“The State of Israel has no interest in joining the contained confrontation between Iran and the United States — the current situation is the best one for us.” – Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.
No doubt they don’t. But Israel had better use the time Trump has given it wisely, as it appears Iran is gearing up to take Kuwait and perhaps one or two other Gulf States now that it has reason to doubt the US military’s ability to engage in a ground war in the Middle East. That’s the problem with bluffing. Once your bluff gets called, you lose your ability to control the game.
“It is wrong to sacrifice a 19-year-old American girl for the Israeli regime.”
It is wrong to sacrifice any American for any foreign regime.But Trump was right. He’s not going to Heaven. Whether it was out of fear or out of greed, he chose to serve Hell. In fact, he still chooses to serve it. He could end both the Iran and the Ukraine wars tomorrow, but for one reason or another, he refuses to do so.
As the United States has explained in multiple letters to the U.N. Security Council, including most recently on March 10, the United States is engaged in this conflict at the request of and in the collective self-defense of its Israeli ally, as well as in the exercise of the United States’ own inherent right of self-defense.
German proverb: “Wash Me, But Don’t Get Me Wet”
A rather curious ‘collective self-defense’ where the U.S. takes the hits while Israel sits back. Smotrich surely wants to be washed without getting wet.
“You can sell Americans on anything, no matter how wretchedly unsatisfactory it is, by labeling it as progress. That’s what’s being done now, with AI being used as a justification for firing useless workers, deleting unnecessary departments, cutting office staff down to scales that actually make sense, and shutting down the classroom-to-cubicle pipeline that once poured new graduates into salary class jobs. We can expect that process to accelerate dramatically in the years ahead.”
Greer begins by laying out a compelling taxonomy of class in America, four self-explanatory classes defined by this question: how do different groups in today’s America get their income?
1. investment class: income from investments (i.e. capital)
2. salary class: income from a monthly salary with benefits
3. wage class: income from an hourly wage with no benefits
4. welfare class: income from welfare programs
My ten classes: yes, this is more complicated that Greer’s four classes but since power has sources other than income, accuracy demands an accounting not just of income but of power and agency, which is an individual form of power with systemic consequences such as social mobility.
Roth Note: For over a year I watched the Military Summary Channel daily to know the play-by-play action between Russia and Ukraine. Then, several months ago, I realized the time I was wasting. There were no big changes day-to-day. Michael explains what we should be watching here.
“That’s what binds people together, a shared grievance, a communal anger.”
Patrick Robinson in his novel The Shark Mutiny.
“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Well, we do lots of speaking against evil. What will it take to get us to act? As suggested in the novel mentioned above – a shared grievance, a communal anger. What form might that take?
Years ago, a friend and I discussed the potential for anyone to commit an evil act. We settled on the idea that given the right circumstance combined with the right opportunity, anyone is capable of anything. Imagine a very moral and virtuous man. If his children are hungry, his morality and virtue may act as a speed-bump on his urge to steal food to feed them. Once they begin to actually starve, that same man may not simply be willing to steal, but to kill to see his children fed.
I imagine the same forces of circumstance and opportunity work in the reverse, as well. At some point the circumstances provide the impetuous for an act against evil. I propose that we are long past that point. That leaves opportunity and opportunity, I submit, will only arrive when the greater community has felt enough pain. We already share the grievance (at least those of us paying attention do) and are bound together in that way. What’s needed is for Joe Sixpack – the normies – to join us. Then we still lack the anger, at least on a broad enough scale.
The opportunity will come when enough of us are bound together in shared grievance, and a spark of some nature (creating communal anger) pushes us over the edge. It may take as little as one of us acting in a way that causes us to be sacrificed while righting an obvious wrong, taking vengeance on an invader or an obviously corrupt government official, or simply speaking truth to power in a way that destroys us. It must be something that enrages the majority of the Folk. One would have guessed the Charlie Kirk assassination would have been such a spark, but there apparently wasn’t enough shared grievance in the greater community to generate the necessary anger.
Burlingame speaks of the Responsibles, the Resentfuls, and the Adoptables. The Responsibles (those who build and love the good, the true, and the beautiful) and the Resentfuls (those who destroy the good, the true, and the beautiful) vie for the allegiance of the Adoptables (that 50+% of the population that can be swayed to either side – think normies, think sheep). It has always been thus. The opportunity comes, I believe, when enough of the Adoptables recognize and awaken to the threat posed by the Resentfuls and join the Responsibles in acting.
