‘There Are Lives In The Balance. There Are People Under Fire.’

“I want to know who the men in the shadows are
I want to hear somebody asking them why
They can be counted on to tell us who our enemies are
But they’re never the ones to fight or to die.”

• Lyrics from singer/songwriter Jackson Browne’s powerful anti-war song, ‘Lives In The Balance

A Brief Commentary by Niagara At Large reporter/publisher Doug Draper, followed by Jackson Browne’s anti-war anthem ‘Lives In The Balance’ on video

Posted March 1st, 2026 on Niagara At Large

“We may have casualties. That often happens in war.”

So said Trump – a serial draft dodger when it was his time to serve during the War in Vietnam and who, during his first term as U.S. president, called those who died fighting fascism in the Second Word War “losers” and ‘suckers”.

So he said it with so little heart after he and his war-like buddy, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, began firing missiles into Iran during the early hours of Saturday, 2026, February 28^th, 2026.

There he was on video, delivering a canned war address to the American people and to  the world, wearing a white ball cap reading  U.S.A., with a visor shading eyes glaring out above those stern cheeks and mouth of his – one of Jackson Browne’s men in the shadows.

And now, how many young soldiers and how many civilians in Iran and elsewhere are going to die?

I hope that I am joined by a majority of Canadians who demand that our Prime Minister, Mark Carney, does not lead our country into any kind of military involvement in this war that Trump and Netanyahu have chosen to wage.

Instead, let’s urge our federal government to press for peaceful ways of supporting the Iranian people in their struggle for achieving the kind of ‘regime change’ that, at long last, brings freedom and democracy to their country.

Now here is the song Lives In The Balance by Jackson Browne. To hear it, click on the screen immediately below –

Peace for the  people of Iran, the people of Gaza and for the people of the world

Doug Draper, Niagara At Large

Just as a final note, I want to share the best commentary I have heard so far on this continuing chain of events from someone I believe is the best commentator on Cable TV – Rachel Maddow.

To watch it, click on the screen below –

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