Notes On The War(s)
A text message exchange with a young friend of mine yesterday, March 1st here in Korea:
She: I’m struggling with deciding how many clothes I should bring to Seoul. On another side of the earth, war is happening.
I: Yes, there are now multiple wars happening, due to a few idiots who think they can do whatever they want. I hope you will be happy with your clothes choices.
Netanyahu continues to need war to evade his legal and political troubles. Trump continues to grasp at straws in search of a last-minute rescue from the inevitable comeuppance of all authoritarian punks which is surely racing towards him this year — unless he can find a way to delay or nullify the midterm elections in November, or to cleanse the obviousness of his, shall we say, creepy Epstein associations from the collective consciousness of his long-time faithful. “Men” (Trump’s inclusion requires the qualifying scare quotes) with darkness in their pasts and emptiness in their hearts will stop at nothing to protect themselves, a fact made more acute when such “men” are given access to every means.
The brilliant intelligence gathering and precision strike capacity that allowed the Israeli military to murder the Ayatollah Khamenei along with a large contingent of his deputies within minutes of the opening of this newest war, must be viewed and assessed in conjunction with the absolute ineptitude and grotesque folly that allowed the same military, or perhaps its counterpart, the most skilled and advanced military in human history, to murder a hundred schoolchildren within the same initial wave — and in light of the official willingness of the civilian leadership of these two militaries to feel and express no qualms (let alone shame) about the latter outcome in light of the former. “The necessary evils of war” is a more difficult rationalization for the people who started the war without any clear justification for why it had to happen now, and this way.
A few months ago, and again within the past twenty-four hours, Trump assured the world that he had “obliterated” the Iranian nuclear program, which used to be the essential baseline justification for any contemplated war against Iran. Now he is flippantly committing U.S. troops to an open-ended war in the Middle East, and casually, with arm-chair tough guy insouciance, dismissing U.S. military deaths as the price of victory, without even the nuclear-doomsday-prevention excuse to fall back on. He simply does not care if American servicemen die in his war of convenience. On the contrary, I would guess that he rather likes the prospect of their deaths, as it heightens his sense of dominance over the military as his own personal tool and public relations bludgeon, a willing and compliant servant of his wishes and whims, just another useful faction of his MAGA morons, to be exploited and dispensed with as needed in the service of his infinite urges to adolescent vanity, material profiteering, and id-massaging.
Offensive wars and the U.S. Constitution. There are rules about these things. The last American president to undertake a major offensive action in the Middle East, George W. Bush, abided by these rules. Donald Trump, true to form, does not recognize these rules, hires only “advisors” who promise never to interrupt his stream of consciousness with such peccadilloes, and in the end has acted entirely without concern for these rules. And by rules here, of course, I mean the fundamental law of the land. In Trump World, the only laws are Trump’s urges and calculations. There is a direct conflict here between Trump’s oath of office, based on the most serious and foundational law of his country, and Trump’s words and deeds. This ought to matter to the American people, the American media, and the American voters who chose this “man” as their dear leader, much more than it does. That is to say, America is now living, if that is the correct word for it, in direct contradiction of its political and moral essence, its founding ideas, its national definition. It is no longer a government of laws and not of men. It is no longer a representative republic. It no longer honors the rule of law as an essential good.
Oh well. Modernity, like many attractive dreams, seemed like a great idea, until suddenly it didn’t.
