Eric Braeden Explains How Hollywood Created The Myth of American Invincibility. (Where We Are Now.) [View all]

Eric Braeden is well known to soap opera fans as 'Victor Newman,' but those of us who were little boys in the 60s remember him as Hauptmann Dietrich in The Rat Patrol. He's also a very wise man.
Here he explains how Hollywood created a myth of American invincibility, by making it look like like America won two world wars single handedly; and that their opponents were cartoonish jokes that could easily be defeated. And that has lead us to where we are now. When the President, most of his Cabinet, and the entire Chickenhawk Wing of the GOP (ie-Lindsey Graham etc.) believe the myth, this is what you get.

Trump is not 'negotiating' with Iran. He claimed he's stopping hostilities for a week in order to negotiate. But we all know what he's doing. He's just giving the 82nd Airborne, and the two Marine MEUs time to get into position to invade Kharg Island. From there, it's only a short, predictable step from "this will be over in two weeks" to "we can't stop fighting now, because it would be disrespectful to the hundreds who have died already. Finish the job!"

Trump is a moron. That's already on full display.

He didn't foresee Iran firing missiles at other Gulf States, despite EVERYBODY in the region saying that's exactly what they'd do.

He didn't foresee Iran mining the Strait of Hormuz (or 'Hormone Strait' as Trump calls it), despite the fact that they did EXACTLY THAT during the Tanker War of 1987.

Now he's moving to take Kharg, to preserve the only source of oil that Iran (probably) won't target. But he didn't have any personnel in place, because he never anticipated he'd have to do that. 'BeeBee' just told him he could drop a few bombs, and the entire regime would collapse, and turn into a Jeffersonian democracy overnight. Don't worry about a couple of million heavily armed Iran Revolutionary Guard DEAD ENDERS (to quote Rumsfeld), who have nothing left to lose.

And what difference does it make, anyway? Jared, Don Jr, Eric, and Baron will never go near a battlefield. Leave that to the kids of midwestern families that are long on patriotism, and short on money. And a bunch of people who joined the Reserves because it was the only way they could pay for college.

This is what happens when you have a President who got all of his beliefs about wars by watching re-runs of The Rat Patrol, and Patton!