Bibi's Chump

I woke up early this morning, about 5:30 a.m., to the sound of great explosions all around my house. After a few moments, I remembered that thunderstorms had been forecast. Then I reached for the phone and looked at the headlines and thought, "How fitting."

Having violated the United States Constitution, the United Nations Charter, his own oath of office, and his promise to voters not to become engaged in a Middle East war, Donald Trump joins Benjamin Netanyahu and Vladimir Putin in the small club of 21st century leaders who have launched wars of aggression in order to bolster their own political standing at home, retain power, and avoid comeuppance for malfeasances in office. He also added to the copious existing record of evidence that there is literally no act of betrayal he won't commit. And he gave Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and the remaining Pentagon brass the opportunity to demonstrate whether they will honor their oaths of allegiance to the Constitution by declining an illegal order from the Commander-in-Chief. To little surprise but serious disappointment, the answer is no. This is something that may return to haunt us all, once King Donald gets around to ordering them to fire on peaceful demonstrators.

We were not at war with Iran yesterday morning. Iran neither had attacked us, nor had it presented an imminent threat of doing so. Indeed, Iran very recently had been engaged with Trump in a process of negotiating renewed regulations on its nuclear energy program, a process disrupted by Israel's unprovoked assault on Iran barely a week earlier.. Here is what the United State Constitution says about going to war in such a situation:

Just how thoroughly and deliberately was this provision ignored? According to Trump and Hegseth, the U.S. bombing raid on Iran was extensively and meticulously planned in collaboration with the Israeli government over a substantial period of time. Netanyahu observed the attack in real time via telecommunications. The United States Congress - you know, the people the Constitution invests with the sole power to declare war for our country - was not notified until the planes were safely in the air and on their way home. (I wonder if Hegseth explained this preferential treatment of a foreign head of state over the U.S. Congress to his Signal group as being in the interests of operational security.)

Yes, that's impeachable.

Even if the Congress had authorized the President to make war, under these circumstances they could not have legally authorized the President to conduct this particular operation. Such would have been forbidden under the United Nations Charter, which says:

This is not just some aspirational, abstract, nonbinding suggestion which our government may disregard whenever inconvenient. The United Nations Charter is a treaty among its member states. The United States is a founding signatory to that treaty, ratified by Congress. Here is what the United States Constitution says about such treaties:

I wonder if you asked Pete Hegseth whether using military force against another state that has neither attacked you nor imminently threatens to do so is a violation of the supreme Law of the United States, would he know what you were talking about? Would he do any better than Security of Homeland Security Kristi Noem did, when asked about habeas corpus? (Hint: no.) Could Senator Ted Cruz answer that question, who advocated attacking Iran to accomplish regime change without knowing elementary facts about that country's population and demographic makeup? Their President just doesn't care.

Before taking office, a cabinet member such as the Secretary of Defense takes an oath:

The President takes a similar but much stricter oath. Unlike the cabinet memebers' oath, the language of the President's is prescribed by the Constitution itself. It goes:

Let us pause for a moment to consider that Republicans impeached Bill Clinton for attempting to conceal a consensual, extramerital, sexual affair. He was disgraced because of a cum stain on a blue dress. What is the likelihood they will impeach Trump, let alone convict him and remove him from office, because he unconstitutionally misappropriated B-2 bombers, U.S.military personnel, and 30,000 pound bombs to engage in war onhis sole whim in violation of international law? Of course, Trump crowed about his act of disgrace, whereas Clinton lied about his. I guess that makes a cum stain worse, to some people.

Trump has joined Netanyahu and Putin in moving to replace international law, flawed as it is, with a world in which might makes right and a few men in positions of power do whatever they want and to hell with the rest of us.

Matthew 26:52 may be relevant here. I don't know if Trump is familiar with this verse. Maybe he could ask his Secretary of Defense, who claims to trust no book other than the Bible, to explain it to him, When Jesus was arrested, his disciple Peter raised his sword against one of the arresting officers. Jesus told Peter to put down his weapon, "for all who take the sword will die by the sword." I am sure a self-described "good Christian" like Hegseth will explain eloquently how his Savior, faced with arrest by hostile religious authorities, forbade His follower to use violence on His behalf, and how that example may be fruitfully applied in the field of international relations.

I am further put in mind, as so often these past few months, of a passage from a play that was popular when I was young. A Man For All Seasons, by Robert Bolt, had a formative influence on me. It concerns the conflict between England's King Henry VIII and his erstwhile Chancellor, Sir. Thomas More. At one point, More's future son-in-law, William Roper, urges him to arrest a man who had broken no law, for reasons of political expediency. More says he wouldn't arrest the Devil Himself, unless the Devil broke the law. Their discussion continues:

At least Roper had noble intentions. Trump has no such ideological lodestar. He decides matters prof0undly affecting other people's lives based on whim, pique, intuition, prejudice, belief, and whoever spoke to him last, guided by only a few consistent psychological tropisms, that is, insecurity related to pathological narcissism, a relentless drive for personal material self-aggrandizement, and the compulsion to crush those he perceives as opponents.

He is a foolish and easily manipulated little man. Netanyahu saw him coming a mile away, and played him perfectly. Netanyahu needed the ordnance to destroy Iran's centrifuge facility at Fordow; only the U.S. has it. Trump, hurt by the popular distaste for his policies, stung even worse by the dismally poor attendance at this birthday celebration, angered by the miserable flop of his great military parade, was ripe for picking when Netanyahu offered him the chance to ride to military glory on the back of an Israeli assault on Iran (unprovoked, but set that aside). I wonder whether Trump fantasized about himself in a white uniform with lots of gold braid and medals, astride a big, white, similarly caparisoned charger, leading the troops to victory. More likely he pictured himself as a studly guy in a blue suit and red tie, imposing his will on the world.

We'll see who pays for it. Another proverb comes to mind: what goes around comes around.

What a pathetic but dangerous chump.