November 9, 2010
This, written sixteen years ago, I stumbled on in the Lew Rockwell archive. While not brilliantly written, it illustrates that the more things change, they more they don’t. Oh good. I see that Senator Lindsey Graham wants to attack Iran. The US, he says, should “sink their navy, destroy their air force and deliver a decisive blow to the Revolutionary Guard.”
Senator Graham has the brains of a tapeworm, making him eminently qualified for the senate. Tapeworms, I note, do not have brains. It is characteristic of warlike innocents, to include the Pentagon, to believe that if you destroy navies and air forces, you win wars. This worked well in Vietnam, you will recall, and as soon as we destroy the Taliban’s navy, Afghanistan will be a cakewalk.
Now, I understand that practicality and realism are alien concepts in American politics, to be approached with trepidation, but maybe, just once, we should think before sticking our private parts into a wood-chipper. Just once. I do not propose consistent rationality, forethought, or intelligent behavior. I profoundly respect my country’s traditions.
However, folk wisdom from West Virginia: Before you say, “I can whip any man in the bar!” it is well to scout the bar.
Best Price: $2.50 Buy New $17.73 (as of 01:45 UTC – Details) 
Note that the United States cannot defeat Iran militarily, short of using nuclear weapons. It is easy to start a war. Finishing one is harder. I could punch out Mike Tyson. Things thereafter might not go as well as hoped.
Some will find the thought of American martial incapacity outrageous. Can’t beat Iran? Buncha towel monkeys? Among grrr-bowwow-woof patriots, there exists a heady delusion of American potency, that the US has “the greatest military power the world has ever seen.” Ah. And when did it last win a war? In Afghanistan, for ten years the gloriousest military ever known, the expensivist, and whoosh-bangiest, hasn’t managed to defeat a bunch of pissed-off illiterates with AKs and RPGs.
At this point Lindsey of Persia will doubtless allude to the wonders of air power, of “precision-guided weapons,” of smart bombs that presumably read Kant on the way down. Those pitiable Iranians would have no hope of stopping our mighty bombers. True.
Implicit in this Thomistic fantasy (Clancy, I mean, not Aquinas) is that Iran wouldn’t, couldn’t, wouldn’t dare fight back without a navy, etc. Lindsey had better be very sure that Iran couldn’t block the Strait of Hormuz in retaliation. Enough of the world’s petroleum comes from the Gulf that the price would rise drastically if the Straits were blocked. Some economies would simply stop.
How many supertankers going up in flames would be tolerated before operators of tankers refused to risk it?
Best Price: $3.99 Buy New $14.95 (as of 01:20 UTC – Details)
Iran recently began serial production of the Nasr 1, an anti-ship cruise missile. Tankers are thin-skinned and highly flammable. The Nasr 1 can be fired from the back of a truck. Trucks by their nature are mobile. They are easy to hide.
The Air Force, to include Naval Air, may be confident that it can destroy all of Iran’s missiles. The Air Force always believes that air power can do anything and everything — make coffee, win at marbles, everything. After all, don’t its airplanes say “Vrooom!” and “Swoosh!”? Don’t cockpits have lots of portentous buttons and spiffy little screens? Unfortunately the Air Force is regularly wrong.
In fact the entire military is regularly wrong about the ease and duration of its adventures. For example, it had no idea that Viet Nam would turn into an endless war ending in defeat (if that makes sense). Iraq notoriously was going to be a walk in the park. That the war on Afghanistan would last ten years with a distinct possibility of defeat…this never occurred to the soldiers.
It is barely conceivable that the Five-Sided Wind Box could do what Field Marshal Graham thinks it could do. The unexpected is always a possibility. But, the stakes being what they would be in Hormuz, hoo-boy….
