Not an Essay, But Maybe a Tool Kit
To Congress/Pentagon/Decision-makers:
The Executive Branch has entered into one more lie-based, unprovoked, illegal and unconstitutional war in the Middle East. The President, Secretary Rubio and Secretary Hegseth have all admitted publicly and privately that this is a war initiated for, or because of, Israel. Our elected leaders in Congress have the singular responsibility to pull the plug before the Pentagon is commanded to send American men and women to die in one foreign country for another foreign country.
The Pentagon has studied and gamed war in Iran for over 45 years, and in no case has a US victory resulted. Every soldier, sailor, airman and Marine knows this, as do their commanders. Trump’s attack on February 28th was, and remains, a grave mistake. In less than three days, US initiative was spectacularly lost, our munitions and equipment supply shortfalls widely revealed, and it became obvious the Pentagon had not planned for any significant defenses of the nearly 50,000 American troops now stationed in the region — despite knowing exactly what would happen once Israel and the US attacked Iran in the midst of diplomatic negotiations for the second time in 8 months.
This war was strategically lost on Day 3, and the the financial and human cost of this war will continue to skyrocket, providing the US and the American people no benefit, and no security. The cost of this war, and the cost of the material losses, so far is in the hundreds of billions– all paid for by working Americans. The dead are already returning home in caskets, all for lies. What will you say to your constituents, to the wives, husbands and children of those you have sacrificed for nothing?
The President, guided by and in concert with Israel, also declared a needless war against the global Shia Muslim population with the targeted murder of the Grand Ayatollah, his wife and family. This is not only a crime which has resulted in an ICC action against President Trump personally, it has unleashed a variety of dangers to Americans around the world. As with all arrogant and unwarranted attacks, there will be blowback if this war is not immediately ended.
The military we have built over the last 40 years is frankly not designed to win expeditionary offensive war, and it has not won a single one of them. It is also not designed or equipped to defend the actual United States. Instead, your appropriations and your cheerleading, however well intended, go directly to a mercenary force for Israel, wealthy undemocratic Arab sheikdoms and those who profit from war. This force mobilizes for money and slaughters women and children without a second glance. No American politician or General has apologized for the four strikes on a girl’s school in Minab, Iran, and the mass murder of over 200 women and girls, because immorality and cowardice has long been institutionalized.
As we speak, the President and the Pentagon are planning to send boots on the ground to Iran, first to train several disconnected opposition forces along the border, with more to follow. This is directly out of the Vietnam playbook, and it will fail, but before Washington admits that it has failed, thousands of American lives, in the battle area and around the world, will have been sacrificed.
The President has accidentally created a real opportunity to reshape defense spending and priorities to match what Americans have repeatedly voted for, and what they deserve — a strong, affordable defensive military. Your role, as leaders and decisionmakers, must be to take this opportunity and put the people back in charge of their national defense. Not the Epstein class, not other countries like Israel, not the out-of-control technocratic military industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned us of in 1960.
For the rest of us:
We don’t need any more lies, or any more wars that politicians choose, usually after consulting their investment portfolios. This war — with its dubious and ever changing objectives — was lost by the third day. Americans can handle the truth, and we are not willing to die for other countries, or worse, for the vanity of draft-dodging presidents, of which we have had many.
What we can’t handle is the hundreds of billions, and trillions, that will be required to wage this illegal war against a country that never attacked us, nor ever wanted to, but is now united politically and spiritually to preserve their very existence from what must seem to them to be Godless and corrupt crusaders. Iran can last until the last American, and after the last American dies there, it will not have changed the outcome. We just did this in Afghanistan, taking two decades to figure it out, replacing the Taliban with the Taliban. We demand Congress assert their Article 1 responsibilities, end the war, and bring all our troops home for good.
I’m not sending my children or grandchildren to fight someone else’s unconstitutional war, and you shouldn’t either. What will you say when the draft notice arrives? If President Trump’s war is continued to its logical conclusion, a draft will indeed be necessary.
This is exactly why Americans can’t have nice things. We demand our troops, and our money, come home in full, and begin a long overdue process of healing our land, our industry, our people and our spirit.
https://karenkwiatkowski.substack.com/p/not-an-essay-but-maybe-a-tool-kit