Of course, there may come opportunities for those individuals who have the courage and are willing to sacrifice themselves well before such an eventuality. That in and of itself may produce the spark required for communal anger on a broad enough scale to push back the Resentfuls and restore the good, the true, and the beautiful; to rebuild that which has been lost.
While we wait for opportunity to show herself we need to prepare and be watchful. History teaches that she always arrives; sometimes for the good and sometimes for the evil. The coming of the Founding Fathers of America (Responsibles) for the good, the coming of the Bolsheviks in Russia (Resentfuls) for the evil. The question remains. What will it take? What will it take for the Responsibles to act and win the day?
Roth Note: Some of the readers here have commented/inferred/believed that Iran is a terrorist state. While I’m certainly no supporter of Islam, I am a supporter of truth and reason as opposed to emotion. Larry Johnson, former CIA analyst, posted the following in 2024. One should also recall that all but one of the alleged 9-11 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia. Sunnis not Shia. Anyone who hates the Persians because they’re evil terrorists should read Mr. Johnson’s post in it’s entirety.
The short answer is, “no!” The Iran of the 1980s, when Iran was very active backing the activities of Imad Mughniyeh, which included the bombings of the Marine Barracks in Beirut, two separate bombings of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, and the kidnapping of a CIA Chief, a Marine Colonel and several other American residents of Beirut. But those were not carried out because “Iran hates our freedom.” Those attacks were a direct response to our policy in Lebanon and Israel. The bombing of the Marine Barracks and the U.S. Embassy in 1983, for example, was preceded by the US forces attacking Lebanese Muslims in the Bekka Valley as part of the Multinational Force in Lebanon. Following the November 1983 bombing of the Marines, the US pulled out.
I thought it time to revisit the past in light of what the present portends. It looks like the United States, once again, is going to embroil itself in Israel’s war against the Palestinians and, if the past is any predictor, will again find itself burying US military personnel.
I am attaching two pieces — the 2017 VIPS Memo and a 2020 blog posting. I co-authored the VIPS memo with Ray McGovern and am responsible for the 2020 blog posting. I think both are still relevant. Read them and let me know in the comments.
Thirteen of the 14 Muslim Groups identified by the U.S. intelligence community as actively hostile to the US are Sunni, not Shia, and are not supported by Iran:
The Trump administration has greenlit Saudi Arabia’s nuclear enrichment project, but with no safeguards in place to prevent the development of a bomb, CNN reported on Friday.
The draft deal, viewed by the news outlet, showed Washington’s support for Riyadh’s civilian nuclear program is still awaiting President Donald Trump’s signature, despite US-Saudi negotiations concluding in October.
From the comments: The reason the assassinated mullah in Iran made a fatwah decree against pursuing nukes was because it was immoral AND because he knew it would cause regional nuclear escalation. Both good reasons in my book.
This article reveals yet another escalation path and the inevitable result will be that all countries in the region will have nukes almost insuring nuclear confrontation. With Israel in the mix, this path is a certain disaster.
Roth Note: So, we start a war to keep Iran from getting nukes that they had a religious aversion to, a fatwah against, and our intelligence agencies declared they were not pursuing, and now not only is Iran contemplating building a bomb for protection from USreal, but we’re going to green light the Saudis? Winning! Bigly!!!
The war on Iran continues to escalate. Last night the U.S. again bombed various cities in Iran hitting military as well as civilian targets. Iran responded by hitting U.S. installation in various Gulf countries.
Iranian ballistic missiles struck Prince Sultan Air Base in Al-Kharj on July 18, wounding twelve US service members — two critically — and hitting KC-135 Stratotankers on the flight line while a second rotation was still climbing out. Saudi Arabia’s Civil Defense Authority cleared the sirens six minutes later without naming the weapon, the origin, or the damage, and neither Riyadh nor Washington has issued an official statement since.
Several U.S. tanker air planes were damaged. For several months Saudi Arabia had not been a target of Iranian strike. During previous engagements the Saudis have lost a major parts of their air defenses. Out of an original stash of 2,800 Patriot air defense missiles only 400 are said to be left.
The U.S. had hit a desalination plant in Iran. In response Iran attacked a desalination plant in Kuwait which is much more dependent on such facilities than Iran is. The response strike was thus a very severe warning.
The U.S. has moved a large part of its air fleet out of its bases in Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Emirates and transferred them to Jordan. Further reinforcement coming from Europe were also stationed in Jordan and Israel. Iran however has followed the move and attacked the Muwaffaq al-Salti air base in Jordan as well as U.S. installation near Akabar, Jordan’s only harbor. The strikes left extensive damage and several dead and wounded:
In the week leading up to the Iranian attack on Friday that killed two U.S. soldiers and left one service member missing in Jordan, Iran carried out three other strikes against U.S. forces in the country.
