Opinion/Editorial
WHY WE, AND THEY FIGHT, AND HAVE FOUGHT
High emotion. Extremely high emotion. The war in Iran is not being fought about nuclear weapons potential, civil unrest, bad leadership, the closing of the Straits of Hormuz, Suez, or any of that. It’s being fought over high emotion. Think back to the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Japan was being blockaded by the U.S. from getting enough oil to run most of its machinery. Japan sent emissaries of peace to the U.S. in early December of that year.
That peace delegation was in conference with the representatives of the U.S., arranging terms, when the military fleet, which had set sail before the delegation was sent, bombed Pearl Harbor. The Japanese leadership wanted to ‘cut the head off the snake’ and disable the U.S. from naval activity in the Pacific for years to come. The emotion that kicked back upon that country was monumentally huge, and a lot of it was generated by the two-faced, low-life, and direct deception caused by the bombing while brushing the U.S. leadership aside so the attack would be a total surprise.
The outrage still rankles many today and sits as an example of ungentlemanly, dishonorable, and mean-spirited behavior through the ages. When the U.S. chose to use the same tactics and similar actions against Iran, catching that country as completely by surprise as the U.S. was caught on December 7, 1941, the outrage ran straight into the core and heart of the Iranian people. The calling of the leadership of the country to a peace conference, which the U.S. did, and then the deliberate killing of those who attended while covering that disgusting action by saying it happened on the ‘first day of the war,’ a war that did not exist at the time, brought the country’s different factions together like never before. Extreme high emotion caused the opposite of what might have been intended by U.S. leadership. On the second ‘day of the war,’ which was still not yet a real war, the U.S. sent a missile, either by error or deliberately, to bomb a school where at least 150 elementary school children were killed. Those kids were parents of many of the people serving in high positions of the Iranian government. Again, the creation of extreme high emotions. High emotion that almost anyone reading this article can identify with and even sympathize with.
Many more examples might be cited here, but to what end? The evident historical and present-day history are rife with the same result coming back from the same behavior. The Germans, as they were in WWII, were never going to survive their culture and social order following the rest of the world finding out truly about their butchery, debauchery, and murder of so many leading up to and during the war.
Today, the world has eight billion souls, and the U.S. only 350 million. The world itself in totality will not tolerate some behaviors except in the short term. To end the war in Iran, there’s going to have to be a change in U.S. leadership. The men who caused this war have to go, and then there has to be an apology and acknowledgment of what was done to Iran. Finally, there have to be reparations for the damage, although, of course, the thousands dead can never be replaced. When that happens, relationships can begin to be repaired, and wounds healed as much as they can be healed.
Countries like Venezuela have to be turned to. The behavior of the U.S. toward that culture may well be irreparable, at least in the short term. For now, Venezuela, a rich, brilliant, and elegant culture, remains silent. Deathly silent toward the U.S. and what happened and what is still happening there. Canada builds long-range bombers and fighters of its own, not because it has any apparent enemies to defend itself against in the world. It builds them to defend itself against the U.S. Their behavior is an indictment of current U.S. leadership and a social order that would allow such leadership to continue. Denmark is helping Greenland build its defenses, also against potential attack by the U.S.
The United States citizenry, going about life in financial success (compared to most of the rest of the world) and isolated by oceans and money, is going to war and, if things continue as they have over the past two years, then the war will be brought to the shores of the country and then inland. The war will be caused by extremely high emotion. The hate being built up for what was once the grand American experiment and dream is something nobody could have predicted only twenty years ago.
The Roman Empire was much more influential and powerful in the world than the U.S. is in the world today, and it fell overnight, to such an extent that nobody is exactly sure what the hell happened there. Extreme high emotion. Even inside the country, great numbers of those on the left and those on the right hate each other with a passion that’s almost totally unexplainable. Extreme high emotion. As the Chinese curse states in words that seem like a compliment: “May you live in interesting times.” Most of America can survive and even thrive, if only it would turn to the New Testament and follow what Christ was trying to teach, although neither you, nor I, nor likely even God, believes that’s going to happen.
Cowardice, dishonor, and sacrificial murderous intent. The leader of the United States recently flew out of Turkey on Air Force Two, normally the plane used by the Vice President. He did so because there were credible threats that the Iranians were going to attempt to shoot down Air Force One. Wise to avoid flying Air Force One, then, except for one thing. Very deliberately, the President went aboard Air Force One, appeared to the public, and then snuck out to a food truck to be taken to Air Force Two. He did not cancel the flight with Air Force One. It left Turkey, with all aboard (crew, reporters, and lower-level employees), to serve as a potential target, so the president could slip out through the ‘back door.’ No care was paid to the danger those aboard Air Force One might be in, not to their knowledge, nor that of anyone else, except the Secret Service.
This cowardly act by the President and members of the Secret Service was despicable, low and shaming…or it would be to a normal member of leadership and his sycophant protectors. Not so for this woefully poor example of a man so highly placed in the American culture. Whom, in their right mind, will get on Air Force One to go anywhere in the future? Only those who don’t now know better.