Best Price: $3.94 Buy New $18.80 (as of 01:20 UTC – Details)
Another possibility is that Israel will attack Iran, as it has threatened. I would like to think that even Bibi Nut-and-Yahoo has better sense but, it the US can produce gibbering wingnuts, why not Israel? The practical effects of an Israeli attack would be indistinguishable from those of an American attack: America would have to solve the problem. Which it probably couldn’t. Israel can bomb Iran’s nuclear codpieces, but it can’t defeat Iran. And if the Strait were blocked after an Israeli attack, the entire globe would holler, “Israel did it!” which would be true.
The distance from “Israel did it” to “The Jews did it,” though logically great, is emotionally short. People think in collective terms. Remember that after some Saudis dropped the Towers, the alleged war on terror morphed almost instantly into intense hostility for Moslems. It doesn’t make sense, but what has that got to do with anything?
Best Price: $2.50 Buy New $14.75 (as of 08:10 UTC – Details)
I know a lot of Jews, who are all over the place politically and intellectually. They have in common a complete lack of resemblance to the scheming, hand-rubbing, heh-heh-heh Jews of Neo-nazi imagination. Few sacrifice Christian children (a temptation strongest, I can attest, among Christian parents). But…people think collectively.
Congress doesn’t support Israel because it likes Israel, but from political expediency. If the wind blows the other way, so will Congress. Gasoline at twelve dollars is a lot of wind in a commuting country.
Things worsen for America, yet we really don’t know where the country is going or how it will react. The last domestic catastrophe was the Great Depression, when America was a very different place. How bad can things get, economically, politically, internationally? How does a pampered population incapable of planting a garden respond to genuinely hard times? “It can’t happen here,” one hears. What can’t? I suspect that all sorts of things could happen, given sufficiently hard times.
The United States is today an edgy, unhappy country, sliding toward poverty, increasingly dictatorial, inchoately angry, hostile to blacks, the French, Mexicans, Moslems and, creepingly, the Chinese. (Jews, perhaps to their surprise, don’t make the enemies list.) Americans don’t do cosmopolitan. The federal pressure for diversity exists because otherwise no one would associate with anyone else. The Persian Gulf is one of few places that plausibly might wreck the industrial world. There would have to be someone to blame. And Israel can’t survive without American support.
Maybe I’m crazy. But if I were an Israeli, I’d find a nice café on Diesengoff and enjoy a double cappuccino, watch the girls, and keep my bombs in my pocket. Let somebody else take the fall.
Political Ratholes
Political Theatre
Chokepoint Madness: Iran Refuses Hormuz Talks As Houthis Threaten Red Sea Strait
CDC Report Downplayed Covid Shot Deaths
Trump & Netanyahu: Who’s the boss? Maybe we’ll find out
B.S. Hunter
Joe Kent’s Interview With Tucker: The Iran War and Charlie Kirk Assassination
LRC Blog
Mises Institute in San Diego on April 25, 2026
‘Empire Of Lies,’ With Guest Charles Goyette
The Real Rothbard
Trump Begs For Help On Hormuz; World Says ‘No.’
Crimes of Aggression Against Iran
Fred: You have always been a prescient scribe…. and this revisit, along with your rant of blessed memory concerning our vaunted aircraft carriers and their futility in this era of technology bring tears to my eyes as we behold USS Abraham Lincoln CVN-72 limping back to port in apparent helplessness [and fortuitous survival] following successful tactical attacks by Iranian Lilliputians. Still, the effeminate Lindsey Graham foams at the mouth in metaphysical madness about conquering Cuba, while the flunkey you first -and memorably- termed “the National Cockatoo” bellows around the Oval Office like the orangutan that he is, awaiting his latest instructions from the “International Community.” The downward spiral continues. The center cannot hold.
Fred, as a long time reader, I think this column is among your very worst. I had and have no objection to leaving Iran alone. Really. That said, there are multiple problems with the Fred and Criticus take on things. It sounds like you two have no solution for a problem since you don’t address it one iota. I’m all ears for your follow up column addressing this point.
