I get a kick out of online drama. It’s nothing new of course, if it’s not a couple of people posting on X going after each other, then it’s podcasters (oops! “content creators”) or something else. There are always sides and a lot of the time I find both sides compelling. I’m not really a fence sitter, I just think that in order to make a reasoned determination on whatever the silly issue happens to be at the time, I need to hear both sides (or more) that’s being offered.

For instance, this current war. Yes, I have written in this space that I am not on favor of this incursion in Iran, but there are those that absolutely believe it’s necessary and will go to the ridiculous extent (in my opinion) to justify why we need to take this evil regime down. there’s one Neo-con broadcaster that has been pushing regime change from the beginning and of course, now that it’s pretty much a given that the Iranian people are not going to rise up against their oppressive government, he has an excuse. It’s that the supporters of the regime have all the weapons and he proposes we (America) arm the Iranian people, just like we’ve done with opposition in there countries in the past.

He gives the example of Afghanistan. That’s right. During the Cold War, the Russians invaded Afghanistan. It wasn’t an easy takeover and it was made harder by the fact that the U.S. provided arms to the Mujahideen. Eventually, after around a decade, the Russians slinked away back home. The Mujahideen/ They became the Taliban. You know, those guys that hosted Osama bin Laden and his merry al-Quida men? The ones that attacked us on September 11, 2001? The place where we spent 20 years fighting said Taliban only to slink away in August 2021 leaving behind some 80 billion dollars in arms for the Taliban to use.

Yeah, that example.

Another he uses is that of Nicaragua in the early 1980’s during the presidency of Ronald Reagan. look up Iran/Contra if you have any questions on the details but suffice to say, communists took over Nicaragua and the U.S., sent arms(illegally) to the anti-communist rebels there to hopefully cause an uprising and replace that bad dictator, Daniel Ortega. well, here we are 40 years later and guess what? Daniel Ortega is still in charge of Nicaragua. I think it’s interesting that this broadcaster would use 2 of the worst examples to rationalize his support for regime change in Iran.

And this person’s logic is being utilized by other neocons (I guess) spreading useless propaganda. Of course, there are true believers out there: Why would Trump get us into this if he didn’t have a plan? We’re being gaslighted, folks. the question should be, Why did we attack Iran this year in the first place? No, sorry, the nuclear weapon cannot be the excuse, because we were told undeniably that Irans ability to produce a nuclear weapon, had been obliterated. So now what?

the argument doesn’t help either side. to one, being against this war seems like a form of treason, while to another, the support is nothing more than being able to Israeli puppet, acceding to a country that has only their best interests in mind. Just because some politician tells us that something is good, doesn’t make it necessarily so and vice-versa. We need to be able to use our own reason, removing any emotional attachments we might have to one side or the other.

It’s why we, the United States, are who we are.