April 21, 2026
Aggressor and the Aggressed
I have little faith in the simplistic and
formal distinction between aggressor and the aggressed.
For example, in the Italian wars of independence, were we the aggressors?
Certainly—and yet we consider those events just and glorious.
In World War II, it was England and France that declared war on Germany, which
in Poland had “liberated” the Baltic Germans from the Poles. And yet everyone,
rightly, says that the Germans were the aggressors.
Now Iran (Islamic fundamentalists) see Israel as the advanced outpost of the
unbelieving West against the faithful and proclaim Jihad: are the Americans the
aggressors?