No I’m not going 10,000 miles from home to help murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave masters of the darker people the world over. This is the day when such evils must come to an end. 

Muhammed Ali

All week we have been teetering on the brink of a war with Iran. Or maybe we’re not. No, wait we are. Actually, no. But maybe.

Honestly, I can’t make heads or tails of the Trump foreign policy and I’m not even going to try.

Here’s what I do know: war seldom benefits those who fight it.

Here’s what else I know: those that fight wars are the poor, the undereducated, the non-white, and others who need opportunity more than they need a safe line of work.

If we end up in a war with Iran, it won’t be a war that makes life better for the troops who will be fighting it. They won’t come home richer, more appreciated, more employable, or healthier. They won’t have a red carpet of opportunity rolled out before them. Their futures won’t be any brighter than they were the day they shipped out. In fact, depending on how injured they are, their futures might be downright dismal.

And do we even need to talk about futures of civilians living on the actual battleground? No. We do not. Because we all saw Good Morning Vietnam so we have at least a made-for-Hollywood sense of how shitty it will get.

My feminism does not tolerate wars that serve only to batter the marginalized – of any nation – while enriching and further empowering the existing leaders.

I support American troops. I do. They’re one of the big reasons I don’t bitch about taxes. If you’re putting food on the table for a military family with my money, I consider that money well spent. I want my money going to the VA and military pensions. The GI Bill? I wanna pay for that.

What I don’t want is to send out troops into yet another quagmire where they lose blood and treasure in order to fight for some vague principle handed down from on high by people who won’t lose a thing in a war.

The day that a tribunal of actual stakeholders in the war effort – the troops, their families, the medical personnel who will treat their wounds, the people in the land where the war will take place – the day they tell me it’s all worth it is the day I will agree with a war with Iran.

But for now, all I see are white men standing in front of cameras trying to tell me what America and Iran both need. That’s not good enough. I’m thinking about what Americans and Iranians need.

They’re the ones who matter.