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.
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.
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)
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.
Back in 2008, I wrote an article for Neiman Watchdog calling for war salesmen and cheerleaders on the mainstream media to be replaced. Of course, nothing of the sort happened, and today I saw a new article by Ken Klippenstein: “The TV Generals Have Something to Sell You About Iran,” and that something is war and more war (and weapons too).
You can trust him — he’s a general!
In the article, Klippenstein has a great line about retired general David Petraeus: “Can anyone fit more stars up their asses?” Clearly not.
Anyhow, here’s my article from 2008, unchanged because the dynamic of TV and cable networks using retired senior military officers to sell wars and weapons also remains unchanged.
Networks should replace Pentagon cheerleaders with independent military analysts
COMMENTARY| December 04, 2008
Even without special Pentagon briefings and corrupting financial relationships, former top military brass simply are too conflicted to be relied upon for tough-minded analysis, writes a former Air Force officer.
By William J. Astore
Media outlets must develop their own, independent, military analysts, ones not beholden to the military-industrial complex, ones whose very sense of self is not defined, nourished, and sustained by the U.S. military.
In separate exposés in The New York Times (April 20 and November 30), David Barstow showed how major media outlets came to rely on retired generals like Barry McCaffrey for analysis. Predictably, many of these men (they were all men) continued as paid advisors to defense contractors even as they appeared on TV. They also often accepted favors from the Pentagon, to include special, often classified, briefings; overseas junkets; and, most valuable of all, access to the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
But such influence-peddling and collusion are hardly surprising. Relying on high-ranking, retired military officers to serve as frank and disinterested critics is a bit like inviting Paul von Hindenburg, ex-Field Marshal of the German Army, to testify in 1919 on why his army lost World War I. You’ll get some interesting testimony — just don’t expect it to be critical or for that matter even true.
So why did the networks hire so many retired colonels and generals? Perhaps they followed a rationale analogous to that used in hiring retired professional athletes to cover sports — to provide hard-earned, technical commentary, leavened with occasional anecdotes.
But in the “forever war” in which we became engaged, these retired military officers soon provided not just the color commentary but the play-by-play. And network anchors, lacking first-hand military experience, were reduced to bobble-heads, nodding in respectful agreement.
But war is not a sport. Nor should we cover it as such. We need tough-minded military analysts, not “Team America” boosters and Pentagon spin-meisters.
Why Relying on Senior Military Officers Is Wrongheaded
Our media’s concept of relying on retired senior colonels and generals for frank and unbiased analysis was deeply flawed from the beginning. Let’s consider five facets to the problem:
Despite their civilian coat-and-tie camouflage, these officers are not ex-generals and ex-colonels: they are retired generals and colonels. They still carry their rank; they still wear the uniform at military functions; they’re still deferentially called “sir” by the rank-and-file. They enjoy constant reminders of their privileged military status. It’s not that these men over-identify with the U.S. military — they are the military.
The senior colonels and generals I’ve known despise Monday-morning quarterbacks. Loath to criticize commanders in the field, they tend to defer to the commander-in-chief. Putting on mufti doesn’t change this mindset. Rather than airing their most critical thoughts, they tend to keep them private, especially in cases where service loyalty is perceived to be involved.
Military officers are especially averse to airing criticism if they perceive it might undermine troop morale in the field. Related to this is the belief that “negative” media criticism led to America’s defeat in Vietnam, the hoary but nevertheless powerful “stab-in-the-back” myth. Thus, these men see Pentagon boosterism as a service to the nation — one that they believe is desperately needed to redress the balance of negatively-charged, “liberal,” anti-war coverage.
Paradoxically, that the “War on Terror” has gone badly is a reason why some retired military officers believe we can’tafford serious criticism. If you believe the war can and must be won, as most of them do, you may suppress your own doubts, fearing that, if you air them, you’ll be responsible for tipping the balance in favor of the enemy.
