What better dodge is there for draft-dodger Donald Trump than to get elected as the “peace president,” promise an end to forever foreign wars, then hype the founding of a “Board of Peace” while contriving to slap his name on the United States Institute of Peace.
The president delivered the opening address at the renamed The Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace on Feb. 22.
“What we’re doing is very simple,” Trump said. “Peace. It’s called the Board of Peace, and it’s all about an easy word to say but a hard word to produce. Peace. But we’re going to produce it, and we’ve been doing a really good job.”
He claimed to have settled eight wars.
“And, I think, a ninth to come,” he added.
He noted that he had named his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and real estate developer Steve Witkoff as “envoys of peace.”
“People like them both,” Trump said. “Iran is a hotspot right now… and they have a good relationship with the representatives of Iran. And good talks are being had.”
Six days later, on Saturday morning, the self-proclaimed “President of Peace” launched a major war against Iran.
“The lives of courageous American heroes may be lost, and we may have casualties; that often happens in war,” Trump said in a video message he posted to Truth Social. “We’re doing this, not for now, we’re doing this for the future, and it is a noble mission.”
By Saturday afternoon, Trump was back on Trump Social to announce that an American-Israeli attack had killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader for nearly four decades.
“Khamenei, one of the most evil people in History, is dead,” Trump wrote.
Note that Trump capitalized history, perhaps because in his final years in office, he is so desperate to take a place in it as a great man. He does not want to be remembered for what he in fact is: a narcissistic, compulsive liar who always places Trump, not America or anything else, first.
There remains the question of how much of his history will be written in the blood of innocents. His mission began to seem less noble following reports that two schools had been hit by errant air strikes. Dozens of girls may have been killed at an elementary school in the southern Iranian town of Minab.
Hanging over it all was the possibility that America would not be as lucky as it had been during last year’s bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities or the January raid to capture dictator Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela. The Army Special Forces helicopter pilot from the Maduro raid who received the Medal of Honor amidst cheers at the State of the Union address had been seriously wounded, but he is alive and expected to make a full recovery.
If flag-covered coffins do not begin to come home from Iran as they did for so many years from Iraq and Afghanistan, Trump may escape being rightfully condemned for waging war while talking peace. He may even reach the midterms a step ahead of speculation that the attack on Iran was a bid to distract voters from the Epstein files and the economy.
But that could quickly change if young Americans start dying in a war that was never supposed to have been. People may wonder why Trump’s name went on a peace institute just before he sent these heroes into harm’s way—which, in his own youth, he pulled a rich kid’s scam to avoid.
There remains an economic draft, as attested to by the swearing-in ceremonies that self-proclaimed “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth held during his Arsenal of Freedom tour in recent days. The stops did not include his own alma mater, Princeton, or any other elite venues. Hegseth should have started at Mar-a-Lago and invited young Barron Trump along with some crypto bros.
A short stroll from the Donald J. Trump Peace Institute is one landmark on which our current president’s name would have never appeared. That was thanks to a 1965 letter from a podiatrist friendly with his father, who attested that young Donald suffered from bone spurs.
The official result of the doctor’s note to Local Draft Board No. 63 in Jamaica, Queens, New York, was recorded on page 20 of its classification ledger.
“Trump, Donald John… 4F.”
That meant Trump had been deemed physically unfit for military duty, as confirmed by the added notation, an abbreviation for disqualified.
“Disq.”
Seventeen names further down was the 18-year-old son of a cop.
“Warshawsky, Joel B… 1A.”
This meant Warshawsky had been found fit for military duty. There was also a subsequent notation.
“Deceased.”
Washawsky was killed on Sept. 22, 1967, in Quảng Nam, Vietnam. His name is now on panel 27E, line 1, among the 58,318 names inscribed in the polished black marble at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
At the nearby peace institute, the name “Donald J. Trump” is now inscribed in much bigger letters on the stone facade.
Meanwhile, Trump was not going to let the possible death of schoolgirls give him pause. He declared that the bombing would continue.
“As long as necessary to achieve our objective of PEACE THROUGHOUT THE MIDDLE EAST AND, INDEED, THE WORLD!”
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