***. “We have defeated ISIS in Syria…it’s time to bring our great young people home!”…It was contrary to what had been recommended to him…”People are going to fucking die because of this,” a top aide angrily remarked. We all scrambled to figure out what had happened and what Trump’s plans were….In a normal White House, decisions of this magnitude receive sober deliberation….None of these questions were answered. Not only was the decision reckless, but administration officials had been testifying under oath that ISIS was NOT yet eliminated…Now the president was falsely declaring ISIS to be finished, because he just decided it was true one day.” [ “Anonymous: “A Warning.” He was a former chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security ] [ Do YOU want “your” president making a major decision. “..because he decided it was true on day.”?????? ]
This post is the 9th in a series examining the conduct of Donald John Trump, unfortunately president of the United States. His character and judgment have often been declared deficient. He has been described as being “transactional.” He is THE anti-George Washington, THE anti-Abraham Lincoln.
This post presents excerpts from: “When A Narcissist Goes to War” [ Jamelle Bouie; New York Times; 3/29/26]:
8] “This gets to the real problem. Trump is famously indifferent to the concerns of those around him. He is the consummate narcissist, and he is, without question, the most solipsistic person ever to occupy the Oval Office…Like Trump, the White House does not seem to understand that other people have agency too. It sees itself the same way the president sees himself: as the protagonist of the universe, with everyone else acting as a supporting character or a non-player one. – extras with no will of their own.”
1] “If you can set aside both the unconstitutionality and the immorality of President Trump’s unprovoked war on Iran and focus on the operation itself, it is hard not to be bewildered by the utter lack of real planning or even basic strategic thinking that has gone into it.”
2] “Trump and his aides, according to recent reporting, did not plan for Iran to target shipping and close the Strait of Hormuz. They also do not seem to have planned for serious and sustained retaliation against America’s gulf state allies. They did not plan for an energy crisis and the potential disruption to the global economy, and they did not plan for America’s European allies to, by and large, reject their call for support.”
[ NOTE: reread the three sections above. This is a summary of. TOTAL. INCOMPETENCE!!! A question in YOUR mind should be; what exactly DID they plan for??? Leaving aside other things – the Strait of Hormuz is THE question of this war – how could a responsible government going to war NOT plan for this???? If America wants to retain allies and friends – don’t you plan to protect them; don’t you consult with them??? ]
***. “As president, Trump’s decisions were often made in an instant… Esper warned that President Trump had also brought the United States to “the brink”. of war many times…Former secretary of defense James Mattis had been so worried that Trump would have a nuclear war with North Korea during his watch that he had slept in gym clothes.”
[ Pulitzer prize winner Bob Woodward: “War” ]
3] “It appears that both the president and the White House expected token resistance, followed by the collapse of the Iranian regime, the installation of a pro-American government. – or at least one we could tolerate. – and a return to the status quo ante; a replay.. of the president’s first intervention of the year, in Venezuela.” [ !!!!!!!!!!!!!! ]
4]. “Now that this replay fantasy has collided with a more complex, indeterminate and difficulty reality, Trump is unable to explain his objectives or even give the country a sense of when the war might end. he told Fox News radio that he would ‘feel it in my bones.” [ NOW – are YOU more comforted ????!!!??? ]
5] “If anything, Trump is caught in a classic escalation spiral. When one approach fails. [in this case, the initial airstrikes], he moves to the next. When that fails, he bids higher. And when escalation still doesn’t produce the desired result. – when he faces the choice between accepting defeat or stalemate or going even further – he goes further.”
6]. “What’s striking is how familiar this pattern feels. The administration did not expect the public to be repelled by DOGE. It did not expect outrage over the treatment of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. It did not expect Democrats to respond to threats of partisan gerrymandering with their own push to wring as many Democratic seats as possible out of so-called blue states.”
7] “Which raises another key question: Why can’t the White House see what others could have easily predicted? None of this should have been a surprise. Anyone capable of thinking through the actions of other people. – of imagining their perspectives and recognizing that they have agency. – should have been able to anticipate these outcomes and plan accordingly.” [But – maybe not when you are a narcissist?]
*** “Trump organized his unorthodox worldview under the simplistic banner of “America First,” but Matttis, Tillerson, and Cohn feared his proposals were rash, barely considered, and a danger to America’s superpower standing. They also felt that many of Trump’s impulsive ideas…stemmed from his lack of familiarity with U.S. history, and even with the map of the world…the president wasn’t reading any of his briefing books, or even the concise three-page version…”I call the president the two-minute man. The president has patience for half a page.” [Philip Rucker, Carol Leonnig: “A Very Stable Genius”] [NOTE: read this again. they are NOT the first to say this. Aren’t YOU delighted that this man has HIS finger on THE bomb’s trigger???!!!???]
[NOTE: Now – don’t YOU feel better!!! Aren’t you reassured about Trump’s fitness for office? This is a small smidgen of the volumes of reports by more competent human beings about Trump’s uninformed, IGNORANT, impulsive, whim-driven conduct to EVERYTHING. If we are lucky, on January 20, 2029, America will still exist, American democracy will still exist, and the world hasn’t been involved in some highly destructive war, some economic catastrophe. The odds are against us – because the true American patriots who restrained Trump’s worst impulses in term one. – have been replaced by “loyalists” and various Rasputins, some of whom reportedly have Trump “woven around their finger.” Others, like Putin, have learned how to manipulate him. A so-far unanswered question: what “kompromat” does Putin have on Trump?
