The Bloody Awful Waste of War

Insanity on a Mass Scale

BILL ASTORE

APR 25, 2026

Courtesy of NBC News, here’s a brief summary of the butcher’s bill of the latest wars in the Middle East:

Iran’s forensics chief said nearly 3,400 people had been killed in the country since U.S.-Israeli strikes began Feb. 28. Almost 2,500 people have been killed in Lebanon, 32 have been killed in Gulf states, and 23 have died in Israel. Thirteen U.S. service members have been killed, and two more died of noncombat causes.

I happen to believe Iranian lives are as valuable and precious as American lives. What gives the U.S. and Israeli governments the right to inflict such disproportionate casualties on Iran, on Lebanon, on Gaza? (I know: might makes right.) If you include the Palestinians, more than 100,000 people, and probably closer to 200,000, have been killed in the latest Israeli/U.S. wars, with the United States providing most of the deadly weaponry.

NBC anchor Brian Williams gushed about being “guided by the beauty of our weapons”

Speaking of weaponry, the liberal New York Times had an article yesterday lamenting the heavy expenditure of costly precision weaponry (like Tomahawk cruise missiles) by the U.S. since the beginning of the Iran War. Nowhere in the article was there a complaint about the death toll, nor was there much of a complaint about the cost. No—what the liberal New York Times was concerned about was how quickly the U.S. could replenish its stockpile of weaponry so it could be prepared for a future war against peer threats like China and Russia.

Here’s an excerpt from the article:

Since the Iran war began in late February, the United States has burned through around 1,100 of its long-range stealth cruise missiles built for a war with China, close to the total number remaining in the US stockpile. The military has fired off more than 1,000 Tomahawk cruise missiles, roughly 10 times the number it currently buys each year.

The Pentagon used more than 1,200 Patriot interceptor missiles in the war, at more than $4 million a pop, and more than 1,000 Precision Strike and ATACMS ground-based missiles, leaving inventories worrisomely low, according to internal Defense Department estimates and congressional officials.

The Iran war has significantly drained much of the US military’s global supply of munitions, and forced the Pentagon to rush bombs, missiles and other hardware to the Middle East from commands in Asia and Europe. The drawdowns have left these regional commands less ready to confront potential adversaries such as Russia and China, and it has forced the United States to find ways to scale up production to address the depletions, Trump administration and congressional officials say. 

Again, if you read the article, nothing is said about morality. Nothing is said about death and dying and the bloody awfulness of war. The article simply says the U.S. has used a lot of very expensive missiles that we MUST replace if we’re to be prepared to wage more wars in the near future.

There’s not even a hint here that maybe America could be at peace—even in the most distant future. Apparently, America must always remain locked and loaded for a war with China, or Russia, or some other country and combination of countries, even as all this is couched as defending the homeland.

How many war crimes can be hidden or explained away by this phrase: “defend the homeland”? Far too many, and of the most horrific nature.

American militarism must end. Support of Israeli warmongering and killing must end. The national love affair with weaponry must end. Cut the Pentagon budget by 50% and keep cutting. Retrench the empire and recommit to being a republic that doesn’t seek war. Turn away from the bloody awfulness and waste of constant warfare.

War isn’t macho. It isn’t glorious. It’s insanity on a mass scale.

The Social Media Echo Chamber

When the Rabbit Hole Becomes an Information Silo

BILL ASTORE

APR 16, 2026

If you’ve spent time on social media, you know it can be quite unsocial. 

Profane, angry, hostile posts and comments can be dismissed for what they are. But what about more subtle threats to the free and civil exchange of ideas? Social media sites aren’t necessarily designed to encourage such exchanges. They’re not primarily designed to educate us, to challenge us to think critically, while promoting tolerance and an open mind. 

Instead, they are designed primarily to capture and command our attention, to keep us “on the app,” reading and clicking and doom-scrolling in an addictive way. Sites keep track of what we read, what we share, even what we pause over, and feed us more of the same. An information silo is created controlled by algorithms that feed you more of what you like, or more of what angers you or titillates you or otherwise occupies your attention and time.

It’s easy to end up in an echo chamber that confirms your biases, one that reinforces the idea that people who think differently from you must be willfully misguided or stubborn or maybe just plain stupid or even evil. If you already dislike or distrust “the other side,” social media will tend to make you dislike or distrust them even more.

