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Where Is the Peace Movement in the US?
As one commentator observed recently, “Where the hell is the peace movement?” The latter sums up the whole enchilada, so to speak. While millions gathered this past Saturday, June 14th, the demonstrations were against Trump’s military parade, but not against Trump’s complicity in many of the hot wars being fought as I write, with one in particular, the war between Israel and Iran, having the possibility of crossing all of the lines in the sand with potential US involvement in the use of tactical nuclear weapons, weapons in their larger type that were last used by the US in August 1945 against Japan.
Whether or not readers like Iran, the history of Iran in 1953 is recorded as the US leading a CIA covert plan that was successful in removing Iran’s democratically elected government. What followed was 26 years of one-man rule by the ruthless shah, who implemented a viciously repressive government against his own people. There is a sickening penchant here to back governments by the US, which will torture and disappear their own people. Chile comes to mind, with Iran not far behind. When the US embassy in Tehran was overtaken by revolutionaries in 1979, few asked why the people doing this were so pissed off. What followed was a repressively authoritarian religious regime that governs until today; however, that government is still the government of a sovereign country.
Israel has had Iran in its sights for decades. That it launched a preemptive war against Iran is no surprise. What is a surprise, however, is that the US was complicit in that war, and the Trump administration lulled Iran’s leadership into thinking the US was serious about negotiating a nuclear arms agreement, which Trump broke in any case during his first administration. Israel has hundreds of nuclear weapons and Iran has none.
Trump does not know what the fuck he is doing in foreign policy. Could he locate Iran on a map? Mouthing a peaceful approach to the world, he has turned his back on each and every case he and his administration has considered and has brokered lots of arms to fan the flames of these wars. Choose the country, and Trump and his right-wing maniacs have supplied weapons and intelligence information: Gaza, Syria, Yemen (attacked directly), Lebanon, Ukraine, and now Iran come to mind. A false prophet of peace like Trump, and his allies in Britain, France, Germany, and in the Middle East, no one of sound mind and peaceful instincts needs or wants. Recall when he promised to end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours: that war rages on and on and on.
While it may come to nuclear weapons and their use in Iran, Trump and his sycophants are the least dependable kids on the block! The rules of war, such as the Geneva Conventions and many, many other international and national laws and treaties, have been thrown to the wind. Now the Democrats (New York Times, June 16, 2025) want to get in on the act and complain about war after spending nearly 50 years supporting war. Look to Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton on that account, just to name a few. The Costs of War project at Brown University lists $8 trillion spent on US wars and US-backed wars since September 11, 2001, but social programs are being cut by the insanely vicious far right!