I’ve been watching with delight the news that rehabilitated (by the corporate media) war criminal President George W. Bush cannot speak in public without being confronted by veterans and their family members.
W’s hecklers reported scattered boos but also complimentary responses from the audience and even police.
When Michelle Obama tells reporters that she and W are on friendly terms because “our values are the same,” this must be inconvenient for the blaring narrative that there are huge, HUGE differences between the Democratic and Republican parties. But in the cult of personality surrounding the chief executive office of the U.S., a good smile for the cameras counts as a “value” I guess.
Fawning over the architect of the War on Terror is likely a needed counterweight to the public’s vast dillusionment with the war on Afghanistan coming to an end (sort of).
And the absurdly named AUKUS rises from its ashes.
The “security pact” to menace China in its own backyard has angered France due to the cancellation of a lucrative contract to build submarines for Australia. The Aussies will now purchase U.S.-made nuclear-powered submarines capable of launching nuclear weapons.
The nonsensical aspect of Australian “defence” menacing its chief trading partner is beautifully captured in this clip from the satirical show Utopia.
This is the kind of international relations we in the U.S. get when our Secretary of “Defense” just resigned and cashed out from the board of Raytheon. (And many of the Pentagon brass arrived through the revolving door from other big weapons manufacturers like General Dynamics, Boeing, and Northrup Grumann.)
When President Obama announced a “pivot to Asia” he was hampered by having to operate under the auspices of that belligerent alliance, NATO. China is just so inconveniently far from the North Atlantic. (As was Afghanistan. But, 9/11.)
In the intervening years, the U.S. has bullied Japan into dropping its post WW2 commitment to self-defense only and has continuously built up military bases in Okinawa, South Korea, and Australia.
War as a marketing scheme continues to make its purveyors filthy rich.
War as a lived experience continues to produce corpses, orphans, widows, PTSD, starvation, and massive contributions to climate chaos — our biggest actual security threat.
Maybe this is why the People’s Republic of China does not start wars?
