25 Years Ago Today. . .

For the past several years, I have tried to ignore the 9-11 remembrances for several reasons I'll explain below. But since we are now a quarter century from that day, I thought it fitting to do my own remembrance.

I do remember the day quite clearly. September 11, 2001 was a Tuesday. I was beginning my second year of law school at the University of San Diego, and my morning class was California Civil Procedure (one of my favorite and most useful classes I took in law school). Later that day, I was scheduled to attend the Central Committee Meeting for the San Diego County Democratic Party. I was the Publications Director and member of the Executive Committee (my biggest contribution was the creation of a pamphlet which I think the Party still uses, but I digress).

Anyway, I was living with my parents at the time, and it was my father who woke me up with the news of the first plane hitting the Twin Towers. Now, at the time, we did not know this was the result of a terrorist attack. For all we knew, it could have been a drunk pilot or something. Anyway, as time went on, and the horror became more fully known - including seeing the 2nd plane hit the other tower - terror set in. My aunt worked in that building (she had been in the World Trade Center and had left before the first plane hit). I had friends and other family members who worked on Wall Street. And as those buildings came crashing down, I was consumed with concern and fear for my friends and family members in harm's way.

Specifically, I was terrified about my aunt, my college roommate, and my cousin, all of whom lived or worked in and around what became Ground Zero. I was lucky - they were all safe. My college roommate blogged about the experiences as way of providing updates without having to field calls and emails. For me, 9-11 wasn't an attack on some random place, it was an attack that threatened MY family and MY friends. Not in theory, but in actuality.

And it pisses me off to this very day that 9-11 is used by people who did nothing but sneer at New York City and the multiculturalism it represented, which Al Qaeda wanted to destroy, as a badge of honor. Or that 9-11 should justify gross racism against Arabs and Arab-looking people (Sikhs). And I remember that, in the aftermath of 9-11, John Ashcroft using the powers of the federal government to round up Muslim men - pretty much any the feds could find on short notice - and illegally jail them. No warrants, no investigation, just grabbing people off of the street.

Mind you, a number of the victims of 9-11 were Muslim, and Muslims were informing the FBI about the 9-11 hijackers BEFORE 9-11. Pretty much everyone around these guys were calling the FBI. No matter - Muslims had to be punished for the FBI's failures. 

Worse yet, I saw the Bush Administration use 9-11 (an attack on a city it had gleefully demonized) as an excuse to invade Iraq, and lead the United States into two forever wars that did nothing but drain our Treasury, and damage an entire generation of young men. And America's reputation abroad was so damaged, that Barack Obama got the Nobel Peace Prize for the sole accomplishment of NOT BEING GEORGE W. BUSH.  Oh, and the paramilitary group now harassing local communities - that was created by post 9-11 "reforms." These reforms, mind you, were proposed by Democrats looking to "keep the powder dry" while Democrats also supported the Iraq War. 

When I think of 9-11, I don't think of it as the beginning of the rot that has caused our country to be lead astray, but it cemented a lot of the rot. By the time Obama was elected, a direct pull out of Iraq was all but impossible. And the Iraq invasion lead to the creation of ISIS, which created further instability in the region, leading to hundreds of thousands of deaths. Oh, and the first responders who helped people on 9-11 all ended up with severe respiratory issues, including cancer, because the Bush Administration and Giuliani's NYC lied about what was in the air. 

It's also clear, now, that the leadership of both Parties was so broken that they had to be jettisoned. Republicans mostly did this with the Tea Party revolt in 2010 - though that revolt mostly elected crazier Republicans (a natural byproduct of the closed nature of conservative media). Democrats, though, never really did that en masse. 

So that's my 9-11 remembrance. We took a day of horror, watched heroes begin their long descent into horrible deaths as they tried to rescue their fellow New Yorkers, came together as a country, and completely wasted the experience. If you are a New Yorker, and you lived through 9-11, you should view it as a badge of honor. You survived. For the rest of us, the aftermath of 9-11 should be a source of shame. 

The Great Dipshit American War (in Iran)

Over the past week, my country has decided, foolishly, to attack Iran for reasons. What those reasons are, or what our goals are supposed to be, are entirely unclear. For certain, Iran has been involved in terrorism, its government is repressive and awful, and it is deeply unpopular in many parts of Iran as a whole. In fact, I first started using Twitter because Twitter was the best place to follow news of the Green Revolution during Obama's Administration.

