We live in the command center of empire, the mother-country of imperialism, and the terrifying modern-day Sparta. With an annual billion dollar war budget, the US is the biggest threat to world peace and the largest force for war, destruction, and “fire and fury” ever assembled on earth.
The current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have already cost hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians and 6,800 American soldiers their lives with a price tag of $5.6 trillion. The true cost in human terms is incalculable and ongoing. On top of that the US spends 20-plus times more on militarism annually than on diplomacy, and it consistently chooses war as its default position (see Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan and on and on).
And this is one more reason the Democratic Party establishment and their liberal talking-head enablers can’t mount an effective opposition to the rising fascist threat: they agree that the US is the “exceptional” nation, that it should have the exclusive right to stride across the earth like Colossus, threatening, invading, and occupying other nations at will.
In Singapore Donald Trump promised to suspend joint War Games on the Korean peninsula (we shall see), admitting that they represent a provocation to North Korea. Anti-war forces in the US and around the world have called these exercises a provocation for decades, and we’ve demanded their cessation.
So we won?
Not according to the liberal hawks. Rachel Maddow called the suspension “an absolute jackpot for the North Korean dictator,” “one of the things he wants most on earth,” something Trump “has just given [him] for free, for nothing.” New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof said “the cancellation of military exercises will raise questions among our allies,” and that Trump was snookered into using the word “provocative.”
Pathetic.
If you’re against war, then supporting inter-Korean efforts to officially end the stalemated Korean War, and to advance (slow-motion) toward reunification is a good thing. Yes, also moving toward denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, including getting US nuclear weapons and all troops out.
Korea has the right to self-determination, to decide its own fate without meddling by the US, Japan or any other aspiring imperialist. Mother country peace activists and revolutionaries stand for peace and justice, and against war and militarism. We fight for a world at peace and in balance, powered by love.
Sorry that the liberal hawks won’t join us.
Bill Ayers 