Sunday, Feb 2, 2025

Decapitation

Hey Frank,

“Strike imminent on Iran”, all the news sites read this morning. I woke up to loud war drums today only for them to die down by mid-afternoon. All the news sources from main stream to alternative ones had said war would start this weekend, and today being the last of the two possible days, the strike seems imminent. Maybe they won’t, I doubted myself many times today. But then you just have to look at the armada they brought in to the Gulf. You just don’t bring all those ships and all those planes and personal and spend all this money for nothing. Some say this is all Trump’s MO, to bully Iran into a deal. I have my doubts, but we’ll see.

In the afternoon we started hearing that a deal was being discussed, while Khamenei said that if Americans started something they should know it will lead to a regional war, and then Trump said, we’re hoping for a deal but we got more ships coming. But I have seen this show before, during the 12 day war. Two days before a meetup to discuss a deal in Europe, and Israel launched a decapitation strike in coordination with the US. So what he says, and all this talk of a deal are just words, they mean nothing. You go to look at the facts. Lot’s of ships Frank, lot’s. The puppet masters are pulling the string of war.

What a weird term they now use in war, decapitation, right Frank? The image equivalent of cutting someone’s head off, modernized. It’s brilliant I think. They found a way to bring back to life an image that in all of history was used to send fear down the spines of men, but with a twist. For the metaphor to work, it requires that the leaders represent the head of the country and the people its body. The difference of course is that in a real decapitation, the body doesn’t grow back, and in this case, 90 million bodies can ‘grow’ back.

Decapitation doesn’t quite work here applied to it’s logical end, but I think, it may achieve it’s main goal of creating fear, a threat of what is to come if you don’t comply. And am sure those moving in up the leadership ladder feel the fear. Or do they? Seems like all those groups who’s leaders were decapitated from Hama to Hez to Irn simply replaced their people, no matter how many ‘heads’ were taken off.

I am going to say something very controversial Frank, and very unorthodox. I believe that as much as the decapitation strategy is grotesque, and like all extrajudicial killings unlawful and immoral, I am going to suggest that they maybe a good thing, IF they are applied equally on both sides. Just hear me out Frank. I remember during the civil war in Liberia where I grew up, there was a saying that Liberians liked: when two elephants fight the grass suffers”. What if wars are actually fought between leaders leaving the civilians unharmed, sparing thousands, maybe millions. Imagine battles fought between one president and another, literally. Would you not agree this is just? If this strategy can be perfected, I say, hell, do it all day if they like. I will also suggest Frank, that maybe this sort of thing will make leaders think twice about starting wars, because the one that pulled the trigger needs to be ready to be on the receiving end. Like old times when kings led their men into battle like the tip of a spear, unlike today where they are the butt of it, sitting in some bunker watching a screen.

Another day has gone by Frank. Our nerves are pretty raw with all this war talk. Russia-Ukraine, Gaza, Lebanon, Somalia, Iran, Syria, Taiwan. Just seems the world is on fire, and there is this sense this could become a very very large fire. Feels like each day is like walking a tight rope, we could fall into the abyss below. We don’t how deep it goes, only that it’s dark, and likely will hurt all those who fall in.

How long before this tinder box burst into flames? Unfortunately for, when it does, it will be the grass that burns.

Yours,
Sam B.

Feb 3. 2025.

Small hands

Dear Frank,

It’s the day after. And they are playing with our emotions again. For very small hands, Trump sure has grip on the world’s jugular. He squeezes, releases, squeezes, releases, he enjoys but we writhe around from the emotional see sawing like worms exposed to salt. Does he have dementia? Or is he just a narcistic enjoying the attention and all of this is nothing more than an audience to his stage? My friend at work has the most interesting one yet, the last effects of syphilis. Maybe all of the above.

It’s hopeless. Sometimes I think, well, he’s just the crescent of a wave in the making for decades now if not more. Should we focus our anger on him or on the wave that is driving this? Just seems like he is just the pointed coalescing of long period of physics. Nothing we can do about it. But nevertheless, it occupies our minds day in and day out, because he’s got his little fingers on the trigger. A nuclear trigger.

