You think he poses a threat to world peace. And you're right. But keep in mind that the rest of the world feels the same way about the United Stateswith very good reason. Despite the mass media's sanctimonious rhetoric, Trump absolutely reflects America's values. In fact he embodies them. He's a lying, cheating, incorrigible hypocrite. He makes the Egyptian pharaohs look diffident. He'll stop at nothing to serve his own interests, which are born entirely of vanity and greed. Anyone who's crushed or destroyed along the way is collateral damage, and probably had it coming to them anyway. These are Trump's values; they are also America's.
Naturally, our instinct is to pretend otherwise, because if we accept that Trump is America, then the belief system around which our empire is built disintegrates, and the whole architecture comes crashing down. The central doctrine of said system goes something like this: any action undertaken by the United States, no matter how destructive, is underpinned by a benevolent motive and is thus morally justifiable. This principle is so deeply ingrained in the American ethos that it doesn't even need to be invoked; it's simply taken for granted as the basis for any "serious" discourse on whatever the US happens to be doing at a given time.
Take Bush and Cheney's invasion of Iraq, the hideous consequences of which are still unfolding as I write these words. It is now kosher, and has been for some time, to speak out against that extraordinary act of aggressionas long as you don't do so in a way that's meaningful. So we'll concede that the war was a mistake, or that we prosecuted it the wrong way, but not that it was a first-class example of what the International Military Tribunal at Nuremburg called "the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." That was the tribunal's definition of military aggression, given that it provides the necessary context for the crimese.g. genocidewe all fear and abhor. Example: Saddam Hussein's brutal war of aggression against Iran, which the US supported, enabled him to take genocidal action against Iraq's Kurdish population in 1988, for which the US tried to blame Iran. Likewise, the recent genocidal killing of the Yazidis at the hands of ISIS would not have been possible if not for the chaos and mayhem wrought by the US invasion. Nor would ISIS even exist in its present form, if at all.
Of course, it would be a grave dereliction of duty for the mainstream media to acknowledge these undeniable truths. Since their fundamental purpose is to shore up the empire, they have an obligation not to undermine its claims to moral purityand they take this obligation very seriously. Thus, when affecting to dissent from their masters in Washington (which they do on occasion, to keep up appearances), responsible outlets like The New York Times and The Washington Post will always stop short of calling a spade a spade. Hence the now-popular opinion that the invasion of Iraqa supreme international crimewas a "strategic blunder." In other words, while the outcome may have been appalling, at least our hearts were in the right place. All is forgiven.
Traditionally, US leaders have succeeded in putting a human face on an inhuman state; it's one of their primary functions. Monstrous things occurred on Barack Obama's watch, but since he projected an air of dignity and wisdom, it was easy (for some) to make-believe that Libya was smashed apart for a good reason (though nobody can say what that reason was). George W. Bush came across as dim-witted and guilelessjust the sort of person who would commit a "blunder" as opposed to a crime. Ronald Reagan contrived a wholesome demeanor and spoke like a character from Leave It to Beaver while his administration trained Latin American death squads to torture and murder their populations.
It's essential for American presidents to possess humanizing qualities; they need something to endear them to a suggestible public. Donald Trump has obliterated this custom. His personality is as grotesque as his policies are. There's no contrast between the actions he (meaning the government) takes and the manner in which he behaves. Take a look at this pathetic video clip of him shoving past the prime minister of Montenegro so that he could be at the front of the group for a photo. Trump is absolutely the kind of personnot just leader, but personwho would invade a sovereign country for the sake of controlling its resources and dominating the surrounding region, and he doesn't care who knows it. He wears his cynicism and hypocrisy on his sleeve; it's like a badge of honor. This is serious a problem for the empire. It's hard to sell the doctrine of American Exceptionalism when you've got a vulgar man-child as president. Trump and altruism don't mix; it's actually impossible to imagine him doing anything for unselfish reasons. So if Trump is damaging America's standing in the world, as his critics often posit, it's because he too closely resembles the state. He plays the role of figurehead too straight. It's too honest a portrayal. How ironic for a pathological liar!
As I mentioned above, it's not difficult to understand why the rest of the world regards the United States as the greatest threat to world peace: there's nothing preventing them from seeing our behavior objectively. It's as simple as that. Non-Americans havent been conditioned, as we have, to take American virtue as read. While we perceive US actions through a haze of media apologetics and obscurantism, those existing outside of our "exceptional" bubble perceive them with total clarity and draw the inevitable conclusions, one such conclusion being that the US is a global menace.
