James M. Redwine

War

Drone On

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Photo by Peg Redwine

All organized militaries play war games to practice for real war. No blood from the losers or booty to the winners. No buildings destroyed or state treasuries depleted. In essence, war games are the best wars. Mankind has sought such a resolution of conflicts since we progressed from living in caves to coveting the caves of our neighbors. However, a major problem has often been we had to destroy our neighbor’s cave to take it over and often we had to kill our neighbors first. But, voila; along has come our ability to wage war without incurring any of its messier elements. We can now just dispatch unmanned drones instead.

Just this past week Ukraine captured several Russian soldiers using inexpensive, unmanned drones. No blood, no returned fire, no mess, i.e., no fighting. That’s the kind of war we can all live with. It is a little like battles used to be settled by having one soldier from one side, say David, fight one soldier from the other side, say Goliath. Who says we humans cannot learn from thousands of years of slaughter? Instead of killing to prevent Iran from somehow, someday, maybe developing a nuclear weapon, we can now just have warring factions display their drones while everyone watches the show. It could be better than an ♫ op-er-a ♫ (as they say in the musical Les Misérables) and cost about the same.

Oh, I know what you are thinking, Gentle Reader; there are a few more things to work out with Iran now. Anyway, I have already spent more time thinking this war through than President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu did before June 2025 and February 2026 when they started bombing Iran.

You can also follow us on Facebook at “Jim Peg Redwine” or Substack “@gavelgamut”

Civilization Not Annihilation

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The most dangerous character trait an advisor to a narcissistic megalomaniac can have is honesty. Speaking truth to power is what a true patriot does before falling on her or his sword. Those around Rome’s Caligula found that out between 37 and 41 AD before he was assassinated. On the other hand, our country has a desperate need for words of wisdom and humanity to be whispered into President Trump’s ear and, more importantly, for him to believe those truths and put America over personal pouting. Of course, if the ruler surrounds himself with sycophants, the advice is more damaging than the facts.

Humanity has unfortunately had numerous examples of people who clearly saw and warned of a dark future but whose forecasts were ignored. The most famous of these cautionary voices came from Cassandra of Greek mythology. Cassandra was the daughter of Troy’s King Priam. She proclaimed the disasters that would befall Troy, but she was dismissed as mad and Troy was conquered by the Greeks in a senseless ten-year war over Helen’s affair with King Priam’s son, Paris.

On March 17, 2026 Joseph Kent, who had been nominated by Trump to serve as the Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, sent the President his letter of resignation. Kent had served twenty years in the army, had been awarded six bronze stars, was an army ranger and green beret and had seen several combat deployments to the Middle East.

Kent correctly foresaw the future of America’s destruction of Iran. After our unprovoked attacks in June 2025 and February 2026, Joseph Kent, at great self-sacrifice, implored President Trump to put America first:

“President Trump,

After much reflection, I have decided to resign from my position as Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, effective today.

I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.

I support the values and the foreign policies that you campaigned on in 2016, 2020, 2024, which you enacted in your first term. Until June of 2025, you understood that the wars in the Middle East were a trap that robbed America of the precious lives of our patriots and depleted the wealth and prosperity of our nation.

In your first administration, you understood better than any modern President how to decisively apply military power without getting us drawn into never-ending wars. You demonstrated this by killing Qasam Solamani and by defeating ISIS.

Early in this administration, high-ranking Israeli officials and influential members of the American media deployed a misinformation campaign that wholly undermined your America First platform and sowed pro-war sentiments to encourage a war with Iran. This echo chamber was used to deceive you into believing that Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States, and that should you strike now, there was a clear path to a swift victory. This was a lie and is the same tactic the Israelis used to draw us into the disastrous Iraq war that cost our nation the lives of thousands of our best men and women. We cannot make this mistake again.

As a veteran who deployed to combat 11 times and as a Gold Star husband who lost my beloved wife Shannon in a war manufactured by Israel, I cannot support sending the next generation off to fight and die in a war that serves no benefit to the American people nor justifies the cost of American lives.

I pray that you will reflect upon what we are doing in Iran, and who we are doing it for. The time for bold action is now. You can reverse course and chart a new path for our nation, or you can allow us to slip further toward decline and chaos. You hold the cards.

It was an honor to serve in your administration and to serve our great nation.”

Gentle Reader, you already know that Kent’s prescient warnings went unheeded. President Trump has publicly threatened to destroy forever the entire civilization of Iran if it does not, UNCONDITIONALLY, adhere 100% to Trump’s demands. Iran has 90 million people and a civilization over 4,000 years old. Also, as Kent stated, Iran has never been a threat to America and could not be if it wanted to be. To exterminate an entire segment of humanity is to violate every moral position we say we stand for.

