I saw this post on X a while ago. With anti-war voices getting louder and louder, I think it's worth reposting.

An Iranian girl living in Tehran recorded this message amid the bombing.

She said: If I die tomorrow, remember — we asked for this attack. We wanted this attack.

She said: Shut up. Don't use my death to attack America or Israel. Don't tell them to stop.

Why?

She said, we tried going out on the streets to protest. And what happened? In two days, the regime killed forty thousand of us. (She's exaggerating here — it's probably more like ten or twenty thousand over the course of a month.)

The road of peace is dead. This is our last chance.

She said: I might die, but I'm not afraid. I'm willing to sacrifice myself for Iran.

Who wouldn't want to hear this?

Those politicians calling for "restraint" from their safe offices. Those students shouting "no war" on college campuses. (Can't really blame them — in their experience, in their understanding of the world, any war started by America is unjust, any war started by America is bad for the people there.)

What they hear is the peace inside their own heads. What they can't hear is a people crying out with their lives.

When a girl is willing to trade her death for her nation's rebirth — what is your cheap little peace worth?

Here's the big context: after the Vietnam War, anti-war sentiment in America ran sky-high. Any war America starts must be opposed. But the problem is, you have to be clear about what you're opposing in a war. Like, opposing the Vietnam War meant opposing America using inhumane chemical and biological weapons to carry out indiscriminate mass attacks on civilians.

But some wars can't be viewed that way. Take the war with Iran — under current technology, Iran's casualty count so far barely matches what the Iranian government itself kills in a single year. A lot of civilian casualties are because Iran hides its weapons and fighters inside schools and hospitals.

Never mind the war's purpose — everyone knows America wants oil. But if this war can actually overthrow the Iranian regime, then it's just. It doesn't matter who started it.

Never mind the lazy-thinking college students, but those politicians and lobbyists shouting "no war" because their own corporate interests took a hit — they're really no better than the American aggressors in their own imaginations.