What Trump Could Say If He Bombed Iran

As Donald Trump leaves everyone guessing about his intentions to bomb Iran or not, I spent part of this week watching a film released just weeks before Nazi Germany surrendered to Allied forces May 8, 1945.

“Hotel Berlin” is set inside a grand facade where hundreds are desperate to flee bombings and the inevitable collapse of the Third Reich. Everyone means German soldiers, including generals, and Nazi Party loyalists who want to plant the seed of Nazi resurrection in the New World. Only members of the underground are resolved to stay and pick up the pieces of their fallen country. 

As Allied bombers drop their lethal, devastating loads on Germany at the conclusion of the movie, a joint statement by Winston S. Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Josef Stalin appears on the screen. As you read it below, substitute in your mind “Iran” for every mention of Germany, and imagine, if possible, that Trump has the intelligence to utter similar sentiments: 

“Our purpose is not to destroy the German people — but we are determined to disband all German armed forces — to break up the German General Staff — eliminate all German industry used for military production — bring all war criminals to justice and swift punishment —wipe out the Nazi Party and Nazi laws from the life of the German people — Germany must never again disturb the peace of the world.”

(“Hotel Berlin” was broadcast on Turner Classic Movies. If you have the TCM app you can view the movie.)

TACO Trump Faces a Choice: To Bomb Or Not?

Will Donald Trump commit the United States to join Israel in destroying Iran’s capacity to build atomic bombs? 

The answer, in my opinion, depends on the signals he receives from his buddies in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Egypt, Bahrain, Sudan, Morocco and his most recent BFF, Ahmed al-Sharaa of Syria. 

If these mostly Sunni Moslems give him their proxy to bomb into the stone age a fellow Moslem country—albeit, a non Arab, Shia nation—Trump will feel more emboldened to flex American might, not in a prolonged campaign but with sufficient bunker-busting bombs to eliminate Iran’s underground atomic development facilities. 

Unlike previous American involvement in Gulf conflicts that came after international coalitions, including Arab countries, were organized by presidents George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, and Joseph Biden, any bombing decision by Trump will not come with public encouragement by Arab and Western nations. Their acquiescence will be behind closed doors. But their approval will be the tipping point for Trump’s thumbs down on Iran’s nuclear program. 

Trump desperately needs an international win. His tariff initiative has left the world economy in turmoil. His purposeful contentious meetings with heads of state in the Oval Office have soured the reputation of the White House as a coveted stop for world leaders. Killing off USAID funding for humanitarian programs, mostly in Africa, has exposed his heartless, transactional approach to foreign affairs. His antipathy toward NATO, coupled with his bromance with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, have left observers wondering about his commitment to the European alliance and America’s continuing support of Ukraine in its defensive war with Russia, a war he said during his presidential campaign, he could end in a day. Today is day 148 of his presidency. 

Trump has said he would never allow Iran to develop a nuclear bomb. Saddled with the moniker TACO—Trump Always Chickens Out—he now faces a decision on just how far he will go to back up his statement. No doubt he has instructed the White House telephone operator to immediately put through any incoming calls from Saudi Arabia and other Arab states.  

Cutting USAID, Trump Invites Needless Death

Without firing a shot Donald Trump may well earn a spot among the Top 10 leaders in history presiding over death in their respective countries and beyond.

He probably (it is to be hoped) will not match or exceed the death count of Mao Zedong (60 million), Josef Stalin (40 million), or Adolf Hitler (30 million), the 20th Century’s most prolific killers. But Trump’s heartless elimination of USAID funding in Africa and other continents suffering from medical crises exacerbated by civil wars and famine, and his proposed cutbacks to Medicaid and Obamacare eligibility for vulnerable lower income Americans, could easily land him on the list of leaders responsible for millions of unnecessary deaths.

Because he has cut treatment centers abroad that strive to minimize the spread of controllable diseases Trump may well unleash global pandemics that could rival deaths from the Black Plague of the Middle Ages, the Spanish Flu of the post World War I era, and Covid-19. 

Trimming fat from the federal budget is a worthy endeavor, to be done as with a surgeon’s precise use of a scalpel. But using a chain saw to reduce the budget is a grotesque use of executive power as it ignores repercussions from the surgery.  

USAID programs in some 120 countries helped fight tuberculosis, HIV, malaria, polio and other infectious diseases, as well as supplying food to stave off the ravages of famine.

