Of all the wars, police actions, regime changes, and interventions to protect American lives and property that this country has jumped or been dragged into, the Spanish-American War still carries a bit of a shimmer. Words and names from this conflict cling to our national consciousness:

“Remember the Maine, to hell with Spain,” Teddy Roosevelt, Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders, Teddy Roosevelt and the charge up San Juan Hill, yellow journalism, “You may fire when you are ready, Gridley,” probably Teddy Roosevelt again, and the quote I’m using as my title.

Nevermind that the war barely lasted the summer of 1898 and killed hardly anybody. Hardly any Americans, that is, not counting the 2,000 U.S. soldiers and sailors who died from tropical diseases.

Nevermind that the battleship Maine was not a battleship and that analyses over the decades can’t decide whether the ship struck a mine or if a fire in the coal bunker set off an ammunition magazine.

Nevermind that the Spanish navy, which the yellow press warned would bombard U.S. cities on the East Coast, during the war could barely sink a rowboat and in fact I could’ve beaten their armada with my own rowboat and a couple dozen bags of weighted chess pieces.

Nevermind that the people we liberated from Spanish tyranny in the Philippines objected to living under American tyranny and instead launched a four-year rebellion (in this country known as the Philippine Insurrection, because obviously the Filipinos were in the wrong).

And nevermind that President McKinley, after failing to negotiate a compromise with Spain, asked Congress for the authority to go to war.

Kiss me, I’m a pedophile

Now we’re at war with Iran, a country nobody likes. Iran represents a threat to the United States that is so terrible that when we started bombing them, they struck back at…their neighbors. They can’t actually reach the United States, unlike Russia, China, and North Korea. I notice we’re not bombing any of them.

I also don’t know why Trump loves the Iranian people, hates the Ukrainian people, and loves people in his own country only if they voted for him.

Trump’s call for the Iranian people to rise up and take back their country reminds me of George W. Bush’s statement about the Iraqi people: “When they stand up, we’ll stand down.” That worked brilliantly.

So the bombing of Iran seems to me to be Trump’s attempt to get everyone to stop talking about the sluggish economy, the mass layoffs, affordability, ICE’s ideas on how to carry out the teachings of Jesus, bribery, extortion, money shoveled at billionaires, and, of course, the Donald Trump Jeffrey Epstein Memorial Files.

Perhaps someday, when the smoke clears and Iran is a rainbow-covered paradise of unicorns who shit gold coins and Twinkies, when the Chairman of the Board of Peace receives his Nobel Peace Prize for his innovative solution to bringing peace to the smoking craters that constitute much of the Middle East, he can declare a National Pedophilia Day to honor the brave sacrifices of all the wealthy white men across this fair land.

The rainbows, of course, will not mean that anyone wants gay people around.

Back to my so-called writing career next week. Unless the crypto-currency market crashes and Trump decides to bomb something else.