Confused & Bewildered: Iran, War, and the Shades of Truth?

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Confused and bewildered. That might be the best way to describe my take on what is taking place in the Middle East with Iran and the steps that the administration has taken this past weekend. You know, it’s kind of a takeoff on, remember Birdcage there, was asked about the football game. How do you feel about that? Well, betrayed, bewildered. No, I am confused.

and bewildered and I’m here to tell you anybody out there that claims anything else with any sort of certainty is quite frankly not being honest with you. I am praying along with hopefully many of you out there for an expedited quick outcome and an ending to these

hostilities as sooner rather than later. made the mistake, made the mistake during the Bush administration post 9-11 listening to them, believing them, putting my faith in them, Rumsfeld, Cheney.

Bush, Colin Powell, and the information that they were putting out.

Was naive. Again, maybe if I had, you know, actually lived through the various different lies with maybe I was older, you know, during Vietnam and the various different things that were put out by the government, then maybe I would would have thought a little bit differently. Maybe it was fact that I lived in New York City on 9 11. Maybe again, maybe it was a bit of a, you know, I want revenge.

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in the back of my mind. I don’t know. I don’t know. I started getting hip to the BS come 2005. I remember vividly, remember vividly the protests taking place in New York. And again, there weren’t any real issues or anything like that, but there were massive rallies, massive parades, all legal, doing done protesting.

the Iraq war and the lead up to the Iraq war. Remember the Republican National Convention 2004, I broadcast from New York City Madison Square Garden, protests that were taking place and what was going on there. And the reality is that you take a look at 9-11 and quite frankly, what

Osama bin Laden was able to accomplish with.

Not a bunch of Afghanis, Saudis for the most part, with box cutters. Here we are, eight trillion dollars later and still counting. That’s the amount of money we have spent on these wars in the Middle East. Eight trillion dollars and counting. And to put that in perspective, what we spent on World War II, adjusted

for inflation about four trillion. What exactly have we achieved? I don’t know. I don’t know, some might make the argument, we’re safer without this, that was the argument then. We’d rather fight them over there than over here.

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Okay Point Did anybody have any inclination just recent that that Iran was planning any sort of invasion of the United States At all, were they were they you think that there was any threat any the slightest threat at all of the Iranians? invading the United States

No, I think so. Either but again, I am right now I am. Again, nothing I can do about it. We’ve got

young men and women that are in harms way and they always throw that out there. yes, you’re not supporting the troops just because you don’t agree with the military action doesn’t mean that you’re not in support of the troops. OK, yes, you can you can be against this. You can be completely against this 110 percent. You can still report support the troops. There’s nothing wrong with that. OK, that’s that old BS that they were trying to pull.

during the Iraq war and the nonsense that took place there.

Pete Hegseth today gave a…

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I don’t know what you want to call it. Guess who’s a Pentagon press conference. Funny thing is, is that the only question that he allowed from any reporter that was not some of his picks, it was an NBC reporter. basically, which in the question revolved around a timeframe and how long this is going to take. He cut her off, you know, you’re kind of pulled a Trump.

you’re a left wing reporter type of a bit. Mother line he used, which again, on the Orwellian side, to say the least, he said, this is not a so called regime change war, but the regime sure did change.

Yeah, that’s Orwellian without a doubt. He didn’t really say much of anything. granted, I don’t think that he should be divulging anything, but we are right now, we’re in a bit of a land of confusion when it comes to this. And this goes back to Saturday.

Saturday.

spending my whole day trying to gather as much information as I possibly could trying to stay on top of this. Scott Jennings. Yeah, he’s one of their faves. Yeah, he’s a CNN guy, Scott Jennings, and they just gave him a radio show on Salem Networks. is a one of the is what he is. He’s a one of the chief propagandists for Donald Trump. Anything that Donald Trump does

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His job is to go out on CNN and defend it. He put this out at Saturday afternoon at almost four o’clock Eastern time, 3.58. Senior Trump administration officials telling me that credible intelligence indicated Iran planned preemptive missile strikes against US military targets in the region and against civilian targets as well. Failure to act would have resulted

and mass casualties and then you saw, yeah, I see it. And they were all hot. know, this dead Trump did he stepped in? And I’m like, as soon as I saw that.

