talking about the global reserve currency stuff, I’m trying to get to stuff that seems so far afield from what typically brings people to the polls. It’s because sometimes the most interesting, most important stuff is not the stuff that’s obviously interesting, that’s obviously important. Sometimes it’s the stuff that’s a little bit under the surface, that doesn’t have the biggest ad campaign.
The US has been an economic power for a long time. Take away that wealth and that power is gone and certainly will not be able to sustain any speck of America First thinking.
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/content-series/atlantic-council-strategy-paper-series/why-the-us-cannot-afford-to-lose-dollar-dominance/
CAI, it’s an odd coincident the only nations who are making money on this war are Russia, China, and Iran. Or is it?
Trump has done little with consistency but being a Russian asset is at the top of the list. In the middle of the war he decides going to China is the thing to do.
And he lifted sanctions on Iran shortly after the war began.
He’s ground our military down beyond the breaking point with this war and now the DOD is taking in pot heads and 42 year olds.
Anything that hurts America, I wouldn’t put past Trump.
Just to clarify, I feel he’s too stupid to understand the concept of a global reserve currency. The larger point, is that he’s so easily persuaded to do stupid things just by the right person flattering him or in Putin’s case, having something on him.