The fifth, perhaps most telling, reason why networks should not rely on retired colonels and generals is that it’s extremely difficult for anyone, let alone a die-hard military man, to criticize our military because such criticism is taken so personally by so many Americans. When you criticize the military, even abstractly, people hear you attacking Johnny or Suzy — their son or daughter, or the boy or girl next door, who selflessly enlisted to defend America. Who wants to hear that Johnny or Suzy may possibly be fighting (even dying) for a mistake? And, assuming he believed it, what senior military man wants to appear on TV to pass along thatmessage to America’s mothers and fathers?
The Next Step
It’s not that retired colonels and generals lack integrity [well, some do, I’d add in 2026], but they are often deeply conflicted and lacking in self-awareness. And you certainly can’t profess to be an objective media analyst while representing contractors vying for funding from the Pentagon.
So what should the media do? Since it will take time for networks to develop their own corps of independent military analysts, they should consider hiring junior officers and NCOs, with recent combat experience, who have left the military after a few years of honorable service. Civilian military historians could also provide critical commentary. Even foreign military officers might be queried; at least they need not worry about their patriotism being impugned each time they hazard a criticism of the Pentagon.
French premier Georges Clemenceau famously noted that “War is too important to be left to generals.” So too is the TV and cable networks’ analysis of our wars.
*****
Quick comment in 2026: I wasn’t critical enough in 2008. Some of these “cheerleaders” are shameless sales- and pitchmen who are profiting from war.
Here are some excerpts from recent articles dealing with Trump’s growing disconnection from reality and the expansion of war in the Middle East for and by Israel:
The president responds to the rising economic and political costs of his criminal war with more unhinged threats:
If Iran does anything that stops the flow of Oil within the Strait of Hormuz, they will be hit by the United States of America TWENTY TIMES HARDER than they have been hit thus far.
Additionally, we will take out easily destroyable targets that will make it virtually impossible for Iran to ever be built back, as a Nation, again — Death, Fire, and Fury will reign upon them — But I hope, and pray, that it does not happen!
The president started this disaster by making reckless threats, and he keeps digging himself and the rest of us into a deeper hole by making more of them. Many analysts like to predict that Trump will eventually back down and “chicken out,” but this misses that he frequently responds to adversity with more escalation. He caused the crisis with Iran, and when the Iranians refused to give in to his absurd demands he started a major war. Coercion and threats are his only tools, and when those inevitably fail him he tries to use them more aggressively than before.
*****
What is it with these “Death, Fire, and Fury” threats? What kind of a person boasts of raining death down on a people? A totally immoral one, a sociopathic one, a bully with no empathy. A murderous one.
America, this is murderous madness.
*****
At Zeteo, there’s a telling article that “King” Trump’s brain is dead, using his own words as proof. The article also covers Israel’s expansion of the war into Lebanon. More madness, but I suppose Israeli madness has a method to it and a goal: more land for a “greater Israel.” Here’s that article:
Donald Trump delivered remarks in Doral, Florida, last night, to House Republicans during their retreat, and then as part of a press conference. It might not seem like an appropriate time to be off the job, but, dear reader, based on Trump’s remarks, maybe it’s better if he steps away from the steering wheel. Let’s discuss, debunk, annotate, and report on his insanity – quote by quote:
Voters strongly disapprove of Trump’s handling of the economy – to a record degree, according to a new Quinnipiac poll. Prices are only getting higher as a result of Trump’s illegal war in Iran.
Once again, there was no proof that Iran posed any “imminent threat” to the US, and, in fact, the country was negotiating a new nuclear deal with the Trump administration before the president decided to attack.
Trump has continued to suggest that Iran was responsible for the horrific bombing of an Iranian girls’ school, killing some 175 people, mostly children. Repeated independent reporting has found that the US was likely the culprit. Footage shows that it was a Tomahawk missile that rained down on the school – a US munition that Iran does not possess.
Now onto the really absurd, brain-addled, and racist moments:
This is one of Trump’s latest ongoing hits: using “Palestinian” as a slur – no less to suggest Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (who himself has said one of his jobs is to keep the left pro-Israel!) is actually too sympathetic to the people Trump and Joe Biden (and Schumer) have co-signed the genocide of. It’s the kind of behavior that, if any other ethnic group were used in such a way, would lead to congressional hearings and breathless media coverage.
