As during the Venezuelan adventure, it's a really good time to check in with various thinkers to see what they think out loud about war, in this case on Iran.
Some nasty surprises so far, but important to know as we head into the midterms and are told to get on the bus to vote for the lesser evil lest we suffer a greater evil. What I'm seeing now reminds me of myself twenty-five years ago when I did support war "over there" to stop terrorism "over here". Yes I bought the neatly packaged stories about good and evil, the hasbara, the capesh!t, the highly-processed civilizational food for sale, because the stories are easy to buy when you are otherwise busy raising young children and short of time. And I fed it to my children. Now, I have more time.
Being skeptical of war in a defensible way is like learning to grow your own food and cook it yourself. Ha ha, and maintain your own septic system.
Murder dozens of school girls and kill their top leaders and we expect these sorts of actions to encourage the population to risk their lives in a regime change? Iranians know that while their oppressive regime is odious, being run by the US and Israel will be no better. And they have plenty of examples to point to.
Our new metric for success is the removal of top leadership- and number of sorties flown and Iranian missiles shot down. Does this remind anyone of Vietnam body count? We had to destroy the village to save it?
What are our goals? Has Trump enumerated them?
Our leaders are war criminals. Their actions are not justifiable by anyone with conscience.
So if Khamenei, his son and his wife have been killed by the Anglo-Zionists, as being reported, are Trump's and Satanyahu's family now fair game also for tje Iranians and their "proxies"? I would say absolutely, why not? What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
Iran has been labeled a state sponsor of terrorism by the US. The US is a state sponsor of terror as well, and has killed more innocent people pursuing wars abroad than any other country in my lifetime. Israel is a state sponsor of terror - and we only need to look at its bombings and indiscriminate pager/cell phone attacks across the ME in the last year to prove it.
Another factor is the absolute rage the assassination of Khamenei has caused with Shia Muslims outside Iran. The US base in Erbil is burning. Angry mob in Baghdad clashing with police at the US embassy. I've seen reports from as far out as Kashmir.
Iraq and Azerbaijan have huge Shia populations. Bargain is about half, from memory. I agree with Larry Johnson's estimate that we could see Hezbollah (or what's left of it) activate. Pakistan has over 40 million Shia.
This cold end up being another October 7 moment for the whole region.
- while doing limited damage so far without casualties to U.S. bases in the Middle East.
If Iran caused mass U.S. casualties there would be no off-ramp for Trump. Same for a terrorist attack in the continental U.S. or sinking an aircraft carrier.I believe Iran has the ability to do all of these successfully.
I suggest you all that tomorrow, Monday at the latest you get down and fill your car up because by Tuesday new prices will be evident at the pump. Start checking the futures market tomorrow night at 6 PM central standard time when they opened and golf course check the Asian markets at they’re open that’s gonna tell us what’s gonna happen Monday morning here in the United States
Sold my '40 acres' (kept the mule) & thankfully, all the snow blowers, chain saws, lawn mowers about 4 years ago. I'll have to figure out a way to divest 10 gal. old gas. Ebay?
Intriguing that Thomas Hardy's novels include some reference to Roman roots, with passages about "burial grounds where Roman soldiers were unearthed" and the like.
Krainer & others frequently point to the British and/or City of London as the bad guys, and I've frequently wondered if the British were inherently predatory or if the pattern/habits were brought into England by another group with different cultural habits.
Looks like resentment of Rome and all it stood for runs deeper than the graves of Roman soldiers in British soil.
----. The massacre at the girls’ school will likely provide Iran with sufficient incentive to keep this going until the threat is removed.=====
That and perhaps moreso the Assassination
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei - Iran's Supreme Religious Leader since 1989
was killed - 86 years of age
86
When my father was 86 we listened to him often with great patience, and respect
but he was not making any decisions - you know Khamenei had ' backup ' had a group of learned and trusted persons around him making decisions or ' helping him make ' decisions
If the US desired a Martyr and to Extend and Exacerbate the war -well then they did a great job
.
86 Years Old - I am sure he was a real threat - a real threat
Being up 3 times a night having to go to the bathroom I am sure he was working 24/7 on all the issues.
. Assassinating this 86 year old was just so stupid - so ridiculous.
And I am certain this is what Khameni desired - I will bet you this is what he wanted
and how he wanted to leave the earth, as a Martyr.