Those attacks injured dozens of U.S. service members and damaged several helicopters, according to several U.S. officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters.
But the Pentagon did not disclose the earlier strikes, nor the casualties and damage they inflicted.
It is expected that the U.S. air fleet will move further west to Israel with the hope to slip under a more reliable air defense umbrella. Iran however seems to be waiting for that. It has already proven that it can hit targets in Israel and any assemblies of U.S. jets and tanker air planes on the few well known air bases in Israel will be juicy targets for more of its drones and missiles.
The Strait of Hormuz is closed. Several ships which have tried to run through it under U.S. protection were hit and severely damaged.
Today Ansarallah in Yemen declared the “imposition of a maritime navigation ban” for all ships related to Saudi Arabia. The Saudis have held Yemen under a blockade for some eleven years. It is time to pay back.
Further air attacks on Iran will not change the strategic picture.
Trump has lost the war on Iran. How long will take him to find a way out of the mess?
Roth Note: We examine the ‘evil’ on this site regularly. While it pains me to suggest it, our nation has become an evil empire. I don’t know how any man or woman with any sense of morality could start this war, much less continue it. Then there’s all the rest of the nefarious nonsense like tyrannical pedophilic corrupt leaders.
The FBI is doing corrupt, criminal and fraudulent stuff because the institution of the FBI is comprehensively corrupt. As a consequence, they are allied -directly or through willful blindness- with operatives in other agencies doing criminal, corrupt and fraudulent stuff.
The same FBI agency who took possession of Hillary Clinton’s missing emails, Huma Abedin/Anthony Weiner’s laptop and Hunter Biden’s laptop. The same FBI agency who took custody of Jeffrey Epstein’s safe contents. The same FBI agency who raided James O’Keefe to retrieve the Ashley Biden diary. That’s the same FBI agency now with custody of the Fulton County election evidence.
The same agency who investigated the J6 pipe bombing, the Las Vegas mass shooting, the various Trump assassination attempts and even the TWA-800 explosion. That’s the same agency that seemingly cannot stop Antifa terrorist attacks yet can pour over 1,500 agents into a J6 investigation.
The FBI now has the physical ballots and machines from the Fulton County election offices.
Do we think the FBI wants honest elections?… that could result in larger ranks of honest, elected officials?… that could then hold oversight over the FBI?
Do we really think valid and secure elections are in the interests of a corrupt FBI organization?
Are US forces on the brink of defeat via exhaustion?
The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) is dead, if it ever existed, and Washington’s war to compel Iran’s submission to Israeli demands with air and missile power alone continues without resolution. The war is restarting and Iran remains defiant, its military power is unyielding, and the Strait of Hormuz remains closed. War in the Middle East is fast becoming a “war to the last missile.” Since air power über alles has failed will ground forces change the game?
The longer Donald Trump continues the war with Iran, the more damage he is inflicting on the capabilities of the US military. Think about that.
I have talked about the depletion of several categories of US battlefield missiles on recent podcasts and decided to give you the best available data to help you grasp the enormity of the problem. The tables below are based on the most recent publicly available analyses from CSIS, the Payne Institute, and major media outlets (as of mid-2026), and provide a current (overly optimistic in my opinon) estimate for US inventory levels of these key weapons systems. Please note that actual inventories are classified; these are informed estimates derived from DOD budget documents, procurement records, and reported expenditures during Operation Epic Fury (the US-Israeli war with Iran).
⭕️ Iran FM Araghchi: Wars End Either Through Total Victory or Negotiations…
Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi:
🔹 A war must be ended precisely at the point when you hold the upper hand on the battlefield. Ending a war is possible either through total military victory or… pic.twitter.com/kHeYhShsXC
How is it possible that the White House doesn’t know what everyone paying attention seems to know? And why is the administration still listening to the same people who lost Afghanistan, Ukraine, and Iran Round One?
As both sides escalate strikes on civilian and military targets, the Pentagon is boosting the number of military aircraft in the Middle East, according to the Washington Post. “The US is planning for a wider war,” an unnamed US official told the paper, while warning that the American military effort would be limited by dwindling air defense interceptor and missile supplies, which had been actively used up during the previous stages of the war.
“We do not have enough to safely sustain operations, and I don’t think the White House is aware of that,” the official told the Post. Military experts cited in the report said Washington remains unprepared for potential ground operations inside Iran–an option US President Donald Trump has refused to rule out.
