Will We Never Learn?

I spent some time recently debating with an old friend who happens to be American. We have never seen eye to eye on anything, be it gun control, climate change or the immature berk in charge of America. He is my antithesis, a polar opposite I have never come across anywhere else, and yet he is also my friend. I respect the fact that despite his arguments to my contrary being ethically, statistically or scientifically unsound or grey, he doesn't resort to hot headed screaming or petty personal insults to deliver them. He is me, but not me so to speak, as if through a looking glass. Our friendships origin lay within a Reddit forum, where we basically became superstars for our back and forth on an almost daily basis, we spent many hours positing this or contesting that with each other to the tune of 80+ replies a pop, so much so we became household names, but I digress.

We spoke about Iran, fossil fuels and climate change, and the only thing we found common ground on was that people obviously aren't meant to live in Australia, it is quite the inhospitable place even without the 400+ bush fires raging through it at the moment. 

The Iranian General who was killed by an American drone a few days ago was a hot subject, my friend who is a Republican and avid Trump supporter was adamant this was a good thing. I am not. I have been incensed by the continued use of the word "terrorist" by those who claim this was the right thing to do, a terrorist is an individual or group who use death and destruction to instill or attempt to instill terror into a populace, that is the definition of a terrorist. This man was not a terrorist. Was he responsible for American deaths? Yes of course he was, but that was largely because the Americans in question were military personnel who were constantly upending the Middle East with regime changes, they claim they bring stability, but in the 40 years since the Gulf War, the region is as stable as it was back then and 0 progress has been made, if anything we've lost it. Syria, Iran, Iraq now thanks to this assassination, they are anti-west and it's because of American interference. 

You cannot kill the 2nd most powerful statesman in an internationally recognised government because you decide to call him a terrorist. To his people he was a patriot and a hero - they turned out in 6 figure numbers to mourn him for crying out loud. The American (military, not civilian) blood on his hands was a result of him and his entire country attempting to end foreign interference in their region, via proxy militia yes, but the end result is simply if America had not decided they knew what was best for a country not their own, he would've been responsible for zero American deaths. He killed no Americans on American soil - as opposed to America's responsibility for hundreds of Iranian deaths in the Middle East. The overall consensus in the region was already "America sod off", but now? Now it's far more deadly. And those of use who live far closer to Iran than Americans will suffer for their arrogance in this, we are a western nation, and unfortunately the EU and Britain will be lumped in with them because of it. 

The insane part is if an American had done the same the General did, to a destabilising foreign influence, they'd be lauded as a hero. It is hypocrisy at it's most dangerous, and we will all pay the price of America's hubris. The end result of this will not be a de-escalation of tensions as Trump seems to think he was doing, he has cemented anti-western hatred in the Middle East, an ideological stone tablet that reads "Death to America", it doesn't matter if Trump razes Iran to the ground, the idea will never die - genocide will be the only option left to them. 

Heil Trump.