The Legality and Morality of Fighting Iran, Killing their Leaders

    Well, the United States and Israel have combined to lethally execute operations against a major world leader, a religious icon, or a spiritual and political authority for the Republic of Iran and much of the Shia Muslim world.

    Does this fit into many Biblical narratives? I think this is likely. For those of us who believe and try to live by Biblical and scriptural covenants, blessings, and prophecies, it smacks of heavy and perhaps not accidental events and occurrences.

    The laws of the United States are being violated by such acts, according to a friend that spoke to me at a party last night. It deserves consideration, this accusation. Did the U.S. Congress need to give approval? Did the designation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization give the U.S. president and military carte blanche to strike as they wanted?

    Grey areas, not black and white. The recent capture of Nicolas Maduro and his wife was considered legal since the Cartel de Soles was qualified as terrorist. As the drug runners being blown up in the Caribbean and the Pacific. Whether some of those boats are really illegally moving illicit drugs is not always known. 

    Questions to ponder, legal and moral.

    Habeas corpus, all the rights of defendants or accusees of whether they deserve a trial.

    In the last 25 years, arguably longer (see Clinton trying to kill Bin Laden in 1998), killing enemies of the state who are terrorist has become normal, accepted.

    Israel is very determined to weed out its existential enemies. Especially since October 7, 2023. The tone and the rules of the deadly game has changed. Syria fell to the freedom fighters, which seems better for many. Lebanon has lost firebrands that threatened the existence of Israel.

    Israel has wiped out many Hamas members and fighters in Gaza City, and in other places. Hezbollah has a continual target on its back. No safe quarter, even in the rich Gulf States like United Arab Emirates.

    Saudi Arabia, and maybe Jordan, were pressuring the U.S. to strike Iran.

    Donald Trump determined that many U.S. presidents failed to combat and stand up to Iran and its threats as he has done. The revolution in 1979 was egregious to us and many citizens of many lands, while the bombings of the barracks in Beirut in 1983 were worse. Iran was blamed for killing our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan in the 2000s.

    They, the Irani government, would not back down from developing nuclear power.

    Israel could not abide by it. And the U.S decided by executive order and military might to do the extreme, "decapitate" Iranian leadership in order to let the people of Iran to make the next steps.

    Legal? Moral?

    What else is there to consider?

    Certainly awful and tragic that we killed school girls, maybe in Teheran, as collateral damage.

    Wars and military strikes are always a mixed curse of strategy and woe.

    Blood is on our hands, as a commander once said to me.

    Will the blood of guilty and innocents be attributed to our souls?

    I think so.

    The next days and weeks will determine much more.

    How will the next leaders of Shia Islam proceed? I think, undoubtedly, with more caution and less bravado. Will there be retaliation from some of the followers of Islam? Likely, too.

    We must figure things out.

College Basketball 2026 - Winners, Losers PART II

    Miami of Ohio is undefeated. They would be a sweet Cinderella. Go Redhawks!

    Saint Louis are top Twenty Five. Go Blues?

    New Mexico is good, Utah States is decent, Gonzaga is okay even though upset by the Portland Pilots.

    Florida? Vanderbilt? Clemson?

    Louiseville or Kentucky. Talented, but I do not want them for historical reasons.

    Who else? Saint John's, and a few more Mountain West.... No.

    It will be Big Ten, I hope. Michigan, MSU, Illinois. No, Illinois is too outside oriented my friends said today. This morning after basketball. I like to play. Make a few threes. Get hit in the eye and a little bloody.

    So, Texas Tech without Toppin. That would be cool.

    Texas A & M? Alabama. Tennessee. Arkansas. Uhhhhh.... Iowa? No. Wisconsin? Maybe. No.

    Too many teams, but definite ones that we do not want.

    No UCONN, kentucky, kansas, UNC, or even UCLA. 1995, almost as bad as 1987 for IU.

    Did I forget anyone? Not Nevada.

    Nah, that is most them. There, part deux in the books.

 College Basketball 2026 - Winners, Losers

    Okay, UConn came back against Seton Hall today. UConn, the Huskies of Storrs, a recent winner of the Big Dance over all, is a top team. Lots of talent, I basically hate them. They have won way too much in the last almost three decades since 1999. That year was fine, as a newbie, 2004 was fine, but now since the miracle run in 2010 or 2011 and then more recently in this decades, I am tired of them.

    They stole an IU commit, and may have actually won with him. I hate them. Okay, I just do not want them to add more rings. IU has sat at five a large majority of my aging life. Connecticut has five now. I think. I do not want them to have six.

    Nor Duke. Who is very good right now. Nor UNC, which is ish, but still good enough to dance. March Madness, that is.

    My BYU Cougars are on the ropes, after losing their star guard Saunders and crumbling sadly at home to UCF. UCF may be better than Brigham Young right now. Ugh. Hmm, hmmm, hmmm.

    Why should we care? I am from Indiana.

    And the Hoosiers are squishy... Purdue is good. Notre Dame and Butler are down...