The Trump DICTATORSHIP. – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, CLXIX – Trump as Incompetent, Stupid, Dangerous War Leader, VIII
***. “A reputation once broken may possibly be repaired, but the world will always keep their eyes on the spot where the crack was.” [ Joseph Hall ]
This post is the 8th in a series examining the conduct of Donald John Trump, unfortunately president of the United States. His character has often been declared deficient; and by some, “unfit for office.” He is often described as being “transactional.” He is a known liar. He is THE. anti-George Washington.
This post discusses the damage Trump has done, is doing, to America’s international reputation. He is damaging, if not destroying, decades of international good will felt toward America because of our generosity, our support of democracy, our “soft power.” It presents excerpts from: “America is depleting a more powerful weapon than its missiles” [ Max Hastings; St. Paul Pioneer Press; 4/5/26 ]:
10] “Truth is not merely a virtue. It is a weapon, which this administration has wantonly broken with its own hands, even as it wages a shooting war in which scarcely anybody save the Israelis sees merit or reason.”
2] “..[it matters]..for a great nation to lose its reputation for trustworthiness, as the U.S. has done under Trump. It is impossible in the midst of a war to tell the whole truth. but it is worth a lot that “our side”. – whatever that might be. – should be more credible than the enemy.”
7] “…how low America’s standing has fallen. Yet this matters very much, not just for now or even the balance of Trump’s term, but for the future of the U.S. If it chooses to speak and behave in a way that is morally indistinguishable from that of its rival superpowers, why should other nations not choose China or Russia as partners, rather than America?”
1] “..my longer-term concern is the depletion. – indeed, exhaustion. – of another American weapon, which I think is more important than mere hardware: belief in the truth of what the leader of the U.S. tells the world about the war, peace and everything else.” [NOTE: lies on the international stage count for more than his 30-40,000 domestic lies, fabrications, half-truths, mistruths, etc.]
*** “National honor is national property of the highest value.” [ James Monroe; 5th U.S. President ]
3] A handbook given to U.S. soldiers landing in Britain during World War II told G.I.s: “We can defeat Hitler’s propaganda with a weapon of our own: plain, common horse sense; understanding of evident truths.”
4] “The gloating tones..[of Lord Haw Haw]…were not unlike those of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth describing the fate of Iranians under American bombardment.”
5] “Today Trump is assaulting the organs of truth, while peddling obvious lies, for instance his claim that a Tomahawk missile that apparently hit a Tehran school was Iranian….the head of the Federal Communications Commission, a Trump lackey, is threatening to withdraw the licenses of U.S. outlets that fail to broadcast t he administration’s fictional narrative of the war.”
***. “A reputation for good judgment, fair dealing, truth, and rectitude, is itself a fortune.” [ Henry Ward Beecher ]
6] “The White House’s standard-bearers would say. – privately at least. – that we now live in a post-truth world; that their MAGA people neither expect to be told what is real by their leaders, nor mind that they are lied to.”
8]. “It is extraordinarily dangerous for any country, however rich and dominant, to base its entire polity on a belief that it will forever enjoy military and economic superiority; that might alone can sustain its hegemony.”
9] “America is no longer seen, especially in Europe, as worthy of trust. To quote again that 1942 U.S. serviceman’s handbook: “It is militarily stupid to criticize your allies.” Even superpowers need friends yet America has few left who, after enduring so many insults from Washington, sincerely respect those in charge there, or believe what they say.”
[NOTE: read this again; then reflect on America’s conduct during WorldWar II and during the “Cold War.” America was on the winning side – BECAUSE. we made, had friends. America was on the winning side BECAUSE its “soft power’ attracted people. America rebuilt Europe, rebuilt its former WW II enemies – because it was “the right thing to do.” ]
*** “A transactional foreign policy is not what convinces people around the world to stand with America.”
[ Tom Malinowski ]
The Trump DICTATORSHIP. – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, CLXIII – Trump as Incompetent, Stupid, Dangerous War Leader, VII
*** “There’s never been a true war that wasn’t fought between two sets of people who weren’t certain they were right. The really dangerous people believe they are doing whatever they are doing solely and only because it is without question the right thing to do. And that is what makes them dangerous.” [ Neil Gaiman ]
This post is the seventh in a series examining the conduct of Donald John Trump, unfortunately president of the United States. His mental state has been questioned several times. What hasn’t been questioned in this second term is WHO he is listening to, and who he is NOT listening to. We have heard shifting reasons for HIS Iran war. Regardless – the current occupant of the White House is obviously THE anti-George Washington, THE anti-Abraham Lincoln. His STUPIDITY and INCOMPETENCE now have the world embroiled in a dubious war.
This post presents excerpts from. “‘ An Operational Success and a Huge Strategic Failure'” [Nicholas Kristof; New York Times; 4/5/26]:
14] “As I watch this war, my mind goes to an old proverb: A fool may throw a stone in a well, but 100 wise men cannot remove it.”
2] “The problem is that while President Trump could start the war, h can’t end it on his own’. Iran has a vote on that.”
