We’ve had a wild time. During the Congress coming back to work and taking up the impeachment against our president, there was a target of opportunity to take out a general in the Iranian military and President Donald Trump and his cabinet decided to act. Some people tried to shape it into an act of war and worried we were starting World War III. Others tried to say our president acted to take the heat off the impeachment and make himself into a hero for the next election. 

We saw “Iranians” take to the streets shouting, “death to America,” but really, how was that different than the last 40 years? And do we know these people were Iranian citizens and not trained proxies of the type the general liked to train to do his dirty work? The Iranian government decided to retaliate by lobbing missiles into the Green Zone in Iraq, but no one was killed. They shot down a passenger plane, mistaking it for the U.S. bomber coming to bomb them back and killed 176 innocent people. First, they tried to say it wasn’t shot down, but the video was clear and then admitted a mistake — but not before blaming the U.S. for making them do it. (And here I was thinking it was just in the U.S. people no longer took ownership of their mistakes). 

Elsie Hickman is a Lake Martin resident and weekly columnist for The Outlook.