Rant #3,980: I Don't Know Where To Start

We have finally reached the last day of the workweek.

And as I am sure you have heard, that "ceasefire" we had with Iran has kerplunked.

Like Gomer Pyle would say ...

"Surprise, Surprise, Surprise!"

Is anyone really surprised that this thing fell through?

You simply cannot deal on a level plane with terrorists--

They claim things and do things and say things, and then, like I said--

Kerplunk!

This whole thing is costing all of us a lot of money, if not at the gas station, then at the supermarket.

And this is all while our president has told us how much money he is making off crypto currency.

I put this up on Facebook on July 1, and I didn't get a single response to it, but let me tell you, it is truer than true, in particular now that the war has supposedly restarted:

"This crypto currency thing might be the last straw in any popularity the president has with the public.

While presidents are generally exempt from such conflicts of interest while in office, his husking for the crypto industry is somewhat questionable, and his admittance that he has done well financially while he has been our commander in chief--while so many of us are suffering--reeks of a "let them eat cake" philosophy.

Even more importantly, he is making it awful difficult for the future Republican candidate for president to gain any traction with the public.

Yes, his bragging and his questionable--although not illegal--business practices will only create scorn for the Republican candidate--

And Trump will certainly distance himself from that candidate if he or she loses, because of this scorn the public has on the previous president prospering when the general public is suffering.

This could be the final nail in the coffin, although that coffin may already be firmly nailed shut."

And did I tell you that I am worried not only how this is going to impact my purchases at the gas station and at the supermarket and elsewhere, but I am also worried about my money, my supposed pension money, which is in the stock market?

The stock market has been in a rut since oil prices are up, and it will stay in a rut if we go to war again.

Look, I am not arguing about why we went to war.

It was the right thing to do--Iran simply cannot be trusted--but from the get go, I had my doubts about the impact that this situation would have on our country.

Here, in edited form, is what I wrote in Rant #3,925, April 14, just about three months ago:

"And did anyone really think that the U.S. and Iran would come to any sort of agreement?

I am afraid that this conflict is one we can't win, but we can't lose either.

I think that we, as a nation, have to understand that the Arab Middle East is not the West in any way, shape or form.

We desire them to have Western values, but these are classic third world countries, governed by one thing, and one thing only:

Their religion, and their abject hate of all Western values.

This is a different enemy that we have fought in the past.

This is an enemy that doesn't care if it dies, because in death, they consider themselves to be martyrs, giving themselves up to Allah.

And their people, and those Arabs throughout the Middle East, are not people that will rise up in unison and stage uprisings to rid their government of its rulers and become more Western.

It is not happening with the Palestinians, it is not happening with the Iranians, and it is not happening with the Lebanese.

They voted in Hamas, they voted in Hezbollah, and they are OK to be governed by terrorists.

And if they are so comfortable with this leadership, we have to be mindful of that, that Western values aren't coming to the Arab world in these Middle Eastern countries anytime soon, if at all.

As much as we want it to happen, it simply isn't, and we have to understand that.

The fight that we--and Israel--are fighting is a good fight, a correct fight, but I am afraid it is going to lead nowhere, or at least not to the result we want it to come to.

Without help from Europe and our allies, and without any help from any of the Arab countries, we seem to be fighting a war not only with Iran and Lebanon, but amongst our own people and the world.

And with rising inflation, gas prices rising and everything going up exponentially each and every day of this war, it is a conflict that I am afraid, even though it is just, is simply going to lead to an uprising among our country's citizens.

I have said it before, and I am going to say it again:

To play on an old phrase we all learned in high school, "The pocketbook is mightier than the sword."

And when average Americans like you and I are spending more dollars than we can afford to simply get through each and every day, we are losing the battle amongst ourselves.

How much longer can we take it?

We have weakened this enemy, but we have not destroyed them; and their people are simply too weak to take over where we started.

I am sure if we had our druthers, at this point in time, we would love to push that button and totally annihilate them, but that isn't happening any time soon, or at all.

So we have to prepare for our endgame, and Israel--which would love to push that button, too--must prepare for its endgame, too.

That does not mean giving up, it means understanding the situation, while continuing to monitor it and take action when necessary, and plan to move on.

The threat will still be there, but it will be weakened ...

Mightily weakened.

The American public has just so much patience, and that patience is getting thinner by the day.

And our allies should absolutely be ashamed of themselves at their behavior during this time when we all should be pulling together.

In their future times of need, we should act in kind.

We are in a world where things are topsy turvy, where good guys are bad guys and bad guys are good guys.

We--the U.S.--are the good guys here, but you wouldn't know it by our allies' reactions to what we are doing to rid the world of these terroristic regimes.

So be it.

We have a great friend in the Middle East in Israel, all the other supposed friends we have there really aren't that at all, and like the old song said,

"United We Stand, Divided We Fall."

So, although I stand by what I said about this conflict being the right thing to do, it is a conflict that we really can't win, figuratively or literally.

Was it a total mistake to get involved in this in the first place?

I simply don't know.

But what I do know, and have known since the beginning of this conflict, is that it is a real mess, a mess that we thought we cleaned up, but it has simply gotten worse.

I honestly don't know what to think anymore about this conflict, but when I look in my wallet, my wallet talks to me.

And it is talking very loudly right now.

And it isn't too happy.

Have a great weekend, and I will speak to you again on Monday.