Life During Wartime

Bob Lefsetz’s Original Post – Life During Wartime

What I was feeling was we were jocular, without a care in the world, and not quite halfway around the world, people not only were losing their homes, they were losing their lives.

And at what time in world history can you point out when “people were not only losing their homes, they were losing their lives”?

Now when it comes to the Iran war… I’m numb. You could call it overload. From DOGE to ICE to so much more, and now there’s a war?

There’s pretty much a war going on somewhere around the world every day of every year. What do you suggest we do about that?

It’s a little scary when a presidential candidate actually does what he promised to do during his campaign, isn’t it? You’d rather have another four years of senile Old Uncle Joe Biden and Kamala “I can imagine what will be, unburdened by what was” Harris, neither of whom did anything in four years except to encourage at least 10,000,000 people to simply walk across our border.

If you’re a boomer, you consider war anathema. We couldn’t understand it. Yes, World War II happened, before we were born, but that set the record straight. Of course there was the cold war, but that was no reason for people to lose their lives.

You must be referring to the Korean War, or the Vietnam War, or what nearly became the third world war during the Cuban missile crisis. Lots of lives lost during the so-called “cold war”. Do your homework and stop shooting from the hip. 

Immediate post‑WWII (1940s–1950s)

• Chinese Civil War (resumed 1945–1949).
• First Indochina War (France vs Viet Minh, 1946–1954).
• Greek Civil War (1946–1949).
• Arab–Israeli War / Israeli War of Independence (1947–1949).
• Indo‑Pakistani War of 1947–1949 (first Kashmir war).
• Korean War (1950–1953).
• Malayan Emergency (1948–1960).
• Algerian War of Independence (1954–1962).

Decolonization & Cold War hotspots (1960s–1970s)

• Vietnam War / Second Indochina War (major U.S. phase 1964–1973, ends 1975).
• Laotian Civil War and Cambodian Civil War (part of the wider Indochina conflict).
• Congo Crisis / First Congo War era precursors (1960–1965).
• Nigerian Civil War / Biafran War (1967–1970).
• Six‑Day War (Arab–Israeli, 1967).
• War of Attrition (Egypt/Israel, 1967–1970).
• Indo‑Pakistani War of 1965.
• Indo‑Pakistani War of 1971 (Bangladesh Liberation War).
• Yom Kippur War / October War (Arab–Israeli, 1973).
• Ethiopian Civil War (1974–1991).
• Lebanese Civil War (1975–1990).
• Cambodian–Vietnamese War (1978–1989).
• Soviet–Afghan War (1979–1989).

Late Cold War & immediate post‑Cold War (1980s–1990s)

• Iran–Iraq War (1980–1988).
• Falklands/Malvinas War (UK–Argentina, 1982).
• Sri Lankan Civil War (1983–2009).
• First Intifada (Palestinian uprising, 1987–1993).
• First Gulf War / Persian Gulf War (1990–1991).
• Yugoslav Wars (1991–2001: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Kosovo etc.).
• Somali Civil War and UN/U.S. intervention (from 1991).
• Rwandan Civil War and genocide (early 1990s, peak 1994).
• First Congo War (1996–1997).
• Second Congo War / “African World War” (1998–2003).
• Kosovo War (1998–1999, NATO intervention 1999).

Post‑9/11 and 21st century

• U.S.‑led invasion of Afghanistan and ensuing war (2001–2021, various phases).
• U.S.‑led invasion of Iraq and Iraq War (2003–2011, plus later insurgency/ISIL phases).
• Darfur conflict in Sudan (from 2003, very high casualties and displacement).
• Second Intifada (2000–2005).
• 2006 Lebanon War (Israel–Hezbollah).
• Russo‑Georgian War (2008).
• Arab Spring–era wars:
  • Libyan Civil Wars (2011; renewed 2014–2020).
  • Syrian Civil War (from 2011, ongoing and heavily internationalized).
  • Yemeni Civil War (from 2014/2015, large regional involvement).
• War in Donbas (Ukraine–Russia‑backed forces, 2014–2022).
• Russian full‑scale invasion of Ukraine (2022–present, continuation/escalation of Russo‑Ukrainian War).
• Ongoing Israel–Palestine conflicts and 2023–present Gaza war (often catalogued separately as a major conflict).
• Renewed Sudan conflict (2023–present, between Sudanese Armed Forces and RSF).

The seventies were about licking our wounds, recovering from the turmoil of the sixties.

The eighties were about an economic run-up, the boomers cashing in.

The nineties were about the fall of communism.

And the twenty first century has been about tech and income inequality.

But, for a while there, we were convinced there would be no more wars.

I think we’ve uncovered a valuable new resource for “artificial intelligence” in Bob Lefsetz, because what he thinks is “intelligence” is entirely “artificial” based upon nothing but his left coast opinions and vacuous knowledge of world history.

But North Vietnam did introduce us to guerilla warfare, turns out big bad America could not compete with hearts and minds, that’s how strong belief systems are.

“Big bad America”? That’s how you view our country? Perhaps we went and stayed in Vietnam for too long for many of the wrong reasons, although the outcome might have been different if the military had not been hamstrung and restrained by Washington politics. If you truly believe  that the “hearts and minds” of the South Vietnamese people were in favor of being overrun by the Communist North Korea, you are even more ignorant of Southeast Asian history and politics than I previously assumed.

And then we got Ukraine… I expected Russia to run over the country in a matter of weeks, if not days, and so did Putin. But it turns out that drones not made in sleek factories, but basements, could keep the Russians at bay.

