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Title: Trump Must Choose Between a Global Ceasefire and America’s Long Lost Wars
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URL Source: https://original.antiwar.com/mbenja ... e-and-americas-long-lost-wars/
Published: May 5, 2020
Author: Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies
Post Date: 2020-05-05 07:32:07 by Ada
Keywords: None
Views: 3368
Comments: 35
As President Trump has complained, the U.S. does not win wars anymore. In fact, since 1945, the only 4 wars it has won were over the small neocolonial outposts of Grenada, Panama, Kuwait and Kosovo. Americans across the political spectrum refer to the wars the US has launched since 2001 as "endless" or “unwinnable” wars. We know by now that there is no elusive victory around the corner that will redeem the criminal futility of the U.S.’s opportunistic decision to use military force more aggressively and illegally after the end of the Cold War and the horrific crimes of September 11th. But all wars have to end one day, so how will these wars end? As President Trump nears the end of his first term, he knows that at least some Americans hold him responsible for his broken promises to bring US troops home and wind down Bush’s and Obama’s wars. Trump’s own day-in-day-out war-making has gone largely unreported by the subservient, tweet-baited US corporate media, but Trump has dropped at least 69,000 bombs and missiles on Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, more than either Bush or Obama did in their first terms, including in Bush’s invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Under cover of highly publicized redeployments of small numbers of troops from a few isolated bases in Syria and Iraq, Trump has actually expanded US bases and deployed at least 14,000 more US troops to the greater Middle East, even after the US bombing and artillery campaigns that destroyed Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria ended in 2017. Under the US agreement with the Taliban, Trump has finally agreed to withdraw 4,400 troops from Afghanistan by July, still leaving at least 8,600 behind to conduct airstrikes, "kill or capture" raids and an even more isolated and beleaguered military occupation. Now a compelling call by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres for a global ceasefire during the Covid-19 pandemic has given Trump a chance to gracefully de-escalate his unwinnable wars – if indeed he really wants to. Over 70 nations have expressed their support for the ceasefire. President Macron of France claimed on April 15th that he had persuaded Trump to join other world leaders supporting a UN Security Council resolution backing the Secretary General’s call. But within days it became clear that the US was opposing the resolution, insisting that its own "counterterrorism" wars must go on, and that any resolution must condemn China as the source of the pandemic, a poison pill calculated to draw a swift Chinese veto. So Trump has so far spurned this chance to make good on his promise to bring US troops home, even as his lost wars and ill-defined global military occupation expose thousands of troops to the Covid-19 virus. The US Navy has been plagued by the virus: as of mid-April 40 ships had confirmed cases, affecting 1,298 sailors. Training exercises, troop movements and travel have been canceled for U.S.-based troops and their families. The military reported 7,145 cases as of May 1, with more falling sick every day. The Pentagon has priority access to Covid testing, protective gear and other resources, so the catastrophic shortage of resources at civilian hospitals in New York and elsewhere are being exacerbated by shipping them all over the world to 800 military bases, many of which are already redundant, dangerous or counterproductive. Afghanistan, Syria and Yemen were already suffering from the worst humanitarian crises and most compromised health systems in the world, making them exceptionally vulnerable to the pandemic. The US’s defunding of the World Health Organization leaves them in even worse straits. Trump’s decision to keep US troops fighting America’s long lost wars in Afghanistan and other war-zones only makes it more likely that his presidency may be tainted by indelible images of helicopters rescuing Americans from embassy rooftops. The US Embassy in Baghdad was purposely and presciently built with a helipad on the ground to avoid duplicating the US’s iconic humiliation in Saigon – now Ho Chi Minh City. Meanwhile, nobody on Joe Biden’s staff seems to think the UN’s call for a global ceasefire is important enough to take a position on. While a credible accusation of sexual assault has sabotaged Biden’s main message that “I’m different from Trump,” his recent hawkish rhetoric on China likewise smacks of continuity, not contrast, with Trump’s attitudes and policies. So the UN’s call for a global ceasefire is a unique chance for Biden to gain the moral high ground and demonstrate the international leadership he likes to brag about but has yet to show off during this crisis. For Trump or Biden, the choice between the UN ceasefire and forcing America’s virus-imperilled troops