6] “This war, in general terms, I think it’s an operational success but a huge strategic failure,” said Danny Citrinowicz, formerly a longtime Iran analyst for Israel’s military intelligence agency.”
9]. “As Vali Nasr, an Iran expert at Johns Hopkins University, told me: “We essentially removed all the people who were still a restraint on the system and replaced them with the most hawkish people.”
3] “Does Trump understand that [a] targeting civilian infrastructure is likely a war crime, and [b] Iran’s response to such attacks could be counterstrikes on oil and gas infrastructure and desalination plants around the region?”
***. “You can bomb the world into pieces, but you can’t bomb it into peace.” [ Michael Franti ]
1]. “Iran has gained leverage by controlling passage through the Strait of Hormuz. So one bizarre result of the war is that Iran is now earning almost twice as much per day in oil revenue as it was before the war..”
4] “After having started the war that led to the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, Trump is now framing its reopening as a task for other nations. “We’re not going to have anything to do with it,” he said..”
5] “If Trump leaves Iran controlling the Strait of Hormuz, charging hefty tolls and barring the passage of ships linked to the United States or its military partners, he will have significantly set back the global economy, weakened the United States and strengthened Iran. And American ships will remain stuck, unable to leave.”
7]. “Perhaps the most apt description of Trump’s policy toward Iran is an “incoherent maze” – a phrase Pete Hegseth applied in 2016 to Barack Obama’s foreign policy.”
***. “Power is okay, and stupidity is usually harmless. Power and stupidity together are dangerous.”
[ Patrick Rothfuss ]
8] “One fundamental misstep may have been a strategy of killing the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a deeply unpopular octogenarian, along with a top security aide…their replacements appear more aggressive.”
10] “THe new leadership is weighted toward the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, so we may see Iran evolving in an even more militaristic direction. That’s my fear: We’ve put Iran on a path to become another North Korea.”
11] “American intelligence officials assessed last year that the previous supreme leader supported uranium enrichment but did not authorize taking the next step by making nuclear weaponas. That’s apparently because he wanted to avoid the sanctions and isolation that North Korea had suffered.”
12]. “..some of those same American intelligence officials also concluded last year that “Iranian leaders were likely to shift toward producing a bomb if the American military attacked the Iranian uranium enrichment site Fordo or if Israel killed Iran’s supreme leader”…Trump and his Israeli counterpart, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, did both.”
13] “Perhaps the biggest losers are ordinary Iranians. It was their pro-democracy protests in January, and the massacres that followed, that indirectly led to this crisis. – and they now endure greater oppression in a bombed-out country as they mourn innocent war victims who include school girls and soccer players.”
*** “If there is one lesson for U.S. foreign policy from the past 10 years, it is surely †hat military intervention can seem simple…but is in fact a complex affair with the potential for unintended consequences.” [ Fareed Zakaria ]
The Trump DICTATORSHIP. – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, CLXII. – Trump as Incompetent, Stupid, Dangerous War Leader, VI
***. “Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war, but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac.” [ George Orwell ]
This post is the 6th in a series examining the conduct of Donald John Trump, unfortunately president of the United States. There has been serious discussion, including a book written, a study of his speech patterns, warnings by peple from his first term – stating opinions that Trump is “unfit for office. We have yet to see serious examination of the influence of the Rasputins around him, of of foreign leaders he respects. Regardless, it is obvious Trump is THE anti-George Washington, THE anti-Abraham Lincoln. He now has America, the Middle East, the world economy embroiled in a dubious war – one for which his own first term actions laid the grounwork.
This post presents excerpts from: “NoneOf Trump’s Options In Iran look Good”. [ Ali Vaez; New York Times; 4/5/26 ]:
6] “Mr. Trump was right when he said on Wednesday that the United states has won every tactical exchange against Iran. What he did not admit to is that as commander in chief, he still managed to lose control of events.”
1]. “But the central question in this war was never whether Iran could be hurt. It was whether pain would translate into submission. So afr, it has not.”
2 ]. “Perhaps most significantly, the Iranians have managed to subdue traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, responding in the one arena where weaker nations have often found leverage against stronger ones; not by matching force with force, but by changing the terms of the contest. [NOTE: read these 3 statements again. – lost command of events; the central question; his weaker opponent changed the terms of the war. Has Trump already lost??? If control of the Strait of Hormuz was THE #1 issue – why didn’t Trump plan for this?????]
***. “In public affairs, stupidity is more dangerous than knavery.” [ Woodrow Wilson; 28th U.S. President ]
3] “..Iran…can still prolong the conflict, widen its costs, disrupt the global economy and make the exercise of American and Israel power more expensive than its architects anticipated.”
4]. “…a regime built to endure, its leadership infused with a culture of martyrdom and resistance and bereft of mercy, can continue to repress and remain in power…has enabled Iran’s leaders to recast themselves as guardians of a besieged nation, rather than its tormentors.”
5]. “Mr. Trump now has three options. He can escalate….just keep degrading Iran”s capabilities at a steady pace for a longer period of time and then walk away..disastrous for the Gulf States and the rest of the world….The final option is a deal..the only path that addresses the actual stakes..”
