Operation “Whatever Freedom” Ended Quickly. Why?

Graphic from India Today

When an administration and the Department of Defense come up with a witty, profound, or stupid name for an operation you expect that the name will hang around a while and in normal times that the operation is successful.

International Monetary Fund Graphic

Unfortunately, when you are a dealing with a vain, arrogant, ignorant, and monumentally stupid regime such as Trump’s you come to expect it. Less than 48 hours, less time that it takes some people to take a dump, Operation Whatever Freedom was launched, allegedly to seize control of the Straits of Hormuz and escort trapped ships the safety, it ended. According to Trump it was to give Iran another chance to “negotiate” or rather to capitulate to his demands. Of course they are not going to do that because every day they continue to control the Straits and unless the United States is willing to make an amphibious and airborne assault on the Iranian controlled islands in the Strait and the Iranian mainland adjacent to it Iran will maintain control.

Unfortunately, everything Donald Trump has done in his second term is about his personal need for revenge, be it personal, economic, or political, which unfortunately for him are the ingredients of a twisted, demented, and rapidly decaying body and mind. It’s the ultimate shit sundae of hatred, and dementia in action.

The hard truth is that the injudicious nature of this Operation Epic Fury was doomed to failure from day one. We did not ways and means in place to accomplish the desired end of overthrowing the Iranian regime, or defeating Iran’s capability to remain an important power in the Persian Gulf, which we all used to call it before the Iranian Revolution. After that the United States began to call it the Arabian Gulf, something like the Gulf of America that never showed up on any reputable atlas. We could only call it that because in spite of our enmity towards Iran, we remained officially neutral to Iran during all the regional conflicts between 1977 and now. If we had simply stayed out of Netanyahu’s war, the Straits of Hormuz would still be open, gas prices would have stayed stable and inflation wouldn’t have risen.

So Trump announced with great bombast that the United States would begin Operation Whatever Freedom to escort trapped ships from the Gulf. The language was that of liberation, but it was all bluster. Trump and the Pentagon boasted of success, of getting destroyers through the Strait, escorting ships out, including an American flagged ship, and sinking six Iranian small boats. Meanwhile, the Iranians claim to hit at least one U.S. Navy warship with missiles. All of this literally is unknown. Independent sources cannot confirm anything, and since the Pentagon has banned U.S. journalists from being embedded with our forces as was the practice from the Second World War until Hegseth, so all we have are the reports from the Pentagon and the Iranian FARS news service.

But in the midst of the bombast, Hegseth said that it was a temporary operation and then Trump ended it. Despite the claims of Trump and Hegseth, Iran still controls the Straits of Hormuz and only ships that pay their toll are getting through, even at the risk of being caught by the U.S. Navy outside the Straits.

Truthfully, even as a patriotic American retired career military officer who served two tours in the region, on at sea and the other in the sands of Iraq, I cannot see how this is winning anything. I fucking devoted my life to supporting the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic, and to put my life on the line too many times to see dumbasses like Trump and Hegseth, men who have absolutely no regard for the law, the Constitution or the American people desecrate everything that I held and still hold dear. Too many others did the same.

I challenge any Trump supported to show me with any empirical evidence how this fiasco has helped the United States, the American people, or the world. That includes what we in the military, foreign services, and intelligence communities refer to the DIME. That is the Diplomatic, Informational, Military and Economic aspects of this “we can’t call it a war, war is.”

Diplomatically we have lost most of or closest along term allies. Informationally, we have lost any positive media influence worldwide, as well as in the United States. Militarily, what have we gained? We have expended so many of our high end missiles and bombs, worn out ships and aircraft with extraordinarily long and arduous deployments, seen almost all of our major military bases, installations, and headquarters in the region put out of action needing both peace and trillions of dollars to rebuild them, and finally the economic cost which grows exponentially by the day. Those billions of dollars, euros, yuan, yen, or pounds or whatever currency they are don’t just exist in theory, they are part of the lives of every human being on the planet. This, “dare we not call it a war” is a disaster for everyone.

Sadly, tonight as much truth as I am basically venting my frustration at how the American people elected such a living abortion to a second term knowing how corrupt and evil that he is. To them I say “suck it up, you deserve your higher prices, inflation, and losing all that you have.” As for the rest of us it simply sucks and we need to fight.

So until next time. Have a good night, a better tomorrow, and please watch your six.