Two unusual and somewhat hopeful developments occurred today amongst politicians in a morally bankrupt West—and they both occurred in Washington, D.C.! First, some Republican legislators went public with the massively unconstitutional and incompetent assault on Iran. Second, some Democratic and Republican legislators sat down with some Russian legislators in a long overdue dialogue, simply to hear directly what the other side is thinking.
Yesterday, the administration briefed senior House and Senate members involved in defense matters. According to one lawmaker, cited by the Daily Mail, they were told about a massive, long-term commitment, involving U.S. boots on the ground—a commitment coherent with the $200 billion supplemental request. Whatever was said, the Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee Mike Rogers (R-AL) described how the administration could not or would not answer the questions “about what’s going on, what the options are, and why they’re being considered…. I conveyed to them at the end of this hearing, this has consequences if you don’t remedy it.”
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), also a strong Trump supporter on the Iran war, actually walked out of the briefing in frustration over the lack of any exit plan. She posted to X that she “will not support troops on the ground in Iran, even more so after this briefing.” In a follow-up posting, she stated: “The justifications presented to the American public for the war in Iran were not the same military objectives we were briefed on today in the House Armed Services Committee. This gap is deeply troubling.” She then took to CBS News to blast the “Washington war machine” and Sen. Lindsey Graham, by name.
Both Rogers and Mace are clearly agitated that their leader has fallen prey to a permanent-war gang.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) was a one-woman army in re-starting a face-to-face dialogue between American and Russian legislators, a practice that had faded into obscurity. The Russian delegation was led by the grandson of Vyacheslav Molotov, the U.S.S.R.’s Foreign Minister, who had himself worked in Washington with Franklin Delano Roosevelt, in the coordination to defeat the Nazis. The discussion reportedly centered around peace and bilateral relations of the U.S. and Russia, and both sides praised the dialogue and the possibilities for a workable relationship.
In a different time, there would be cause for celebration. Yet, the harsh truth is that, on their own, these necessary developments are too little, too late—unless citizens take it upon their shoulders to figure out how to fan such sparks into a healthy flame. That is the purpose and reality of the International Peace Coalition, where peace is not a mere wish or a vain hope, but something that is solidly built out of real economic development for populations—of the type that FDR carried out with the TVA development in the South, that China carried out in lifting 800 million Chinese out of poverty over the last 30-40 years.
The reality today is that Iran has 90-100 million people, that they have prepared for years for a confrontation with the West’s mania for “regime changes” and colonial terms of economic arrangements, and that they are prepared to fight and die for the survival of their culture. One doesn’t have to agree with or advocate for a theocratic government as the best form of government, in order to realize what is going on. The “shock and awe” of the West, as with Hitler’s blitzkrieg warfare, is essentially bluff and bravado. Even when it works, it doesn’t work.
Whatever part of Trump’s identity that ever took offense to permanent warfare, nuclear confrontations, and such—whatever used to give the permanent-war gang reason for concern about Trump—it is now caught up in a horror show. His self-ordained Secretary of “War” Pete Hegseth preached a sermon in the White House as to how Trump, when he “sends his warfighters out to fight, he unties their hands to actually go out and close with and destroy the enemy as viciously as possible from moment one. And that’s why we … negotiate with bombs.” Over at the Defense Department, he led a prayer asking his god for the “overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy.”
Neither Nancy Mace nor Anna Paulina Luna are heroes; however, they stepped forward when others didn’t. That is the regular practice of the International Peace Coalition, which meets every Friday at 11 a.m. ET. Fanning sparks into a healthy flame is a sort of art form for fashioning semi-miracles. It is a lot more satisfying than cursing the darkness … or worshipping Hegseth’s god.
