Dead at 27

Reflections of an American watching his country prepare to illegally attack another country...again

Iranian women shopping in Tehran

The news doesn’t look good. Prediction markets, like Polymarket, put the odds of the US attacking Iran by June 2026 at over 70%, and by the end of next month at more that 55%.

Of course, these predictions are being made by people who are ignorant of what is truly going on inside the Trump White House—about what pressures have been placed on the military regarding operational timelines by the logistical sustainability burden of moving massive quantities of military resources in to the Middle East region, or the domestic political calculations being made about the President’s chances in the mid-terms elections, and what the impact of a war with Iran (positive or negative) would have on the outcome of these critical electoral contests.

My own assessment puts the probability of conflict between the US and Iran at close to 100%.

I wish it were otherwise, but this isn’t my first rodeo.

A little more than 35 years ago I had found myself seated behind a desk in a bunker located underneath the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Defense Headquarters in Riyadh, pouring over intelligence information about a slew of targets inside Iraq we (the United States and our coalition partners) were preparing to bomb. It wasn’t a war I was particularly thrilled about fighting (I had joined the Marine Corps at the height of the Cold War to defend my country from the Soviet threat, and I held no grudge against the people of Iraq or its leadership—indeed, when asked to participate in a secret ad-hoc planning cell back in September 1990, I had told the General who interviewed me that I thought we were getting ready to fight the wrong Arabs, that the true threat to the United States came from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.)

But I was a military professional, and I did my duty, operating under the presumption that my leadership—military and civilian—would perform the due diligence necessary to ensure that myself and the other men and women who wore the uniform of our nation would not be asked to fight and die in a war not grounded in the Constitution and the principle of the rule of law.

On this, I was not disappointed—the Security Council of the United Nations, on November 29, 1990, passed Resolution 678 which, under the authorities vested in Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter, authorized the use of military force against Iraq in response to its August 1990 invasion and occupation of Kuwait. The United States Congress, after a very lengthy and contentious debate, passed the Authorization for the Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution on January 12, 1991.

These actions made the war I was getting ready to participate in legal. But as I later found out, after much experience, study and reflection, it did not make the war just.

Therein lies the rub.

Over the course of the decade that followed, I was able to bear witness to the black hole that is national security decision making as it pertained to Iraq, and discovered that it operated without any moral compass, but rather to appease the whim of power hungry people who traded human life for political influence.

Congressional and Security Council resolutions were not seen as a foundational requirement of law founded on principled stance, but rather tools of deceit and subterfuge designed to shield true intent from the scrutiny of the masses.

I was also able to connect in an intimate and visceral way with the people and leadership of Iraq, and experience first hand their despair, frustration and anger at being held accountable to a system governed not by what was required by law, but rather what was dictated by people operating outside the framework of any legal authority or accountability.

The 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq by the United States was as manifestly illegal a war of aggression as had ever taken place. The illegitimacy of the cause was apparent to all—even those promoting it. But by this time the warmongers who controlled the levers of power in both the Executive and Legislative branches of government had broken the code: the American people, ostensibly the guardians of the Constitution that defined their collective identity, were asleep at the wheel.

We had betrayed the trust and confidence the founding fathers had placed in us to perform this task, and we had betrayed the oaths of the men and women who were tasked with executing this unlawful conflict by failing to hold those who ordered the attack accountable to the rule of law.

Instead of being defined by the rule of law, we the people had allowed ourselves to become a nation untethered from the constraints of law.

We were, in every sense of the term, a rogue nation, operating beyond the pale.

And so we find ourselves, once again, on the eve of a war which lacks any basis in the laws of our nation or the global community.

Iran is not a threat to the national security of the United States, or allies, or the world.

It is Iran that has complied with every lawful demand made on it regarding its peaceful nuclear program.

But, as had been the case with Iraq and the manufactured case for war centered on weapons of mass destruction that did not exist, Iran is being condemned based upon a manufactured case for war centered on a nuclear weapons program that does not exist.