Feb 17, 2025.

The Great Japanese Wave

Dear Frank,

Two weeks later and the tension keeps rising Frank. It does feel like war will break out any time. Or not. It’s funny but the plausibility of something bad happening seems to always go up hand in hand with chances of something good happening, like twins attached at the hips, they up or down, together. But at some some point something will happen, and a better analogy is needed. Those two states, of war or peace, are like an indeterminate quantum state, both outcomes, a wave of peace or or a rain of exploding particles, remain possible until they meet that deciding factor that will collapse them. What is that wall?

The signs of war coming are loud. The build up continues, more death machines pour in day by day, and leaks from Trump’s inner circle say planning is underway, and that it’s just a matter of time. But there are signs, or more technically, announcements from negotiation team that suddenly throw a ray of hope towards us, that maybe, just maybe, they will find a way. Yesterday Iran’s foreign minister said that the negotiations entered a more ‘serious’ phase or something like that. Then you heard things like Trump is willing to meet with the supreme leader, or that that he will be involved indirectly. Add to this the complicated and risk-filled nature of an American military exercise here and then you might say that maybe, maybe this whole this is a show of force, to force to a deal. But it could also be a ruse. Keep them guessing, while they buy time for the military pieces are in place.

Remember the great Japanese Wave? That’s the coming wave that looks like a raised hand with creepy, wavy fingers reaching out over a stormy sea under a dark sky about to seize something imminently. This feels like it. For 45 years US has been laser focused on destroying or controlling Iran, and for the last 20 years or so Israel added it’s insidious fixation to this, and now has over-taken it as the main force behind this fixation. For 49 years they have been trying to break the back of the Mullahs, and they have failed. Now, finally, a great gathering of all the pieces that could make this happen has come together. The political will is there with the most ardent pro-Israel WH in decades. There is a president who not only is close to Natin, but has been bought with 100 Mill, and likely is being blackmailed in the Epstein affair. From Bibi’s side, this is the last brick in his legacy, to take out the one thing standing in the way of complete dominance of Eritz, and the great, biblically ordained expansion of it. Finally, with the Iranian gov successively weakened over many wars and sanctions, the regime could be the weakest in the last fifty years. This to me is the Wave, and it’s about to collapse.

But the most compelling reason why this has to happen now, is the fact that the American populace has turned on Israel. There will likely not be a ‘next’ time. When Trump is gone, so will American blind support. The change of attitude of the everyday citizen because of the Gaza war, and the American first attitude, will take away the last brick holding the entire edifice enabling Israel’s always having its way with the great America.

It’s now or never.

Yours,

Sam B.

Feb 18, 19 or 20? lost track.

Disappointed

Days blend together. I wake up and say to myself that I will be phone free for the first hour. I have the same thought in the first five minutes of waking up every morning. Then I unlock it and check the news. I do this every day. I expect war to start any minute. Maybe today, maybe this weekend, maybe in the next 10 days.

I saw a movie yesterday, the Return. It’s the story of Odysseus’s coming home after the Trojan war. Of the lines that stuck with me is “why do men go to war?”, his wife asks. So why do men go to war? All sorts of cliche or seemingly wise or pithy answers spring to mind. They do it to get done what words can’t do on their own. They do it to resolve conflict. They do it because the reptilian brain readily comes online, and the empathic part easily shuts off. They do it because they are wired that way. They do it because evil runs through their DNA as surely as good does, and they choose the track to run on depending on the destination. How easy it is to switch. They do it because they are animals.

It’s a very hard thing to wrap one’s heart around war. The mind yes, the heart no. The mind says it’s logical, it’s tribal, it’s the law of survival of men and nations, or that it’s just game theory. But the heart folds. How can I describe what my heart feels as thousands and thousands of bombs are about to fall on someone’s home? Men and women made those bombs. Men and women will drop those bombs. The homes to be destroyed by those bombs belong to men and women. All those men and all those women who will drop those bombs kiss their little ones good night. Words like shock, helplessness, disgust, absurd, all seem fall flat here.

