Ink Tea Stone Leaf

Let’s just get this out of the way—this post is not what you might call “persuasive.” I am not attempting to persuade anybody that our new war with Iran is gravely immoral. It simply is, and if you don’t know that already, you can deal with that knowledge however you like.

What else is there to say? Plenty. But whenever I sit down to try and put my thoughts in order, to write about the violations of international law, the reckless destruction of civilian lives, and the lasting damage this conflict will do to the well-being of every person on this globe, my head throbs so bad I have to tear all my thoughts out and hurl them as far away as I can before I can breathe. I’m tired of explaining to whoever is out there why these things are wrong. I have already denounced everything in the strongest terms. I have no inclination to be snarky about the fools who led us here, or the dupes who elected them. I’m too angry to write for the sake of writing. I just want to scream, this was not inevitable, this was the product of willful ignorance, we are not innocent.

If the world will not learn from history, it will burn in it. And if you don’t think that includes you, you’re in for a painful surprise.

Maybe I’ll feel capable of writing intelligently about the war in a week or two, but I am not a journalist. I will not make it my job to report on the facts, nor to have a take ready for every new development. For now my only take is this: I remember the lies that led us to the Iraq war, and I will not believe the lies being peddled to justify the Iran war.