James M. Redwine

Manhattan Project

The More Things Change

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Photo by Peg Redwine

President Trump gave his 2026 State of the Union address last night, 24 February 2026. He spoke for almost two hours on several topics. One of the most important was the survival of humanity as highlighted by his insistence that he would not allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons. After the world saw the destruction the United States rained down on Japan in 1945, rational people realized we humans had finally “progressed” to the ability to make ourselves extinct. Or as former mathematics professor turned folksong singer Tom Lehrer (1928-2025) wrote about WWIII during his stint on the television show That Was the Week That Was:

♫ So long Mom I’m off to drop the bomb
So don’t wait up for me
But while you swelter
Down there in your shelter
You can see me on your TV
….
I’ll look for you when the war is over
An hour and a half from now. ♫

Since our Manhattan Project, 1942-1947, the world has raced rapidly towards Armageddon. The Russians spied on us for nuclear secrets with Julius and Ethel Rosenberg who were executed, while the Israelis stole our nuclear bomb using Jonathan Pollard who was released by the USA and now lives the good life in Israel. Pollard’s Israeli handler, Aviem Sella, who recruited Pollard to spy against us was granted a full pardon by outgoing President Donald Trump on January 20, 2021.

Israel and Russia both have the bomb and the ability to deliver it anywhere in America, Russia by its own devices and Israel by our knowing enablement. Our traditional allies, Great Britain and France, possess nuclear weapons as do our traditional enemies, China and North Korea. Whether India and Pakistan are considered friends is a matter of debate, but both possess nuclear weapons. Other countries may have nuclear weapons programs also but in various stages of development. There is no doubt several nuclear bomb capable countries are already beyond Iran’s paper tiger status as far as being able to strike back at America if we were to try to disarm them.

So, Mr. President, why are we readying another military attack on Iran who, according to you, if it ever had a military nuclear program, you and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu obliterated it in 2025? Why are you so eager to take us to war with Iran which has no nuclear bomb program when we are not attacking countries we know have bombs and the means to drop them on America? How about concentrating on the real national threats, such as the economy and our health care? Instead, we are acting like a cowardly schoolyard bully when it comes to weak, feckless, and according to you, nuclear harmless Iran.

We know China and Russia and perhaps soon North Korea might gladly stand up to us, but that Iran could not land a punch on our homeland even with non-nuclear missiles. Iran is the weakling a bully uses to glorify its power. Why don’t we just do what a true hero would do, and bring our troops home until and unless they are needed, as our Constitution provides, to defend our homeland?

We have allowed Russia to invade Ukraine, China to threaten Taiwan, North Korea to bully South Korea and we enable and support Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians because those countries are capable of striking back at us. Also, you apparently have failed to consider our own military personnel who will have to do the killing and dying.

Mr. President, our military is not a Christmas toy for a spoiled child to play with. Please reconsider your rush to abuse our citizens and those of other countries. You tout yourself as a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize. To be truly worthy of it, please make peace, by not ordering our country into another unnecessary war. As General Norman Schwarzkopf said, “It doesn’t take a hero” to order others into combat.

In your State of the Union speech, you spoke of Christianity and how, in your opinion, religion is integral to our Union. Jesus might refer you to his Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:9), “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.” Mr. President, real service, not lip service is true leadership.

Battle Fatigue

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We are at war. The actual combat began in January 2020. A declaration of war was not made by Congress as required by the United States Constitution. But virtually every member of the House of Representatives and the Senate, along with the President, has publicly asserted America is at war with COVID-19. Almost 90,000 of us have paid the ultimate price and almost 1.5 million are causalities. Many more losses are predicted.

While wars of any description are great stressors on people, our enemy in this war is truly virulent. If we were fighting another country we would know where to direct our fear and fire. With the Coronavirus we cannot even identify our enemy without a microscope and it is not wearing a uniform. Further, it often attacks us by attaching itself to casual social contacts, businesses, friends and even our loved ones. COVID-19 is a Mata Hari’s dream. Few are immune from its invidious, silent, unseen and sometimes deadly infection and even those who suffer no ill effects themselves can operate as Typhoid Marys.

Another major stressor people feel from the virus is the uncertainty we experience from the fear there is no end in sight. Most people can muster enough courage to combat major stressors if it is fairly certain they will end, even if that end is far off. However, with COVID our scientists keep cautioning us that we may never find a vaccine. After all, the first polio outbreak in America was in 1894 and we did not have a reliable vaccine until 1953.

In our war against COVID-19 we have already been in live-fire combat for at least two months. An official United States government report on battle fatigue among American soldiers in World War II declared:

“There is no such thing as getting used to combat.
…
“The general consensus was that a man reached his peak of effectiveness in the
first 90 days of combat [and] that after that his efficiency began to fall off …”
“Psychiatric casualties are as inevitable as gunshot and shrapnel wounds …”
“Most men were ineffective after 180 or even 140 days.”
As cited in John Keegan’s The Face of Battle at p. 335

America’s “Combat Exhaustion” over our war with COVID-19 is manifesting itself throughout the United States. A majority of Americans still fear the virus more than they question our multilayed, hodgepodge governmental response to it, whether federal, state, county or local. However, the stress of only 60 days or so of fighting the virus is already exposing fissures in our good will toward one another. Unless we come up with a successful Manhattan Project type response to the virus fairly soon perhaps we should develop some new strategies.