by John Blumenstiel
Disclaimer: All views expressed are those of the author.
We have consistent bipartisan agreement for perpetual global war and it is now coming home to roost.
Exhibit A: Ukraine. The roots of the conflict lie in long-term bipartisan animosity toward first the Soviet Union and then its successor, the Russian Federation. This animosity found new expression in the war in Ukraine, and was initiated during the Obama administration’s support for the 2014 coup against the democratically elected president of Ukraine. The ensuing civil war has expanded into a U.S./NATO proxy war with Russia under both Democratic and Republican administrations.
Exhibit B: China. It was the Obama administration that “pivoted to Asia.” Since that pivot, increasingly hostile acts have been promoted by U.S. presidents — both Democratic and Republican — from renouncing the 70-year-old U.S. “one China” policy while arming and encouraging Taiwan independence to tariff wars and sanctions threats.
Exhibit C: U.S. sponsorship of Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people exacerbated conflict in a nuclear-armed tinderbox. The genocide began, undeterred by Democratic President Joe Biden, unchallenged by Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, and aggressively supported by the current Republican President Donald Trump.
Exhibit D: The approaching war on Venezuela. In March 2015, President Obama signed Executive Order 13692 claiming that Venezuela “constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States” and initiated the first stage of sanctions. Jump forward 10 years and we have yet another pathway of bipartisan support for aggression against another foreign government.
These bipartisan foreign policy disasters have isolated the United States, created global disdain for our aggression, brought about great human suffering in the world, and severely weakened our domestic financial security, freedom, and democracy.
We must see the “forest” of our systemic failings and not just the “tree” of Donald Trump. If we remain fixated on Donald Trump, — on voting time and time again for the “lessor evil,” failing to see the pattern of our systemic dysfunctional goal of global domination — we are doomed to bequeath the current political and economic dysfunction to our children and our children’s children.
Is it not now time for a people-supported alternative political party, unabashedly committed to peace, to come to the fore to address our underlying disastrous geopolitical aspirations? To begin to restore sanity and stability to our domestic lives? We do have choices. We must gain the wisdom and courage to pursue them.