Back to the Future

The Man-Baby Plays at War

We had thought about visiting Europe this fall. Our first idea was the U.K. It turns out that since April, Americans needed a visa to visit. I tried navigating their online visa application routine, but the app and website are dysfunctional. I tried calling and all I got was a surprise phone charge of $70 and assurances that they had received no complaints about the process. Then we started thinking about Greece or Turkey. No visa required.

Now our government has escalated its murder of Muslims, first through its Israeli proxy, now directly. Truth is, as an American I would be ashamed to show my face anywhere abroad. I suppose I could masquerade as a Canadian.

I had been warning about this for months, in a futile effort to knock down anti-Biden thinking founded on the Israeli carnage in Gaza, suggesting Trump as some kind of peace candidate. I pointed out the threats to Yemen, Lebanon, and Iran, not to mention Palestine itself, under Trump 2.0. Would Kamala have been any better? Quite possibly not. But there should have been no question about Trump. Now the proof is in the pudding.

Biden is no longer president. Anyone who responds to the latest outrage by harping on Biden’s inadequacies is boosting Trump and his crimes.

Almost — almost — as disturbing as what the U.S. is doing, now at Trump’s behest, is the way this moron talks about his decisions. The assault on rationality, logic, and elementary dignity is filtering down, through the political system.

The silver lining in this very dark cloud is that the Left can take ownership of the peace movement. This will become difficult if Iran retaliates and causes some U.S. casualties, as indeed it has every right to do, but opposing the Vietnam war was difficult until it became easy.

MAGA has lost any claim however flimsy to any anti-war credentials. It is amusing to find some online morons trying to put this on Joe Biden. A few are saying MAGA was deeply dependent on anti-war sentiment. I didn’t see it, but we should find out.

The talking points are simple:

1. There is no evidence Iran was at the point of building a nuclear weapon. We have recently had the experience of utter lies being offered to justify U.S. aggression. Old folks like me can remember the Gulf of Tonkin. Google it, kids;

2. Other nations with whom the U.S. has been at loggerheads have had nuclear arms for decades, arms moreover targeted on the U.S., with no adverse consequences, other than the gross waste of resources on all sides in maintaining weapons systems of mass destruction;

3. Iran has a perfect right to determine its own defense needs, including nuclear arms;

4. There is no logic to the fear that Iran would deploy WMDs at nations such as Israel or the U.S. who possess the means for massive retaliation. Any notion that, well they are just fanatics who could do anything is just ignorant racism. Their willingness to negotiate away their national rights has already been demonstrated. More’s the pity.

5. My least favorite talking point is that we would be wasting money on armaments that could be put to better use. This is wrong on two counts. One, there is actually plenty of dough for both guns and butter. Two, if defense spending was pared back, the likelihood is not that the savings would be devoted to human needs. Democrats have mostly dealt themselves out of that business.

6. My other least favorite talking point is yammering about the poor national debt. I’ll forego my usual diatribe on that count. Readers have seen it before.

7. If you want to criticize the policy because it is being badly implemented, please stop reading this substack and never darken my doorway again.