Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):
Let’s make this clear: if the US bombs Iran, Iran will kill US military personnel in response. If this happens, it will not be Iran’s fault that those military personnel died. It will be Trump’s fault. It will be the fault of everyone whose decisions led to the attack which resulted in their deaths.
And they will have died for nothing.
Anyone who dies in a war with Iran will have died for nothing.
They will not have died fighting for anyone’s freedom. They will not have died protecting their country.
The warmongers and propagandists will try to spin their deaths in this way, but they will be lying.
The bereaved parents and partners of those who died will also try to frame their deaths in this way, but they will only be fooling themselves, because the truth will be too painful to bear.
And the truth is that everyone who dies in such a war will have died because a few powerful people made some extremely evil decisions out of their own self-interest. And for no other reason.
Do NOT join the US military. Do NOT join the militaries of any nation which normally participates in America’s wars. If you are in those militaries, you should get out by any means necessary, as quickly as possible. If further on down the track there is a draft for a war with Iran, you should dodge the draft. Because otherwise you will be throwing yourself into a war against one of the world’s most formidable militaries, for nothing.
If you fight in such a war, you will be fighting for nothing.
If you die in such a war, you will die for nothing.
If you lose your limbs in such a war, you will lose your limbs for nothing.
If you suffer permanent brain damage in such a war, you will lose your mind for nothing.
Even if you manage to survive such a war with your body and brain intact, you will live the rest of your life with the knowledge that you killed human beings for nothing.
There’s a stanza from Carl Sandburg’s “The People, Yes” which has been bubbling around in my consciousness a lot lately:
The little girl saw her first troop parade and asked,
‘What are those?’
‘Soldiers.’
‘What are soldiers?’
‘They are for war. They fight and each tries to kill as many of the other side as he can.’
The girl held still and studied.
‘Do you know . . . I know something?’
‘Yes, what is it you know?’
‘Sometime they’ll give a war and nobody will come.’
If the US directly attacks Iran — and it’s looking increasingly likely that it will — Iran can be expected to kill many US soldiers with powerful attacks on the US military bases that are within striking range of its missiles. If that happens, the US can be expected to launch a full-scale regime change war on Iran.
If that’s to be, then let this be the war that nobody comes to. Because the alternative is to fight and die in a stupid war waged by evil people, for nothing.
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