***. “We can pursue peaceful diplomacy with the Iranian regime while also continuing our maximum economic pressure campaign, while also defending ourselves…To say that war with Iran or nothing is just a fundamental misunderstanding of how foreign policy actually works.” [ Morgan Ortacus ]
The Trump DICTATORSHIP. – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, CLXI. – Trump as Incompetent, Stupid, Dangerous War Leader, V
***. “Anyone who has proclaimed violence his method inexorably must choose lying as his principle.”
[ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn ]
this post is the 5th in a series examining the conduct of Donald John Trump, unfortunately president of the United States. Many have concluded Trump has serious mental issues. In 2017 and 2019, 37 psychiatrists and mental health experts expressed alarm in “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump.” Several years later, another group examined Trump’s speech patterns over a multi-year span. – expressed alarm. Even if Trump is “norma,” there is NO debate he is THE anti-George Washington. Now, he has embroiled America, the Middle East, the world in a war of choice. And, of course, he has already told numerous lies and falsehoods.
This post presents excerpts from: “Americans Deserve The Truth About Iran” [ New York Times Editorial; 3/22/26 ]:
10] “Whatever short-term gain mr. Trump thinks he is getting by lying about the war in Iran is far exceeded by the cost, for him, the country and the world.”
3] “..lying about war is uniquely corrosive. When a president signals that the truth does not matter in wartime, he encourages his cabinet and his generals to mislead the country and one another about how the war is going. He creates a culture in which deadly mistakes and even war crimes can become more common. He makes it harder to win by hiding the realities of conflict and by making allies wary of joining the fight. Ultimately, her undermines American values and interests.”
9]. “Lies about war also make it harder to achieve victory: The more one spreads falsehoods, the less one feels obligated to face reality. In one respect, Americans understand that their leaders’ refusal to confront the truth in Iraq and Vietnam led to strategic errors. This pattern is repeating. Before Mr. Trump began this war, he brushed aside warnings from his top military advisor that Iran could close the Strait of Hormuz to traffic it does not approve. The global economy is now dealing with the consequences of his overconfidence.”
4] “There is a reasonable debate to have about the wisdom of this war. Iran’s murderous government does indeed present a threat. – to its own people, to its region and to global stability. Mr. Trump could make a fact-based argument for confronting the regime now, especially to prevent it from menacing its neighbors and, above all, from developing a nuclear weapon…. Mr. Trump is not making it. Instead, he has lied about the reasons for the war and about its progress, an an apparent attempt to disguise his poor planning and the war’s questionable basis.”
***. “The first casualty of war is truth.” { Aeschylus ]
1] “From his first announcement of the attack on Iran on Feb. 28, President Trump has issued a stream of falsehoods about the war..”
2] “Lying is standard behavior for Mr. Trump, of course. His political career began with a lie about Barack Obama’s birthplace, and he has lied about his business, his wealth, his inauguration crowd size, his defeat in the 2020 election and so much more. A CNN tally of Mr. Trump’s falsehoods during one part of his first term found that he averaged eight false claims per day.”
5]. “the president was only minutes into his Feb. 28 announcement of the start of the conflict when he offered an obviously contradictory rationale for it….The lies have continued since then.”
*** “If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.” [ Adolf Hitler ]
6]. “he has also asserted that “nobody” believed Iran would retaliate by attacking Arab countries. On Monday, he said that “no, the greatest experts, nobody thought they were going to hit” neighboring countries. In truth, some experts had warned of precisely this scenario.”
7]. “In another instance, Mr. Trump has used false information to continue his alarming penchant to portray people who contradict him as un-American.”
8]. “A shocking falsehood came on March 7, when Mr. Trump claimed in his typically offhand way that a strike on an elementary school in the town of Minab in †he first hours of war “was done by Iran.” …The U.S. military has conducted an investigation and preliminarily concluded taht an American missile mistakenly hit the school.”
***. “To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
[ Theodore Roosevelt; Republican; 26th U.S. President ]
The Trump DICTATORSHIP. – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, CLX. – Trump as Incompetent, Stupid, Dangerous War Leader, IV
*** “Foreign policy is effectively the assertion of many individual countries interacting on the global marketplace. And you have to figure out how to get your interest served in a way that meets the interests and needs of these other folks.”
[ John Kerry; former Secretary of State ]
This post is the 4th in a series examining the conduct of Donald John Trump, unfortunately president of the United states. Many, who scientifically examined him and knew him closely have said he was, is, unfit for this office. On Friday, 4/10/26, a very serious discussion occurred on the PBS “News Hour” about Trump’s mental state. Given Trump’s erratic, and, often un-presidential conduct – YOU can expect more of this, not in “hatred of Trump”. but in serious concern. Even if Trump is “normal,” he is THE anti-George Washington, THE anti-Abraham Lincoln.
This post presents excerpts from: “An Unjust War Without Plan or Purpose”. [ Phil Klay; New York Times; 3/22/26 ]:
11] “Power does not grow out of the barrel of a gun, cruelty is not the same as strength, and a politics built on such ideas promises ruin, delusion about the limits of our power and a betrayal of the promise of our founding.”
5] “American leaders have sought to justify our wars as having objectives in keeping with our founding political philosophy. This isn’t simply rhetoric, but about a fundamental view of power and its relationship to violence that filters down to strategy.”
10] “Without a clear moral or political purpose, we’re left with what the military analyst Franz-Stefan Gady calls the “strike-as-strategy” paradox, in which we substitute tactical prowess for comprehensive strategic design. this tendency, he writes, ‘is reinforced by a political culture that demands televised displays of military prowess.”
