printWriting about the death of the liberal anti-war sensibility and movement, brilliant old-school liberal John Pilger notes that nothing penetrates those “liberal brains pickled in the formaldehyde of identity politics. Commodified and market-tested ‘diversity’ is the new liberal brand. …”
… Europe is threatened again with becoming a military training ground for nuclear weapons. We must raise our voice against this.”
But not in America. The thousands who turned out for Senator Bernie Sanders’ “revolution” in last year’s presidential campaign are collectively mute on these dangers. That most of America’s violence across the world has been perpetrated not by Republicans, or mutants like Trump, but by liberal Democrats, remains a taboo.
Barack Obama provided the apotheosis, with seven simultaneous wars, a presidential record, including the destruction of Libya as a modern state. Obama’s overthrow of Ukraine’s elected government has had the desired effect: the massing of American-led Nato forces on Russia’s western borderland through which the Nazis invaded in 1941.
Obama’s “pivot to Asia” in 2011 signalled the transfer of the majority of America’s naval and air forces to Asia and the Pacific for no purpose other than to confront and provoke China. The Nobel Peace Laureate’s worldwide campaign of assassinations is arguably the most extensive campaign of terrorism since 9/11.
What is known in the US as “the left” has effectively allied with the darkest recesses of institutional power, notably the Pentagon and the CIA, to see off a peace deal between Trump and Vladimir Putin and to reinstate Russia as an enemy, on the basis of no evidence of its alleged interference in the 2016 presidential election.
The true scandal is the insidious assumption of power by sinister war-making vested interests for which no American voted. The rapid ascendancy of the Pentagon and the surveillance agencies under Obama represented an historic shift of power in Washington. Daniel Ellsberg rightly called it a coup. The three generals running Trump are its witness. …
Still, this Rightist thanks the liberal ladies of Code Pink for stepping into—and filling—the antiwar void, left and right. The traditional antiwar Right was magnificent during Genghis Bush’s rule. Is it MIA for Trump? As to the intrepid ladies in pink: many of them are mature. Perhaps that’s the reason they have the focus Pilger laments as lost.
UPDATE I (10/13) :
POTUS is picking a fight with the mighty Iranian Revolutionary Guard: Is America alone allowed to have Special Forces?
And indeed, North Korea has since said precisely this:
Trump says efforts to quash #IranNuclearDeal sends good message to N. Korea. Yeah. Message is 'Get Usable Nukes Fast.' @medeabenjamin https://t.co/V5yq7uNEz7
— Ilana Mercer (@IlanaMercer) October 13, 2017
UPDATE II: How has that bellicosity worked out with North Korea, Mr. president? Dennis Rodman would do better.
North Korea is not ruling out diplomacy, but “before we can engage in diplomacy with the Trump administration, we want to send a clear message that the DPRK has a reliable defensive and offensive capability to counter any aggression from the United States,” the official said.
CNN: “North Korea rejects diplomacy with US for now, source says.“