Who will answer?

If the soul is darkened

By a fear

it cannot name

If the mind is baffled

When the rules

don’t fit the game

Who will answer?

Never, EVER, play the other guy’s game. That sensible lesson resounds thru millennia from Sun Tzu’s “Art of War” down to Damon Runyon’s streets of New York.

Alas and alack, that’s exactly what brought us to World War Three — which started when Czar Putin’s Russia invaded Ukraine last year and has metastasized since.

Right now, more than half of the globe’s nations are at war or supporting wars. The U.S. has been on a combat footing since 1942.

Former General Dwight Eisenhower, in his presidential farewell address, warned against the inertia of what he called the “military industrial complex.”

As war historian Gwynne Dyer noted decades ago, every military machine is impelled toward battle because that’s the main measure of success and promotion.

Israel got caught with its collective pants down on Oct. 6, 1973. It was no coincidence that Iran/Russia surrogate Hamas launched missiles into the formerly holy land last Oct. 7.

NO, I’M NOT DEPT. This is the point in any column or broadcast when I have to inoculate myself against kneejerk accusations.

I always answer thusly: My only wife was of Jewish descent and in 1973, how much money did you raise for Israeli relief like I did?

BACK TO THE FUTURE. Benjamin Netanyahu has enjoyed a fat political career built on the shoulders of his heroic brother, Yonatan, the commander killed rescuing Ugandan dictator Idi Amin’s hostages in the fabled 1976 raid on Entebbe airport.

Bro. Bibi just got punked by the ayatollahs. He’s obviously not a Trekkie.

The 1982 film “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” opened with a no-win situation: A commander trying to rescue a defenseless craft named Kobayashi Maru in the face of overwhelming hostile warships.

It turned out to be a war game simulation to see how trainees would react in stressful situations. The result was always disaster save in one case, that of intrepid Capt. James T. Kirk, who cheated. He reprogrammed the test before he took it and received a commendation for original thinking.

“I hate to lose,” Kirk often said. (Donald Trump effectively mimicked that attitude by hiring a good student to take his college entrance exam.)

The attack on Israel by the Gaza dictatorship was Bibi Netanyahu’s Kobayashi Maru moment. He flunked.

Yeah, yeah, I know. What would you do if missiles were raining down on your town?

First, remember the probably apocryphal words of Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto in the 1970 film “Tora Tora Tora!”: “There is no last word in diplomacy.”

I have preached for decades that any war can be avoided if its seeds are smothered early. In 1986, the U.S. armed Afghani Mujahideen guerrillas with Stinger Missiles to down Russian helicopter gunships. Without air superiority, the Soviets walked. (Somebody hurry up and get those F-16s to Zelenskyy, dammit!)

After we beat them dirty Russkies, we left Afghanistan at the mercy of the Taliban which soon welcomed Osama bin Laden with deadly open arms. (Rent the 2007 Tom Hanks/Julia Roberts film “Charlie Wilson’s War” for embarrassing details.)

We blew a chance to install democracy but hey, our guys won. Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition!

As with Pearl Harbor in 1941, Israel was asleep at the switch in 1973. When I brought Israeli Consul General David Zohar to Reno to help with my Israel relief campaign, I asked why.

“It was the boy who cried wolf,” he stated. “Too many false alarms.”

America had ample warning about 9/11 but President Bush the Lesser and his minions were too busy cutting taxes for their wealthy friends.

Shortly before the debacle, Attorney General John “Ashes to Ashes” Ashcroft told his staff “I don’t want to hear any more about terrorism.” When the first jetliner hit the World Trade Center, his order was probably rescinded.

GIVE PEACE A CHANCE. What if Mr. Netanyahu had offered a Christian solution: Turn the other cheek.

Instead, he boarded the Kobayashi Maru and played the other guy’s game. Hamas rigged it to entice a doomsday response and thus set the world on fire. The lowlifes accomplished their goal, blazingly.

Cops look for motive and this war crime is no different. Who benefits?

Iran has paid back its Russian benefactor with a complete diversion of the world’s attention from Putin’s “Special Military Operation” in Ukraine.

Now that Israel has responded with a scorched earth scenario, other Russian satellites like Syria and Lebanon have gotten into the act. Like anyone sane worldwide, Moslems and Jews are enraged.

Desperation and hatred thus dominate just in time for western high holy days.

Iran, Syria, Iraq and Russia would have been robbed of empty victory with a merciful and thoughtful response. The west would have looked moral and strong. Instead, we just cranked up the war machine to a higher, more corporately profitable level. And Donald Trump just can’t wait to start building hotels and golf courses in Ukraine at the behest of his buddy whom last year he termed “a genius” for getting “all that land.”

I repeat an old axiom from the 60s which remains just a dream: The only way to stop killing is to stop killing,

Peace thru weakness. Outrageous. Arrest that traitor!

But what you’re doing ain’t working, macho men.

And I repeat my long term solution to just about every problem: Put women in command. Male egos start wars.

Who will answer? All of us.

WAR ON OUR STREETS. Last Wednesday, Hans Schmidt, 26, was shot dead on the streets of Glendale, Ariz., a Phoenix suburb. His sin: Preaching near his Pentecostal church, inviting people to services.

Stay safe. Get vaxxed. Happy Thanksgibleting to you and yours. Remember JFK and pray for peace with your loved ones at your dinner table should you be fortunate enough to have one.

Be well. Raise hell. / Esté bien. Haga infierno.

Andrew Quarantino Barbáno is a 54-year Nevadan and editor of NevadaLabor.com/ Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Tribune since 1988. E-mail barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us Opening lyrics from “Who will answer?” by Sheila Davis & Luis Eduardo Aute; a 1967 top 10 hit for Ed Ames (1927-2023). “Star Trek II” was written by Jack B. Sowards.