Is the U.S. no better than Russia now?

“In war, truth is the first casu­al­ty” is a say­ing that has numer­ous attri­bu­tions, dat­ing as far back as the 5^th cen­tu­ry BCE, to the Greek play­wright Aeschylus.

Regardless of what form it has been repeat­ed through the cen­turies, while it is true in war, it is also true in events lead­ing up to war; Hitler’s inva­sion of Poland under the guise of respond­ing to a non-exis­tent attack from Poland, and Japan’s attack on the United States while its diplo­mats were deliv­er­ing a dec­la­ra­tion to the White House.

And it has hap­pened once again, even now as the United States, in col­lu­sion with Israel, attacks Iran while nego­tia­tors con­vene else­where to dis­cuss peace.

No one should doubt that plans for hos­til­i­ties were well under­way even while a peace­ful res­o­lu­tion was alleged­ly being sought. Massive U.S. naval forces were being relo­cat­ed to the region to sup­port a strike. U.S. bases in near­by coun­tries were put on alert for pos­si­ble counterstrikes.

And the read­i­ly avail­able sup­port from Israel could not have been secured on the spur of the moment, so it seems bla­tant­ly evi­dent that Israel was already well aware that mil­i­tary action was imminent.

Added to all this is the ques­tion of why this coun­try would want to ini­ti­ate hos­til­i­ties with an ally that has been brand­ed for war crimes for its actions in Palestine, killing tens of thou­sands of civil­ians, destroy­ing Gaza’s infra­struc­ture, and abet­ting the star­va­tion and dis­ease of the Palestinians by inter­fer­ing with non-par­ti­san human­i­tar­i­an efforts.

The Trump admin­is­tra­tion has shown that it is no bet­ter than the Russian autoc­ra­cy under the lead­er­ship of Putin. Russia con­tin­u­al­ly appears at peace nego­ti­a­tions to end a four-year-old war, while at the same time send­ing hun­dreds of drones and mis­siles into Ukraine, tar­get­ing hos­pi­tals, schools, pow­er plants, and mar­kets, all in an effort to kill civilians.

While the American President con­tin­u­al­ly sug­gest­ed that “things are going to hap­pen with­in a cou­ple of weeks” and oth­er equal­ly mis­lead­ing com­ments, he was sur­rep­ti­tious­ly plan­ning to strike Iran with­out notice and as quick­ly as he could get the nec­es­sary forces in place. There may not have been a for­mal dec­la­ra­tion of war, an act which must be approved by Congress (Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution). Striking a sov­er­eign coun­try with bombs and mis­siles is noth­ing less than an unan­nounced dec­la­ra­tion of war, the same thing that hap­pened four years ago when Russia began hos­til­i­ties against Ukraine.

So, what makes the U.S. any bet­ter than Russia?

Nothing.

This coun­try will be con­demned by many of its allies, and many of those form­ing NATO, our strongest and longest-last­ing ally.

Condemnation should also come from the reli­gious com­mu­ni­ty as well. It will be inter­est­ing to see if the Vatican or any of our nation­al church­es send up an out­cry against these actions, or whether U.S. syn­a­gogues will rail against Israel’s sup­port of mil­i­tary action against Iran.

Our President has said that it is unac­cept­able for Iran to have nuclear weapons or even a nuclear pro­gram. Why is it the purview of this coun­try to say whether or not anoth­er nation shall have access to these things? When have we ever spo­ken out against nuclear weapons in South Africa, Israel, India, Pakistan, or North Korea? Or more pre­cise­ly, when have we ever ini­ti­at­ed mil­i­tary strikes against any of these nations to pre­clude them from hav­ing such access?

It is not the respon­si­bil­i­ty of the United States to deter­mine how any nation devel­ops, either sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly or polit­i­cal­ly. That role should fall under the aus­pices of the United Nations and be more care­ful­ly con­clud­ed through nego­ti­a­tions and rea­soned dis­cus­sion, not uni­lat­er­al force.

The President has pre­dict­ed that “some Americans may die.” If they do so as a result of mil­i­tary strikes by Iran against U.S. instal­la­tions in Middle East coun­tries or embassies or by ter­ror­ist attacks in American cities, those deaths will rest on the shoul­ders of the President, his lack­eys who sup­port­ed (or urged him), and a Congress that has failed to exer­cise its del­e­gat­ed duties.