POGO, The Bunker
The U.S. military’s ethos for service gets wrapped around the axle over Iran, killing American civilians, and charting the proper course when it comes to enlisting artificial intelligence for war; and more.
DISSERVICE
Just who is serving whom?
“To serve” is to be subordinate. In an earlier incarnation, for example, The Bunker toiled at “service” jobs, where the customer was invariably (i.e., usually) right. Young men and women enlist in the U.S. military to “serve” their country. “Thank you for your service,” they’re told on Veterans Day. Heck, even each branch of the U.S. military (Army, Navy, et al.) is called a “service.”
But last week, we saw the Defense Department turn the notion of service on its head.
It went to war with Iran on the whims of one man, President Trump. There was scant public justification for the most serious step a nation can take — and a step most Americans oppose. There were scarce details about this war’s likely costs, in blood, treasure, and time. Its goals — new Iranian leaders, no Iranian nuclear weapons — can’t be guaranteed by U.S. and Israeli bombs.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon also derailed a plan to make air travel — for U.S. civilians, mind you, not U.S. military pilots and personnel — safer. And finally, the Defense Department vainly sought to force its key artificial-intelligence contractor to blindly do its bidding. The contractor refused, concerned that the Pentagon — especially this Pentagon — could harness its technology for nefarious purposes.
These cases make clear that this White House and this Defense Department have forgotten for whom they work, and to whom they owe allegiance. They work for, and report to, the American people — not the other way around.
DISSERVICE 1.0
No way to go to war
The U.S. now finds itself at war with Iran. Washington’s war aims included the toppling, with extreme prejudice, of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, 86, by Supreme Leader Donald Trump, 79. How two nations with a combined population approaching a half-billion people can find themselves sitting ringside as this pair of codgers duke it out boggles the mind.
As The Bunker noted last week, Iran has been run by an outlaw regime since 1979 (actually, since 1953, if you count the CIA-backed coup that ousted a democratically-elected leader and put the shah in power). That fueled the recently-late Khamenei and his minions to chant “Death to America” for nearly 50 years. A solid case can be made for taking Iran’s terror-sponsoring leaders out, especially in light of their quest for nuclear weapons. But that requires allies, other than Israel, to give it legitimacy. And it should have the support of the American people, through a declaration of war by their elected representatives.
Instead, we find ourselves in the middle of a war that represents a stunning reversal for a president who vowed to keep “America First” by staying out of “forever wars.” We’re amid maximum explosionswith minimum explanations. We can cheer the ouster of a rancid regime — and salute the precise U.S. military mettle that made it possible — while still pondering its wisdom.
Trying to find the Trump administration’s clear and concise justification for this war has been like trying to nail, well, napalm to the wall. The president announced its start by saying his “objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime.” But there were no “imminent threats.” If there were, the president would have detailed them. That claim is a lot like his assertion that he lost the 2020 election. The evidence doesn’t exist. Saying it is true doesn’t make it true.
Well then, maybe it has something to do with Iran’s nuclear ambitions, despite Trump’s claim that the U.S. military “obliterated” its nuclear-arms effort last June? “They want to make a deal,” Trump said during his State of the Union address February 24. “But we haven’t heard those secret words, ‘We will never have a nuclear weapon.’” Apparently, the U.S.’s vaunted intelligence apparatus doesn’t read the non-secret tweets of Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. “Our fundamental convictions are crystal clear,” he posted on X hours before Trump attacked. “Iran will under no circumstances ever develop a nuclear weapon.” (Granted, you have to take what Iran says about its atomic aims with a grain of uranium, but the fact is they did say those “secret words” on the cusp of combat.)
Well then, surely the war couldn’t be about ousting Iran’s leaders? After all, two months ago Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth pledged the Pentagon would never go to war for “regime change.” Yet within hours of attacking Iran, Trump was channeling his inner Emily “Never Mind” Litella from “Saturday Night Live” (you know, back when it was good). Trump told the Iranian people to ignore Hegseth and change their regime. “America is backing you with overwhelming strength and devastating force,” he said. “Now is the time to seize control of your destiny and to unleash the prosperous and glorious future that is close within your reach. This is the moment for action. Do not let it pass.”
