Rote demands for de-escalation, as with the single-minded focus upon proportional reaction when we do employ military force (Red Sea, Syria, et al.), graduated response (going back to Vietnam), vacuous red lines, the insistence upon international diplomacy that does nothing more than diffuse responsibility and defer resolution, the wringing of hands over the ‘cycle of violence’... our leaders have been timid, indecisive, dithering, concerned with their image and status, mouthing pieties but fearful of being wrong or alienating a fellow traveler of the global elite caste or paying a political cost to actually resolve serious issues of threat and reaction. Now, with Trump Derangement Syndrome rampant, it is even worse – they have a boogie man to blame for it all obviating the need for even the minimal degree of thought that used to occasionally erupt. Everything is proof of how bad Trump is – and don’t get me started on his appointments. And yet – everything Hegseth identifies as a goal is strangely consistent with everything every study of the past 20 years has identified as lacking, necessary or progress.
I can only speak from the naval point of view. Take a look at the numerous expert, professional and academic (War College – not Ivy League) evaluations after the fact of such topics as collisions at sea (USS McCain, USS Fitzgerald), surrender of boats and crews to Iran in the Arabian Gulf, burning of USS Bonhomme Richard pier side in San Diego, the Zumwalt class of ships (canceled after 3 hulls), the LCS class of ships – fragile, nonsurvivable in combat, short range, to list but a few deficiencies – also cancelled, continuing maintenance cutbacks that sideline too many ships and planes, recruiting shortages, retention issues, USS Truman’s issues keeping its planes in the air or on her deck, Truman's own collision problem, the relentless reduction in the fleet (we retire more ships than we build – not to worry, to be turned around in future years, somehow, sometime... maybe, if...) and more. All of these are continuing serious problems that undermine our Navy, and thus undermine the free world, of which the United States is the primary guarantor. Who else do you think will preserve the maritime domain critical for commerce, trade and the security of liberty among nations? Freedom of the seas - it is critical for us and for our allies. Every one of these issues, events and problems has been studied, autopsied, analyzed... and solutions proposed. Read them – sounds like Hegseth.
But Trump!!! We are not the serious nation we once were... and we are in common company across the free world. It is disheartening...
IMO it’s time to stop calling the left “shameless.” They’re just stupid.
Regardless of the lack of evidence, these idiots still believe in the climate cult.
Regardless of the preponderance of evidence, these morons don’t believe the death vax is unsafe & ineffective.
Regardless of the historical record, these clowns believe that communism, which resulted in over 100M state murders in the last century, is good for mankind.
Regardless of the record, these imbeciles believe that hiring our dumbest college grads as teachers, then allowing them to unionize, is a good idea… and are shocked! shocked, I tell you! that Johnny can’t read, or that the adults want porn out of kiddie libraries.
They aren’t “shameless,” they’re stupid and evil ideologues bent on the destruction of law, order, borders, rules, families, fertility, morality, freedom, and liberty.
I used to think stupid prevails. But there is too much of it. I think it is actually mostly evil people doing evil things. The last years have shown me that stupid is mostly an excuse they use to keep us tolerant.
I stand by what I actually said. The President is smarter than any idiot that believes the lies you had posted. That is a simple and irrefutable fact. Even in your reply you state even more lies. President Trump has never been convicted in a criminal court of rape. Even in his civil suit, the charge of rape was completely rejected by the jury. The majority of the voting public saw through the kangaroo court that tried so hard to stop him from being elected. Yet they elected him even in the face of the lies that you repeat.
I have all the “standards” that I need to recognize a liar when I encounter one. The standards that I live by is to reject any lie that I am told by any person who tells them either unwittingly or knowingly. This means any person, including our president if his statements are not supported by facts. It also includes you. Your claims in both your original posts and your reply to me are not supported by the facts.
No one has shown any video that was supposedly obtained by Russians concerning Trump. And Trump has never been convicted of rape in a criminal or civil court. President Trump’s obvious success and wealth is clearly well documented. He is obviously smart enough to defeat your leftist (read communist) democrats in two out of the last three presidential elections.
I am standing on the facts. You are spinning fiction simply because you do not like the man. It is your right to choose to dislike anyone. But the rest of us are under no obligation to join you in your unjustifiable hatred of the man we have twice elected to serve as the President of the United States of America.
No. He’s not. You’re dreaming about nonsense that’s been overturned. The real criminals are those who ran the scams against him. The real morons are idiots like you who believe that shit.
Or perhaps those who are skeptical actually paid attention to the news.
Your first link: Although the Vanity Fair headline states (4/19/18), "Donald Trump Is Obsessed with the Pee Tape," the article doesn't quite back that up:
"In nearly every interaction they had, Comey recalled that Trump returned to the topic of the Steele dossier, a report compiled by an ex-British spy. Among other things, the dossier contains allegations that the Russians possess what has come to be known as the “pee tape”—a recording of certain interactions between the president and prostitutes in a Moscow hotel room in 2013."
So (according to Comey), Trump talked about the Steele Dossier in every interaction with Comey, not specifically about the "Pee Tape" in those interactions. Further, that's hardly evidence of the accuracy of any part of the Steele dossier.
Your second link: New Zealand Herald writes (10/19/21), "A tape of former Donald Trump allegedly confessing that he enjoys being peed upon during sex (or watching others do so) "probably does exist", according to former British intelligence agent and Russian specialist Christopher Steele, despite the former US president's repeated objections that it doesn't."
So...it's not the "Pee Tape," but a tape in which Trump either confesses that he enjoys golden showers or watching golden showers (Steele is apparently not certain which) that Steele says "probably" exists.
A regular Perry Mason, aren't you?
The Times of London (10/14/22):
"...the FBI offered the former British spy Christopher Steele up to $1 million to verify allegations in his dossier about Donald Trump’s links to Russia."
"The money was never paid because Steele did not provide hard evidence to substantiate the claims made in the 'Steele dossier' he was commissioned to compile for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign."
"[Durham's] indictment, the latest of three, charges a US-based Russian analyst named Igor Danchenko — identified last year as a key source for Steele’s dossier — with lying to the FBI. More damning, for the court of public opinion, is the picture it paints of Danchenko’s research methods."
"Danchenko told The New York Times last year that two sources in Russia told him the story in the Steele dossier, of Trump hiring sex workers to “perform a ‘golden showers’ [urination] show in front of him” in a suite at the Ritz Carlton hotel, an act secretly recorded by a Russian intelligence agency."
