Polman: The MAGA chicken hawk and his bumbling minions are bombing us with BS

“The rank deceptions, the slippery wordplay, the willful ignorance…” That’s a succinct description of the Trump regime’s bumbling bid to win our support for war in Iran. 

But hang on a sec. I wrote those words a long time ago, to describe George W. Bush’s fake rationales for his invasion of Iraq - the weapons of mass destruction that didn’t exist, the imminent threat that didn’t exist, and so much more. 

But if Bush and his aides proved the old adage that truth is the first casualty of war, then let history record that the MAGA gang has already kidnapped truth, bombed it to smithereens and cast its ashes to the wind. Which, of course, is precisely what we would’ve expected from a chicken hawk whose bone spurs are acting up.

The verbal twists and turns have been fascinating to track. The dictionary defines the word imminent as something that’s “about to happen,” but the MAGA dictionary renders all timelines meaningless. Trump poodle Lindsey Graham says Iran is building ballistic missiles that could reach us “eventually.” Trump propaganda minister Karoline Leavitt said that ballistic missiles could “pose a risk” to us “one day,” and that Trump had “a feeling” the threat was imminent. Deputy despot J. D. Vance expanded the word’s definition to include any Iranian ambition to “pursue the ability” to develop a nuke. Pentagon beefcake Pete Hegseth similarly defined imminent as any future “pathway” to a nuke, and said that Iran could maybe “eventually get to a place” where they could build a “shield” to protect nukes. Even though Trump said last June that he’d already “obliterated” Iran’s ability to build nukes.

Even Bret Stephens, one of the New York Times’ in-house war hawks, laments that Trump in recent days has done “a terrible job explaining himself. Americans have a right to know why he’s putting service members in harm’s way…Do you really trust Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth to fight and finish this war?”

I think we know the answer. But wait, is it even a “war”? Not according to the MAGA congressional lickspittles. If they were to embrace that word, they might be compelled to assert some congressional authority - but that would be unthinkable. So instead they’re calling it “an operation,” or “a mission,” or “hostilities,” although one of its stupidest members - Oklahoma senator and future Homeland Security boss Markwayne Mullin - slipped the other day when he declared “this is war,” but quickly said, “That was a misspoke.” 

All that wimpy wordplay is out of sync with the warlord, who keeps using the W-word and says that more Americans will die, as “often happens in war.” (Pretty brave for a guy who dodged ‘Nam with a note from his doctor.) And to any person with even minimal mental cognition, Hegseth’s boastful vow to hurl “death and destruction from the sky all day long” certainly sounds like he’s talking about war.

Indeed, the Feb. 28 bombing deaths of Iranian schoolchildren meets the criteria of war. Video evidence strongly points to an American strike. When Trump was asked the other day about the dozens and dozens of kids who’ve been transported against their will to their eternal rest, he quickly decreed without a shred of evidence that “it was done by Iran.” But his BS was too odorous even for Hegseth, who simply said, “We’re investigating.” (Don’t hold your breath.)

And who started this war/operation/mission, anyway? Early last week, doormat Marco Rubio said it was all Israel’s doing: “We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action,” so “we went proactively in a defensive way.” But a day later, Trump yanked the mat from beneath Rubio’s feet; when asked whether Israel had forced America to get involved, Trump said, “No. I might have forced their hand.” Whereupon Rubio, when reminded by reporters later that day of what he’d said about Israel the previous day, insisted that he’d never said it in the first place (“No, that’s false”).

Nor should we try to divine Trump’s end game, because, on that topic, he’s predictably incoherent. He called for regime change - even though Hegseth said at the outset that this was “not a so-called regime change war” - and called on the Iranian people to “take over your government…It will be yours to take.” But late last week Trump said that it wasn’t really up to the Iranian people because “we want to be involved in the process of choosing the person who is going to lead Iran.” And yesterday he said he’d be happy to install an undemocratic religious leader who treats America “fairly.” Which sounds a lot like regime change, the precise opposite of what Hegseth said. And Trump’s regime change fantasy seems doomed to fail anyway; a classified prewar intelligence report warned that even a major assault on Iran would be unlikely to oust its military and clerical establishment. 

No word yet on whether Trump read that report or stayed awake for whoever may have told him about it. And no word yet on how long this war might last, because planning is not his forte. He says the war could last “four or five weeks” or “far long than that,” while the U.S. Central Command is saying at least 100 days or maybe through the end of September - but wait, he just veered the other way, declaring on Monday that the war is “very complete, pretty much.”

What can I say, it’s a bullshit buffet, a little something for everybody.

One thing we do know for sure: This is one heckuva way to push the Epstein story - especially the accusation of underage sexual assault - out of the domestic news cycle. I doubt it would be any solace to the grieving Iranian parents to know that their children died for such an ignoble cause. And I doubt that Trump’s verbal shell game will persuade Americans en masse to rally-round-the-flag; according to an average of five new national polls, only 38 percent of Americans support his military attacks - an unprecedented low for a newly-launched war. And if gas prices continue to spike, thanks to our reckless tumult in the Gulf, not even the dumbest MAGAts will be able to blame it on Biden.

Nevertheless, Trump and his armchair warriors will keep storming the ramparts, heedless of the havoc they’re wreaking and gleeful about the blood they’re spilling. We have traveled light years from the era when people of stature charted our national course, comported themselves with gravitas, and said things like this: “I hate war as only a soldier has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.”

Thank you, Dwight D. Eisenhower.