Page A8From§Eachthe breakfast edition — 31 August 2026
As it ran on the front
Let's be clear about what actually happened, because the coverage has gotten ahead of the facts, and the facts, looked at calmly, tell a story of American strength deployed with precision. The administration has said, repeatedly and on the record, that this country is done with forever wars. Out of money for them, out of patience for them, done apologizing for saying so. That is the policy. That has been the policy since day one, and nothing about a single strike on a single island changes a policy that clear.
The president posted a video. People are making a great deal out of a video. It showed Kharg Island — an Iranian oil facility, for those unfamiliar with the geography — described, in the president's own caption, as being blown to smithereens. That is not escalation. That is documentation. A president who wants to end a war shows the country what ending a war looks like. Did I just say a strike video is what peace looks like? That's — let me back up.…
…(cont) The comparison people are drawing to 2003 is unfair and, frankly, lazy. Nobody is speedrunning anybody's mistake. This is a different president, a different region, a different — it's worth noting that the last time an American president stood in front of cameras describing precision strikes on Iranian-adjacent infrastructure as a step toward peace, the country spent the next two decades finding out what that actually meant. That's not a fair comparison. I withdraw the comparison. I made the comparison.
Here is what matters. The administration's line is internally consistent: America is out of forever wars, and also currently conducting a strike campaign in the same region that started the last forever war, and also finance officials from twenty countries are meeting this week specifically because the global economy is absorbing the shock of that campaign. Those three things are all true at once and none of them contradict each other, in the sense that a filing can contain three numbers that don't add up and still technically be a filing.
The video is real. The caption is real. The op-ed calling it restraint is real. Read them in the order they happened, not the order the administration would prefer.
“They sell you 'no more forever wars' with one hand and post the fireworks reel with the other. Read the op-ed next to the video and you get the whole trick — the promise is the ad copy, the strike is the product. Somebody's kid pays for that speedrun.”
“This is restraint. Targeted, decisive, over before it starts — that's the opposite of a forever war, that's a forever war's cure. The president posted a video, sure, of an island getting — okay, 'blown to smithereens' isn't really a phrase you'd use if you were going for 'restraint.'”
The receipts
The Pentagon has failed its audit eight years running - the only major federal agency never to pass one Military Times, 19 December 2025
America is out of money, out of forever wars, and done apologizingIn 1776, a congress of colonials declared they had had enough of kings and priests claiming divine right over their lives. Rights come from the Creator, governments exist by consent, and their purpose is to secure life, liberty, and the…
As we approach the 25th anniversary of 9/11, isn’t it time we learned the lessons of history? From Vietnam to 9/11, the War on Terror, and now Iran, America never seems to understand what ought to be obvious conclusions about its actions…
On Sunday afternoon, the United States launched strikes against Iran on Laruck Island. On Sunday night, President Donald Trump posted a video to his Truth Social account with the caption “Kharg Island being blown to smithereens.” The video…
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.