Bullshit.

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Bullshit. I don’t know. mean, Scott Jennings, he’s got a big get the president on the phone when he wants to. So it seemed like that they were floating a trial balloon there. And as it turns out, they were floating a trial balloon there. The Pentagon had to come out and say, no, no, no, no, no, no, that’s not the case. No, we didn’t have any any sign of that. That wasn’t the case at all.

Now, and again, this is confusing as well. was talking about taking out this leadership.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio saying that the United States did not target Khomeini and we were not targeting the leadership in Iran. But the president himself was coming out and saying, well, we killed some of the people that we wanted to replace the current regime. So, again, this is just land of, like I said, land of confusion, confused and

bewildered. For the past two days, the president has told the Washington Post that his the reason for doing this his aim is freedom for the people of Iran. He told Axios that we should be able to end this in two to three days with a deal. And completely different from Secretary of Defense Secretary wall. Today.

I told the New York Times it might be four to five weeks. I have three very good choices who might take control in Iran. And then came out and said, whoops, nevermind. We killed those choices. If you told ABC, they’re the ones we wanted to have. We killed them. But again, then Rubio saying we didn’t kill them. It was the Israelis that killed them. When I see things like this, they’re trying to get their story.

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I just like that again, they’re floating balloons out there or throwing, you know, stuff on a wall to see what’s going to stick. there’s no really any other way to look at it. And again, any of these sources that I’m reporting, why it doesn’t make any difference. Okay. I take them all with the grain of salt. Cause I am going to talk about fog of war. We’re in it too.

We’re in it too. Listen, I’ve got sources and I go to various different foreign papers and publications and I’ve got to check and I got to check three, four, five. Is this real? Is this picture real? Was the base blown up? Again, it’s an absolute, for lack of a phrase, it’s a shit show when it comes to the news on this. Washington Post is reporting that there’s issues within the Pentagon.

vast number of retaliatory attacks and the array of sites being targeted. The sites in the Arab nations concerning have so much received leadership was killed. There are members inside the Pentagon, the concern that Iran could conflict could spiral out of control. The mood here is intense and paranoid saying that we’re to be fighting for weeks and we’re very concerned about our defense stockpiles concerned about this lasting for more than a few days.

Again, being told by the secretary of ball that, you know, that we’re to go as long as we need to go. It’s not going to say anything. We could do whatever we want to do. There are stories out there of Iranians rejoicing. Rejoicing very thrilled, praising Donald Trump, praising Netanyahu for getting rid of the regime.

And there’s also videos out there as well of people chanting death to America and we’re going to avenge. these AI are these real? I don’t know. I don’t know. And again, I wouldn’t really wouldn’t really trust wouldn’t really trust much of anything you hear for a period of time you got to take this I’m just telling you take everything with that you know, grain of salt tablespoon of salt at this point in time because

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nothing really adds up. I’m going to share with you something I pulled up. April 9th, 2003, New York Times, celebration in Baghdad, US forces reach central square. President Bush stared at his television set and the image of Saddam Hussein statue torn from its pedestal and smashed to the ground. They got it down, he said. Wasn’t ready to declare victory, least not yet.

As much as the president is pleased to see the progress of the military campaign, the Iraqi people finding freedom where they’re finding it remains very cautious because he knows there’s great danger could still lie ahead. That’s from Ari Fleischer. Remember him? Good day. This is a good day. Rumsfeld said as US forces stormed through the streets, the Iraqi capital and were greeted by jubilant Baghdad residents. He called these images that were broadcast around the world breathtaking. Yeah, I’d be curious.

No Rumsfeld’s no longer with us. Bushes can imagine. I don’t know what Rockheave’s, you know, hiding under, you know, doesn’t really show his head to say much of anything in regards to maybe what they have learned. Because we did. We’ve been doing this for some time, guys. It’s just going to be 25th anniversary since 9 11.

2026, okay? 25 years. Again, went into Afghanistan for what? To replace the Taliban with the Taliban. Iraq, the people in Iraq stormed, storming our embassy.

after the assassinations in Iran. I don’t know.