***. “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” [ Proverbs 29: 18 ]
1] “The justifications for the war have been stunningly incoherent. maybe the war is about regime change, about Iran’s nuclear program, about the narrow military objectives of degrading their ballistic missile and drone capabilities, or perhaps it was because Israel was about to attack and we’d be at risk, or because the United States was under imminent threat from Iran, or to achieve peace in the Middle East, and so on. Maybe it’s not a war at all…Maybe we want “unconditional surrender,” but maybe “unconditional surrender” is a thing that happens inside the president’s mind…Maybe the war is “quite contained,” but maybe Americans throughout the region need to leave. Maybe there will be ground troops and maybe not.” [ follow al of this? got it all figured out???!!!???!!! ]
4] “What these men don’t seem to realize, or care about, is that their language of brute force represents a fundamental break with American traditions around war going back to the Revolution.” [ as in 1776 ]
***. “Donald Trump tells us that he is very smart. I’m afraid that when it comes to foreign policy, he is very, very not smart.” [ Mitt Romney ]
2] “..as I watched a video posted by the White House in which a group of angry, rifle-wielding bowling pins labeled “Iranian Regime Officials” are struck by a Stars and Stripes bowling ball that turns into an airplane, followed by actual combat footage of U.S. airstrikes, I realized how one rationale for this war has remained clear and consistent: the administration’s delight in displays of violence and domination.”
3]. “The men who want to Make America Great Again are searching for a clean break from the Global War on Terror. That conflict was launched with lofty rhetoric about democracy and freedom but led to years of civil war, chaos, swollen ranks of terror groups, genocide, a refugee crisis…”
6] “When Stephan miller talked about our troops not fighting with their hands tied behind their backs, he was referring to a popular conservative myth about the Vietnam War, that we might have won had we only exercised less restraint…perhaps if we’d really gone scorched earth and killed a million more, the Vietnamese would have loved and embraced the rulers we foisted upon them…a particularly vile form of folly. And yet, that attitude seems to be guiding the current administration.”
***. “Wooden-headedness consists of assessing a situation in terms of preconceived, fixed notions while ignoring or rejecting any contrary signs. It is acting to wish while not allowing oneself to be confused by the facts.”
[ Barbara Tuchman ]
7] “A reliance on brute force can be blinding. In one of the more telling comments from the defense secretary, Mr. Hegseth claimed that because we’d taken control of Iran’s airways and waterways, “we control their fate,” and “the terms of this war will be set by us at every step.” a veteran of Iraq like Mr. Hegseth should know better. The enemy always gets a vote..”
8]. ‘..the U.S. energy secretary, Chris Wright, suggested that “Trump’s energy dominance agenda” meant that America need not worry about disruptions to the oil market if war broke out with Iran. Now the president is trying to claim that high gas prices are good for Americans, while urging oil tankers to “show some guts”. and sail through the Strait of Hormuz, and Iran, whose ships can get through, is selling more oil than before the war.”
9] “Robert Pape, an expert on strategic bombing campaigns, has argued that air power without subsequent ground troops has never resulted in a positive regime change.”
***. “War is, at first, the hope that one will be better off; next, the expectation that the other fellow will be worse off; then, the satisfaction that he isn’t any better off; and, finally, the surprise at everyone’s being worse off.”
[ Karl Kraus ]
So – in judging the work of ANY American government – use the Constitution’s Preamble as THE test. “We the People”. created the U.S. government to. “..establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare..”
So – ask YOURSELF. – how does Trump’s war of choice against Iran accomplish these goals? How does ANY Trump DICTATORSHIP policy accomplish these goals [in real life, not rhetoric]????? WHY. – are virtually ALL of America’s traditional friends and allies refusing to enter Trump’s war [do they all ‘hate’ him?]????? WHY did Pope Leo condemn Trump’s war?
***. “Character matters. Leadership descends from character.” [ Rush Limbaugh ]
The Trump DICTATORSHIP. – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, CLIX. – Trump as Incompetent, Stupid, Dangerous. War. Leader, III
*** “War is not only destructive, it is sterile of positive result. The most that military victory can do is to provide opportunity to attempt anew the establishment of durable international peace.”
[ Dwight D. Eisenhower; World War II General; 34th U.S. President ]
This post is the 3rd in a series examining the conduct of one Donald John Trump, unfortunately president of the United States, as a wartime leader. Psychiatrists and others who closely watched him have said ‘unfit to be president.” He is the anti-Dwight D. Eisenhower.
This post presents excerpts from: “Pax Americana, Meet Lax Americana” [Carlos Lozada; New York Times; 3/29/26]:
8]. “We are not entering a post-American world, one in which the United States recedes from the stage or stops wielding its military might. Far from it. But we may be entering a post-America world, one in which the meaning of America, the principles and values the country has stood for. – sometimes in reality, sometimes in aspiration. – are fading. And the loss of that America may prove just as damaging, and far more lasting, than any harm Donald Trump’s excursions can inflict.” [NOTE; read this again, slowly, sentence by sentence. “…the meaning of America..” And what Trump and his Rasputins are doing to it…..]