"He said he had attempted to corroborate it via a circumspect conversation with a hotel manager and with one other member of staff, taking no notes and repeating the stories verbally to Steele."
Stupid suggests lack of ability, lack of brains and cognition. The authors and editors of such pieces are instead lacking in any moral centering. They are, to me, the very definition of shameless. They have no introspection, no humility. They are cowardly and craven because they do these things willfully.
The readers, otoh, may indeed be stupid and are definitely incurious.
That’s fair, I can see how “shameless” might be more accurate than “stupid,” especially when you look at how calculated some of these headlines and angles are. There’s definitely a kind of willful dishonesty happening. But I still think some of it is stupidity or at least intellectual laziness. Maybe it’s a mix of both. The writers know what sells, and the readers don’t care enough to question it. Either way, the end result is the same empty noise posing as journalism.
Another term I like to use is “willful ignorance”. These pathetic people see the truth but intentionally dismiss it because it does not validate their biased worldview or lifestyle.
I started looking at the left like Roger Corman movies. The target audience is the perpetual high schooler - mostly interested in sex, partying, fighting, and explosions; the aftermath is someone else’s job and of no concern to the producers nor the audience. If anything, the producers get new ideas to exploit while watching the stupid audience.
The left behaves as if the results of their policies are YOUR job to clean up and shame on YOU if you expect remuneration and power for your janitorial efforts.
So… the stupid enabling the shameless. Over time it becomes a distinction without a difference.
You're doing Corman a disservice. Many of the New World productions of the 70s fit your description of amusing junk, but he directed some great films: The Wild Angels, The Intruder (the only film he made that lost money), Masque of the Red Death, Little Shop of Horrors, Bucket of Blood, and produced Bogdonavitch's Targets.
I generally ascribe incompetence over malice, but we're so down the road now, that I don't think you can excuse all of it as stupidity. Certainly the foot soldiers (local officials, many local DA's chosen for qualities other than competence, etc.) struggle with critical thought, but their handlers are actively choosing evil over goodness.
When I read "They're just stupid," I was reminded of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's letter on stupidity which nicely sums up the how the majority of orange man bad find themselves agreeing with and reposting articles like the one from Thomas Ricks. Bonhoeffer probably called the moral failing he saw stupidity for lack of a better term. We think of stupidity as low IQ or lack of intelligence, Bonhoeffer saw it a little differently. From Bonhoeffer: "Stupidity is a moral failing because it involves a choice (conscious or not) to ignore reason and responsibility. By refusing to think critically, individuals become complicit in atrocities, as seen in the widespread acquiescence to Nazi policies." He argued that stupidity is not cured by education alone but requires a kind of moral awakening or “liberation” from the psychological and social pressures that suppress independent thought.
Exactly, Alexander!! You have clearly stated what we are up against. We are dealing with a bunch of “useful idiots” that are communists who think they are patriots. Truth is that they are all fools and eventually they will leave us no choice but to fight them.
After Afghanistan, they identified a new war that was unwinnable and therefore could hopefully last forever. The bonus was that Ukraine was just as corrupt a place and therefore it would be easy to hide all the money laundering.
a new re-spin of the same old war, and I guess the post-cold war peace was a monetary hit and a big problem for the wise old men that play the board game "Risk" as an occupation.
Except your "allies" have lost, badly, and pissed away Billions of your dollars and much-needed capabilities while Russia, according to The Pentagon (that bastion of lefties), is now stronger than ever.
Patton said it best. "You aren't here to die for your country. You are here to make sure the other poor sucker dies for his country." The military has always been about killing your enemy and rendering him unhoused.
Parkinson's Law is a principle articulated by C. Northcote Parkinson, a British naval historian and author, in a 1955 satirical essay published in The Economist. The full statement of Parkinson's Law is:
"Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion."
Explanation and Context:
Core Idea: The law suggests that tasks or projects tend to take up all the time allocated to them, regardless of their actual complexity or requirements. For example, if a task that could be completed in one hour is given a week, it will often stretch to fill that week due to inefficiencies, procrastination, or added complexities.
Origin: Parkinson developed this idea based on observations of bureaucratic inefficiencies, particularly in the British Civil Service and military administration post-World War II. He noted that bureaucracies tend to grow and create unnecessary work, even when the actual workload doesn’t justify it.
Extended Implications: In his essay and subsequent 1957 book, Parkinson's Law: The Pursuit of Progress, Parkinson elaborated that this principle applies to organizational behavior, where:
Bureaucracies expand over time, often creating work to justify their existence.
Staff numbers increase irrespective of the amount of work, as officials multiply subordinates and create tasks to maintain their importance.
Resources (e.g., time, personnel) are consumed inefficiently when not constrained.
Every time I read comments like this, I am reminded of the time I was brought into the Pentagon to “complete” a project due in a month that a bureaucrat had been “working on” for 11 months. Long story short: He had done nothing and the project only required only a week for me to take from concept to completion. During the other three weeks, I was paid to do whatever the hell I wanted inside the Pentagon.
Oh gosh, I've worked at places like that. It's one reason I have a farm now; animals are straightforward about life and don't waste their time on unnecessary things. Cows and goats and chickens don't "make work", they eat, enjoy a nice nap in the pasture on a warm day, and then go to sleep when the sun goes down. We humans could learn a thing or two.
"Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion."
There are important corollaries to this rule, one of which I have observed by being married to a man who worked in construction and therefore believes that every piece of flotsam and jetsam can have a second (or third) useful life by being incorporated into some new project. That corollary is as follows: "Junk expands so as to fill the garage/shed/barn space available for its storage." He knows better than to bring any of it into the house though, as I am the only thing standing between us and a starring role on one of those hoarder shows.
What "Anti-intellectualism" means to Heather Cox Richardson and her ilk, is, YOU DONT THINK LIKE ME, WE ARE GOING TO CANCEL YOU, RACIST!!!
Fortunately, the tide has turned and the brainwashed commies are finally being exposed for what they really are, posers who lack honesty, lying liars and champions of the thought police. Her words no longer have power, which is so sad.
I read the article you linked to and I didn’t find the author’s arguments terribly appalling, but I suppose the bigger point is that—as you said—he’s criticizing Hegseth for stuff he didn’t actually say. (And yes, the subhead is hilarious.)
I was more peeved by the author’s omission of context. I’ve read countless stories about how the military only a few years ago was briefing soldiers on pronoun use, spending money on climate change initiatives, using a drag queen in Navy ads, etc. It sounded like the top brass was prioritizing social engineering and ideological purity at the expense of combat effectiveness. Not to mention you have concrete, real-world events during the last administration where our military clearly wasn’t up to the task—the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, an utterly useless pier in Gaza, etc.—that still haven’t been satisfactorily addressed, in my opinion.