That minor problem is the Iranians have been at war with the US for 47 years. We and the last seven US Presidents have been big believers in the strategy of kick the can down the road. The recent Democrat Presidents have tried the give them the pallets of vast sums of money. How well did that work out? They have killed God knows how many of us directly and indirectly. They have not just chanted but truly believe, “death to America, the great Satan.” And not just us but also “death to Israel, the little Satan.” (Which I doubt the latter would overly bother you.) They have given no, as in ZERO, indication that they don’t believe it with all their hearts, and with all their souls (if they had souls, of which I’m dubious.)
I don’t pretend to know when Iran would have had deliverable nukes if left alone. I do believe they would deliver them the next day, if they could…and the only reason they might not have done so is if they felt they could achieve more by nuclear blackmail. So people, including you of course, are crying about a hopefully short term rise in the price of oil.
I have no idea how all this shakes out. But I see no choice. You’re an old fart Fred, and live in Mexico, which won’t be a target for an Iranian nuke. The rest of us could be. Yes, I wish this didn’t have to happen. But the worthless, Useless Nothing, aka the UN, would have us negotiate with them forever, and they have proven themselves to be masters of the old Muhammed Ali rope-a-dope strategy.
Again, Fred, give us your solution, other than waiting for the latest mullah to order the Iranians to deliver their deliverable nuke, whenever that would happen.
I’d be happy and surprised to see proof of life from Fred. I’m sorry I posted that column from the archive.org. It inspired whoever hijacked this page to mine it for content.
Anti-moslem is like anti-hydrophobia. Which is to say, only fools ain’t.
Yet we were selling them arms 40 years ago, lol? You do remember Iran/Contra, right?
Victor Davis Hanson has recently pointed out the difference between a tactical victory and a strategic victory; the former, military, is not effective without the latter, political, a common United States error. Acknowledging that, what are we to do if a country says they are going to kill us all, publishes its plan, and proceeds on course for almost half a century? (Actually, our aircraft carrier defenses appear pretty effective against missiles and torpedoes, and the Strait will not be closed much longer.) We need to fight, not merely to goose our GDP, but to win, strategically as well as militarily.
I like Andy’s Comment. Iran does need a solution. The longer the can gets kicked down the road the more M.E. instability and export of M.E. instability we all get even to the point of the IRGC facilitating the bombing of a synagogue and other bullshit here in Australia.
With modern warfare methods there is no Lego ready construction plan for the conflict, so your lot are fighting it with the army you’ve got. Good on you, and thank you.
Thanks, Fred. A very needed reminder.
The U.S. has been in military conflicts for 230 of its 250 years of existence. The nation lacks the furious raging insanity of the whistle-blowing woke/leftist women in Minnesota, who attack armed police like screaming zombies, but it is quite close.
‘The U.S. has been in military conflicts for 230 of its 250 years of existence. ‘
Name them…
1775–1783 – American Revolutionary War
1785–1795 – Northwest Indian War
1798–1800 – Quasi-War
1801–1805 – First Barbary War
1812–1815 – War of 1812
1815 – Second Barbary War
plus Ongoing: frontier fighting with Native nations almost every year
1816–1858 – Seminole Wars
1846–1848 – Mexican–American War
1861–1865 – American Civil War
1865–1890s – American Indian Wars
Plus smaller actions:
Interventions in China (1850s–60s)
Naval landings in Japan (1853–54)
Repeated Caribbean and Pacific deployments
1898 – Spanish–American War
1899–1902 – Philippine–American War
1900 – Boxer Rebellion
Then near-constant interventions:
Cuba (multiple occupations)
Panama (1903 onward)
Honduras (repeated deployments)
Nicaragua (1912–1933)
Haiti (1915–1934)
Dominican Republic (1916–1924)
1917–1918 – World War I
1918–1920 – Russia intervention (Civil War)
1920s–30s – Marine deployments in Latin America
1941–1945 – World War II
1945-1991 – Cold War including:
1950–1953 – Korean War
1955–1975 – Vietnam War
Frequent interventions
China (postwar presence)
Greece (1947–49)
Iran (1953 covert coup support)
Lebanon (1958)
Cuba (1961, 1962)
Laos & Cambodia (1960s–70s)
Dominican Republic (1965)
Congo (1960s)
Grenada (1983)
Panama (1989)
1990–1991 – Gulf War
2001–2021 – War in Afghanistan
2003–2011 – Iraq War
plus Constant smaller operations
Iraq no-fly zones (1991–2003)
Somalia (1992–present intermittent)
Bosnia (1995), Kosovo (1999)
Libya (2011)
Syria (2014–present)
Yemen (drone campaigns)
Niger, Sahel, anti-ISIS missions
Well done, ruralguy.