4]. “It means that what we once called Pax Americana, that U.S.-led system of alliances and institutions that promoted American interests and values and helped avoid major conflicts in the decades after World War II, is gone, and irretrievably so. In place of the Pax Americana we are seeing a sort of Lax Americana, a world in which a careless and uninhibited and incurious U.S. superpower struts across the chess board, threatening old friends and enabling old rivals, seeking short-term gains, heedless of the dangers it is creating for itself and the world.” [NOTE: read this again, slowly. it says that the Trump DICTATORSHIP is making America. LESS. SAFE. Stupidity in action]
2]. “Under Trump, the idea of U.S. leadership has indeed been remade. – but from authority to domination, from persuasion to bullying, from nurturing alliances to wrecking them….”We don’t need anybody,’ a peeved Trump said..” [NOTE: we won WW II and the Cold War. BECAUSE. we had allies and friends. – we. NEEDED. other countries.]
***. “Ignorance, when voluntary, is criminal, and a man may be properly charged with that evil which he neglected or refused to learn how to prevent.” [ Samuel Johnson ]
1] “Rather than leading the free world, the United States is striding across the globe seemingly free of restraint, forethought or strategy, exerting its power because it can….Trump in his second term is like Michael Corleone in “The Godfather,” settling all the family business.”
3]. “Launching a war with only one ally and expecting everybody else to fall in line is a perfect example of the tensions inherent in America’s new approach. The United States wants the benefits of hegemony but without accepting the responsibilities. – ensuring collective security, promoting economic openness, nurturing vital alliances. – that come with it. Trump doesn’t care to be a superpower; he just likes to wield superpowers. He wants to operate in the world constrained only by “my own morality” and “my own mind”…” {NOTE: THE problem here IS his “mind”…]
5] “This is a historical aberration: a superpower that freely abdicates its leadership role, because it has concluded that leadership is for suckers; one that no longer promotes its values, because its decided those values are fake anyway; one that gives up on the rules and institutions it spent so long building, because it assumes they’re no longer worth the hassle.” [NOTE: this is an example of Trump’s STUPIDITY. and. IGNORANCE ]
6] “…Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, likewise invoked the common “heritage” of the Western world, but he based it explicitly on Christian faith, culture, language and ancestry. “We are part of one civilization. – Western civilization,” he said, specifying that Washington prefers “allies who are proud of their culture and of their heritage, who understand that we are heirs to the same great and noble civilization.” This is the “civilizational West” rather than the “geopolitical West”…” ]
7]. “…an essential resource: international legitimacy. In “The End of the American Era,” Kupchan called it America’s “most precious asset,” and warned that the Bush administration was misspending it in Iraq, vastly overestimating “the autonomy that comes with military supremacy.” It is an appropriate warning for our time, when the Trump administration is likewise squandering America’s legitimacy and misjudging the freedom of action that comes with having the strongest military and as Trump brags, the “best equipment.” That legitimacy is part of what made Pax Americana possible. Lax Americana, by contrast, doesn’t just waste the nation’s legitimacy; it hardly recognizes its value.” [NOTE; read this again. He’s just told YOU that Trump is making YOU less secure; that Trump is actively, STUPIDLY, undermining much of what made America THE superpower, 1945-2016.]
*** “Donald Trump himself actually said during his campaign that he essentially thinks being unpredictable is a good thing. maybe that’s a good thing in domestic politics, but in foreign policy, that is really stupid.” [ Ted Lieu ]
The Trump DICTATORSHIP. – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, CLVIII. – Trump as Incompetent, Stupid, Dangerous. War leader, II
***. “The statement that war is a continuation of policy by other means has become a catch-phrase and is therefore dangerous. We can say with equal truth: War is bankruptcy of policy.” [ German General Hans Von Seeckt ]
This post is the second in a series examining the conduct of one Donald John Trump, unfortunately president of the United States. As has been said many times: he is a deeply flawed person; seems to operate on whims, grudges, delusions, LIES. It has been said he is UNFIT to be president – by serious observers citing examples, not wild assertions. He IS the anti-George Washington. the anti-Abraham Lincoln.
***. “I now know that wars do not end wars.” [ Henry Ford ]
This post presents excerpts from: “President Donald Trump is an incompetent commander in chief” [ Stephen Young; New York Times; 3/27/26 ]:
10] “As far as I can tell, given Clausewitz’s criteria for winning a war, Donald Trump doesn’t, and can’t, pass muster as a commander in chief.”
2] ‘Clausewitz’s famous [because it’s true] law of war is that “war is a mere continuation of politics by other means.” To ignore politics in waging war is to lose. Does Trump know that?”
8] “Most important..is the human element brought to the fight by the commander. A commander must have determination, but if that determination hardens into blind self-confidence, it becomes a liability rather than a strength. The commander who is too self-assured or conceited becomes dangerous because he stops questioning his own assumptions. in war, where uncertainty dominates, this leads to performative decisions that don’t adapt to reality.”
5] “It seems Trump never read Clausewitz. He was, after all, a draft dodger refusing to serve his country in Vietnam.”
9] “Most importantly, Clausewitz advised, the mind of the commander must be free to think while not being captured by prejudice. For Clausewitz such freedom of the mind is indispensable if the commander is to dominate events, not to be overpowered by them.”
*** “Perhaps the most central characteristic of authentic leadership is the relinquishing of the impulse to dominate others.” [ David Cooper ]
1]. “After four weeks as a wartime commander in chief, Donald Trump now wants to pull his burning chestnuts out of the fire. Why. – the war not going as he has foreseen? The Iranian theocrats not willing to give in?”
3]. “What does Trump know of the hearts and minds of his Iranian enemy, or of the Iranian people in general? After four weeks of intensive bombing, the killing of dozens of religiously driven leaders and the straits of Hormuz being closed against his wishes, how close is our president to victory?”
4] “For Clausewitz the heart and soul of politics is will and morale. You wein when your enemy loses the will to continue, falls into an irresistible collapse of morale, just throws in the towel. So, Clausewitz says, the art of war is how to bring about such a collapse of will. In short, politics.”
6]. “Clausewitz defined war as an act of violence intended to compel our opponent to fulfill our will. Thus, we must proportion our efforts to the enemy’s powers of resistance. So our efforts must be proportional to the enemy’s will. – weapons and tactics which do not degrade the enemy’s will cannot win a war.”
7] “Thus, the Chinese master of the art of war, Sun Tzu, taught: first of all, study your enemy. He wrote simply: “[W]hat is of supreme importance in war is to attack the enemy’s strategy.” Bombs can’t do that. They only target enemy combatants and weapons systems. A conviction that bombing could ever be a war-winning strategy is an illusion.”
*** “One should never forbid what one lacks the power to prevent.” [ Napoleon ]
The Trump DICTATORSHIP. – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, CLVII. – Trump as Incompetent, Stupid, Dangerous. War Leader, I
***. “The imponderables and the unforeseen cannot be ignored in formulating foreign policy. That is why a preventive war should always be regarded as an act of criminal folly.” [. Sumner Welles ]
This post BEGINS to examine the American, and world, tragedy of Donald John Trump as the leader of a major world power in a war. That he is a deeply flawed person is beyond debate. That he seems to operate almost exclusively on whims, grudges, delusions, self-imposed lies is also seemingly beyond debate. Psychiatrists have said, written books, on his unfit mental state to be a U.S. president. That he is THE anti-George Washington, anti-Abraham Lincoln, anti-FDR, is also seemingly beyond debate. That he has surrounded himself with people who are “loyal” IS beyond debate.
And, now, this person has embroiled the U.S., thr Middle East, the world, in a war against Iran. – not for what they have done, but for what they COULD do. That Iran has fomented much evil. – in the name of religion. – is beyond debate.
Thus. – THE question: does Iran’s recent 46-year history justify a preventive war?
***. “War is an instrument entirely inefficient toward redressing wrong; and multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses.” [ Thomas Jefferson ]
This post presents excerpts from. “Impulse and Ultimatums” [Erica Green; New York Times; 3/29/26]:
5] “THe war, like everything else that comes out of the White House, is a reflection of Donald Trump’s very unique personality and leadership style,” said Steven M. Gillon, a historian and the author of “Presidents at War: How World War II Shaped a Generation of Presidents,” “It’s focused on him as a great man. It is vague. It’s undisciplined. It’s unfocused.”
1]. “At 7;44 p.m., the president made his frustration known with an extraordinary ultimatum: if Iran did not reopen the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours and allow much of the world’s gas and oil to flow through, he would bomb Iran’s civilian power plants. It was the kind of attack that could constitute a war crime under the Geneva Conventions.”
2]. “The disconnect underscores just how much the Iran war is testing Mr. Trump’s usual strategy for dealing with a crisis: imposing his own reality and disregarding inconvenient truths. “He thinks everything is transactional, he can deal with the deal one step at a time and see how things unfold, but war is fast, uncontrollable, unpredictable and deadly,: said Julian E. Zelizer, a Princeton University professor… “He’s doing the same techniques he always does – threatening people, insulting people, seizing attention to what he wants to say – he’s learning that it doesn’t always work,: he added. “He’s doing the art of the deal in a way that’s just creating chaos.”
3] “Mr. Trump’s cavalier attitude has shown cracks. When he was pressed about the deadly Tomahawk missile strike on an Iranian elementary school on the opening day of the war, Mr. Trump first blamed Iran and then claimed he did not “know enough about it.” [President Truman: “The buck stops here.” !!!!!]
4] “The president, who was granted five deferments from being drafted to fight in Vietnam. including for a diagnosis of bone spurs, has often mused that he would be a “good general.” [ delusional ego ??? ]
6] “Aside from the question of congressional approval, Mr. Trump has failed to provide any evidence that Iran posed an “imminent threat”. to the United States. And he has repeatedly moved the goal posts for success…”
{ But. – when you are a DICTATOR. – you don’t have to explain yourself. }
***. “War is the business of barbarians.” [ Napoleon ]
The Trump DICTATORSHIP. – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, CLVI. – Trump’s. Climate. Crisis. Recklessness. Threatens YOU
***. “The Trump White House continued its attacks on climate science and scientists, pulling out of the Paris climate accords and recruiting into government scientists who held contrarian or fringe views on the role of human activity in global warming.” [ Peter Hotez: “The Deadly Rise Of Anti-Science” ]
This post presents excerpts from. “The Dead Zones….By mid-century, many places in the United States may be uninhabitable” [ Vann Newkirk II; The Atlantic; December, 2025 ]:
9] “..our present government is actively working to worsen global warming and make communities less resilient to its effects. It is working to make the darkest futures more likely. It is possible, even considering the hatchet blows thatn Donald Trump has delivered to the federal bureaucracy, public institutions, and the Constitution, that his legacy will b most felt in our climate.” [!!think on the magnitude of this statement…]
18] “All of this could create even better conditions than those today for the kind of transactional authoritarian government that Trump is trying to establish.” [***. think – by worsening global warming crisis – Trump & the far-right power behind him – want to make Americans. – YOU. – more desperate & vulnerable – so YOU “need’ a dictator to save” you ****]
16] “..bit by bit, the American economy and culture will likely be transformed by climate attrition and the redistribution of people. Southern states will lose residents and dynamism.”
