I’ve Seen Some Shit

so I know some shit.

My adult life has been filled with dealing with the mad Mullahs. I enlisted under the Delayed Entry Program just before the fall of the Shah. I was placed on “don’t leave town or get out of touch because we may call you up early” after Khomeini pulled his shit. I knew a guy (he had been one of the ‘adult’ leadership while I was part of the YCC) who lost his life in the abortion that was “Operation Eagle Claw.”

My Uncle Max was, I firmly believe (it’s still classified so I can’t prove it) part of the planning team for that disaster (based on things that he knew before they were published, and his receiving the Joint Service Commendation Medal from the CNO while serving in the Air Force just after that operation went down.) When I got to my A school and C school there was a detachment of the Iranian Navy who were there to learn how to operate the sonars on the modified Spruance class DDs that Iran was scheduled to get (what eventually became the USS Kidd class after we refused to send them to post revolution Iran) (Those poor bastards were ordered by their OIC to go back to Iran, after the State Department offered them asylum. He was a fervent believer in the whole twelfth Iman bullshit. They got back, were marched off the plane, and machinegunned for being ‘contaminated’ by western ideas.)

My first boat was part of the response after the bombing of the Marine Corps barracks in Beirut, when Ronnie sent the USS New Jersey to explain why you don’t kill American Marines. We were the guys watching the Russian “Charley class” that was watching the Jersey. We had orders to put her on the bottom if they opened a missile muzzle hatch.

I was involved peripherally in responses to several other attacks sponsored and paid for by those assholes, and I played in Desert Storm, which was in no small part a second order result of something Iran started. I know at one remove, guys that were involved in the 9/11 rescues and response. Hell, I know a gal who’s father is here in the states because he was in the line of succession for the Peacock throne.

In short, to steal from the commercial, “I know some shit, because I’ve seen some shit.”

So today we’re going to spend some time talking about the long overdue removal of the “leadership” of that poor benighted country. Pull up a seat, dinner tonight is Guinness Beef Stew, You know where the drinks are, grab something, and please don’t forget the tip jar where we collect for the mess.

I’ve made no secret for years that I’m a fan of the “Punitive Expedition.” This was a tool of statecraft that the US used, A LOT in the post World War One world, and a few times prior to that. It’s a tool that fell out of use because, to quote from cdrsalamander: the-rise-of-the-punitive-expedition “ Powell Doctrine’s “pottery-barn-rule” (that it appears he got from one of Thomas Frack’n Friedman’s columns), made it appear that we could only take action if we took the entire country and then remade it in our image. (You should read the whole article and the referring article on Pottery Barn Rule, they’re fairly short, and Sal is, as usual, on point.)

Now Colin Powell had some brilliant moments, but overall, I’m not a fan. I’m also not sure that his brilliance was him, and not good staff, like oh say General Mattis. Some of his ideas, like getting rid of the Second Amendment, (he hated the thought that civilians should be allowed to have guns) were straight up idiocy. The Pottery Barn Rule is on that list.

The idea that “the only way we can use force, is if we then take responsibility for that nation, and re make it in our image” is a sure and certain way to keep us from ever using force, except in a war of annihilation. We have only been successful twice in “making a nation over in our image” and both of those were as a result of the afore mentioned “war of annihilation.” I speak of course, of WWII where Nazi Germany, and Imperial Japan had decided “we’re going to be the only nations left on earth, then we may fight it out to determine who rules the world.”

At the end of that war, either we were going to exist, or they were, there was no middle ground. We then ended up occupying them for… oh, wait, we still have troops there. The troops can no longer be considered an “Occupation Force” but make no mistake, for at least 50 years, the unspoken words behind all the bases in Germany and Japan, was “We’re here because you can’t be trusted with a military.”

That’s how long it takes to remake a culture. Roughly a half century. It’s not a job that the US citizens are willing to sign up for, except in the gravest of circumstances. The Pottery Barn Rule makes that the only way to use force. It’s sheer idiocy.