And – “the Iranian people who are quite nasty”? The same people Trump and the pro-war establishment are supposedly “freeing”? Instead of liberatory language, even euphemistically, the so-called peace president is speaking in the same vicious register his friends in the Israeli government have spoken in to describe Palestinians – and we see what that’s resulted in.
Trump’s nonsensical riffs like this feel worse when you remember that one of the ships the US sank was an Iranian naval ship not in combat position, and was in the middle of traveling back from an exercise at the invitation of India. The US torpedoed it anyway, with no regard for survivors, leaving Sri Lanka to carry out a rescue mission. If that shocking breach of the Geneva Conventions only targeted one of the ships Trump was referring to, what are the others?
That was literally Trump’s response to a reporter who asked how he could say the war is “very complete” while his defense secretary says “this is just the beginning.” Well, apparently, it’s both! It’s complete, and it’s beginning. Genius!
Nearly 200 children killed: An Iranian official said US-Israeli strikes have killed at least 193 children, including an 8-month-old girl.
A third of 2026 offline: Internet access advocacy group Netblocks said today that at 240 hours, Iran’s near-total internet blackout is “now among the most severe government-imposed nationwide internet shutdowns on record globally, and the second longest registered in Iran after the January protests.” That means Iranians have spent a third of this year offline.
Hospitals hit: US-Israeli strikes have hit a number of civilian buildings, including hospitals and health clinics, per Iranian officials. At least nine hospitals are no longer operational, Al Jazeera quoted Mohammad Jamalian, a member of Iran’s parliamentary health committee, as saying.
WHO sounds the alarm: World Health Organization (WHO) head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned that Israeli attacks on Iranian oil facilities could have negative effects on public health and “risks contaminating food, water and air.”
Oil prices drop: After reaching four-year highs yesterday, oil prices fell back down to $98.96 per barrel following Trump’s temporary claim that the war on Iran could end soon.
But the war isn’t over: Trump posted on Truth Social on Monday night: “If Iran does anything that stops the flow of Oil within the Strait of Hormuz, they will be hit by the United States of America TWENTY TIMES HARDER than they have been hit thus far.”
‘We will decide’: For Iran’s part, the country’s deputy foreign minister insistedTehran has “the upper hand,” and it will “decide when the war will end.”
Don’t Look Away: Israel Is Invading Lebanon
Smoke rises after an Israeli attack targeted the southern suburbs on March 9, 2026, in Beirut, Lebanon. Photo by Daniel Carde/Getty Images.
While the US and Israeli war on Iran rages on, and millions of Palestinians continue to face dismal conditions and persistent attacks in Gaza, Israel is alsoterrorizing Lebanon. Israeli forces have killed more than 450 people, including 83 children, in Lebanon just in the past week
Amid their reckless violence, Israeli forces have attacked United Nations peacekeepers and residential buildings. They killed 41 people, including children, while dressed up as Lebanese troops and searching for four-decade-old remains of an Israeli military pilot. Israel’s attacks have, according to Human Rights Watch, included the illegal use of white phosphorus, which ignites when exposed to oxygen and can light homes, farmland, and other buildings and infrastructure on fire. Some of the victims of Israel’s attacks on Lebanon include a Catholic priest and three paramedics.
All told, nearly 700,000 people in Lebanon have been forcibly displaced from their homes, including 200,000 children.
Imagine the entire population of Nashville, or Washington DC, being forced out of their homes. That is the scale of displacement Israel is inflicting, just in Lebanon alone.
*****
Trump also announced that America’s war on Iran won’t end until Bibi Netanyahu says it’s over. (He actually said it would be a joint U.S./Israeli decision, but it’s obvious who’s giving the orders here.)
For America, the U.S. Congress doesn’t declare war, Bibi Netanyahu does.
I saw this quip in a YouTube comments section: No matter who you vote for, you get Bibi Netanyahu as president. It makes sense. Recall Bibi’s visits to Congress and the rapturous (even stormy!) applause he always received.
Well, at least we know who’s controlling this war, and for all their posturing, it’s not bully boy Trump or punch’em when they’re down Hegseth.