The Security Council of the United Nations is silent.

The Congress of the United States is silent.

And the American people are silent.

In the summer of 1985 I was tasked with doing an update on the intelligence information that informed an operational plan for the invasion of Iran. The scenario I was responding to had the Soviet Union crossing the Iranian border from Turkmenistan and Afghanistan in an effort to seize the warm water ports of Bandar Abbas and Chabahar. One of my tasks was to evaluate likely Soviet routes of advance, and then to define targets that could be destroyed in order to slow the invading Soviet forces. I poured over photographs of bridges and highways, studied engineering reports about bridge and road construction, and made calculations about how much damage was needed at specific locations to achieve a desired level of interdiction so that the right weapon could be selected for the task.

I was doing my job.

Today, somewhere in the Middle East—either in a bunker beneath a headquarters building or onboard a ship—other Americans are conducting similar analysis.

They are doing their job.

They, like the younger version of me, have placed their faith in a system which demands conformity to the Constitution and the United Nations Charter—to the rule of law, and to a nation of citizens who will have their back by holding those in power accountable to this law.

But such a nation no longer exists.

The Uniform Code of Military Justice, when speaking about the duty of each and every member of the armed forces of the United States to refuse to obey an unlawful order, places the burden of proof regarding the legality of every order issued upon the one to whom the order is given—in short, every soldier, sailor, airman, guardian and Marine is obligated to view an order issued by their superiors as lawful unless it can be manifestly shown otherwise.

Back in 1990, I had faith that the United States Congress and the United Nations Security Council would operate as mandated by the Constitution of the United States and the Charter of the United Nations in ensuring that the war I would be called upon to wage was legal in the eyes of the law.

Today, the oft-demonstrated failure of both the Congress and Security Council to operate in adherence with the laws they themselves authored makes any faith in their respective ability to prevent an illegal war of aggression by the United States against Iran misguided and naive.

This is the time when those men and women who wear the uniform of the United States military—especially those who have been entrusted with senior positions of authority—to do their duty by failing to execute orders which are facially illegal.

And any order to attack Iraq void of Congressional and Security Council authority is just that—facially illegal.

Midterm elections are just around the corner.

If the American people are to be the citizens envisioned by our founding Fathers, and not the compliant sheep they appear to be today, they would collectively put every member of Congress on notice—if they allow President Trump to go to war with Iran void of both Security Council and Congressional authority, then they will be voted out of office come November.

Anything less than this means we, the people, are as complicit in the crimes to come as they are.

In January 1991 one of the targets that I was responsible for helping prepare for attack was the Iraqi Ministry of Information. The goal was to prevent the Iraqi government from broadcasting propaganda and exercising command of control. Later, as an UN inspector, I visited the ruins of the buildings I had helped destroy. I had the opportunity to meet a young woman who had worked in the Ministry at the time it was attacked. She was a journalist, not a propogandist, and her hands shook with fear as she stood before me, trembling, tears pouring down her face.

Wars may be legal, but they are never just.

I recently received a direct message from a young female Iranian journalist who works for a state-owned media organization. She had interviewed me several times in the past, and I always found her to be extremely well informed and balanced in her approach to the issues—a true journalist.

“Do you think your guys are going to kill journalists too when you start attacking us?” she asked.

I thought about my younger self, helping plan the attacks against the Iraqi Ministry of Information.

“Yes”, I responded.

It was the truth.

“Wonderful,” she replied. “I guess I’ll be dead at 27.”

The coming war with Iraq is not legal.

It is not just.

And it has not yet happened.

Do something, do anything, to try and stop this atrocity in waiting form going forward.

Drown your Congressional representative's phonelines with messages demanding Congressional action.

Surround the White House with a sea of humanity demanding no war with Iran.

Surround the United Nations with the same.

Do nothing, and she’ll be dead at 27.

Along with tens of thousands of others whose lives will tragically be cut short by the immorality of the American government, and the inaction of the American people.