I harbor no love or admiration for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.  I am disgusted by his indiscriminate orders to kill thousands of protesters and his ongoing support of various militia groups and proxies bent on doing us harm. If this were a one-off operation against a man who swears “death to America,” I might have spent my day doing schoolwork, coaching my wrestling team, fixing the chicken coop, and satisfied that the word is blessed by one less bad guy–but I found myself unnerved by the sheer depth and breadth of an attack ordered by a single fallible man. He may well know more than me or you or all of us–and he should– yet still, all I could think of were the people caught in the crossfire, or stuck in some targeted space, or simply trying to protect their families from bombs and missiles they could not escape.

I wonder if there was another way; I wonder what bombs missed their targets; I wonder how many truly innocent daughters, sons, wives, husbands and neighbors were lost in the first salvos of our wrath. I wonder how many sailers, pilots and soldiers we are willing to sacrifice in our haste for an ill-explained war.

I wonder if I am wrong? Maybe the oppressed of Iran will take to the streets and wrest a newfound control of their destinies. Maybe they won’t or can’t. Maybe they are just pawns in some geopolitical game rigged in our favor. Our elected leaders should never or ever gamble for a war without earning some semblance of trust from the citizens–the “we” that makes us America.

I and we are safely a half a world away. I don’t really know what to do, except what I know how to do, so I add one more song, “War Don’t Mean Nothing,” to the catalogue of songs created before me by folks who, no doubt, did it better than me.

Thanks for listening–and thanks to Hatrack who stopped by to help me out.

Share if you agree…

Much appreciated,

~John Fitz

‘War Don’t Mean Nothing’

War don’t mean nothing
When you ain’t sure why you go,
Or why your pissed at so and so,
But your country seems to know…

And war don’t mean nothing
When the killed have all been piled;
When your buddy’s nervous smile
Is all covered up in bile…

And war don’t mean nothing
When the bombs fall from planes;
When the missiles fall like rain
And blood swirls down the drains…

And war don’t mean nothing
When you sit and watch the news;
When you know it’s really true,
But you don’t know what to do…

And war don’t mean nothing
When the rich outweigh the poor;
When the flag hung by your door
Don’t mean much anymore…

And war don’t mean nothing
When kids get in the way;
When there’s no place left to play,
And you fire anyway…

I’m an ordinary American.
I grew up blue in the promised land—
Two tours in Vietnam,
Then forty years Republican.

I worked the mills just outside town.
They paid enough to keep me around;
Drinking every night with the same old clowns
Until Alisha came, and she calmed me down.

Me and Alisha, we had a good life;
Most of the kids turned out alright.
Our youngest Allie, full of spit and fight,
Went to the Lord on a summer night.

I’ve done some good and I’ve done some wrong;
I wake up nights fighting Viet Cong.
I cry sometimes since Alisha’s gone,
I dream she’s holding me in her arms.

I’m an ordinary American.
I grew up blue in the promised land—
Two tours in Vietnam,
Then forty years Republican.

I still drive my old Ram pickup truck.
I sold the house because my pension sucks.
I buy scratch tickets when I’m out of luck.
But when I saw the news, I screamed, “What the fuck?”…
I’m still an ordinary American—
No longer Republican.
I can’t sit down when I need to stand
When government squads kill an innocent man—

And a mother in her car trying to drive away
From a masked iceman on a frozen day—
Pumping bullets in her face just to make her pay
For speaking her voice the American way.

We are ordinary Americans
On a Minnesota street in a messed-up land—
Thousands marching hand in hand
Bringing us back our promised land.

Wake up, America. Heed the call;
Ice ain’t shooting no musket balls.
Stand up strong and stand up tall—
Bring back America to one and all.

I’m an ordinary American.
I grew up blue in the promised land—
Two tours in Vietnam,
Then forty years Republican.

Now I’m fighting  in another war,
But now I know what I’m fighting for….