Lies and Cognitive Distortions

War continues. Those in congress who spent the entire weekend whining and complaining that the President didn’t consult them, personally, haven’t done anything of value to stop him because, first, the Warpower’s Act is clear and they know President Trump is acting within the constraints of that act, and two, they truly are on board with the war actions and are just pandering to the idiots who still believe they actually care about them. Interestingly, most of those in the House and the Senate are more upset the President did something without “consulting” them than they are about the thing itself. These are the same millennial idiots the country has come to expect such things from. Unfortunately, these (mostly) women are completely useless in their seats, stealing oxygen and spending it on whining, complaining, and other performative nonsense rather than proving their worth so the people don’t continue to feel like they wasted their vote. Most complainants don’t possess the moral fortitude necessary to oppose Israel and the war actions.

However, there are those few outspoken representatives that do possess the moral fortitude to break ranks and condemn the war efforts in Iran, whether that means speaking out against Israel or not. Of course, those people are also the representatives we are familiar with holding to their principles and never doing so in a performative manner. Those men continue to receive votes because their constituents know they’re worth it. Collectively, there are only a handful of representatives across both chambers deciding the American people are not only more important than a supposed ally who has been lobbying for over thirty years to get the U.S. to go to war with Iran for him, they decided the American people are more important than the seat they hold in office and are not afraid to vote according to their principles; the very things keeping them in office. Deep down, however hard it may be to admit, every member of Congress knows the American people do not want another war and they voted President Trump into office because he was the only candidate brazen enough to campaign on “no new wars” as a part of his platform. That platform has now been dismantled.

Secretary Rubio stated that Iran was an imminent threat to the U.S. because, if they were attacked, they would come after us as well as whomever attacked them and there would be even more deaths and we would be in congressional hearings answering why we didn’t do anything when we knew this would happen. I am paraphrasing, but I did, by my count, get the correct number of subjunctive tense claims and “if, then” clauses: one large “if, then” statement, four subjunctive tense claims, and three catastrophizing claims. Altogether, the Secretary of State and the President of the United States took our country to war over eight clinical cognitive distortions. Granted, I have certainly heard lesser government officials and members of Congress use many more, and wider variety, but those are usually on ridiculous platitudes like, “historically marginalized,” or “the evidence speaks for itself, the Chicago Bears should stay in Chicago.” These are things that, by the definition of cognitive distortion, are not real, but they don’t really matter in the grand scheme of humanity. Taking an entire country to war against another sovereign nation over a single cognitive distortion is terrible, but to do so over eight of them is ludicrous and means you are either lying and believe the people of America are stupid, or you are a complete psychopath and still think the American people are stupid. Despite the precipitous fall in younger generations’ intellect due to social media, AI in schools, and the liberal infection in our educational institutions to destroy the classical education system, there aren’t enough idiots in the country to sit idly by while you fuck us with another “WMD” lie. A lie, I might add, told to us by…who was it…oh, BB Netanyahu. You didn’t even have the decency to take us to dinner first, just struck in the middle of the night last Friday after the bars closed.

My father was a Vietnam Veteran, and I remember the look on his face as we watched Desert Shield and Desert Storm being broadcast over the news. For all his issues in life, my dad was a patriot who cared about the country he fought for. At the time, I didn’t know why he insisted on making sure my brother and I were with him on the couch as news of the war played on broadcast television. Sometimes, I’d sneak a look over at the old man while the news droned on and I’d catch him gazing at me and my brother and I would swear his eyes were watery. He died the year I deployed to Iraq. He didn’t even know I was going to be deployed. I wonder, if he did know, would he have held on longer to make sure I got back home alright? It wasn’t until early Saturday morning that I suddenly realized why my dad watched me and my brother instead of the television as the war broadcast over my computer speakers.

War is real, it is bloody, disgusting, maddening, and horrific. People don’t just die in war, they are eviscerated, incinerated, crushed, starved, diseased, dismembered, bled out all alone and thinking of family as they torturously slip away from the world. My father experienced these horrors on the battlefield, lost friends on the battlefield, and much of him stayed on the battlefield though he passed decades later after returning home from the battlefield. My war was in another part of the world from his, but the horrors and loss were still the same. Much of me remains in the Iraq desert sands. My two boys are almost the same number of years apart as my little brother and me are. Though my boys hadn’t blessed me with their lives yet, I knew I was fighting my war so they don’t have to ever fight. Listening to the President’s declaration of war against Iran, all I could do was stare at a picture of my two boys with watery eyes, scared to death and hoping that they never see what I have seen and now live with, just as my father stared at my brother and me with the same fear in his watery eyes.

War is not to be waged over subjunctive tense, cognitive distortions, and lies. Thirty-six-hours in, there are reports of three dead U.S. servicemen and women and many more injured. Will the families of the wounded and departed feel comfort in the cognitive distortions that sent their loved ones to their deaths? Will the man who has been lying to Congress for three decades – whose lies sent us into war already, who is not a member of the U.S. government, who is not even a U.S. citizen – to get us to fight his war so his country can rule the Middle East come and provide the families comfort and solace that their sacrifices were for his dominance over the region? Lies and cognitive distortions are not valid reasons for war.

The people don’t want war. The petulant children in Congress that are more worried about their ego and their next “donation check” from Israel must reach deep inside their tiny hearts and pull out some moral fortitude for their constituents. The United States cannot create regime change from the air, only more radical extremists. The United States has failed at every instance of regime change from the air and on the ground. The United States is still suffering from its last two generational wars. The United States must not sacrifice another generation to die in a shithole country in a war no one wants. The United States must break this generational curse of fathers gazing at their sons with tears in their eyes and fear in their hearts that the war he fought wasn’t good enough and that his United States is going to take away the most precious part of his life; all because of lies and cognitive distortions.

- Jeffery M. Curry