That call to action came at the end of a dark and cheesy 8-minute videofeaturing a baseball cap-wearing president that the White House posted on X at 2:57 a.m. Saturday morning, February 28. This is not how a great and democratic nation goes to war. Instead of convincing the American people on the need for war before it begins, Trump kept mum until after the bombs began to fall. Only then did he begin speed-dialing reporters to justify what he has unleashed. Make no mistake about it: Trump has single-handedly ignited a major conflict, and the resulting conflagration could end up engulfing us all.
“You uphold the Constitution,” Hegseth told the forces under his command March 2. Too bad his boss didn’t bother to ask the same of Congress, which has a far more constitutionally critical role to play when it comes to starting wars. Too many lawmakers praised Trump’s unilateral action in their walk-on, non-camo cameos as after-the-fact combat boot-lickers. They’ve proudly waived their responsibility under the Constitution to debate and declare — or not declare — war. Instead, they pitifully volunteered for duty as their commander-in-chief rendered them an ex post facto, and self-made superfluous, rubber stamp for war.
Death to America, indeed.
DISSERVICE 2.0
A shameful way to treat fellow Americans
How can a military spending $1 trillion this year — and perhaps $1.5 trillion next year — cite cost as a reason for not installing and using electronic safety beacons aboard its aircraft to reduce the chances of killing the civilians in whose name it serves? The House rejected a Senate aviation bill February 24, one day after the Pentagon — which had previously supported the measure — reversed course. The Defense Department claimed the bill “would create significant unresolved budgetary burdens and operational security risks affecting national defense activities.” It gave no details about those “burdens” and “risks.”
The proposal would have required most aircraft flying in the U.S. to use safety beacons to alert nearby aircraft to their presence and require the same of U.S. military flights in crowded skies. The Senate acted after a January 2025 Washington, D.C., midair collisionbetween an American Airlines regional passenger jet and an Army UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter killed all 67 people aboard both aircraft.
Beyond the Pentagon’s last-minute reversal, there appears to have been penny ante politics involved in the bill’s defeat. After all, if you don’t have time to debate and declare war, you might as well add to the pain of the families whose loved ones perished because of the Pentagon’s habit of brandishing inflated cost and national-security concerns to keep it from doing the right thing.
Doug Lane doesn’t think much of the Pentagon citing cost to justify its opposition to the legislation. That’s because he lost his wife, Christine, 49, and son, Spencer, 16, on that American Airlines Flight 5342. “On a human level, I think it’s offensive that they are making cost arguments to block technology that would have saved my wife, son, and 65 others if it had been in use on January 29, 2025,” Lane said. “You can make avionics sound really expensive if you're trying to build a case against buying them, rather than making a good-faith effort to find solutions.”
DISSERVICE 3.0
The first artificial-intelligence war
When it comes to artificial intelligence, the Pentagon has a real unintelligent answer: “Trust us.” That’s the bottom line as the smoke clears over the recent clashbetween the Defense Department and Anthropic, the AI developer whose “Claude” software is embedded throughout top-secret Pentagon computers. Anthropic insisted its software must not be used for mass domestic surveillance or robo-warfare without human involvement. While the Pentagon said its use of AI would be legal, it refused to comply with Anthropic’s demands.
So on February 27, Trump ordered the U.S. government to stop using Anthropic products within 6 months (they are currently being used in the war with Iran). Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth declared that the company represented a “Supply-Chain Risk to National Security,” a designation previously limited to foreign companies. Both leaders larded their statements with schoolyard taunts (Trump called Anthropic executives “Leftwing nut jobs,” while Hegseth said they had “delivered a master class in arrogance and betrayal”) instead of the dispassionate debate the topic warrants. Then again, that’s what comes from years of training on Fox News and repeatedly declaring “you’re fired!” on network TV. (The Pentagon ultimately replacedAnthropic with OpenAI.)
“The Administration is making what is a modest dispute over the military uses of AI into a self-destructive show of brute political force that will hurt the U.S. military and the rest of the government,” the conservative Wall Street Journal editorial page somberly noted shortly after the government’s decision.
The Pentagon would be better served, as would the nation, if the Defense Department would listen to those on AI’s cutting edge and take their concerns seriously. One thing the U.S. doesn’t need is the federal government tutoring the rest of us on the finer points of AI.