There is, was, and always will be, a need to make it clear to those who would kill Americans, take our stuff, and bully our people that “we speak softly but we carry a big stick” and it’s not just for show.

Dictators and rogue actors the world over see restraint as weakness. They would not restrain themselves if they could act, and they see everyone as thinking the same way they do. Hence, “If they don’t attack us, for killing their people, it’s because they are too weak to do so.”

You don’t have to like that, but it’s reality.

Just like the bully on the playground, the only thing that gets through to them is a good ass whippin. That’s what the Punitive Expedition is. It’s coming into their country, breaking their war machine, killing the guys whose idea it was to fuck with the USA, and then walk away, while saying “You need to find a new government. One that doesn’t attack our interests and our people. What you chose is up to you, but understand, if you attack us again, we’ll be back, and we ain’t going to be so nice, next time.”

What we’re doing right now is the perfect example of this. And this is where it should stop. Take down their military structure. All of it. Take out their Quds Force, the entire IRGC in as far as we can find it, and leave their government, their military and their military logistics a pile of burning rubble. I would be a fan of flying a few hundred supply runs over Iran, C-17s and C-5s, full of crates of rifles, and ammunition, and dropping them, for the People of Iran to use, to finish the job. Then we need to LEAVE.

Leave with the message of “We’re not going to conquer you, we don’t want your land, we just want to be left alone. Figure out how you want to be governed for yourself, and then if you want to trade with us, look us up. Just don’t try attacking us again, huh? It doesn’t end well.”

Is it that simple? Yes, AND that doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy. Clausewitz gets his say: “Everything in war is very simple. But the simplest thing is difficult.”

Old NFO, and Law Dog both warn that there are probably Quds force operatives on American Soil. aw-here, sepah-e-qods. There’s a lot of other wise men saying the same thing.

I’m positive that we’ve already seen them in action, in Austin TX.

ABC news tells us that “we still don’t know the motive behind the Mass Shooting on Sixth Street in Austin.”

Let’s see, the asshole is wearing a Property of Allah shirt, wrote prior to the attack that this was revenge for the “unprovoked attack on Iran” dudes got a Quran in his truck with passages about killing the infidel highlighted… Gosh, I guess there’s no way we’ll ever know why he shot those people…

ABC: Always Be Clowns.

The thing is, this is the best they’re going to do. They aren’t equipped to attack a military base, and even if they were, that’s not their style. They’re going to go for easy targets, the goal is to cause the most destruction and disruption possible, and they’re just not very good at it. Spetsnaz 5^th doctorate, they ain’t.

Which doesn’t mean they can’t kill some people, so if you can, I would recommend you stay armed. The odds of you being there when one of these little mutts decide to do their thing for Allah is tiny, but never zero.

Meanwhile, the folks with Trump Derangement Syndrome are losing their shit! It’s so ridiculous that the group that owns “The Atlantic” Etal, which also own a rag called “Successful Farming” are losing their minds over OMG “a prolonged military conflict in the Middle East could potentially upend key commodity markets due to Iran’s control of the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most important trade routes. America’s crop growers could see fresh price spikes for inputs like fertilizer while battling a multi-year downturn in profitability, experts warned ahead of the attack.”

attack-on-iran-could-disrupt-global-fertilizer-markets This rag claims to be dedicated to making farmers smarter and more profitable. Half the time, they’re an anti-Trump propaganda machine. This silly article is full of scare quotes, and doom and gloom about how if we let Trump continue the attack on Iran, you aren’t going to be able to afford to buy fertilizer, because, you know, “the US doesn’t have a strategic reserve of fertilizer, and one quarter of the globally traded nitrogen fertilizer flows through the Straits of Hormuz”! (emphasis mine, they don’t want you to see them palm that card.)