“Name them…” SMH. If idiots could only understand that they are idiots, what a wonderful world it would be!
If you are going to define any conflict between the USA and anyone else as a war, then I contest your definition.
Wars aren’t just “lots of machine gun fire and bombings,” Anonymous. It’s best to accept a scientific or mathematical definition of it: an uncooperative game that spirals into defects (ignoring rules), lack of trust in the other side, to cooperate and follow rules, and a realization that you must disable your opponent first, before he disables you. The factors were all present in the U.S. House and Senate in the years leading up to the Civil War. These factors are present in national struggles, civil wars, and even in personal conflicts.
The mathematical game theory definition has utility, because it gives you a rational way to assess your opponent and optimize your position in a conflict. It became a key part of the Cold War strategy, because it allowed mathematical software to rapidly make decisions within seconds, from reams of sensed data, without the slow error-prone human approach to making decisions Humans are very poor in making definitions and forming decisions, because their thinking is usually a jumble of emotions mixed with some logic. The Cold War changed that thinking to a scientific process.
And Haiti — spent a year in that hellhole…
Andy, Marten, (& the ‘GDP gooser’)….
I’m guessing, of course, but can only charitably attribute your Naïve realism to the relatively brief number of years during which your consciousness and attention span have informed your intellect (as compared to Fred, who has “been there and done that” long before any of you were born)? If I’m wrong and you’ve attained the age of reason before 1970, I’ll venture another hypothesis: you’re in your dotage with wonky mental faculties, or suffering onset dementia… perhaps simply impaired reasoning prowess and a very short memory?
Enmity between Iran and the United States of Amnesia is of fairly recent origin. In the 1970’s, these countries were amicable trading partners. Major U.S. corporations, AT&T among them, were busily engaged in situ, their engineers and techies living there, treading Persian soil. America was upgrading Mohammad Reza’s technological infrastructure: telecommunications, power generation, transport and distribution, switching systems… domestic technologies for life-improving venues – the once-envisioned peaceful, prosperous infrastructure that Trump’s B-52’s are today blowing to bits….. American “boots on the ground,” circa 1978. Good will abounded… until the end of that decade, when sub rosa intriques fomented by foreign and domestic alphabet agencies (primary sowers of discord among the brethren in the Midle East since 1948) exploded in bloody revolution… deposing the Shah… installing a regime that Americans have since been demonizing… and sending net productive, culture-building Americans scurrying home, disillusioned, many of them thanking a benign Providence for enabling escape with their lives. 47 years later, Trump’s “boots on the ground” is a demonic distortion echo of that American presence, a nightmarish “kill, rob and destroy” mission….. Americans going there, again…. this time as possible sacrificial offerings to Moloch.
Scolding Fred for failing to prescribe a silver bullet for this ominous clusterf**k in Persia?!? Sharing pipedreams about aircraft carriers, victory and future U.S. prosperity? Let’s all of us retire to Bedlam! Perchance no one can read, or many Americans have their heads up their elimination orifices? Inconceivably, can people be unaware of the real problem?
