{"id":378600,"date":"2026-04-06T22:48:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T22:48:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/378600\/"},"modified":"2026-04-06T22:48:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T22:48:17","slug":"donald-trumps-profane-threats-against-iran-expose-the-unhinged-language-of-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/378600\/","title":{"rendered":"Donald Trump\u2019s profane threats against Iran expose the unhinged language of war"},"content":{"rendered":"

The language of war<\/a> has long wrapped itself in the rhetoric of courage and the honour of vengeance, drawing on moral and religious appeals to make violence appear necessary, even just.<\/p>\n

Today, that language has returned. As war stretches across Gaza and Lebanon, Ukraine<\/a> and Iran, the words used to justify it are as brutal, self-assured and distant as ever from the suffering they conceal.<\/p>\n

A glaring example are the social media posts of United States President Donald Trump, who has in recent days threatened to bomb Iran \u201cback to the Stone Ages\u201d<\/a> and called Iranians \u201ccrazy bastards\u201d<\/a> in a demand that they open the Strait of Hormuz<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The ongoing and cascading conflict with Iran, in fact, has been portrayed by Israel and the U.S. as an existential struggle between good and evil<\/a>. <\/p>\n

This is not the messaging of strategy or international law<\/a> \u2014 it\u2019s the renewed language of the Crusades<\/a>, driven by ideological fervour and staged as a performance of power in which, in Trump\u2019s world view, \u201cmight makes right.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Biblical references<\/p>\n

The tone is even more pronounced within segments of Trump\u2019s political orbit<\/a>, where the conflict is interpreted through apocalyptic and biblical narratives. <\/p>\n

References to divine purpose and destiny, including Trump\u2019s claim that he was \u201csaved by God,\u201d<\/a> draw on a broader evangelical language that frames political conflict in theological terms. <\/p>\n

In this environment, war is no longer a tragic necessity but a sacred obligation. This reflects a dangerous fusion of militarism, religious fundamentalism, spectacle and authoritarian politics that is redefining how military power is justified, experienced and normalized.<\/p>\n

Religious fundamentalism doesn\u2019t just accompany this violence; it sanctifies it. It functions as an alibi for power, cloaking destruction in the language of destiny while rendering its victims invisible. It turns domination into virtue and makes the machinery of death appear necessary, even divinely ordained.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A row of chairs is seen through a hole left by U.S.-Israeli airstrikes Friday at Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran on April 4, 2026.
\n AP Photo\/Vahid Salemi)<\/p>\n

War as sacred<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t unintentional. It signals a shift in which war becomes a sacred imperative. Trump\u2019s inner circle and his supporters often invoke scripture and religious imagery to cast violence as part of a divine plan<\/a>. Some of them, like Sen. Lindsey Graham<\/a>, have described the ongoing war in Iran as a civilizational or even religious war.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth listens as U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to reporters while traveling aboard Air Force One en route to Miami, on March 7, 2026.
\n (AP Photo\/Mark Schiefelbein)<\/p>\n

Pete Hegeseth, Trump\u2019s defense secretary<\/a>, expresses this world view most chillingly. He has declared that the mission of the U.S. military is \u201cto unleash death and destruction from the sky all day long,\u201d<\/a> and has called for \u201cmaximum lethality, not tepid legality\u201d<\/a> as its guiding principle.<\/p>\n

This reveals a policy of stripping war of restraint or law and openly aiming for annihilation. Hegseth has also invoked Crusader imagery and claimed that Trump has been ordained by God to wield military power. In his 2020 book American Crusade,<\/a> Hegseth writes that those who value western civilization, freedom and equal justice should \u201cthank a crusader.\u201d<\/p>\n

Domestic militarism<\/p>\n

The same language that sanctifies violence abroad, like in Gaza<\/a> and Ukraine, is similar to Trump\u2019s calls for aggression at home \u2014 against protesters, immigrants and political enemies. <\/p>\n

He has targeted political opponents, including James Comey and Letitia James<\/a>, revoked visas for international students protesting Israel\u2019s war in Gaza<\/a>, and dismissed critics, including his Democratic opponent in the 2024 presidential election, Kamala Harris, as \u201cradical left lunatics.\u201d<\/a> <\/p>\n

