John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY JUSTIN RAIMONDO IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“All Aboard the Trump Peace Train! He's Taking the Fight to the War Party
“He wants out of Korea, Germany, Syria – and NATO!”
"You have to be blind not to see that Trump wants to radically reduce the US presence overseas – and you’re part of the problem if you find that worrisome"
We could all wish Raimondo were right about Trump, but there is no evidence to support his assertions. None. Not a shred.
Raimondo sounds like one more tiresome Alt-right Trumpista from the Internet, full of admiration for an aggressive, loud-mouthed gas-bag.
My God, Raimondo takes at face value all Trump's various assertions, yet we've seen, time and again, Trump caught outright lying, being factually wrong, bragging about nonsense, and just being ugly with his mouth.
His aggressive personality and thoughtless words have offended almost every Western leader.
Indeed, we've seen so much of that kind of speech, I think it fair to say it is the norm for this bizarre politician.
If you look at facts, instead of ideologically-based wishes, Raimondo is busy like some of the characters in Alice in Wonderland, "painting the roses red."
There are alternate explanations for everything this writer regards as promising peace.
Trump in fact has an extremely aggressive personality, resembling a steam engine always in full throttle.
He has actually expanded the possibilities for war with his mad drives on trade and sanctions everywhere. Virtually all of them unnecessary and dangerous.
History shows clearly that such efforts as trade wars can start shooting wars. They can also assist in the launching of a depression, as they very much did in the Great Depression with America’s Smoot–Hawley Tariff, a measure that was very much in keeping with Trump's thinking.
You don't get a free ride to tell everyone else on the planet, "Do it my way, or it’s the highway." There are consequences, real and quite unpleasant consequences, from that approach. Trade or any economic effort is a partnership, and partnerships require cooperation and good will.
That's just on the economic front, but in other areas, the story is just as bleak.
Telling the CIA it can decide who dies in America's industrial-scale extrajudicial killing program?
Giving the Pentagon more money than it knows how to spend?
Appointing a series of major officials who might well have served faithfully in Germany of the 1930s: Haley, Bolton, Pompeo, Haspel, and many others - just a series of nightmare appointments of pushy ideologues who do little apparent thinking.
Trump has now said a couple of times he'd like to invade Venezuela, a democratic country with no record of aggression. Hardly sounds like peace to me. Trump and the American establishment he so clearly represents dislike that country's moderately socialistic economy, and the CIA has been hard at work for several years trying to destabilize it with everything from counterfeiting its currency and interfering in its markets to subsidizing undemocratic internal opposition groups, but these intensive efforts still are not succeeding because the government is popular and wins elections, so the great man of peace, Trump, speaks of invasion.
And Trump's relationship with Netanyahu and Adelson is deeply dangerous.
Israel is one of the most aggressive and oppressive countries on earth, and so far under Trump it gets literally everything it wants. Its idea of peace is Orwell’s “boot in your face.”
It gives nothing, makes no compromises, and continues to treat millions under its control as Untermensch – all while working hard to expand its poisonous influence further afield.
There are its efforts in Syria, its efforts towards Iran, its efforts in East Jerusalem, its efforts in the West Bank, its drive to get Western governments to virtually ban all criticism, and its hostility to the United Nations and other important international organizations – all this, while openly committing genuine war crimes in Gaza and keeping itself free of criticism for the darkest possible acts.
Anyone who sees promise here has a problem, a serious problem. And this kind of thinking has become all too common in a country which sees enemies in every corner and under every bed and believes that if it can just be allowed to dominate the earth, everything will turn out fine.