I agree - And of Course that is how it is presented
Biden was presented in the same manner
Ruth Bader Ginsberg was presented in the same manner
The Pope historically older Popes operated the same manner
===========================
We all know there are human frailties mental and physical at the age of 86
It is just not arguable
Some of those are easily seen - some are hidden
but all know he was say - not the same person with the same comprehension of when he was 65 years old
And technology has changed SO Dramatically - No one could keep up with it especially not at that age
=================Killing Khamenei was a historic mistake - or intentionally done for - for the very same reason
it escalated to a much greater war where Iranians could not take a simple ceasefire
from a possibly simpler one
Also reported: Pre-Death Khamenei had contingency plans ( insane not to ) directives for four backup layers per role, naming three clerics as potential successors, and delegating to confidants for disruption scenarios (among reports were the NYT )
Killing Khamenei was a historic mistake - or intentional - for the same reason
it escalated where Iranians could not take a simple ceasefire
His assassination is the satisfaction of the blood thirst of Trump and Netanyahu and all the neocons. A tactical success but perhaps a strategic miscalculation.
The Haggai Ram essays noted earlier support the notion that the obsession with 'Killing the ayatollah' has far more to do with Israeli/zionism's very fragile identity/pathology than with the expectation that, for example, Pahlavi, Jr. will take charge -- nobody knows him or wants him; he's a tool that Israelis use.
Haggai Ram's argument has several intelocking parts:
1. Important to recognize that Zionism in Palestine was for EASTERN EUROPEAN JEWS, definitely not assimilated British, German/Central European or American Jews.
b. American Jews played a major role in advancing zionism: American Jews dominated Versailles, overwhelming Wilson in their determination to gain Palestine for Jews. Louis Brandeis was a key figure in this activism. It was part of assimilated American Jewry's effort to do something about the massive influx of East European Jews who were an acute embarrassment to the earlier American Jews, who were mostly German Jews.
2. Eastern European Jews-to-Palestine were to become Westernized
a. Arthur Ruppin "created Hebrew Culture in Palestine" on a German model (Ruppin was born & educated in Germany; was an award-winning scholar of eugenics & applied eugenic theory to selection of the "human material" suitable to become the "new Jew" (Etan Bloom, TelAviv U., Arthur Ruppin and the Production of the Modern Hebrew Culture https://www.nakim.org/EtanBloom-PhD-ArthurRuppin.pdf )
3. Haggai Ram argues that Jews embraced Iranian Jews during the Pahlavi era because Pahlavi represented (to them) "westernism" and European-ness: they had shed their identity as shtetl Ostjuden and were just as Western as German-Europeans--
a. Actually, European-ish Pahlavi allowed them to shed another identity, that of the Arab-Semite, which they rejected/hated:
--> ""Israel's enchantment with Iran under the Shah derived in no small part from that regime's analogous endeavor to shut itself off from the Arab Orient and to define the Iranian polity in classic Orientalist terms as Euro-American."
-->(Gil Eyal, The Disenchantment of the Orient: "At the end of every Hebrew sentence that you utter,
There sits an Arab, smoking his hookah,
Even if it begun in Siberia,
Or in Hollywood, with Hava Nagilah." - Me'ir Ariel)
b. "In order to understand what singled out Iran in the eyes of the Jewish state, we need to direct our attention to the cultural values at work in their bilateral relations. Much has already been said and written about the partitions and enclosures that designated the Jewish state as the forefront of Western, Judeo-Christian civilization in the Middle East-a "villa in the middle of the jungle," in Ehud Barak's revealing image. I suggest that Israel's enchantment with Iran under the Shah derived in no small part from that regime's analogous endeavor to shut itself off from the Arab Orient and to define the Iranian polity in classic Orientalist terms as Euro-American. " (Haggai Ram, To Banish the 'Levantine Dunghill' from within: Toward a Cultural Understanding of Israeli Anti-Iran Phobias https://tinyurl.com/ytfnkk9j )
4. Shah Pahlavi displaced by an (Arab-like) Mullah plunged zionist Ostjuden into an identity-crisis:
" Israelis saw the revolution as a "terrible detour" from the trajectory toward progress and civilization and (re)consigned the Iranians to static backwardness, regardless of how the revolution was shaped by interaction with Euro-America. Indeed, for the past three decades the Jewish state has been keen to assume the radical alterity of the Iranian polity, canceling out pre-1979 notions of shared histories and intertwined destinies." (Haggai Ram)
5. The ayatollah is dead. But the question remains: Can Israelis rescue themselves from their frenzied, psychotic search for an identity?