So you’re telling us that basement drones are what made all the difference in preventing Russia from rolling over Ukraine and resulting in 1.2 million Russian casualties? LOL! I wonder if the $380 billion dollars donated to Ukraine from the U.S. and Europe had anything to do with this? Are you really this naive?

This is another thing that bugged us in the sixties, the fat cats and their children did not have to fight, it was the underclass who had no other financial options and the youth of America, that was being drafted in droves.

And that ended with the establishment of our all-volunteer army.

I suppose you would prefer that we send Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Sam Altman, Oprah Winfrey, Mark Zuckerberg, Billie Eilish and a few dozen Hollywood and rock & roll millionaires to fight our wars. Allah forbid that regular people seeking employment and an opportunity to serve their country should be allowed to choose an important job in defending the United States.

Now on 9/11 America was targeted. A good portion of the public wasn’t even alive back then, certainly not aware. But the anger and hysteria in the wake of those attacks… You see, we believed it couldn’t happen here, that we were inviolate. But then it did.

And how and why did 9/11 happen? Foreigners with visas came into our country during a time when homeland security was lax and airport security was slight. And today we now have an estimated 14-18 million unvetted illegal immigrants from countries all over the world in the United States, thanks mostly to the Biden/Harris administration. We are LESS secure and safe than anytime in our history.

And now you’ve got Newt Gingrich saying to drop atomic bombs in Iran to win the war. And he wasn’t joking.

Source, please? That goofy statement is a lie, and if you did ANY research before you began lecturing your rock & roll blog subscribers with your amateur political blather, you would not be so irresponsible.

– In mid‑March 2026, Newt Gingrich posted on X endorsing language from a Substack piece suggesting that, instead of fighting over the 21‑mile‑wide Strait of Hormuz, the U.S. could “cut a new channel through friendly territory” using “a dozen thermonuclear detonations” to create a new shipping canal wider than Panama and deeper than Suez.

-The scheme targets territory near or around Iran (to bypass the Iran‑controlled Strait of Hormuz) via nuclear blasts, not a direct call to drop bombs on Tehran or other Iranian population centers.

– Media and critics have summarized this as Gingrich advocating nuclear weapons use in the Middle East or “using nukes on Iran,” but technically his cited scenario is about detonating thermonuclear devices to dig a canal in “friendly territory” to avoid the strait.

“To win the war”?

Absolute unmitigated bullsh*t. 

But this isn’t really about the war. It’s about life. I’m living a normal life.

Sure, my assets have taken a hit. As for gas… My car requires premium, but it’s nearly twenty one years old and paid for, it’s not an F-150 or giant SUV that I’m paying a grand a month for that costs a fortune to fill.

Your assets? Gas is still much cheaper today than it was 16 years ago during the George Bush administration when it peaked at about $4.11 per gallon in July 2008. And if your assets have “taken a hit”, I guess you’ll have to stop buying the “best”:

“There are a few areas where I don’t cheap out. Health, my ski equipment and my computer equipment. Oh, and my car too. I feel good that I got two new pairs of skis last year. Because it made me happy! Skiing is number one, that’s why I went to Middlebury, and that’s what I still do, 57 days last year…”

“I won’t buy an American car. Period. My ski boots are made in Italy. Yes, I’ll pay extra for a foreign car, because I’ll save money in the long run. I’ll pay the premium, because I want the best.” – Bob Lefsetz

But I’m not going to debate Trump with you.

Probably an excellent idea – because with your stage four Trump Derangement Syndrome TDS you not going to convince anyone of anything.

I’m not even going to thread the needle with the Israelis, other than to say whatever rationalization Netanyahu has for his actions, the consequence has been increased antisemitism, and it was already high.

This has always been the point of view for progressive Democrats – we cannot fight back, we cannot defend our interests, nor can we help others who are being attacked and killed, because it will only increase the anger, hatred and violent attacks against US from the people who are causing harm. Will Iran use a nuclear weapon if they acquire one? They have said for more than 30 years that they would, chanting “Death to America” and Israel would lose 10,000,000 citizens the day the first bomb drops. So what is your response?

I go skiing. I talk at lunch about my bucket list. Before that we were discussing financial advisors. It’s like the rest of the world doesn’t exist. Then again, what exactly can we do?

You could stop bloviating your political nonsense across America to good people who enjoy your perspectives on entertainment, music, rock & roll and even movies and books. Nobody subscribes to read your shallow, uninformed, undocumented and radical left wing scribes.

Never mind that we all have our own news sources, and you can’t convince anyone their opinion is wrong.

Meanwhile, the goal is to create your own personal brand…

And the Bob Lefsetz brand is all over the map – you’re an expert and authority in the field of entertainment and rock & roll, and we subscribe to your newsletter for exactly that. Beyond that, you’re nothing but a Democratic spokesman for “The Squad”, Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, Gavin Newsom, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Zohran Mamdani and the other loonies on the extreme left. 

Life is going on like normal.

Like it did in Germany in the thirties and forties.

I could ask how that turned out, but that’s not even my point.

If that’s not your point, why mention it? Well, because it IS your point and it’s an irrelevant one, at that!

I guess my point is that everybody’s going along with their everyday business. Planning for tomorrow like we’re still living in the nineties.

And will that continue?

What would you suggest we do instead? Go to Defcon I everytime someone drops a bomb on a Mosque, Synagogue or church?

Will the AI bubble burst?

And, pray tell, what does that have to do with ANYTHING you’ve mentioned above?