The ‘solution’ is likely to be the planned impoverishment of most American citizens, along with their cultural destruction (following 50 years of culture distortion) via self-inflicted demise of a certifiably insane U.S. government, in thrall to criminals who take their orders from a virulent, invisible domestic enemy…. anonymous termites….deeply embedded in the foundations of media, money and international vice…. and operating thru their more obvious narcissistic, tragicomic, base, cowardly, impotent, and self-serving lackeys in Washington D.C.
Trump was going to sever that Gordian knot, wasn’t he? Drain the pestilential swamp for us, and ouster its inhabitants? If you still believe that, there’s no hope for you. Trump sold that used car to his countrymen, aware of their (not his) pain, because he had long dwelt and prospered there at their expense. Of course he was too deeply surrounded by and indebted to his brother denizens in that dark place to do anything (except croak for them).
Pray for our once heaven-blessed country!
Andy, Marten, (& the ‘GDP gooser’)….
I’m guessing, of course, but can only charitably attribute your Naïve realism to the relatively brief number of years during which your consciousness and attention span have informed your intellect (as compared to Fred, who has “been there and done that” long before any of you were born)? If I’m wrong and you’ve attained the age of reason before 1970, I’ll venture another hypothesis: you’re in your dotage with wonky mental faculties, or suffering onset dementia… perhaps simply impaired reasoning prowess and a very short memory?
Enmity between Iran and the United States of Amnesia is of fairly recent origin. In the 1970’s, these countries were amicable trading partners. Major U.S. corporations, AT&T among them, were busily engaged in situ, their engineers and techies living there, treading Persian soil. America was upgrading Mohammad Reza’s technological infrastructure: telecommunications, power generation, transport and distribution, switching systems… domestic technologies for life-improving venues – the once-envisioned peaceful, prosperous infrastructure that Trump’s B-52’s are today blowing to bits….. American “boots on the ground,” circa 1978. Good will abounded… until the end of that decade, when sub rosa intriques fomented by foreign and domestic alphabet agencies (primary sowers of discord among the brethren in the Midle East since 1948) exploded in bloody revolution… deposing the Shah… installing a regime that Americans have since been demonizing… and sending net productive, culture-building Americans scurrying home, disillusioned, many of them thanking a benign Providence for enabling escape with their lives. 47 years later, Trump’s “boots on the ground” is a demonic distortion echo of that American presence, a nightmarish “kill, rob and destroy” mission….. Americans going there, again…. this time as possible sacrificial offerings to Moloch.
Scolding Fred for failing to prescribe a silver bullet for this ominous clusterf**k in Persia?!? Sharing pipedreams about aircraft carriers, victory and future U.S. prosperity? Let’s all of us retire to Bedlam! Perchance no one can read, or many Americans have their heads up their elimination orifices? Inconceivably, can people be unaware of the real problem?
The ‘solution’ is likely to be the planned impoverishment of most American citizens, along with their cultural destruction (following 50 years of culture distortion) via self-inflicted demise of a certifiably insane U.S. government, in thrall to criminals who take their orders from a virulent, invisible domestic enemy…. anonymous termites….deeply embedded in the foundations of media, money and international vice…. and operating thru their more obvious narcissistic, tragicomic, base, cowardly, impotent, and self-serving lackeys in Washington D.C.
Trump was going to sever that Gordian knot, wasn’t he? Drain the pestilential swamp for us, and ouster its inhabitants? If you still believe that, there’s no hope for you. Trump sold that used car to his countrymen, aware of their (not his) pain, because he had long dwelt and prospered there at their expense. Of course he was too deeply surrounded by and indebted to his brother denizens in that dark place to do anything (except croak for them).
Pray for our once heaven-blessed country!
Your long-winded narration has been posted twice.
As usual, I am late by a month.
I predicted a year ago that Election years 2026 and 2028 will see a massive Democrat comeback and that the next president will be a socialist.