It's not certain.
" Israel potentially faced a fate similar to Iran's given that a sizable portion of the population closely allied religious heritage with political Zionism. . . .
[quoting Yosef Lapid]: "Because we are in a corrupt, lazy, backward Middle Eastern environment. What keeps us above water is our cultural difference. The fact that we are a forward outpost of Western civilization. If our Westernism erodes, we won't have a chance. If we let the Eastern European ghetto and the North African ghetto take over, we will have nothing to float on. We will blend into the Semitic region and be lost within a terrible Levantine dunghill."
I'm thrilled that Iran is flattening US bases in the area. I'd be happy if they flattened every US base on the planet. During Trump years US has included the line that "protesters" in the various countries should overthrow their government, effectively be boots on the ground for the wonderful US. Assuming protesters' bank accounts weren't frozen, how exactly would they do this? Also, how would Trump like it if he was hiding out in the US and someone bombed his location causing his death?
Tea Party and then election of Trump were two recent massive efforts but both were easily co-opted. Nevertheless, to escape US taxpayer enslavement to the war machine US must be broken up into 5 smaller countries. Perhaps then my vote for NY City mayor won't be nullified as it was in Nov. 2025.
The current UK Defence Minister is condemning the "indiscriminate" bombing of US bases (semi-abandoned almost certainly). I can't be bothered with citing the worm, but to me this seems a carefully calibrated rope-a-dope response.
Fate takes a long time to unwind, and the Epstein Alliance knows their window of opportunity is slamming shut.
I agree 100% about UK's pathetic attempt to throw spit balls from the sidelines. On the other hand, the so-called great relationship between US and UK monarchy needed to end a long time ago-1776 wasn't the end. Too many US elites feel monarchies are really cool.
I read that before Feb.28 some--not all--personnel had been moved out of some of the Mideast US bases. The total population on the bases had been 40,000--50,000. I don't know if the reduction happened, or the number. Reduction or not, the US military bases would not have been fully abandoned.
I do not hope that ANY US base would be "flattened". Closed, yes. A flattened base means deaths, injuries, and a whole lot of heartache.
I didn't/don't envision a single American being injured or killed via a flattened military base. Certainly the bases should've been evacuated under present circumstances. I believe the US has gone far overboard in its taxpayer funded foreign and military obsessions. Either it needs to permanently close all bases or the "war" industry needs to break off from the US and just run itself as a separate business. The idea of 40,000-50,000 people at Mideast US bases is horrifying to me.
As during the Venezuelan adventure, it's a really good time to check in with various thinkers to see what they think out loud about war, in this case on Iran.
Some nasty surprises so far, but important to know as we head into the midterms and are told to get on the bus to vote for the lesser evil lest we suffer a greater evil. What I'm seeing now reminds me of myself twenty-five years ago when I did support war "over there" to stop terrorism "over here". Yes I bought the neatly packaged stories about good and evil, the hasbara, the capesh!t, the highly-processed civilizational food for sale, because the stories are easy to buy when you are otherwise busy raising young children and short of time. And I fed it to my children. Now, I have more time.
Being skeptical of war in a defensible way is like learning to grow your own food and cook it yourself. Ha ha, and maintain your own septic system.
Three U.S. soldiers killed for Bibi and Trump’s illegal war. Will the press ask Trump if it was worth it?
https://time.com/7381938/us-soldiers-killed-iran/
To avoid getting nuked, I think Iran should wound Israel fatally - but not obviously so.
Then back off.
Israel's raging narcissism wouldn't allow an honest assessment - they'd claim victory and attempt to recover (while slowly dying)
"The massacre at the girls’ school will likely provide Iran with sufficient incentive to keep this going until the threat is removed."
"A POINT OF NO RETURN"
https://x.com/ibrahimtmajed/status/2027939193515639004?s=20
Murder dozens of school girls and kill their top leaders and we expect these sorts of actions to encourage the population to risk their lives in a regime change? Iranians know that while their oppressive regime is odious, being run by the US and Israel will be no better. And they have plenty of examples to point to.
