A decision maker seduced by previous military successes

My Sunday movie was A Nice Indian Boy. The story centers on Naveen, a young gay man who is a doctor. He’s rather timid. He’s also annoyed that at his sister’s wedding everyone tells him, “You’re next.” A few years later Naveen meets Jay (played by Jonathan Groff). He’s white though adopted by Indian parents so knows the culture – somewhat. They seem to fall in love quickly. This is a romance story and follows the formula. The difficulty here is when Naveen finally gets the courage to take Jay to meet his sister and parents things don’t go well, more from misunderstanding than homophobia. The second difficulty was how to fit a gay couple into a traditional Indian wedding. I enjoyed it. Nearly all of the threads of the story conclude in the way one would want. The movie has a bunch of award nominations and a few wins. Zarna Garg plays Naveen’s mother. She is an Indian American comedian. Back in mid February she was interviewed for Pridesource by Chris Azzopardi. She talked about being an ally and working to tell other parents they need to support their queer kids, well, queer people in general. As part of the interview Garg said that her friends who are gay have the highest EQ of the people she knows. I had to verify what that means – Emotional Quotient or Emotional Intelligence, the ability to recognize the emotions in themselves and others to guide thinking and behavior. Garg says she’s used to the “brown guys” who avoid emotional friction and was startled when the gays around her are so empathetic. She also tells the story of her sister, who became an ally because of the movie. The family lived in Ohio after they came from India. The sister booked theaters across Ohio, telling Indians they have an obligation to see the movie. There is no excuse, it’s all paid for. I finished the book My Government Means to Kill Me, a novel by Rasheed Newson. The story isn’t as dire as the title might sound. The phrase comes from something many LGBTQ people, especially black gay men, figure out about their interactions with the government. The story is about Trey, called that because his full name includes “III” and he’s trying to distance himself from his family. He’s black and gay. He grew up in Indianapolis in a house big enough his parents named it. In 1986 at 17 he flees to New York City, rejecting the family wealth. At first, this reads like a biography instead of a novel. But then one notices the little differences between the story and history. Trey is mentored by Bayard Rustin, the gay assistant to Martin Luther King who did a lot of work to organize the 1963 March on Washington. They meet and do most of their talking at a gay bath house and a footnote tells us there is no evidence that Rustin ever visited a bath house. That bath house is where Trey finds his community (and a whole lot of sex). Through the rest of the book there are another 80 footnotes explaining the gay cultural significance of historical people, places, and songs that Trey and others meet or mention. This is Trey’s coming of age story, including how he becomes an activist. He becomes a volunteer for Gay Men’s Health Crisis (this is the AIDS era) an early member of ACT UP, founded by Larry Kramer. One of his early actions is to tangle with Fred Trump (yes, that Fred Trump), the racist slumlord who hid behind interlocking corporations. Each chapter’s title is a lesson he as an activist needs to learn, such as: “Devils Have a Weakness.” “Allies Don’t Always Harmonize.” “The Best Spontaneous Moments are Planned,” which is about the work that was done before Larry Kramer’s famous “last minute” speech that prompted the creation of ACT UP. I enjoyed the story and recommend it as a look into the history of gay activism in the AIDS era in NYC. Though there was a lot of the story I already knew there were a few things I didn’t. Reading about a participant in this era, even if a fictional one, leads to a greater understanding of what they went through. Yes, Trey spends a lot of time in a bath house engaging in sex during the AIDS era. He speculates the reason why it was allowed to stay open is because the clientele was mostly black. The news this morning was that there is a two week ceasefire between US/Israel and Iran and that the Strait of Hormuz is open. The news this evening was the Strait was closed again and Israel is still firing on Lebanon, because Israel claimed that Hezbollah wasn’t part of the deal. Check news again in the morning. Ilan Goldenberg tweeted:

I am thankful that we have a ceasefire. It happened much faster than I expected and it was the right move. But let’s be clear that this war ends (if the ceasefire holds) as a total strategic disaster. The scorecard: Nukes: Iran still has the HEU [Highly Enriched Uranium] Proxies: no change or impact Missile and drones: Iran demonstrated its arsenal is sustainable and survivable under massive US and Israeli pressure. Strait of Hormuz: Iran’s leverage to use it as a bargaining chip has dramatically increased.

There is more, some of which I’ll summarize: + The son of the Supreme Leader has the job and is likely stronger. + US Gulf allies screwed, relations with Europe strained. + Israel is more isolated and no more secure. + Global economy: major damage. In a previous post I mentioned that the nasty guy fired Pam Bondi as Attorney General. If you still need a news article or two about it here’s one by Oliver Willis of Daily Kos and one by Lisa Needham of Kos. The second one adds that Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche will take the top job until a replacement can be confirmed so Needham reviews why the nasty guy likes him and why we won’t. I had also previously mentioned that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had fired – asked to take early retirement – Gen. Randy George, the Army chief of staff, a very strange thing to do in the middle of a war. An Associated Press article posted on Kos explains who George is. Jeremy Lindenfeld, in an article for Capital & Main posted on Kos, discussed the Imperial Valley, the region in California between the Salton Sea and the Mexican border. This is a fertile area for both white and Native farmers, but only because of water from the Colorado River. Because of global warming (I hear March set a record in heat) and a drought in the West the water level in the Colorado River has dropped. A lot of farmers have adopted methods to use less water, but they may need to reduce more. Now also snooping around the valley are companies that want to mine lithium from the enormous underground reservoir of geothermal brine and to set up data centers. Both need lots of water with the Colorado River being the only source. That loss of water could drive a lot of farmers out of business. In Monday’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted Heath Mayo commenting on the search and rescue effort for the downed Air Force pilot.

