Over the last two weeks, President Trump has referred to his war in Iran more than 50 times as “a little excursion.” According to my research, Trump’s aides suggested that he call the war an incursion. Trump thought they said excursion and so that is what he has been calling a war that so far has resulted in more than 2,100 deaths across the region, with at least 1,444 killed within Iran. The fighting has also caused 14 U.S. service members deaths, more than 770 deaths in Lebanon, four fatalities in Israel, and wounded more than 200 U.S. soldiers.
Webster defines the word excursion as a short journey or trip, especially one engaged in as a leisure activity. An incursion is an invasion, as well as an attack, which is a sudden, often temporary hostile entrance or raid by armed forces into a foreign territory, border area, or airspace. It is a formal term typically describing a swift, limited attack rather than a full-scale permanent occupation, often used to describe unexpected, unwelcome breaches.
As usual, no one in Trump’s orbit corrected his error—in this case his usage of the word excursion. Families who see their sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, arrive home in coffins do not appreciate their relatives’ dying sacrifices being caused by “little excursions.”
Here’s just one of literally dozens of Trump’s quotes about excursions: “We took a little excursion because we felt we had to, to get rid of some evil, and I think you’ll see it’s going to be a short-term excursion.”
Let’s also factor in that this so-called “little excursion” named Operation Epic Fury has cost taxpayers more than $16.5 billion by Day 12, and the Pentagon is seeking more than $200 billion more for an “excursion” they say is almost over. (Juxtapose those financial requests with the more than $2 billion in cuts Trump has made to the Veterans Administration this term alone, eliminating 28,000 positions including those of doctors, nurses, psychologists, and social workers who administer to veterans. This Administration has also cut funding at intelligence agencies by more than $700 million, eliminating more than 1,000 staff positions, including those of senior analysts whose job it was to identify imminent threats to the U.S.)
Then last week, Tulsi Gabbard, Director of National Intelligence (DNI), John Ratcliffe, Director of the CIA, and Kash Patel, Director of the FBI, testified before the House Select Committee on Intelligence at an open hearing about worldwide threats. Gabbard and Ratcliffe repeatedly pointed out that the decision on whether Iran was an imminent threat was the President’s alone to draw and declined over and over again to answer whether the intelligence community has assessed Iran’s nuclear system as an imminent risk to the U.S.
The DNI is comprised of 18 different intelligence agencies whose mission is to provide timely, insightful, objective, and relevant intelligence to inform decisions on national security and events.
The concept that Gabbard and Ratcliffe sat in those chairs for hours and did not provide any relevant information on exactly how imminent a threat Iran was to the U.S. was really beyond astounding.
Plus, let’s not forget that last summer President Trump said that the U.S. obliterated Iran’s nuclear program. So, which is it? Then several days ago, Trump proclaimed that he had recently spoken to a former president who said that he wished he had had the guts to bomb Iran just as Trump did. Reporters reached out to Bush, Clinton, Obama, and Biden. None of them have spoken to Trump in recent days. Perhaps Trump is communicating with a former president who is no longer living?
Add to that whole debacle, Joe Kent, the Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, resigning in protest of the escalating war with Iran, arguing that the administration was misled into a “never-ending” conflict by outside influence rather than imminent threats. He stated that the war needlessly cost American lives and broke from the “America First” agenda. Formerly Kent has been billed as a right-wing extremist and a Trump loyalist. He backed Trump during his 2016 campaign, through his 2020 election defeat, through the January 6 riots, and through his 2024 campaign. (It has been reported that Kent is currently being investigated for alleged leaks of classified information.)
If you think we are in capable hands with this band of misfits (and I haven’t even begun to unpack the former weekend Fox anchor and current Secretary of Defense (or War) Pete Hegseth’s many foibles or the DHS Kristi Noem fiasco), please think again.
The cavalier and casual stance Trump has taken about the deaths and destruction this war has caused was illustrated in his wearing his white USA baseball cap with “45-47” gold lettering on the side during a dignified transfer ceremony for six Army reserve soldiers at Dover Air Force Base. Trump did not remove his cap, the cap he used during his election campaign, as he saluted the flag-draped coffins. The following day Trump played golf wearing that same cap.
I was thinking about a quote I remember reading some time ago from President George W. Bush about soldiers, in this case immigrants, and the sacrifices they make. “Immigrants bring to America the values of faith in God, love of family, hard work, and self-reliance—the values that made us a great nation to begin with. We’ve all seen those values in action, through the service and sacrifice of more than 35,000 foreign-born men and women currently on active duty in the United States military.”
The sacrifices of all soldiers deserve our deep appreciation and respect during these times of conflict. It’s also an appropriate time to reflect upon the actions taken without significant due diligence during this administration.