Iran will be the noose that will hang MAGA and Trump. It is now obvious to all ordinary Americans that Israel owns our government and Trump. It is also now obvious that the Epstein affair must have something to do with it.
It will be in the Left’s interest to keep the war going, the Strait of Hormuz blockaded, and gas prices above $5 per gallon by November.
Fred, I still remember a decade ago when you wrote “It came from the pit and hath a krout.” The entire Far Right was cheering Trump as some sort of reformer who would get rid of government corruption, bloated bureaucracy, DEI, and foreign influence. With Trump stealing billions in taxpayer money and his unqualified support of Israel, the joke is now on those who thought he would “Make America Great Again.”
If the Theocrats in Iran develop the Atom Bomb, you better hope it does not land on your city.
As usual, I am late by a month.
Maybe you are pregnant?
It is updated annually but I think this is the most recent update.
Instances of Use of United States Armed Forces Abroad, 1798-2023
https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R42738
Fred, I hope all is well with you and yours.
looks like for a brief period ‘Fred’ Was taken over by a Turkish site.
I tried going to this site earlier today and got a Turkish one.
This site keeps redirecting me to a Turkish one, then later corrects itself.
Anyone else have that problem?
A brief internet search explains a possible reason Fred is no longer posting.
📺 Fred Reed vs. Motorcycle EnthusiastAlternatively, if you are looking for the writer, Fred Reed (who passed away) wrote a highly opinionated and satirical column called “Fred on Everything”. He was well-known for his unapologetic rants on politics, culture, and society, and he frequently wrote about his own downscale adventures, bars, and motorcycles.
Seexy clendar andd femaleHoyy bustt teensFuull figure plpus size lingerieMelidsa dettwikler hardcoreCorsedt earring eel mzke sexdy slut upVintage petrol canStories first blowjobInteracil sex
stories wwife storiesBlacfk cofk siswsy cuckollds galleriesHow tto improve circulationn tto penisGraandpas
xxxx vintageNhhl ploayer is gayHott marrid cuntSooviet seex sitesHarrd tiught fuckGrerk thumbsEliswabeth hurlsy nudeAss eaters 4Alex peeinng
galleriesFuvking ten cumAmatur bethDrunk teren trickedNude
jaloSpontaneous fejale orgwsm wihout toluch wellbutrinAdddison escortBlack haiy ladyFrsetube ssex clips and videosHoot bustgy ver 50Augmentfin beast feedingBeauytyful indiann lady porn picsMoom oon dickJesica clemet nudeVinntage
ggranny tubesMature pajty cotributed galleriesSppank ten yrar oldd nnc cryDoggs bleeding anawl
glandsHerr tautt tirs opoen tto seeFemalee slippeing a male bottomMature video on gamelinkFuthrama hentaiEs sexyAshlynn bbrooke orgasmBritih pornstars summerAsiqn boyus showerHoome girls sexJapanggirls drinking pissong
mouthTeeen cheerleader titsAsan dredssing gane showParijs hilton cuum oom her faceJudve pornLatest nakmed celebsMalee
gayy rearDicck cohuen rdal estatePainn andd swelling thumb jointBresast calcifications indicatfe
shrinkming adenomaKissing lesbian ssex filmks freeThick thifhs tgpGay sex in mnTom weoling naked picTiiny giels nudesDeepthdoat felatioEscrt agencxy bingley ukStodmy daniels xxxToodler sexAmatuer messy lowjob iin carI aam lesbianWestmark sexHarmopny filjs pornWeet hiis pants hold peeEllii dildoSexx questions/ relationshipVannesa
hutchibs naked picturesSex orgyy iin erwin suth dakotaRegisxtered sexx offenders stt loui countyBanhgbabes baily cream nakedThee token asianHaiy bujtt crackPinehursat vintae slipAaro
craze the cockFrree videdo seex t tSeexy femazle
trol galleryIndian seex freee onlineKasie dde paivca nude ofvd9wuaptnnig6z71w8