Will US be at war with Iran on Election Day?

 

Will US be at war with Iran on Election Day?

 

 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears determined draw America into war with Iran. Assassinating Iranian and its allied personnel in Tehran eventually provoked the Iranian missile attack on Israel. Now Netanyahu has promised a massive retaliatory attack that almost certainly will draw in the US.

 

 

President Biden has signaled he’s cool with further Israeli escalation leading to all out war. His National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said the “US would work with Israel to ensure Iran faces “severe consequences.” President Biden said he’s working with Israel on a response but indicated Israel “has to respond proportionally.”

 

 

Any major Israeli attack will have to be coordinated and supported by Biden’s America. That will likely provoke Iranian retaliation against US forces in the region which are numerous and vulnerable.

Netanyahu has failed to ethnically cleanse all the Palestinians from Gaza. He’s failed to prevent Hezbollah from firing rockets displacing over 60,000 Israelis from Northern Israel. But with President Biden’s unwavering support, he’s nearing success in his cherished dream: destroying his hated enemy Iran.

 

 

Biden’s billions in weapons and moral support allowing Israel to engage in genocidal ethnic cleansing of Gaza has arguably been the worst foreign policy move in US history. But allowing Israel to draw the US into all out war with Iran may exceed even that grotesque foreign policy misadventure. Instead of counting votes on Election Day…we may be counting US dead in the Middle East.

Once again US adventurism abroad risking nuclear war absent from election debate.

 

Once again US adventurism abroad risking nuclear war absent from election debate. 

 

Unlike the presidential debate where foreign policy didn’t even make a peep till the last third, the VP debate started off with its single question on foreign affairs. And it was worthless. 

 

The question was bizarre. Would each candidate support or oppose a preemptive Israeli strike on Iran over their missile attack? The question was moot as the horrific reality is that any such preemptive attack, largely financed by billions in US weapons, would have ironclad US support. 

 

Walz didn’t even answer the preemptive Israeli attack question. He offered happy talk about the importance of steady leadership in handling the Middle East crisis without offering an iota of substance pertaining to a looming and catastrophic regional war there. Vance didn’t blink, essentially saying Israel is an ally that can do whatever they want. Though he answered the question, his support of endless war in the Middle East is deplorable and disheartening. 

 

US foreign policy is heading toward a cliff over which endless warfare looms, possibly going nuclear. Neither the media nor the candidates care a whit about engaging a sensible, extended discussion of the most important issue facing America, indeed peoplekind. Just 10 minutes out of 180 in the 2 debates, without a substantive comment says it all about the sorry state of achieving a sane foreign policy in America.

The guns of August killed 15 million…the missiles of October could kill 8 billion

 

The guns of August killed 15 million…the missiles of October could kill 8 billion

There’s an eerie similarity to the blundering of nations that ignited the slaughter of WWI and the blundering of nations, led by America, which could lead to nuclear war 110 years later.

Two weeks ago President Biden blinked on authorizing the UK to use US technology to fire its Storm Shadow missiles deep into Russia. UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer came to the White House seeking US permission to allow its Ukraine proxies to fire those US guided Storm Shadows in a desperate, futile bid to stave off Ukraine’s inevitable defeat.

It may take time to get the full story why Biden blinked. Russia’s UN speech declaring such missile strikes risk putting the US at war with Russia set the tone. Likely, a backchannel communication between a high ranking Russian official to a US counterpart helped seal the sensible US rejection of Starmer’s crazed war provoking proposal.

President Biden has spent his entire term mishandling the issue of NATO membership for Ukraine and autonomy for Donbas Ukrainians into a horrific lost war that could still go nuclear. After provoking it, Biden led a joint US, UK effort to scuttle the Ukraine, Russia negotiated peace set to end it in the first month without Ukraine losing a square mile of territory.  Thirty-one months later, Ukraine has lost 4 oblasts, about a fifth of its territory, without a prayer of regaining.

Biden’s biggest mistake was likely framing the war as a zero sum game whereby the US must achieve total victory ensuring Russia’s total defeat. That explains why Biden and his UK poodle, former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, demanded Ukraine President Zelensky reject the peace agreement about to end the war early on. Biden’s Ukraine destroying agenda could not allow any settlement short of unconditional Russian defeat and humiliation. All that accomplished was over half a million Ukrainian troops dead, millions displaced or fled Ukraine, a shattered economy, and Ukraine’s collapse now inevitable.

To prevent that, Ukraine’s Zelensky and current UK Prime Minister Starmer continue badgering Biden to unleash the missiles of October. Some US officials, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, have also been lobbying Biden to ignore the reddest of Russia’s red lines.

That may still happen. In response, Russia has publicly notified America and NATO that it has revised its nuclear policy to specifically allow their use when attacked by a non-nuclear country that is backed by a nuclear country. Russia will consider such attacks as putting Russia at war with the supporting nuclear power.

Let’s fervently hope President Biden continues to heed reality. By not publicly ruling out long range missile strikes, he’s likely still considering authorizing them to stave off a Ukraine defeat before the election. Losing a war, however criminal and senseless to begin with, in not good election strategy.

Biden, Blinken, Starmer, Zelensky all need to be locked into a room for a seminar on the stumbling and bumbling by revered European rulers that unleashed WWI. Then they must toss out their zero sum game against Russia and negotiate a win-win end to a war just as senseless, that could eventually be infinitely more destructive than the War To End All Wars 110 years ago.

If rehabilitated, parole Larry Hoover

 

If rehabilitated, parole Larry Hoover

Life serving prisoner Larry Hoover faces a daunting challenge to gain freedom after 26 years in prison. He’s serving both state and federal lifr sentences; the former for a 1973 execution murder, the latter or running a criminal enterprise from prison.

As a young man Hoover was a raging criminal masterminding one of Chicago’s most notorious gangs. When incarcerated in 1998, Hoover faced certain life on the state charge, then another on the federal racketeering charge.

But the First Step Act signed by President Trump in 2018 opened prison doors to thousands of inmates exhibiting rehabilitation while serving long, often life sentences.

Hoover should be given the opportunity to demonstrate his rehabilitation, qualifying him for release from federal prison without consideration of the heinousness of his crimes. Such consideration simply amounts to endless vengeance for those crimes which serve no purpose in the criminal justice system.

Hoover’s federal prison cell should be reserved for recent criminals who represent an imminent and serious danger to society. At 73, frail, while expressing and acting in positive ways that appear to have no connection whatsoever to his criminal past, Hoover may quality for freedom under the First Step Act.

If so, the second step would be for Governor Pritzker to exhibit that same compassion to Hoover on his state life sentence. Doing so would also serve the true purpose of the criminal justice system: spending our criminal justice tax dollars wisely to protect the public.