To the editor:
I have lived through a number of U.S. wars, beginning with Vietnam. Too often our involvement has ended in tragedy, cost and regret.
People forget that in recent wars the casualties were so high that photos of flag-draped coffins returning from overseas were banned.
The public was not meant to see the real cost of war.
With a few exceptions (Bosnia, for one), our involvement has been financially costly and unfortunate. And when we should have gone in immediately, and with immense humanitarian justification (Rwanda), Congress sat around and did nothing. Welcome to the moral mess that has become our nation.
Our involvement in the Middle East does not seem to have made the world safer, but more unstable.
The military choices this country has made in recent years make me uncomfortable waving our flag or speaking the Pledge of Allegiance. I am not going to wave a flag for any country that bombs civilian schools, and I am not going to pledge allegiance to any country that assists an ally in decimating a homeland and civilian population (Gaza).
Now Iran. A war directed by a despot who not only escaped military service with an absurd bone-spur affliction, but had the nerve to denigrate those who did serve honorably (John McCain, among others). The whole thing would be a joke if he wasn’t so narcissistically unhinged and dangerous.
I am sure Mr. Trump will do all he can to escalate or extend his Iran involvement as a distraction from the midterm elections. Taking a page from the playbook of all authoritarians, he knows to create chaos as a device to unsettle, destabilize and confuse. People rally behind wartime presidents. He’s counting on that.
I do not support this invasion of Iran. Iran, for better or worse, is a sovereign nation. While it is true the Ayatollah’s regime was a disaster, it is up to the people of Iran to decide their future. It is not the right of the U.S. to invade using the pretext of an imagined (or even real) nuclear capability.
This invasion has the credibility stink of “weapons of mass destruction,” and it should be way past time to stop reflexively supporting this latest country-of-the-month attack with more flag-waving and fist-pumping.
The list of moral wrongs this country has been involved in is extensive. We are not always right — why do people persist in believing this fiction?
I feel pretty confident war-mongering was not among the ambitions our founding fathers (and mothers) envisioned for this nation.
And I sincerely hope we’re able to turn this ship around before we hit an iceberg of our own creation.
Alicia Hart
Pond Street
