Before you read this column, I want you to close your eyes and think about how war actually makes you feel.
While earthlings – mostly those with a need for power – have turned war into a business and a state of mind, the energy seems to be trickling down to people treating each other on a small scale with that same aggressive vigor.
If you know me, then you know I think very differently than many people as to why this is all happening, but let’s bring it down to 3D this week and consider a few things.
Start by doing an experiment on yourself.
Ask yourself every time you read something in mainstream media or encounter a toxic person: how does that make you feel, and how is that person or media outlet trying to make you feel?
This is a bipartisan question, and we have learned that people do have the gumption to come together from both sides of the aisle when it really matters.
Exhibit A: Data Centers.
Exhibit B: Flock Cameras.
How about considering Exhibit C being the U.S. war in Iran.
Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie effectively got shown the door by his own party, losing his primary election due to his loud opposition to the administration’s military interventions, including the war in Iran, which made him a target of his own party’s leadership and the White House.
With nothing to lose, he definitely took it a step further and introduced eight articles of impeachment against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, accusing him of waging an illegal war in Iran.
Massie says the administration violated the 1973 War Powers Resolution by executing military operations for over 90 days without explicit congressional authorization.
He attempted to use House rules to force an immediate, mandatory vote on the impeachment within 48 hours, but House Speaker Mike Johnson abruptly recessed the House early for a seven-week period ahead of the midterms.
Massie wasn’t far off in his hour-long floor speech accusing GOP leadership of “canceling days when the country is burning” just to protect the administration from a politically damaging vote before the elections.
It’s not business as usual in the halls of government these days, and I think anyone who is paying attention can see that very clearly.
I was a little curious myself how this war has been allowed to go on so long if it is violating the 1973 War Powers Resolution by executing military operations for over 90 days without congressional authorization.
Turns out it is due to a combination of executive legal loopholes, defensive reclassifications, and structural enforcement failures within the law itself.
The main reason the White House and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have under their belt is that the statutory clock is no longer running.
When the 60-day deadline arrived on May 1, the administration sent an official notification to Congress arguing that because a partial ceasefire had been brokered on April 7, active hostilities had technically “terminated,” and the ceasefire paused the War Powers clock.
Apparently, we have redefined active hostilities too.
While the U.S. is still actively enforcing a maritime blockade and securing the Strait of Hormuz, the administration says this is merely “defensive measures” rather than active engagement, which falls under the executive branch within the President’s Article II commander-in-chief powers.
But while the administration plays word games calling it “defensive measures” and not an actual war, the human cost is very real.
The Pentagon officially admits to 18 military fatalities and over 820 wounded in action since things kicked off on Feb. 28.
However, a major investigation just dropped from The Washington Post revealing the real toll is between 22 and 23 dead American service members.
Why the mismatch?
Because the Pentagon has quietly been shuffling bodies around – removing several troops killed by drone and missile strikes from the official “Iran conflict” database and hiding them under generic “Overseas Operations” to keep the public in the dark.
Hegseth calls it a complete lie, but Armed Services Committee lawmakers are actively calling it a data cover-up.
And apparently, Congress can’t really enforce the War Powers Resolution anyway.
Case in point, the House passed its third bipartisan war powers resolution on September 15 (voting 220–204 to halt the conflict), but the resolutions were not able to stop the executive branch without a two-thirds supermajority.
The War Powers Resolution has never been able to stop a sitting president anyway regarding an active military operation.
Past administrations (including deployments in Kosovo in 1999 and Libya in 2011) similarly went past the 60-to-90-day rule by using technical reclassification mumbo jumbo and the judiciary has pretty much said they will not interfere.
What also made me think about this “war that is not a war” was the current domestic fallout regarding the former Director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) Joe Kent, who was a long-time Trump ally.
Kent’s current story has all the makings of a thriller because the rabbit hole appears to be high-level deep-state mutiny, allegations of a massive intelligence breach, and a weaponized FBI investigation according to NBC News.
Kent walked away from his NCTC job six months ago. He didn’t leave quietly though, instead penning a resignation letter that in short threw a grenade at the administration’s foreign policy.
He said he could “not in good conscience support the ongoing war” and publicly stated that the administration dragged the country into Iran due to immense geopolitical pressure from Israel and its domestic lobbying factions.
Maybe some people in the back of the room did not hear this story considering mainstream media vomits 24/7 news you can’t use meant to keep you in chaos most of the time, but it somehow forgot to give the Kent story the expected airtime for a scandal of this magnitude.
But then again, what can Americans do about any of this?
From a bipartisan place, nothing. And don’t think it will change if blue takes over red in November; same owners, different playbook.
Back to Kent, now we have a highly sensitive FBI leak investigation going on because intelligence agencies believe he didn’t just write a letter; he leaked highly classified intelligence data to the press before he left in order to sabotage the war effort, even though apparently the White House indicates we aren’t even in a war at all.
Rita Cook is a freelance writer for The Ellis County Press. She can be reached at rcook13@earthlink.net.