People who care about our military’s performance should put more effort into understanding what actually went wrong and correcting it instead of speculating on what might go wrong in the future.
Our military leaders were not up to the task. In a recent podcast Victor Davis Hanson talked about his disappointment in teaching at the US Naval Academy and that he has never been in a more “Liberal” place and that was 20 years ago that he taught there. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=850wWhqtwQY He added that the focus now is on drones, Ai, and technology. The modernization of the military has forgotten the importance of the military recruits and their training as warriors.
Why do you think the Superintendent of the Naval Academy at the time VDH taught there was later hired as the President at the University of Nebraska and then Ohio State University? What woke state university hires a 3-star Admiral as their President without a revolt and major meltdown from their liberal tenured professors? What would his record of wokeness have to be at a military academy to be hired at a woke civilian university? (As a Naval Academy grad, I know the answer to that question.)
Enlighten us. We are waiting with bated breath. I provided the link to the podcast. VDH talks about his experience there. Sheesh. Are you a bit triggered? Is that you General Milley?
You don't seem to be one of those who care if you'd rather send a carrier to sea with reduced crew and effectiveness than let a homosexual serve. That puts everyone on board at risk and marks you as a fool, if not traitorous.
The brass was prioritizing RECRUITMENT, which has fallen through the floor, resulting in lowered standards all around to attempt to fill the holes. This is endemic across all branches, and not improving.
Just like sports and video games, it was an attempt to fill in the blanks with warm bodies because a trans soldier can pilot a drone or man the hydrophones just as well as anyone else 🙄
I remember Rod Dreher speculating one of the reasons there’s a recruiting shortfall is because the military culture had become so hostile to traditional values. Families with a history of serving were telling their own sons not to join because they were being actively discriminated against (e.g., consciously avoiding promoting white men) and their values were being held as retrograde (e.g., thinking marriage between a man and a woman is bigotry.)
There might be other reasons, too (like declining mental and physical health among the general population), but his argument always struck me as plausible.
From an NPR story on the Trump FDA calling for food makers to switch to natural dyes:
Melissa Wright is a food safety expert at Virginia Tech University. She says extracting large volumes of color from natural sources is far more complex than mixing chemical dyes.
[Sounds like a LOT of work. Let's not even try.]
MELISSA WRIGHT: You're using, you know, red cabbage extract in place of red 40. You're going to have to plant and harvest and extract raw material to get to that naturally derived color alternative, right? So first of all, you have to be able to source it.
[Oh, you want red cabbage extract for the color red? Get ready to do some unexpected legwork. You're gonna need red cabbage, and good luck finding it before complaining about how long it's taking you. You'll probably have to plant the stuff, too, because no Americans would be entrepreneurial enough to open a factory that produces natural red dye for food companies.]
NOGUCHI: Wright says, some colors, like yellow, have lots of common natural analogs like turmeric, paprika and annatto - not so with blue.
WRIGHT: Blues are going to be the really hard one. Blue, there's not a lot of naturally sourced supply. It's going to be limited, and that's going to make a difference as to what the cost is to reformulation.
[I looked up natural blue dye. It's made with...red cabbage and baking soda. Sounds complicated. Good luck, Powerade, trying to scale that in your factories.]
NOGUCHI: It's the same for green because it's a mix of blue and yellow. Cooking is another challenge.
WRIGHT: These naturally derived colors tend to not be as stable, especially with heat or acid. So if you're adding them to acidic sodas or you're adding them to products that you have to heat, it's going to become a problem because they're just not going to be as vivid as the customer's used to seeing.
[I used to buy a brand of pickles that colored some of their offerings with turmeric. It didn't bother me that they weren't in dayglo yellow juice. I don't need my food to be as vivid as a box of Crayolas.]
NOGUCHI: Loyal consumers can vocally revolt when cherry flavors suddenly turn dull purple or cheese snacks appear more rust-colored than safety-tape yellow.
WRIGHT: When I eat Doritos and Cheetos, I have that orange dust on my fingers, right? And if you don't have that, is it really a Doritos-eating experience, you know?
[Sure, you could enjoy the FLAVOR of the Doritos while watching TV in the dark. But is that really the EXPERIENCE you want? Is it the same as pressing your orange fingers into the sofa and smudging orange dust all over the remote control?]
Trump actually has NPR, the crunchy crowd, arguing for toxic chemicals to keep foods with false colors looking the way they do. Rather than using natural dyes because where in the heck are we going to get red cabbage? It isn’t like you can simply plant it and have it grow!
Tell them they can make red dye from lice. Called "cochineal extract" or "carmine" in English because apparently ingesting a colouring agent made from squeezing dried female lice is icky.
Imagine a world where, amazingly, every time a magician gets worse, he makes more money and has an more enthusiastic (if shrinking) audience.
Imagine how much those magic tricks would suck!
Imagine the level of playing along needed to believe that the mannequin he sawed in half (and is now in 2 pieces) is an actual person who survived dangerous magic!
Or the level of playing along needed to believe that Kamela Harris, the brilliant political genus who loved to lecture us on advanced 7th grade concepts like Venn Diagrams, while we all know that she couldn't draw a Venn Diagram for a million dollars and a case of cheap vodka.
Or the contortions the MSM and it's followers are engaged in trying to convince everyone they "had no idea" that "shape as a tack" Biden suffered any mental decline while in office.
The Media: News, Movies, Music, (does it matter?), can no longer create a great comedy or tragedy because the real entertainment has moved off of the screen, past the audience and to those watching the audience try to clap and play along. It is a Rocky horror picture show where the audience really believes that space vampires (orange man/ mars man) will get them unless they sing along, dress the part, get their boosters, eat bugs to save the polar bears.
That is the entertainment folks, stop looking at the screen.
I went on ski trip to Jackson Hole in college, (late 80s) with hundreds of other students, shared a bus with a couple of super stoners, from a rival school, who entered the bus with literal pounds of Marijuana. (which they smoked, shared, sold at stupid rates and mostly got stolen and wasted). They smoked constantly, one would get very paranoid the other very clueless, which served as their nicknames for the trip. I can list a dozen amazing examples, but most notably, once at a party in his room at the ski lodge, Clueless said "I Haven't smoked in like an hour and I can't find my bong!" We were ankle deep in beer cans so i told him he could make a pipe by stabbing a beer can, putting pot on the resulting holes and breathing through drink tab, stoner 101. I then went to take a leak but when I got back Clueless was covered with beer. He was stabbing FULL beer cans spraying everywhere then trying to put pot on the foam and light it. this was witness by a dozen people, none of whom were laughing and not just because he was wasting beer. You had to feel sorry for the guy. Life was somewhat easy while funded by his rich parents, but you knew this would run out he had no faculties to do anything.
