"History repeats; the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce."

- Karl Marx

Judith Miller, Karl Rove, Tom Friedman, Joe Lieberman have all crawled out from whatever rocks they were hiding under to step in front of TV cameras and tell us how wonderful a war with Iran will be.

It certainly appears that the ruling elite thinks we've gotten dumber.

1. America is at the precipice of another all-out war in the Middle East. The Sunday talk shows on NBC, ABC, CBS, and CNN featured SEVEN guests who voted for or publicly supported the Iraq War and NONE who publicly opposed it. https://t.co/zHLZMYbHPj — Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) January 6, 2020

It’s a nice trip down memory lane, for those who like their lanes lined by IEDs and blocked by a checkpoint at which soldiers have just accidentally shot a 9-year-old. But as a country, we’re not just reliving 2003. Much of what’s happening right now is actually more stupid and unreal than what was happening then. Trump doesn’t even provide the war enthusiasts with this protective cover. He says he is prepared to order the destruction of historic cultural sites in Iran, which is a no-doubt-about-it war crime. He also says he would like to attack 52 Iranian sites in total as revenge for the kidnapping of 52 Americans in Tehran in 1979. Lest the Muslim world think the United States had any good intentions at all, Donald Trump Jr. published photos of himself holding a semi-automatic rifle that was decorated to resemble a medieval knight’s helmet, illustrated with a pattern of five crosses used by Christian forces during the Crusades, and engraved with the word CRUSADER.

THEN: “I really do believe that we will be greeted as liberators.”

— Vice President Dick Cheney, 3/16/03

NOW: “I saw last night there was dancing in the streets in parts of Iraq. We have every expectation that people not only in Iraq but in Iran will view the American action last night as giving them freedom.”

— Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, 1/3/20

It takes a great deal of effort to make Dubya look intelligent and presidential, but Trump has almost pulled it off.

But even if the ruling elite thinks we've gotten dumber, our allies aren't likely to be fooled again.



NATO is moving some of its trainers out of Iraq, a NATO official said on Tuesday, following fears of a regional conflagration in the wake of a U.S. drone strike on Iran’s top military commander last week.

THEN: “We are doing everything we can to avoid war in Iraq.”

— Bush, 3/8/03. (The war started 12 days later.)

NOW: “We took action last night to stop a war. We did not take action to start a war.”

— Trump, 1/3/20

In sum, it’s not 2003 again; it’s 2003 as interpreted by 2020, which means more fascism and, somehow, even less competence. The brutality and idiocy of it run so deep, they become a source of hope.

The idiocy and ignorance of it all is so intense that I can't help but think that the American Empire is coming to an end.