Our new metric for success is the removal of top leadership- and number of sorties flown and Iranian missiles shot down. Does this remind anyone of Vietnam body count? We had to destroy the village to save it?
What are our goals? Has Trump enumerated them?
Our leaders are war criminals. Their actions are not justifiable by anyone with conscience.
So if Khamenei, his son and his wife have been killed by the Anglo-Zionists, as being reported, are Trump's and Satanyahu's family now fair game also for tje Iranians and their "proxies"? I would say absolutely, why not? What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
Iran has been labeled a state sponsor of terrorism by the US. The US is a state sponsor of terror as well, and has killed more innocent people pursuing wars abroad than any other country in my lifetime. Israel is a state sponsor of terror - and we only need to look at its bombings and indiscriminate pager/cell phone attacks across the ME in the last year to prove it.
US is the biggest state sponsor of terrorism. Trump openly brags about it, even bringing that ISIS head chopper to the Oval Office. Disgrace.
Another factor is the absolute rage the assassination of Khamenei has caused with Shia Muslims outside Iran. The US base in Erbil is burning. Angry mob in Baghdad clashing with police at the US embassy. I've seen reports from as far out as Kashmir.
Iraq and Azerbaijan have huge Shia populations. Bargain is about half, from memory. I agree with Larry Johnson's estimate that we could see Hezbollah (or what's left of it) activate. Pakistan has over 40 million Shia.
This cold end up being another October 7 moment for the whole region.
Quote of the Morning (Sun Mar 1 '26): Chas Freeman to Glenn Diesen:
"Iran may end up being shaken, not stirred."
Iran is playing a smart game by:
- going after Israel causing huge pain
- while doing limited damage so far without casualties to U.S. bases in the Middle East.
If Iran caused mass U.S. casualties there would be no off-ramp for Trump. Same for a terrorist attack in the continental U.S. or sinking an aircraft carrier.I believe Iran has the ability to do all of these successfully.
I suggest you all that tomorrow, Monday at the latest you get down and fill your car up because by Tuesday new prices will be evident at the pump. Start checking the futures market tomorrow night at 6 PM central standard time when they opened and golf course check the Asian markets at they’re open that’s gonna tell us what’s gonna happen Monday morning here in the United States
I got lucky and got heating oil for $3.69/gal. Gas is $2.67, I'll fill up my car and all my gas cans today.
oh pshaw
I filled up gas cans two crises ago -- when gas was in the $4 range!
Anybody know if gas goes stale? Now I'm afraid to use it in car.
Yesterday gas was 6 to 7 cents higher than the day before. Chicken w/ head off: reality has not yet hit home.
I will mix one gallon of clean old gas (year old) with a nearly full tank of new gas and I’ve not had a problem.
Yes, gasoline oxidizes after 6 months max. Don't put it in your car after that unless you've added a fuel stabilizer.
You can add preservative to it to keep it from gelling. Find it in any hardware store. I've used old gas in lawn mowers, snowblowers, etc.
Thanks Manul, Bob C and Mimi A.
Sold my '40 acres' (kept the mule) & thankfully, all the snow blowers, chain saws, lawn mowers about 4 years ago. I'll have to figure out a way to divest 10 gal. old gas. Ebay?
-------
Listened in to Yakov Rabkin, Jeff Sachs, w/ Pascal Lottaz discuss origins of zionism. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzU6frsoNoc
Rabkin has studied it intensely; tracks it to 16th Century British (& European) Protestants.
Their motivation was decidedly anti-Catholic, anti-Roman, anti-Popery. In other words, strong political sentiments.
https://tinyurl.com/8hapjzxe
Intriguing that Thomas Hardy's novels include some reference to Roman roots, with passages about "burial grounds where Roman soldiers were unearthed" and the like.
Krainer & others frequently point to the British and/or City of London as the bad guys, and I've frequently wondered if the British were inherently predatory or if the pattern/habits were brought into England by another group with different cultural habits.
Looks like resentment of Rome and all it stood for runs deeper than the graves of Roman soldiers in British soil.
Trump is desperately trying to end the war before the market opens Monday morning. The Iranians may not permit this.
