Maybe Donald Trump thinks this makes him sound resolute, tough, macho. I think it makes him sound undignified, unhinged, desperate. And to think, this manic man put up this profane post on a day that is sacred to about two-thirds of all Americans and almost a third of the population of the world. Maybe he has figured out that while thankfully the heroic search and rescue operation over the past couple of days found and extracted the American flyer whose F-15 was shot down and who hid from the Iranians in a mountain crevice for almost two days, that doesn’t change the fact that four U.S. aircraft took fire on Friday, which puts the lie to his claim that the United States has “complete and total control of the skies over Iran.” Though it’s no obvious fault of our armed forces, obviously the U.S. doesn’t. And maybe he’s afraid that his account of what happened leaves a few things out. Bad things, that would feature his lies in neon lights. Iranian television has been broadcasting videos it says were taken not far from the Iranian city of Esfahan, about 250 miles south of Tehran, showing what appears to be the smoldering wreckage of more than one aircraft and they’re not F-15s, or A-10s, another aircraft Iran shot down. You can see propellers, not jet engines. If the U.S. controls the skies, the airplane isn’t Iran’s. And maybe he’s afraid that his crude post unmasks the hypocrisy of his insistence again last Tuesday that “What happens in the strait, we’re not going to have anything to do with.” With 20% of the world’s oil depending on passage through the Strait of Hormuz, he can’t afford to be so cavalier and he knows it. Maybe he’s also afraid to carry out his threat against Iran’s power plants, its bridges, and as he threatened this past week, its plants to desalinate water. Plain and simply, deliberately striking infracture on which the civilian population depends would be a violation of international law.eave a comment It’s more and more depressing every day that Donald Trump is our president. Because every day, he becomes even more undignified, more unhinged, more desperate. And we’re stuck in the rabbit hole with him. |