Let’s listen again to these viral words, as they hover over the planet . . . as they hover over, good God, the future. Finally, finally, the time has come for every last one of us to release the question these words force on us, from the privacy, from the cynicism, of our hearts, and collectively scream it until it begins to orbit Planet Earth: How do we transcend war?
Browsing: Opinions
That is why the debate over Trump’s attack on Iran should not be reduced to one man’s impulse. It was meant to deceive. On one side was a long-running campaign by Benjamin Netanyahu to frame Iran as a problem to be solved militarily, not diplomatically. On the other was an information ecosystem that tried to present military escalation as if it were a gift to the Iranian people. Even one of the key public claims used to justify confrontation looked shaky: Reuters reported that Trump’s assertion that Iran would soon have missiles capable of hitting the United States was not backed by U.S. intelligence.
With Spain and Austria refusing to allow their airspace to be used for the massive, unprovoked U.S. bombardment of Iran, there is international denunciation of this illegal action; and the initiation of the U.S. carpet bombing of Iran is clearly unlawful in view of the UN Charter, the Kellogg Briand Pact, the Geneva Protocol, and the Nuremberg Charter of 1945.
The final agreement, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, was negotiated by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, Germany, and the European Union. Signed in July 2015, it granted Iran sanctions relief in exchange for significant restrictions on its nuclear program. These included Iran’s agreement to ban production of highly enriched uranium or plutonium, ensure that its key nuclear facilities pursued only civilian work, and limit the numbers and types of centrifuges that it could operate. In addition, Iran agreed to allow inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN’s nuclear watchdog, unfettered access to its nuclear facilities and undeclared sites.
The essay is called “A Theft of Spirit?” It was written by Christopher Shaw, some three decades ago. It addresses a matter of profound significance to me because it relates to an organization I’m part of called the ManKind Project (MKP), which holds profoundly spiritual weekends that dig deeply into the nature of our humanity. I’m not sure what the MKP weekend consists of today, but when I participated in it, some 20 years ago, it included sweat lodges and other wakeup events that borrowed significantly from Native American traditions. This included choosing a spiritual name for myself, which I still value: Heart Lion.
She remembers standing in line for bread as a child in Armenia in the early 1990s, during the collapse of the Soviet Union and the war with Azerbaijan. Winters were bitterly cold. Electricity was scarce. Families cut wood in nearby parks just to heat their homes. Each person received only a small ration of bread. The uncertainty of those years etched itself into her childhood in ways she would only later understand.
In a tough and complex world, people tending to the left side of the political spectrum are often accused of starry-eyed naïveté when they push for the prevention of war and the building of peace through law, diplomacy and budgetary control over military forces—replacing the law of force with the force of law. The operating paradigm of the hawkish, by contrast, is peace through strength: no amount of weapons is ever enough and the glove of diplomacy only thinly covers the iron fist of force. These are caricatures, simplified to make a point.
There exists within the foundation of American democracy a sacred promise—one that transcends politics, personalities, and power. It is a promise sworn not to a king, not to a president, not to a party, but to an enduring framework of law and liberty: the U.S. Constitution. Every general who rises to command within the United States military swears an oath to support and defend this Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. This oath is not ceremonial. It is not symbolic. It is a binding moral contract that demands courage not only in battle—but in judgment.
Is No Kings Becoming A Movement And Will You Be A Part Of It?
The first face-to-face high-level talks between the US and Iran since 1979 have ended without agreement. Hardly surprising; both sides put forward positions not subject to actual bargaining. On the US side, according to JD Vance: