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Great leaders are willing to sacrifice the numbers to save the people. Poor leaders sacrifice the people to save the numbers. 

Simon Sinek

Today's column addresses two subjects: 1) Where Iran misses the point and 2) Donald Trump's descent into total madness.

Iran's Obfuscation: Where It Misses the Point

Iran has done many things very well (from an Iranian perspective) since February 28 of this year, when Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth launched their murderous war of aggression against Iran, killing its Supreme Leader and many of his family members, many of Iran's governmental cabinet and almost 200 little innocent grade-school girls and their teachers—not to mention hundreds and hundreds more.

For all intents and purposes, Iran defeated the United States and Israel on the battlefield. It has destroyed the U.S. military bases in the Persian Gulf. It defeated Israel's "Iron Dome" and the U.S. military's defensive radar and missile systems. It put America's military weaknesses and vulnerabilities on public display for the entire world to see. It has used its strategic geographical advantages to demonstrate to the world its ability to seriously impact the global economy. And it has emerged from this war as a major regional power—a power greater than even Israel.

The world will never look upon the United States as the great global hegemon again. Trump's myopia has forever tainted America's global reputation strategically, militarily and diplomatically. And even though the warmongering neocons in Washington, D.C., will never admit it (until they are forced to, which they soon will be), the unipolar world is gone forever, and the multipolar world is now upon us.

And remember that Iran did all of the above after over 47 years of the most restrictive and punitive tariffs and sanctions that any country in the world has ever been forced to endure. They also did it after the CIA/Mossad-controlled Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein attacked Iran in a bloody war of aggression in the 1980s that killed some 800,000 Iranians before it ended.

Now, it appears that in the desperate, deluded mind of Donald Trump another major war of aggression is being prepared, which could very feasibly include U.S. ground forces and even the use of nuclear missiles.

Things could get real ugly real fast in the next few weeks.

But for all of Iran's accomplishments in this war, it has a major, and perhaps fatal, flaw.

Writing for LewRockwell.com, former U.S. Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration, Paul Craig Roberts, opines:

"As the first casualty of the endless wars waged by the US government has without exception been the truth, with the American people perpetually receiving the greatest harm as the result of the US government's campaign of deception, we wish to highlight some of the facts that are being withheld from the American public. After all, it is the American taxpayers who will have to bear the cost of America's unjust wars, and so they deserve to know the truth."

You can read the [Iranian] letter in a number of places, including here.

The problem with the letter is not its truthfulness.  The problem is its naiveté.  The letter shows that the Iranian government has a failed understanding of its proxy enemy that Israel has arranged for Iran to fight, while Israel, the source of the conflict, escapes damage from the conflict.

The Iranian letter assumes that America being a democracy the American people have control.  The Iranian government lost in democratic fantasies does not understand that money, not the American people, control the US Government.  When it comes to America's Middle East policy, the policy is controlled not by the American people or by elections, but by the Israel Lobby and the US military/security complex.

The Israel Lobby has successfully used America for the entirety of the 21st century to fight Israel's wars for the Zionist Agenda of Greater Israel.  The US military/security complex is highly content with a quarter century of wars for Israel, because the wars against Iraq, Libya, Syria, and now Iran and Lebanon have contributed to its profits.  The Iranian government's ridiculous notion that the US government serves the interest of the American people is laughable, and this shows that Iran does not understand its proxy enemy.  Indeed, Iran does not understand the conflict it is in, because it is conducting it against a proxy instead of Iran's real enemy–Israel.

In his missive, Craig stated publicly what I have believed in my heart from the time Israel, after having started the war, backed out of the war and turned the war over completely to the United States to fight on its behalf.

Iran took the bait and switch.

From Israel's perspective, it was a smart move. It drags the U.S. military into a protracted war with the Zionists' most powerful adversary, Iran, and frees up the IDF to concentrate on its military operations in Lebanon and Syria—and Gaza and the West Bank, of course.

