The Trump Administration: The Clusterfuck Continues (Part 2)

The BBQ Pit
4921

Yes, and so is Iran. I suspect you didn’t notice.

And arrayed against that is US motivation of hegemony extending no further than winning friends and influencing people by dropping armaments from the safety of 30,000 feet.

But yet, apparently the military machine of the lone superpower can only sustain a police action on foreign soil for a few weeks? If a ground force was going to be deployed, how were you going to support them? Are the US now going to consider giving over field control to launch nukes at drones because “That’s all the ordinance we have left in the arsenal”?

A modern fairy story of decadence and decay with the punchline “The King has no clothes, and the Generals have no bullets.”?

And of course losing the life of an American soldier is an unbearable cost compared to the slaughter of 120 schoolgirls in Minab .
At least slain American school children get “thoughts & prayers”.

4922

What the fuck does that even mean? Rhetorical question of course. Like reading tea leaves, it means whatever the reader wants it to mean.

4923

It means that we have always been at war with Eastasia. He’d love to rewrite history, and the historical fact that he lost an election.

4924

What the fuck is that supposed to mean? The person I replied to mentioned Ukraine not Iran.

4925

Trump fired the Secretary of the Navy, because he failed in his assigned task of delivering the new “Trump-Class” battleships by 2028. It was an impossible task for a lot of reasons (we don’t have the infrastructure to build ships that fast; it relies on weapons systems that haven’t been built yet…). Plus: nobody asked for new battleships (besides Trump). Battleships are obsolete. But Trump loves to watch “Victory at Sea” and thinks they’re cool.

I’m picturing Trump designing a new battleship in much the same way Homer Simpson designed a new car when he was a consultant for his brother’s company.

4926

Well I guess that’d be me in post 4898. My bad.

I thought there was sufficient references to the Iranian War to inform even the most Star Spangly blinkered poster … but evidently not.

4927

Trump is painting the Reflecting Pool blue.

4928

Only the best people.

4929

I wonder if Trump will do something like this for the other MAGA influencers who have, most likely temporarily, turned against him? He has tried to get Joe Rogan back. He hasn’t said much about Tucker Carlson or Megyn Kelly. I guess he just couldn’t resist going full racist, though, just for fun. You think Candace Owens will go crawling back to him after this?

4930
4931

Let’s see Ka$h sue The Onion over this mocking commentary. The Onion will retaliate over Infowars.

4932

“Diplomacy is too hard!”

4933

Also, we have all the cards, they have none!

It’s a shedding game.

4934

Yeah, but they didn’t say “Uno”!

4935

The “tremendous infighting and confusion within their leadership. Nobody knows who’s in charge, including them” clearly refers to Trump’s representatives, based on the rules of grammar and usage I learned decades ago.

4936

And when you are ready to talk, we’ll just be sitting here in the Strait fucking up the world. Take your time.

4937

I read that the Strait of Malacca is even more important to the world and to commerce than the Strait of Hormuz (cite in German). I also read that of the three States that control it, one has seen what Iran does in Hormuz and is starting to think: Hold my beer!

Iran’s move to charge ships for passage through the Strait of Hormuz in the future is sparking interest even 7,500 kilometers away from Tehran. In Indonesia’s capital, Jakarta, Finance Minister Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa is openly toying with the idea of turning another key strait into a maritime toll road: the Strait of Malacca, through which about 40 percent of global trade is shipped.
“We are situated on a strategic global trade and energy route, yet ships pass through the Strait of Malacca without any fees being charged,” Purbaya said this week at a public event. “I’m not sure if that’s right or wrong,” he added.

Worry not! This would not only be illegal, it is categorically excluded, impossible, unthinkable and wrong:

The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which Indonesia ratified as early as the 1980s, clearly prohibits the collection of tolls for passage through the Strait of Malacca. “These are not soft standards, but binding legal obligations,” comments Dita Liliansa, an expert on maritime security at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia.

But the other two states in the Strait of Malacca, Malaysia and Singapore, are shocked, shocked! that onyone could come up with such an idea:

However, his remarks regarding restrictions on free maritime traffic in the region have met with significant resistance. Both Malaysia and Singapore rejected the proposal and warned against unilateral action. “The right of transit passage is guaranteed to everyone,” said Singapore’s Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan. “We will not participate in any attempts to block, interdict, or impose tolls on shipping in our neighborhood.”

But this idea is now in the open, and it is maturing. The more people fuck around, the more likely they are to find out something.
BTW: Should the Strait of Malacca be closed the countries with the most to lose would be China, Taiwan, Japan, and Korea. Probably in that order.

4938

I, for one, am tired of winning. Potato head kicked a hornets nest. And then another, and another.

4939

Trump has reportedly been “evacuated” from the White House Correspondents Dinner after “loud noises” were heard.

I assume that means he shat himself while having a stroke.

4940

At the very least we can assume any amount of physical exertion at all puts him a bit closer to a stroke.