[Like his predecessors from Truman to Obama, Trump has been caught
in the trap of America’s blind, deluded militarism. ]
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TRUMP MUST CHOOSE BETWEEN A GLOBAL CEASEFIRE AND AMERICA’S LONG
LOST WARS  
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Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies
May 5, 2020
Nation of Change
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_ Like his predecessors from Truman to Obama, Trump has been caught
in the trap of America’s blind, deluded militarism. _

More Fort Bragg soldiers are headed to New York City as officials
there just reported the deadliest day of the coronavirus outbreak with
731 deaths., WNCN

 

As President Trump has complained
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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 U.S. 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
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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 U.S. 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 U.S. corporate media, but Trump has
dropped at least 69,000 bombs
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and missiles on Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, more than either Bush or
Obama
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did in their first terms, including in Bush’s invasions of
Afghanistan and Iraq. 

Undercover
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of highly publicized redeployments of small numbers of troops from a
few isolated bases in Syria and Iraq, Trump has actually expanded
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U.S. bases and deployed at least 14,000 more
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U.S. troops to the greater Middle East, even after the U.S. bombing
and artillery campaigns that destroyed Mosul in Iraq
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and Raqqa in Syria
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ended in 2017. Under the U.S. 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
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and an even more isolated and beleaguered military occupation.

Now a compelling call by U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres for a
global ceasefire
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during the Covid-19 pandemic has given Trump a chance to gracefully
deescalate 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
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to join other world leaders supporting a U.N. Security Council
resolution
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backing the Secretary General’s call. But within days it became
clear that the U.S. 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 U.S. troops home, even as his lost wars and ill-defined global
military occupation expose thousands of troops to the Covid-19 virus.
The U.S. 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
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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
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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 counter-productive
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Afghanistan
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Syria
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and Yemen
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were already suffering from the worst humanitarian crises and most
compromised health systems in the world, making them exceptionally
vulnerable to the pandemic. The U.S.’s defunding of the World Health
Organization leaves them in even worse straits. Trump’s decision to
keep U.S. 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 U.S. Embassy in Baghdad was purposely and
presciently built with a helipad on the ground
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duplicating the U.S.’s iconic humiliation
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Saigon – now Ho Chi Minh City.

Meanwhile, nobody on Joe Biden’s staff seems to think the U.N.’s
call for a global ceasefire is important enough to take a position on.
While a credible accusation of sexual assault
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main message that “I’m different from Trump,” his recent hawkish
rhetoric
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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 U.N. 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
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have shown that the Pentagon never had a real plan to defeat the
Taliban. The Iraqi parliament is trying to expel U.S. forces
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from Iraq for the second time in 10 years, as it resists getting
dragged into a U.S. war on its neighbor Iran. The U.S.’s Saudi
allies have begun U.N.-mediated peace negotiations
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with the Houthis in Yemen. The U.S. is no closer
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to defeating its enemies in Somalia than it was in 1992
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Libya
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and Syria
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remain mired in civil war, 9 years after the U.S., along with its NATO
and Arab monarchist allies, launched covert and proxy wars against
them. The resulting chaos has spawned new wars in West
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continents. And the U.S. still has no viable war plan to back up its
illegal sanctions
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and threats against Iran
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Venezuela
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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
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have shown that the Pentagon never had a real plan to defeat the
Taliban. The Iraqi parliament is trying to expel U.S. forces
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from Iraq for the second time in 10 years, as it resists getting
dragged into a U.S. war on its neighbor Iran. The U.S.’s Saudi
allies have begun U.N.-mediated peace negotiations
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with the Houthis in Yemen. The U.S. is no closer
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to defeating its enemies in Somalia than it was in 1992
[[link removed]].
Libya
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and Syria
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remain mired in civil war, 9 years after the U.S., along with its NATO
and Arab monarchist allies, launched covert and proxy wars against
them. The resulting chaos has spawned new wars in West
[[link removed]]Africa
[[link removed]] and a refugee crisis
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continents. And the U.S. still has no viable war plan to back up its
illegal sanctions
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and threats against Iran
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Venezuela
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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 U.S.’s imperial or “expeditionary” military
forces regularly lose
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their own simulated war games against formidable Russian or Chinese
defense forces
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while scientists warn that their new nuclear arms race has brought the
world closer to Doomsday
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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 U.N. ceasefire
call, the pandemic, anti-war public opinion, the presidential election
and Trump’s glib promises to bring U.S. 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 U.N.’s
global ceasefire with open arms; support a U.N. Security Council
resolution to back up the ceasefire; start socially distancing U.S.
troops from people trying to kill them and places where they are not
welcome [[link removed]]; 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 UNobel
Peace Prize more than Barack Obama
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