to keep fighting its long lost wars should be a no-brainer. After 18 years of war in Afghanistan, leaked documents have shown that the Pentagon never had a real plan to defeat the Taliban. The Iraqi parliament is trying to expel US forces from Iraq for the second time in 10 years, as it resists getting dragged into a US war on its neighbor Iran. The US’s Saudi allies have begun UN-mediated peace negotiations with the Houthis in Yemen. The US is no closer to defeating its enemies in Somalia than it was in 1992. Libya and Syria remain mired in civil war, 9 years after the US, along with its NATO and Arab monarchist allies, launched covert and proxy wars against them. The resulting chaos has spawned new wars in West Africa and a refugee crisis across three continents. And the US still has no viable war plan to back up its illegal sanctions and threats against Iran or Venezuela. The Pentagon’s latest plan to justify its obscene demands on our country’s resources is to recycle its Cold War against Russia and China. But the US’s imperial or "expeditionary" military forces regularly lose their own simulated war games against formidable Russian or Chinese defense forces, while scientists warn that their new nuclear arms race has brought the world closer to Doomsday than at even the most terrifying moments of the Cold War. Like a movie studio that’s run out of fresh ideas, the Pentagon has plumped for the politically safe option of a sequel to "The Cold War," its last big money-spinner before "The War on Terror." But there is nothing remotely safe about "Cold War II." It could be the last movie this studio ever makes – but who will be left to hold it accountable? Like his predecessors from Truman to Obama, Trump has been caught in the trap of America’s blind, deluded militarism. No president wants to be the one who "lost" Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq or any other country that has been politically sanctified with the blood of young Americans, even when the whole world knows they should not have been there in the first place. In the parallel universe of American politics, the popular myths of American power and exceptionalism that sustain the military occupation of the American mind dictate continuity and deference to the military-industrial complex as the politically safe choice, even when the results are catastrophic in the real world. While we recognize these perverse constraints on Trump’s decision-making, we think that the confluence of the UN ceasefire call, the pandemic, antiwar public opinion, the presidential election and Trump’s glib promises to bring US troops home may actually align with doing the right thing in this case. If Trump was smart, he would seize this moment to embrace the UN’s global ceasefire with open arms; support a UN Security Council resolution to back up the ceasefire; start socially distancing US troops from people trying to kill them and places where they are not welcome; and bring them home to the families and friends who love them. If this is the only correct choice Donald Trump ever makes as President, he will finally be able to claim that he deserves a Nobel Peace Prize more than Barack Obama did.
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#1. To: Ada (#0)
Horseshit
American people's desire to face the virus straight up and order the States back to work ! He should also address the end of 5G because it's about surveillance and not about a quicker internet. "And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. " The best thing about old age is that it doesn't last forever.
Other than promoting any further alliance with the UN, this article is spot-on. imo Declare victory and leave the God-forsaken ME, Africa, and Korea, now! “The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out... without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable.” ~ H. L. Mencken
I agree, however that has never worked and will never work. There are bad people in this world with bad intentions. That will never change. Clear back to President Monroe, he recognized two hundred years ago that we could not withdraw from the world as it would follow us. A hundred years later Teddy warned about carrying a big stick, etc. He warned of Japan, people called for his head. We can stick our heads in the sand and get our ass kicked.
Horseshit (sigh). Don't have to look far to see who the bad people in the world are.
For sake of intelligent conversation... History is already written and CANNOT be revised... In that context...What role and when did FDR become a player in WWII?
In that context...What role and when did FDR become a player in WWII? History is being revised as we speak, i.e., the truth about WWII is still coming out 74 years later. Hard to pinpoint when that demagogue FDR became a player. As you know, he lied a lot. His perpetual deceits on domestic policy are grudgingly recognized by some scholars but his brazen lying on foreign policy has not received its due. in 1940, in one of his final speeches of the presidential campaign, Roosevelt assured voters, "Your president says this country is not going to war." But fdr was working around-the-clock to pull the United States into World War Two.
