Trump is cruising for a bruising the USA has had coming since Obama’s second term.
Saturday night I was trying to relax, get over COVID, and enjoy some fights. I found myself doomscrolling instead.
And one particular info-juxtaposition stuck with me, stuck in my craw like my dry COVID cough.
First there were a series of posts from sources on X I consider credible West Asia war news and analysis accounts warning that POTUS Trump and Bibi Netanyahu were telegraphing some kind of massive attack in response to the beating Yemen has been putting on the fragile House of Saud this week.
Late Sunday I’d find out that Trump TACO’d again, but the point remains.
My first thought was, what are we gonna do, turn this:
Into this?
Meanwhile over on Facebook, a very sweet and sincere Democratic friend was posting some tired old bullshit about Barack Obama speaking in complete sentences and all and all the replies hit the same stale note: man, those were the days.
I had to get all Biblical and shit and cite Matthew 7:16-20 “By their fruits ye shall know them.”
Listen up, y’all, the ruin of Gaza and the righteous wrath of Ansar Allah are the fruits of our bipartisan firm of False Prophets Obama, Trump, Biden and Trump and if we Americans continue to let our senescent shitbag POTUS keep throwing mad ordnance around like it’s the day before The Day After, we’re all gonna get what we’re asking for good and hard.
Karma, that is.
About the Oh So Eloquent Barack Hussein Obama
If only he’d spent that eloquence on something other than glossing over the continuation of the worst surveillance and military policies of the Bush/Cheney administration, the biggest destruction of Black wealth in American history, the insurance industry protection racket Rahm Emanuel called the Affordable Care Act, a fascist coupin Ukraine, genocidal attacks on Yemen, Libya and Syria, and making damn sure not one bankster did a single day for the biggest fraud in human history up to that point.
But yeah. Those were the days. Back when the POTUS spoke in complete sentences and bullshitted us right past the massive war crimes he was committing and/or enabling like the Saudi/UAE genocidal assault on Yemen.
In March 2015, the Saudis started bombing Yemen and the Obama administration made sure they had all the Made in America weapons and technical support to do it. And what support it was. In fact, the 2015-2025 attacks on Yemen have been so lavishly funded, and so spectacularly unsuccessful at achieving their stated goals, that it really makes me go, “Oh we’re gonna strike Yemen again? With what exactly, that we haven’t already done given that we’ve dumped about $250 billion on one of the poorest countries on Earth for eleven years and all we seem to have accomplished is really pissing them off?”
Let’s Do Some Accounting
The Pentagon flew aerial refueling for Saudi and Emirati warplanes from March 2015 through November 2018, at a cost of about $300 million — and then couldn’t be bothered to collect. It turned out the Pentagon had undercharged the coalition by some $331 million. As of late 2023 Riyadh still owed $15.1 million of it and told The Intercept they were “not aware of the outstanding debt.”
Eleven and a half years later the tab just keeps getting bigger and Ansar Allah just gets stronger and more defiant.
$’s Spent attacking Yemen, March 2015 – September 2026
- Saudi Arabia — $100–330bn — Air campaign, air defense, propping up its Yemeni clients
- UAE — $25–90bn — Its own war plus a decade of paid militias
- United States — $9–15bn — Refueling, intel, carriers, four bombing campaigns
- Israel — $0.3–1.5bn — Strikes on ports and airports, plus the interceptors
- United Kingdom — ~$0.1bn — Typhoons out of Cyprus, Navy missiles
Grand total, low to high: $135–440bn
Every president since has kept it going
Trump vetoed the War Powers resolution in April 2019 — the first time both chambers of Congress had ever passed one — to keep it going. Biden stood up at the State Department in February 2021 and said “this war has to end,” then spent his term running Operation Prosperity Guardian and Operation Poseidon Archer and parking carrier strike groups in the Red Sea at $9 million a day.
Then Trump 2.0 and his dumbass Secretary of Defense War Greasy Pete Hegseth. Operation Rough Rider, March to May 2025: more than $1 billion in under eight weeks. Roughly 2,000 bombs and missiles worth $775 million. Seven Reaper drones shot down, $200 million gone. Three F/A-18s that fell off the deck of a carrier, $210 million. Brown University’s Costs of War project found us firing $2 million missiles at drones that cost the Houthis $2,000.
And it’s still going. On September 10 the Saudis flew 64 airstrikes in a single day to no discernible effect on the battlefield in a dramatic contrast to Ansar Allah’s missile and drone strikes on Saudi cities in response which have clearly lit the Saudi’s shit up.
The only reason we can put a number on any of it is that one economist at Brown — Linda Bilmes, of the Costs of War project — sat down and counted the carrier days, the C-17 flights and the Tomahawks themselves. The Pentagon has never published a Yemen figure, and Congress has never made it. The Saudi and Emirati numbers are guesses built on daily burn rates, because those are monarchies and they don’t have to tell anybody anything.