Shock has given way to anger then to resignation then to hopelessness for me. But today there is an unexpected new feeling, disappointment. Not at man, or the Americans or Iranians or the military industrial complex or the Israelis. It’s immediately obvious to me that the causal chain goes way below man as a meaningful level of analysis. I am disappointed in evolution itself for not evolving something better. Or God for not creating something better.

Ramadan has just started. It’s a time of many things, but mostly it’s to spend a little time experiencing hunger the way poor people do, a command from high above. It’s a good thing, and to get people to do it, the old ones convinced man that living in someone’s sorry old shoes for a month paves the way to heaven. Putting aside the business transaction for minute, no one ever asks why the Almighty, who is All Mighty, wants to multiply the number of people who are actually feeling hungry, rather than dividing. His multiplication and addition when it comes to suffering and deficiencies are excellent, but division and subtraction are questionable.

I rarely like to go down the god rabbit hole, because it’s old, and silly, and not very interesting. The issue is deeper but still simple, and not necessarily less boring if you’re new to it. Life is just a baby, a bubbling, an ebbing and flowing of the underlying laws constituting the universe. And man is just a temporary articulation of it’s alphabet based on rules. What I am truly disappointed in is the universe itself, and it’s laws. I am disappointed in the fact that after an eternity of existing, this is the best it can come up with. For all of the vast, mind boggling breath of its space and content, and the magical manifestation of life in all of it’s rich diversity, it’s an experiment that gave us a shit sandwich, that we must eat every day. It’s shit if you can’s create life that is just to another life. It’s shit that suffering seems part of the fabric of space and time. It’s shit that a baby can be obliterated by a missile while others go on searching for the next dopamine hit. Shit, shit, shit.

But I have been falling into an old trap that you already likely picked up on. It’s just a mindless universe. So why blame it? It’s absurd. Yeah, but it’s still shit.

Yours,

Sam, B.

Feb 25, 2025

Iran’s Nostrodamus

Hey Frank,

It’s still war-less, but the momentum is building up towards, get this, war and no war! Telling you, quantum indeterminacy all the way till the ships leave or the missiles fall. Which way will it go, left or right? The story yesterday was that General Caine opposes the war. That this will likely be a bloody venture with many American men and women coming back home in body bags, and a costly loss of assets. Three news out lets leaked it, so someone doesn’t want this war to happen. On the other hand, the buildup continues, and indications of the inevitable make themselves known every day. The Americans pulled out their non-essential personal from Lebanon yesterday, and the Germans told their citizens in Israel to stock up on food and supplies.

Seems to me there are two camps against the war around Trump. There are his political advisors who are warning him against a risky venture so close to mid-terms. Dead Americans, and sunk battle ships, and costly fuel will land him in prison after impeachment most likely. Then there is the military, who are saying this is not quick and decisive, but likely long and bloody. Then there is everyone else. Literally. But key forces behind it are the intelligence agencies, the Israeli lobby, and of course, Israel.

Seems to me they will go for it. They believe there is a needle to thread here (with missiles) and that they can do it. From what I gather, the intelligence agencies believe that they can take out the top leadership, and together with a massive strike, will lead to regime fall. The grounds for this are fertile after 40 years of sanctions, and deep economic woes.

But most independent pundits think the regime is too resilient, proven by latest round of instigated riots, and the 12 day war previously, will remain intact, and it will in the end deliver a very bloody nose to the Americans, and a very severe if not deadly blow to Israel.

Who should we believe? And this brings me to a very fascinating question, who is going to be right when this is all over? There are so many predictions on this, it’s hard to keep track. And I am very curious to track who is the Nostradamus on Iran?

Fox news: Iranian people are ready to overthrow the regime. Iran is weak, and they will be defeated easily.

All other news source: muted, and mildly supportive by not asking hard questions.

The Pentagon: it can be won, but not easy. Likely costly in assets and blood.

