Operation Epic Fury Is a Tragic Mistake
Cyrus, the ancient Persian and cinematic hero, preached peace
“Nothing is fixed on earthly soil,” as Edmund Spenser wrote in The Fairie Queene.
Bart Giamatti, the late Major League Baseball Commissioner and Renaissance scholar, was fond of quoting those words.
Giamatti and Spenser would be horrified by the bitter irony of Trump’s latest military fiasco being named Operation Epic Fury, a tragic mistake that has already led to casualties, including a reported three U.S. troops, as well as at least 115 innocent civilians at an elementary school for girls in Minab, a town in southern Iran, according to Iranian state media and health officials.
Yes, Operation Epic Fury, which has an over-the-top if seeming literary resonance, has unleashed a barrage of bombs, whose hideous repercussions may be felt for years in the Middle East and elsewhere around the globe.
It is true that, for the most part, the primary constant in life is flux, as Spenser, the Renaissance poet, suggested.
Of course, we have always had evil since the beginning of time, since man partook of the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden, if you believe in God and the Bible.
Yes, since the Fall of Man, homo sapiens have had to overcome a penchant for possible evil.
Fortunately, there is more good than evil in the world.
But so much of the progress we have made as a species on this planet is being damaged by our obscenely ignorant and evil chief executive, who, along with Netanyahu, has hastened us into another war, even though Trump claimed to have “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear facilities last June, and even though he campaigned supposedly on ending wars, not starting them.
As we all know, Trump is a liar and a coward, and he always has been.
He has never had a moral compass, and he is easily swayed by Putin and Netanyahu and others who play him and prompt him to commit acts of destruction.
No one denies that Ayatollah Khamenei, killed in the bombing, was a tyrant, who oppressed and slaughtered his own people.
But Trump, along with Netanyahu, just waltzed us into a war without congressional authorization, U.N. approval, or any legal or constitutional basis.
Beyond distracting from the Epstein scandal and other high crimes and misdemeanors, Trump just wants to look tough. He is a posturing, faux tough guy, as I have long contended.
And he has no respect for or knowledge of history, literature or anything else.
If he actually did read something other than bullet points with his name on it, he might know that the Iranians are Persians, an ancient people, who go back to the Bible.
And the Persians had an extraordinary leader in Cyrus, who, at the time of the Babylonian exile, sent the Israelites back to the holy land because he perceived that they were a godly people, who needed to return to Jerusalem.
Cyrus was a visionary, a prophet and a man of peace.
He did God’s will.
While I agree in general that most things are not fixed on earthly soil, some things remain eternal, like love, or the Holy Spirit.
And God rewards people who have that love, who exude that spirit.
As Jesus tells us, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”
By contrast, Trump, the chickenhawk and solipsist-in-chief, is a warmonger.
Far from bringing peace to the Middle East or anywhere else, Trump, in attacking Iran, is endangering Americans and others all over the world.
He does not care about, nor does he understand the metastasizing evil that he has spawned.
I am reminded of a Walter Hill movie, The Warriors, a picture from the late 1970s, in which a Coney Island-based gang, called simply the Warriors, travels to the Bronx with a bunch of other gangs in New York City to hear a Jesus-like figure speak to representatives from all of the city’s major gangs.
Fittingly named Cyrus, this gang leader preaches a gospel of peace, but not through appeasement.
Cyrus is no Neville Chamberlain, the British leader, who was misguided in proclaiming “peace for our time” with Hitler.
Rather, Cyrus is a gang leader, who speaks of strength in numbers and alliances.
Cyrus is a prophet with rare wisdom and street credibility.
Yes, the gangs can achieve peace, Cyrus says from a park in the Bronx, “if you can count.” He repeats this more than once, alluding to the importance of forging alliances.
Cyrus, of course, is correct. There is indeed a strength in numbers and alliances.
That is one of the reasons why the United States for decades has been the greatest nation in the world.
It is not because of the example of our power, but because of the power of our example, as President Obama and President Biden used to say.
President Obama and President Biden were and are right that we have been so strong because we have historically tried to be a force for good; and we have done our best to honor the Constitution and international law by creating a rules-based order.
Just about every U.S. president until now has agreed with these principles.
Even if some presidents did on occasion take us into military quagmires like Vietnam and Iraq, previous administrations, for the most part, did consult our allies, the U.N. and Congress, particularly in the post-Vietnam era, at the time of Watergate, when the War Powers Act was passed.