Estimating deaths is not a precise calculation, but it provides an informed analysis of the potential impact of Trump’s cutbacks. For example, eliminating PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, started by President George W. Bush in 2003) would result in the loss of an adult life every three minutes and a child’s every 31 minutes, according to Brooke Nichols, an associate professor of global health at Boston University (https://www.bu.edu/articles/2025/mathematician-tracks-deaths-from-usaid-medicaid-cuts/). 

On May 28, NPR reported “modeling out of Boston University estimates that the abrupt cuts to USAID have meant nearly 300,000 people have died to date.” 

The Black Plague and Spanish Flu killed tens of millions during a time when global travel was rare. Even after Trump’s ban on visitors from some Third World countries, America is more vulnerable to epidemics brought in from abroad because USAID programs have ended most hopes of containment while domestic vaccination rates for communicable diseases, such as measles, have decreased. Highly contagious and even deadly, measles outbreaks have popped up throughout the United States. As of June 5, the Center for Disease Control reported 1,168 confirmed cases of measles this year. Three deaths resulted. 

The danger is compounded by Trump’s proposal to cut back on the federal government’s Medicaid financial support to states. The Hill news organization reported, “The Center for American Progress found that about 34,200 more people would die annually if the federal government reduced its current 90 percent match for the expansion costs and states responded by dropping their Medicaid expansions (https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/5261905-medicaid-cuts-house-republican-budget-plan/).

Staying healthy, unfortunately, is not an option for far too many, at home and abroad. Nor is the ability to provide sufficient food for their families. All too often a last resort is government assistance. There is, or should be, a special place in Hell for a leader who strips away health care and life-preserving food from the needy.

According to Telegrafi, an Albanian news site, the Top 10 propellers of death in their respective country and internationally during the last 150 years are:

1. Mao Zedong (China) 60 million
2. Josef Stalin (USSR/Eastern Europe) 40 million
3. Adolf Hitler (Germany/Europe) 30 million
4. King Leopold II (Belgium/Congo) 8 million
5. Hidaki Tojo (Japan/Far East) 5 million
6. Ismail Enver Pasha (Ottoman Empire) 2 million
7. Pol Pot (Cambodia) 1.7 million
8. Kim II Sung (North Korea) 1.6 million
9. Mengistu Haile Mariam (Ethiopia) 1.5 million
10. Yakubu Gowon (Nigeria) 1 million

Interestingly, some well known tyrants didn’t make the list. Saddam Hussein (Iraq) killed 600,000; Idi Amin’s toll in Uganda is estimated at 300,000-400,000; Benito Mussolini (Italy) 250,000.

Trump will most assuredly crack the Top 10. It is only a question of how high on the list will he rank. 

U.S. Warriors From All Races, Genders & Creeds

When one thinks about American heroes, children and adults who have not matured beyond grade school intellect name the usual suspects—people like George Washington, Paul Revere, Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, Abraham Lincoln. 

All deserving of praise, appreciation and reverence for forging America into an unparalleled bastion of democracy and opportunity. 

But the list of heroes—true heroes who molded our country into the envy of the world—runs much deeper than the picture book caricatures conveyed in elementary school textbooks.

True American heroes changed our country by expanding the rights and opportunities of all citizens and residents, regardless of race, gender or creed. 

In Donald Trump terms, American heroes should be military “warriors.” Except Donald Trump sees everything through bigoted eyes, so he and his secretary of defense Pete Hegseth are determined to erase any public display of gay, black and Hispanic achievement on military equipment or establishments. People such as Harvey Milk, Harriet Tubman, Thurgood Marshall, Cesar Chavez, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Lucy Stone, Medgar Evers and Dolores Huerta, who have been considered for honors such as the naming of U. S. Navy vessels, no longer will be recognized (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/03/us/politics/navy-ships-harvey-milk-renamed.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare).

The erasure of our collective history is an abomination. Half of our elected national legislators—the Trumpers—are acquiescing. Their silence is deafening.  Most appalling is the failure of the four black House members, one black senator, 18 Hispanic House members and one Hispanic senator to speak out in defiance of the erasure of their heritage heroes. 

Harvey Milk et al epitomized the struggle to overcome adversity, inequality, discrimination and slavery. They are the type of “warriors” we should be extolling. Trump and Hegseth, on the other hand, have exercised a workaround from the removal of Confederate officer names accomplished under President Joe Biden. Biden changed Georgia’s Fort Benning to Fort Moore. 