Scott Ritter: USA will get a bloody nose. Iranian state may be dis-integrated after this. There is no such thing as negotiations with US, it’s all a sham. USA and Israel will going until Iran becomes Syria.

CIA/intelligence/Israel: we got this. Leadership will go, regime will follow.

Larry Johnson, ex Cia Analyst: Chinese and Russia will not sit this one out. America will lose like all other wars. Oil prices will soar.

Col. Wilkerson: A fool’s errand. America will get a bloody nose.

Professor Mirandi: Iran will win. They’ve been preparing for war with US for 40 years. They are more prepared against American than Israel.

Col. McGregor: A bloody nose. Maybe World War Three. Israel will go after Turkey next.

I wonder when this is all over, who would have predicted correctly. I wonder who knows which way the particle will go, when the unseen forces in that mysterious part of the quantum world meets the particles flying towards Iran? Will it veer away, or slam boom into the wall?

Yours,
Sam B.

On the day the war ended, I saw myself going back to the land before it became the land of Eretz, and was asked by the wondering people there, how best too make a people be no more?

Why do you ask? I said. They told me they had found a land to call home, but it is home to another.

Why do you need to take another, if there is plenty? I asked.

Our home must be on the land where the olive trees live, they said. There is only one such land.

The menu for death is old I thought, it is from the time of the first people. It comes with one soul in many forms. Then there was murder, still there is murder. Back then it was blood drawn out by a fist, later an axe, then later a bullet. Then came bombs that blew up people to pieces, and later mushroom clouds pregnant with deconstructed life. One soul, endless forms.

I am handed camel milk, fresh and warm. The men sit around a soft freshly lit fire, the women within eavesdrop close to the tents. My mind goes back into the future to the land where the olive trees live, and there I can hear a sparrow’s song coming from the top of a tree on the edge of a burnt olive grove. It reaches my ear warm and soulful. From deep under the rubble the stench of death rises continuously and spreads over the strip, small enough to cover end to end with the skin of all the dead children killed in the war. Shadows of past people linger everywhere. I can hear the sound of bread being broken, and the warm smiles forming on the faces of the people sitting on the floor as it is passed around. Everywhere I turn, I hear the echo of laughter lingering, persistent, refusing to leave, whose owners were made no more long ago. On the other side of the fence, a few miles away, something else can be heard. I travel there too. It is the chuckles of people watching something on a screen. They dance and mock on TiKTok like modern roman spectators in a mausoleum. On one of their screens a baby covered with dried bits of flesh is squatting wide eyed, dazed from a blast.

I drink the satisfying milk, and set the jug down on the sand. They are looking at me with the eager but tired eyes of a people yearning for rest in want of answers. Forty years, forty years, the old man’s first rises in the air. In their eyes flicker images of their past. I see women with deep wrinkled faces, and old men bent over like blown-over tall grass after a storm, walking in a an endless desert. They were going to where the sea meets the land. There beyond the water, where the olives lives, a new promised land lay. It was a promise of freedom from bondage, the promise of heroes.

What is the recipe? The old man reminded me of the question.

I reached for my milk, and drank the last of it.

Chickens in a pen

Throw a spear to the right, wait

Throw a spear to the left, wait

Throw a spear in the center,

Repeat

Clack, clack, clack,

Ha, ha, ha

Pluck one up, throw into the mincer

Then another, then another

Break the bones, pull the wings

What are you doing asked a passer by?

Defending myself against the chickens, said the man

But they are in a pen, sir. How can you defend yourself against chickens in a pen?

Oh sir, you don’t understand. These are very bad chickens. You see the ones in the back there? Last week three of them broke out and threatened me.

Those chickens threatened your existence?

Yes sir.

How so?

By intention.

But chickens are small, and you are big.

So? They still threaten my existence, in my mind.

Have you mistreated those chickens?

Not at all. I’ve been the best pen ward.

Pluck, pluck, pluck, pluck

Ha, ha, ha, ha.

