Iran has won the war

By merely surviving, Iran has emerged as the de facto victor in the U.S./Israel-led war. Just as in Vietnam, the war was a lie from the get-go, a manufactured opportunity to extend U.S./Israel power in the region. It is not an aberration but yet another example in a long line of imperialist aggressions.

The war is not about nuclear weapons or freedom of navigation. It’s about regime change, and it has failed.
Likewise, the war is not about Trump, fool and liar though he is. Democrat Biden, another great friend of Israel, is responsible for 50,000-plus Palestinian deaths in Gaza and the Occupied Territories. Regardless of who’s president, U.S./Western imperialism is certain to provoke a reaction. Without it, it’s virtually impossible to imagine a Yasser Arafat, a PLO, a Mao Zedong, a Ho Chi Minh, a Che Guevera or a Fidel Castro, etc., etc. and the many rational attempts to resist the juggernaut of violent imperialism.

Public opinion has turned against Trump’s war but it remains to be seen whether U.S. people will learn that Trump is only a symptom of a much deeper disease. The disease is the willingness to submit to the propaganda that the U.S. is somehow different from all past imperialist nations from the Brits in India and China right back to the Romans in the Mediterranean region.

Writing about one of the more recent iterations of U.S. imperialism and its intimate connection to capitalism, Viet Thanh Nguyen says “The most dangerous creature in the history of the world [is] the white man in a suit.” (The Sympathizer, p. 250)
I’m not holding my breath, but with any luck at all, the U.S./Israel war on Iran can be the beginning of the end of the US empire.
Robert Kosuth
Duluth, Minnesota

Housing solutions needed

There’s been a big fuss about the luxury apartments opening up in downtown and how they are going to help with the housing shortage.  I disagree because half of them are short-term rentals and not many people here are able to afford them. It also won’t help the homeless situation either.  
I know that some people say that people are homeless by their own choice or are drug addicts or alcoholics.  Not  all are; a lot are because of the high rent here.  I know someone who shares a basement studio apartment with 3 others and their rent is two thousand dollars plus all utilities a month.  When some affordable housing is built they’re filled up within a week.  This person has had to move four other times due to either their place being torn down or either turned into a condo or a short-term rental place.  Since most jobs in Duluth are hospitality jobs the pay is usually minimum wage which hasn’t been raised in at least 10 years but the cost of living has.
Cecilia Hill
Duluth, Minnesota

A stupid man started a stupid war

The greatest dealmaker the world
had ever seen
Sat typing on his phone behind
a bulletproof screen.
“No more foreign wars!”
he’d shouted to the crowd,
A beautiful, fantastic promise,
majorly and loud.
But shiny new targets started
calling out his name,
So he traded in his golfers
for a global shooting game.
He said we’d win so much that
we’d get tired of the winning,
But now the gas pumps
and the calculators are spinning.
Thirty-seven billion dollars
down a desert drain,
While drivers check their
wallets in financial pain.
The Strait of Hormuz closed up tight,
the oil tankers stall,
Turns out you cannot fix i
nflation with a border wall.
“An easy, little war,” he bragged,
“it’s basically complete!”
As regular Americans face bills
they cannot meet.
The weapon stores are empty
and the treasury is light,
But the podium is polished
for a press report tonight.
He’ll claim the price of gasoline
is actually a prize,
And bankrupt the whole country
with a smirk and unseeing eyes.
M. Arnold Bowen
Duluth, Minnesota