As they said yesterday. Iran is not on USreal's schedule
----. The massacre at the girls’ school will likely provide Iran with sufficient incentive to keep this going until the threat is removed.=====
That and perhaps moreso the Assassination
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei - Iran's Supreme Religious Leader since 1989
was killed - 86 years of age
86
When my father was 86 we listened to him often with great patience, and respect
but he was not making any decisions - you know Khamenei had ' backup ' had a group of learned and trusted persons around him making decisions or ' helping him make ' decisions
If the US desired a Martyr and to Extend and Exacerbate the war -well then they did a great job
.
86 Years Old - I am sure he was a real threat - a real threat
Being up 3 times a night having to go to the bathroom I am sure he was working 24/7 on all the issues.
. Assassinating this 86 year old was just so stupid - so ridiculous.
And I am certain this is what Khameni desired - I will bet you this is what he wanted
and how he wanted to leave the earth, as a Martyr.
.
.
If you listen to Glenn Diesen's talk with Prof. Marandi this morning, the Ayatollah did not sound like a doddering old man, far from it.
I agree - And of Course that is how it is presented
Biden was presented in the same manner
Ruth Bader Ginsberg was presented in the same manner
The Pope historically older Popes operated the same manner
===========================
We all know there are human frailties mental and physical at the age of 86
It is just not arguable
Some of those are easily seen - some are hidden
but all know he was say - not the same person with the same comprehension of when he was 65 years old
And technology has changed SO Dramatically - No one could keep up with it especially not at that age
=================Killing Khamenei was a historic mistake - or intentionally done for - for the very same reason
it escalated to a much greater war where Iranians could not take a simple ceasefire
from a possibly simpler one
Also reported: Pre-Death Khamenei had contingency plans ( insane not to ) directives for four backup layers per role, naming three clerics as potential successors, and delegating to confidants for disruption scenarios (among reports were the NYT )
Killing Khamenei was a historic mistake - or intentional - for the same reason
it escalated where Iranians could not take a simple ceasefire
"Assassinating this 86 year old was just so stupid - so ridiculous."
The foolish Trump and his ignorant tiny hat caravan created a martyr that
will buff up the Iranian fighting spirit. Well done you galoots...well played!
His assassination is the satisfaction of the blood thirst of Trump and Netanyahu and all the neocons. A tactical success but perhaps a strategic miscalculation.
The Haggai Ram essays noted earlier support the notion that the obsession with 'Killing the ayatollah' has far more to do with Israeli/zionism's very fragile identity/pathology than with the expectation that, for example, Pahlavi, Jr. will take charge -- nobody knows him or wants him; he's a tool that Israelis use.
Haggai Ram's argument has several intelocking parts:
1. Important to recognize that Zionism in Palestine was for EASTERN EUROPEAN JEWS, definitely not assimilated British, German/Central European or American Jews.
a. Ilan Pappé -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1Iw2fm58FY&t=866s (from ~18 min)
b. American Jews played a major role in advancing zionism: American Jews dominated Versailles, overwhelming Wilson in their determination to gain Palestine for Jews. Louis Brandeis was a key figure in this activism. It was part of assimilated American Jewry's effort to do something about the massive influx of East European Jews who were an acute embarrassment to the earlier American Jews, who were mostly German Jews.
2. Eastern European Jews-to-Palestine were to become Westernized
a. Arthur Ruppin "created Hebrew Culture in Palestine" on a German model (Ruppin was born & educated in Germany; was an award-winning scholar of eugenics & applied eugenic theory to selection of the "human material" suitable to become the "new Jew" (Etan Bloom, TelAviv U., Arthur Ruppin and the Production of the Modern Hebrew Culture https://www.nakim.org/EtanBloom-PhD-ArthurRuppin.pdf )
3. Haggai Ram argues that Jews embraced Iranian Jews during the Pahlavi era because Pahlavi represented (to them) "westernism" and European-ness: they had shed their identity as shtetl Ostjuden and were just as Western as German-Europeans--
a. Actually, European-ish Pahlavi allowed them to shed another identity, that of the Arab-Semite, which they rejected/hated:
--> ""Israel's enchantment with Iran under the Shah derived in no small part from that regime's analogous endeavor to shut itself off from the Arab Orient and to define the Iranian polity in classic Orientalist terms as Euro-American."
