War games
Can someone tell Secretary of “War” Pete Hegseth the Iran operation is not a video game?
But while the Brylcreem Kid struts and bloviates, his boss is starting to feel some heat, launching another round of his favorite game of “Quick, Look Over There,” tossing out chum to distract the media from a conflict that rains terror from the sky without an exit plan, let alone a strategy for one.
The Pentagon has continued its modern tradition of “news” releases — sterile images of buildings being blasted into oblivion from 30,000 feet. In a twist, Hegseth offered up an image of an Iranian ship blown up by a submarine-launched torpedo, the first by the U .S. military since World War II.
“The Iranian ship “thought it was safe in international waters,” but “instead, it was sunk by a torpedo,” Hegseth said at a Pentagon briefing. “America is winning, decisively, devastatingly and without mercy.”
The former Fox Propaganda Channel weekend host — who insists on promoting a “warrior ethos” that values pushups over joystick skills — nevertheless sounds like a Warhammer 40,000 enthusiast as he spouts deep observations like:
“Death and destruction from the sky all day”;
“We’re playing for keeps”; and
“They are terrorists, after all, and they need to target civilians because they can’t fight toe to toe, but we will find them, and we will kill them.”
No mention of the what may have been American weapons that destroyed an Iranian school, killing at least 175 civilians, many of them children.
Not to say that the Iranians are shying away from the same propaganda tactics.
The bluster is a great diversion from the chaos that continues to envelop the Trump regime. Like the sacking of Secretary of Fatherland Security Kristi Noem, who will now become special envoy for “The Shield of the Americas.” Or rising gas prices. Or falling job numbers.
Oh, did I mention the Department of “Justice” just managed to find “duplicate” Epstein files related to a woman who leveled allegations against Trump?
But here’s General Bone Spurs, offering this less-than-concise “explanation” of the nation’s war planning:
“Well, because it happened all very quickly, we thought, and I thought maybe more so than most, I could ask Marco, but I thought we were going to have a situation where we were going to be attacked. They were getting ready to attack Israel. They were getting ready to attack others. You’re seeing that right now. And a lot of those missiles that are hitting in those are stationary. Those were aimed there for a long period of time at these other countries. So I think I was right about that. We attacked first, and if we didn’t, it could have been, you know, look, we’re really decimating them. They’re being decimated. And if we didn’t. If we didn’t, and by the way, we have massive amounts of ammunition. We have the high end. A lot of it was given away stupidly by Biden, very stupidly, for free. And I’m all for Ukraine, but they gave away a lot. As you know, when I give away ammunition, everybody pays for it. The European Union is paying for it, then they can do what they want with it, but they are giving it, let’s say, to Ukraine, and it’s okay, but we gave away a lot of high end but we have plenty. But we have unlimited middle and upper ammunition, which is really what we’re using in this war. And we have an, really an unlimited supply. We also have a lot of the very high end stored in different countries throughout the world. With this, we’re literally storing it there, which is actually something that I insisted on in my first term. I rebuilt the military. In my first term, the military is great. A lot of, not unbelievable, amount of of ammunition, or munitions, as they say, were given away to you know, the Wall Street Journal incorrectly covered the story when they said that it was given away to the Middle East, not to the Middle East was given away to Ukraine. Very little was given to the Middle East. Middle East would buy a lot. And some of the nations, because they’re rich, they have a lot, but it was given away to Ukraine and it just should have been done. Look, it’s a war that should have never happened. If I were president, that war would have never happened. But we have a tremendous amount of munitions, ammunition at the upper upper level, middle and upper level, all of which is really powerful stuff.”
Is it any wonder Hegseth and White House Mouthpiece Karolyin’ Leavitt took direct aim at what they view as their real enemy: the “fake news.”
Avoiding questions about six American soldiers who died when an Iranian drone hit a command center in Kuwait, the Secretary of Warmongering became his own ballistic missile:
“This is what the fake news misses. We’ve taken control of Iran’s airspace and waterways without boots on the ground. We control their fate. But when a few drones get through or tragic things happen, it’s front page news.
“I get it. The press only wants to make the president look bad. But try for once to report the reality. The terms of this war will be set by us at every step.”
Karolyin’ took aim at CNN’s Kaitlan Collins at her own news conference:
“You take every single thing this administration says and try to use it to make the president look bad. That’s an objective fact. After years of endless appeasement and empty statements from politicians on both sides. President Trump is finally the man of action. . . . Future generations of Americans will look to this moment as the moment where the specter of a nuclear-armed Iran ended.”
There’s nothing objective or factual in the regime’s response to media. Because they believe the real victim here is Donald J. Trump.
But, as CNN International anchor Becky Anderson, working in Abu Dhabi, noted:
“We’ve had 1,072 drone attacks here; eight cruise missile attacks; and 196 ballistic missile attacks here. So I can tell you it’s not a video game.”
Let’s give the final word to Joshua — the War Operation Plan Response computer aptly named Whopper in the 1983 movie “War Games," — who unleashes a simulated global thermonuclear war when a teenage hacker stumbles upon his programming:
“A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess?”