So... apparently we're headed towards war with Iran.

I wonder if all the people screaming "YEAH! BOMB IRAN BACK TO THE STONE AGE! MAGA!!" understand that war doesn't work like that anymore. Superior military strength does not insure a victory because advanced technologies are so cheap and readily available. Technology has changed the face of small-scale warfare, given rise to mass-scale terrorism, and redefined what it means to "win" a war.

I have no clue what our Commander in Chief thinks winning a war looks like. My guess is he is he pictures bombing raids obliterating Iranian cities as our soldiers raise the American flag over Tehran. Or maybe his "victory scenario" is distracting Americans from all the heinous shit he's been doing, and bombing a foreign nation is incidental? That's certainly a thought that's entered his head...

But who can say? Even when he attempts to explain his "thinking," it comes out as incomprehensible gibberish, so I honestly don't think anybody can say what his end-game is.

But here's the deal. Even if we manage to obliterate the bulk of Iran's ability to make war and establish a massive military presence in the country, we haven't "won." All we will have done is galvanize terrorists around the globe and create substantially more committed enemies for generations to come. Even worse, if the war is handled badly (it will be, given who is in charge of it) and innocent civilian casualties are huge, we're certain to lose even more of our allies as well. And what happens after we leave? We put some US-approved puppet leader into power who will have no ability whatsoever to fix a broken country, there's a coup out of desperation, and somebody with an even bigger hatred of the USA can come into power... this time with nothing to lose and a philosophy that no risk is too great to do harm to America.

There is no way this ends well for the United States of America. None.

Because Iran is not a technological backwater. Because terrorism isn't centralized. Because biological warfare is easy. Because powerful drones are smaller than ever and can deliver increasingly lethal payloads. Because American citizens travel outside of America and are easy targets. Because US allies are within striking distance. Because there are US interests outside of the USA. Because there are many, many ways into this country. Because a wall will do very little to deter a terrorist or stop a drone. Because you don't even have to have a military to reign terror and destruction upon the most powerful of nations now. Because... because... BECAUSE... this is the world we live in.

Yes, Iran is most definitely a threat. This is nothing new. There are many countries who are a clear and present danger to the United States of America, and they have been for decades (hey, we're "allies" with some of them!). And while war may have been a viable solution to deal with them in the past, there's no way that's true today. Most sane people realize this. Which is why the world put so much effort into the Iran Nuclear Deal. Was it perfect? No. Did it move us away from nuclear annihilation for a little while longer? All indications pointed to yes (despite what President Trump and his propaganda organization at Fox News say). Are there ways to work with Iran so that setting the world on fire is not a desirable course of action for them to take? Well, history has shown that there probably is. But so long as we have an incompetent 2-year-old with anger issues in The White House who won't listen to the people who know how to handle these things, what difference does it make?

The reason that war is a last-ditch effort is because it has to be.

Today more than ever.

Unfortunately the decision as to whether or not we go to war rests with the same person who thinks 1970 economic practices can be applied to the global economy that exists in 2019 (which is why we're embracing socialism by spending billions that we'll borrow from China to give to farmers who can no longer sell their goods to China).

I cannot fathom how this country will ever recover from the massive damage that is being inflicted on just about every possible front by our current government. Not just the president, but the dysfunction of the entirety of our government.

Assuming we can ever recover at all.

War with Iran would just be one more nail in the coffin of the country we are now. We will have to become something entirely different if the USA is to go on existing. Given where we're at now, I can't help but think that this might be a good thing.

I have never been a fan of war movies.

Probably because the war movies I was most familiar with growing up were the John Wayne war glorification films that put a heroic gloss on war that made it seem like some kind of desirable activity... instead of the horrific failure of the human condition that it really is. There were exceptions, of course (Grave of the Fireflies comes immediately to mind), but the vast majority of films I saw were whitewashed pro-war propaganda.

But then war films started changing.

And the turning point for me was Saving Private Ryan.

Here was a film that was showing us heroism amongst the brutality of war, and it was achieved by being honest about just how horrible and terrifying it is for everybody involved. No glossing over the death and destruction with lame-ass "ACK! You got me, you dirty Nazi!" style casualties... Saving Private Ryan blew people apart with bloody abandon, illustrating that just surviving a war with your sanity in tact was a heroic effort.