Trump and Hegseth reinstated the Benning name, ostensibly to honor a World War I hero, Corporal Fred G. Benning, but the intent to identify with the Confederacy was impossible to miss. Henry L. Benning supported secession and served as a Confederate brigadier general.  

Trump and Hegseth have the power to whitewash black, Hispanic and gay contributions. In response, black, Hispanic and gay Americans should stage a peaceful protest. 

How? By not going to work or school throughout the country on Friday, June 13, the day before Trump’s birthday and the 250th anniversary of the U. S. Army. 

A Choice for All Americans

Which side will you stand with?

The side of culture and compassion, equality and economic opportunity? Conservation and connectivity, altruism and acceptance, mercy and magnanimity, justice and judicial integrity? Principles and predictability, science and sharing, diversity and dialogue? Inclusion and intellect, freedom and facts, truth and tolerance?

Or, will you stand with corruption and contempt, abuse and antagonism, fealty and fanaticism? Intolerance and indifference, greed and grossness, hero worship and hate? Disruption and denial, bigotry and baseness, nastiness and name-calling, lies and lewdness, mockery and mayhem, falsehoods and fictions?

In our land of abundance children go to bed hungry, yet politicians eagerly strip them of helpful meals and early childhood education, all so millionaires and billionaires can possess more, more than they could rationally spend in a lifetime. 

In our land of intellectual excellence and scientific discovery, revenge would deny advancement of medical research. Lives are at stake, but lust for vengeance seeks to fracture our collective future.   

In our land of free elections and dynamic economy, betrayal of our history and foundational principles threatens to remake us into a closeted, bigoted, selfish and self-centered nation. 

The choice is ours: Civil or contemptible? Miserly or magnanimous? Guiding or guarded? Caring or conceited?  Egocentric or ecumenical? 

Increasingly I have been hearing people—friends and TV commentators—say there are many points on which they agree with Trump. They just wish he voiced them in a more agreeable fashion, with no, or less, abusiveness, anger, vindictiveness. I sometimes fall into that abyss, as well. 

Then I recall what they said about Mussolini, that he made the trains run on time, as if that success justified his fascist rule. Hitler put Germans back to work, too. Mao eliminated most hunger in China. 

But those are extremes. Let’s not paint Trump as their evil successor, just yet. A more realistic comparison might be to Richard Nixon. 

Lest we forget, Nixon did some good things: He created the Environmental Protection Agency, signed important environmental legislation, ended the military draft, signed the Title IX act prohibiting gender discrimination in federally funded education programs including sports, and ended the forced assimilation of Native Americans. 

Nixon, of course, had his dark side, chief among them the Watergate scandal and its various tentacles including an “enemies list” evocative of Trump’s compendium of people on whom to wreak vengeance. 

And it was Nixon who, during a post-presidency 1977 interview with David Frost, voiced what Trump has taken to heart—“When the President does it, that means it is not illegal.” Sadly, almost 50 years later, the Supreme Court has rubber-stamped that extreme, imperialist position. 

The future of America as a beacon of good depends on everyday Americans, their choice of a country defined by a vindictive, absolutist Trump or by the words of the Declaration of Independence—“that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” 

Farewell to a Summer Icon

Barry Konovitch saved me from drowning. Well, maybe not actually drowning, but he did lift me out of deep water with one muscular arm after I sank under the surface of the camp pool. 

That was in 1963, at Camp Columbia in Elizaville, NY. Word came Wednesday that Rabbi Barry Konovitch had passed away on May 15. He was 83. 

Barry was an iconic figure at camp. Tall, handsome, blond, muscular, Barry was head of the waterfront. 

For the summer of ‘63 when I was 14, I almost earned an intermediate swimming instruction certificate (I would have qualified if I had mastered treading water. Half a century later I still cannot tread water). 

Paul Jeser, my instructor, told me to dive into deep water, swim underwater for 10 yards then tread water. I didn’t want to as I did not know how to swim and was not certified to dive into deep water. As he was much larger than I, I reluctantly complied. 

My dive was decent. Holding my breadth, I swam underwater. But as I surfaced I spouted I could not tread water. I sank, only to be raised above the surface by Barry who had jumped into the pool. When he asked if I could swim I shook my head no. He sternly admonished me never to enter deep water again before successfully learning to swim. 

Paul had pity on me so at summer’s end he gave me the intermediate card with the proviso that I truly earn it next year. Sadly, I have yet to fulfill my portion of the deal. 

