I woke up to an email Saturday, Feb. 28, from The New York Times. It was sent at 2:10 a.m., the headline: “U.S. and Israel conduct strikes on Iran.”
All I could do was sigh.
In my little corner of the world, I awoke and looked at my smart phone in my comfortable bed and safe dorm, yet in someone else’s corner of the world, there were missiles flying in the sky.
I am not a political science student nor have I studied the reasons for war and the effects it has on the global economy, however, I do know about humanity.
I know that across the sea, there’s probably a girl my age, who might even look like me, whose dreams of safety and security were crushed under the weight of an American bomb.
I know that there are children younger than me whose lives were cut entirely too short by the military forces of the United States and Israel.
How could I be a patriot in these conditions? How could I be proud of my country when we’re actively attacking other countries for their resources? On March 13, the U.S. Air Force bombed the island of Kharg, Iran’s key oil export hub off the Persian Gulf.
President Donald Trump claimed only military sites were targeted but quickly added he would change this decision and attack oil reserves as well if Iran did not agree to a “diplomatic solution,” which is odd considering the U.S. and Israel were the first aggressors in this war.
In the Feb. 28 attack, the Iranian supreme leader was assassinated, which was seemingly a good thing for the citizens of Iran. But what good is killing their supposed dictator if children and journalists are being killed too?
On that same day, a school that was located next to a part of the Iranian military force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, was struck by a Tomahawk missile. This strike killed 165 people, the majority of them being children. While it has not yet been determined who the missile belongs to, Iran blames the U.S. while the U.S. blames Iran.
Why would Iran bomb their own school and military base? The simple answer is that they most likely would not.
Not only are we aiding in strikes on Iran, but we are also complicit in Israel’s violent invasion of other countries in the middle east, including Lebanon and Syria.
On Saturday, March 28, three journalists were killed in southern Lebanon after their vehicle that was marked as press was struck by precision missiles. This has added to the many journalist casualties in recent years.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 129 members of the press were killed in 2025, a record high in the last 30 years.
In 2026 so far, 11 journalists have died between Israel, Palestine, Iran, Lebanon and Syria.
All of this begs the question: Who really wins in a war?
The diplomats that are safe in their cushioned offices are the real victors while citizens suffer death, injury and extremely low qualities of life.
Citizens in the U.S. only deal with higher gas and grocery prices, but others are paying the ultimate price of death for matters that have nothing to do with them.
Iranian school children are not committing acts of terrorism or building nuclear bombs, so why have they died? Children in Palestine have done nothing to deserve displacement and starvation, so why are they still being driven out of their homes and murdered?
My favorite heavy rock band, System of a Down, released “Steal This Album!” in 2002. That album has a track titled “Boom!”
“Every time you drop the bomb, you kill the god your child has born,” the song says.
At the time, the song was about U.S. bombings in Iraq. Almost 25 years later, the song still relates to bombings done by the U.S. but this time in Iran.
Women, children, mothers, fathers, sons and daughters are all currently victims of unnecessary violence, some of which is being committed by the country I call home.
Another song by SOAD, titled “B.Y.O.B,” sings a question I’ve been asking myself lately, “Why don’t presidents fight the war?”
Davina Snyder can be contacted at [email protected].
