I usually try to take a day off on Saturdays to get a much needed break, and this past Saturday was no different.
I woke up, got out of bed and put my coffee on. After drinking a cup, I got dressed in my running shorts, socks, lightweight hiking boots, and running shirt to hit the nearby park that has a multitude of staircases I can climb.
With Air Pods in hand, I opened up the Libby app on my phone, turned on another chapter of the book Freedom from Fear and walked out the door. I scrolled my Apple Watch, found the workouts app, and hit "hiking." When I returned home, I hit the computer to do a Zoom meeting when I saw the news.
Trump did the unthinkable and attacked Iran.
At around 2 AM, making a major announcement appear like a Friday night document dump, Trump appeared wearing an idiotic baseball hat and announced he began major combat operations in Iran.
This immediately brought back visions of 2003, and the reason why I started Crooks and Liars in 2004.
The runup to the Iraq war was littered with a compliant media that embraced the jingoism and nationalism of the country after the events of 911.
The Bush administration and their spokespeople lied to the American people for months, making a frivolous case of Iraq having WMDs, which included the infamous Colin Powell speech to the UN. Even though they were lying, they at least tried to walk through all the steps before attacking.
On March 19, 2003, a U.S.-led coalition began airstrikes on Baghdad, followed by a ground invasion on March 20th.
The US had attacked a country which did not attack us. I was appalled.
Since then the decades have not been kind.
The chaos, destruction and the suffering that resulted in those lies, coupled with the invasion of Afghanistan, resulted in a catastrophic loss of blood and treasure that still haunts the country today.
In one fell swoop, Trump revisited this like a deranged narcissist who is losing his grip on reality. His own voters are now revolting against him for this action since he promised he would never start a war.
For the decades it took this country to recover from George Bush's odyssey, Trump has put us right back in another Middle East quagmire, on a WHIM. Or to cater to fundamentalist Christians praying for Armageddon. Or because he "felt" like Iran might attack first. Or because Israel wanted him to. Choose your adventure; they're offering all kinds of excuses.
Von Shitzhispants didn't bother making a case to the people, the UN, or Congress. His ego would have none of that.
Instead, egged on by Saudi Arabia, and Bibi Netanyahu, he agreed to attack Iran even after holding peace talks with Iran the entire week prior to Saturday.
Trump and his administration have given a multitude of different reasons why they joined Israel and bombed Iran, but none of them are believable.
Trump has been working up to this with by killing roughly 151 people that he claimed were alleged drug smugglers in international waters and then kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores
One thing is certain. Iran is definitely not Venezuela.
If history is an indicator, and Trump can't have his much needed photo-ops to plaster on Social media, it won't take long for him to lose focus and move on to something just as evil.
It's not if but when Trump will have his Mission Accomplished moment, throw the towel in and let the Iranian people fend for themselves, while at the same time the Middle East is thrown into a cacophony of uncertainty and violence. This surely will bleed into the US, maybe not right away, but in years to come.
In Trump's orbit, he doesn't own it if he breaks it.