I believe that Dr. Roberts has very astutely identified the heart of the matter. Iran's fight is not primarily with the United States; its fight is with Israel. The U.S. is but a puppet proxy army for Israel. Donald Trump is not calling the shots; Benjamin Netanyahu is calling the shots.

And speaking of Netanyahu, polling data out of Israel shows the slippery snake Netanyahu losing the elections this month. Others are saying that the Greatest Show in the Middle East, the FlyDubai thriller named The Plumber, will be the October surprise that saves the elections for the wicked weasel Netanyahu.

For what it's worth, I'm casting my vote with Scottish podcaster and former member of the British Parliament, George Galloway, who predicts that the next Prime Minister of Israel will be Itamar Ben?Gvir, The Butcher of Gaza. 

Ben-Gvir is Netanyahu on steroids. From a pathological, sociopathic, genocidal perspective, Ben-Gvir makes Netanyahu look like a humanitarian by comparison. If the Zionist State of Israel remains intact before Ben-Gvir takes the helm of the government, it will doubtless not survive Gvir's ghoulish reign of terror. Gvir is ten times more bloodthirsty and genocidal than Netanyahu and ten times more stupid. Evil as he is, Netanyahu is a master class politician: slippery, manipulative, conniving, able to quickly detect human character flaws and sagaciously use those defects to his advantage.

Gvir will not be able to dupe, flatter and subtly threaten and intimidate American politicians like Netanyahu does. Put Stalin, Hitler and Ghengis Khan into one man, and you have Itamar Ben-Gvir.

But I digress.

Iran needs to awaken to the reality that by focusing its military attention on the United States, it is allowing the slippery lizard Netanyahu to obfuscate Iran's vision and take its eyes off its real enemy. As Dr. Roberts intimates, as long as Iran focuses its military power on the U.S., it only prolongs the war and enables Israel to kill its citizens and destroy its infrastructure without directly using a single IDF soldier or single bullet or single missile to do it. America is simply Israel's 800-pound gorilla doing the dirty work for Israel.

If Iran would take out the Zionist government in Israel, it would cut the head off the snake.

Without the Zionist state, America is toothless (or fangless) in the Middle East and the Persian Gulf. The vast majority of the American people are already fed up with the war in Iran, America's wars in the Middle East in general and with the State of Israel in particular. With the Zionist state removed from history, even the ultra-gullible evangelical Christian Zionists would have no ability to justify their hatred and bloodlust against the "enemies" of the "promised land."

Donald Trump's Deterioration: His Descent into Madness

Only the most willingly blind supporters and followers of Donald Trump do not recognize his descent into madness. Professionals, scholars and laymen alike readily see the cognitive decline and deterioration of Donald Trump.

It is obvious to everyone!

Couple Trump's frontal lobe dementia with his lifelong malignant narcissism, and you have the madman we see in front of us every day. And it's only getting worse—FAST!

Last Monday evening (October 5), Trump gave an utterly mindless, maniacal speech in Nebraska in front of one of his ever-shrinking audiences. Trump's mental meltdowns are so common that we have become almost numb to the idiocy that Trump spouts day in and day out and night in and night out via his rabid posts on his Truth Social page. But what he said in Nebraska last Monday evening took Trump's madness into the very depths of the abyss of mental derangement.

My friend of many decades, Joe Scarborough, played the video of Trump's oral obscenity on his Morning Joe television broadcast.

Donald Trump: With the war, it's just artificial. It's a little bit high. It's a small price to pay for keeping the world safe, keeping our country safe. They can take out a city. Let them take out Los Angeles. Let them take out San Diego. This is a very small price to pay. And it's going to be over very soon. It's essentially almost over with. And they might keep going a little long, you know, they always say they "have a big threshold for pain." They need it. Let me tell you, they need it. But it's going to end very soon, and it'll end one way or the other. And your gas and your gasoline and all of the things.   

The President of the United States told the people of the United States that, in order to keep our country safe, we should let Iran take out (destroy, obliterate, annihilate) San Diego and Los Angeles, California.

What madness!

