By Jeffrey Blehar
Tuesday, April 07, 2026
By now you’ve likely already heard some of the story: On Friday morning of April 3, an F-15
Strike Eagle, flying on a deep penetration bombing run out of RAF Lakenheath in
England, was shot down by Iranian anti-aircraft fire. (It is the first time the
U.S. has lost a manned jet in combat during the war.) The two-man crew — their
names are currently being kept under wraps — ejected immediately, landing far
apart in the arid mountains of southwestern Iran, with hordes of regime
soldiers now on the hunt for the most valuable wartime prize of all: U.S. military
hostages.
The pilot was retrieved by our boys almost immediately.
But his crewmate, a weapons system officer, was out of pocket — and initially
feared dead. Although wounded during the ejection/landing, the officer ascended
a 7,000-foot mountain ridge and hid himself in a crevice to avoid surveillance,
as he activated his homing beacon.
The rest of the story reads like a triumphant Hollywood
action flick, except that this actually happened. The details will
positively thrill you: Apparently the United States currently has such
dominance over Iranian airspace that it has set up its own temporary airstrip
inside the country, in anticipation of such an event. (We set it up near
Isfahan of all places, which is a central node in the nervous system of
Iranian military power — akin
to Russia setting up a temporary air base outside
Detroit to exfiltrate someone from the outskirts of Pittsburgh.)
I invite you to read up on the details yourself, because
if you ever doubted America’s continued logistical and problem-solving
excellence, this is the story that will revive your flagging hopes — basically
the military version of an Apollo 13 scenario. (In that sense, it happens to
dovetail nicely with the successful launch of the Artemis II
mission: America can still do big, difficult things.)
And that is what really matters. The usual foreign trolls
offered their trolling snark on social media over the weekend, mocking the
millions of dollars of expensive aircraft the Americans willingly torched on
their way out of Iran, after a major hiccup in the attempted extraction. And in
doing so, these people predictably missed the point: Yes, America will set as
much money on fire as necessary to get our military men and women out of harm’s
way, alive. We can do it, and we damn well will do it. Every
soldier, sailor, and pilot implicitly understands this — do your part, and
America will do its part to get you home — and it is but one of the many
reasons that people with the sort of initiative and talent to do nearly
impossible things (like get a hunted man out from deep behind enemy lines
without a single loss of life) sign up to fight for the United States in the
first place.
In any event: I want to see this movie, and I want it
greenlit yesterday. There is absolutely no reason why it shouldn’t be in
theaters by next year. Get me McQuarrie on the screenplay; Peter Berg can direct — he was made for this sort of material.
I want Chalamet in a buzz cut as the improbably elfin weapons system officer,
Tom Cruise pounding the table like a military version of Les Grossman at
CENTCOM, Wahlberg as the guy who does his job, and Javier Bardem as a
steely-eyed Iranian bad guy. I read in Variety about how the movie
industry is abandoning shooting in the Los Angeles area, and I think: You can
film this instant epic at Vasquez Rocks to boost the economy.
Hollywood can make this happen, and they’ve got no excuse not to.
Trump Goes Full Frank Booth on Iran
But then again there’s a chance we’ll all forget about
the rescue after today, because Iran’s life-sustaining infrastructure may be
about to get leveled for an entire generation. Yes, in one of those programming
notes that unavoidably affects the Carnival of Fools, Donald Trump has promised
to unleash the apocalypse upon Iran later on today, after the publication of
this piece. The timing is unfortunate for me professionally, but at least we
can’t say we weren’t warned:
Tuesday will be Power Plant Day,
and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like
it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell
— JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP.
Trump sent this missive to the world on Easter Sunday,
which afforded the opportunity for ample commentary about how the president of
the United States chose Christianity’s most solemn holiday to praise Allah. But
I think we can all recognize sarcasm when we see it — typing in all caps helps.
How many recognize, however, how eerily Donald Trump now seems to be channeling
Frank
Booth in David Lynch’s Blue Velvet with his
escalating threats?
I suppose the president thinks he is “sending a message”
by warning that he will now savage Iran’s roads, bridges, desalinization
plants, and the like. But it feels like cartoon logic to me: The regime seeks
ideological survival above all else and will not bend to such warnings.
Meanwhile the rest of the world gets to see what it looks like when the leader
of the free world takes to huffing nitrous to relieve tension.
Whatever Happened to that Texas Senate Endorsement?
You remember the first round of the Texas Senate primary,
right? Of course you do, if you’re a reader; I beat that topic down into the ground like it owed me money. The unnerving progressive James Talarico dispatched
celebrity eyelash model Jasmine Crockett in the Democratic contest, whereas the
Republican race went into overtime, with Gollum-like Attorney General Ken
Paxton placing just behind incumbent Senator John Cornyn.
The morning afterward, out came President Trump to bluster on Truth Social that he would
pass judgment on this matter soon — and expected to be listened to:
The Republican Primary Race for
the United States Senate in the Great State of Texas . . . cannot, for the good
of the Party, and our Country, itself, be allowed to go on any longer. . . . I
will be making my Endorsement soon, and will be asking the candidate that I
don’t Endorse to immediately DROP OUT OF THE RACE! Is that fair? We must win in
November!!!
That was on March 4. Over a month later — silence. What
happened? Oh, I could speculate, but I won’t. I can still wonder, however.
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