Who Are The Bad Guys?
We are at war. Nobody voted for it. Nobody asked for it. Congress never authorized it. One man decided.
How it started
The US and Iran have been circling each other since 1979. For the last several years the US has tampered with Iran’s currency, imposed crushing sanctions, and already bombed a supposed nuclear facility. A peace deal was being negotiated since 2018. Talks were happening in Oman as recently as February 25th. Iran’s foreign minister said a historic agreement was within reach. Three days later the bombs dropped. Like playing Spades for freedom and reneging on the last hand. The US killed Iran’s Supreme Leader and dozens of other officials in the opening salvo. Nearly 900 strikes in 12 hours. A girls’ school near a naval base was hit. 170 children and teachers killed.
Why did we walk away from the table?
Depends who you ask. Some say the US wants regime change. Some say it is about oil and regional dominance. Some say Saudi Arabia has been offering enough money to the right people to get the US to wipe Iran off the board in a proxy war that Saudi Arabia and Iran have been fighting for decades. The UK Prime Minister said he does not believe in regime change from the skies. (House of Commons Library) Even some Republicans in Congress are asking what exactly the plan is and nobody in the administration has a clear answer.
Bottom line. The US has no real beef with Iran that a negotiating table could not have solved three days before this started. We are $12 billion in after two weeks with a $200 billion request coming. No exit strategy. No clear objective. No congressional authorization. No ROI for the American people. Just ego, geopolitical chess, and Hegseth saying on camera “it takes money to kill bad guys.” (CNBC)
So who exactly are the bad guys?
That is the question that should keep you up at night.
A bad guy in America is whoever the people with the guns and the government backing say it is. That definition has been consistent for 400 years. And it has never required proof. It only requires power.
George Floyd was a bad guy with a knee on his neck for nine minutes. Alex Pretti was a 37-year-old VA nurse with a phone in his hand, trying to help a woman off the ground. Six federal agents tackled him face down and fired 10 shots into his back. (The 19th News) Kristi Noem called him a domestic terrorist. Stephen Miller called him a would-be assassin. (www.fire.org) Video showed a man with a phone. The internal CBP review made no mention of him attacking or threatening anyone. (NPR)
Bad guy.
The Iranian girls in that school were bad guys too apparently. Collateral damage is just another way to say bad guy after the fact.
For Black folks, this is not new information. Slave patrols and lynch mobs of the 19th century attacked and murdered Black Americans with the full support and complicity of law enforcers. (University of California Press) The names changed. The machinery got more sophisticated. The result stayed the same. We have been “drinking water and minding our business” and still ending up on the wrong end of someone’s definition of threat since before this country had a name.
The common thread is never danger. It is always power. Who holds it. Who decides. Who faces no consequences for the decision.
America is spending $1 billion a day on bad guys abroad while the ones at home carry badges and government paychecks and go home to dinner.
Somebody needs to make it make sense. Because Pete Hegseth’s dictionary and the rest of ours are not the same book.