-->(Gil Eyal, The Disenchantment of the Orient: "At the end of every Hebrew sentence that you utter,
There sits an Arab, smoking his hookah,
Even if it begun in Siberia,
Or in Hollywood, with Hava Nagilah." - Me'ir Ariel)
b. "In order to understand what singled out Iran in the eyes of the Jewish state, we need to direct our attention to the cultural values at work in their bilateral relations. Much has already been said and written about the partitions and enclosures that designated the Jewish state as the forefront of Western, Judeo-Christian civilization in the Middle East-a "villa in the middle of the jungle," in Ehud Barak's revealing image. I suggest that Israel's enchantment with Iran under the Shah derived in no small part from that regime's analogous endeavor to shut itself off from the Arab Orient and to define the Iranian polity in classic Orientalist terms as Euro-American. " (Haggai Ram, To Banish the 'Levantine Dunghill' from within: Toward a Cultural Understanding of Israeli Anti-Iran Phobias https://tinyurl.com/ytfnkk9j )
4. Shah Pahlavi displaced by an (Arab-like) Mullah plunged zionist Ostjuden into an identity-crisis:
" Israelis saw the revolution as a "terrible detour" from the trajectory toward progress and civilization and (re)consigned the Iranians to static backwardness, regardless of how the revolution was shaped by interaction with Euro-America. Indeed, for the past three decades the Jewish state has been keen to assume the radical alterity of the Iranian polity, canceling out pre-1979 notions of shared histories and intertwined destinies." (Haggai Ram)
5. The ayatollah is dead. But the question remains: Can Israelis rescue themselves from their frenzied, psychotic search for an identity?
It's not certain.
" Israel potentially faced a fate similar to Iran's given that a sizable portion of the population closely allied religious heritage with political Zionism. . . .
[quoting Yosef Lapid]: "Because we are in a corrupt, lazy, backward Middle Eastern environment. What keeps us above water is our cultural difference. The fact that we are a forward outpost of Western civilization. If our Westernism erodes, we won't have a chance. If we let the Eastern European ghetto and the North African ghetto take over, we will have nothing to float on. We will blend into the Semitic region and be lost within a terrible Levantine dunghill."
It was a huge strategic miscalculation.
I still cannot believe this is happening — sorry, yes, I know, it was all predicted…..
I'm thrilled that Iran is flattening US bases in the area. I'd be happy if they flattened every US base on the planet. During Trump years US has included the line that "protesters" in the various countries should overthrow their government, effectively be boots on the ground for the wonderful US. Assuming protesters' bank accounts weren't frozen, how exactly would they do this? Also, how would Trump like it if he was hiding out in the US and someone bombed his location causing his death?
When does the over throw of USG begin.
Tea Party and then election of Trump were two recent massive efforts but both were easily co-opted. Nevertheless, to escape US taxpayer enslavement to the war machine US must be broken up into 5 smaller countries. Perhaps then my vote for NY City mayor won't be nullified as it was in Nov. 2025.
Netanyahu is hiding his sorry ass in Berlin.
I heard that. Any confirmation?
If so, he changed the method of "leading from behind" into "leading from far away".
The current UK Defence Minister is condemning the "indiscriminate" bombing of US bases (semi-abandoned almost certainly). I can't be bothered with citing the worm, but to me this seems a carefully calibrated rope-a-dope response.
Fate takes a long time to unwind, and the Epstein Alliance knows their window of opportunity is slamming shut.
Prayers for humanity 🙏
I agree 100% about UK's pathetic attempt to throw spit balls from the sidelines. On the other hand, the so-called great relationship between US and UK monarchy needed to end a long time ago-1776 wasn't the end. Too many US elites feel monarchies are really cool.
I read that before Feb.28 some--not all--personnel had been moved out of some of the Mideast US bases. The total population on the bases had been 40,000--50,000. I don't know if the reduction happened, or the number. Reduction or not, the US military bases would not have been fully abandoned.
I do not hope that ANY US base would be "flattened". Closed, yes. A flattened base means deaths, injuries, and a whole lot of heartache.
I didn't/don't envision a single American being injured or killed via a flattened military base. Certainly the bases should've been evacuated under present circumstances. I believe the US has gone far overboard in its taxpayer funded foreign and military obsessions. Either it needs to permanently close all bases or the "war" industry needs to break off from the US and just run itself as a separate business. The idea of 40,000-50,000 people at Mideast US bases is horrifying to me.
What fiction are you referring to here?
Pitiful Hasbara bs