The Moon Tonight: Thoughts About a "Quiet Death"

It is a brilliant moon tonight. Bright, against a dark cloudy sky. What a night for such a moon, for such a sky.

I am somber. There was another blog I wanted to write, but war is on my mind.

My country is at war

When the president of my country announced that six soldiers had died from a drone strike, at the beginning of this war, he summed up the event by saying, "There will likely be more before it ends. That’s the way it is. Likely be more."

That’s the way it is.

I listened to Pete Hegseth today, the Secretary of Defense (no, I won't use that new title). He is so proud. He is exultant.

A U.S. sub shot a torpedo at an Iranian warship. The Iranian craft fell into the sea, as did all the souls on board. How many died in the blast? How many were scooped out of the water? They are still counting bodies.

Do I care if these are Iranian bodies, or bodies of my own compatriots? Of course I want my compatriots to live, but I cannot rejoice at the death of anyone.

How did Hegseth describe this tragedy?

Yesterday in the Indian Ocean an American submarine sunk an Iranian warship that thought it was safe in international waters. Instead, it was sunk by a torpedo. Quiet death.

Quiet death, indeed.

It's a very tragic event. We are in tragic circumstances now.

He also said in another context:

Flying over Tehran, flying over Iran, flying over their capital, flying over the IRGC, Iranian leaders looking up and seeing only us and Israeli air power every minute of every day, until we decide it's over and Iran will be able to do nothing about it....Death and destruction from the sky, all day long.

Death and destruction from the sky, all day long.

And Iran will be able to do nothing about it.

Oh the chest thumping, the hubris. Further, he declares:

More bombers and more fighters are arriving just today, and now with complete control of the skies, we will be using 500-pound, 1,000-pound and 2,000-pound GPS and laser-guided precision gravity bombs...

Maybe it's me, but I hear those words and I am horrified. I think of the people under those bombs. I think of the dead, the wounded, the disfigured for life. Shopkeepers, children...anyone. This man, who represents my interests in the government, has no concern where those bombs will fall, who will be hit. Or maybe he does care. He seems to relish the ability to inflict pain, to hurt, to assert power.

Is war necessary? I don't know. Some wars, sometime, maybe. I don't know. I do know that if we unleash the terror of war, if we drop bombs on people, we should feel the weight of what we do.

My president seems to have a hunger for war now. He seems to have acquired a taste for sending airplanes to other lands and dropping bombs on people.

Maybe we should have let him keep those tariffs. They gave him the power over other people and other countries he craves.

I heard we bombed Ecuador today. I can't listen to more war. I'll find out what happened tomorrow.

Apparently, the only limit to our war-waging efforts is the amount of war-fighting machinery we have. Have no fear there. The president assured us that we have unlimited ammunition at our disposal. He's sitting down with representatives of the arms industry to find out how fast they can pump out more equipment. More guns. More bombs. More planes. More drones. More interceptors.

Trump and Hegseth aren't the first in my government to wage war. I've lived a long time. I lived through Vietnam and Korea. Back then we called a war a war. There were no nicknames. When was the first war that was given a cinematic name? Was it the first Gulf War, under George Bush I? Operation Desert Shield? Then Desert Storm, Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation Enduring Freedom.

Leave it to this group, to the Trump/Hegseth war wagers to be epic. Not just epic, but furiously epic. Their war, the war I am paying for now, the war in which more U.S. soldiers will surely die, that war is called Operation Epic Fury.

I have no appetite for what is to come, for what has come in the last few days. War is horrifying enough, but men crowing over death and reveling in the power they have to inflict--this is too much for me.

So, when I saw the moon tonight I thought it expressed my state of mind perfectly. There was something ominous about that moon, surrounded completely by dark clouds. I wanted to share that moon, that mood and my profound dismay.

May the war end soon. May peace return to my country, and to those people in far off countries.

As always, I wish kindness and compassion would prevail here, and elsewhere in the world.