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I don’t know. Actually gonna go through a piece today because for the overwhelming majority, this is par for the course when it comes to wars, the editorial pages of newspapers, they never really, they go along. They did. Again, I wanna remind everybody about going into Iraq. They forced, they forced another vote.

that Congress had a vote on that because they wanted to come back. John Kerry and Hillary Clinton wanted to come back and make sure that they were on the record voting for Iraqi intervention, as a jog your memory here. Tim Kaine, Tim Kaine put out, well, a contrary opinion piece today in the Wall Street Journal, Wall Street Journal overwhelmingly.

in support of what the president did. The New York Times had some pieces as well. The news that the United States has joined Israel in starting an offensive war against Iran while in the midst of diplomatic negotiations is tragic. As a member of the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committee with access to ample classified information about threats from Iran and others, I can state plainly that there was no imminent threat from Iran to America. That’s kind of important.

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That that’s kind that’s that’s kind of important kids to say the least. There was no imminent. Threat. I you know, I thought that that was the only way that the president could act was based upon an imminent threat and tomorrow I guess Congress is going to be briefed basically no enough of an imminent threat sufficient to warrant committing our sons and daughters to another war in the Middle East.

especially without the congressional debate and vote that the Constitution requires. American people don’t want to be dragged into another forever war under false pretenses. That’s why I’ll insist that all senators vote on my bipartisan resolution to stop the US hostilities against Iran as soon as possible. Now, again, this is not, again, this is not unpatriotic, okay?

This is what Tim K, again, people are gonna, no, it’s not. You can’t be like that, okay? This is a problem with our country nowadays. Okay, this is not.

political and it’s not political. Do you understand the approval that the president has on this attack is under 30 %?

under 30 % have surprise like 2425 % supporting what he has done shirt for 40 something percent are saying they don’t know. And that’s actually quite frankly, that’s almost like the best line of being you don’t know.

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I don’t know, did the people here in this country, do they trust the government? No, no. There’s another poll that came out. It’s like the lowest level in history, 17%. The people in this country actually trust what the government is doing. And again, they did that to themselves. He writes, to be sure Iran is a bad actor, pressing its own citizens and formenting violence outside its borders, including attacks against US troops in the region. These actions

a company a powerful history that many prefer to overlook. Yeah, and he gets into and I’m going to get into as well. It’s important. The history that we have had with Iran that I’d say 99 % of the country doesn’t know. That’s not not stuff not stuff that showed up in your high school. You know, you know, American history textbook.

doesn’t. Anyway, I’m not gonna I’m not gonna even get into what he says about that because I’m gonna get into it separately. He says the United States and Iran are both constructed narratives whereby the other is the aggressor. And in this long standing conflict, more war isn’t the answer. If it were the past 70 years would have produced a better outcome than what we see today. He said during the Obama administration, we decided to explore diplomacy rather than war.

And in 2015, announced a deal to end any move by Iran to obtain nuclear weapons. As the diplomatic table were America’s European allies plus China and Russia, all invested in helping the US and Iran find a diplomatic port forward. The deal was ratified by Congress. The first paragraph of the agreement contained the core of the deal. Iran reaffirms that under no circumstances will Iran ever seek develop or acquire any nuclear weapons. Now, again, lot.

went around that, remember, we that the pallets of money that we gave to the Iranians that we flew over there. again, some of that was misconstrued by the media. So it’s actually their money that we were turning to, again, a lot of again, confusion.

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when it comes to this. Tim Kaine said that this deal was working. In the opinions of the parties to deal in the IAEA. He said it was working. Do I know for sure? No, no, do do I trust Tim Kaine? No, no, but I really trust anybody on this. And that’s unfortunate. That’s the world we live in, which is frightening.