I kinda of see this as america, trying to buys it's way through the world with its legacy wealth by doing things so impossibly stupid everyone is waiting for the inevitable crash. It is like shuffling a bad comedy and a bad tragedy together, you done really get either, just kind of this melancholy hopelessness that is too bizarre to be comedy, too self inflicted to be tragedy.
We haven't won a war since the War Department was renamed the Department of Defense. We haven't won a war since the inception of the Air Farce as an independent service instead of being aligned with the Army.
And YES, we have too many General or Flag Officers, or "GOFO". We have more admirals than we have ships, and more generals than we have brigades. Those excess GOFO simply make work and multiply subordinates for each other, when they OUGHT to be retired. Hegseth is condemned for his work BECAUSE he, as a former O4, is proving that an O7 isn't needed for most jobs. Fire or retire all GOFO, and rebuild the military from the O5/O6 ranks.
You think you killed 4.5 Million COMBATANTS? That's adorable. We well remember Madeline Albright mentioning 500,000 starved children as part of that tally. So brave. Shall we talk of all the Iraqi generals who were paid to sit it out? Not glamorous enough?
After that, you fought and lost a 20 year insurgency, and after all that, left the nation in the hands of Iranian Shias 🙄 Brilliant.
Afghanistan? Really? You want to use that as a shining example.of American fighting prowess?
You invaded a sovereign nation based on a domestic crime under the purview of the FBI. An act of aggressive war, in international law. A war crime, like Iraq. And again, you fight a losing battle against a medieval foe for 20 years, and then run away, abandoning billions of dollars of equipment and infrastructure, leaving the nation in the same hands as when you arrived.
Either until he wants to parly, or surrenders, or become incapable of resisting or ceases to exist.
That's it.
We can dress that up as the continuation of diplomacy by other means, pre-emptive retaliation, special military advisors, peace-keeping operations and other semantics but the point is always the same: kill the enemy.
Fail to understand that about war, and whatever your resources and technology and no matter how safe your home base is, you'll lose. Always.
Yeah, Dick, we know what war is. Wisdom is choosing when to fight, and when not to. This is why you're getting your asses kicked in Ukraine, and why you have no hope in hell against China.
"Glorious victory" over a Medieval nation that defeated you with Lee Enfields and flip flops and sent you packing, leaving the Taliban in control, and all your weapons behind.
Rote demands for de-escalation, as with the single-minded focus upon proportional reaction when we do employ military force (Red Sea, Syria, et al.), graduated response (going back to Vietnam), vacuous red lines, the insistence upon international diplomacy that does nothing more than diffuse responsibility and defer resolution, the wringing of hands over the ‘cycle of violence’... our leaders have been timid, indecisive, dithering, concerned with their image and status, mouthing pieties but fearful of being wrong or alienating a fellow traveler of the global elite caste or paying a political cost to actually resolve serious issues of threat and reaction. Now, with Trump Derangement Syndrome rampant, it is even worse – they have a boogie man to blame for it all obviating the need for even the minimal degree of thought that used to occasionally erupt. Everything is proof of how bad Trump is – and don’t get me started on his appointments. And yet – everything Hegseth identifies as a goal is strangely consistent with everything every study of the past 20 years has identified as lacking, necessary or progress.
I can only speak from the naval point of view. Take a look at the numerous expert, professional and academic (War College – not Ivy League) evaluations after the fact of such topics as collisions at sea (USS McCain, USS Fitzgerald), surrender of boats and crews to Iran in the Arabian Gulf, burning of USS Bonhomme Richard pier side in San Diego, the Zumwalt class of ships (canceled after 3 hulls), the LCS class of ships – fragile, nonsurvivable in combat, short range, to list but a few deficiencies – also cancelled, continuing maintenance cutbacks that sideline too many ships and planes, recruiting shortages, retention issues, USS Truman’s issues keeping its planes in the air or on her deck, Truman's own collision problem, the relentless reduction in the fleet (we retire more ships than we build – not to worry, to be turned around in future years, somehow, sometime... maybe, if...) and more. All of these are continuing serious problems that undermine our Navy, and thus undermine the free world, of which the United States is the primary guarantor. Who else do you think will preserve the maritime domain critical for commerce, trade and the security of liberty among nations? Freedom of the seas - it is critical for us and for our allies. Every one of these issues, events and problems has been studied, autopsied, analyzed... and solutions proposed. Read them – sounds like Hegseth.
But Trump!!! We are not the serious nation we once were... and we are in common company across the free world. It is disheartening...
IMO it’s time to stop calling the left “shameless.” They’re just stupid.
Regardless of the lack of evidence, these idiots still believe in the climate cult.
Regardless of the preponderance of evidence, these morons don’t believe the death vax is unsafe & ineffective.
Regardless of the historical record, these clowns believe that communism, which resulted in over 100M state murders in the last century, is good for mankind.
Regardless of the record, these imbeciles believe that hiring our dumbest college grads as teachers, then allowing them to unionize, is a good idea… and are shocked! shocked, I tell you! that Johnny can’t read, or that the adults want porn out of kiddie libraries.
They aren’t “shameless,” they’re stupid and evil ideologues bent on the destruction of law, order, borders, rules, families, fertility, morality, freedom, and liberty.
Sold
I used to think stupid prevails. But there is too much of it. I think it is actually mostly evil people doing evil things. The last years have shown me that stupid is mostly an excuse they use to keep us tolerant.
Evil makes use of stupid
Stupid minds are the Devil's workshop.
I disagree. I know some perfectly nice stupid people. It’s stupid people who don’t think they’re stupid that the devil likes
Those who don't overrate their intelligence tend to be much less stupid than those who do: the wise person knows how much he doesn't know.
well said
All the folks that got the C*V*D jabs are suffering from
Brain damage and cognitive decline!
Question, on a scale of 1 to 10, how stupid is the orange man who let a Russian whore piss on him so he could be blackmailed?
not as stupid as the person who believes that idea years after it was proven to be a lie.
Not nearly as stupid as anyone believing that.
Can you supply a link to the video? It’s for my phd
Ask an AI what happened to the film after it was broadcast on cable news.
