For the better part of three weeks, our President’s foray into Iran has been scrutinized by people around the world. Allow me to pile on.

The President, who usually doesn’t choose his words carefully as he does his worst caricature of Archie Bunker’s malapropisms, has labeled the U.S. military’s attack on Iran as an “excursion.” I thought he was just attempting to minimize the potential for disaster with his need to exercise his fetish to bully. But, in fact, the unprovoked attack with the enormously, ever-increasing price tag has been anything but a stroll through a park for inquisitive toddlers. More accurately it has been an “incursion,” which can also have the same connotation as the word “war”! It’s time again to “call a spade a spade.” Even though he has no authority to do so, the President has propelled us into another war in the Middle East.

As for the rules of engagement (ROE), there are humanitarian rules by which war can be conducted, and our “Secretary of War crimes” is so steeped in his “warrior ethos” that he’s consumed with a toxic masculinity that should put him in the well before the International Criminal Court. He loves to spew “maximum lethality.” We saw the celebration of the administration’s “double tap” on the suspected narco-terrorists clinging to a disabled boat. He’s ranted about giving “no quarter, no mercy” for our enemy. Recently the Iranian warship IRIS Dena was struck and suffered 87 casualties with survivors in the water. Sri Lankan authorities rescued the survivors and noted there was no effort made by the U.S. to retrieve those in the water.

Regarding the girls’ school which was struck with nearly 200 killed, our military, which Trump and Hegseth love to laud for its precision and accuracy, appears to have made a mistake as a result of outdated intelligence. Our insightful President opined that bad things happen during war, but he took no responsibility for this senseless mistake. It was clear to see that the President was past his remorse for our blunder.

Keith R. Klawitter

Morgan