Saturday, March 28, 2026
1935 Influential Nazi Propaganda film "Triumph of the Will" was eleased showing Nuremberg rallies, commissioned by Adolf Hitler and directed by Leni Riefenstahl
1939 Spanish Civil War ended as Madrid fell to the Nationalists headed by Francisco Franco
1960 Pope John appointed the first Japanese, African & Filipino cardinals
1967 UN Secretary General U Thant made public proposals for peace in Vietnam
1979 A partial meltdown at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in the US resulted in the release of radioactive gas and iodine into the atmosphere, but no deaths
2017 Donald Trump signed Energy Independence executive order undoing Obama climate-control measures
2022 Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed the so called "Don't Say Gay" bill limiting LGBTQ classroom instruction
In bed at 9:30, awake and on to LZB around 5, 0605 142/65/63 120 206.4; 25,45,25
Morning meds at 8 a.m. Ranolazine at 7:40 a.m. and 8:05 p.m.
Symptoms: lightheadedness, OK; feet numb at night. Able to shop at Sendik's'. sleepy during the day
Trump's and Hegseth's war of choice:
One lie after another. “We've got no shortage of munitions,” Hegseth said during a Thursday press briefing at U.S. Central Command’s Tampa, Fla., headquarters. “Our stockpiles of defensive and offensive weapons allow us to sustain this campaign as long as we need to.”
Trump: If the Iranians don't respond favorably to our demands "We'll just keep bombing our little hearts out."
The U.S. has fired hundreds of precision cruise missiles (e.g., Tomahawks) in just weeks—over 850 by some counts. Production lines for these weapons are relatively slow, so usage is outpacing manufacturing. This is a classic problem: modern wars burn through precision weapons much faster than peacetime industry can replenish.
Air and missile defense systems are under the most strainSystems like THAAD, Patriot, and similar interceptors are being heavily used to shoot down Iranian missiles and drones. At current rates, some key interceptor stockpiles could be exhausted within weeks. These weapons are especially expensive and slow to produce—and often multiple interceptors are needed per incoming missile.
The war is stressing critical materials supply (not just finished weapons). The conflict is rapidly consuming tungsten, a key material used in advanced munitions. Global supply is tight (China dominates production), and prices have surged. This highlights a deeper issue: industrial capacity and raw materials, not just stockpiles, limit how long the U.S. can sustain high-intensity war.
The problem is compounded by earlier commitments (especially Ukraine). U.S. stockpiles were already drawn down by aid to Ukraine and ongoing global deployments. Now the Iran war is competing for the same weapons—especially air defense interceptors. This creates a “zero-sum” allocation problem across theaters (Middle East, Europe, Pacific).
Official messaging vs. outside analysis. There’s a noticeable gap: Officials’ line: stockpiles are sufficient for current operations. ndependent analysts’ view: Serious strain already visible. A longer or larger war could create real shortages. Replenishment could take years and tens of billions of dollars
Bottom line: The U.S. is not “out of weapons” and can sustain the current campaign. But the war is: Rapidly depleting high-end munitions, Exposing limits of the defense industrial base, and Creating trade-offs between global commitments. The biggest vulnerability is missile defense and interceptor inventories, not bombs or basic munitions.
Who does this advantage? Russia, China, North Korea. Who does it disadvantage and render more vulnerable? America. So I ask again: Is Trump merely a Russian asset or is he a Russian agent?
From New York Review of Books, April 9, 2026: Signifying Absolutely Nothing, by Fintan O'Toole.
Among the reasons that only a fool would believe in American promises:
The most cynical of Trump’s retreads of the neoimperial past is his incitement of the Iranian people to rise up against the Islamic Republic. In echoing Bush’s call to the Iraqis in 1991, Trump was recycling a moment of great betrayal. Those Iraqis who believed America’s implied promise of support against Saddam paid for their naiveté with their blood. The US refused to give the rebels arms captured from the Iraqi regime’s forces, instead opting to destroy the weapons, return them to the regime, or (in a grotesque irony) give them to the Mujahideen in Afghanistan. The Americans had total dominance over Iraqi airspace but stood back as Saddam unleashed helicopter gunships on the rebels. Somewhere between 30,000 and 60,000 Shias were killed, along with some 20,000 Kurds.
Even if young Iranians don’t remember what happened in Iraq thirty-five years ago, they certainly remember what happened in their own country earlier this year. On January 13 Trump posted a message to those engaged in mass protests against the regime in Tehran: “Iranian Patriots, KEEP PROTESTING – TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!!… HELP IS ON ITS WAY.” He warned that there would be “very strong action” if the regime executed protesters. There was no action, and help was not on its way. The government massacred an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 protesters. This is the most gaping vacancy of all—Trump gestures toward two American incitements, one historic, one extremely recent. Both deployed words that were fatally empty of meaning.
These vacuities are part of a greater absence: there is no story. America’s wars beyond the Western Hemisphere have always been underpinned by grand narratives: making the world safe for democracy (World War I), defeating fascism (World War II), saving civilization from communism (Korea and Vietnam), upholding international law and the sovereignty of nations (Kuwait), responding to the atrocities of September 11 through the “war on terror” (Afghanistan and Iraq). Each of these stories had sufficient purchase on reality to command widespread initial (if by no means universal) consent. There seemed to be a cause large enough in its historic import to be worth killing and dying for. Even when, as with the invasion of Iraq, the stated rationale was quickly exposed as fraudulent, the drama of retaliation for September 11 and the reassertion of American power after the exposure of terrible vulnerability held their grip.
Insofar as Trump’s imperial posturing has a story line, it is supposed to be written in the National Security Strategy published in November. The tale it wants to tell is one of hemispheric hegemony: the US must control all of the Americas. Where does Iran fit into that script? Nowhere. Its significance is, in fact, dismissed in a few lines:
Conflict remains the Middle East’s most troublesome dynamic, but there is today less to this problem than headlines might lead one to believe. Iran—the region’s chief destabilizing force—has been greatly weakened by Israeli actions since October 7, 2023, and President Trump’s June 2025 Operation Midnight Hammer, which significantly degraded Iran’s nuclear program.
And, a reminder of whose war this really is:
This is, in a sense, a proxy war, but one in which America is the proxy. It manifests overwhelming military strength but also stark political weakness. Marco Rubio’s admission that the US attacked Iran because it knew that Israel was about to do so—and thus feared that America would be a target of Iranian retaliation—depicts Trump not as a mighty leader but as a helpless follower. Instead of leaning on a rival boss, he is being led by Netanyahu into a generational conflict to remake the entire Middle East
Netanyahu and Israel win; America loses. Trump will, too.
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