When was it broadcast on cable news? What network?
Shoo, pest.
OK, Rick Wilson, we know your glutes are still chapped over what a fool the 4chan kids made of you over that.
President Trump is smarter than any idiot that believes your blatant lie that you have posted.
Smart? He's a convicted felon, rapist, and has bankrupted nearly a dozen casinos.
Standards, get some 🙄
I stand by what I actually said. The President is smarter than any idiot that believes the lies you had posted. That is a simple and irrefutable fact. Even in your reply you state even more lies. President Trump has never been convicted in a criminal court of rape. Even in his civil suit, the charge of rape was completely rejected by the jury. The majority of the voting public saw through the kangaroo court that tried so hard to stop him from being elected. Yet they elected him even in the face of the lies that you repeat.
I have all the “standards” that I need to recognize a liar when I encounter one. The standards that I live by is to reject any lie that I am told by any person who tells them either unwittingly or knowingly. This means any person, including our president if his statements are not supported by facts. It also includes you. Your claims in both your original posts and your reply to me are not supported by the facts.
No one has shown any video that was supposedly obtained by Russians concerning Trump. And Trump has never been convicted of rape in a criminal or civil court. President Trump’s obvious success and wealth is clearly well documented. He is obviously smart enough to defeat your leftist (read communist) democrats in two out of the last three presidential elections.
I am standing on the facts. You are spinning fiction simply because you do not like the man. It is your right to choose to dislike anyone. But the rest of us are under no obligation to join you in your unjustifiable hatred of the man we have twice elected to serve as the President of the United States of America.
No. He’s not. You’re dreaming about nonsense that’s been overturned. The real criminals are those who ran the scams against him. The real morons are idiots like you who believe that shit.
Since this man who let a Russian whore piss on him is imaginary, you can ascribe any level of stupidity you wish to him.
Fascinating.
I think you ate it and became what you say it is.
One supposes you were too young to stay up that late to watch the news.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/04/comey-memos-pee-tape-trump?srsltid=AfmBOoohV_A642OnWTkrxEL_SNE7cU7mSrLio8P9jzvELM9xGGYEmGyN
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/infamous-donald-trump-golden-shower-video-probably-does-exist-says-christopher-steele/ZMKPDC2Y3JLIAOWSTI2C6R4R5E/
https://youtu.be/_n5E7feJHw0?si=L-rBlQahPeaAUUfw
I bet Bigfoot filmed it too.
Did he rape bigfoot, too?
Or perhaps those who are skeptical actually paid attention to the news.
Your first link: Although the Vanity Fair headline states (4/19/18), "Donald Trump Is Obsessed with the Pee Tape," the article doesn't quite back that up:
"In nearly every interaction they had, Comey recalled that Trump returned to the topic of the Steele dossier, a report compiled by an ex-British spy. Among other things, the dossier contains allegations that the Russians possess what has come to be known as the “pee tape”—a recording of certain interactions between the president and prostitutes in a Moscow hotel room in 2013."
So (according to Comey), Trump talked about the Steele Dossier in every interaction with Comey, not specifically about the "Pee Tape" in those interactions. Further, that's hardly evidence of the accuracy of any part of the Steele dossier.
Your second link: New Zealand Herald writes (10/19/21), "A tape of former Donald Trump allegedly confessing that he enjoys being peed upon during sex (or watching others do so) "probably does exist", according to former British intelligence agent and Russian specialist Christopher Steele, despite the former US president's repeated objections that it doesn't."
So...it's not the "Pee Tape," but a tape in which Trump either confesses that he enjoys golden showers or watching golden showers (Steele is apparently not certain which) that Steele says "probably" exists.
A regular Perry Mason, aren't you?
The Times of London (10/14/22):
"...the FBI offered the former British spy Christopher Steele up to $1 million to verify allegations in his dossier about Donald Trump’s links to Russia."
"The money was never paid because Steele did not provide hard evidence to substantiate the claims made in the 'Steele dossier' he was commissioned to compile for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign."
https://www.thetimes.com/world/article/spy-was-offered-1m-to-prove-trump-russia-link-rnz32vn7d?region=global
The Times of London (11/13/22):
"[Durham's] indictment, the latest of three, charges a US-based Russian analyst named Igor Danchenko — identified last year as a key source for Steele’s dossier — with lying to the FBI. More damning, for the court of public opinion, is the picture it paints of Danchenko’s research methods."
"Danchenko told The New York Times last year that two sources in Russia told him the story in the Steele dossier, of Trump hiring sex workers to “perform a ‘golden showers’ [urination] show in front of him” in a suite at the Ritz Carlton hotel, an act secretly recorded by a Russian intelligence agency."
"He said he had attempted to corroborate it via a circumspect conversation with a hotel manager and with one other member of staff, taking no notes and repeating the stories verbally to Steele."
https://www.thetimes.com/world/us-world/article/americas-never-ending-war-over-the-donald-trump-pee-tape-dossier-pnbkv0z2c?region=global
You are what you eat, scumbag, plus no one cares. Good riddance, clown.
That's pretty weak pee, I mean tea.
Like!
I'm gonna go ahead and disagree with you there.
Stupid suggests lack of ability, lack of brains and cognition. The authors and editors of such pieces are instead lacking in any moral centering. They are, to me, the very definition of shameless. They have no introspection, no humility. They are cowardly and craven because they do these things willfully.
The readers, otoh, may indeed be stupid and are definitely incurious.
That’s fair, I can see how “shameless” might be more accurate than “stupid,” especially when you look at how calculated some of these headlines and angles are. There’s definitely a kind of willful dishonesty happening. But I still think some of it is stupidity or at least intellectual laziness. Maybe it’s a mix of both. The writers know what sells, and the readers don’t care enough to question it. Either way, the end result is the same empty noise posing as journalism.
Another term I like to use is “willful ignorance”. These pathetic people see the truth but intentionally dismiss it because it does not validate their biased worldview or lifestyle.
Yep. Perfect.
I started looking at the left like Roger Corman movies. The target audience is the perpetual high schooler - mostly interested in sex, partying, fighting, and explosions; the aftermath is someone else’s job and of no concern to the producers nor the audience. If anything, the producers get new ideas to exploit while watching the stupid audience.
The left behaves as if the results of their policies are YOUR job to clean up and shame on YOU if you expect remuneration and power for your janitorial efforts.
So… the stupid enabling the shameless. Over time it becomes a distinction without a difference.