It’s some of the most unsettling things about this as unsettling war is how much this bothered me all this weekend is the fact I don’t trust anybody. I don’t trust anybody. I don’t know where the hell Tulsi Gabbard is. JD Vance was jumping up and down being against this. I don’t know where he is. They sidelined him. Anyway, Tim Kaine says Trump tore up the deal.

walked away from diplomacy over the objections of his secretary’s defense and state. And Washington and Tehran returned to hostilities throughout the region. The US decision to abandon diplomacy alienated allies eliminated a forum where the US was productively engaged in diplomacy with Russia and China and allowed Iran to justify its own abandonment of the deal’s restrictions. Trump’s decision to terminate a working nuclear deal also effectively ended any negotiations with North Korea over its program. Why would Pyongyang make a deal with the US if we don’t keep

our word again, this is coming from Tim Kaine. news that Trump has banned diplomacy, chosen war against Iran is puzzling due to his shifting rationales. He suggests that it’s due to Iran’s nuclear program. If that was of concern, why did he tear up a diplomatic deal that control the program? Why wage an attack now after he initiated attack just months ago that he claimed obliterated the nation’s nuclear program? Again,

I said this very same thing last week. It’s like, well, didn’t I thought we wrecked it? Thought I wrecked it. Ted Cruz this past week, and I don’t know if he had a Freudian slip. He was on air saying no, that they were not close to getting a nuclear weapon. Kane says Trump suggests the wars to aid Iranian protesters. This claim is hard to accept from a president who at the same time is deporting refugees back to Iran, where they are likely to suffer the persecution he pretends to care about.

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Again, that was shot, Cain given deportation stuff. Again, this is where it delves into the political. The other weird one as well, which they threw out this weekend, I was like, what? Is the fact that they threw out that Iran is facing war because it interfered in the 2020 presidential election. That was one of the balloons that was floated this past weekend. And again, I’m like, what? I didn’t.

get that one. Quite frankly, again, did you vote for this? That was like the joke on Saturday night live this past weekend. They played a clip of you know, Trump talking about no way no how we’re gonna be doing this stuff. We’re gonna, you know, kind of negotiate none of this happens. And this was Colin Joseph Saturday live. goes, that was the president I voted for.

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Yeah, again, we’re hoping, we’re hoping that this goes, I’m hoping, praying that this is going to go swimmingly and that all of my…

All my reluctance, my, my hesitancy in regard to this, my concerns in regard to this are unfounded and I’m wrong.

I’m wrong in my heart. You know, what I believe is going to I hope I am wrong. I really, really do. But people, we’ve got a long history. Long history going back post World War Two. I mean, you could talk about all the the Cold War era examples where we. CIA covert operations.

I mean, go from 1945 to the end of the Cold War, 1991, all of the various different things that we did. It’s not good. Okay. First and foremost on that list was Iran in 1953, where we worked with the British intelligence. It’s called Operation Ajax. We overthrew democratically elected prime minister of Iran.

Because he wanted to nationalize the oil industry. Why did he want to nationalize the oil industry? Well, let’s just say the Iranians were getting screwed by the Brits. Screwed. They were they were paying royalties. had BP. Why was BP at the time? What was it called? The Anglo. Yes, Anglo Iranian Oil Company.

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AIOC that later became BP. You know what they were paying Iran for oil extraction? 16%. That’s it. 16%. And there, Mosaddegh, who was thrown out, was a nationalist leader, he wanted that money to revamp and revitalize the country. Again, didn’t turn out well.

what led to 1979 and what happened. And again, you can take a look and do your own homework on all of our interventions. Guatemala, 1954, Congo, 1960, South Vietnam, 1963, Brazil, 1964, Indonesia, 1965, 67, Dominican Republic, 1965, Chile, 1973, and then other things, Bolivia, 71.

Argentina 76 go on and on and on. Again, take a look post Cold War. Panama, we removed Noriega. Remember that one Haiti twice. How’s that worked out? Afghanistan. Yep, we replaced the Taliban with the Taliban, Iraq, Libya, Ukraine, we provided the support and opposition.

during the Euromaidan protests leading to the was in your Konevix ouster at that point in time. So I mean, it’s just a bit of a history lesson. And again, I’m sure you’re to people that have always right. We got to do that. Got to fight the communist. Whatever communism is self-defeating. Well, you know, to make any sense to me, it’s self-defeating. It’s going to fail anyway. But

Again, here we are, confused, bewildered. I don’t know what’s gonna happen next. I don’t know what news bits to believe. Be careful some of the stuff that you’re getting off of social media. Be careful some of the stuff you’re getting from the mainstream media. We’re gonna have to be kind of in a wait and see mode when it comes to this moving forward. Watchdog on wallstreet.com.