Dear Friends,                                                                                                            No.

“war of choice” “unnecessary war” “unpopular war” “foolish and incompetent war”

No one thinks that the mainstream media know any better. But there are plenty of people who should, including at least some Democratic members of Congress. Why do they go on using such formulations? I don’t know. But the only thing to say about these and many others is

No. No. No. No. No.

This is unprovoked, murderous aggression. Netanyahu is the chief instigator, but, as he knew, Trump was eager to follow along. Trump and Netanyahu share a love of killing. But Trump has no experience of actual killing, he loves it, but as a computer game that will never reach to him. Netanyahu does know about real flesh and blood killing, and he loves it. (Remember his gloating “gift” to Trump, a replica of the cell phones used in one of the nastiest of terrorist attacks to murder members of Hezbollah by blowing their heads off. Yes, Israeli security forces engage in terrorism.)

Trump has no aims, objectives, “policies” in attacking Iran – aims, objectives and policies aren’t his thing. Netanyahu is following an absolutely consistent policy: turn as much of the Middle East into Gaza as humanly possible. He knows what a chicken Trump is, his great fear is that Trump will chicken out before irreparable damage to Iran and its people can be done: the US has the B-52s after all.

The Iranian government is a brutal theocracy. Even brutal theocracies can be the victims of aggression. Who pays the price? The people of Iran. Netanyahu never pretends that his goal has anything to do with freeing the Iranian people – I suppose you could say that’s “honest” of him. Trump manages almost as well since he cannot ever clearly distinguish between the people and the government: complete destruction of Iranian civilization in its entirety is somehow compatible with, even necessary for the Iranian people’s liberation. I sometimes wonder, wistfully, about how easy life must be for someone like that – and, to be fair, I don’t think Netanyahu has it that easy.

The leaders of the Iranian government also are very good at killing, they also really seem to enjoy it. They are responsible for decades of killing, mostly of their own people. They aren’t responsible for this round, even if they participate in it. This round is all on us.

And so the Trump regime, MAGA, all the reactionaries say the Democrats want ‘us’ to lose! Traitors! But even so many who ought to know better (not the mainstream media, obviously) still make it us vs. them. As though there is actually a war to be won. There isn’t.

This isn’t a war between nations, not US against Iran, not even Israel against Iran. I guess you could say it’s a war between governments, but more it’s a war between leaders. At least, a war by Netanyahu and Trump against the Iranian leadership. Yes, typically leadership conflicts are part of wars. This is different. And the most important thing is the relationship between the two leaders on “our” side.

Winning or losing, us vs. them, forget it. This should not have happened, all of us, all US citizens are complicit. The one thing we must all try for is to make it stop. The obvious goal is to get things back to the day before. Yes, this would be a clear loss, humiliation, for Trump, it would be a gain for the US. Yes, loss for Netanyahu, so much more left to be destroyed, but not a loss for Israel. Yes, a gain for the Iranian government, but a gain given to them, above all, by Trump. Who truly loses: the Iranian people. School children dead for nothing, men, women, children dead for nothing. And the usual fruit of the bombs, rubble.

The American government could have stopped this. Every one of the deaths is murder. Every citizen of the US is accessory to murder. Every one of us.

Love and solidarity,

            Bobby

The Federal government no longer exists.