No difference at all

 No difference at all 

Americans supporting Trump's attack on Iran are no better than Germans that supported Hitler's attack on Poland in '39 and Japanese that supported Yamamoto's attack on Pearl Harbor in '41. To paraphrase Gertrude Stein...'A criminal war is a criminal war....is a criminal war.

Chicago Tribune letter supporting Trump's Iran war not tethered to reality

 Chicago Tribune letter supporting Trump's Iran war not tethered to reality

David N. Simon’s Tribune Letter ‘Trump administration’s actions in Iran are matters of self-defense’ represents an astonishing defense of US criminal war, the greatest of all international crimes.

 

Anyone who honestly studied the origins of this war knows it was initiated by Trump at the request of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It had nothing to do with Iran’s “declared war against the U.S. and the West for decades”. How did Simon miss that on February 11, Netanyahu arrived at the White House with Mossad Director David Barnea. They encouraged if not demanded invasion against an Iran at peace with the US, indeed, negotiating a new nuclear agreement to replace the one working perfectly that Trump withdrew from eight years ago. The Netanyahu-Barnea tag team argued Iran would collapse within a couple of days from a combination of assassinating Iran’s leader Ali Khamenei, massive bombing, Mossad-fomented civil unrest and ground incursions by Kurdish fighters. These are all war crimes that should get Trump indicted at The Hague if there were justice in the world.

 

Simon also misses that Trump called a ceasefire after 39 days of bombing due to massive destruction to every US base in the Gulf States and Israel, 14 US deaths and hundreds of injuries. Not only did the bombing fail to achieve a single Trump war objective, it shut down the Strait of Hormuz and now the Red Sea to vital oil traffic endangering a global economic collapse for 154 days with no end in sight. This is not self-defense…it’s self-destruction.

 

Regarding Trump’s ruinous, failed war of choice, David N. Simon, like the dwindling number of Trump dead enders still supporting it, must step up to reality before Trump’s war brings the world’s economy crashing down, including that of Mr. Simon and his followers’ Homeland.

 

 

Walt Zlotow  West Suburban Peace Coalition  Glen Ellyn IL

New York Mayor Mamdani only Democratic leader in line with majority of Democrats calling for arrest of Netanyahu for war crimes

New York Mayor Mamdani only Democratic leader in line with majority of Democrats calling for arrest of Netanyahu for war crimes

There are well over a thousand, likely several thousand elected Democratic office holders at the local, state and federal level. Yet, the only one I’m aware of that called for Israeli Prime Minister and indicted war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu to be arrested for those war crimes in Gaza was New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani.


Netanyahu came to Washington D.C. this week to attend the funeral of the Senate’s most virulent warmonger Lindsey Graham who died July 11 after visiting Ukraine in support of America’s proxy war to weaken Russia. Netanyahu was paying his respects to Graham, an ardent supporter of Netanyahu’s grisly genocide in Gaza that has virtually leveled Gaza’s 139 square miles, killed upwards of 100,000 Palestinians and made life unbearable for the remaining 2,200,000 with little left to survive. Graham thrilled Netanyahu when he proclaimed Israel should “flatten Gaza just like America flattened Berlin and Tokyo.”


While in D.C. Netanyahu met with unindicted fellow war criminal, President Trump who responded to Mamdani’s principled charge stating, “Netanyahu will not be arrested, in any way, shape, or form, while in the United States of America.”


Mamdani sure is an outlier within the Democratic Party. A recent Economist/YouGov poll cited by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz found three quarters of Kamala Harris’ voters wanted Netanyahu arrested when he stepped onto the tarmac at D.C. Even a quarter of Trump voters approved of Netanyahu being handed over to the International Criminal Court instead of being allowed to praise the Senate’s most supreme warmonger before chatting with fellow war criminal Trump in the Oval Office.


Harris lost over 6 million Biden voters last election in the process of losing every swing state in allowing Trump to return to power to launch the most destructive criminal war in America’s 250 years. Polling revealed the biggest reason was Harris refusing to break with Biden over his support and enabling of Netanyahu’s genocide in Gaza still going on in slow motion under Trump.


Inviting an indicted war criminal to D.C. to praise a supporter of that war criminal’s genocide in Gaza is a dastardly stain on America. While it was the Republican war criminal president who invited him, that does not absolve the entire Democratic Congress from complicity in allowing him to defile America without joining Mamdani in calling for his arrest and handover to the ICC for justice.


The Democratic Party shows once again why they will likely not regain many if not most of those 6,265,300 votes lost in ’24 when they continue to support war policies that disgrace core democratic values.


Zohran Mamdani stands alone in contrast to the Democratic Party ignoring the peaceful will of their base.


Walt Zlotow West Suburban Peace Coalition Glen Ellyn IL

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries shows he’s just another fake antiwar Democrat

For the second time last Thursday Hakeem Jeffries rallied his Democratic caucus to pass a war powers resolution to stop military action in Iran. The resolution however is symbolic as it has no enforcement mechanism. When both the House and Senate passed a War Powers Resolution in June, the first time in the law’s 53 year history, Trump simply ignored it and kept the war bombing, killing, and spiraling the world economy out of control.

But just a day earlier Jeffries could have dealt Trump’s criminal war a devastating blow by possibly preventing passage of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) required to fund the Iran war as well as Trump’s other criminal military activities worldwide. Seven Republican representatives voted against passage. Had Democrats held firm it would have failed to pass. But six Democrats disobeyed Jeffries and joined 210 Republicans to pass the NDAA 216-212.

Jeffries did nothing to enforce his order to vote against. He could have demanded that a yes vote violated a Democratic ‘red line’ against supporting the war. He could have gone public that Democrats hold the line, framing support for the NDAA as enabling Trump’s continued Iran war. He could have both publicly and privately told them they would face political consequences for siding with Trump on his criminal Iran war upending the world economy. Jeffries remained mute on all three avenues to derail Trump’s NDAA.

Jeffries’ criticism of Trump is mainly political, arguing against Trump’s usurping congressional war making authority and his war blunders to date. But Jeffries, who scoops up gobs of campaign cash from US weapons makers and the Israel Lobby, is a strong proponent of US and Israeli dominance in the Middle East including the need to weaken Iran. Jeffries opposes ending annual US $3.3 billion aid to Israel which assists their ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. In Europe, Jeffries is all in for helping Ukraine destroy itself in America’s proxy war to weaken Russia. Jeffries laments nonsensically “a strong Russia means a weaker America.” He’s oblivious that a strong Russia at peace with Europe means cheap energy and economic prosperity for Europe…and less dead Ukrainians.

Hakeem Jeffries is no friend of peace. He’s a new Cold War dead ender against Russia and a cheerleader for Greater Israel destroying Gaza and West Bank Palestinians.

Walt Zlotow West Suburban Peace Coalition Glen Ellyn IL

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