History is not revised, rather truth and falsehoods are exposed. All presidents INHERIT the problems of the past. Each makes their own mistakes that are passed on to the next victim. FDR took over in 1932, the run up to WWII was already well along and in progress. In 1919 Japan made its final decision to move South for oil and land, namely, Australia. The die was cast, FDR had nothing to do with it. In 1919, the German High Command drew up plans for the next invasion of France and the Low Countries, thru the Ardennes Forest, Hitler was then a Corporal in the German army, had nothing to do with German plotting. Lenin and Stalin were plotting how to move to the English Channel. Churchill was out of government, Mussolini started his Fascist movement in 1919 and became Prime Minister in 1922, then later invaded Africa. As one can see in 1932 FDR became President but WWII die was already cast. FDR inherited a mess and made it worse. That makes or breaks good or bad Presidents. What Trump leaves for his successor, we are living.
man up! gather your young ones, fight donnie's wars.
And the Italians used poison gas against the Ethiopians when Haile Selassie was Emperor of Ethiopia. :-/ "When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one." Edmund Burke
They knew the attack on Pearl Harbor was coming since the Japanese Naval Code had already been broken. FDR let it happen because he knew it would mean war. Word was sent by regular U.S. Mail rather than by expedited military communications. ;) "When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one." Edmund Burke
how many years must pass before you see how donnie duped you?
Am willing to explain in simple language what some are not able to grasp.
In 1919, the German High Command drew up plans for the next invasion of France and the Low Countries, thru the Ardennes Forest, Hitler was then a Corporal in the German army, had nothing to do with German plotting. Lenin and Stalin were plotting how to move to the English Channel. Churchill was out of government, Mussolini started his Fascist movement in 1919 and became Prime Minister in 1922, then later invaded Africa. As one can see in 1932 FDR became President but WWII die was already cast. FDR inherited a mess and made it worse. FDR took over at the beginning of the Depression and proceeded to make it worse. While Europe came out of it early, the US lagged and in 1937 suffered another drop just as it appeared we were beginning to recover. So what was FDR to do other than the classic solution of getting us into war. He wanted war with Germany but Hitler refused to respond to his provocations. History records that Hitler did not start World War II. England and France launched World War II with a declaration of war against Germany. Hitler did not want a war with Britain and France and tried to avoid it and then end it with a peace agreement very favorable to Britain and France. Australia was England's colony then and her responsibility, not ours. England was only interested in keeping her German economic rival down and not in defending the colonies that had come to her aid in WWI.
None of what I read is correct. It defies history in its entirety. For instance the depression was three years old when FDR became president. """The Great Depression was the worst economic downturn in the history of the industrialized world, lasting from 1929 to 1939. It began after the stock market crash of October 1929, which sent Wall Street into a panic and wiped out millions of investors.""" Astounding that anyone would believe that Russia, Italy, Japan and Germany were not planning on war long before FDR became president. Such defies history and reality. In the late 1930s I was aware of the war hysteria from abroad.
I think this is not true. The Versailles Treaty caused great hardship in Germany during the 1920's with such an extreme inflation rate that one needed a wheel barrow full of Deutsch Marks to buy a loaf of bread. Hitler was elected Chancellor of Germany in 1933. The Luftwaffe was training in Russia to stay under the radar of the Versailles Treaty. Hitler was indeed planning on a war against France and when he marched German troops into the Saar (demilitarized zone) and Britain and France did nothing, he knew he had them whipped. Remember one thing, Germany under Hitler was a dictatorship. And unless you realize this one fact you can never understand the true history of Germany. ;) "When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one." Edmund Burke
It was France and England that declared war on Germany, not the other way around.
