Does anyone even know why we're fighting? It's been about a week since the US and Israel first launched a joint preemptive attack on Iran and to this point they have yet to articulate a reason beyond Trump's strong feelings that, "they were gonna attack us first".
Now that we're in there, they also haven't bothered to explain what the objectives are. On day one it was to prevent a preemptive nuclear attack, the next day it was regime change, and then the day after that it was "definitely not regime change", and yesterday it was, "There will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!".
It should go without saying that this is an illegal war, congress hasn't authorized it but they have voted down a resolution to constrain Trumps power. They are too cowardly to vote for war themselves, they must think they are avoiding getting blood directly on their hands by letting Trump do the dirty work, but they will never wash this off.
I remember going to anti-apartheid protests and AIDs marches in the late 80s and early 90s with my mom when I was growing up in Harlem. Later I would join marches to protest the Iraq war and I took my own kid to Occupy DC, back when it felt safe to participate in anti-government demonstrations.
As the political climate started to shift after 9/11, when new laws about where and how to legally protest started to be handed down in the name of safety and security, it became less safe to participate in public protests in the streets. The police used to be at demonstrations to protect the protestors, now they are there to fight us.
Not only does this have a chilling effect on free speech by limiting the types of people who show up to protests to those of us who are ready to fight. It also invites violent counter-protestors to bring their guns out and drive cars into crowds of people, ratcheting up the violence even further.
If I were to bring my kids to an event now and, god forbid, they got hurt, the government would call me a terrorist lunatic for bringing them to a "violent anti-government protest". Completely ignoring the fact that the government creates the conditions that make the violence and anti-government reaction inevitable.
It feels like if you want to protest against this madness that you would have to make it your full time job. Every day the Trump regime commits, seemingly, multiple impeachable infractions so the dizzying pace makes it hard to organize. By the time you geared up to protest the illegal kidnapping of Nicholas Maduro from his home in Venezuela Trump would have moved on to invading Greenland.
That was just in January, in February it was the Epstein files, which are really nasty by the way, and here we are in March wondering whether we're in the early days of another 20 year war in the Middle East, how many more of these do we have in us anyway?
Who really wants this war? Why?
I can't believe that anywhere close to a majority of Americans want our tax dollars blowing people to bits because Trump had, "a feeling they were gonna hit us first". Left to speculate as to the "why" I can only imagine that the religious hard liners are finally getting their wishes granted and they really think this will be the "last war".
Growing up in a strict Muslim home I have some experience with true believers and I recognize the look in the eyes of a person who thinks they are seeing their god make one of those mysterious moves, and I can see that look on the faces of some of the men and women leading us into this quagmire.
Writing these weekly blog posts feels like the only "safe" way to exercise my right to speak out. I wouldn't dare to post on social media, part of me feels safer yelling into the void here, where I control the algorithm than getting censored and then reported to the appropriate authorities; on platforms controlled by billionaires.