5] “..whole regions will be thinned out and impoverished…without insurance, people cannot get mortgages, and so most cannot buy houses…some places are already becoming economic “no-go” zones.”
6]. “..we should expect more food deserts, fewer libraries, and fewer small businesses..expect that, with a larger share of municipal budgets going to disaster mitigation and repair, city and county services will suffer or disappear. Even as local taxes rise, “service deserts” will spread.” … These are the dead zones.” [ And!!! – Trump’s new budget wants to cut federal support to local governments !!!!!!!!!!! ]
***. “[Trump’s]..agenda is codified by Project 2025…the thorough dismantling of climate policy in the United States through eliminating agencies overseeing policies relating to energy or the environment and repeal of the Inflation Reduction Act and other congressionally enacted climate measures.” [Micheal Mann, Peter Hotez: “Science Under Siege”]
1]. “..the future toward which we are heading will mean heartbreak for millions. Many people will go in search of new homes in cooler, more predictable places…leave behind…”dead zones.” Should the demolition of America’s rule of law continue, authoritarianism and climate change wll reinforce each other, and a vicious spiral from which it will be difficult to exit.”
2] “Just as.. [Eaton].. fire victims began trying to recover, Donald Trump came back into power. Deep cuts at FEMA and other agencies targeted much of the federal machinery and sources of money that were supposed to help.”
3]. “One problem is who will underwrite disaster risks as they grow. Seven of the 12 largest home insurers in California…have already limited their coverage or stopped taking new policies there.”
4] “There are parallels to the 2008 financial crisis…and “insurance deserts,” where policies are becoming impossible to find or prohibitively expensive…threatens a “collapse in property values with the potential to trigger a full-scale financial crisis similar to what occurred in 2008.”
*** “… their scientific colleagues were increasingly finding evidence that capitalism was failing in a crucial aspect: it was failing to protect the natural environment upon which all life. – free or not. – ultimately depends… The free market was causing problems…that the free market did not know how to solve. The government had a potential remedy – regulation – but that flew in the face of the capitalist ideal.” [ Naomi Oreskes, Eric Conway: “Merchants of Doubt” ]
7] “Private equity firms are deeply embedded in the disaster-recovery industry…Investors come into distressed real estate markets and transform them, buying up land on the cheap and flipping residential homes into rental units…Essential services are being slowly ceded by the public to the private sector in places under climate stress.”
8]. “..Biden’s climate agenda was the most robust ever attempted in this country, but even he did not sign enough laws to produce the fair share of decarbonization that America would need to deliver in order to avert 2 degrees Celsius of warming..”
10] “Trump’s EPA administrator Lee Zeldin, came into office with the intent, he said, of “driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion.”
***. “Two dozen states..sued the Environmental Protection Agency. – public health and welfare….EPA leader Lee Zeldin…says wiping out that finding will save money.” [Matthew Daly: “Minnesota joins suit vs. EPA over repeal of climate finding”; Associated Press; 3/20/26]. [Note: polluting companies save money. – BUT. – YOUR health may be sabotaged by Trump DICTATORSHIP policies.]
11] “Trump has even thrown wrenches intovthe energy-transition plans of other countries.”
12] “As the administration accelerates climate change, it has also moved to weaken the country’s infrastructure for dealing with climate disruptions. Trump scrapped a program…He axed rules…The national Weather Service is a shadow of its former self..”
13] “..global warming is supercharging ..[Miami’s]..already daunting heat…the spike in overnight temperatures…The county is the epicenter of an incipient “extreme heat belt” that is reshaping concepts of seasonality and livability in the United States.”
***. ‘..2007. The internet is flooded with the assertion that Carson was a mass murderer, worse than Hitler….In the demonizing of Rachel Carson, free marketers realized that if you could convince people that an example of successful government regulation wasn’t, in fact, successful. – that it was actually a mistake. – you could strengthen the argument against regulation in general.” [ Oreskes. &. Conway: “Merchants of Doubt” ]
14] “The geography of real climate risk. – which includes not just the effects of weather and disasters, but also the abilities of communities to withstand them. – looks roughly similar to the geographies of poverty and race.”
15]. “Within the U.S. today, people are again moving because of disasters, and because of the slow-grind attrition of heat, flooding, and rising insurance rates.”
17] “The worst climate disruptions will happen beyond U.S. borders, but they will put pressure on American society nonetheless. Migration to the southern border, perhaps the most powerful current in American politics today, is already being driven partly by ecological collapses in Central American farm communities.”
*** “One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve become bamboozled long enough, We tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle…Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.” [Carl Sagan]i
With Justice For All 
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