Then came A Very Long Engagement and The Hurt Locker and Band of Brothers and Letters from Iwo Jima and Defiance and Zero Dark Thirty and even Inglourious Basterds... and numerous other movies which, while not entirely propaganda-free, at least tried to be more honest in their depiction of war. But, most important of all, they were simply very good films.

Which all leading to (what is now) one of my most anticipated films of 2013, and it finally has an international trailer...

I fully admit that when I first read about the film being made, I was intrigued. Stalingrad is one of the most brutal battles in world history, and getting a modern film on the subject made by actual Russians could make for a very interesting flick. But then I heard it was going the Titanic-love-story-against-disaster route and I lost interest. And then I heard it was being filmed in 3-D and really lost interest.

But now this cinematic and stylish trailer has arrived, and I can't wait to see this film.

I can only hope that the story and acting lives up to the promise of the visuals.

If I wasn't so enamored with one-word blog entry titles* this post would probably be called something like "Give Peace a Chance" or "WAR IS OVER if you want it" or some other John-Lennon-inspired genius to set the stage for my upcoming rant.

If I really wanted to get descriptive, I suppose I could have gone with something like... "A wish to be included in holiday festivities on my part doesn't constitute a war on your part." Though, since this is me we're talking about, it could have just as easily been "Take your stupid war and go fuck yourself with it."

Which sounds like something John Lennon would have totally said if he was a creative person like me. Alas...

   
But before we mix it up, here's a calendar for December...

From a holiday standpoint, it's a pretty packed schedule as you can see. And I'm sure there's a bunch more holidays that belong on there that I don't know about.

But since this is the United States of America... AKA The Land of The Free... AKA The Melting Pot... where people of all ages, races, creeds, colors, sexes, sexual orientations, gender identities, national origins, and religions come together as one, it's not a big deal. Because while we may celebrate separate holidays, we can certainly come together to celebrate each other's happiness during the season! This is the USA, after all.

Right?

RIGHT?

Errr... apparently not.

Apparently there's a "War on Christmas" of which I was previously unaware. Apparently, some people feel that all of December belongs exclusively to the Christian holiday of Christmas, and the mere existence of other holidays is some kind of attack. Apparently communities wanting to have public festivals which are inclusive of all faiths by calling them "Holiday Celebrations" instead of "Christmas Celebrations" have declared war. Apparently any time anybody wants to do anything for the holidays that's not Christmas-specific, they're ruining Christmas. Apparently.

It is, of course, a complete load of horse shit.

This is nothing more than a scheme by hateful people who benefit financially by keeping everybody divided and miserable. THEY create a war, then sit back and laugh while other people fight in it. How very Christian of them.

I remain dumbfounded that there are people who actually buy into this crap. Is their faith really so weak that it takes the threat of imaginary war for them to feel anything for their beliefs? Is their faith really so shaky that they think Christianity will disappear if they don't go into meltdown when somebody puts up a stupid billboard that questions it? Really? Because that's just sad. I question whether you can even call it "faith" when it's more like lack of faith. Because anybody who is strong in their beliefs and confident in their God wouldn't be the least bit threatened just because a parade was renamed so everybody could come together and celebrate their holidays... including their Christmas.

Oh well. I'm not a Christian. I don't celebrate Christmas. I do enjoy celebrating the holidays with my friends and family of ALL faiths during the season though. I haven't declared war on anybody. So, seriously, from the bottom of my heart... "Take your stupid war and go fuck yourself with it."

It's what John Lennon would have wanted.

*I didn't used to have one-word titles for my blog posts. It's just that one day I had an entry where one word was all I needed. The next morning I woke up and got an email telling me that I was "stupid" for not using more descriptive titles on my blog entries so that they would be better indexed by Google and improve my search engine ranking. Obviously, I needed their web consulting services because I was too big an idiot to figure this stuff out on my own. Since I don't give a crap about my "search engine ranking" I thought this was pretty funny. And very, very rude. So I wrote back and told them to blow me.

I've been using single-word blog entry titles ever since. I'm stupid that way.