It was France and England that declared war on Germany, not the other way around. www.history.com/topics/wo...r-ii/world-war-ii-history On September 1, 1939, Hitler invaded Poland from the west; two days later, France and Britain declared war on Germany, beginning World War II. And you must realize that Hitler marching troops into demilitarized Rhineland on 7 March 1936 was also a provocation by Germany which the French and British did nothing about. www.nationalarchives.gov....ucation/resources/german- occupation/ "When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one." Edmund Burke
On September 1, 1939, Hitler invaded Poland from the west; two days later, France and Britain declared war on Germany, beginning World War II. and quickly abandoned by France and Germany
What brilliant, piercing writing -- "the subservient, tweet-baited US corporate media" et al! I've heard of Ms Benjamin -- aha, she's Code Pink en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Medea_Benjamin ........which means she's wrongly hated by gliberals and corn-soy- vatives alike. en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Medea_Benjamin This thing's a fresh conviction of the US's death-based lifestyle and Frankenstein foreign policy. "The damn fool says to push on" www.youtube.com/watch?v=24VOo7-ctKU We're just plain evil to the core, and have been for half our entire history -- America, the shining city on a hill and all that rot. "1,000 points of light" = GHWB. How not to hate us? Thanks for sharing Antiwar.com with us, Ada -- the one great site I can't bear to read directly. _____________________________________________________________ USA! USA! USA! Bringing you democracy, or else! there were strains of VD that were incurable, and they were first found in the Philippines and then transmitted to the Korean working girls via US military. The 'incurables' we were told were first taken back to a military hospital in the Philippines to quietly die. – 4um
Horseshit _____________________________________________________________ USA! USA! USA! Bringing you democracy, or else! there were strains of VD that were incurable, and they were first found in the Philippines and then transmitted to the Korean working girls via US military. The 'incurables' we were told were first taken back to a military hospital in the Philippines to quietly die. – 4um
It's also -- primarily -- about brainwashing us in tandem with Billy Gates' satanic injections. If it speeds up the internet at all I'll fry an egg on the Death Valley desert and eat it. _____________________________________________________________ USA! USA! USA! Bringing you democracy, or else! there were strains of VD that were incurable, and they were first found in the Philippines and then transmitted to the Korean working girls via US military. The 'incurables' we were told were first taken back to a military hospital in the Philippines to quietly die. – 4um
I wasn't there, I'm no expert or historian. but nobody will ever persuade me the war wasn't the Allies' fault -- indeed Britain's and FDR's when you come right down to it.
_____________________________________________________________ USA! USA! USA! Bringing you democracy, or else! there were strains of VD that were incurable, and they were first found in the Philippines and then transmitted to the Korean working girls via US military. The 'incurables' we were told were first taken back to a military hospital in the Philippines to quietly die. – 4um
If a dictatorship means throwing Jew commies out of the country and reclaiming lands stolen from it, let's have it. In view of what's become of the Glorious Allies, you get either Nazism or Communism in the modern Eurosphere and I know which one I'd rather live under ;) _____________________________________________________________ USA! USA! USA! Bringing you democracy, or else! there were strains of VD that were incurable, and they were first found in the Philippines and then transmitted to the Korean working girls via US military. The 'incurables' we were told were first taken back to a military hospital in the Philippines to quietly die. – 4um
Now that's all well put. How can we respect such a lying, bloodthirsty bastard? However could "we" have?
_____________________________________________________________ USA! USA! USA! Bringing you democracy, or else! there were strains of VD that were incurable, and they were first found in the Philippines and then transmitted to the Korean working girls via US military. The 'incurables' we were told were first taken back to a military hospital in the Philippines to quietly die. – 4um
In France during WW II, the Communists fought both the Germans and the Americans. ;) "When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one." Edmund Burke
Do tell?
_____________________________________________________________ USA! USA! USA! Bringing you democracy, or else! there were strains of VD that were incurable, and they were first found in the Philippines and then transmitted to the Korean working girls via US military. The 'incurables' we were told were first taken back to a military hospital in the Philippines to quietly die. – 4um
Yes. It is a little known fact of history. ;) "When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one." Edmund Burke
I've got to know more. C'mon, give!
