6-17-25

Have you ever done any sewing…..the old fashioned kind where you have to

actually thread a needle…..you’ve got to have steady hands, keen eyes, and the

ability to concentrate in order to get that tiny thread through that tiny hole….but if

you don’t thread that needle the job can’t get done…..well, try threading a needle

in the midst of stormy winds…..

There’s a lot of social media chatter right now about war…..influencers are

influencing…..politicians are politicking……you’ve got so-called neocons calling

for military intervention and isolationists claiming there is never a just cause for

war…..somewhere in the middle are the actual decision makers who bear the

burden of actual responsibility for the actual lives of actual citizens……Candace

Owens and Tucker Carlson can easily say that the use of the US military in the

middle east is a fools errand…..Lindsey Graham can opine vociferously that war is

the only and best option to further the US national interest….but in the end none of

them are the ones that history will judge…..Candace, Tucker and Lindsey will not

be remembered 500 years from now…..but Donald Trump will…..because he was

the one elected to make the actual decisions, not just spout off an opinion…..he is

the one that history will judge…..Donald Trump is the only one who actually has

to thread the needle in the midst of the storm…..and if he can’t effectively thread

the needle then the job won’t get done…..

Let me step back and tell a quick story…..everyone has heard of the Nobel

Prize….but have you ever heard the story about how it came to be?.....Alfred

Nobel was a genius…born in Sweden in the mid-1800’s he was fluent in six

languages and over time he held 355 patents for his inventions…..his family was

very entrepreneurial and owned the Bofors company…..to this day Bofors is a

manufacturer of military arms, especially cannons, the US AC-130 Spectre

Gunship uses a 40mm Bofors cannon…..but Alfred Nobel was most famous for

inventing dynamite, a stable way to take nitroglycerine and package it for use in

blasting….it revolutionized mining, it created opportunities for railroads to be laid

into rugged ground, it made the world better….but it also became useful in military

circles….his amazing invention made him rich, it made the world better, and it was

deadly ….

Toward the end of the nineteenth century, Nobel was shocked to read his own

obituary in the newspaper….. It said: “The merchant of death is dead. Alfred

Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, who died yesterday, devised a way for more

people to be killed in a war than ever before, and he died a very rich man.” ….well,

he wasn’t dead….it was Alfred’s older brother who had died; the newspaper

published the story wrong….apparently fake news was a thing back then as

well…..But it had a profound effect on Nobel…. He decided he wanted to be

known for something other than developing the means to kill people efficiently and

amassing a fortune in the process…. So he initiated the Nobel Prize, the award for

scientists and writers who foster peace….

“Nobel said, ‘Every man ought to have the chance to correct his epitaph in

midstream and write a new one.”….basically, he was doing all that he could to

thread the needle…..he could not control the fact that what he intended for good

might also cause harm….it was a balancing act….it was an attempt to promote the

better aspects of what some found distasteful, even dangerous…..but he did all that

he could to make things right…..

And that is where we are today…..Trump is working to thread the needle….he has

made very clear, since back in his first administration…..that he will not abide by

the idea of a nuclear Iran…..and I personally agree with that….a nuclear Iran is a

destabilizer on the world stage….it is a danger to the US and our allies….make no

mistake, Iran has been killing US troops, fomenting discord, and supplying

terrorists for decades…..the Ayatollah’s have made very clear that one of their

chief aims is to damage or destroy the US and to wipe out Israel…..when your

enemies tell you what they want to do to you there is no wisdom in ignoring

them…..if in fact Iran achieved its dream of becoming a nuclear power what would

they do with it? Would they sit back and smile and feel good about themselves?

Would they use it for world peace? Would they be satisfied with just having a

nuke?.....and the answer to all of that is “no”…. a nuclear Iran would be an

immediate threat to regional stability….Saudi Arabia, who hates Iran, has already

said they would not sit by and would then put their resources into developing

and/or acquiring nuclear weapons themselves…..bad actors on the world stage

would be negotiating with the Ayatollah’s to buy nukes on the black market and

the Ayatollah’s who have sold every missile, gun, and drone that the Houthi’s,

Hezbollah and Hamas ever fired would only be to glad to be courted as the chief

supplier of nuclear arms to the evil influences who hate America….and then

there’s the Abraham Accords, and the oil industry, and Chinese belt-and-road

initiatives, and Russian influence in Syria….everyone is watching to see whether

or not Trump is man of his word, who will get his allies back, or is he what the left

claims he is, the TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out) at which point we lose

everything I just named…..

But then there’s the idea of war…..the idea of war in America is a jaded and ill-

fated prospect….I’ve been to war twice….I’ve seen good many damaged, and

killed….there is a whole generation of Americans who grew up in the post-9/11

world who only knew an America where troops were fighting on foreign

soil….and there is a genuine and understandable fatigue with the idea of perpetual

war….I get that and I agree with that….my own son is in the Army now and I

don’t want to see him use his incredible leadership skills in a war zone….I

don’t….Americans deserve peace…..we want peace….but we have rarely known

extended periods of peace….but I also just watched recruiting numbers soar, and

the President of the United States just recited the oath of enlistment to a hundred

US soldiers and recruits on Saturday at the Army parade…..they didn’t all raise

their right hand to serve because they don’t believe in the need to have a strong

military….and a strong military is the best and most capable means of deterrence,

but it is also that hammer that has to strike at times…..it is a needle that has been

threaded by every President since George Washington…..

my own father, highly decorated for his time in war wrote to me just before I

deployed to Afghanistan right after 9/11….It’s a very personal letter, and I don’t

believe that I could get through reading it all to you without having to collect

myself….he started off by saying, “Well, I guess I know how Granny and

Grandaddy must of felt when I went to Vietnam the first time. But knowing that

doesn’t make it any easier. And I know how you feel” he said. “confident, assured

that you can do the job that you have been trained for, in a sense eager to do that

job, concerned that you are leaving your family behind, but knowing that they will

be taken care of and an assurance that God will be with you.”…..my Dad was

awarded 5 bronze stars for valor in combat and was still worried about me going to

war….he was threading the needle as a Dad….as surely as Trump is threading the

needle as a President…..

But I will also tell you that I believe that Donald Trump is the man for this

hour….for such a time as this…..I cannot imagine what the world would be like if

Biden were still in the Oval Office….Iran would have been here no matter who

won the election….Iran’s nuclear capability would have been an issue no matter

who won the election….Biden would have fallen asleep at the wheel while staffers

used his autopen to sign DEI proclamations and pardon murderers….but Trump

canceled part of his G8 Summit to return to the situation room and stay on top of

some of the most dangerous and stormy times the world has seen in modern

times….I don’t believe we are going to see US troops on foreign soil….unless,

Iran strikes America or American bases….but I do believe that we may see US

bombs on foreign soil….I do believe that we will see US sanctions on foreign

soil….I do believe that Trump has access to information and intelligence that no

one in the world of social media influencers has….and I believe that it keeps him

up all night as he works to thread that needle in the stormy winds…..

Andrew Jackson, of whom Trump is very fond, said once, “I was born for the

storm and a calm does not suit me”…..I think Trump was born for storms….in

fact, I think he was born to thread needles in storms…..

These are dangerous times….I suggest that news, and social media influencers, and

pundits, all have their role in the social discourse, but that prayer for the man who

threads the needle is the most important thing we could be about right now….

Donald Trump is threading that war needle in the winds of a storm right now….

But I’m glad he’s there to do it….

And that’s a wrap for the Rightside Way…..