The American Forever War

Some of you may have noticed I’ve been radio silent on politics since the impeachment. I wanted some peace from the chaos for the holidays. It sounded like a good idea in my head. I spent a couple of weeks avoiding as much political bickering as I could, and in return, Christmas through New Year was a more or less pleasant experience.

Minus the holiday issues, of course.

Let me be clear, there was no serious drama this holiday season. Rolling into the Christmas stretch, I had no excitement. Christmas is my favorite time of the year (for me, that’s Thanksgiving Day until New Year’s Day). But this year I was just meh on the subject. I Wasn’t dreading it. I just didn’t care. Most years that would’ve been enough for me to say, “Fuck it” and bow out. But I didn’t mostly for the sake of my Granddaughter. This was her first Christmas, and I wanted her to be able to look back at the pictures/videos and know her grandfather was there and engaged.

And it worked.

Christmas Eve, more important to me than Christmas Day because all of my kids gather at our house, was wonderful. Christmas morning in front of the tree and Christmas afternoon at my Grandparent’s house were wonderful as well. Three days later, we spent the evening with my daughter’s in-laws family from Jordan. They’d come to meet their first granddaughter. We had a wonderful evening of eating, drinking, and music.

Yep, as the ball dropped on 2019, I had a glimmer of hope for the next year.

I should have learned to temper my optimism because now we have this clusterfuck.

The first trickle of news indicating the United States may have assassinated one of Iran’s top Generals, and a national hero to boot, got my attention. I know a bit, or maybe more than a bit about the region, and I am relatively well versed on who the man was and what he’d done. The man in question, Major General Qasem Soleimani commander of the Iranian Quds Force, was a monster and war criminal.

This is not up for debate.

The question for me, and I hope for those of you reading this, isn’t did the man deserve to die but if we should have killed him when and how we did. If he’d been killed during a battle or as part of a declared war, this would be a non-issue. That’s not what happened, though. What happened is that the United States used a drone to kill him on the grounds of the Baghdad International Airport. Baghdad, the capital city of what is supposed to be an allied nation. We destroyed a section of their largest airport and could’ve killed innocent Iraqi’s, our allies, to assassinate the man.

Again, for those of you in the back of the room, he was a monster.

The President and his sycophants keep saying the killing of the General saved a lot of lives. They’ve said it over and over yet have provided no details or proof to the people of the United States or the Congress. But let’s say it did save a significant number of lives. Let’s give Trump and the MAGAt’s that.

New question.

Why did Trump have him executed? I have a single thought on this. Trump assassinated Soleimani because of Obama. Now hear me out before you scoff or laugh at this. Trump has no foresight, he makes no plans, and there isn’t a logical cell in his brain. Trump has one clear goal since taking office, destroy President Obama’s legacy.

How does this fit my statement?

One of Obama’s single biggest achievements was neutralizing Iran as a potential nuclear power. Hard work from all of the major nations on Earth led to Iran giving up its nuclear weapons program. It also began what could have been a real normalization of relations between Iran and the west. Trump killed that deal. And why? Because he wants to “Renegotiate” the deal and make it his as opposed to Obama’s.

The next isn’t an achievement of Obamas. It’s a black mark. The attack on the American Consulate in Benghazi Libya resulted in four dead American citizens, including the ambassador, and fuel for GOP and Teaparty conspiracists that’ll last for decades. Trump spent years hammering Obama and Hillary Clinton on the Benghazi attack. Fast forward to New Year’s Eve and the attack on the American Embassy in Baghdad. During the attack, a mob occupied sections of the embassy for a short time before retreating. Trump saw this as his Benghazi moment, read his twitter if you don’t believe me, and responded with the assassination of General Soleimani.

Thus, making him better than Obama.

So, I ask again, should we have killed Soleimani?

No.

Soleimani was a hero in Iran. He was a hero in Iraq, where he’s been leading the Quds Force and Iraqi militia units against ISIS and knocking the crap out of them. He was one of the top military commanders of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps. Killing him has been seen as an act of war to the Iranians and proof to our supposed allies in Iraq, who want us out of the country now, that we don’t give a shit about any of them.

But did they really need any more proof?

Iran promises a proportional response to our actions. Trump has threated to bomb fifty-two Iranian cultural sites (by the way that’s a war crime boils and ghouls) if that happens.

What comes after we do that?

Let’s take a look at a few facts.

 As of right now, Iran has no nukes (thanks Obama!). They do have the 14th largest army in the world. They possess modern weapons. The Iranian military is composed of battle-tested troops. And maybe most disturbingly, they pull the strings of the largest network of militias across the middle east and Asia, almost all of which were organized and trained by General Soleimani. And let’s not forget they have a really good relationship with China, a country that can stand toe to toe with us.

The American Neo-Cons. fundamentalist Christians, multinational oil companies, and the Israeli and Saudi governments have been saber-rattling and pushing for war with Iran for decades. They want the Iranian oil supply. They want to control Iran and keep them under a boot in order to “Preserve Peace” in the Middle East and, more importantly, protect Israel.

I don’t care if you’re Republican, Democrat, Independent, conservative, liberal, progressive, moderate, or any position I missed. We have to stop this before it’s too late. This isn’t Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, or Afghanistan. This has the potential to spread worldwide and destroy us. Millions, maybe tens of millions, could die.

And for what?

Because a rich racist child wants to show up the black man he hates.

Much like the European continent at the turn of the twentieth century, there are dozens, maybe hundreds, of different hostile factions and interests crammed into the tiny box we call the Middle East. Inevitably the match was going to get lit, and the powder keg would explode.

I fear Trump lit the match because he’s a petulant child.

But hey, it’s awesome we got to show the Iranians just how big our American dick is. That’ll help keep our spirits up when it’s 2030, and we’re still slugging it out across what’s left of the Middle East. That, of course, assumes we aren’t busy playing bust nuts with the Russians and the Chinese.

One last thing, Ahem…

NO MORE FUCKIGN FOREVER WAR!

- Josh (01/06/2020)

Dayton Ohio