Originally Posted by Turbosina

Well let's see, so far we are accomplishing the following financial transfers as a result of this "expedition":

-- Significantly more money coming out of consumers' pockets and going directly to Russia and Iran. Whether you're filling your tank, buying an airline ticket, or buying anything that has to get shipped anywhere (which is everything, unless you're buying from your next door neighbor)... more of your hard earned money is now supporting Russian and Iranian power.

- Much of those funds are also going to oil companies across the globe. Given the US corporate tax rates, very little of those excess profits will be returned back to the average taxpayer in the form of any kind of beneficial government spending).

- While we continue to add to our national debt at a frankly horrifying rate, we simply push the can down the road. Thereby making our own economic future even dimmer. (And yes, I agree, *both* parties are to blame for this.) But simply compare the amount of debt added under the last few presidents (start with Reagan and go through Trump 47) and ask yourself: really, which party has been worse for the national debt?

-- And as the article above mentions, the SoH controls much more than just the flow of 20 pct of the world's oil. I had no idea that so much of the world's fertilizer depends on that waterway being open. The implications for food costs -- not today, not tomorrow, but months from now -- are staggering.

As Americans, we really have become a soft nation. We have become so used to an incredible standard of living and all the conveniences of the modern age. We've spent much of the last three decades as the world's only superpower, ever since the collapse of the USSR. We're so used to all this prosperity that we absolutely take for granted our pre-eminent status in the world, our standard of living, our position of leadership in science, medicine, technology, and so on.

But now it would appear that we think we can do whatever we like -- threaten allies, back out of deals, start actual.shooting wars, and it will all be just fine, because things have gone mostly our way for the last 8 decades. Those of us who are old enough to remember when we weren't a superpower, are mostly in the next world now.

However, actions have consequences. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. You can only break so many things inside a house before the house comes crashing down on you. This war will affect FAR more than just the price of gas you pay at the pump...but few supporters of the war are willing to realize or admit that.

If this war drags on for a significant period of time, I think even the most hardcore supporters of this war, and of everything else we're doing to try and blow up the world order that has existed since 1945 and allowed us to become the great nation that we are...well, I have to think that at least some of these folks will realize that 'move fast and break things" might have worked as a company motto at Facebook. But it is never the motto of a great nation.