The Strait of Hormuz had never been blockaded by Iran until the United States and Israel decided to unilaterally and without warning, while in the midst of negotiations, bomb Iran twice and demand total regime change and capitulation. President Trump portrayed our actions as a means of helping the Iranian populace to revolt against the radical theocracy controlling Iran. But, if we kill everyone and eliminate their culture, how is that to their benefit?

Now, as we supposedly want a “deal” with Iran, what does Iran have to give? President Trump says we obliterated all their nuclear capabilities in June 2025 and February 2026. We and Israel have completely decimated Iran’s air force, navy and economy. All Iran has left is the Strait of Hormuz and their devastated lives, while we demand unconditional capitulation. Iran has nothing else to concede. So, how can this “negotiation” end?

Just as the Greeks after the Trojan war, I suggest we declare victory, we get in our ships and sail home; that is what a properly heeded Cassandra would advise. And we should thank Joseph Kent for having the wisdom and courage to choose the harder right over the easier wrong. The President should recognize Kent’s service to America and choose duty over duplicity.

 You can also follow us on Facebook at “Jim Peg Redwine” or Substack “@gavelgamut”

President Trump’s Avatar

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President Trump had to find a way out of the descent into Hades he had recklessly threatened for Iran. Not even his most fervent acolytes could justify his destruction of an entire civilization because some of its leaders refused to prostate their country to President Trump’s demands. One of the President’s most irrational statements was to announce to the world a 48-hour time limit. This removed all wiggle room and meant either the United States had to retreat from its unconditional conditions or Iran had to.

The President’s dilemma remains he has exterminated not just Iran’s hierarchy but, over several years, he has eliminated many of his own advisors he could have relied upon for trusted advice. However, someone is left standing who managed to convince Trump to connive what is for now an off-ramp from his unhinged behavior. Who is the Trump Whisperer who helped him to extract defeat from devastation; the Court Jester who was able to get the emperor to listen to reason; The Greek Chorus that foreshadowed Trump’s own hubris fueled self-immolation on the world stage?

We do not know, as yet. However, there is a Daniel Ellsberg somewhere in the Trump Administration who will someday divulge the facts behind President Trump’s total defeat by his own ego. History provides many examples of people who have had the courage to put principle over their own survival.

Hitler’s greatest general, Erwin Rommel, gave his own life to try to stop a maniac from ending civilization. Marcus Junius Brutus conspired to assassinate Julius Caesar to prevent Caesar from claiming the emperorship and destroying the Roman republican form of government. Both Rommel and Brutus committed suicide, but both tried to save their countries from narcissistic tyrants. Daniel Ellsberg released the top-secret Pentagon Papers to divulge to the world the false basis for America’s involvement in the Viet Nam War. He was charged with espionage and endured great contumely for his courage.

Someone in President Trump’s truly inner circle had the ability to speak truth to Trump about Trump’s seismic moral, political and diplomatic tirade that placed America in the position that Hitler’s Nazis and Netanyahu’s Zionists are known for, genocide. We are, for now, most known for President Trump’s threats to eliminate an entire civilization. If the President decides to eliminate the Cassandra who brought America back from the edge, doom may yet occur.

Here’s a big thank you to that Cassandra, whoever she or he is, and a caution that truth can be a dangerous thing, especially if whispered to megalomaniacs.

You can also find us on Facebook at “Jim Peg Redwine” or Substack “@gavelgamut”

Epic Fury Revisited

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“Peg, Peg, are you awake?”

“I am now that you have poked your elbow through my ribs. What are you laughing about?”

“I just solved President Trump’s kerfuffle in the Middle East. It came to me in a dream; I knew you’d want to hear it. It has everything. No blood, no money and no more angst. Do you want to get up and have a hot chocolate or just lie here and be amazed?”

“What I want is to go back to sleep, but apparently that’s not an option. So, go ahead; let’s hear what, if anything, is going on in your head.”

“Oh, good. The country needs my help. Listen up, I think this borders on brilliant; it’s kinda like something Trump, Hegseth, J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio might have thought of on their own, if they’d thought of it.”

The Dream Solution

President Trump summoned Secretary of War Pete Hegseth to the oval office after he saw a FOX NEWS report of a portion of Hegseth’s prayer at the Pentagon directed to the war against Iran:

“Grant this task force clear and righteous targets for violence.
….
[L]et justice be executed swiftly and without remorse.”

“Now, Pete, that is a real prayer. Where in the world did you come up with that?”

“Mr. President, I took that straight from the Bible. I am sure you are familiar with Psalm 144 that holds: ‘Blessed be the Lord, my rock, who trains my hands for war, and my fingers for battle.’”

