When “USA, USA" Is Not A Cheer

I awoke today after a peaceful night’s sleep.

Showered. Dressed. Had breakfast while scrolling through messages, emails and scanning the day’s on-line and print newspapers. Then I spent a few hours writing a chapter for my new novel.

After a leisurely lunch, my wife and I took a long walk through our neighborhood, enjoying one of our early Washington DC spring days. Cheery daffodils are the first blooms to make a local appearance. Cherry blossoms are not far behind. 

When I finally go to bed, it won’t be with worries that a drone will destroy our apartment home, or those of our families or neighbors. 

We will not live our evening time with lights out or dimmed because missiles severed our community’s source of power.

The Everyday Impact of War on Civilians

I won’t be thinking about how quickly my wife and I can go to shelter if sirens sound.

Or if a hospital and medical personnel will be available if we need them.

I won’t be fretting about the city’s children who can’t go to school because their school buses are needed for military transport or the schools themselves have been targets. Or the teachers have been called into military service. Or killed.

Even though today is pleasant for my wife and I, the depressing pall over everything I do is that tens of millions of others are being deprived, threatened, and many killed and injured in my name, as an American.

Those missiles and drones shout, “USA. USA.” Our government leaders who order them and sustain their deadly use are those who Americans freely elected. The money to pay for them is our money. And so, as Americans, no matter our individual political preferences, the death and destruction we’re causing in Iran and the Middle East collectively is ours.

When no other course of action is possible to protect us as Americans, then of course, war is necessary. Few complain or resist. We unite.

Trump’s Decision to Bomb Iran

But Iran? Now?

By Donald Trump’s own assessment, whatever we had to fear from Iran’s nuclear ambitions was destroyed in last summer’s assault on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. By many accounts, before Trump ordered the current attack, Iran had come to the negotiating table with a plan that was worth engaging.

Instead, in my name, in all our names as Americans, we’re pounding into dust neighborhoods, schools, hospitals, roads and bridges, and who knows what else. And apparently many of Trump’s appointees managing the carnage are enjoying their handiwork.

Can you think of anything more symbolic of cruel and ruthless decision-making than White House desk jockeys producing Rambo-like war hero videos as if real blood isn’t being spilled and innocent lives taken?

And after the last missile finds its target, Trump expects those surviving to welcome Americans as liberators?

What Americans Can Do Now

In a less dystopian time, a majority of the members of Congress would exercise their Constitutional duty to order a stop to the bloodshed and demand that Trump deploy a skilled diplomacy team to try to negotiate a sustaining relationship with Iran. Instead, that role seems to have been delegated to Trump’s son-in-law and his similarly inexperienced and financially compromised business associate.

Or the president’s own MAGA people would try to persuade him to stop the war. MAGA, after all, was built on a pillar of restraint from foreign military adventures. Isn’t this more worthy of MAGA’s political influence than who uses what toilets?

Barring that, what can the rest of us do?

This. And don’t underestimate its political power.

In just a few days, Saturday, March 28. No Kings Day organizers are hoping 9 million or more Americans will take to the streets to demonstrate their opposition, disgust, and willingness to fight to protect our nation’s democratic foundation. Trump’s assault on democracy, his overt corruption, his gross mismanagement of the levers of government—all that and more has inspired this, the latest in the series of No Kings Day protests. 

Trump’s unconstitutional and heartless war is just the latest outrage prompting Americans to take to the streets.

I plan to be there Saturday. In my small neighborhood, 500 to 1,000 others will be, too.

If enough of us are, maybe a majority in Congress will summon the courage to try to disarm Trump and deter him from his quest to reinvent the U.S. as a rogue authoritarian nation. In our closely divided Congress, it takes only a few more members to finally say, “Enough!”

Here’s how to find and join a demonstration near you.

Comments? Criticism? Contact Joe Rothstein at jrothstein@rothstein.net

Always Get It’s Always Something

Sign up to get the most recent column set to your inbox for free.

→ SUBSCRIBE