Mr. Abbas woke up up to find his olive tree gone, from the root up, not a trace left. Only fluffed up dirt where it stood. He stared, looked left, then looked right. Dawn had just begun, and only the rooster, his crowing, and the early birds greeted him. It must be the settlers, but why in the middle of the night? It’s not like them for they always made a point to come when you were there, so you can see and suffer the pain. He turned and walked to the back of the house to his olive grove. They too were all gone, all 59 trees! Ok, he thought, this could not be possible. How? Without any sound? The three foot rocky fence surrounding the grove stood securely as it were the day before. He stood there for about a minute, the only significant event in his existence was the thought running over and over in his mind: I must be dreaming, am I dreaming? I must be dreaming…

Mr. Abas, it turns out was not the only one in Gaza experiencing this phenomenon. All over Gaza, and later on the West Bank, people woke up to missing olive trees. People started gathering in the streets in front of their homes, calling each other, asking questions but getting no answers.

Just beyond the wall, if you look from high enough, something like a dark green carpet of fluff moved across the land towards kibbutz’, towns, cities. If you could tap into the phones you could hear a major panic ensue among the Israeli security forces.

“It’s a forest of olive trees moving by itself”

“What do you mean a forest moving by itself? Listen to your self!”

“Sir, am looking it one right now as it moves down the highway, one root goes up then down, followed by another one, like an octopus. I can’t believe my own eyes too sir’.

The trees walked, slowly, steadily, steadfastly. The towns were warned and into the shelters people ran. The trees climbed over the gates, and into towns and into cities. They squeezed in through the doors into the living rooms. Their roots twisted and turned into the floor, past carpets and wood and concrete into the rich soil below. They drilled themselves down until each root found an old Palestinian bone a thousand years old and wrapped itself around tight.

All over in every home across all towns and cities, olive trees had come alive, uprooted themselves and walked many miles and then did the same thing–always planting themselves into homes of Israelis. Palestinian homes were left untouched seemingly as was found later because all of them had olive trees in their vicinities.

Many years later…

Try as they may, with bulldozers, guns and axes, the trees could not be removed. When one stem was cut another grew, when a saw tried to cut the trunk, it broke. Bullets sunk into the wood and disappeared. They tried burning them, and poisoning the soil, but that only made the trees grow stronger and taller.

Then one day as crowds were gathered around one such tree from one Kibbutz, a small boy reached up, pulled down an olive branch, and plucked an olive. He gave it to his mother. One by one people shifted from trying to cut down the trees to harvesting olives. The Israelis however could not harvest more than half of the olives on the trees. No one could figure out this conundrum for many years until word spread that on trees where half of the olives had remained, Palestinians paid to harvest them were able to pluck the olives. When Israelis tried, they could not.

And so this is how it came to be that the land came to be shared once again with Jews and Arabs. Around each olive tree two homes were built, one for a Jew, one for a Palestinian. The olive tree had brought about peace, and for a long long time after that, the land remained happy and prosperous.

It felt so good to see the first one fly

High above April skies

This time over and away from a far away place

To slap the one smashing your face

Why so long

To right the wrong

That let thousands die

Before the first one had to fly

Will the slap that shook the world

Be enough to ensure

That once and for all

Children bleed no more

What does it mean to live in a dystopian future?

Look at videos of carnage and starving children while browsing for your latest toy on Amazon

Walk into a supermarket superfluous with food and while struggling to choose between the chicken and sirloin think of children eating animal feed

Plan your next trip to Mexico, or wait, maybe Hawaii, and while finding the ‘right’ hotel think of two million people locked up in a 5 by 25 mile prison for 17 years

Sit for Netflix and notice the seamless transition from war scenes on your phone to the trending top ten

Remember as you sift through the menu for a good beer others drink salt water

As you file your taxes this year, imagine your dollar bill morphing into a missile and exploding a child’s head

Notice how after reading this, you and me, go about our business aware however faintly that the war tape is playing in the background silently, and how we are absolutely helpless to help

That is why the ostrich shoves it’s head into the ground. It maybe creating an illusion for itself, but in that hole in the dark where the only thoughts are it’s own, and where the noise of life and death stays above ground, there is peace.

