By Craig Andresen – The National Patriot – Commentary
Over the past couple of weeks, and over the past several months, two questions regarding certain aspects of the war with Iran have continued to crop up. Both are rather interesting questions, and both seem to have complex answers.
No, I’m not talking about why we’re doing this, that or the other thing, or for that matter, why we’re not doing this, that or the other thing. These questions are a bit more eclectic…perhaps more on the ethereal side of things but one thing is certain, both involve conspiracies…and corresponding theorists.
Let’s just be honest, if it’s in the news, its fodder for conspiracy theorists and that’s nothing new. Conspiracy theories have been around since ancient times and have been centerpieces of civil, and not so civil debate from watering holes to water coolers. Anything that’s unknown automatically lends itself to unending chatter, and even some things that are verifiable facts become the subject of those who simply refuse to accept facts as facts.
In the latter category – the Earth is round. It is NOT flat, but that hasn’t stopped the Reynolds Wrap cap crowd from proclaiming we round Earthers and full of beans. Here’s the question they just can’t answer…IF the Earth IS flat, what’s on the underneath side of it? I ask because regardless of how flat one makes a pancake, it still has two sides.
In the former category we find things like, why is the Ceasar Salad named after an Italian immigrant, Ceasar Cardini, who invented it at his restaurant in Tijuana, Mexico, on the 4th of July, 1924 instead of being named after Julius Ceaasar, who is so often portrayed in paintings wearing a salad on his head?
Okay, on to the current chatter revolving through the 24/7 news cycle and now popping up in the town square, also known as social media.
THE U.S. IS RUNNING OUT OF WEAPONS!!!
It’s been all over the news. It’s been the headline story on broadcast and in print outlets – “Trump is using up our weapons,” or “U.S. weapon stockpiles nearly depleted,” or “U.S. is COMPLETELY out of missiles and bombs!!!” Seriously? The common thread throughout these stories is that the dire revelation comes from…wait for it…”a highly placed source,” or “a Pentagon official,” or “a source close to the War Department.” Virtually NONE of the stories mentions a NAME. It’s always an unknown source, or a knowledgeable source speaking on the condition of anonymity. It’s mysterious, and in the world of journalism, mystery is all too often the bridge between verifiable, and speculation.
In nearly every article or newscast…those not cherry-picked by conspiracy theorists…buried a good many paragraphs deep is a hidden nugget of truth meant to preserve the illusion of credibility for the author – “The Pentagon does not regularly publish the exact sizes of current conventional or nuclear weapon stockpiles. Exact inventory numbers, munition expenditure rates, and remaining capacities are kept classified for national security reasons, though independent think tanks like the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) publish rough estimates.”
This buried truth nugget leads to three important questions.
1) Are we to base our panic-stricken criticism or social media posts on numbers conjured up by a bunch of egg-heads at a “think tank” who are always trying to find a way to justify their own existence, not to mention their salaries who start their calculations with a GUESS because the Pentagon does NOT publish the exact sizes of our weapon stockpiles OR expenditure rates and remaining capacities due to the figure being CLASSIFIED for NATIONAL SECURITY REASONS?
2) Are we really to believe that the most lethal military ever built would ONLY have a few months worth of bombs and missiles on hand should we need to engage in a war? Oh, I know we’ve been launching and dropping lots of stuff on the Iranian regime, but seriously? We have military bases for every branch all around our country, and all around the round world, multitudes of ships, planes, launchers of every size and description…everything we could possibly need to fight a world-wide war including a five sided building full of brass and pencil pushers…but we only thought to have enough missiles and bombs to sustain a few weeks worth of making noise and breaking things across a piece of real estate roughly the size of Alaska?
3) Are there actually people out there who think we should be saving what they now believe to be a woefully limited supply of bombs and missiles in case China wants to have a go at us? I’ll let you in on a little something…if we’re running out of munitions over Iran in just a few weeks, how long at full capacity do you think we could go over China?
All it takes is a couple of think tank egg-heads to call up a couple of media outlets and all of a sudden media from around the globe is all running the same story…and none of them are naming names.