A few years later Paul took over as head of waterfront as Barry pursued his studies to become a rabbi. After ordination Barry served as a rabbi of two Miami-area temples. He blogged and wrote two books (https://share.google/WASrPnFpTAkvrG6sw).

Saving my life was just one of my memorable interactions with Barry at camp.  

If you do an Internet search for Barry Konovitch you will come across a 2014 article about his driving the same red Corvette for 46 years (https://share.google/YaQQBgIrbH1PqXz1i). Sounds exciting, but to me the car I identified with Barry was a red Triumph TR4 convertible. 

In 1964 I was a waiter at camp. Waiters were not permitted to leave camp grounds.  

Fellow waiters Larry Jacobs and Stu Garay were also enjoying a day off from serving. Our day off coincided with one of Barry’s who chose to hang around camp that day. In the late afternoon we implored him to take us off campus in his car. 

Though at first reluctant, Barry succumbed to our nagging. He agreed if we could secure the permission of head counselor Hal Gastwirt. Hal wasn’t available, so we asked his second in command, Tully Dershowitz. He consented.

We were all set. Stu won the rights to ride shotgun on our way out of camp. The rear seat was not intended to support two near-six foot tall teenagers—Larry and me. The back seat was no more than 12 inches deep. Leg room? There wasn’t any.

Barry did not hold back on the throttle. He whizzed down the two-lane country roads of Elizaville, NY. Wind whipped through our hair. Larry and I felt as if we were riding in an old-fashioned rumble seat. We felt every bump, fearful we would be tossed out. There were no seat belts. 

We drove to an ice cream stand on the outskirts of Red Hook, some 10 miles away. Barry parked the car, he and Stu got out and waited, and waited, and waited for Larry and me to unfurl our cramped legs. It seemed like a full five minutes before we could support ourselves standing up. 

Larry and I were relegated to the back seat again on our return ride. When we untangled ourselves back in camp we asked Barry why the TR4 even had a back seat. He explained it was for insurance purposes. Without a back seat the TR4 would be classified as a sports car with high insurance rates. With a back seat, even one clearly not intended for use by anyone older than six, lower family car rates prevailed.

Memorial Day Memories

There are many things I wish I knew more of about my father’s life before I was born. How was everyday life during his first 16 years in the shtetl of Ottynia, Galicia, in southeastern Poland, in the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains, now part of western Ukraine? How and why he summoned the courage at 16 to move to Danzig (now called Gdansk) on the Baltic Sea coast, 550 miles from Ottynia? How he spent the next 13 years in Danzig, making friends, dating, earning a living, living under what was a Nazi-influenced regime? How he again summoned the courage to uproot himself from all he knew to emigrate to America in January 1939? How he managed in a new world where he did not know the language and knew but a handful of relatives? 

To be sure, my father told his children snippets of his history. Stories about trudging through snow to school and cheder (Jewish study classes). How he was a route salesman of stationery and dry goods in Danzig. How he worked for a cousin selling shirts on Orchard Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan where he first met our mother. 

On this Memorial Day, however, I can recall no stories about his time in the U. S. Army. What did he think about conditions in the segregated South where he was mostly stationed? About his fellow soldiers, no doubt from communities vastly different from New York?

When he was two months shy of his 32nd birthday he was drafted and inducted into service three months after marrying Sylvia Gerson September 6, 1942. 

He was stationed on several bases, including Camp Rucker in Alabama. It was there that he suffered from gall stones that enabled him to get an honorable discharge eight months, four days after his induction. 

During his time in the army he was a machine gunner, but, it is my understanding, he was to be reassigned to an intelligence unit because of his ability to speak German and Polish. 

I’d like to think he was chosen to be one of the The Ritchie Boys, a secret intelligence unit that interrogated German prisoners of war because of their language skills. Information on the Ritchie Boys did not become public until the 1990s, a few years before my father died, by which time he was suffering from dementia (for more on The Ritchie Boys google “60 Minutes Ritchie Boys” for a 40 minute segment or link to https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/ritchie-boys). 

His gall stones ended his military career August 4, 1943. We will never know if he would have been a Ritchie Boy. 

I never saw his uniform, though we have a picture of him in uniform with my mother. 

He didn’t watch war movies. Westerns were more to his liking. His most endearing and enduring remnant of military life was the “army eggs” he would cook for many a Sunday breakfast for my brother, sister and me. Army eggs were fried eggs with thin round slices of fried salami. 

I’m writing this blog in the middle of the night, on my iPhone. I know what I’m going to eat for breakfast this Memorial Day—army eggs. 

I did.