Making War while mouthing peace
No Nobel for the king of liars
Rep. Darrell Issa announced in March that he had nominated President Trump to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.
"Not since Ronald Reagan has an American president better represented the national resolve of peace through strength or the fundamental case for a world without war," he wrote.
If you buy that, I would like to sell you Greenland.
After bombing three Iranian nuclear sites on June 21, Trump, the king of liars, wrote on Truth Social, "Now is the time for peace!" (He put that in all caps, but I don't like shouting at my readers.)
Trump quickly won praise from legislators ranging from House Speaker Mike Johnson to Democratic Sen. John Fetterman. I agree with House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who said Trump "misled the country about his intentions, failed to seek congressional authorization for the use of military force and risks American entanglement in a potentially disastrous war in the Middle East."
Democrats, however, are not exactly unified in their messaging. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, after slamming Trump for marching us into war "with erratic threats and no strategy," said, "Confronting Iran's ruthless campaign of terror, nuclear ambitions, and regional aggression demands strength, resolve, and strategic clarity."
I am no fan of Iran's leaders, to say the least, but can we please be more honest? It's absurd to decry regional aggression in the Mideast while ignoring or even applauding the aggression of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
American intelligence experts had said that Iran was not on the verge of developing nuclear weapons. But Trump did not want to hear that. He preferred to go with Netanyahu, who incidentally has nuclear weapons already and has been engaged in a ruthless campaign of ethnic cleansing against Palestinians in Gaza.
If you think America getting bogged down in another war in that region is just what we need, good for you. But do not tell me this behavior is a recipe for peace.
Trump has long desired a Nobel Peace Prize. That's like a big game hunter wanting to be Dr. Dolittle.
Our 45th and 47th president, which is two presidencies more than he deserved, resents that President Obama won a Nobel and he didn't. Granted, the Nobel committee was so hasty in honoring Obama that even he was embarrassed. But Obama is sane and responsible, while Trump is a sociopath.
Instead of treating the prospect of war as a grave matter, Trump teased us over the bombing of Iran like someone on reality TV choosing a lover: "I may do it. I may not do it. Nobody knows what I'm going to do."
Republicans are as incoherent as their leader. On one hand are isolationists who want to avoid international entanglements. On the other are hawks so eager to get us into another conflict that they never paused to consider the long-term consequences.
The United States spends more on its defense than the next nine countries combined. Yet Republicans seek to add hundreds of billions of dollars to our military budget.
Peace cannot mean that we alone have the right to defend ourselves. Strength cannot mean pretending to be so threatened by the opinions of protesters that we have masked secret police grab them in the streets to deport them to foreign gulags.
Trump has no more credibility on the subject of peace than on free and fair elections. He is still so obsessed over his 2020 loss that he wants to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Democrats.
But we cannot just blame politicians. Trump's power rests on millions of voters who behave like members of a cult, and on media that serve as enablers of his alternate reality.
A friend of mine spends far too much time on Facebook arguing with MAGAs. In response to his calling the military parade Trump threw for himself on his 79th birthday a flop, someone replied that the "No Kings" rallies across the country were also a flop. When my friend pointed out the huge numbers of people who showed up to protest Trump's dictatorial ambitions, the other guy called the protesters "speed bumps."
That is the sort of depraved remark that causes Trump supporters to congratulate themselves for "owning the libs." Never mind the fact that their determination to own people was what caused them to lose the Civil War.
How do we overcome this persistent nastiness and defiant, multigenerational ignorance? We can start by confronting those who bully others while portraying themselves as victims.
Richard Rosendall is a writer and activist who can be reached at [email protected].
Copyright © 2025 by Richard J. Rosendall. All rights reserved.