But Trump once again has shown no respect for the law, the Constitution, or ethics.
No, Trump just bludgeoned Iran, a sovereign nation, and innocent people have already died, including, as I wrote earlier, at least 115 at an elementary school for girls, as well as three U.S. service members, according to reports.
And again many more innocent people will die in the region and elsewhere because of Operation Epic Fury, unleashed by Trump.
I might point out that in the 1979 film, The Warriors, Cyrus, the gang leader, who preaches peace, is gunned down by a coward, a sniveling punk, who then lies and defames the Warriors, a multiracial gang, by claiming that they shot Cyrus.
The film was a bit controversial at the time that it was released in the theaters, because it was said to provoke violence.
I don’t agree with that assessment.
Unlike Trump’s Operation Epic Fury, which has no strategy, justification or true appreciation for literature or history, Walter Hill’s film has a message of peace and hope, as well as an artistic pedigree.
It is based on the novel, The Warriors, by Sol Yurick, who in turn was influenced by Homer, the Greek epic poet, who wrote The Iliad and The Odyssey, as well as the writings of Xenophon, a soldier from antiquity.
Walter Hill, who directed and co-wrote the film, and his co-screenwriter David Shaber layered in motifs from the Trojan War and Greek mythology in telling the tale of the Warriors, who are led by Cleon, a tall, African-American man, whose name is similar to that of Creon, a Greek king.
Falsely accused of killing Cyrus, Cleon is killed in a fight, and the rest of the Warriors, now led by Swan, the second in command, have to fight their way back from the Bronx to Coney Island in Brooklyn.
Their epic journey back to Coney includes a battle with, among other gangs, the Lizzies, a siren-like outfit of women, who tempt and try to kill the Warriors; the Orphans, a low-level gang of punks, so low-level and unknown that they were not invited to the convocation of gangs; and the Baseball Furies, a baseball bat-wielding troupe, dressed like clowns with faces painted in stripes of a ghoulish white as well as other colors.
No doubt, Edmund Spenser and Bart Giamatti would have approved and did approve of the wit and heroic struggle of the Warriors, as they descend into the underworld of the subways and elsewhere in New York, before they prevail.
In keeping with the literary theme of the movie, one of the Warriors is named Ajax, which happens to be the name of arguably the fiercest of the warriors in Homer’s The Iliad.
Ajax is a great fighter, who helps to disarm the Baseball Furies and knock them out.
But it is Swan, not Ajax, who is the ablest of the Warriors. He is a gifted soldier, diplomat and poet.
Unlike Trump, Swan does not bully anyone, and he has a tender side. If memory serves, he saves a flower that falls onto the floor of a subway and gives it to a woman in the gang. As he says, he hates to see things go to waste.
Also unlike Trump, Swan does not try to brutalize or humiliate anyone, but he does know how to handle himself and lead his cohorts in a battle.
Played by Michael Beck, Swan reminds me a bit of the late U.S. Senator John McCain, a combat pilot, who, when asked at a debate when he was running for president if he owned a gun, shook his head and said that he did not.
Swan also does not have a gun, but he, like the late Republican presidential candidate, is courageous and has no fear of confronting a bully, who does carry one.
A survivor, not unlike Odysseus, the eponymous hero of Homer’s epic poem, Swan leads the Warriors all the way back to the beach at Coney Island, where the truth emerges about the nefarious gang of cowards, who shot Cyrus.
It is Swan, an angel, albeit one with a dirty face, who will soar away with some of the other members of the multiracial gang into the heavens at the end of the film, while the sociopaths, who shot Cyrus, meet the fate of all liars and murderers, a fate that is not only true in epic poetry but also in the Bible, at the end of The Book of Revelation, preached by Jesus.
As I often point out, I recognize that not everyone believes in God.
But even if people don’t believe in God, everyone should believe in the truth.
More than ever, we need leaders, particularly in the Republican Party, who will illuminate the truth, stand up for the rule of law and the Constitution, call out evil and honor the legacy of people like John McCain, a hero, who is undoubtedly fluttering in the ether, like a swan.
As for those who have instigated Operation Epic Fury, a completely unnecessary, illegal and bloody war, they are not likely to fly up to the heavens.
Edmund Spenser did write that nothing is fixed on earthly soil, but the fate of liars with blood on their hands may be fixed forever.