We’re warned about going down the rabbit hole, but we’re not warned about the information silos being created for us without our knowledge or consent.

All this has been on my mind after I watched this short and stimulating TEDx talk by journalist Ryan Biller.

As Biller notes, social media can impoverish human interactions. It can serve as a hostile wall instead of a transparent window or an open door. I wrote to Biller to thank him for his talk and to share my perspective on echo chambers, siloed information, and the like, and he wrote back that social media can create “a merciless cycle and feedback loop that has a psychological ‘funhouse mirror’ effect; in other words, it exaggerates and distorts reality in, I think, a really negative way.”

We need to recognize how social media apps, sites, and algorithms manipulate us; how they’re designed to keep us clicking, scrolling, and otherwise (over)stimulated. And how these interactions are, in a way, dehumanizing. Or, if not dehumanizing, how they bring out the keyboard commando in some people.

With respect to echo chambers, what I do to combat that is to read a range of sources daily. I get daily updates from mainstream media sites like the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Boston Globe. I check sites like the British Guardian, NBC News, and BBC News. I occasionally turn to Fox News to see how certain events are being covered.

And then there are a range of alternative sites and podcasts that I’ve found useful, such as TomDispatch.com, Judging Freedom, Antiwar.com, Chris Hedges, Glenn Greenwald, and Caitlin Johnstone. I listen to (among others) Jimmy Dore, Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan, Briahna Joy Gray, Max Blumenthal at The Grayzone. Of course, I don’t listen to all of these, all the time, nor do I listen to them because I always agree with them.

In having this site, Bracing Views, I contribute to this complex informational ecology, putting my own spin and exhibiting my own biases. I deeply appreciate my readers and commenters who have largely avoided the often unsocial nature of social media.

When I need a strong dose of humor and reality, I return to George Carlin. I am reminded that telling one’s truth in a provocative and humorous (and even profane) way can have great value.

Finally, remember that sometimes the best social interaction is sitting down and breaking bread with the people around you—even the people you disagree with. For I continue to believe that we can agree to disagree, that we can disagree in ways that aren’t disagreeable, and that sometimes disagreement can become agreement, and that common ground can be found.

Addendum: I shared the comment below in response to a reader who noted that manipulation is nothing ne

Absolutely. As I.F. Stone said, all governments lie. Propaganda is everywhere. But social media is more insidious because there’s an illusion of control. People think they’re the ones doing the picking and the clicking.

Not only are you often “swimming in the shallows” online–those shallows are more like a puddle whose boundaries are set by algorithms.

It’s fascinating to think of the ocean of information that’s out there even as some people are figuratively drowning in puddles partly of their own making.

Unjust Wars

The Catholic Church Takes a Stand

BILL ASTORE

APR 14, 2026

In the New York Times send-out this morning, the pope and president are described as “clashing.” That’s one way of putting it. Actually, the pope is arguing for peace and against war and the death of innocents while Trump has been railing about exterminating an entire civilization. A “clash” for sure.

Pope Leo looking down.

In Algiers. Guglielmo Mangiapane/Reuters

With his usual conceit, which is colossal, Trump posted an image of himself (since deleted) as a Christ-like healer. The image is a fascinating depiction of megalomaniacal Americana:

A curious tableau

A screenshot of a social media post by President Trump that contains an apparently A.I.-generated image of Trump, wearing white and red robes, touching the forehead of a man lying down in a hospital gown as several figures gaze up at Trump, including a nurse and a soldier.

Trump claimed no Christ-like comparisons were intended. “I thought it was me as a doctor,” Trump said.

The semiotics of that image would take decades to unpack. Seriously, the flag, the eagles, the military jets, fireworks, angels (?), troops and veterans: the mind boggles. I’m guessing Trump asked AI to produce a patriotic image showing himself as a Christ-like healer, surrounded by white people showcasing prayer and upholding traditional gender roles and norms. It’s an exercise in colossal chutzpah, that’s for sure.

On “60 Minutes” this past weekend, three American Catholic cardinals spoke about the Church’s stance on the Iran War. The cardinals declared the war wasn’t just.

I wish the cardinals had gone further. I can’t think of a “just” war fought by the United States since World War II.

