One night last week, my wife looked over my shoulder and saw I had a column of mine opened on the screen with the headline: “Bombs can’t be the solution to our problems: One minute I’m watching Nathan Lane in drag, the next we’re striking Iran.”

“Did they publish your column early?” she asked. No, I said. That was a column I published last June. The last time we randomly bombed Iran. This time, however, it seems to have escalated dramatically. I wish I had known we were going to be starting a war in the Middle East; I would have loaded up on heating oil ahead of time.

On March 2, the Monday after the Saturday we bombed Iran, the average price of heating oil was $3.94/gal. One week later, on Monday, March 9 (which is when I got a delivery), the average price was $4.83/gal. (My price ended up being $4.49/gal for 100 gallons.) With a baby in the house, we can’t just keep it low and put on extra sweaters. Babies aren’t good at temperature regulation; we gotta keep him cozy. 

Pocketbook aside, at least my child is safe and warm. This is far more than I can say for literally hundreds of Iranian parents after the American military bombed an elementary school for girls. I know we’re supposed to see Iran as this big scary threatening enemy and hate it accordingly, but I can’t think of anything less threatening than an elementary girls’ school.

I cared about other people’s children long before I became a mother because I have basic human empathy. Since having a baby of my own, it all just seems so much worse, more personal. I know deeply how unique and individual each child is. There is no other person just like my son in all the world. Now I know how much labor and work goes into each child; how much pain and love, sleepless nights, aching muscles and joints from carrying; all in the service of growing a child to adulthood. Now it’s all for nothing for those parents. 

I don’t think Iranian moms love their children any more or less than I love mine. And my son’s life is just as valuable and sacred as that of a baby in Tehran. 

Meanwhile, Pete Hegseth, secretary of war/defense and patron saint of men who get weirdly aggressive when you accidentally bump into them in a bar, has said that this war will not be “a politically correct war” and will have “no stupid rules of engagement.” As such, the American military has already gotten off to a rip-roaring set of war crimes.

In addition to the aforementioned killing of hundreds of little girls (which at least could be an accident due to faulty intelligence), a U.S. submarine also torpedoed an Iranian ship, the Dena, which was in international waters off Sri Lanka on its way home after participating in an international military exercise in India — an exercise that the United States also participated in. Then they did nothing to assist the shipwrecked, stranded sailors in the water. That’s a direct violation of the Geneva Convention. 

I have exactly two siblings. One is a former Navy sailor. The other is studying the prevention and prosecution of war crimes in the Hague. It’s starting to feel like this incident was personally designed to raise my blood pressure.

Rules of engagement are like rules of the road. They aren’t just there to protect other drivers — they protect you as well. Why is it that we don’t all just blow through stop signs when we get the chance? Police aren’t present at all (or even most) of them. We don’t have a widespread camera system. So why do we inconvenience ourselves like that? Because we have a social agreement to do respect the stop signs, so you can drive through when you have right of way and be reasonably able to trust you won’t get t-boned.

Now America’s done the international military equivalent of announcing stop signs and red lights are for losers and it’s time to turn the streets into a “Fast and Furious” spinoff. 

I’m not generally a pundit in the business of making predictions but I’m going to make one here: America will regret scrapping the rules of engagement and “politically correct wars.” We won’t be untouchable forever. Someday it will be our citizens attacked and our sailors abandoned on the open ocean. 

So to sum up: we’re wasting money, spending a billion dollars a day as our government cuts health insurance programs and food stamps. We’re killing children. We’re setting the precedent of committing war crimes. We’re ruining the economy. And for what? All so Trump and a couple of his cronies could press buttons and watch stuff blow up on a screen and feel like real big boys.