Brian McGinnis, a U.S. Marine Corp veteran, was wounded in action protesting the Iran War in the U.S. Senate. Thrown down, his arm broken, McGinnis was a victim of friendly fire from the Capitol police and Senator Tim Sheehy, who decided he’d join the police in wrestling McGinnis out of the hearing room.
McGinnis’s “crime”? Using his freedom of speech to declare that no one wants to die in a war for Israel.
You can watch it all here. (You can hear the bone crack in his arm.)
This is what happens in America when you stand up and speak truth to power. The powerful already know the truth. Their response is either to ignore truth-tellers or to silence them, sometimes with extreme prejudice.
This Marine, this patriot, exercising his Constitutional right of free speech before the Senate, became yet another casualty of the U.S./Israeli War on Iran, a victim of a deliberate and unconscionable act of friendly fire. All he wanted was to have his voice heard; all he got in return was a broken arm and a most violent silencing, even as U.S. senior leaders in uniform steadfastly ignored him.
Again, this Marine was wounded in action; his action was to speak truth before the powerful, but they don’t traffic in hard or noble truths, only in easy and convenient lies.
Shame on the U.S. Senate, shame on the military’s senior leaders, and shame on the Trump administration for waging an illegitimate, unconstitutional, and illegal war against Iran and against legitimate and courageous dissent in America.
Reading NBC News this morning, I saw where the U.S. “is winning decisively, devastatingly and without mercy,” so claimed self-styled Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. “We are only four days in,” he added, and the U.S. “will take all the time we need” to prevail. He further added “We are punching them while they’re down, which is exactly how it should be.” (There’s nothing more honorable than punching someone when they’re down, right?)
“They [the Iranians] are toast, and they know it, or at least, soon enough, they will know it. And we have only just begun, to hunt, dismantle, demoralize, destroy and defeat their capabilities,” Hegseth boasted. As far as how long the war will last, he equivocated. Three weeks? Eight weeks? Who knows? Hegseth doesn’t.
Hegseth also doesn’t know something fundamental: You can’t do a wrong thing the right way.
The Iran War is wrong. It’s illegal, unconstitutional, immoral, and also extremely dangerous. There’s no way to prevail in a war fought for the wrong reasons, a war fought without clear goals, a war that is already beginning to spiral out of control. But Hegseth thinks if the U.S. launches enough missiles, drops enough bombs, and torpedoes enough ships, somehow the U.S. will “win.”
Congratulations, U.S. and Israel: You made him a martyr
In so many ways, the U.S. has already lost. The Ayatollah Khamenei is now a martyr. Iran is now more likely to pursue a nuclear weapon. Even more so than usual, Israel is now in the driver’s seat, calling America’s shots in the Middle East. This has all the makings of a major catastrophe for U.S. forces, but all Hegseth can see is the promise of punching a man when he’s down.
Clearly, Hegseth is intoxicated with winning “without mercy.” Think about that for a moment—war without mercy. Only the most barbaric or fanatical person would boast about waging war without mercy.
With the Iran War, the Trump administration is marching down the most perilous of paths, blinded by illusions of total victory.
A warning: More than anything, America must not allow this to become a religious war, a crusade, between a Judeo-Christian force and a Shia-Islamic force. We’re already seeing a lot of talk within the U.S. military of a God-driven mission against Iran, with (positive!) references to Armageddon. Such rhetoric is incredibly dangerous and inflammatory. (In this context, that crusader cross tattoo on Hegseth’s chest is more than alarming.)
If anything, the best outcome for the U.S. would be an immediate ceasefire before more U.S. troops are killed and wounded. But how is such a ceasefire to be negotiated? U.S. diplomacy has no credibility. None.
Among the worst outcomes would be the commitment of U.S. troops to Iran, so-called boots on the ground, which would likely create a massive Bay of Pigs-style fiasco. America can ill afford yet another land war quagmire in the Middle East. There is already talk, however, of committing U.S. Special Forces to Iran, perhaps to organize Kurdish and Iranian dissidents against the legitimate Iranian government. Such folly must be prevented.
Any commitment of U.S. troops to Iran would further accelerate escalation. If you begin to hear rumblings about Selective Service and a return to a military draft, you’ll know the Trump administration has become completely unhinged (if it isn’t already).