To keep our country safe, we let a foreign government destroy two of America's most major cities and kill millions—14 million or more—of American citizens and consider such death and destruction on the Continental United States a small price to pay.

This is insanity!

Strategically, San Diego is one of America's most important geographical areas containing U.S. military personnel. The largest Marine Corps base in the country, Twentynine Palms, is a short 150 miles from San Diego.

Located in San Diego is Naval Base San Diego, which is the largest surface ship homeport on the West Coast and the principal homeport for the U.S. Pacific Fleet with over 26,000 military personnel. Naval Base Coronado, a composite of nine installations including Naval Air Station North Island and the Naval Amphibious Base, hosts aircraft carriers, aviation squadrons and West Coast Navy SEAL training commands.

Also located in San Diego are Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, home to the 3rd Marine Aviation Wing, and Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, located in northeastern San Diego County, which is the U.S. Marine Corps' prime amphibious training base on the West Coast. Also in San Diego are the Coast Guard Sector/Air Station, situated along San Diego Bay, and other military installations.

San Diego County is home to over 110,000 active duty military members and roughly 60,000 military children. It's home to over 200,000 veterans and retirees.

Trump says to keep our country safe, we need to let a foreign power destroy all of these military personnel and civilians in these two great American metropolises.

Donald Trump is a literal nut case!

Upon hearing what Trump said Monday evening, Congress (which House Speaker Mike Johnson dismissed until after the midterm elections to keep members from voting on Thomas Massie's bill to impeach Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. Remember that?) should quickly reassemble and, invoking the 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, remove Trump from office.

Here are Joe's comments following the Trump video:

Joe Scarborough: There will be some, "Oh, he's just joking. He's just." Well, OK. Well, great. Tell me, then, please: What other American president in our history post-Civil War have called for the destruction of entire cities, joking? 

If this is your joke, this is your idea of a presidential joke, joking about the killing of 10 million or so people. Is that where we are? Because I thought it was bad enough when he was joking in front of California Republicans several years ago, I think it was in '22, about an elderly man getting the hell beaten out of him and almost dying, Paul Pelosi.

Remember? And he led those California—and they were just laughing their a***s off, thinking that's just the funniest thing in the world. Talking about the brutalization and near killing of a man. Joking about the battering and the abusing of an elderly man, almost killing an elderly man. 

I've got to say, a president of the United States—we're talking about the president of the United States talking about the obliteration of San Diego and Los Angeles as a joke.

That's what I've already heard this morning, "Oh, he was just joking. You people just don't get." No, I don't get when the president of the United States says Iran can obliterate Los Angeles and San Diego. Not funny!

But, Joe, that's where we are today. What did the zombies in the audience do when Trump said what he did? They laughed and applauded. That's where we are today.

That's where many evangelical Christians are today. That's where many MAGA members are today. That's where many liberals are today. In America today, millions of us are not only okay with the killing and slaughtering of anyone that doesn't agree with us, but we also encourage and applaud the killing and slaughtering of anyone that doesn't agree with us—or with anyone who looks different than we do or who lives in a different country than we do or who practices a different religion than we do.

We cannot have civil discourses today. We don't believe that God's Natural Laws codified in our Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights apply to anyone who disagrees with us. All we think to do is kill the ones we don't like. And it's not just Donald Trump. Every president—Democrat and Republican—of this century has generated, fostered and facilitated bitterness and hatred against their opponents. And against Israel's opponents, of course.

On both sides of the political aisle, in church and out of church, our country is filled with hatred for one another.

If the U.S. Congress or presidential cabinet in Washington, D.C., doesn't have the courage to take this madman out of the Oval Office and off the world stage, Trump could plunge America into a global nuclear war in a matter of minutes. And he is categorically cognitively capable of doing it.

As Joe said, for a U.S. president to joke about allowing a foreign adversary to destroy two major American cities is no laughing matter. It is a neon sign that we have a pathological monster in the White House, and national self-preservation demands that this monster be quickly removed from office before his joke becomes a cold, stark reality.

Because no one will be laughing then.

© Chuck Baldwin

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