The latest round of strikes on Iran is nothing more than a bloodthirsty attempt by the United States and Israel to interfere in another nation’s affairs for the sake of oil and regional control. We have become used to this sort of thing in this country.
When I weep for the lost girls of Minab, whose bodies pile 168 high, it does not come as a shock. It is only human to cry for this bloodshed.
To those who want to see the people of Iran free of the shackles of the Ayatollah, this war might seem like the heavy toll of freedom. I implore you to ask those lost girls if they feel freer now, as they sit beneath the rubble. Ask any of the hundreds of dead across Iran if the cold kiss of death feels freeing. Neither the U.S. nor Israel has ever wanted to free the people of Iran. This campaign has no clear end and no clear purpose. Its only metric of success is death inflicted. There is no freedom that comes from the barrel of a gun. No people were ever freed by being blown to smithereens. I have no love in my heart for the fundamentalist regime, but killing ordinary people will only cement their control.
It is no surprise that I, a student of history who sees the folly of empire in the throes of greed and foolishness of old men, oppose this war. It is only logical that I believe this is a foolish endeavor. This conflict will not end with bombs, and it will not end with boots on the ground. Wars like this never end with anything but stinging defeat. Remember Korea, or Vietnam, or Lebanon, or Iraq, or Somalia or Afghanistan. With noble purpose or not, the U.S. military leaves piles of bodies and trillions of dollars wasted. This war will not benefit the United States any more than previous wars did, and like them, the people left behind in Iran will be worse off.
When the last chopper lifted off of the American embassy in Saigon, America wept, for its sons had died in the jungle in vain. When the last plane took off from Kabul with desperate Afghan mothers, fathers, children clamoring for safety, America once again lamented its lost sons and its wasted effort. As a people, we know this pain. The folly of empire and the foolishness of barbarism. If we continue down this path of death and destruction, we will once feel its sting. When the last chopper leaves Tehran, how many will suffer?