Somewhere not too far away.

“Are you ready?” the operator asked.

“Affirmative”, came the reply.

Mr. Whitman was watching his favorite morning talk show justifying the bombings in Gaza. “We have no choice, it is not a war we want, you see. These terrorists use hospitals, houses, schools, UN shelters….what can we do? Tell me, what army in the world warns with leaflets before they bomb. Collateral damage is inevitable, and every life is tragic”.

Mr. Whitman closed his eyes and felt a sadness well up in his heart at the inevitable nature of ‘collateral’ damage. He felt empathy with the ‘collateral’ people, and he felt good about the fact he felt it. And in his mind he felt he was a good man because of this. Then he thought about all of his fellow Israelis, and he felt they also felt the same way. It felt good.

His son David was sitting beside him when the show started, and they were crunching some popcorn. He looked at him. What a young beautiful boy of four. He was kind, smart, and already knew he wanted to be a scientist like his father.

“David, some popcorn please.” Mr. Whitman extended his hand over without turning his head. Five seconds went by and his open palm felt no popcorn. “Daayvaaiid” he said. Always generous, David never hesitated to give food. So when five seconds later still no popcorn dropped in hands still, he turned his head expecting to see perhaps a distracted or sleeping boy. But to Mr. Whitman’s bewilderment, he saw a boy of about the same age as David n the far corner of the couch. Surprised and afraid, he was dirty from his head to his bruised feet, and he was so gaunt and frail it seemed he may have had no food for a while. Mr. Whitman swiveled his head around the room like an owl, then looked back the boy with a quizzical look.

“Who are you? where is David?”

The boy pulled back further into the couch, his arms pulling his legs into his chest. ‘Ma ba3rif’, he said. Mr. Whitman worked with several Arab Palestinians long enough to have picked up a few words. He was certain this was an Arabic word, and it meant ‘I don’t know’.

Then the a news alert suddenly came on the screen.

“We interrupt this program to report a most bizarre event being experienced across all of Israel. In an event that could only be out of a science fiction movie, about 1.1 million Gazan children have been swapped with Israeli children. We cannot begin to understand or imagine how could this might have happened, but the IDF has confirmed that all the children in Gaza being encountered speak Hebrew, and there are reports coming in now that parents are recognizing their children on cameras. Prime Minister Netanyahu has just issued an order to stop all bombings. We are unsure how many Jewish children have been killed so far. I repeat, a ceasefire has been declared. Stay tuned.”

A Sci. Fi. Story.

In a profoundly bizarre event on the morning of March 30^th, 2024, an F-16 pilot on his way to drop 2000 pound bombs on a terrorist target in Jabalia refugee camp violated orders and returned with bombs still on board. An investigation later that day by the pilot’s incensed and bewildered superiors revealed that a hacker calling himself ‘Mr. Empatik’ had tapped into the sophisticated helmet of the pilot and played a highly realistic visual of the target on their visor. The pilot said he first saw a dark room crammed with ‘terrorist’ families, with many children scurrying about like ‘little filthy rats’. Then a very strange thing began to happen. A yamaka appeared on a child’s head, then another, then another, and what was a cacophony of painful Arabic gibberish to his ears began to sound like the sweet sounds of Hebrew. A burning lantern in the middle of the table morphed into a menorah. On a closer look, he saw the faces of two children suddenly turn into his two beautiful boys David and Joshua. Apparently the scene was so realistic it activated all his mirror neurons, stirring empathetic feelings so strong a revulsion set in at the thought of his objectives, followed by a paralysis of the right thumb poised over the red button. A minute later the nose of the plane turned 180 degrees and headed back north.

Information on the hacker remains limited, and the government has officially denied any reference to this event.  However, leaked reports say fear has spread rapidly through military and political ranks in Israel, the USA and Europe, and a coordinated effort to identify and neutralize the hacker has begun. In the words of one anonymous senior US official, ‘Empatik’ poses a serious threat to all future military operations.