bioluminescent

"Send your son, Donald Trump. If you want war, send your own people to the front line. We in Spain want our children, our daughters, and our loved ones at home, safe. We don't want war. Those who want war should send their own children." That was Irene Montero, a Spanish Member of the European Parliament, speaking directly to Donald Trump from the floor of the European Parliament last week.

Thousands of miles away, on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) was delivering the same message: "I rise on behalf of the grieving families of the service members killed. I rise on behalf of little girls in Iran killed by bombs raining down on their schools." Pressley said what every parent watching this unfold is feeling: "My heart breaks for the United States service members killed. My heart breaks for the innocent Iranian schoolgirls killed. Every child is a parent's entire universe."

Two women. Two continents. The same demand. And the man they're speaking to was golfing at his club in Miami, calling a war which has already claimed nearly 2,000 lives a "little excursion."

Yesterday, U.S. Senators emerged from a classified briefing on the war visibly shaken. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) posted a video that pulled no punches: "It is so much worse than you thought. You are right to be worried. The Trump administration has no plan in Iran. This illegal war is based on lies, and it was launched without any imminent threat to our nation."

Then she laid out the cost in terms every American can understand: "Here's the only part of Trump's plan that is clear to me: He won't spare a cent for the 15 million Americans who will lose their health care, but he'll spend a billion dollars a day bombing Iran."

The Republican budget bill Trump signed into law last year slashes $1 trillion from Medicaid over the next decade -- the largest cut to health care in American history. Roughly 15 million people will lose their coverage. There's no money for that. But a billion dollars a day to bomb a country with no plan, no endgame, and no exit strategy? That money appeared overnight.

Senator Brian Schatz (D-HI) was even more blunt: "This war is costing a billion dollars a day. In one month we will spend more over there than we needed to save healthcare for more than 2 million Americans. They literally are taking away your food and your healthcare for this regime change war of choice."

A single Tomahawk cruise missile costs $2.2 million. That one missile could cover 775 children on Medicaid for a year. The Pentagon burned through over $5 billion in munitions in just the first two days of this war. The New York Times reported that the first week alone cost $6 billion. And now the administration is preparing to ask Congress for an additional $50 billion in supplemental funding to replenish weapons stockpiles -- on top of the Pentagon's already record-shattering $1 trillion annual budget.

This is an administration that ran on a platform of no more forever wars, that promised to put America first, that told working families it would fight for them. Instead, it is burning through billions of dollars of American taxpayer money -- money that could fund schools, restore health care, rebuild crumbling infrastructure, or simply lower the tax burden on ordinary Americans -- to bombard yet another Middle Eastern country with no plan, no defined objective, and no exit strategy.

And Trump can't even keep his own story straight about what this war is or where it stands. Within a single 24-hour period this week, he told CBS News "I think the war is very complete, pretty much," told House Republicans "we've already won in many ways, but we haven't won enough," and declared at a press conference that "we'll not relent until the enemy is totally and decisively defeated." Meanwhile, the Defense Department posted on social media: "We have only just begun to fight."

When a reporter asked him to reconcile saying the war is almost over while his own Defense Secretary says it's just beginning, Trump's answer was: "You could say both." He called this war "just an excursion into something that had to be done."

A "short-term excursion." A "little pause" in the economy. Here's what that "little excursion" looks like after twelve days: over 1,200 people killed in Iran -- including more than 168 children at a single girls' school -- and 570 killed in Lebanon. Seven American service members dead. 140 U.S. troops injured, eight of them severely.

Meanwhile, global oil prices have surged past $100 a barrel after Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of the world's oil passes. Americans are already seeing it at the pump, and analysts warn food and other essentials will follow as transportation costs skyrocket.

The administration has been equally incoherent about whether American troops will be sent into Iran on the ground. Trump told the New York Post he doesn't have the "yips with respect to boots on the ground" -- framing the decision to send Americans into a war zone as a test of his own bravado rather than a matter of life and death. NBC News reported he has privately expressed "serious interest" in deploying ground forces.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, asked directly about ground troops and the draft, said "all options are on the table." After yesterday's classified briefing, Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) told reporters he is "more fearful than ever" that the U.S. appears to be "on a path toward deploying American troops on the ground in Iran."