Now They Want To Do It Some More Again
The Houthis put ballistic missiles over Riyadh, the Saudis intercepted them, and Trump spent the night at Camp David reviewing Yemen strike options before heading back to the White House early. CNN had already reported the pressure building on him to intervene, and that Riyadh itself is out of options. Embassies across the region are issuing warnings.
Strikes? What are we gonna do? Vandalize the world historic Old City of Sanaa?
We’ve spent billions bombing Yemen for the last eleven years and the Brits have spent a century trying to destroy and subjugate the place.
It’s not gonna work and it’s just gonna make the outcome more disgraceful.
What are we going to do to Yemen that we haven’t done already in an eleven year, ~$250B orgy of genocidal destruction waged on a country that never presented a threat to the US or UK and only threatens their neighbors now because they’re tired of being attacked by them?
The only card we haven’t played is sending the 101st Airborne in to get slaughtered in house-to-house fighting in the Old City of Sanaa.
Call it “Fleet of Black Hawks Down.”
And that’s before the oil math. Iran has Hormuz effectively closed, which left the Saudis pushing some 5 million barrels a day across the East–West pipeline to Yanbu instead — until drones out of Iraq hit its pumping stations on September 10 and 11 and Riyadh shut the line. Brent went over $110. What’s left is Project Freedom, the Navy walking tankers down a southern route past Iranian waters.
Brett Erickson, September 19:
“The reality is clear: Too much is going wrong at once. The United States doesn’t have any good options to change the outcome of this war.
The only solution is to cut a deal with Iran and bring an end to this disastrous failure from the Trump Administration.”
Or we could fire off nukes and really go out like world historic chumps whose name will never be mentioned without the survivors’ grandchildren’s grandchildren spitting before they say the hated word “Americans.”
And then there are our European allies lackeys, who are getting wrecked as a consequence of the Saudi decision to bomb the Sanaa airport following the Ayatollah’s funeral and break the truce that had held since 2022:
One in nine French filling stations is out of petrol or diesel, diesel is past €2.39 a litre at a record, and Macron has called an emergency meeting with the presidential candidates. In Grand Est it’s 16% of stations. European diesel cleared $200 a barrel on the benchmark. French officials say the shortage is logistical, not a crude shortfall.
The EU and its governments of US lackeys deserve this, but the European people don’t. Wake up and throw off your Ursulavonderchains.
This is the part that matters
Obama’s Hopey McChangey BS led directly to Trump.
“By their fruits ye shall know them.”
By the big JC’s own definition, Barry Obama meets the definition of a false prophet.
“Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.”
Matthew 7:16–20
The reason this matters — provided that civilization survives the weekend and coming months — is that if Americans don’t abandon this blue vs. red BS and wake up to the fact that both parties are hopelessly corrupt and in thrall to the most sinister forces of militarism and graft imaginable, we are going to get six years of clown show after big Dem wins in 2026 and then another, scarier fascist queued up and ready to go in 2032.
God help us if “we” “nominate” Klonopin Kamala again in 2028, because we might get an “anti-war” Tucker Carlson right away instead. And POTUS Tucker, I fear, would be as good as his word. He’d pull us out of Europe and West Asia and then get down to business rounding up immigrants and minorities here at home and rampaging across Latin America.
Brett Erickson, September 19:
“All of the alerts issued by the Middle East embassies in recent hours could VERY well be in relation to potential U.S. strikes on YEMEN, not Iran.
The wars between Saudi/Yemen and U.S./Iran could be merging into one…”
Let us pray for deliverance. This shit is insane and scary. The mad, dying empire might kill the planet in its death throes.
America, all the murder we’ve been exporting for 80 years is coming home to roost.
It’s on us for not stopping this shit sooner. Karma’s a bitch.
ventzu
I’ve seen a number of posts on X, asking why dissident Israelis don’t take up arms to support the Palestinian people.
It got me thinking that a century plus ago, people went onto the streets to protest, clandestinely took up arms to overthrow the government, etc, culminating in the Paris commune, the Russian revolution, etc.
Now, we devour social media for latest news on the empires ravages and humiliations, wish earnestly for its defeat, and pen furious posts (as I am now) on the empire.
Is it because social media is controlled opposition; or that we have been so conditioned into being spectators within a “democractic system” that we believe our only power is to vote; or are we so much more comfortable now, than a century ago, that we are not yet in desperate enough straits to be willing to forgo that?
Change of subject – for those interested, this short video is a really good overview of the political history of Iran since Khamenei came to power.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEwa6aIZqC4
Nat Wilson Turner
@ventzu sadly the vast majority of Israelis — even those who strongly oppose Netanyahu — strongly support the genocide of the Palestinians. It’s a country where the fascists have had 80+ years to indoctrinate their people, and they’ve got the terror of the Holocaust to back their play. Unspeakably tragic.
Feral Finster
1. Karma does not exist. The Hindus had to invent reincarnation because there is no justice in this lifetime.
2. Trump hopes to keep the war out of the news as much as possible until.thr midterms, lest the midterms be even more of a referndum on the war.