_____________________________________________________________ USA! USA! USA! Bringing you democracy, or else! there were strains of VD that were incurable, and they were first found in the Philippines and then transmitted to the Korean working girls via US military. The 'incurables' we were told were first taken back to a military hospital in the Philippines to quietly die. – 4um
The hood was originally designed to spook lawless criminal niggers, but the entire country is now living in mortal dread of it (roll eyes).
_____________________________________________________________ USA! USA! USA! Bringing you democracy, or else! there were strains of VD that were incurable, and they were first found in the Philippines and then transmitted to the Korean working girls via US military. The 'incurables' we were told were first taken back to a military hospital in the Philippines to quietly die. – 4um
I'd take German occupied Paris over today's Muslim version!
How about that. In a modern composer's bio I read of German troops attending mass in occupied Paris. Have never heard this said of Russkies or ameriKans.
_____________________________________________________________ USA! USA! USA! Bringing you democracy, or else! there were strains of VD that were incurable, and they were first found in the Philippines and then transmitted to the Korean working girls via US military. The 'incurables' we were told were first taken back to a military hospital in the Philippines to quietly die. – 4um
I don't t know how much more I can elaborate. I wasn't there and all I can do at this time is to tell what little I am able to recall from reading about it. ;) "When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one." Edmund Burke
Note down this page please for when you come acrost it again ;)
_____________________________________________________________ USA! USA! USA! Bringing you democracy, or else! there were strains of VD that were incurable, and they were first found in the Philippines and then transmitted to the Korean working girls via US military. The 'incurables' we were told were first taken back to a military hospital in the Philippines to quietly die. – 4um
#2. To: Ada (#0)
If Trump was smart, he would seize this moment to embrace the
#3. To: Ada (#0)
#4. To: Lod (#3)
Declare victory and leave the God-forsaken ME, Africa, and Korea, now!
#5. To: Cynicom (#4)
#6. To: Ada (#5)
Don't have to look far to see who the bad people in the world are.
#7. To: Cynicom (#6)
History is already written and CANNOT be revised...
#8. To: Ada (#7)
History is being revised
#9. To: Cynicom (#8)
I used to be in a hurry, then I figured out I was just getting nowhere fast.
#10. To: Cynicom (#8)
Mussolini started his Fascist movement in 1919 and became Prime Minister in 1922, then later invaded Africa.
#11. To: Cynicom (#8)
FDR inherited a mess and made it worse.
#12. To: BTP Holdings (#11)
I used to be in a hurry, then I figured out I was just getting nowhere fast.
#13. To: IRTorqued (#9)
man up! gather your young ones, fight donnie's wars.
#14. To: Cynicom (#8)
FDR took over in 1932, the run up to WWII was already well along and in progress. In 1919 Japan made its final decision to move South for oil and land, namely, Australia. The die was cast, FDR had nothing to do with it.
#15. To: Ada (#14)
#16. To: Ada (#14)
Hitler did not want a war with Britain and France
#17. To: BTP Holdings (#16)
#18. To: Ada (#17)
#19. To: BTP Holdings (#18)
#20. To: Ada (#0)
#21. To: Cynicom (#1)
Horseshit
#22. To: noone222 (#2)
American people's desire to face the virus straight up and order the States back to work ! He should also address the end of 5G because it's about surveillance and not about a quicker internet.
#23. To: BTP Holdings (#18)
#24. To: BTP Holdings (#16)
Remember one thing, Germany under Hitler was a dictatorship. And unless you realize this one fact you can never understand the true history of Germany. ;)
#25. To: Ada (#7)
#26. To: NeoconsNailed (#24)
Nazism or Communism
#27. To: BTP Holdings (#26)
#28. To: NeoconsNailed (#24)
I know which one I'd rather live under
#29. To: NeoconsNailed (#27)
Do tell?
#30. To: BTP Holdings (#29)
#31. To: StraitGate (#28)
#32. To: NeoconsNailed (#31)
#33. To: StraitGate (#32)
#34. To: NeoconsNailed (#30)
I've got to know more. C'mon, give!
#35. To: BTP Holdings (#34)
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