Armchair Quarterback

A neighbor told me the other day that the United States shouldn’t have assassinated Iranian General Qassem Solemani.

“Why not?”, I asked.

“Solemani never did anything to us. Trump’s trying to start WWIII!

It was this man’s personal opinion. Everyone seems to have an opinion on the subject. My neighbor evidently didn’t know about American blood on Solemani’s hands. Logic dictates the general was thirsty for more. I truly wonder how this fellow came to the WWIII conclusion? He continued to ramble on about the evils of President Trump. The fellow offered no real solutions to the Iranian terrorism problem. I quickly labeled him an Armchair Quarterback. I’ve been called the same.

Not one to argue politics or religion, I decided to avoid verbal conflict by remaining silent. Where did this fellow get his information. Does he have a direct line to the Central Intelligence Agency? Is there someone at the Pentagon supplying him with pertinent data, showing that the renown Islamic terrorist was not out to further hurt America? There are professionals within our government and military that have the answers. It’s doubtful that highly-secret military intelligence was at my neighbor’s disposal.

I’d say he based his opinion entirely on what he read in the newspaper or watched on television. It seems many people make this mistake, including me. Do newspaper reporters and television analysts know more than military experts? We know the answer to that, or at least most of us do.

Oftentimes, reporters shoot from the hip. In certain type stories they take secondhand or third party information and feed it to the public as fact. Where classified military info is concerned they do such all the time. Some news agencies are now denouncing the killing as unnecessary. Instead of factually reporting, they’re handing out biased innuendo. That’s totally unprofessional but these people don’t seem to care.

During the 1960’s, newspapers and television reporters had the Russians bombing us with nukes regarding the ‘Bay of Pigs’ incident in Cuba. At schools across the country, drills were practiced where kids, including teachers, were instructed to crawl under desks when attacked. As a ten-year-old, I wondered what good would that do? I couldn’t fit under mine. Most likely I’d die because of my size.

History now shows that the media was wrong. There were people back then convinced that President Kennedy and Russian Premier Nikita Khrushchev had us on the brink of WWIII. Some Americans went so far as to build bomb shelters in their back yards. Many folks were acting and saying things out of fear. It seems history has repeated itself.

In my own life, I learned early on that the best defense is to have a good offense. In 1965, I was transferred to an all Hispanic school in San Antonio, Texas along with a few other military kids. It was rough going at the start!

We were the only white students at Salado Elementary. After getting bullied and pushed around almost every day, my mother took me aside and said I had the right to defend myself. A metal lunch box became my equalizer. I only used it one time to take out the biggest troublemaker. After that I wasn’t bothered again. Sometimes drastic measures are needed to keep the peace. That was proven at Salado as well as during WWII.

By 1939, Japan had built up its military in preparation of going to war with the United States. Intelligence sources showed that Emperor Hirohito and Admiral Yamamoto intended to hit this country sometime in the near future. That tragic day came on December 7, 1941. We had the resources to take out the crafty admiral beforehand but didn’t.

WWII ended nearly four years later after we dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Perhaps WWII could’ve been averted and many lives saved had President Roosevelt exterminated Yamamoto prior to 1941? At this point we’ll never know.

I believe the killing of General Solemani makes the threat of war with Iran less likely. Some will agree. Others will disagree. It’s highly possible that WWIII was avoided by taking out the Iranian military leader. Having no high-level intelligence to go by, I use my 1965 lunchbox incident to solidify this opinion. In my way of seeing things, that’s better reasoning than what mainstream media has to offer!