Oh, I think the leaders are malevolent. But the voters who keep putting them in charge? Stupid idiots.
You're doing Corman a disservice. Many of the New World productions of the 70s fit your description of amusing junk, but he directed some great films: The Wild Angels, The Intruder (the only film he made that lost money), Masque of the Red Death, Little Shop of Horrors, Bucket of Blood, and produced Bogdonavitch's Targets.
😉👏🏼
Quite a few of us do not for a second believe their unsupported assertions.
I generally ascribe incompetence over malice, but we're so down the road now, that I don't think you can excuse all of it as stupidity. Certainly the foot soldiers (local officials, many local DA's chosen for qualities other than competence, etc.) struggle with critical thought, but their handlers are actively choosing evil over goodness.
When I read "They're just stupid," I was reminded of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's letter on stupidity which nicely sums up the how the majority of orange man bad find themselves agreeing with and reposting articles like the one from Thomas Ricks. Bonhoeffer probably called the moral failing he saw stupidity for lack of a better term. We think of stupidity as low IQ or lack of intelligence, Bonhoeffer saw it a little differently. From Bonhoeffer: "Stupidity is a moral failing because it involves a choice (conscious or not) to ignore reason and responsibility. By refusing to think critically, individuals become complicit in atrocities, as seen in the widespread acquiescence to Nazi policies." He argued that stupidity is not cured by education alone but requires a kind of moral awakening or “liberation” from the psychological and social pressures that suppress independent thought.
Yep, they're stupid all right... Here's a link to Bonhoeffer's letter. It's short and definitely worth a read: https://www.fisheaters.com/srpdf/Dietrich_Bonhoeffer-On_Stupidity.pdf
Well, by that standard both Trump and Biden were stupid, and all presidents back at least as far as Kennedy.
I can buy that.
Exactly, Alexander!! You have clearly stated what we are up against. We are dealing with a bunch of “useful idiots” that are communists who think they are patriots. Truth is that they are all fools and eventually they will leave us no choice but to fight them.
You circled back to "shameless" at the end...
🎯🎯🎯🎯
Which makes you, spending time reading me…?
He said the thing which is the thing about Ukraine.
The best way to win wars is to fund and equip our allies so we don’t have to fight. They can die instead of us.
At least somebody had the balls to say what Ukraine really was. Our war that we could not have Americans die in.
They want the new world order to be more Vietnam and more Iraq just with better PR at home.
After Afghanistan, they identified a new war that was unwinnable and therefore could hopefully last forever. The bonus was that Ukraine was just as corrupt a place and therefore it would be easy to hide all the money laundering.
a new re-spin of the same old war, and I guess the post-cold war peace was a monetary hit and a big problem for the wise old men that play the board game "Risk" as an occupation.
Except your "allies" have lost, badly, and pissed away Billions of your dollars and much-needed capabilities while Russia, according to The Pentagon (that bastion of lefties), is now stronger than ever.
Once again, good job, America 🙄
a "loss"? are you kidding?? we got to run out hundreds of $billions with great PR and strong marketing!! big win!
Patton said it best. "You aren't here to die for your country. You are here to make sure the other poor sucker dies for his country." The military has always been about killing your enemy and rendering him unhoused.
Anything less is just a country club.
I don't think he said "sucker", I think he said something more, shall I say, earthy.
Yes, you are very much correct.
The word he used means male child of a female dog in heat.
Sounds like someone never served 🤡
You... think General George S. Patton never served???
Someone needs to go open a book.
Someone needs to learn how to follow the thread links on the left, chump. Nobody was talking to you.
Yeah, I saw the movie when I was about 11 years old 🙄
Nobody was talking to you either and yet here we are...
Better to be thought a fool than open your mouth and remove all doubt. Too bad you've proven yourself quite foolish.
(Also it wasn't just a movie - believe it or not he was a REAL PERSON.)
I think you're arguing with some kind of LLM or AI.
I doubt very many persons born in 1959 (11 years before 'Patton' premiered) would express themselves the way 'Velociraver' does.
Yeah I believe you are right.
YOU were talking to me, you idiot. Get a grip on reality.
And you were talking to someone else.
You can dish it out but can't take it, eh? How pathetic.
Hegseth is trying to deal with Parkinson's Law:
Parkinson's Law is a principle articulated by C. Northcote Parkinson, a British naval historian and author, in a 1955 satirical essay published in The Economist. The full statement of Parkinson's Law is:
"Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion."
Explanation and Context:
Core Idea: The law suggests that tasks or projects tend to take up all the time allocated to them, regardless of their actual complexity or requirements. For example, if a task that could be completed in one hour is given a week, it will often stretch to fill that week due to inefficiencies, procrastination, or added complexities.
Origin: Parkinson developed this idea based on observations of bureaucratic inefficiencies, particularly in the British Civil Service and military administration post-World War II. He noted that bureaucracies tend to grow and create unnecessary work, even when the actual workload doesn’t justify it.
Extended Implications: In his essay and subsequent 1957 book, Parkinson's Law: The Pursuit of Progress, Parkinson elaborated that this principle applies to organizational behavior, where:
Bureaucracies expand over time, often creating work to justify their existence.
Staff numbers increase irrespective of the amount of work, as officials multiply subordinates and create tasks to maintain their importance.
Resources (e.g., time, personnel) are consumed inefficiently when not constrained.
Source of description of Parkinson's Law: Grok.
Every time I read comments like this, I am reminded of the time I was brought into the Pentagon to “complete” a project due in a month that a bureaucrat had been “working on” for 11 months. Long story short: He had done nothing and the project only required only a week for me to take from concept to completion. During the other three weeks, I was paid to do whatever the hell I wanted inside the Pentagon.
No one confuses activity with accomplishment more than a government bureaucrat (and that definitely includes both Houses of Congress!)
I worked in government for many years and I concur. There was always a lot of motion going on but most of it was up and down without forward progress.
You don't need to work in government to see this. Work for a corporation, it's there, too.
Oh gosh, I've worked at places like that. It's one reason I have a farm now; animals are straightforward about life and don't waste their time on unnecessary things. Cows and goats and chickens don't "make work", they eat, enjoy a nice nap in the pasture on a warm day, and then go to sleep when the sun goes down. We humans could learn a thing or two.
"Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion."
There are important corollaries to this rule, one of which I have observed by being married to a man who worked in construction and therefore believes that every piece of flotsam and jetsam can have a second (or third) useful life by being incorporated into some new project. That corollary is as follows: "Junk expands so as to fill the garage/shed/barn space available for its storage." He knows better than to bring any of it into the house though, as I am the only thing standing between us and a starring role on one of those hoarder shows.
