To the Editor:
I am sorry you did not publish my LTTE last week, as it was a fairly complete timeline of the Iran War, including administration comments thereon. It was, I thought, an accurate revelation of how Trump and his advisors approach challenges commando-style, without observing Constitutional mandates, without advise or consent, and without care what the American public thinks. He can’t be a dictator if he has to get approval.
First, attacking the infrastructure of our government; dismissing experts in fields from science/medicine and counterintelligence; creating a private internal army; creating false emergencies to circumvent the law; declaring real estate belonging to other countries as his; and finally instigating a war, solo except for Bibi an MLB, without explanation or interest in the support of the American public or free-world nations. Now, he is both demanding and begging for help on an entirely foreseeable crisis in the Strait of Hormuz. All the while posturing, lying, and blaming others.
In the meantime, he and his family have been helping themselves to vast “goodies” in other countries. Now, the entire world, friend and foe alike, knows what a self-aggrandizing, mercenary bully he is.
Trump bombed Iran in June to “obliterate” their uranium stores, and then again in February as urged by Israel and MLB for reasons not yet certain, with no exit plan and an indifference to the human cost of his military “excursion” and absolutely foreseeable economic consequences. He has said that the war will end, “when I feel it in my bones.” The war casualties? “Things happen in war.”
He has insulted 80-year friends, haughtily rejected offers of some help (“We don’t need someone to come in when we’ve already won!) and is shocked that those denigrated countries are not anxious to join, on command, an ill-conceived war and an impending economic crisis in the Strait of Hormuz, which now is impassable to oil tankers because of Iranian counterattacks. Trump had been clearly warned by the Joint Chiefs of Staff of such a likelihood. But they were talking to a president who knows everything about everything and is incapable of reevaluation. He must be correct and can never be wrong.
What concerned me about your Editorial was the near-depression you shared in your complete acceptance and assurance of WWIII. As though We, the People, have no method of influencing against that future. The person responsible for this dire state of affairs is still subject to our Constitution, which provides the means whereby a rogue government can be brought to account: Impeachment or the 25th Amendment. The majority of Americans are not prepared to crumble in fear and hopelessness.
We have a Constitution, a Nation of Laws, a long history of both contention and cooperation. We still have the right to vote, unless Trump completely succeeds in suppressing it under the proposed SAVE Act. To this point we have always opposed monarchs and have sought people we believed had the best interests of our citizens at heart as leaders. We can no longer have any level of certainty about that in this president.
Martin, we cannot roll over in grief or disbelief and abandon ourselves to hopes that heaven will save us. Nothing wrong with prayers, but we know from history that God seldom directly intervenes. We were given the intelligence and fortitude to figure this out ourselves. But first, we have to rely on each other as We, the People, to solve this and other future challenges. To acknowledge where the problems are and decide on the best Constitutional means to remedy them. Few people like to see someone else in pain, but isolating ourselves in fear and helplessness is useless and unworthy.
Kelly Scoles,
Fillmore, Ca.