After the midterms, Trump’s hands will no longer be tied. Expect massive attacks. Don’t be surprised if we see nuclear weapons used.
Iran was foolish not to have gotten The Bomb.
Mark Level
From your keyboard to God’s ears, Nat, and sorry to hear about the Covid, get well soon. “Eloquent” Obama was the ultimate PsyOp to get a right-wing, Austerity regime over on ‘Muricans for the better part of 2 terms. He not only ran 3rd and 4th Bush Jr. terms, a pointless and failed “Surge” in Afghanistan that got lots of people on both sides killed and did nothing. And such an amazing coward that he punted that war on to Brain Bleed Joe who canceled it abruptly to pivot to Russia. Which didn’t exactly work out either!!
Don’t forget how he tried to rehabilitate Shrub’s reputation, he was a total joke when he left office, even to most Republicans who called him a failed “Liberal” because he had a pretend-Prescriptions program, gestured he “cared” not as much as Daddy Shrub with his non-existent “1,000 points of Light.”
I’m sure most of us remember when Biden unsuccessfully bombed Yemen, was asked if was working and said, basically, “No but we will continue.” We are a hammer, dozens of “Enemy” nails to attack worldwide. Rinse, wash, repeat. Do Americans care? Seem not to, let it go on, unless it’s their family members who needlessly die or come home with terminal cancer from Pit Burns (like Beau Biden) or missing limbs, etc.
To Finster, do you know for a fact Iran has no bomb(s)? Where’s the proof. If they don’t, I agree but I don’t claim to know. Trump seems as deranged as Joe was this far into his failed term, he spouts that the price of Oil is not high due to the “Jenius” President who protects Americans!! Who believes that? Cult members, nobody else.
Klonopin Kamala, indeed. The US is dying, though I’m not currently there to witness it. Can or will anyone stop it? Not until a critical mass of ‘Muricans miss 3 meals or get booted out onto the streets Is that far away? Methinks not.
It’s Socialism or Barbarism, but only the latter is on the Menu in Late Imperial USA, with its ZOG. Oh, but here’s Mint Press News on Iran’s and Yemen’s current initiatives. Somebody has agency and somebody is a Paper Tiger. Think I know who, we’ll see if I’m right within less than 6 months in any case (7 months into Trump’s Epstein Fury, Ian and I and others called it by 2nd day.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6s3Ba3omHs
17% of poll respondents recently approve of Trump’s Economy. Mad King Toast.
Mark Level
Oh, and to ventzu and Nat– we all know the story of Anne Frank, right?
When the Genocide is over will there be a single Israeli who saves civilians from being exterminated? There won’t be many, I’d gainsay. A Nation of Fanatical Apartheid Lunatics, who think Genocide is good. Is this actually positive for their long-term future? (There is a small group of Jewish citizens that Due Dissidence has covered that does prevent Arabs from violent attacks in the street in the West Bank if I recall rightly. Is there more? Unlikely.)
Nat Wilson Turner
@feral finster I don’t believe in any karma-related woo or magical “good guys win” nonsense. But what I do believe in, because I’ve seen it constantly, is assholes who constantly create enemies through awful behavior frequently coming to bad ends because someday somebody gets tired of their shit and is positioned to put a stop to it.
mago
To both the Feral one and Nat, karma is not woo woo new agey shit invented by some Indian panditas, it the nature of cause and effect. Actions have consequences. Kinda surprised that two people whose intelligence and insights I respect would poo poo something that seems inherently obvious and not a fabricated concept, but then neither nihilism nor eternalism resonates with me. Not trying to open a discussion or debate, just saying.
I think we can all find common ground in saying we’re so screwed. Not that I’m a depressed doomsayer either. I’m actually kind of cheerful in a world on fire. Heh.
Get well Nat and keep up the good work. Most impressive.
Feral Finster
Ive seen too many assholes die in their beds, loved, respected, admired and emulated.
See, Lazarus and the rich man.
@Mark Level:
“do you know for a fact Iran has no bomb(s)?”
What you construct is an argument from ignorance, itself an attempt to invert the burden of proof, as attested by your next sentence: “Where’s the proof. ”
Stop kidding yourself. Trump’s CIA could not find any evidence of such, and believe me, they were incentivized to try.
Nat Wilson Turner
@Mago I agree with you, I just don’t consider it “woo.” And thanks for the kind words.
marku
Nat, impressive list but you forgot Mr Hopey Changey’s crushing the left opposition with Occupy shut downs.
Man, was there any offense he was not guilty of?
Nat Wilson Turner
@marku that was a horrifying chapter — I can personally recall seeing a platoon of hulking men march out of the Austin Police HQ dressed as “black bloc” protestors the day they swept out the Occupy encampments. Chilling moment.
but also outside the scope of a blog post about Yemen. But grist for the mill. thank you