Stephen W. Carson

Westerners are about to start paying a lot more attention to the war in Iran as massive US-Israeli escalations point to a coming energy crisis set to impact the whole world. Israel has bombed the world’s largest natural gas field in southwestern Iran, reportedly in coordination with the United States. Now that a major red line for Tehran has been crossed, retaliatory strikes have already begun pummeling the energy infrastructure of US allies in the region, with Qatar reporting that its primary gas facility has sustained “significant damage” from an attack after Iran issued evacuation warnings for energy facilities in Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Fuel prices are already surging. If middle eastern energy infrastructure starts taking extensive damage on top of the already hugely significant Iranian blockade on the Strait of Hormuz, this war could end up affecting virtually every corner of human civilization in one way or another. Westerners are largely apathetic about US military explosives landing on populations on other continents. But once it starts having a direct impact on their personal bank accounts, you can expect them to get a lot more interested in US foreign policy. This war has been a bit odd for me because as an anti-imperialist peacemonger I’m not yet entirely sure what my role is in my commentary here. Normally I’d be begging westerners to care about another horrific act by the US war machine, but as things stand it looks like westerners are going to be forced to care about this one whether they want to or not. Normally I’d be writing furiously about how people should not support this war, but the war has exceptionally low public support already. Normally I’d be trying to help everyone open their eyes and recognize the US warmongers for the psychopaths that they are, but the Trumpanyahu administration is openly waging an unprovoked war of aggression while constantly thumping its chest and boasting about how it’s showing the Iranians “no quarter, no mercy” and saying it can kill whoever it wants with impunity. Normally I’d be writing about how the mass media are churning out war propaganda to manufacture consent for more US military butchery, but the mass media keep putting out stories about how the US government is lying about a war that should never have happened while Trump administration figures have public tantrums about how the media isn’t churning out war propaganda for them. President Trump is on social media babbling about how news outlets “should be brought up on Charges for TREASON” for not reporting on an embarrassing story about a US aircraft carrier fire the way he wants, while Secretary of War Pete Hegseth gave one of his fire-and-brimstone podium sermons bitching about how “an actual patriotic press” would be framing this war in a more positive light. Do you see what I mean? What am I supposed to do with this? Where does that leave dissident fringesters like myself? All I can do is clear my throat and sheepishly go “Uh, yeah, I uh… agree with CNN.” With Ukraine the mass media fell all over themselves to hide the west’s role in provoking the conflict, framing Putin as an evil maniacal Hitler figure who just spontaneously flipped out and invaded a country on Russia’s border because he hates freedom. With Gaza the western press gave nonstop narrative cover to Israel’s genocidal atrocities, constantly dragging public attention into an endless conversation about antisemitism and Jewish feelings whenever opposition to the slaughter got too hot. That’s just not happening with Iran. It’s the first US war I’ve ever seen where a big chunk of the empire just refused to get on board. The media’s not playing along, US allies are telling Trump to get stuffed when he asks for military assistance with the Strait of Hormuz, and the public’s not buying the lies. This is a frightening time to be alive — but you can’t say we’re in a period of stasis. Things are moving faster and faster. They might get a whole lot worse. They might get a whole lot better. They might get a whole lot worse and then get a whole lot better. But it seems a safe bet that the situation won’t remain the same.

What we witnessed in London at the historic Trafalgar Square, in a country built on Judeo-Christian values, was a group of people attempting dominance over our capital city and our culture. We are not going to surrender everything that was built over centuries and defended at great cost in two world wars for us to be a free, independent nation. The British people will not put up with this any longer — simple as.

“What is Boomer Brain exactly? Boomer Brain is what happens when a man’s political framework was forged during the Cold War, hardened during the War on Terror, and then never updated after both collapsed under the weight of their own lies. The problem is not intelligence. The problem is a refusal to reprocess information because doing so would require admitting that the institutions they trusted failed them, the wars they supported were misguided, and the voices they listened to were often wrong. We all watched how the Intel agencies lied to Congress, lied to the public, and lied to the rest of us on Fox News. One would think that would have created an institutional skepticism among the people who call themselves patriots. Instead, it produced an awkward silence and then a return to regularly scheduled programming. Boomer Brain processed all those lies about NSA mass surveillance, WMDs, the Deep State’s coup of Donald Trump, the J6 set-up, the Covid death stats, the Covid vaccine roll-out, and Joe Biden not being a mental vegetable and concluded that all of those problems are over now because a Republican is President. And now, the men with Boomer Brain are back to support the Establishment to the death, galloping toward WWIII with full assurance that we’re not being lied to and our concerns have been taken to heart. When you consider that these people are the same demographic who still fall for Nigerian prince email scams and who respond to the car extended warranty notices they receive in the mail, this makes more sense. Nothing illustrates Boomer Binary Brain Syllogism more efficiently than the Israel question, because it is where the Cold War binary does its most aggressive work. The logic runs roughly like this:

(1) Israel is our greatest ally in all the wars we fight to help Israel. (2) Muslims are terrorists.

(3) Criticizing Israel is something Muslims do. 

(4) Liberals side with terrorists. 

(5) Therefore, criticizing Israel means you are functionally pro-terrorist, probably antisemitic, and definitely a liberal.

The entire chain of reasoning takes about four seconds, and it is impervious to evidence because it is not actually reasoning. It is sorting. Everything goes in the ally bucket or the enemy bucket, and once it is sorted, the case is closed. What this framework can’t process is the possibility that a patriotic American who loves his country, mistrusts its foreign entanglements, and has read his Eisenhower might look at the relationship between the United States government and a foreign state, note the extraordinary volume of lobbying power, the FARA exemptions, the billions in annual military aid, the conflicts of interest woven through American evangelical institutions, and conclude that some hard questions are warranted, without that conclusion meaning anything whatsoever about his feelings toward radical Islam. Boomer Brain cannot hold that thought, because the binary dissolves it. You either support Israel unreservedly or you are with the other team, and the other team, in the Boomer Brain cosmology, wears a head scarf.” Read more at Insight to Incite. Link in bio. Audio version available.

My heart sank reading this. Please don't let this be true.