In just a few days of “major combat operations,” the Trump administration already has more than enough innocent Iranian blood on its hands. That toll in blood is only going to increase, as will the risk of blowback on the “homeland.”
The smartest course for America at this moment is to declare “victory” and leave. Since it’s unlikely Trump and Hegseth will see the light, Congress should immediately cut war funding. Sadly, a weak-willed Congress seems far more likely to pass supplemental funding bills to give Trump and Hegseth a blank check to wage a Judeo-Christian crusade.
We don’t live in interesting times: we live in unhinged times. Perilous times. We must find a way to seek a merciful peace. The alternative just might be World War III.
Here are some macro ideas and thoughts about America’s latest war of choice with Iran:
1. It’s a war so call it that. It’s not “strikes” or “major combat operations.”
2. It’s an unconstitutional, illegal, immoral, and potentially escalatory war.
3. The war has no clear objective other than decapitation of the Iranian leadership (achieved?) and installation of a new regime that will play ball with USA/Israel. That latter outcome is extremely unlikely.
4. It’s a war for Israel to advance its regional hegemony.
5. In the main, the war is neither supported nor understood by the American people. That fact doesn’t seem to matter to the Trump administration.
6. For all those involved, the war will prove increasingly expensive in blood and treasure.
7. Recklessly begun, the war is utterly unpredictable in its final outcomes.
8. The war does not serve the national defense interests of the U.S., as Iran posed no imminent threat to U.S. national security.
9. With no clear Congressional mandate, the war lacks the critical support of the American people. Again, the Trump administration remains unconcerned here.
10. For these reasons, among others, there should be an immediate ceasefire followed by negotiations, leading to discussion of war reparations to be paid by the aggressors. (This scenario, I realize, is unlikely in the extreme.)
Yesterday, I went on “Judging Freedom” with Judge Andrew Napolitano to discuss the Iran War.
As I said to the Judge, I am still confused about America’s true rationale, its intent, and its goals, and I have no clear idea of how this war is going to proceed, let alone end. War is inherently unpredictable, much like fire. Trying to predict its path of destruction, what it will burn and what it will leave behind, and when it will end, is nearly impossible. We must work to contain and extinguish this new fire in the Middle East before it becomes an inferno that engulfs even wider areas, leading to yet more innocents dead.
I woke to the news that Israel/USA is launching attacks (New York Times) and strikes (NBC News) against Iran. The BBC used “joint attack” for the Israeli/U.S. war plan. Three sources, and all three avoiding that useful descriptive word, war.
I suppose Mr. Trump doesn’t have to ask Congress for a declaration of war since it’s not a war—it’s just attacks or strikes or “major combat operations,” as Trump said today.
“All I want is freedom for the [Iranian] people,” Trump also said. Once again, “freedom” is synonymous with war and death.
So perhaps Orwell had it wrong. It’s not war is peace; it’s war is freedom.
It’s funny: I’m listening to ABC News and they keep using the words “strike” or “joint strike” or “preemptive strike.” Or even “larger-scale strike.” Trump sees it as a “noble mission,” but not apparently a Nobel Peace Prize one.
So many lies, so much dishonesty, so much illegality.
Grim times.
If you can stand it, here’s Trump talking about Iran’s terror. Iran has “soaked the earth with blood and guts,” so he claims. I’m glad the USA is innocent of death and violence. No blood and guts from our military “strikes.”
It’s not a war. It’s just “strikes” or “attacks” or something
So remember America: Don’t speak of war. You have no say anyway. Just sit back and watch the strikes and attacks ordered by two paragons of virtue, Bibi Netanyahu and Donald Trump.
Update (2/28, Noonish)
The words of James Madison resonate here:
Of all the enemies of true liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debt and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manner and of morals, engendered in both. No nation can preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare …
Allegedly, we’re bombing for freedom in Iran, even as freedom in America vanishes. Is it time to drop “freedom” bombs on ourselves?
Ask Americans (or any other people) being bombed if they think it’s conducive to greater freedom.
Bracing Views 