

'On Board the Trans-Siberian' (2/2). As the train speeds toward the Russian Far East, between Novosibirsk and Vladivostok, the brutality of the war in Ukraine is at the center of conversations between soldiers on leave and 'ordinary' passengers.
https://www.salon.com/2026/03/29/iran-is-right-trump-has-already-lost-this-war/
Wow, I’m jealous. This is solid writing.
“#Trump and Pete #Hegseth and Marco #Rubio and whomever else were lured into this war by Benjamin #Netanyahu, pushed into it by the billionaire donors of the #Israel lobby and, more than anything else, seduced into it by massive institutional incompetence and their thoroughly unfounded belief in their own awesomeness. As one Bluesky poster put it in early March, those guys believed they could wage and win a war easily just by being “based chads” (i.e., white dudes with retrograde attitudes about literally everything) who would avoid all the weak, woke, DEI-informed mistakes made in previous conflicts by such lily-livered libtards as, um, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld.”
Newsome is unsavoury, but he sure knows how to get under Trump's skin.
There's this scene that lives rent-free in my head, with a character in the show The Diplomat saying "i still believe in international rules-based order". It's killing me lol. And it shows exactly the point of their jobs: cover-ups. Politely excusing horrible war crimes.
This is not just Trump. It's a long history of the US and other countries doing what they want, because who is going to stop them?
Just like West Wing, The Diplomat is a fantasy for liberals, and even then they can't make themselves look good.
Dozens of assassinations, kidnappings, regime changes, support for violent extreme-right groups... par for the course for the US. This won't stop until the US collapses.