Beautifully said.
Throw in the other law that a bureaucracy will always choose the option that gives it more power, and you've just explained the modern world.
The Iron Law of Oligarchy.
Also, official hire subordinates, not rivals.
Thanks! Something to read more about.
What "Anti-intellectualism" means to Heather Cox Richardson and her ilk, is, YOU DONT THINK LIKE ME, WE ARE GOING TO CANCEL YOU, RACIST!!!
Fortunately, the tide has turned and the brainwashed commies are finally being exposed for what they really are, posers who lack honesty, lying liars and champions of the thought police. Her words no longer have power, which is so sad.
I read the article you linked to and I didn’t find the author’s arguments terribly appalling, but I suppose the bigger point is that—as you said—he’s criticizing Hegseth for stuff he didn’t actually say. (And yes, the subhead is hilarious.)
I was more peeved by the author’s omission of context. I’ve read countless stories about how the military only a few years ago was briefing soldiers on pronoun use, spending money on climate change initiatives, using a drag queen in Navy ads, etc. It sounded like the top brass was prioritizing social engineering and ideological purity at the expense of combat effectiveness. Not to mention you have concrete, real-world events during the last administration where our military clearly wasn’t up to the task—the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, an utterly useless pier in Gaza, etc.—that still haven’t been satisfactorily addressed, in my opinion.
People who care about our military’s performance should put more effort into understanding what actually went wrong and correcting it instead of speculating on what might go wrong in the future.
It wasn't a "few years ago...", it was up until the time Trump was sworn in which was January of this year.
Our military leaders were not up to the task. In a recent podcast Victor Davis Hanson talked about his disappointment in teaching at the US Naval Academy and that he has never been in a more “Liberal” place and that was 20 years ago that he taught there. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=850wWhqtwQY He added that the focus now is on drones, Ai, and technology. The modernization of the military has forgotten the importance of the military recruits and their training as warriors.
Why do you think the Superintendent of the Naval Academy at the time VDH taught there was later hired as the President at the University of Nebraska and then Ohio State University? What woke state university hires a 3-star Admiral as their President without a revolt and major meltdown from their liberal tenured professors? What would his record of wokeness have to be at a military academy to be hired at a woke civilian university? (As a Naval Academy grad, I know the answer to that question.)
Enlighten us. We are waiting with bated breath. I provided the link to the podcast. VDH talks about his experience there. Sheesh. Are you a bit triggered? Is that you General Milley?
You don't seem to be one of those who care if you'd rather send a carrier to sea with reduced crew and effectiveness than let a homosexual serve. That puts everyone on board at risk and marks you as a fool, if not traitorous.
The brass was prioritizing RECRUITMENT, which has fallen through the floor, resulting in lowered standards all around to attempt to fill the holes. This is endemic across all branches, and not improving.
Just like sports and video games, it was an attempt to fill in the blanks with warm bodies because a trans soldier can pilot a drone or man the hydrophones just as well as anyone else 🙄
I remember Rod Dreher speculating one of the reasons there’s a recruiting shortfall is because the military culture had become so hostile to traditional values. Families with a history of serving were telling their own sons not to join because they were being actively discriminated against (e.g., consciously avoiding promoting white men) and their values were being held as retrograde (e.g., thinking marriage between a man and a woman is bigotry.)
There might be other reasons, too (like declining mental and physical health among the general population), but his argument always struck me as plausible.
From an NPR story on the Trump FDA calling for food makers to switch to natural dyes:
Melissa Wright is a food safety expert at Virginia Tech University. She says extracting large volumes of color from natural sources is far more complex than mixing chemical dyes.
[Sounds like a LOT of work. Let's not even try.]
MELISSA WRIGHT: You're using, you know, red cabbage extract in place of red 40. You're going to have to plant and harvest and extract raw material to get to that naturally derived color alternative, right? So first of all, you have to be able to source it.
[Oh, you want red cabbage extract for the color red? Get ready to do some unexpected legwork. You're gonna need red cabbage, and good luck finding it before complaining about how long it's taking you. You'll probably have to plant the stuff, too, because no Americans would be entrepreneurial enough to open a factory that produces natural red dye for food companies.]
NOGUCHI: Wright says, some colors, like yellow, have lots of common natural analogs like turmeric, paprika and annatto - not so with blue.
WRIGHT: Blues are going to be the really hard one. Blue, there's not a lot of naturally sourced supply. It's going to be limited, and that's going to make a difference as to what the cost is to reformulation.
[I looked up natural blue dye. It's made with...red cabbage and baking soda. Sounds complicated. Good luck, Powerade, trying to scale that in your factories.]
NOGUCHI: It's the same for green because it's a mix of blue and yellow. Cooking is another challenge.
WRIGHT: These naturally derived colors tend to not be as stable, especially with heat or acid. So if you're adding them to acidic sodas or you're adding them to products that you have to heat, it's going to become a problem because they're just not going to be as vivid as the customer's used to seeing.
[I used to buy a brand of pickles that colored some of their offerings with turmeric. It didn't bother me that they weren't in dayglo yellow juice. I don't need my food to be as vivid as a box of Crayolas.]
NOGUCHI: Loyal consumers can vocally revolt when cherry flavors suddenly turn dull purple or cheese snacks appear more rust-colored than safety-tape yellow.
WRIGHT: When I eat Doritos and Cheetos, I have that orange dust on my fingers, right? And if you don't have that, is it really a Doritos-eating experience, you know?
[Sure, you could enjoy the FLAVOR of the Doritos while watching TV in the dark. But is that really the EXPERIENCE you want? Is it the same as pressing your orange fingers into the sofa and smudging orange dust all over the remote control?]
"If something's hard to do then it's not worth doing.". - Homer J. Simpson
It's so insidious because they're actually trying to convince us that the stuff is actually okay, and there's no need to change.
Carrying water for their corporate overlords.
Weird how morality changes depending on who's paying your salary.
Not sure how they sleep at night. Guess the high thread count sheets help.
That sounded strangely like a clip from the movie “Dumb and Dumber”.
The article? Agreed.
Trump actually has NPR, the crunchy crowd, arguing for toxic chemicals to keep foods with false colors looking the way they do. Rather than using natural dyes because where in the heck are we going to get red cabbage? It isn’t like you can simply plant it and have it grow!
Life equals blue drinks and orange “food” dust. On a national radio program. I give up.