Retribution and regarding opponents as mortal enemies are treated as justified, even necessary, blurring the lines between war-making and domestic repression.<\/p>\n

In this environment, it\u2019s easy for the lines between politics and theology to dissolve as well<\/a>, weakening ethical restraint and defining conflict as sanctioned, even righteous, violence. <\/p>\n

Beyond simply justifying war, the U.S. is once again framing itself as a white Christian nation, which normalizes exclusion, disposability, historical erasure and racialized violence.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, this fusion of faith and force is not universally accepted. As Pope Leo XIV said in his first Palm Sunday address, God is the \u201cking of peace<\/a>,\u201d rejecting any claim that war can be divinely sanctioned.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Pope Leo XIV greets the faithful at the end of Easter Mass that he presided over in St. Peter\u2019s Square at the Vatican on April 5, 2026.
\n (AP Photo\/Andrew Medichini)<\/p>\n

War as entertainment<\/p>\n

The religious framing of the war in Iran is converging with another shift: the transformation of war into spectacle. <\/p>\n

Under Trump, violence is not only being justified; it\u2019s being staged, estheticized and consumed, as White House promotional videos blend action-movie imagery with real footage of Iran bombings<\/a>. This renders the war a stylized performance designed to excite, entertain and showcase technological power.<\/p>\n

In this spectacle, human suffering recedes. Targets become co-ordinates, destruction appears cinematic and violence is stripped of its moral weight. What remains is the seductive image of power \u2014 war emptied of judgment.<\/p>\n

When these efforts fuse with religious fundamentalism, the consequences can be profound. The theatrics of destruction become a sacred drama and the capacity to kill is defined as evidence of both national strength and divine purpose. <\/p>\n

Under such conditions, war is no longer constrained by law<\/a>, reason or democratic accountability. It is propelled by belief, emotion and spectacle.<\/p>\n

Trump provides the script as his rhetoric intensifies this convergence. His suggestion that war might end when he \u201cfeels it in his bones\u201d<\/a> or his remark about bombing Iran \u201cjust for fun\u201d<\/a> shows how ignorance can become governance.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

An injured woman talks on her cellphone as she sits next to her belongings after leaving her apartment following a strike that hit a residential building Tehran, Iran, on March 28, 2026.
\n (AP Photo\/Sajad Safari)<\/p>\n

Making fascism possible<\/p>\n

The human costs of the war in Iran are devastating. Bombing campaigns have inflicted widespread destruction across the country, with civilian casualties<\/a> mounting steadily. Yet this death toll is increasingly obscured by the spectacle of war itself, reduced to background noise beneath the American celebration of military power.<\/p>\n

The economic costs of the war to Americans are also staggering, estimated at roughly $1 billion per day<\/a>, resources that could support social needs. Yet in a culture steeped in militarism, concentrated power and inequality, such considerations recede.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A car drives behind the gasoline price board at a Valero gas station in San Francisco, Saturday, April 4, 2026.
\n (AP Photo\/Jeff Chiu)<\/p>\n

History offers stark warnings about such moments. The horrors of the past \u2014 from the Holocaust<\/a> to the Vietnam War<\/a>, the Rwandan genocide<\/a>, the Pinochet dictatorship<\/a> and the Iraq war \u2014 reveal how societies can be mobilized through propaganda, fear and the erosion of critical thought.<\/p>\n

Read more:
\n War sent America off the rails 19 years ago. Could another one bring it back?<\/a><\/p>\n

They remind us what happens when violence is normalized, power is unchecked and human life is stripped of its value. Those conditions are visible again. But authoritarianism can only endure in a culture that enables it \u2014 where war, both at home and abroad, becomes a permanent feature of social life.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s at stake is not only the violence unleashed abroad but the political culture it legitimizes at home. When war is staged as entertainment and justified as a moral duty, its human costs disappear from view. <\/p>\n

A society that embraces cruelty as virtue, ignorance as governance and violence as destiny risks losing its capacity for judgment. Under such conditions, democracy does not simply erode. It is obliterated, giving way to forces that make fascism possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The language of war has long wrapped itself in the rhetoric of courage and the honour of vengeance,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":378601,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-378600","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=378600"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378600\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/378601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}