You will never regret opposing a war

Because wars destroy human beings, and we are meant for more than destruction

God, I hate this war, the one we started with Iran, the one which has only just begun.

I don’t mourn this war merely because the current U.S. President is Donald J. Trump, a liar, crook and sexual predator who should not be in charge of a nuclear arsenal.

I don’t mourn this war merely because of the big dumb hat that Trump wore when he informed us about this war, nor the big dumb grin that Pete Hegseth wears on his face literally all the time.

I don’t mourn this war merely because of Benjamin Netanyahu, an authoritarian war criminal in both the past and present tense.

I don’t mourn this war because I am a naive fan of the current Iranian regime. If one of the core plagues of our world is vainglorious men having their run of world governments, I find no safe harbor on either side of this conflict.

I don’t mourn this war because of a lack of Congressional authorization. I believe in checks and balances, sure, but also: a human being is no less dead because the aggressor country dotted their Is and crossed their Ts.

I don’t oppose this war because of theoretical implications for “my” country. After a war starts, self-serious experts always drone on about abstractions that might be destabilized. “The region.” “The global pecking order.” “The stock exchange.” What an odd game, to play-act as if a war only becomes abhorrent after it passes an imaginary tipping point. When your house is leveled by a foreign drone, or your loved one is sent home in a casket, shouldn’t that be destabilization enough? Why wait to cry out in collective rage?

“The war in Iran” is now being waged, in one way or another, in nearly fourteen countries.

I don’t oppose this war because I believe that I, an American, pretend to know what’s best for the Iranian people. There’s a reason why I don’t get invited to write New York Times op-eds, particularly of the saber rattling variety. How do they do it, those pundits? You’d think they’d have imploded from the pressure of all that bloated self-certainty by now.

There is so much I don’t know. I am, admittedly, still learning the poetry of liberation, but I can’t imagine that anybody’s freedom can be delivered by this combination of words.

A few days ago, parents in Minab kissed their children on their foreheads, dropped them off at school, and then found, just a few hours later, a crater where their little girls once sat. Here are some more words, from the warmongers. Tell me, again, if they speak to our intertwined humanity.

Oh thank God, energy secretary Chris Wright. That’s why I couldn’t get to sleep last night. I was worried about a crazy spike in oil prices.

I oppose this war for the same reason I have opposed wars waged by Presidents for whom I voted. I oppose it for the same reason that I have opposed wars that were, at their outset, wildly popular. I oppose it for the same reason that I have opposed wars that were short enough, at least in American memories and imaginations, to be easily forgotten.

I oppose this war because every war sorts us gorgeously complicated human beings— in all our brilliance, fragility and woundedness— into one of two tragic buckets. Which side of the gunsight are you on? Are you a death machine or cannon fodder? Will you die today, under a pile of rubble, or years from now, with a guilty heart?

I oppose wars for their false answers. There is a bad man, or a group of bad men, and the only way we can be safe is if our good men dispatch with them swiftly. Never mind whether that makes us bad men too. Never mind if the removal of the bad men sets off a decades-long chain reaction of bullies piled up on top of bullies.

Mohammad Mossadedgh might have something to say, by the way, about what happens when Iran is “liberated” by U.S. guns, but the drums of war have a pesky way of triggering mass amnesia.

The first casualty of war is the truth, they say, but I’m not sure that’s true. The first casualty of war is all the questions we don’t ask. War whispers in our ear, “don’t bother your silly little head with questions— those are for weak people, and thank God we are strong.”

If our goal, as a country and a world, was true liberation for all, I imagine there’d be a million curiosities that would occupy our attention before we’d arrive at “what times should the bombs drop?” We’d ask…

…who is feeding their neighbors, and how can we help?

…who is most under threat, who is standing by their side, and how do we join them?

…how would we act, if we truly believed that none of us were expendable?

…what is our most capacious dream for the lives we could live together, and what would our first step be if we actually believed that dream could come true?

It is a tired observation, I know, the old yarn about war and opportunity costs. It’s a literal bumper sticker, for God’s sake: “what if our schools had all the money they need/and the Air Force had to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber?” But man, I have in fact contributed to multiple emergency bake sales in the past month, and one of those bombers just reduced an Iranian girls’ school to a pile of ashes, so it seems like we might need to keep asking.

War doesn’t care about how we got here, what might be lost in the rubble, or what happens next. War believes in the false dignity of a button to be pushed or a trigger to be pulled, but somehow plugs its ears to the most human universal sounds known to the human ear: a baby crying, a parent wailing, a scream in agony.