“Oh, sure, I used to be referred to suggested passages, but then I found Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount to be rather D.E.I. in its approach so, I quit wasting time on such by-gone thinking. The world now looks to me to solve these things. After all, I am the peacemaker.”

“Anyway, Pete, I just wanted to commend your attitude of all out victory and run an idea by you as to how we might land on our feet in this Iran thing. What do you think about a little diversionary tactic such as finding a country we can get to surrender without any more blood or tax dollars wasted? We need an enemy we can truly subdue in a couple of days, you know, one we can blame for criticizing our righteous invasion of Iran. I have one in mind based on what this guy from Chicago just said on March 26th about the war. No, no, it wasn’t that slob J.B. Pritzker who wants to run against me in 2028. He is in Illinois, but I mean that other Chicago preacher who used to be called Robert Francis Prevost but now dresses like a mullah or an Arab Sheik. Just this past Palm Sunday he said our ‘… hands are full of blood and that God does not listen to our prayers because we are waging war and using religion to justify violence.’”

“I think the fellow does not like my policies and is challenging my authority. Doesn’t he realize I represent 350 million people? Of course, he touts his leadership of 1.4 billion Catholics, 5 ½ of which are on the U.S. Supreme Court, but most of those people do not even own one golf course. And he lives in the smallest country on earth with the smallest army. Do you know there are only 135 members of the Swiss Guards and their last military engagement was at the sea battle of Lepanto in 1571? Further, they dress funny with their red, yellow and blue pantaloons and their only weapons are long sticks. How long could they last against our troops or even one Abrams tank?”

Photo by Peg Redwine

“Most importantly, I bet if I decided to take over the Vatican, Pope Leo XIV would just turn the other cheek. Then we could raise really huge campaign contributions by converting the Sistine Chapel into a really high-end rental suite like the Lincoln bedroom. We could also sell off that depressing Pieta thing and replace it with a statue of me.”

“What do you think, Pete? It would be easier than Venezuela and a whole lot less trouble than Iran. Also, the Pope doesn’t have any way to restrict access to the Mediterranean Sea or even to the Trevi Fountain. Okay, that’s enough planning, let’s go for it this afternoon! This should really divert attention from Iran and Epstein. Let the games begin.” 

“To sleep, perchance to dream.”
Hamlet, Act 3, scene 1

Photo by Peg Redwine
Photo by Peg Redwine

“What a dream. What do you think? The solution was right there in my head and now I just need to get the President and the Pope to sit down for some real Trump-like deal making. I’m pretty sure the Pope will be amenable to a Trump negotiation calling for unconditional surrender. What’s the Pope going to do, run over the President with that funny little golf cart?”

“I can’t speak for the Pope, but if you don’t shut up and let me go back to sleep, you won’t need to worry about it.”

You can also follow us on Facebook at “Jim Peg Redwine” or Substack “@gavelgamut”

American Essence

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Freedom of choice defines America.  We revolted against our then country, King George III’s Great Britain, in 1776 for the same reasons the English nobility had demanded that King John put his seal on the Magna Carta in 1215 at the plain of Runnymede.  Life under a governmental system of rule by fiat was anathema to freedom of choice.

America is recognized throughout the world as the best example of a people who live free.  Our Bill of Rights is a Bill of Choices:  choice to speak, Due Process of Law, the right to practice any or no religion or to complain about the government (even if it is a government we have chosen).  And, while we have often fallen short of our ideals and denied such rights to some of our own people and other peoples throughout the earth, our Volksgeist for 250 years has remained freedom for all. For example, President Trump has often and loudly proclaimed since the election of 2020 that American voters had their freedom of choosing their leaders stolen from them.  Regime change by fraud, not choice, Trump claims.

Yet, when it comes to Iran, Zionist Israel and the United States have publicly celebrated regime change by murder; the ultimate denial of a country’s freedom to choose their own leaders.  The despotic nature of Iran’s theocratic government does not exonerate our illegal aggression under the guise of removing the yolk from the necks of the Iranian people. This is especially true when our real purpose is to install the leaders we choose for them as we did when we gave them the Shah, then replaced the Shah and gave them the Ayatollah.  Is it any wonder Iran sees America and Israel as the not to be trusted Great Satan instead of its savior? Could they believe we are more interested in controlling the Straits of Hormuz than the welfare of the Iranian people?