On Friday, Axios reported that Washington had notified Israel that it was sending dozens of additional refueling planes ahead of a possible expansion of operations against Iran. According to the article, Trump was presented with several new military options, including strikes on Iranian power plants and further attacks on nuclear sites to bury Tehran’s stockpile of enriched uranium even deeper.
Saeid Golkar, an expert on Iran’s security services, told the Wall Street Journal that the situtation risks getting completely out of hand. “This escalation is rapidly intensifying and getting out of control,” he said. “There is a risk we will go back to a total war even if neither side wants it.”
A CNN analysis suggested that “a decisive US military victory over Iran seems a distant prospect.” In echoing remarks, Sina Toosi, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, warned that a ground operation “in extreme summer heat… against a fully mobilized military and a population that has largely rallied around the war effort, would be an extraordinary gamble practically guaranteed to be a historic disaster.”
As we saw at the presentation of the World Cup trophy yesterday, Trump doesn’t seem to understand when it’s time to get off the stage.
Roth Note: Narcissist-in-Chief Trump seems to have to involve himself in everything. We elected a Caesar and got a fool. As for the reader who may remain in the Trump cult, I will acknowledge that some good things for the American people have resulted from his presidency, but suspect them being more accidental than intentional. They seem to me mostly done in order to appeal to Trump’s vanity.
US Troop Casualties Pile Up as Iran Goes to Town on US Bases
⚡️ A former U.S. Air Force pilot, close to U.S. Central Command, says that at least 3 to 5 more soldiers on medical evacuation planes "will probably not survive." There are also 15 other soldiers with serious, life-threatening injuries, whose fate remains unclear. pic.twitter.com/67dwUWcRsF
— Middle East Observer (@ME_Observer_) July 18, 2026
One of the biggest stories around the attack centers on the claim from US officials that Russia and China have been the key playmakers providing Iran with high quality targeting to hit these sensitive sites, with some claiming (see below) that Russia has continued flying major supplies into Iran in recent weeks:
As can be seen, Iran is forcing the US to retreat by devastating the regional bases closest to Iran itself. Now some Iranian figures are even proposing that Iran could launch its own offensive ground invasion to take US bases in neighboring Kuwait.
The image we hold of the Germanic tribes today is incomplete. Much of what has been handed down comes from the records of Roman or, later, Christian authors. While their accounts are valuable, they invariably reflect an outsider’s perspective. A great deal of the Germanic peoples’ actual worldview, their stories, and their oral traditions has been lost over the centuries.
Nevertheless, the sources paint a consistent picture: the community stood above the individual.
The tribal elder—often respected for his age, wisdom, and proven judgment—did not rule as an absolute monarch. Rather, he was a guardian of memory, an advisor, and a mediator. His words carried weight because they were grounded in experience, yet his voice did not supersede the will of the kin group.
Important decisions were made collectively. At assemblies, free men and women—practices varied by tribe and era—gathered to deliberate on matters of war and peace, alliances, disputes, and the well-being of the community. There, they spoke, listened to one another, and strove to reach a decision. It was not the power of a single individual that was to determine the fate of all, but the shared will of the community.
Underlying this concept was a profound mythological idea: the human being was not an isolated entity, but a thread in the great tapestry of the kin group. Every action affected the fate of all. Honor, therefore, was not merely personal renown but the standing of the entire lineage. Those who acted justly strengthened the community. Those who committed treason, murder, robbery, or perjury did not merely harm individuals; they disrupted the order that bound ancestors, the living, and future generations together.
For this reason, a chieftain alone did not adjudicate serious transgressions. The community deliberated on what form of restitution or punishment corresponded to the wrong that had been committed. Depending on the deed, this might entail compensation, penance, banishment, or—in the case of particularly grave crimes—even death. The goal was not mere retribution, but the restoration of peace within the community. Order had to be renewed so that the trust binding the kin-group could endure.
In the Germanic worldview, law was not a cold statute but a living covenant among humans, ancestors, and gods. To honor this covenant was to honor the powers that watched over the world; to break it was to set oneself against the very fabric of life.
Perhaps therein lies the greatest lesson of these ancient traditions: a community is strong when wisdom is heeded, responsibility is shared, and decisions are borne collectively. No individual is greater than the people; no power stands higher than the duty owed to the community.
The voices of the ancients may have faded, yet their vision lives on: a kin-group consists not only of the living but also of the ancestors, the children, and those yet to be born. Whoever acts for the community acts for the past, the present, and the future alike. In this sense, the *Thing*—the assembly of the people—was more than a place of law. It was a sacred space where the order of the world was reaffirmed time and again through collective judgment.
Roth Note: How can we have such a community in America today? Is it even possible any longer?