What it doesn’t say, is that The US is the number one manufacturer, and the stuff that’s flowing through the straits is mostly coming FROM the US, not TO the US. Saudi is one of the other major producers, and the stuff that’s coming out of the straits is coming from them, but it isn’t coming here, it’s going to the rest of Asia and to Africa. The producers of fertilizer, in order (all numbers in megatons) are the US (53) India (48.7) Russia (48.1) Canada (34.9) and Saudi (19.3) Of course this ignores the billions of tons of it coming out of Hollywood, Washington D.C., and the New York run media.

ABC is also running a horror story, wringing their hands over the idea that “Iran World Cup place in the US has been put in doubt.”

Seriously, DILLIGAF about soccer in general, and specifically, whether a bunch of Farsi speaking motherfuckers can show up to play? This? Is this the best you got?

Faux news tells us, with great hand wringing that “Only one in four Americans back Trump’s Iran strikes, most say he’s too quick to use force” according to a poll conducted by Reuters. Well now first, there’s very little data that is less useful than a poll run by people that have an intended result in mind when they run the poll. Reuters is way up on the list of organizations that lie by poll. Second, governing by poll is a bad idea in general. That’s why we’re a republic, not a democracy. No, I think I can safely say this is an attempt at creating opinions by telling people that “Most people think…”

Something that’s cool though, is “The Freedom Plane” that’s taking Documents from the National Archives to eight cities around the US as part of the 250^th anniversary celebrations. /freedom-plane-national-tour-america-250-founding-documents-cities for a list of what documents, and what cities they’ll be in. I’m sure that there’s folks that are reading this and saying “who cares? It’s just some old pieces of paper, I can see them on the internet.”

These are the same types of people that say “Grand Canyon? Who cares, it’s just a big hole in the ground, I can see a picture of it on the internet.” I weep for them. If you can’t feel the difference between seeing something in real life, and seeing a picture of a picture of it, well I don’t know how to reach you… But I’m pretty sure your sex life is lonely and boring too. After all, you can see him or her on the internet, right?

For those readers still stuck behind the lines in WA, and those that love to see someone punked, we have callers-washington-hotline-spanish-get-accented-ai-english Seems that the Washington DMV has a “press 2 for Spanish” and so on… system. If you press two, you get it in English with a Spanish accent and a smattering of Spanish words, like “Your estimated wait time is less than ‘tres’ minutes,”

I don’t know who punked Olympia like this, but BRAVO.

Afghanistan and Pakistan are “in open war” according to the Paki Defense Minister, and Paki airstrikes have happened in Kabul, as well as other major cities. Personally, I’m all in favor of a long, drawn out, bloody and inconclusive war. As long as those fuckers are killing each other, they aren’t killing people I care about. Hope they both lose.

An Ex USAF fighter pilot has been arrested for training West Taiwan Pilots in how to beat US Fighters. https://www.foxnews.com/us/ex-air-force-pilot-arrested-allegedly-training-chinese-military-pilots-without-authorization This guy was not just a fighter pilot, he was a fighter pilot instructor for the US. He went on to be a contract Simulator Instructor for everything up to and including the F-35. Then he went to the PRC and trained them, because apparently he didn’t make enough money as a retired major. He’s been working for them since 2023. He’s the second pilot charged with this behavior, there’s a former Marine Corps Pilot who was doing this too. I suggest that we put them in Leavenworth in gen pop, and turn our backs while the problem sorts itself out.

Sal had a rather scary article last week on West Taiwan’s economic trends, at secondary-i-and-w-of-china-getting ready for war it’s worth your reading. He also had a great article on our new cheep killer drones, the Low-cost Unmanned Combat Attack System (LUCAS) at lucass-coming-out-party? If you want to feel better about how we have improved in our ability to get new weapons systems from vaporware to putting warheads of foreheads, go read it. This is what we should have been doing all along. It took throwing the “inside the beltway” wisdom out, and draining the swamp a bit to get there, but hey, it’s a great big step in the right direction.

QOTD From the “You gotta practice to be this stupid” files: “Trump: has never had a child.” —author Stephen King

Yours in Service,

William Lehman