Complicated Feelings: War and Climate
Iran, Gaza, Deadly Heat
When my chosen celebration for my 28th birthday was to write an essay, which is cooler than it is sad, I wrote, “I think that Americans are not prepared for the cultural price we will have to pay for the global consequences of the last ten years specifically”. It is even clearer to me now.
It is nearly 100 degrees Fahrenheit in DC for the second day in a row, with tomorrow forecasted to be the same. I am still unemployed, which yields a similar looming ache to dangerous heat; the stickiness and the discomfort that preempt every other sensation.
I, at the time of writing this, am not wholly certain what the status is in Iran. The president of the United States is all over the place, at first indicating he would ‘make a decision’ in two weeks, then announcing a bombing campaign had taken place without Congressional approval (or, apparently, the Vice President’s awareness), then announcing a ceasefire that neither Israel nor Iran had agreed to. I would like, for a moment, to ignore that man entirely, and discuss war itself.
War necessitates the flouting of reason, the suspension of the rule of law or morality. It is rape on a massive scale — the crossing of a boundary for the purpose of conquest — which is doubly and darkly true for the fact that sexual violence is one of the most common tools of oppression in war. When my government commits evil acts on my behalf, and I post a quippy retort to my social media followers and pat myself on the back because I’m one of the good ones, and the evil acts continue to happen, I cannot claim to be truly anti-war. Sure, I have gone to protests and marches, yet here I am, sitting in an air conditioned home while people continue to die.
Grappling with the human cost of war is no easy task; so, too, we must grapple with the environmental impacts of these continued assaults. Climate change is the defining issue of the modern era, no matter how fervently those in power deny its existence. In the coming decades, hundreds of millions of people (or more) will be displaced or vulnerable, and if the current discourse and action surrounding immigration is any indication, the United States will simply consider those impacted by the worst of it to be collateral damage.
Go try being gay in Gaza, or do you know how they treat women in Iran? It is interesting that advocates of military action are suddenly so concerned about queer rights and women’s rights. As if our domestic policies did not just lead to the use of Adriana Smith’s corpse as an incubator. As if Matthew Shephard’s murder happened in a parallel universe or 100 years ago… or the torture and murder of Sam Nordquist, the murder of Tahiry Broom, the murder of Nex Benedict, the murder of Jonathan Joss. As if humanity didn’t have a front-row view of the entire population of Gaza being intentionally starved, beckoned to close quarters at aid distribution sites, and fired upon indiscriminately. The continued insistence that our assaults are for the greater purpose of liberation is simply cover for the fact that the American government would rather advance its interests abroad than improve the lives of its citizens.
Excerpt from “Complicated Feelings: Imagination and Peace”, published April 15, 2025: “Of all the paths and all the ends and all of the worlds I can see, I struggle to imagine peace because it has only ever been a fleeting part of the world in my lifetime. And I am one of the luckiest in the world for my worries to still be mainly conceptual. My life and my understanding of the world is scaffolded by war – by 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq, by the war on drugs and mass incarceration – effectively the war on the impoverished – by Sandy Hook and the solemn realization that there is no mass killing depraved enough to merit gun control. I imagine it is worse for those younger than I am, in a time full of doxxing and swatting and instant outrage. That 95% of humanity is unmoored and at the mercy of the unimaginative minority is a tragedy, that they have duped so many into laying their bodies down in defense is darkly comedic. War, poverty, and oppression are the moral failings of cruel and unimaginative men. That to write it as plainly as I have done is considered violent or hysterical is a calculated product of those failures. I am grateful for the privileges this country has afforded me, and I am imaginative enough to believe in a better world, and I am not alone in being so.”
The deification of the United States Military has been such a forceful effort in post-9/11 American life between military displays at sports games, big-budget Hollywood productions, and vehement attacks on anti-military sentiment as “anti-American”. Even now, I find myself fighting to get these words out. Not because I find it hard to criticize the U.S. military, but because the act of criticizing it is so taboo that it has gotten people killed. Yet we venerate our veterans with applause but not with access to medical care — how many homeless veterans could have been given access to the care they need with the taxpayer money used for the June 14th military parade?
I sometimes worry that I speak about Gaza too frequently; that it is disrespectful to the people around me to keep reminding them of mankind’s capacity for evil or that it is unfair to the people suffering elsewhere. I am done worrying about that. Everybody should be speaking about Gaza at every opportunity. We can never undo or repay what has happened, but the very best time to find your voice and use it is right this second. Refuse to stay silent. The cultural price we have to pay grows loftier with every second we wait, and the people — all of the people — still fighting to survive in Gaza can’t afford our silence.
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With Sincerity,
J.K.