I used to keep a plaque over my office door…”You can’t fix stupid. “
Did it fall on your head?
Better yet, maybe rethink the necessity of neon food.
Tell them they can make red dye from lice. Called "cochineal extract" or "carmine" in English because apparently ingesting a colouring agent made from squeezing dried female lice is icky.
Food safety expert defends orange dust because… orange man might take away our orange dust? Would be hilarious if not so appalling
Imagine a world where, amazingly, every time a magician gets worse, he makes more money and has an more enthusiastic (if shrinking) audience.
Imagine how much those magic tricks would suck!
Imagine the level of playing along needed to believe that the mannequin he sawed in half (and is now in 2 pieces) is an actual person who survived dangerous magic!
Or the level of playing along needed to believe that Kamela Harris, the brilliant political genus who loved to lecture us on advanced 7th grade concepts like Venn Diagrams, while we all know that she couldn't draw a Venn Diagram for a million dollars and a case of cheap vodka.
Or the contortions the MSM and it's followers are engaged in trying to convince everyone they "had no idea" that "shape as a tack" Biden suffered any mental decline while in office.
The Media: News, Movies, Music, (does it matter?), can no longer create a great comedy or tragedy because the real entertainment has moved off of the screen, past the audience and to those watching the audience try to clap and play along. It is a Rocky horror picture show where the audience really believes that space vampires (orange man/ mars man) will get them unless they sing along, dress the part, get their boosters, eat bugs to save the polar bears.
That is the entertainment folks, stop looking at the screen.
Yes, America is the entertainment. The laughingstock of the world.
I went on ski trip to Jackson Hole in college, (late 80s) with hundreds of other students, shared a bus with a couple of super stoners, from a rival school, who entered the bus with literal pounds of Marijuana. (which they smoked, shared, sold at stupid rates and mostly got stolen and wasted). They smoked constantly, one would get very paranoid the other very clueless, which served as their nicknames for the trip. I can list a dozen amazing examples, but most notably, once at a party in his room at the ski lodge, Clueless said "I Haven't smoked in like an hour and I can't find my bong!" We were ankle deep in beer cans so i told him he could make a pipe by stabbing a beer can, putting pot on the resulting holes and breathing through drink tab, stoner 101. I then went to take a leak but when I got back Clueless was covered with beer. He was stabbing FULL beer cans spraying everywhere then trying to put pot on the foam and light it. this was witness by a dozen people, none of whom were laughing and not just because he was wasting beer. You had to feel sorry for the guy. Life was somewhat easy while funded by his rich parents, but you knew this would run out he had no faculties to do anything.
I kinda of see this as america, trying to buys it's way through the world with its legacy wealth by doing things so impossibly stupid everyone is waiting for the inevitable crash. It is like shuffling a bad comedy and a bad tragedy together, you done really get either, just kind of this melancholy hopelessness that is too bizarre to be comedy, too self inflicted to be tragedy.
Brilliant ❤
thanks
Thanks for explaining why our military hasn’t won a war in 80 years.
We haven't won a war since the War Department was renamed the Department of Defense. We haven't won a war since the inception of the Air Farce as an independent service instead of being aligned with the Army.
And YES, we have too many General or Flag Officers, or "GOFO". We have more admirals than we have ships, and more generals than we have brigades. Those excess GOFO simply make work and multiply subordinates for each other, when they OUGHT to be retired. Hegseth is condemned for his work BECAUSE he, as a former O4, is proving that an O7 isn't needed for most jobs. Fire or retire all GOFO, and rebuild the military from the O5/O6 ranks.
Agree completely and your summary was better than mine. I had all your thoughts just didn’t feel like that long of a comment.
Yeah, AnsarAllah kicked your asses right out of the Red Sea 🤡
Too many “perfumed princes” re: Hackworth.
Did you see the new add DOD has out. It’s awesome. Makes we extra proud my grandson is in the 173 Airborne.
He failed high school?
Even a peace activist like me finds what Thomas Ricks wrote to be nonsense.
Far easier to be against a military that claims it is a war fighting machine as opposed to one that claims to be the Peace Corps with guns and tanks.
A effectively lethal military will sustain peace.
Really? You've been at war for, like, 200 years. Does that prove your military is ineffective, or you just don't know how to get along with anyone?
Yes.
God bless you for reading this nonsense. I’m sure I can speak for many and say, we are thrilled we don’t have to do it.
If you want peace, plan for war.
You haven't won a war in recent memory
American deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan: 7000+
The other side?
4.5+ million.
A KDR of 650 to 1. (give or take)
We didn't lose. We got bored and went home.
You think you killed 4.5 Million COMBATANTS? That's adorable. We well remember Madeline Albright mentioning 500,000 starved children as part of that tally. So brave. Shall we talk of all the Iraqi generals who were paid to sit it out? Not glamorous enough?
After that, you fought and lost a 20 year insurgency, and after all that, left the nation in the hands of Iranian Shias 🙄 Brilliant.
Afghanistan? Really? You want to use that as a shining example.of American fighting prowess?
You invaded a sovereign nation based on a domestic crime under the purview of the FBI. An act of aggressive war, in international law. A war crime, like Iraq. And again, you fight a losing battle against a medieval foe for 20 years, and then run away, abandoning billions of dollars of equipment and infrastructure, leaving the nation in the same hands as when you arrived.
It's a Gong Show, dude.
Yes that was combatants.
Check the numbers if you want to add civilians to it.
I checked the numbers, set down the meth pipe and get a grip.
We've all seen the baseless conspiracy theories you throw around. Put down your own meth pipe first.
The point of war is to kill the enemy.
Either until he wants to parly, or surrenders, or become incapable of resisting or ceases to exist.
That's it.
We can dress that up as the continuation of diplomacy by other means, pre-emptive retaliation, special military advisors, peace-keeping operations and other semantics but the point is always the same: kill the enemy.
Fail to understand that about war, and whatever your resources and technology and no matter how safe your home base is, you'll lose. Always.
And always remember "Bella Detesta Matribus".
Yeah, Dick, we know what war is. Wisdom is choosing when to fight, and when not to. This is why you're getting your asses kicked in Ukraine, and why you have no hope in hell against China.
Who are you talking to?
If Hegseth has his way US armed forces will never see another glorious victory like the one we had in Afghanistan back in '20.
"Glorious victory" over a Medieval nation that defeated you with Lee Enfields and flip flops and sent you packing, leaving the Taliban in control, and all your weapons behind.
The world laughed.
"Stupid" and "evil" are not mutually exclusive terms.