Only a perfect war will do – and maybe not even that, if it’s waged by Trump
Those who hate Trump on the left and on the erstwhile right also hate the Iran War, or the Iran operation, or whatever you want to call it. They’ve declared it a failure after a month, “without evidence.” Or rather, the evidence they cite is that the regime spokespeople – the ones who are still alive – mouth defiant words and are able to get some missiles off now and then.
And today we have this difficult news:
An American pilot was rescued in a daring operation by US special forces Friday after Iran shot down an F-15E fighter jet — and placed a bounty on the crew.
A second fighter pilot was still missing.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed “newly developed and advanced air defenses” had downed the jet, which was “completely destroyed and crashed,” Tehran’s Press TV reported.
Since nothing the Iranian press says can be trusted at face value, there’s no reason to imagine this was the result of newly developed or advanced air defenses. If indeed the plane was shot down rather than had some mechanical problem – and I tend to think it was shot down, since the US isn’t denying it (or officially confirming it yet, as far as I can tell). The mechanism probably was either some local air defense system that had remained intact, or had been repaired, or something newly supplied from Russia that actually worked and constituted a surprise.
Trump’s enemies are very happy about this because they can use it to bolster their “the war has failed!” narrative, although there’s no logic to it. Anyone who thought thousands upon thousands of air strikes could occur without one or more planes being shot down (or coming down through mechanical failure) is either tremendously naive or disingenuous or both.
The demand is for no war ever – or if that fails, a perfect war. Even if the current regime were to surrender, I can practically guarantee that the Trump-haters (mostly on the left but not solely on the left) would give him no credit and would say the war was still a failure. They’d find a way and they’d find a reason.
One of the stupidest things they demand is the need to know exactly how long the war will last, even at its outset. Or the need to get a guarantee that everything will work out. Or they pretend that they haven’t been given reasons for the war. They also ignore the differences between the people of Iraq during that war and the Iranian people during this one. In addition, they act as though regime change was the main goal in Iran, and that if it doesn’t happen then the whole endeavor is a failure – when the idea was always that regime change would be an excellent side effect but that destroying the regime’s weapons and leadership would be a vast improvement on the non-war alternatives that have long been the status quo.
But they ignore all that and compare this war to some Platonic perfect war that does not exist in the real world. Or they say, “Of course, it’s a terrible regime that needed to end, but ….” offering no way to have made it end.
Trump is portrayed as stupid and blundering and ill-meaning, because that’s the only Trump that exists in their minds.
What would they have accepted as the proper provocation for a war? For the left, I suppose the answer might be “anything if a Democrat decided on it,” but “nothing” for Trump. And what of the isolationist right? What would they accept? Maybe an actual nuclear attack on the US or a full-scale military invasion by some foreign power? Maybe. Maybe even those things wouldn’t be enough. They might be labeled a false flag, as 9/11 was labeled by 9/11 Truthers who sprang up shortly after that horrific event. Or perhaps this sort of thing:
Tucker Carlson believes Pearl Harbor was a false flag orchestrated by Roosevelt to drag America into WWII. His evidence is a Senate inquiry that actually concluded the exact opposite – that there was zero evidence of foreknowledge of the attack.
He also conveniently leaves out… pic.twitter.com/Kc5QiFE22u
— Nathan Livingstone (MilkBarTV) (@TheMilkBarTV) April 2, 2026
How long ago did I first start hearing that about FDR and Pearl Harbor? I can’t recall, but it was many decades ago. Even World War II was hardly a perfect war, so that must be discredited as well – a war against one of the most evil enemies in history. And yes, the casualties were very high.
Thing is, once you start feeling that the government has lied to you – which it certainly has at times – some people will slip into the convention that practically everything the government says is a lie – and in particular is a lie if doubting it feeds into their already-existent belief system. Plenty of people have lost faith in anything government says and does, and have found people to blame for that.
Another factor in all of this is the protected nature of most Americans over the years. The draft ended over fifty years ago, and so with an all-volunteer military, most people don’t have to serve in the military and lack any military knowledge of the type that might be learned by serving. I’m not asking to bring the draft back. But an abysmal level of ignorance, and pundits preying on that ignorance, is one of the consequences of the end of the draft.