The administration's primary justification for this war -- the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran -- is falling apart under the weight of its own contradictions. Last June, Trump bombed three Iranian nuclear facilities and declared the program "obliterated." His press secretary repeated that claim in the days before the current war began. But then Trump envoy Steve Witkoff told the press Iran was "a week away" from having a bomb.

As Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) asked: "Is Donald Trump confused about why he's starting this war? Maybe he needs to have his memory checked. Less than a year ago he told us Iran's nuclear program had been 'obliterated.' Now he says we need more strikes. Was he lying then? Or is he lying now?"

The administration's own Defense Intelligence Agency assessed last May that Iran could develop a long-range missile capable of reaching the U.S. by 2035 -- a full decade away -- and only if it chose to pursue that capability. Three American officials with access to intelligence on Iran's missile programs told the New York Times that Trump exaggerated the immediacy of the threat.

The Arms Control Association's executive director was unequivocal: there "was and is no imminent Iranian nuclear threat" sufficient to justify this war. And perhaps most damning -- negotiations were actively underway. Just 36 hours before the bombs fell, Iran's negotiators presented a new proposal through Omani mediators. Oman's foreign minister confirmed "significant progress" had been made.

Trump pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal in 2018 -- a deal that was working -- bombed their facilities last year, resumed negotiations, and then bombed them again in the middle of those negotiations while citing a threat his own intelligence community says is a decade away.

If this sounds familiar, it should. It's the weapons of mass destruction playbook all over again -- except this time, the administration didn't even bother to get the intelligence community on board. As one national security analyst told Al Jazeera: "They are exaggerating the nuclear threat exactly as the Bush administration did. But there is a key difference: in 2003, U.S. intelligence was manipulated to align with the lie. In 2026, the intelligence assessments actually contradict Trump's claims."

Senator Jacky Rosen (D-NV) left the classified briefing yesterday and told reporters: "What I heard is not just concerning. It is disturbing. I'm not sure what the endgame is or what their plans are. He's not shown us any plans for what he wants to do for the day after."

Representative Katherine Clark (D-MA), the second-highest ranking Democrat in the House, spoke for millions of families: "Families do not want another war. They want a reasonable cost of living. They want health care they can afford. They want an end to ICE's terror in their neighborhoods. And they do not want their sons and daughters placed in harm's way by a reckless President."

But when Democrats tried to hold the administration accountable through the constitutional process, Republicans blocked them. Last week the Senate voted 47-53 to kill a War Powers Resolution that would have required congressional approval for continued military action -- only one Republican, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), voted to advance it. The House followed the next day, rejecting its own resolution 212-219.

Senate Democrats are now demanding public hearings -- testimony under oath from the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense -- so the American people can hear for themselves what their government is doing in their name, with their money, and with their children's lives. Warren has said flatly: "No more money" for this war until those questions are answered. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) warned: "We shouldn't be acting like this is business as usual. This is war and peace."

Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) knows what war costs. She lost both her legs when her Black Hawk helicopter was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade in Iraq -- the last time an American president promised a quick, easy war in the Middle East that would pay for itself and be over before anyone noticed. She said: "I ran for Congress so that when the drums of war started beating once again, I'd be in a position to make sure that our elected officials fully considered the true cost of the war -- not just in dollars and cents but in human lives."

From Madrid to Massachusetts, from the European Parliament to the U.S. Senate, women are standing up and saying what needs to be said: this war has no plan, no justification, no endgame, and no accountability. It has cost billions of dollars, thousands of lives, and the safety of American service members -- all while this administration slashes health care, child care, and food assistance for the families at home, while driving up costs for American families.

If Trump wants another Middle East quagmire, he can send his own children and grandchildren to war, not ours.