Keeping Score

 

How many times have Trump and his Iran War supporters lectured us about the “thousands of Americans killed by Iran”? How many still believe Trump when he keeps saying, “We won this war!”?

I’ve lost count on both questions, but “thousands of Americans killed by Iran” sounds like a great reason go to war with them, though.

Lets’ leave Israel and Netanyahu out of the discussion for moment, even though they goaded Trump into joining their war.

One Trumpist gloated in a previous comment thread.

The “Colonel”: We are doing something that NO OTHER AMERICAN PRESIDENT HAD THE BALLS TO DO.

IRAN has been killing OUR SOLDIERS, and our Citizens for 47 years. TRUMP is Finally ENDING THAT CRAP.

He’s echoing Trump, of course. No other president worked for Netanyahu and Putin either. Putin thanks him for HUGE oil profits, and Netanyahu thanks him for fighting his war for him.

Trump is doing EXACTLY what he promised NOT to do and what George W. Bush did. They BOTH started wars of choice in their acts of aggression in the Middle East. 

The White House posted a long list of Americans killed by “Iran” titled, “The Iranian Regime’s Decades of Terrorism Against American Citizens”.

“For nearly half a century, the Islamic Republic of Iran — the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism — has killed and maimed American citizens and service members through its own forces and proxy militias. More Americans have been killed by Iran than any other terrorist regime on Earth.”

Note the inclusion of “proxy militias”. Very few were direct actions by Iran’s “own forces” against Americans. Almost all the cases of Americans being killed were preceded by “Iran-backed”, or “affiliated” entities.

I asked the colonel a few rhetorical questions. I mean “rhetorical” in the sense no answers are expected. Trump supporters HATE answering questions.

What kind of colonel thinks starting a war will end killing? A MAGA "colonel".

How many American children has Iran killed? None. We killed Iranian children without so much as an apology. (Retired intelligence officer Captain Josephine Guilbeau explained how the cameras on the Tomahawk missiles would indicate their target was a school. But they launched another one instead of confirming the target. She calls it terrorism, and she's correct by definition.)

How many American soldiers were killed by Iran?

Now we’re getting to the question at hand. Let’s look at some facts and historical context

The answer is very few directly, but by their Arab allies in Lebanon and Iraq. 

Reagan put Marines in harm's way with no military objective and they were killed by an “Iran-backed” suicide bomber. 

After Bush LIED about WMD’s and Saddam working with al-Qaeda HE STARTED the Iraq war. We have no way of knowing how many Americans were killed by Iranians in Iraq. We know they were invited to assist in resisting the American occupiers. This was all due to US aggression. Americans seem to have forgotten that the guy who starts wars of choice is the guy to blame for the deaths and destruction.

Bottom line: Excluding Afghanistan where Iran wasn’t a participant, all those Americans died because of misguided or dishonest actions by US presidents. The American deaths number in the thousands.

What kind of colonel can't see this pattern?

So, let’s look at the body count.

Thousands of American troops were killed by Iraqis, many with Iranian help. Obviously, not all of the thousands of casualties were inflicted by Iranians or proxies, but let’s count them anyway, just for argument’s sake.

If "Iran-backed" entities count, then US-backed Israel and US-backed Iraq have slaughtered HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of Arabs and Iranians in Iran, Gaza, Lebanon, and in Israel. The body count from Trump's war is already in the thousands in Iran.

How’s that for perspective?

Hundreds of thousands of Iranians were killed by America-backed Iraq alone.

From AI:

During the 1980–1988 Iran-Iraq War, the United States provided significant covert and overt support to Iraq, including billions in economic aid, intelligence, and dual-use technology, to prevent an Iranian victory. This included intelligence sharing, over $200 million in direct arms sales (like helicopters), and allowing the sale of chemical/biological weapon precursors.

This all came back to bite us. Iraq and Iran were terrible regimes, but the US is definitely not the good guy in the Middle East. Only the peace activists are the good guys. Israel, Iran, and the US are not among them.

“When you get into trouble 5,000 miles from home, you've got to have been looking for it.” ~ Will Rogers

 

THAT's the crap that needs to end, or we're looking at MORE AMERICANS getting killed by terrorists.