Of course, the moderator for “60 Minutes” had to assert that Iran is the world’s chief exporter of terror, as if the United States, with all its murderous wars and extensive bombing and killing, doesn’t export terror. I guess the moderator wants to keep her job at CBS.

The cardinals make many good points about war as dehumanizing and the sickening nature of pro-war propaganda coming from the Trump administration. It would have been valuable if they’d mentioned the imperative of “Love thy neighbor,” the commandment that “Thou shalt not kill,” and the identity of Christ as the Prince of Peace.

Still, I commend the pope and the Church for taking a stand for peace.

America’s Flailing, Possible Failing Empire

W.J. Astore


Yesterday, I went on a network that was new to me, TMJ News, to discuss the Iran War ceasefire and related issues.

I also wanted to share something I put in a note/restack. I’ll post that below:

*****

I’ve always disliked [the idea of] “TACO” Trump because the Democrats are often basically goading a bully into being more of a bully. That is, don’t “chicken out,” Trump, be even more murderous and relentless in war. And then Trump denounces them as the “radical left”! When often Democrats are essentially being more radical and rabidly rightist [than Trump himself].

American politics is such a sham. Two rightist parties fighting over which one can kill more foreigners.

Here’s the article that generated that note: 

Bill Astore1d

I’ve always disliked “TACO” Trump because the Democrats are often basically goading a bully into being more of a bully. That is, don’t “chicken out,” Trump, be even more murderous and relentless in war. And then Trump denounces them as the “radical left”! When often Democrats are essentially being more radical and rabidly rightist. 

Ameri…

Trump Threatens Mass Murder Yet Again

W.J. Astore

Preventing Mass Death Isn’t a Partisan Issue

BILL ASTORE

APR 07, 2026

From Trump’s Truth Social Account:

This is madness. Unhinged madness. Imagine “blessing” the people of Iran while threatening to end their entire civilization.

Yesterday, I was watching the war movie, “Fury,” which does a decent job of showing some of the horrors of warfare. We get a few fairly honest scenes about war, as in the opening sequence of “Saving Private Ryan,” yet war coverage in our media portrays war as a bloodless video game.

Meanwhile, Trump tweets about mass murder and most in the media just seem to shrug. Mass murder!

For two decades I’ve been writing about America’s warrior nonsense and the increasing militarization of our country even as we’re kept deliberately isolated from war and all its horrors. It all seems like it’s coalesced into the nightmare we have today.

I was on Judge Napolitano’s show this morning, Judging Freedom, and I was somewhat at a loss to describe my reaction to this. If we can’t unite to stop mass murder of innocents, when are we going to unite?

Stone Age Bombing

A Dead Crippled Country Can Still Bomb People to Smithereens

BILL ASTORE

APR 02, 2026

I watched President Trump’s speech to the nation last night on the Iran War. The lies and boasts flew thick. According to Trump, America is winning and winning big. Under Joe Biden, America was “crippled” and “dead,” but Trump has reanimated the dead and healed it. (An obvious aside: Trump has a serious Christ complex.)

From dead and crippled, America is now the meanest, toughest, hombre in the valley. We take what we want and if you resist we’ll bomb you back to the Stone Age. As the New York Times reported: “We are going to hit them extremely hard,” Trump said. “Over the next two to three weeks, we’re going to bring them back to the Stone Ages, where they belong.”

The proud Iranian people, with Persia as one of the cradles of civilization—they mean less than zero to Trump. It doesn’t matter how many people have to die for Trump to feel like a winner. 

“Beautiful” damage in Tehran (Majid Saeed/Getty)

A transcript of the speech is here. You’ll read about America’s “beautiful” B-2 bombers and how they’ve performed “magnificently.” You’ll read about America’s “warriors” and “heroes” who “laid down their lives” to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. You’ll read about their families who, even as they grieve the loss of loved ones in this war, are beseeching Trump to “Please, sir, please finish the job.” Every one of them, Trump added.

There were many reasons to be offended by Trump’s speech last night, but the idea of every grieving family member begging the president to “finish the job” by continuing to bomb and kill Iranians is certainly high on the list of offenses to morality and truth.