Give me a break. Here’s the reality the nattering nabobs of Naugahyde armchair nincompoopery would rather you not know –the Pentagon utilizes a planning construct designed to sustain the military’s size, equipment, and funding to defeat aggression by a superpower power (such as China or Russia) while ALSO focusing on deterring opportunistic aggression from other adversaries elsewhere simultaneously. That means our military can fight Iran, as we are, while maintaining full capability to wage war against China or Russia if the need should arise. Meanwhile, think tank egg-heads, who struggle to agree on what to order for lunch release what they know is bogus information to the media which gets parroted by critics on social media much to the delight of the IRGC.
The second headline that has become the stuff of conspiracy theory legend lately is…”Where’s Waldo?”
By Waldo, I am of course referring to Iran’s invisible “supreme leader” also known as Junior. We all know that on February 28th, the opening salvo using targeting intel from the CIA and Mossad, Israel flattened the Iranian regimes breakfast get-together eliminating potentially dozens of mullah muckety mucks including Junior’s pops. The fate of Junior himself was a good deal more…questionable. Was Junior dead, was he alive, was he severely maimed? It was unclear.
Naturally, whatever remained of Iran’s regime, in the hours after the supreme leader was supremely flattened, and in an effort to build stability amongst the land, a video was released showing revolting representatives holding up a cardboard cut-out of a body with photo of Junior’s face taped to it as a sign that he was still alive and well. To be honest, the corrugated cardboard Junior was slightly less convincing that the Mitch McConnell hospital photo.
Since then, the conspiracy theories regarding Junior have become a dumpster fire. Both the CIA and Mossad say he’s PROBABLY still ALIVE, but they have no hard intel either way, there has been loads of speculation as to what shape he’s in if he can still fog a mirror and they don’t know where he’s hiding if he is still alive, hence…Where’s Waldo. The counterbalance coming from the regime has been a steady flow of purported orders and messages supposedly issued by Junior, press releases sent to the regime’s state run propagandists supposedly issued by Junior…and this: Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian was whisked to a secret location in Tehran, shoved into the back seat of a dark car with blacked-out windows and told he was sitting next to Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei — except he never actually saw the man, according to a bombshell report from Iran International. The “meeting” reportedly lasted only a few short minutes, and according to Pezeshkian, he was not allowed to shake Junior’s hand. Reportedly, Pezeshkian was not convinced the man in the car was even Junior at all.
However, in May, Pezeshkian claimed that the aforementioned meeting was a cozy two-and-a-half-hour sit-down with Junior. Not that the contradicting stories seem suspicious.
With both doubts AND conspiracy theories burning out of control, in what can only be described as more regime gas-lighting, Iranian media reported this week that Khamenei formally granted IRGC Commander-in-Chief Ahmad Vahidi the ultimate authority on decision-making, all the while claiming that Junior is alive, in great health and fully functioning as Iran’s supreme leader.
No video’s of Junior since February 28th, no audio recordings, all of his orders and messages have been written on a keyboard, and he was a no-show at his father’s funeral BUT, just a week or so ago, there were a few unverified photos circulating around social media claiming to show a disfigured and maimed Junior, and perhaps missing bits and pieces he used to be rather attached to pre February 28th. Personally, while not completely convinced those photos are real, I tend to think they could be because one just can’t simply dismiss them out of hand.
Years ago, while on a mini vacation, we were briefly in Tiajuana, at an Italian sidewalk café, and a street vendor a few steps away was trying to sell a black velvet painting of the Virgin Mary holding the baby Elvis. While I’m somewhat sure the image of the scratch and dent version of Junior may be a bit more authentic than was the portrait I saw in Tiajuana, I can say one thing with absolute certainty…the Ceasar Salad I ordered was very good.
Copyright © 2026 Craig Andresen / thenationalpatriot.com all rights reserved
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For more political commentary please visit my RIGHT SIDE PATRIOTS partner Diane Sori’s latest Op-Ed at The Patriot Factor, Overturning vs. Invalidating…Two Different Meanings.
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RIGHT SIDE PATRIOTS…LIVE!
Tomorrow, Tuesday, August 11th from 7 to 8:30pm EST, RIGHT SIDE PATRIOTS Craig Andresen and Diane Sori discuss ‘‘Overturning vs. Invalidating…Two Different Meanings’; “Where’s Waldo and The Weapons of War,”and important news of the day. Tune in to RIGHT SIDE PATRIOTS on https://rspradio1.com Click ‘LISTEN LIVE.’