To give a topical example: How many people outside the United States do you think accept that the recent shooting-down of a Syrian fighter jet that was flying in Syrian airspace was an act of self-defense? I can't imagine the number being any bigger than zero, and yet this is the line the Pentagon, and ergo the Western media, have trotted out for us. It really doesn't get any more absurd. Since we've already established how hard it is for us to evaluate US actions with any objectivity, let's try an analogy. I show up uninvited to another person's house. This person does not like me to begin with. He has a reason not to like me. I've meddled in his personal affairs on numerous occasions. I've encouraged his neighbors to do the same. His life is in shambles as a result. While he's working to get his house in order, me and a few of my cronies trespass on his home and start trashing the place. When he confronts one of my friends, I shoot him. Afterwards I say it was self-defense. Do I have a case? No, which is why I get Alan Dershowitz to represent me in court.
Of course, the stakes are a bit higher in Syria. In fact they are about as high as they can get. Russia, which flies combat missions over Syria every day, has responded to our latest act of aggression by suspending, for the second time, the de-confliction agreement that exists to prevent mid-air collisions between American and Russian aircraft. Moscow also stated that, going forward, any US coalition planes flying west of the Euphrates River will be tracked as targets. The powder keg is one step away from exploding into a shooting war between the world's two great nuclear powers. This is the worst case scenario, and yet it's entirely plausible. There's no excuse to assume that we would escape such a confrontation without a nuclear exchange. And what are the consequences of a nuclear exchange? Oliver Stone recently put this question to Vladimir Putin. His answer was frank: "I don't think anyone would survive such a conflict."
Judging from its actions in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, the US is simply indifferent to the prospect of nuclear war. World domination is the overriding concern. That's why we're deploying troops and performing military drills along Russia's border, absorbing more and more and more of Russia's neighbors into NATO, encircling Russia with a missile defense shield (the purpose of which is to establish nuclear primacy), attacking Syria with cruise missiles, shooting down Syrian and Iranian aircraft in Syrian airspace where our mere presence is a crime, helping to rip apart Ukraine by supporting ultranationalist elements bent on cleansing their country of ethnic Russians, spending $1 trillion to modernize and expand our nuclear weapons program, swelling the Pentagon's budget to almost $700 billion, whipping up a new Cold War with false and incendiary rhetoric, and so on and so forth. The list is interminable.
Russia is thus faced with a harrowing dilemma. How do you respond to the provocations of an adversary as arrogant, reckless and violent as the United States? What do you do with a rogue state that has the power to annihilate the planet twenty times over? If you give it an inch it will, like all bullies, take a mile, and yet the alternative to capitulation is mutual destruction. Putin will avoid the latter at all costs. For instance, it's hard to picture the Russians going to war over Syria, despite all they've invested in that conflict. When push comes to shove, they won't put their necks on the line to defend Assad. On the other hand, the Iranians will, because they have no choice. For them Syria is literally an issue of existential significance. If the US, Israel and Saudi Arabia somehow get their way in Syria, and Damascus falls, it's curtains for Tehran. They have to fight. The same logic applies to Russia in the context of Ukraine, which is why that crisis was, and is, so extraordinarily dangerous. As Russia scholar Richard Sakwa wrote in his recent book, Frontline Ukraine, "the Russo-Georgian war of August 2008 was in effect the first of the 'wars to stop NATO enlargement'; the Ukraine crisis of 2014 is the second. It is not clear whether humanity would survive a third."
This is precisely why some people, including myself, were encouraged by Trump's stubborn refusal to demonize and threaten Russia prior to the election. His independence on this point, and a few others, went some way in redeeming his uniquely dreadful campaign. Of course, it didn't take long for Trump, gutless egomaniac that he is, to learn which side his bread is buttered on. Now dtente with Moscow seems more unrealistic than ever. H.R. Clinton, John "Insane" McCain, Little Marco Rubio and the rest of the strident Russophobes are getting exactly what they want. The Cold War is back with a vengeance. Hell, Trump even snatched away the olive branch Obama extended to Cuba in one of his legacy-padding PR stunts. Why? Because we must keep punishing the Cuban people for their former president's defiance of American hegemonyan unspeakable crime. #NeverForget.
It seems pretty likely at this point that Trump will be stopped by the various domestic forces working against him. And while I will certainly drink to that, the question remains: Who will stop the American empire?
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