Is It Moral to Wipe Out the Persian Civilization Because of Trump’s Machismo?

Is it Moral to Wipe Out the Persian Civilization Because of Trump’s Machismo?

The words “macho” and “machismo” haven’t been popular for a while. But we haven’t had a President who takes threats, which are just words, as a personal affront and challenge to his machismo.

This has an analogy in Trump’s responses to athletes kneeling before the national anthem as a form of protest. Trump acts as if this is a personal affront to his person. It certainly is related to Trump’s policies. Even before that started, Trump had proposed severe penalties for those who burned the American flag, which is Constitutionally protected free speech.

Trump responded the same to Kim Jong Un’s threats of nuclear strikes, with “fire and fury” as never before seen. Does Trump think that his threats brought Kim to the negotiating table, and Kim’s promise to denuclearize.

Is Trump’s anger at Iran also fueled by his apparent fear of and disdain for Muslims? Trump included Iran in one of his seven countries from which even visitors were to be banned.

The whole confrontation would have been avoided had Trump not violated the multinational denuclearization treaty with Iran by withdrawing from it, and preparing to start up sanctions again.

For completeness, we reprint Trump’s tweeted warning, in all caps, as he so tweeted. (What is really scary is when Trump goes to bold faced, italicized, and underlined all caps.)

“SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE.” Then he wrote: “WE ARE NO LONGER A COUNTRY THAT WILL STAND FOR YOUR DEMENTED WORDS OF VIOLENCE & DEATH. BE CAUTIOUS!”

I like the addition of the “!” to emphasize the threat of total nuclear annihilation. Really? I guess that there is not a nuclear explosion emoji yet, but Trump sorely needs one.

Let’s try the addition of boldface, italics, underlined and all caps, to see how much scarier it is: HEAR ME NOW!!!!! Notice how much more effective five exclamation points can be? This just emphasizes that words and styles is not a reason to even think of nuclear annihilation.

Actually, none of this is a joking matter. One of Trump’s election problems and continuing problems is people realizing that this man, who’s ego is on his sleeve, can solely launch the US into a mutually destroying nuclear war. Yet Republicans have not been interested in exploring any solutions, or even admitting that it is our most urgent real problem. Oy vey.

About Dennis SILVERMAN

I am a retired Professor of Physics and Astronomy at U C Irvine. For two decades I have been active in learning about energy and the environment, and in reporting on those topics for a decade. For the last four years I have added science policy. Lately, I have been reporting on the Covid-19 pandemic of our times.
This entry was posted in Affairs of State, Donald Trump, Freedom of Speech, Immigration Ban, Iran, Middle East, Nuclear Weapons, State Department, Travel Ban. Bookmark the permalink.

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