I know that there are plenty of you who broadly share both my politics (and my admonition at this current conflict), but who might, for any number of good reasons, balk at my opposition to all wars. I’m well aware why us pacifists don’t get invited to parties, and I’m not offended. I understand the questions that my stance begs:“but what about armed liberation movements/…and World War II?/isn’t it immensely privileged of me (due to my straightness, my maleness, my whiteness, my gentileness, my Americanness, etc. etc. etc.) to sit on my pacifist high horse while others bear the brunt of the despots’ wrath?

I have thoughts (and a wellspring of inspiration from a long history of nonviolent liberation movements across the world), though I’m sure if I offered them in detail, you’d have counter-points. And honestly, if your heart truly beats with love for all of humanity, then I don’t have the energy to argue with you. Please know that I am willing to stand in front of you if a gun were pointed at your face. That may feel like solidarity to you, or perhaps you also need me to say that I’d also be willing to point a gun back at the bullies. I am so sorry that I cannot, and will not, because I still cannot conceive of holding a tool of death and saying “I love you.”

I recognize that may be a disappointing answer, and for that I’m truly sorry.

But I do stand by this assertion: You will never regret opposing a war, not because it is impossible to conjure up a justification for a war, because of what the opposition to war offers to our collective imagination. Rejecting war is not the same as rejecting the need for the world to change, nor the need for strongmen to fall. What that opposition offers, instead, is an almost limitless set of roads that we can walk together. Who do we need to be, to make wars obsolete? How could we protect each other, without tanks, bombs and guns? What does solidarity look like, if it was rooted in something far more profound than a common set of enemies?

If war kills questions, the rejection of wars lets loose a flood of them. And for me at least, where there are questions, there is a path, and where there is a path, there is hope for us still.

I hate this war, and I hate all wars, not out of naiveté, but out of this stubborn, deeply inconvenient affection I have for all of us. I just can’t imagine that we were created merely to destroy. I can’t believe that we were given hearts merely to turn them off. I can’t believe that we were given the ability to cry and wail if we were supposed to turn our back on one another’s tears.

God damn this war. God damn all wars.

End notes:

1. The world I dream goes far beyond Congress passing a War Powers resolution, but I do very much believe Congress should do that (and do everything in its power to stop those attacks), so please add your name to this petition and make those calls, friends.

2. Thank goodness that there have been and will be protests, and that there’s gonna be a pretty damned big No Kings one coming up by the end of the month. Every time there is a new war, I take to the streets, and I will be honest— many days feels tiny and Sisyphean but it also always feels like a prayer. All of us should be worth so much to each other. Standing outside, holding a dumb cardboard sign, wondering “is this enough?” is truly one of the smallest ways we can live that reminder.

3. At all times, and especially this one, we should keep loving harder than the fascists can hate. Both our neighbors half a world away and those close to home. You may have missed it, but I just launched a project to help us do both at the same time. A whole bunch of gatherings built on love and care and the joy that comes from getting into a room and building with another. Read more here, and then definitely check out our website. A relay, you all! Of parties! Of interdependence!

   1. P.S. I’m still especially looking for rad gatherers to be our hosts for our first two events in Hawaii and Alaska. More info about what that entails (in any state, but right now I’m focused on those two) here. Stipends for hosts! And lots of support!

4. Do you find this space (either this newsletter, or my broader work with the Barnraisers Project) to be valuable? Would you like it to keep going? I know it’s such a boring thing to say, but it’s true. “That’s only possible thanks to the support of readers like you.” Next Monday is my birthday (what a cool thing, sincerely, to get to be alive with you all). One tradition I keep around this place: doing a subscription sale the week before (and a few days after) my birthday. What does that mean? All the benefits of a subscription (yes, including the merch) but even cheaper (tbh the base price is still one of the lowest around these days). Thanks for considering!

5. I have written so many essays about war and peace, and every single time, I listen to Joan Baez sing Finlandia while I write. This past weekend, I missed my Quaker Meeting singing Finlandia in unison because I was downstairs teaching the middle schoolers, but even hearing about it afterwards let out the waterworks. Man do I ever dream of a day when I will no longer sing Finlandia (This is My Song) with tears in my eyes, but until that day…

   “…but other lands have sunlight too, and clover…”

6. Speaking of songs that I’ve returned to in moments that I wish were far different, one of the first essays I ever wrote here was about Iran. I wrote that essay while listening to Jomeh by Farhad Mehrad. This one, too, got me today.