But even during the Green Revolution, everyone with half a brain realized that American involvement in the Revolution was counter-productive. Iranians are patriots to their own country - a country, mind you, whose history goes back antiquity - and any outside influence in their politics would be seen negatively. And unlike a country like Iraq, who was dominated by one person and one family, the Iranian regime is deep, and has support in the rural areas of the country. 

The other aspect of why an invasion of Iran was never considered was because Iran, unlike Iraq or Afghanistan, is not completely an international pariah. While Iran certainly is not on friendly terms with a number of countries, there are countries out there that are willing to prop up the regime with material support. Specifically, Russia and the PRC have both stated that they will provide material support to Iran. And Russia has also apparently provided intelligence to Iran. In contrast, Iraq and Afghanistan were so isolated that no one (except for Pakistan to some degree) was willing to assist them when the US came knocking.

Now, this sort of material support is much more important than you may think. From what we have seen over the past 70 years of modern warfare is that smaller entities can survive the onslaught of superpowers if they can get material support from outside powers. The Russo-Ukraininian War that continues to rage has lasted as long as it has because Ukraine has been able to receive material support from Europe and the US (until Trump). The Soviet Afghan War lasted for 12 years, in part because of American material support. North Vietnam won the US Vietnamese War, in part, because it received material support from the Soviet Union and the PRC. And the Korean War, famously, was all but won until McArthur threatened the PRC. 

In other words, what every power has to do when bringing war is to make sure that the state it chooses to invade to be sufficiently cut-off from other powers. For the US, the fact that most countries in Latin America are too far from Russia or the PRC is useful in allowing the US to invade those countries with relative impunity. But anytime the US, or any other power, ends up invading a country that is willing and able to provide material support, the invaded country has the opportunity to wear down its invaders.

What's more, invading Iran itself has its own challenges. Its terrain is mountainous and it has a large population of over 93 million people. There are population centers, but the populations in those centers tends to be the most anti-regime. So, attacks on those population centers will only serve to turn those populations against invaders.

But of course, that's exactly what the US is doing. Worst yet, the military managed a decapitation strike, but killed the old guy (Khamenei) who was most likely to seek a quick end, and didn't follow up with an immediate invasion to use the chaos to its advantage. And, of course, the reliance on a decapitation strike also indicates the lack of understanding of how Iran works as a regime. Khamenei wasn't so much a dictator, as he was the aging head of an authoritarian regime. He wasn't the CEO, or COO, he was the Chairman of the Board. Iran is a complicated country, and it has a complicated government. 

Now, the new Supreme Leader is Khamenei's kid, who's (naturally) younger, more capable on running the day-to-day, and is now out for vengeance. As is the rest of the country because we didn't just kill Khamenei, but we bombed an elementary school for girls. All the while, our allies in Europe see every horror broadcast to them. 

But there's more - as we now see - Iran is eminently capable of disrupting oil production in the Middle East. So long as Iran can affect shipments out of the Strait of Hormuz, it can drive up oil prices. This benefits Russia (who relies on oil exports to float its economy), and it benefits China, who has invested heavily in renewable energy. In the meantime, those of us in the US are going to be hit with all the "fun" of a supply side shock - stagflation. All of these horrors should have been immediately obvious to anyone who's studied modern history and can read a fucking map. Neither of which are Trump's strong points.

Of course, it is entirely possible that Trump, finally understanding the risk caused by his idiocy, will stop short of a complete invasion. But the damage caused already will reverberate through the American economy and foreign policy for decades. 

That's why I can this the Great Dipshit American War. Because only a total dipshit would have gotten us into this mess in the first place. And Donald Trump is absolutely that dipshit.

Lastly, do I think that this war was caused by Trump's need to distract us from the Epstein Files? Yes and no. Trump needed a war, for certain. But this particular action was probably directed by Hegseth and Netanyahu, who talked Trump into this. Hegseth believes that the war will hasten the Rapture (which is not a thing, by the way), and Netanyahu needs Israel to remain in a state of war lest he be removed from office and sent off to prison for gross corruption.