By Antonia Williams-Gary

“War! What does it mean?” “Absolutely nothing!” Good God!”

So sang Edwin Star in 1970! It was an anti-Vietnam War protest song that has since been covered by several recording artists, and the lyrics still ring true.

Yes. War is a “heartbreaker,” “good for the undertaker” etc.

We seemed to have learned so little in the intervening six decades since that brutal war in southeast Asia, and when that anthem was first popularized. More than fifty-five thousand American military died on the battlefields in ‘Nam, Cambodia, and Laos; many remaining survivors are still being treated for their physical and psychological wounds.

Fought for nearly twenty years (1955-1975), that war engaged several nations and proxies to fight over ideology (communists versus non-communists).

Who won in the end?

Subsequently, after fighting, losing countless lives in protracted battles in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and/or in other parts of the world, to bring about regime change or eliminate nuclear capability, or, or, or, to some end yet to be fully justified, we are still attempting to align the world with so-called western values. And what are those values? I say they are flexible and murky, at best.

I have never wrapped myself up in the American Flag, or in the words- their real meaning in the constitution- of the founding “fathers’, nor in the fantasy stories manufactured about the founding of this country. No, I am grounded in the history of my African ancestry, which is rooted in the rural south, anchored in acts of self-determination, self-governance, pursuits of higher education, numerous examples of entrepreneurship, and several other markers of survival as a Black person in America!

I think I am as sophisticated as the next person, but it is beyond perplexing to make sense of what is happening in this undeclared war.

Yet here we go again, plunging full speed into a war with Iran and its proxies because, well that’s just the question to which no one has proffered a cohesive answer.

There are those who argue that we need to understand how the Judeo/Christian traditions are still dominant in America and which underscore the explanation of this new military aggression. Oh, a holy war! That’s plain scarry, but I’ll leave those arguments to religious zealots and humble-minded intellectuals.

Was the attack in collaboration with Israel to dominate the region and impose mutual geo-political goals? That’s a heady notion; a popular theory.

Was the attack designed to thwart a direct threat to the USA homeland? No.

Was it to distract from the Epstein files and the eventual investigation and conviction of Donald Trump? Maybe.

Was it to give a deep massage to Sec. of War Pete Hegseth’s ego? Probably some of that.

Just what is the end game? No one has offered a clear and acceptable explanation yet.

Wait! What about the new anti-drug trafficking fight underway in Ecuador?

The war against Iran has now engaged countries in Europe, the Middle East (led by Israel), Turkey, China, Russia, N. Korea, Ecuador (South America), Venezuela, Cuba, and Trinidad (the Caribbean) to name a few on the growing list of world players.

Soon come: African nations, some of which are already engulfed in conflict and in alignment with the major world-players. It’ll be interesting to see in which direction Ibrahim Traore will sway the nations along coastal West Africa.

But how about this. There has always been profit in war. The manufacture and sales of munitions is a very lucrative enterprise, and has been since the beginning of modern wars.

Add it all up and what do we have? A World War where there’s more than one winner!

And that, I think, is the end goal.

Good for absolutely nothing!

Toniwg1@gmail.com