“pundits preying on the ignorance”
Bin Go, Precisely.
But, in my experience, the ignorance is deliberate. When discussing reality, one can almost see index fingers crossed as if warding off Evil with a cross, or being jammed into ears. Speaking more or less figuratively.
“I don’t believe it!” means I can’t afford to acknowledge it if it’s true so it doesn’t fit in this discussion. Just as if it’s demonstrably false.
And there are whole, enormous subjects completely foreign to many people, subjects you’d think would be important to know.
I’m in a discussion group of well-educated church people. My wife hears from some of them things like, “Wow, your husband makes us think.” Mentioning simple stuff, sometimes known but not connected to other well known issues. So, I guess, the struggle may availeth.
Regarding Pearl Harbor this is utterly stupid and even most of the nutjob Pearl Harbor truthers know it wasn’t a false flag attack. False flags are where someone uses a fake flag and other markers to impersonate another force and launch an attack to frame another side. There’s no question that Pearl Harbor was committed by the IJN’s Combined Fleet and was one of several simultaneous attacks by the Japanese.
Regarding FDR or foreknowledge of Pearl Harbor I believe there is fairly clear evidence FDR and other major Western Allied leaders – mostly the British Commonwealth and Dutch – did anticipate the Japanese would attack, they just could not quite confirm that and were unsure as to where, with most impressions being on the US controlled Philippines, British Singapore, or the Dutch East Indies. What was not expected was a strike on Pearl Harbor, much less that the Japanese would do that AND attack essentially all the other targets simultaneously.
FDR wanted to enter the war, and prior to Pearl Harbor there wasn’t much public support for it.
There has long been a belief among some that FDR knew and allowed Pearl Harbor to happen. The same folks tend to blame our involvement in WW1 for causing all the bad that followed.
There was a time where I was swayed by such arguments to some extent. You see this thinking among the libertarian / isolationist right, with people like Pat Buchanan pushing that point of view. It reminds of Lindberg, and those with German sympathies, etc.
Yep, all this afternoon the leftists i follow are already jumping on the downed fighter as evidence of the complete failure of the war, and more proof of the idiocy of Trump. Again, these are people, outside of their massive TDS, lead fairy normal lives.
A Black Hawk apparently got hit with some small arms fire while doing S&R. proof to these people that Trump LIED about Iran having no air defenses. Mass psychosis is all I can come up with.
Neo, it could be the result of many things.
New Weapon from China or Russia
Mech Failure – agree not likely
OR
Pilot got too complacent
or, Just plain lucky hit
I wonder if the the majority of the Democrats want the Iran Regime to win.
Wouldn’t surprise me at all to find that out.
It isn’t just anti-Trump any more, I remember many on the Left supporting North Vietnam back in the day when I was in the US Army in the 1960’s and later in early 1970’s at the University of Wisconsin.
They desperately want Trump to lose… and the greater his perceived failure, the more intense their delight. His success eats at them. It’s become pathological for many, perhaps most.
The Right Sort of People desperately want the conservative views to fail, no matter, no freaking matter, the result or the enemies.
With the massive numbers of sorties over Iran, the loss of only one fighter jet so far is an incredibly small number. I hope they find the other crew member, alive.
As to Tucker Carlson, I am beginning to believe that he really was attacked by a demon, who is now in control.
The very title of this post is spot on.
Don raises a fun history/philosophy what-if. The lesson of history seems clear. The earlier the allies went to war the better. Ideally when Germany started to re-arm in violation of the peace treaty they’d signed. If Roosevelt could have persuaded the country into war in 1938, as unrealistic as that is, wouldn’t it have been for the best? If you knew with 100% certainty that he knew Pearl Harbor was coming and did nothing, would you think less of him?
I saw a post a day or so ago relaying that in the morning press brief CJCS Caine mentioned the air war was transitioning to essentially ‘targets of opportunity’ since we’d run most of the pre-planned strikes. That to me would tend to indicate that while we can pretty much operate with impunity over Iran we’re now going to be vectoring attacks with much less preparation and planning, as well as often flying at levels in the range of simple AAA (‘flak’) and man-portable missiles. The F15 could very well have been the victim of a lucky shot or a single mobile SAM launcher that had escaped detection.
