PROLOGUE

 

I wrote the blog below late last week and didn’t submit it for editing until April 6 because of Holy Week and Easter. It explains why I think Trump felt free to attack Iran almost 6 weeks ago. Over the weekend, we saw an alarming escalation of war mongering by Trump — not only an obscenity filled post on Easter morning, but a threat this morning to wipe out Iran’s entire civilization with attacks scheduled to begin a few hours from now. Never in the 250-year history of the United States has a president spoken so recklessly. But this maniac gets away with it because he has the support of almost every elected Republican leader and the entirety of his own administration. Together they are preparing to bring about apocalyptic carnage that Trump apparently relishes. I believe they are as guilty as their cult leader because they are aiding and abetting his wanton destruction of every norm we have held dear. 

 

In earlier times, pre Trump, one would expect that either the Cabinet (through Article 25) or Congress (through impeachment) would intervene to stop this lunacy. But in MAGA times, the lunatic has Congress under his thumb. His cabal of toadies (the Cabinet) cheer on his every move. So we are left to wait and pray that something derails the would-be dictator from his clearly stated intention to bomb Iran back into the Stone Age. War crimes is too tame a term for what he says he’s contemplating.

 

I don’t know how all this makes you feel. For my part, I’m angry and immensely ashamed. I also feel immense frustration that I cannot do anything more than demonstrate on No Kings Day and wear my anti-Trump T-shirts around New Orleans every day. 

 

Think over the next few hours about the plight of innocent civilians in Iran and the stain that spreads over our country. Here are my thoughts about how we got to this moment.

 

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In the early years of this century, America invaded, occupied and tried — futilely, as we would learn — to bring down rogue governments in Afghanistan and Iraq. Under the misguided leadership of George W. Bush and his squad of neocon hawks, notably Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, conventional ground forces went into both countries, in Afghanistan to root out terrorists and in Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein. Tens of thousands of civilians died in both countries or were dislocated. Almost 7,100 U.S. soldiers died, 50,000 were wounded. The cost — still rising because of long-term debt and veterans care — will be between $4 trillion and $6 trillion, according to the Harvard Kennedy School. 

 

For all the blood and money, we failed spectacularly: When we left Iraq in 2011, our efforts to create a democratic state free of violence and terrorists had come to naught. When we pulled out of Afghanistan in 2021, the Taliban was still in charge after 20 years of fighting. 

 

Donald Trump, who derided those wars as colossal failures of previous administrations, has conveniently forgotten them as his war with Iran enters its 6th week. His promises to stay out of “endless wars” abroad and instead prioritize the country’s domestic problems — made over and over when he campaigned for his second term — ring hollow.

 

So why did he launch another Mideast war? Assuming that his brain is functioning normally — a leap of faith, I think — three reasons come to mind. First, Trump is willing to wage war because it pays. Rich people get richer when we bomb, especially in places  that produce oil. Second, he is high on the elixir of machismo; he covets the image of a wartime president just as George W. Bush did. He craves the tough guy image that he has never measured up to. Third, he knew he could wage war by remote control, limiting Americans’ battlefield casualties. 

 

Trump also assumed, perhaps rightly, that the American public would be OK with killing and maiming thousands of innocent Irani and Lebanese civilians. 

He knew their identity as Muslims would ensure that most Americans would consider their deaths as a legitimate cost of war. 

 

Let me dig a bit deeper.

 

War Pays

During and immediately after the Iraq war, it was clear who “won”: oil and gas giants, oil field support companies, weapons manufacturers, and military contractors — all profiteers of wars. I’m thinking of huge companies —  ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron, Halliburton, Bechtel, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, and Blackwater, to name a very few. They are the heart and soul of the military-industrial complex that President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned about in his farewell speech 65 years ago. Their boards of directors include military brass who were previously their customers and whose business it was to make war.  Believe me when I say that there’s a direct correlation between these companies’ burgeoning profits during wartime and the fees paid to their directors and officers.

 

War is good for business and the Iran War will be no exception. Questions about Trump’s mental state aside, he firmly grasps the dynamic of war and the profits it generates. He doesn’t waste a minute worrying whether the CEOs of these giants might balk at another war. He knows that profits will always trump empathy for the civilian population of the attacked. 

 

Machismo – our national disease

America has always pumped up its ego by likening its national persona to the mythical Marlboro Man — a ruggedly independent and up-by-the-bootstraps people. Boasting about our greatness makes us feel good even though we scold our children for boasting about themselves. For some reason, we not only tolerate, but rally behind leaders who constantly trumpet to the rest of the world that we are greater than them. It is part and parcel of our macho personality. 

 

This disease, in its metastasized form, is now front and center in the person of Pete Hegseth, our reprehensible, cartoonish Secretary of War (secretary of war” because it’s more bare-knuckles than secretary of defense.) I have written enough about his warrior mentality and (oxymoron alert) Christian nationalism. You know what he is like. It is shameful that our country has such a mongrel as a Cabinet officer, much less one with all the weapons!

 

But Hegseth is a symptom, not the disease. The disease is our culture’s willingness to permit the bro, antiwoke, podcaster-based manosphere to corrupt the philosophy of one of our two political parties without fighting back. Reasonable people can agree that some of the notions of the woke left are over the top; many liberals I know draw the line at using woke pronouns, for instance. It’s something else entirely though to abandon moral and high-minded principles, like affirmative action and help for the poor. 

 

Yet the Republican plan for Trump 2 —  Project 2025 — mandated a frontal assault on anything that the anti-woke macho men of the Heritage Foundation found offensive. They went after everything — DEI, affirmative action, Black History month, pronouns, displays in museums that showed the cruelty of slavery. You name it, they crushed it. 

 

This bully mentality so suffuses the Trump administration and the Republican Party that when Trump decided he needed a war, he knew his henchmen would fall in line. No debate, just blind obedience to the strong man. And no matter how obscenely he speaks on Easter morning about bombing and killing and annihilation, not one Republican leader objects. The disgraceful Lindsey Graham is almost faint with adoration about what his cult leader is doing. 

 

Remote Control War

Any president would have qualms about starting a war that risked massive U.S. casualties. But when our military leaders can assure a president that casualties will be minimal, he or she might become more willing. We’ve now reached the point when our military can make such a promise. We wage war by computer screen and drone and missile. The aircraft we launch are able to evade radar and drop bombs flying miles high in the sky. Knowing that our troops would be relatively safe, Trump forged ahead with his war. 

 

It goes without saying that those being bombed had no such safety. As of early April, we have killed over 2,000 Iranians and injured over 25,000. In southern Lebanon, the Israelis with our blessing have killed some 1,300 and injured over 4,000. We know that all those killed were not terrorists. Many, if not most, were normal citizens and their children — innocent victims of our chosen war. Millions in both countries have been displaced from their homes.  

 

Remote control war is how rich countries attack poorer countries, kill their citizens, destroy their homes and then return home mostly unscathed. The last month of bombing in Iran and Lebanon shows that Israel and the U.S. have mastered remote control war.

 

The shameful trifecta of wars is complete. Americans who trivialize the loss of Muslims lives in the Middle East will feel no real pain, aside from the higher price of gasoline. The capitalists who run our military-industrial complex will be happier and richer. The oil and gas industry will see their profits soar. Sharp traders who make millions using inside information from Trump when oil prices and stocks rise and fall dramatically will rake  in piles of war profits. 

 

All will be well in our macho capitalist dream world.

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