No More Reckless Foreign Wars, He Lied
As the death toll mounts in Iran and the Middle East region, Donald Trump's indifference to civilian fatalities is only surpassed by his hypocrisy
The death toll is rising in Donald Trump’s unauthorized war of choice launched against Iran on Saturday. “We expect casualties with something like this,” Trump blithely stated yesterday, adding, “but in the end, it’s going to be a great deal for the world.”
Seriously. This is how this sociopathic, so-called commander-in-chief summarized his view on the deaths he recklessly triggered (along with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu) without any clear plan of how the conflict would end.
U.S. Central Command says that three service members have been killed and five more have been seriously wounded during military operations so far. The Iranian Red Crescent Society reports that more than 200 people have died in Iran, while 10 people have died in Israel and two in the United Arab Emirates.
The totals also include a mass casualty event when a missile strike hit an elementary girl’s school in southern Iran, reportedly killing 165 and wounding nearly 100 others. “In some of the images,” The Guardian reports, “schoolbags and textbooks are being pulled from the debris.”
The death totals also include about 40 top Iranian officials as a result of American and Israeli strikes, according to CBS News sources. At the top of the confirmed list is Iran’s Supreme Leader, the Ayatollah Khamenei, whose death is being both widely mourned and cheered in Iran. Also believed to be dead are Iranian defense minister Amir Nasirzadeh, Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander Mohammad Pakpour, as well as other top officials of the regime’s security apparatus, including the head of its National Defense Council, the head of its military bureau, the chief of staff of Iran’s armed forces and its intelligence chief.
But while Trump is busy touting his deadly achievement against a terrorizing regime—they arrogantly named the assault “Operation Epic Fury”—we should not lose sight of the fact that this was instigated lawlessly and at the whim of an unhinged authoritarian. This is especially troubling when we recognize that, despite Trump’s lies to the contrary, there was no imminent threat facing America. This conflict is in danger of spreading across an already volatile region and unlikely to end anytime soon, even if Trump wants to quickly and foolishly declare victory.
Reveling in American military might
How did we get here? It’s useful to go back to Donald Trump’s fantasized prediction that a competent president that he despised would be unable to negotiate with the Iranians and start a war. It may surprise you to recall that once correctly noted the foolishness of the U.S. spending trillions in the Middle East, while failing to address America’s basic infrastructure needs.
This is what Trump said in 2011 about then-President Barack Obama: “Our president will start a war with Iran because he has absolutely no ability to negotiate. He’s weak and he’s ineffective.” (In fact, Obama successfully negotiated an agreement to restrict Iran’s nuclear program in 2015, a deal that Trump upended.)
This is what Trump said in 2020: “We’ve spent $8 trillion in the Middle East. And we’re not fixing our roads in this country. How stupid is it? We’re not fixing our highways, our tunnels, our bridges, our hospitals, even, our schools, even. It’s crazy.”
That was then. That was before his derangement and recklessness escalated. That was before the Supreme Court unleashed him by providing him near-total immunity.
That was before his public approval ratings reached historic lows; before the threat of an overwhelming loss in the midterms intensified his desire to do whatever he wants while plotting to thwart the people’s will; before he abandoned America’s traditional allies in Europe and beyond while dramatically expanding his personal fortune by allying with royal Middle East oligarchs; before he became increasingly desperate to change the subject from his involvement with Jeffrey Epstein and his likely pedophilia.
If at one time he had responsible diplomats and military advisors to corral his worst impulses, now he has people like white Christian nationalist and war fanatic Pete Hegseth egging on his deadly assault, real-estate operatives like Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner negotiating with the Iranians, his country club buddies applauding the bombing of Iran and the genocidal Benjamin Netanyahu likely flattering him with the promise that he will emerge from such an operation as a great hero.
If before he would have felt obliged to provide genuine justification for a “massive combat operation” in Iran and the appearance of seriousness by conducting his business from the White House, now he simply releases an eight-minute pre-recorded video in the dead of night while hanging out in Mar-a-Lago and holding a fundraiser behind closed doors. As his physical and cognitive decline accelerates, he can revel in the military might of America.
Hypocrisy and lies
Tragically, we have no reason to believe that Trump cares what the public thinks, especially as early polling indicates that Americans oppose what’s happening.
A new Reuters/Ipsos poll found that only 27 percent of Americans approve of the attacks while 43 percent disapprove. In a YouGov poll conducted Saturday asking whether military action was “justified,” only 32 percent of Americans agreed while 39 percent opposed attacks on Iran.
No wonder. The hypocrisy and lies have been on full display as the reality of this war of choice obviously contradicts Trump’s previous positioning of himself as the kind of guy who stops wars and deserves a peace prize. Consider:
“Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime,” he said in his pre-recorded video, while offering no evidence of an imminent threat.
In his video, Trump announced a “massive and ongoing” attack against Iran to destroy its military capabilities and overthrow its brutal regime. “We are going to destroy their missiles and raze their missile industry to the ground…annihilate their navy…ensure that the region’s terrorist proxies can no longer destabilize the region or the world…never have a nuclear weapon,” he said. “This regime will soon learn that no one should challenge the strength and might of the United States Armed Forces.”
This from the guy who said on election night “I’m not going to start a war” and in his inaugural address “We will measure our success…most importantly [by] the wars we never get into.” This from the candidate who said he opposed forever wars and a Republican Party that promoted Trump and Vance as the “Pro-Peace Ticket.”
In his video, Trump rightly criticized the Iranian terror regime for killing “tens of thousands of its own citizens on the street as they protested,” yet has backed the murder of U.S citizens on American streets and their labeling as “domestic terrorists” to justify the actions.
In January, he convened his made-up “Board of Peace,” insisting that we taxpayers would ante up $10 billion for this, which he said “is a very small number when you look at that compared to the cost of war.” He insisted then—a lifetime ago for the unprincipled Trump—“we can achieve the dream of bringing lasting harmony to a [Middle East] region tortured by centuries of war, suffering and carnage.”
Uh-huh. As the bombing continues and the death tolls rises, that “harmonious dream”—if it was ever anything but an empty platitude from a corrupt con artist looking to further enrich himself and his billionaire cronies—has drifted farther and farther away.
While some House Republicans may join Democrats in a War Powers Resolution vote this week to limit further action, let’s not imagine that Trump is about to be reined in by Congress. After all, he has proven over and over that he’ll say anything in the moment, then do whatever he feels like doing.
Recall his success at bamboozling his own vice president while he was still an Ohio senator. “He has my support in 2024 because I know he won’t recklessly send Americans to fight overseas,” JD Vance foolishly wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed in 2023.
Allow me to say it again: A massive turnout for the midterms and Donald Trump’s removal from office must be our goal. Then and before November, we the majority need to raise our voices loud and clear to assert that enough is enough.
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“You will never find justice in a world where criminals make the rules.” - Bob Marley
Please keep writing, keep speaking, keep holding up the mirror to each and all of us. I’ve said it before and will say it again. G-D help us. This is so much bigger and more overwhelming than anything we’ve had to face as a nation. As usual, it’s not only about the act of war itself, but the much bigger question about what this portends. It’s about a dictator’s embrace of war as not evil but sublime. That’s what I see…the thrill seeker using the United States military to scramble to the top of the heap, leaving all the debris that has resulted for others to remove…while the trophies of war that are his mercenary objectives await. He has torn us asunder. He plunders and he loots. He smites and he lays low…and the innocents who are now dead in a girls school are only the beginning. This is biblical in its scope and scale…and it is now on us. ‘Round and around and around he goes, and what is next…nobody knows.