More than anything, what Trump’s speech told us is what he values. First, of course, himself and his identity as a man of action—a winner. The economy and the stock market. Oil and gas. Military might. And taking cheap shots at perceived opponents.

This sentence was especially revealing: The most violent and thuggish regime on earth would be free to carry out their campaigns of terror, coercion, conquest and mass murder from behind a nuclear shield.

Trump was referring to Iran here, but what he’s really saying is that only one violent and thuggish regime merits such a blank check on inflicting global violence protected by a nuclear shield. It’s not Iran’s, it’s his.

Hard Chargers, Yes–Deep Thinkers, No

Kakistocracy at the Department of War

BILL ASTORE

MAR 27, 2026

I was reading an article today about Pete Hegseth, self-styled Secretary of War, and his decision to remove four officers from the Brigadier General-select list. Turns out the four officers were either Black or female, but I’m sure that was a coincidence.

Anyhow, the article referenced this pearl of wisdom from Hegseth from last September:

“The leaders who created the woke department have already driven out too many hard chargers. We reverse that trend right now.”

For those of you who don’t know military jargon, “hard charger” is a term of approval. And that’s been Trump and Hegseth’s approach to war with Iran. Call it the bull in the china shop approach. Charge in hard, kill people, break things. Drop enough bombs, kill enough people, and obviously victory must follow.

Hard chargers are what we want in this man’s military, so might Pete Hegseth say. I’ve heard Hegseth’s nickname at the Pentagon is “Dumb McNamara,” apparently for his slicked-back hair together with his, well, lack of intelligence. (Robert McNamara was Secretary of Defense during the disastrous Vietnam War.)

Of course, the military needs its share of Type A, Can-do, mission-driven, hard charging men and women. It also needs its share of skilled, knowledgeable, and smart people as well. And there’s nothing that says that a “hard charger” can’t also be a thinker, especially as that can-do type learns from experience that not every problem can be solved with bullets and bombs.

Deep thinkers are especially needed at strategic levels, else wars go nowhere and are quickly lost. One thing is certain: the so-called Department of War isn’t being led by a deep thinker.

Hegseth, surely a leading member of the kakistocracy, prefers pushups to planning and bombs to diplomacy. He’ll keep charging hard, or, more accurately, he’ll order others to charge hard into harm’s way, all in a quest to drive out “wokeness” and win wars through maximum violence and minimal thought.

Charge harder!

Any enemy wanting to fool Pete Hegseth should invest in a red cape and start waving it smartly.

Insane Headline of the Day

Gut Check for America

BILL ASTORE

MAR 21, 2026

Here’s the lede at NBC News this morning:

*****

Trump weighing several options for U.S. troops inside Iran

Discussions about possible ground troops have focused on missions aimed at escalating the war in attempt to end it, sources say, but no decisions have been made.

*****

Somebody please explain to me how committing ground troops to Iran and escalating the war is in any way a sane method of deescalating the war.

The Trump administration is out-Orwelling George Orwell. Rather than a sobering warning, Orwell’s “1984” has become a user’s manual for autocrats like Trump and Hegseth, where war is waged in the name of peace and escalation is deescalation.

Meanwhile, Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence, told us that it’s not America’s 18 (!) intelligence agencies that determine whether we face an “imminent threat.” No—only the president can make that determination.

Can somebody please tell me why we have 18 intelligence agencies that we spend scores of billions on? All we really need is the president’s gut. I suggest we eliminate America’s entire intelligence “community” and replace it with Trump’s intestines. 

If Trump has any sense left in his gut, he should declare victory and end this colossal mistake of a war.

Residential building in Iran. Just imagine if Iran was raining bombs and missiles on the USA. (Majid Saeedi, Getty Images)

Joe Kent’s Principled Resignation

And Tulsi Gabbard’s Problematic Response

BILL ASTORE

MAR 18, 2026

Joe Kent’s principled resignation letter, in which he calls out the influence of Israel and AIPAC on President Trump’s decision to go to war with Iran, illustrates the nature of power and dissent in government circles.

The main response is denunciation. Leading the way was Trump, whose response to the news was basically good riddance even as he claimed that Kent, a former Green Beret with extensive combat experience, was “weak on security.” Organizations like the Jewish Anti-Defamation League and AIPAC suggested that Kent was trafficking in age-old anti-semitic tropes (apparently it’s “anti-semitic” to suggest that Israel and AIPAC have influence over the President and Congress).

