Do Like Reagan Did

The other evening, talking with my wife about all the war craziness, I brought up the example of Ronald Reagan and the Beirut Barracks Bombing on October 23, 1983. The dual truck bombing killed 241 U.S. and 58 French military personnel. Reagan’s initial reaction, supported by SoS George Schultz, was to retaliate. SecDef Caspar Weinberger courageously and consistently opposed that approach, pointing out that we had no clear identification of who exactly was behind the attack. There were a number of attempts at retaliation—including the famous use of USS New Jersey’s 16” guns—but by spring of 1984 the US began withdrawing from Beirut, a process that was completed by July, 1984. All this, of course, resulted from Reagan’s foolish decision to get involved in keeping the “peace” in Lebanon following the Israeli 1982 invasion—all in the contet of the 15 year long Lebanese Civil War.

This morning Danny Davis made another impassioned plea for the US to avoid going to war with Iran. His plea follows suggestions that the Zhou regime would conduct a series of retaliatory strikes against Iranian interests—allied militia groups, but also “Iranian assets” outside Iran’s borders. Davis’ video can be found here (23 minutes—riveting listening):

US & Iran ALREADY at War?

What Davis is getting at in the title question is the narrative that’s being propagated by the likes of people on the payroll of the Israel Lobby—John Bolton and a pair of retired generals. Well, retired from the US military, but now full time mongers for forever wars wherever the Israel Lobby wants those wars. Their narrative is that, hey, the US is already at war with Iran so we may as well go whole hog. Davis argues that this is a false narrative but, worse, will inevitably lead the US into deeper warfare that we’re woefully unprepared for—he cites our munitions giveaways to Ukraine, Taiwan, and Israel—but for which Iran, for good reason based on US threats over the decades, has been preparing for for many years. These Israel Lobby agents are hoping that their narrative will prove to be the thin end of the wedge that gets the US in too deep to ever get out:

What Keane wants you to believe, and the reason is pretty self-evident, [it’s that if we’re already at war with Iran then] we're freed up from any constraints about getting sucked into a war so let's just do all kinds of stuff. Let's launch war attacks into Iran, let's hit some of Iran's biggest targets [including their head of state, the Supreme Leader]. That way there's no constraints and so, in his view, that actually makes more war easy. so you don't have to worry about escalation.

Well, that's complete nonsense! Absolute nonsense, because we're not in a war. We are not at war with Iran. It is in America's vital national interest that we not get there! And, look, the other thing that I want to point out here—whether it's Bolton, Keane, General Kellogg—many of these other war firsters always want to throw out missiles to solve every problem and think that it's always going to work this time—even though it almost never works and hasn't worked really effectively for decades.

Davis goes on to repeat much of what we reproduced yesterday about just how badly wrong this could go for the US. He also points out that obsessing about Iran in a vacuum is dishonest, because the reality is that Israel’s policy of ethnic cleansing over nearly 75 years—now escalated into outright genocide—is at the heart of the current crisis. An American approach that ignores that fundamental reality is guaranteed to land us in a quagmire—just as in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and elsewhere:

That ignores the elephant in the room, which is the fact that there is an Israeli Hamas war going on in that region that's at the heart of every bit of this. None of the attacks in the Red Sea started until November, in direct response to what was going on against the Palestinian people, … because Israel is killing tens of thousands of innocent civilians.

None of Israel’s Arab neighbors want a war, but Israel’s radical Zionist government wants a regional war to establish a Greater Israel that will be Arabrein. In any event, having gone through all the reasons why allowing the Israel Lobby to talk us into this war, including the 100% certainty that Iran will respond:

US plans to target Iranian assets outside of Iran, but Biden can't convince Iran not to retaliate.

U.S. military action against Iran could come in the form of a 'campaign' that could last 'weeks', which would see the targeting of Iran-backed militias in airstrikes across Syria and Iraq, as well as strikes on Iranian assets outside of Iran – NBC

After describing our woeful lack of preparedness for a major war, Davis ends by invoking The Gipper:

We can't afford this. We cannot afford to get into a war. It could literally harm our existence as a nation, because now our capacity to actually defend ourselves will continue to shrink until somebody may want to test it. Folks, let's don't get there, let's don't find out where that line is. Let's shut this down now. Do the right thing. If you love Reagan, do like Reagan did when he withdrew our forces instead of getting us drawn deeper into a war. There is a precedent for that. I don't know if Biden's strong enough to do that. I pray to God he is. For your sake and for all Americans I pray that that happens.

Now, Davis did an appearance on The Hill TV this morning that follows on directly from what he’s been saying over the past days. BOMB IRAN? Biden Vows Response After 3 US Troops KILLED. I’m going to cue this up for the last three minutes or so, because it follows on from what I was saying yesterday about domestic opposition. The interviewer raises the question: If we blame Iran for the acts of groups that Iran arms and trains, what about the actions of the US arming Israel to enable Israel’s genocide? What does that say about US complicity in that war and that genocide? Davis doesn’t shrink from that, but he goes on to point out—something that liberals have studiously ignored over the years—that we’ve also been doing the same thing in Ukraine, arming Ukraine to kill Russians and bragging about the fact publicly. In a war that we instigated. The whole video is a sort of tour de force for Davis, but it also gives you a peek into US domestic politics as they could turn out as 2024 progresses:

I’ll finish with a video featuring Judge Napolitano and Matt Hoh. They begin with Ukraine but quickly move on to Palestine and the Gaza genocide. Hoh makes a simple but key point here—while opposition to the moral swamp Americans are being dragged into is growing, that’s still not what’s going to dictate the Zhou regime’s actions. It’s far more cynical and disgraceful:

We've 8:22 seen this story before, right? This is this is how they're going to play it out. The pressure that the White House is under is not a moral pressure, it's not a strategic pressure. It's a political pressure. They're under pressure to adhere to what Israel does because of the strength of the Israel lobby. But they also have some real concerns about the election in in November. So the pressure is, can the Israelis get done what they want to do by November 2024 so this [won’t become] something that is gonna cause Progressive voters not to vote for the president.

It’s a very interesting discussion, but just before the 12:00 minute mark Judge Nap asks:

Have you ever heard of State actors dressing as physicians and patients and going into a hospital and assassinating patients in their hospital beds in a country with which the state actors are not at War?

Time to get the war room activated:

It’s happening to Doug Macgregor right now. I’m sure he knew exactly what he was letting himself in for, but it took some moral fiber to speak out as he’s been doing. John Mearsheimer has had to deal with in for years.