israel

Putting the hornets back in the nest

~ ianrandalstrock ~ Leave a comment

Regardless of who, why, or how the Trump Iran War started, one thing is certain: we are going to be fighting it and paying for it for a long time to come.

In the first three weeks of the war, 13 US service members have lost their lives, at least four US airplanes have been destroyed, and the US has spent tens of billions of dollars on this fight. In other countries, hundreds or thousands of people have already been killed, the global energy trade has been disrupted, prices have skyrocketed, and the total cost will never be known.

Rational Americans are—quite correctly—demanding to know why President Trump felt the burning need to launch a hot war when he did, and without consultation with our allies (those same allies, by the way, of whom he is now demanding help to keep the Strait of Hormuz open). Equally important is when and how he sees this war ending: the best comment we have on that so far is that he’ll “feel it in his bones.”

And yet, his opinion of such things has proven—time and again—to be absolutely meaningless. His actions scream that he is operating according to his dreams and his view of “look at me, I’m strong and powerful,” with only barest nod at reality. But even if Donald Trump were to suddenly embrace altruistic, rational thought, and realize that we should no longer be fighting this war, that will not end it.

We’ve kicked over the hornets’ nest that was the religious dictatorship in Iran, but we have not destroyed all the hornets in it. Those with access to weapons in Iran have no reason to stop fighting, even if we do. They’ll keep threatening shipping through the Strait. They’ll keep dropping explosive-laden drones on their neighbors. They’ll keep urging their “proxies” to kill and disrupt as much as possible.

And we’re stuck with it.

Even if a new president took office next week, we’d still have to deal with the insanity launched by Donald Trump’s war of “don’t look at the Trump Epstein files.” Just as he came to office saying “no more forever wars,” such as what we did to Iraq and Afghanistan in the aftermath of the 2001 terror attacks, we’ll be dealing with the Trump Iran War for years to come. Even if Congress somehow manages to cut off funding for this “excursion” of Donald Trump’s, that will only prevent us from inflicting more damage on Iran; it won’t stop the Iranians from a rampaging campaign of revenge for what we’ve done to them in the last few weeks.

So now is the time to figure out—as Arthur Wellesley, the first Duke of Wellington taught us—how to get over this heavy ground as lightly as we can. I fear the only answer is indeed a land war in Asia, in which we send in thousands of ground troops to root out every last adherent of the ruling clique in Iran, and then—as we did in Japan after World War II—set up a US-run government to enable the country to eventually transition into a freedom-loving democracy. It was long and hard in Japan, but we see the results when we don’t do everything necessary: Taliban-run Afghanistan, and the headache that is still Iraq.

And this is the point where I wish I was smarter. Actually I wish our political leaders were even smarter than that, that they could figure out an easy way out of this morass Donald Trump has dumped us into. I fear there isn’t one, and the only way out is through; a long, bloody, soul-rending struggle that Trump has thrown us into for no reason but to soothe his own ego.

Defunding intellectual freedom?

~ ianrandalstrock ~ 1 Comment

What is the value of intellectual freedom? of academic integrity? of political independence? The story just now on MSNBC was about the forthcoming meeting and negotiations between Harvard University and the Trump administration; that the government is demanding… well, I’m not entirely sure, other than the Trumpians are angry with the “liberal agenda supported by colleges and universities.”

I’m wondering what will happen if the leadership at Harvard can bring themselves to say “Our intellectual freedom, our academic integrity, is more important to the Harvard community than our federal funding. We have this massive endowment, so we’re going to draw on it to make up for the shortfall in federal funding. President Trump: you can shove your ideology.” Such a move, I think, would lead to an alumni fund-raising windfall. While the Trumpians might tout it as cutting needless federal spending, it could be viewed as a win by both sides. And who better to take that hit to show that Trumpism is not forever and ever than a university which was founded more than a century before the country in which it stands?

Mind you, I am emphatically in favor of rooting out the antisemitism poisoning college campuses. But it doesn’t seem to me that Harvard is dragging their feet on this issue.

And I’m going to throw in a few numbers which caught my ear. According to that MSNBC story, Harvard receives “$9 billion in federal grants and contracts.” Though the same report did also say that Columbia, after having theoretically acquiesced to similar demands, is still waiting for the $400 million in federal funds it receives to be restored.

I question that $9 billion, which may actually be an aggregate of many universities. This Washington Times piece from 2023 said Harvard had $3.3 billion in grants and contracts over the 2018–2022 period.

And in January, the Harvard Crimson said “In fiscal year 2024, the University received $686 million from federal agencies, accounting for two-thirds of its total sponsored research expenditures and eleven percent of the University’s operating revenue.”

But the point remains: can—should—a university bow to political whims, and change its policies to suit a presidential administration, which is by design temporary?

Yes, there is no place on college campuses—or anywhere else in the country—for supporters of kidnappers, rapists, and murderers. But on the other side of the discussion: is this what we have a government for? Isn’t this rather an issue to which a true Republican would have a laissez-faire attitude? Let the market decide, such a Republican would say. If people disagree with the university’s policies, they’ll stop donating to it, stop applying to be students there, stop respecting it. Apparently, the Trumpians are not so secure in their own beliefs to think they’ll win out in the marketplace of ideas, so they have to put the government’s financial thumb on the scale.

Why aren’t they outraged?

~ ianrandalstrock ~ Leave a comment

I hear the protesters, I see the outrage, and I, too, grieve for the innocent lives being lost in Gaza.

But I don’t understand why they aren’t doing anything.

What if the Hamas animals had been lurking in the tunnels under Detroit instead of Gaza? And what if, on October 7, they had crossed the Ambassador Bridge into Windsor? And what if they had raped, mutilated, and murdered a thousand people there, and kidnapped several hundred hostages back with them to the tunnels under Detroit?

If all that had happened, Canada wouldn’t be bombing Detroit; they wouldn’t have to.

Because the people of Detroit—and the entire rest of the country—would be so outraged that we would have rescued the hostages ourselves. We would have returned them to Canada, and if any of the Hamas animals survived our rescuing of the hostages, we’d be turning them over to Canadian justice.

But in Gaza, none of that has happened. We’re supposed to feel great sorrow and sympathy for all the poor innocents there. But if they’re so innocent, why aren’t they outraged enough to do something? How can they live with themselves, knowing that right there with them are Israelis, Americans, and others being held hostage by Hamas? Innocents being tortured and more? Silence is complicity. Not our silence about Israel’s attempts to destroy Hamas, but the Gazans’ acceptance of Hamas still holding all those hostages five months later.