In the age of social media, denunciation is nearly instantaneous — and often unhinged. I’ve even seen calls to have Kent investigated under the espionage act!

The method to the madness is obvious: discredit Kent by smears, attack him as disloyal, even as such efforts are designed to intimidate others from airing their legitimate concerns.

Kent deserves a lot of credit for going on the record because he surely knew he’d be denounced. 

Not quite denouncing him, but showing (so far) conformity that’s more than disappointing is Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) and Kent’s former boss. Previously, Tulsi was on the record as being strongly against regime-change wars and especially against war with Iran. She’s often made speeches in the name of her “brothers and sisters in uniform.” Yet so far she has quietly abetted Trump’s policies and actions in his foolish and illegal war against Iran. 

I fear Tulsi’s “brothers and sisters” will pay a high price for her complicity.

Here’s her message posted yesterday at X/Twitter:

Donald Trump was overwhelmingly elected by the American people to be our President and Commander in Chief. As our Commander in Chief, he is responsible for determining what is and is not an imminent threat, and whether or not to take action he deems necessary to protect the safety and security of our troops, the American people and our country. 

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence is responsible for helping coordinate and integrate all intelligence to provide the President and Commander in Chief with the best information available to inform his decisions. 

After carefully reviewing all the information before him, President Trump concluded that the terrorist Islamist regime in Iran posed an imminent threat and he took action based on that conclusion.

This is carefully-worded nonsense, designed to satisfy Trump and his handlers. I bolded a few obvious BS phrases. First, Trump wasn’t “overwhelmingly” elected president, though Trump loves to think he was. Second, anyone who knows how Trump operates can’t imagine him “carefully reviewing” all the intelligence, but perhaps Tulsi is being cute here, since she adds the intel “before him.” (I truly wonder how much of the DNI’s intel actually reached Trump, how much he truly read and reviewed; not much, I’d wager.)

Finally, there’s the notion of an “imminent threat,” which Iran truly didn’t pose to U.S. national security, not before the Israeli/U.S. attacks. And the usual dismissal of Iran as “terrorist Islamist,” i.e. “bad people” we don’t like.

I’ve been a Tulsi supporter for many years and I wrote that she’d make a fine DNI. Recent events are proving me wrong. Her message on X in response to Kent’s resignation was more than disappointing. I’m hoping she also resigns for cause, but perhaps she thinks she can do more as an insider to restrain the worst impulses of Trump, his toadies, and those who have always spoiled for a war against Iran. Her resignation, I think, would be more powerful than her restraining influence (assuming she has any influence).

Of course, if she does resign for cause, she will be smeared and denounced, and not for the first time.

Readers, what do you make of all this?

Addendum: Perhaps I should add that I don’t agree with everything in Kent’s resignation letter, nor would I be likely to vote for him, assuming he runs for office again. His resignation letter is useful exactly because he was a strong Trump loyalist whose military record earns him respect among those who are otherwise unlikely to question Trump and the official narrative. In short, for me this isn’t about Kent and his character, It’s about his recognition that there wasn’t an imminent threat from Iran and his willingness to highlight the roles played by Israel and AIPAC in U.S. politics and foreign policy. As a Trump insider, his words carry persuasive weight. They could also indicate a fracturing of support for Trump’s disastrous war with Iran.

The American Experiment Is Failing

Hellacious Wars Will Be Our Downfall

BILL ASTORE

MAR 17, 2026

Here’s a recent podcast I did with Jim Wohlgemuth and Harvey Bennett, Vietnam War veterans both, about the Iran War.

https://embed.podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/veterans-for-peace-radio-hour/id1494039367?i=1000754576197

With a bonus song at the end.

Here’s a different link if the above doesn’t work: 

https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/jim-wohlgemuth

My thanks to Jim and Harvey for having me on their show.

*****

In other news, Joe Kent, the Director of the National Counterterrorism Center in the Trump administration, has resigned in protest against the war with Iran. His resignation letter is well worth reading.

Many Trump loyalists are mystified by the president’s tight embrace of Zionist Israel and his pursuit of war against Iran. Whatever Trump is up to, it’s not MAGA.