…we’re now going to be vectoring attacks with much less preparation and planning, as well as often flying at levels in the range of simple AAA (‘flak’) and man-portable missiles.
That seems reasonable.
An SAR Blackhawk got the second crewmember, and he is apparently OK .
What’s the old saying, perfect is the enemy of good.
My heart is with the crew, especially the one who is missing. There are also reports that the recovered member had injuries, but I have not seen any indication of how serious they are.
I wonder, however, how many of the media and the Democrats who are wailing about this loss as though it is a significant sign of failure were around in 1967? No one even bothered to tally how many were lost on any given day during that air campaign orchestrated by LBJ and the genius of R. McNamara.. Perspectives are like weather vanes.
As far as the reason for this, ‘even a blind sow finds an acorn occasionally’. If they were looking for targets of opportunity, then there may have been no air defense suppression, and possibly little intelligence about the area. My roommate was blissfully cruising off the coast of North Vietnam waiting for a target because the primary was closed in. A shore battery that no one apparently knew was there fired a shot, and he was in the water. Fortunately, not permanently.
@neo: But they ignore all that and compare this war to some Platonic perfect war that does not exist in the real world
Same way they criticize America. They compare America to some leftist utopia that doesn’t exist and has never existed.
SCOTTtheBADGER:
Unfortunately, I think that report is incorrect. He is still missing.
Now Fox News says the WSO is still missing. My apologies.
@Oldflyer : My heart is with the crew, especially the one who is missing.
Absolutely. Prayers for the missing.
I haven’t forgotten what Hezbollah did to William Francis Buckley, CIA station chief in Beirut, after they kidnapped him. He was tortured for 15 months. Hezbollah sent videos of Buckley being tortured:
_____________________________________
Buckley was close to a gibbering wretch. His words were often incoherent; he slobbered and drooled and, most unnerving of all, he would suddenly scream in terror, his eyes rolling helplessly and his body shaking. The CIA consensus was that he would be blindfolded and chained at the ankles and wrists and kept in a cell little bigger than a coffin.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Francis_Buckley
“Thing is, once you start feeling that the government has lied to you – which it certainly has at times – some people will slip into the convention that practically everything the government says is a lie.” Oh, yeah. Some people I follow don’t even think NASA actually went to the moon this week.
John Galt III (5:30 pm) said: “I wonder if the majority of the Democrats want the Iran Regime to win.”
I don’t wonder. Not for an instant. It’s clear as a sunny day.
Scot the Badger:
An answer to prayer.
A good way to decide who’s winning is ” what side would you like to be on”!
Maybe having congress declare war before the executive goes off to prosecute it isn’t such a bad idea. The consent of the governed, and all that democracy stuff.
huxley
With regard to what was done to Buckley. I have to wonder how many people they used up getting that procedure worked out. And who you’d get to do the research.
Batemjo:
Is another 365Fool.
Because of course, Congress has a history or promptness. And because no nation would attack the US without provocation or when Congress is not in session. Or because the framers of the Constitution knew what ideas fools and idiots would come up with.
@Batemjo
Under normal circumstances I would agree and certainly the Islamic Republic of Iran Richly deserved that since 1979. But this isn’t 1979 and the main thing a congressional vote would do would tip off the Ayatollahs that we are coming for them, sacrificing the capacity to do our Hour 1 decapitation strike.
Turter
So we don’t trust Congress…? Okay by me. And even if the elected critter didn’t elect to alert our enemy, how many of his staff are infiltrators? See Fang Fang.
Or relatives of General Millei?
Congress has the power to declare war, but POTUS has the clear constitutional power to wage war and considering all most all of them that have waged war in the past without a declaration that would seem to be settled.
And so it goes…
Great title, and an important point.
Dem Trump -haters do not have principles & standards they are willing to apply fairly to wars by Obama & Bush & Biden & Trump.
Especially hypocritical by folks talking so much about social justice.
Way late, but…
During Vietnam, it was called “The Golden BB”.
The concept is that there.is always some point on an aircraft where even a very small object can bring it down.
We rescued all ouir downed pilots.
A bad day for traitors.
Tom Grey:
It ain’t the Arc of History that’s bent.