One emerging theme of the war effort is that (1) our military is extremely competent and extremely good at war fighting and doing its job even as (2) our political leadership that sets the strategic ends and objectives for military action has absolutely no clue what it’s doing.

David Baer of The Bulwark discussed the election in Hungary, which is this weekend. Baer’s title (from a week ago) says it well, “Orbán Will Lose Hungary’s Election in Two Weeks—If It’s Clean.” Baer then lists all the levers of power that dictator Orbán has seized or crafted for himself, enough for observers to think he can’t be removed. Then Baer describes Orbán’s opponent, Péter Magyar. So, back to that bit in the title, “If It’s Clean.” Idrees Kahloon of The Atlantic:

The Hormuz crisis has some beneficiaries: America’s adversaries. To prevent even higher oil prices, the Trump administration has lifted sanctions on Russian exports and even some of Iran’s. “Things that Iran and Russia had sought to achieve through negotiations with the United States, they’ve managed to achieve without having to negotiate,” Michael Froman, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, told me. “This is bailing out the Russian economy, which had been on the ropes, and, at least temporarily, it is giving a windfall to Iran.” Russia could recoup an additional $40 billion or more in oil exports this year, which it can plow into its war effort against Ukraine. Iranian oil production may be as high as before the war.

A tweet by Gandalv, which includes a video (which I did not listen to):

Retired Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling is not mincing words. The former Commanding General of US Army Europe says these generals were purged because they stood up against Pete Hegseth’s push to turn the US military into a Christian nationalist crusade. Retired Army Maj. Gen. Randy Manner says dozens of chaplains who don’t share Hegseth’s views are being marginalized and excluded from staff meetings. The chaplain corps exists to serve all service members regardless of faith. That apparently made Green’s position untenable. The Pope has now weighed in. Hegseth’s prayer for battlefield violence prompted a response from Rome: God does not listen to those who wage war in his name. Hertling has seen enough. So have the troops.

On Tuesday Willis reported the nasty guy had tweeted Iran should concede and do so quickly or “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.” Yeah, that’s a vile thing for an Oval Office Occupant to say. Experts said the particulars would likely be war crimes. Willis reminds us that back in November Democrats warned us of such things. That’s when several members of Congress released a video saying military personnel have a duty to not follow illegal orders. Of course, the nasty guy and his minions tried to make life hard for the creators of the video, especially Sen. Mark Kelly. But prosecutors weren’t able to find an actual crime that had been committed. In Tuesday’s roundup Chitown Kev quoted Shane Harris of The Atlantic:

If a...panel of experts scrutinized the run-up to the current war in Iran, their assessment might go something like this: The intelligence community was accurate and consistent in its prewar judgments about Iran’s capabilities and intentions to attack the United States and its allies. Contrary to what President Trump has said to justify his decision, the intelligence showed that the Iranian regime was not preparing to use a nuclear weapon; it did not have ballistic missiles capable of reaching the United States; and in response to a U.S. military attack, Iran was likely to strike at neighboring countries in the Persian Gulf and try to close the Strait of Hormuz, precipitating a global economic crisis. All of this was known before the war and presented to President Trump. This was an intelligence success. […] The failures of the intelligence community on Iraq’s WMDs produced systemic changes meant to keep botched calls like that one from recurring. In many respects, those reforms have worked. But they couldn’t account for a decision maker who had been seduced by previous military successes into thinking that the U.S. armed forces, under his inspired and perhaps divinely endowed command, could never stumble.

In Wednesday’s roundup Dworkin included a tweet by Aaron Blake discussing the firing of AG Pam Bondi and Todd Blanche as her interim replacement.

Even in her confirmation hearing, Bondi assured cases would be judged on their merits -- "No one will be prosecuted, investigated because they are a political opponent." Here, Blanche conveys a more relaxed standard where the president just gets to order stuff.

That “here” is a tweet from Acyn:

Blanche: We have thousands of ongoing investigations going on and it is true that some of them involve men, women, and entities that the president believes should be investigated. That is his right and it is his duty to do that—meaning to lead this country.

In the comments is a tweet by David Shiffman. The image is a reworking of a meme I’ve seen before in which a rich man with a plate mounded with cookies sits between a white worker with a plate with one cookie and an immigrant worker with nothing in front of him. The rich man says to the white worker, “Careful mate... that immigrant wants your cookie!” Shiffman reworked the meme in response to the nasty guy issuing a proposed 2027 budget that increased the military budget by 40% to $1.4 trillion and saying the budget had no room for the social safety net. Over the rich guy’s face he put “ICE, War in Iran.” Over the white worker’s face he put, “Medicaid, Medicare, and daycare.” Over the immigrant he put the emblems of NASA, NOAA, EPA, NSF, NIH, and the Fish and Wildlife Service. The rich guy says, “Careful mate... that science wants your cookie!” Shiffman added:

Science is not why you and your family are struggling, friends. President Trump and Congressional Republicans are the reason why you and your family are struggling.

Tweets by Max Burns:

You guys don’t get Trump’s 4D chess. He had to attack Iran in order to open the Strait of Hormuz which was open before he attacked Iran. So Donald Trump fought this disastrous war with Iran and the end result is a deal in which Iran gets: – Control of the Strait of Hormuz – Unlimited uranium enrichment – All U.S. sanctions lifted – All U.N. resolutions against it lifted – Cash compensation from the US Who won again?

And just for fun, Fergi Jo Lisa posted a 15 second video of a bird (I think a parrot) and six dogs.