    OHHH! BYU loses in Morgantown tonight! They will drop out of the Top 25 and now may not be good enough for the March Madness around the corner. So much promise, now in jeopardy and lost...

    Arizona? Maybe. Houston? Struggling lately, but maybe.

    I hate not having my teams in the fight.

    Iowa State, but not Kansas... UCF is good. 

    Who in the Big Ten, or SEC? There are a few good ones.

    UCLA. Probably not good enough...

    All for now.

 The Machines in which we Flow

    I was taking a nap after playing basketball this morning, and I had a dream or thought with that title. I fell asleep reading some from the book, a classic, The Road by Cormac McCarthy. We loves days off, do we not? I work some Saturdays, but not today.

    I also wanted to write about some college basketball. But first, I must mention that Israel and the United States have struck Iran all over their country, Iran has retaliated, and it looks like the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei is dead.

    So, those posts can be for the near future. In sha' allah.

    Where do we find ourselves? In these machines that I had a notion of.

    We have governments, militaries, businesses, religions, in which we find ourselves ensconced. Some say it has a lot to do with race and ethnicity. Fair enough, for many people their birth in "White Privilege" allows them a step or three ahead of others. Their parents raise them in a healthier atmosphere, with nice homes, good neighborhoods, travel and good or excellent education, inheritances from previous generations...

    Whereas Blacks or African-Americans, in large numbers of cases, claim the opposite. Many Latinos have similar complaints of none of the above. Hard work can only make up so much, many claim. Rare are the poor, be they brown, black, or white or Asian, or any other ethnic background.

    How are we at math? Does this lead to strong careers in engineering, or other STEM professions. What about law, or medicine? So many people excel in these fields, create wealth for themselves and others, primarily their children.

    Entertainment can bring wealth and success to an elite few.

    Writing, in all its forms. 

    Many of us ride in the middle, we struggle or live at our means or at our desires for modicums of success.

    We move and travel according to our whims, fancies, desires, our capacities and financial availabilities. Some rich folks die in airplane or helicopter crashes, because they had the economic means to go that way, but it became tragic. Kobe Bryant had everything, but he died like a poor man with a junky car, who could not withstand a treacherous highway.

    Luck, fate, and God can play itself into all of our machines, our systems, our ways of living.

    Surviving, thriving, struggling, making it.

    What machines of life do you find yourself in?

    If not in our country, where else do you find yourself? 

    Can you go where you like to go?

 Yes, there are Monsters by Night and by Day

    I woke this morning, late in February. It was dark; it was foggy and somewhat ominous outside. Looking out my upstairs bathroom window, I peered through the slats of the blinds and noted the weather, the ambience. It was a little warmer than it had been the last few weeks, with a good deal of humidity. My window looks down on a field, trees, an assortment of lights, which through the mist and the doomy looks of the pre-dawn appear a bit creepy. I could conjure werewolves that would stalk us, their human prey. How terrifying would it be to be surrounded by the threat of man-eating monsters? We are thankful and aware that these fictitious monsters like werewolves, vampires, and all the mythic beasts from our collective histories are just that: fiction.

    However, we recognize that in life there are real monsters. They come in human form. Okay, there are scary wolves and crocodiles, and even hippopotamuses, snakes and sharks that are monsters unto themselves, which can harm and terrify us. But the worst of us are us people. Some men (and a few women and children) may threaten, harm, or kill just one. That is monstrous enough. Most of us will never harm or certainly not take another human being's life. Some people are lethal to a degree that is hard to imagine. Dictators, despots, regime leaders of our present, mostly past but some in the present...

    Vlad Putin qualifies. Trump and Musk in Africa, I would say. Possibly Netanyahu? Troubling times. We do not have a true modern day Pol Pot, or Idi Amin, or Joseph Stalin, or Adolph you know who. Just in my parents' lifetimes, we have had some really bad ones. One or two responsible or culpable for millions and millions dying, most of them cruelly and unfairly. Not accidentally. On purpose. Oh, yes, Mao Zae Dong. How many did he kill? Some would argue Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon killed too many in Vietnam. Ugliness, all around, these wars and conflicts.

    Poor and destitute dependent on U.S. aid and medicine in Africa? Yes, this last year. I am not sure how many have and still will die as result.

    We do what we can.

    Sort of. Kind of.

    How do we fight and battle the real monsters?

    The sun came up and it was sunny.

    Bad men are still afoot. Many places.

Passing Wayne Girdley's Algebra, or Trying Harder the Next Year, May Have Made the Difference...

 Passing Wayne Girdley's Algebra, or Trying Harder the Next Year, May Have Made the Difference...

    Perhaps the knowledge and the discipline, effort and the confidence, would have led me to have a more successful life.

    Or not.

    Hard to say. I will still strive to succeed, and flourish, and prosper, despite past setbacks.

    God wills it, mash allah.

 Salinger does not Rhyme with Malingerer

    Is English not fun and salty?

    Hail, hail, all thee English users and even some abusers.

    Next up: avoiding the Arabs.

    Dedicated to Richard Stephens. Is that his name? Benghazi, victim, I mean. 2012.

    Oh, we must avoid some...