Who Truly Represents America: Trump’s Iran War or Brian McGinnis’ Senate Protest?
- America at a Crossroads: War on Iran and the Voice of Dissent in the Senate
- War on Iran: Does Trump Speak for America or Do the Protesters?
- The Question at the Heart of America’s Iran War
- Senate Protest: The Eviction of a Retired Marine
- Public Opinion in the United States: Growing Opposition to the War
- Protests Across American Cities
- Lessons from History: Who Represents a Nation?
- George Washington’s Warning Against Foreign Wars
Iran’s Historical Resilience and National Pride
Justice Markandey Katju examines the US war on Iran, the Senate protest by retired Marine Brian McGinnis, and the deeper question of who truly represents America.
Who represents America?
By Justice Markandey Katju
Who represents America, Donald Trump and his cronies, who have plunged the nation into a barbaric, reckless, unprovoked and unjustified war on Iran, or the brave retired US Marine Brian McGinnis, who protested against the war on Iran before the US Senate on 5th March 2026, and was bodily evicted from the Senate chamber, with injuries?
I submit that the latter does, and the proof of that is that only one-fourth of Americans support this war presently, and the opponents of the war will keep increasing as the war drags on.
Protests are being held against the war in New York, Washington DC, Los Angeles, Indianapolis, and several other US cities, and these are bound to increase exponentially as the war continues ( as it happened during the Vietnam War). Wars are expensive affairs, and this war will result in an increase in taxes on the American public and a surge in oil prices.
Who represented America during its War of Independence in 1775-81, the mad British King George III, or George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and other great figures in the American Continental Congress ? Who represented France in the Estates General convened in 1789, the dull witted King Louis XVI or the French National Assembly ( the Third Estate ) ? Who represented Russia in 1917, Czar Nicholas II or Lenin?
In many articles, I have said that the American people, with a few exceptions, are good and decent people.
I have also expressed the view that the Iranians, who are a proud people having a known history of 2500 years, cannot be defeated in this war
In his Farewell Address in 1796, US President George Washington, who had completed his second 4 year term as President and refused to accept another, advised Americans to peacefully trade with foreign nations and avoid foreign wars. In other words, he was strongly opposed to making wars on other nations.
In this Address President Washington said '' The nation which indulges toward another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave.” Has not America indulged in hatred of Iran and fondness of Israel for many years ? Is this not directly contrary to President Washington's admonition, and has this not made Americans slaves ( of cronies who are presently ruling it ) ?
Americans should reflect on this advice given by one their greatest Presidents, and end this barbaric war, in which the Iranian leader Ayatollah Khameini and many of his family members, several defence and other officials,165 small girls in an elementary school in Tehran, and many innocent civilians, were brutally killed in air strikes, apart from many other similar horrors.
(Justice Markandey Katju is a former Judge of the Supreme Court of India, and former Chairman of the Press Council of India. The views expressed are his own.)