As to negotiations to end hostilities, President Trump has demanded unconditional surrender including the elimination of Iran’s sitting government along with 14 other provisions including control over the Straits of Hormuz, the only true defensive asset Iran has to Israel’s nuclear weapons and its overpowering military; both of which we helped establish.  In June 2025 and again in February 2026, we led Iran to rely upon “negotiations” as we prepared to bomb them without notice.  Both times President Trump gleefully pronounced we and Israel had killed Iran’s leaders and destroyed their ability to defend themselves.  Israel has purposely led President Trump to assist it in attacking Iran when most Americans were adamantly opposed to this immoral and self-destructive course.  Four-dollar fuel and innocent blood are already the result of Israel’s deception and our “Passionate Attachment”.

We should not attack Israel but we surely should open our eyes as to which country in the Middle East for the past 78 years has attacked virtually every country near it including: Qatar, Egypt, Lebanon, Yemen, Palestine, Jordan, Syria and Iran.  And we should cease enabling this constant aggression.  America should adhere to its own ideals and not be used as a guarantor of Israel’s hegemony, revenge and genocide.  Most importantly, we should at least be ashamed of our role in those countless sins of both omission and commission and afford to other countries the rights we so proudly proclaim for ourselves.

Both King John and King George III are gone.  We should not anoint a new sovereign or approve of actions that violate our founding documents. We do not need to reprise the debacles of Viet Nam, Iraq and Afghanistan.  A true negotiation that fairly addresses the long-term needs and aspirations of every people involved is necessary to resolve the current conflict.  Bluster and lies will only produce what all immoral words and actions always produce.  And yes, it will be difficult, expensive and time consuming but on the other hand it already has been, so we might as well do it right.

You can also follow us on Facebook at “Jim Peg Redwine” or Substack “@gavelgamut”

Monkey Traps

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When a country embarks on a military peccadillo it is prudent to have planned for an offramp, as what appeared to be a walk in the park may turn out to be a Monkey Trap. Monkeys sometimes are captured by placing food in a jar that has an opening large enough to allow a monkey’s open paw to go in, but small enough that the inserted paw, when clinching food in a fist, cannot be withdrawn. Then the monkey sometimes stubbornly refuses to let go of the food and can be easily captured.

The United States has often suffered from this sin of hubris when dealing with less powerful nations. For example, Custer’s 1868 easy slaughter of Chief Black Kettle and his peaceful Cheyenne tribe at the Washita Battlefield in western Oklahoma infected Custer with the misconception indigenous people could not defend against the U.S. Cavalry. Ten years after Washita, Custer attacked another peaceful Indian encampment at the Little Bighorn in southeastern Montana. He expected the same result as with Black Kettle’s tribe, but this time was a Monkey Trap for the United States.

America has a penchant for seizing defeat from the jaws of victory in confrontations with countries which can do us no harm, but are ones we choose to destroy or revamp in our own image for them: North Korea, Viet Nam, Cambodia, Iraq (twice), Afghanistan, Palestine (Gaza and the West Bank), Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, Panama, Venezuela and Iran. There have been others, but these few debacles should illustrate the point.

Now, President Trump is threatening to invade Greenland and yesterday the President stated he could and might simply take Cuba, or as he said, “Do whatever I want with it”. Writing these proposed conquests down or publicly stating we will conquer another country because we do not like their attitude or their regime has become the new American dream. America, long seen as a beacon of freedom to the world, has changed perception of us to that of a Nazi Germany, or a Stalinist Soviet Union, or a Zionist Israel.

We cannot resist dipping our paws into the Monkey Trap of unjust, unnecessary, deadly, expensive, intractable and most importantly, immoral, conflicts. Why? According to what President Trump said about our invasions of Iran, they are “just for fun”. The temptation is to analyze Trump’s policy statements as products of our video game culture. However, we have been engaging in these misadventures since the 17th century, even before we were the United States. No, we should not attempt to assuage our collective conscience by laying the blame, shame and self-defeating national behavior on technology. The cause is not advancing science but declining character. We elected President Trump. He speaks for us. His morality is our morality. When he equates the destruction of other countries to a game and we hardly take notice, as a people we have lost our way.

America made a valid claim to having stopped Germany from its WWII genocide, but now we support Israel’s genocide in Palestine and Lebanon. The slaughter and displacement of innocent human beings is wrong whether in Germany or the Middle East. And, as we are rotting from the inside to defend Israel’s immorality, what about what such lack of character is doing to us?

Our traditional friends and allies no longer look to America for enlightenment. They are increasingly lumping us into the cauldron of hegemony and hate. If President Trump can publicly state from the White House that our Monkey Trap behaviors are excursions or “just for fun”, while there is no hue and cry about how our national soul is rapidly being lost, we need not blame Trump; a mirror will suffice.

Follow us on Facebook at “Jim Peg Redwine” or Substack “@gavelgamut”