2/28/26

IRAN IS A TERRIBLE PLACE.
THE IRANIAN WAR IS WORSE

THE WAR ON IRAN IS WRONG. 
     It’s hideous. Illegal. Murderous. And senseless.
      No matter how long it lasts or how briefly, how it turns out, how many buildings are destroyed, how many or how few people it kills and maims, it is wrong.
     I say this without any special insight, and knowing that many others will state the case more factually, with greater insight and far more eloquently than I can.
     But the attack that an unhinged, evil man wearing a baseball cap launched while most of us were sleeping demands that we say something.
     Because the 2026 Iranian War is not just Donald Trump’s war, it’s America’s war. It’s our nation doing the bad thing. It’s our aircraft carriers, jets, bombs, drones, missiles and the rest of the machinery of death that are bankrolled by our taxes, enabled by our votes, carried out under our name.
     It’s our fault, even if some of us - a lot of us - don’t want it to be.
      * * *

I WASN’T SURPRISED when I woke up to the answer to “Would-he, or wouldn’t he ?” guessing game Trump had been playing about launching an attack, I was only disgusted.
     It’s obvious that the draft-dodger-in-chief talks about being a peacemaker but at heart is a war monger. He’s a bully, and, commanding a powerful military, can get others to do his mean, cruel work.
     As is always the case with Trump, there were strange twists.
     Normally (if there is such a thing about declaring war) a president should be making the case for war to Congress, which the Constitution says has the power to say yes or no. And, ideally, a president might address the nation directly .
     But in making his momentous announcement, Trump put on a baseball cap, marked “USA,” then posted a recorded video on his social network at 2:30 a.m., Eastern.
      And then there was his reason for going to war.
     Iran is a terrible country.
      But if that were the criteria for declaring war, we’d be back in Afghanistan, and invading  Russia and China,  two of the most evil countries in in history. Indeed, we’d be a war with much of the world.
     Instead, now the United States of America itself has joined the world’s most dangerous states, making war whenever we feel like it, just because we can and because an unbalanced man we elected wants to make war.

THERE WERE THE USUAL TRUMP ABSURDITIES.
     Among the most outrageous was Trump’s call-out to everyday Iranians to take charge of their nation:

     Finally, to the great proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand. Stay sheltered. Don’t leave your home. It’s very dangerous outside. Bombs will be dropping everywhere. When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations.

     To review:
     First, stay home, then duck and cover, while we bomb your country to smithereens. 
     Next, “take over.” 
     It was a stirring call to action. Kind of like a few weeks ago , when Trump suggested he’d have Iranians’ backs if they took to the streets to protest the regime, that outcome being the slaughter of thousands of demonstrators by the government.
      Trump didn’t say how Iranians should change their government, who would be in charge, or any practical  details, just that this would be the opportunity of a lifetime. Maybe.
      Finally, Trump tossed in this afterthought for Americans to consider, specifically the soldiers whom he was putting at risk.

     … The lives of courageous American heroes may be lost, and we may have casualties. That often happens in war. But we’re doing this not for now. We’re doing this for the future. And it is a noble mission. 
     
     Yup. Wars kill all sorts of people, including the folks who fight them.
     It often happens.