But seriously, every time I look at a map of the area, I wonder if the Arab nations will get their act together and put a canal across that projection, and then (because of the present context) ban Iran from using it.

How long did the solomons campaign last the work of hornfischer iluminates some elements i hadnt considered

The ones mentioned in james bassett and then premingers film ‘in harms way’

Allies took it pretty squarely on the chin until 1942; he would have had 2 1/4 straight years of uninterrupted I-told-you-sos. Could have just let Germany have Poland, now you geniuses have lost us France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway…

Not to mention his questions about why the US is invading neutral territory in Africa in 1942 when any fool knows that Germany is in Europe, and why is FDR trying to tell General Marshall and Admiral King how to fight a war, and when is anybody going to do anything about Japan…

CC™-R would have been saying the allied invasion of France is a failure from June 7, 1944 through August 1944 when the Americans were still bottled up in the hedgerows of the bocage and British/Canadians were having a very bloody hard time around Caen.

He would have been bitching that some Germans escaped the Falise pocket.

No success is good enough for CC™-R.

Eisenhower is in over his head! He’s flailing!

So, what now? Those who trust Trump believe he’s got a plan. Those who have contempt for him believe he’s in over his head and is just flailing around.

— neo

I am a Trump supporter and I think neither.

I think they’re mostly making this up as they go along. But that’s not the same as flailing. As the cliche goes: “No plan ever survives contact with the enemy.”

They have an idea of where they want to get to, but they’re having to feel their way along as they try to find a path to get there. They have to adjust to Iranian actions, other foreign actions, and domestic political considerations as they go.

People like Sam Harris are a classic example of class-based contempt. Even when Trump does stuff they’ve actively wanted for decades, they can’t get past it. He’s ‘not our kind’. He’s not part of the club. He’s a lowbrow inferior who somehow managed to get power. They loathe him and his presence in power makes them feel belittled.

This is a bipartisan thing, BTW. That same reaction happened, in milder form, with Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan. Johnson and Nixon wanted the respect of that class on some level, and that made them vulnerable to them. Reagan didn’t care, which left the class-critics powerless and even angrier.

But Trump is worse on every level, from their POV. He presses all their buttons and nothing they say or do seems to make him go away or even weaken him lastingly.

Roger Simon mentioned Sam Harris in a blog post back around 2004, he apparently knew his parents and plugged his book The End of Faith. I was immediately unimpressed.