By SJ Otto

If there is one thing I detest politically, more than anything else, it is this country’s (USA) addiction to war. Over the last 30 years there has been nearly NO discussion on US foreign policy. That means no politician; neither Democrat nor Republican in Congress have discussed alternatives to the endless wars this nation is involved in. The mainstream press, which is The Wichita Eagle here in this part of Kansas, has also ignored any dissent of the US military industrial complex.

During the presidency of Ronald Reagan there was a powerful peace movement to oppose his intervention in Central America. That included Reagan’s attempts to topple the Marxist oriented Sandinista regime in Nicaragua and to stop his attacks on the leftist Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) guerrilla movement in El Salvador. Despite all the variations of Marxists and left oriented groups in Central America and the Caribbean, Reagan treated all those nations as part of a cold war strategy that was by now obsolete. He treated his strategy of war in Central America as if he were fighting in Eastern Europe. Reagan was delusional about the cold war and no one close to him made any effort to change any of that. Many US conservatives played along with Reagan’s delusions that Central America leftist movements were nothing more than an extension of Eastern Europe and satellite nations of the Soviet Union. Before Reagan left office he invaded Grenada, a small Island nation that had been run by the Marxist government of Maurice Bishop. Bishop had come to power through a revolution (or coup), in 1979. He was overthrown by another Marxist, on the 19^th of October 1983 Bernard Coard. Reagan invaded the country on the flimsy excuse that there were nearly 1,000 Americans in Grenada at the time and they were in danger from the Coard Government. Many of the Americans were students at the island’s medical school. Reagan claimed that the invasion was needed to protect those students. Nearly the entire world condemned the invasion of Grenada, but the US simply ignored world opinion and did what was popular with US conservatives. Before the invasion Reagan had included Grenada in his cold war agenda of destroying all Marxist governments in Central America and the Caribbean. Now it was clear that the US had no respect for international law.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, the US took on a new role, now that this country saw itself as the winner of the Cold War. That lead to the idea that the US was now the only super power and Marxist regimes were abandoning their Marxist, anti-imperialist ideology for that of European Democratic Socialism. With the Soviet Union out of the way, the US began to flex its muscles, making invasions common place in combination with the idea of world conquest. Reagan’s follow up, President George Bush, invaded Panama, about 1989, to remove Manuel Noriega and replaced him with a US puppet regime. Communism was no longer the reason behind the conquest of nations. Noriega was accused of being a drug dealer. In the later part of his term in office, Bush began the first war in Iraq, on the 28th February 1991. In many ways this was the beginning of what Bush himself called “the new world order.” Since that time the US has invaded and occupied Iraq and Afghanistan. Today the US is involved in about 7 wars, including the two occupied nations just mentioned Yemen, the Korean Peninsula and Syria. We can also include Venezuela, a nation we may be at war with soon.

This country has become the major military power. By now most leaders realize that invasion by the US is no contest. Losing is a sure thing by all those who dare stand up to the US Empire. And the invading warier is now a part of the American culture. We see army personell honored as “heroes” even though many have not done anything that heroic. Army people are constantly on television, in commercials, TV shows, news shows, as they surprise their loved ones, such as their children, after coming back from conquering and plundering other nations. We see them in the movies and TV dramas. The US warrior is now a part of the American psyche. No nation spends more money on their military than the US. Nearly half the US budget goes to the military. Unlike the days of Ronald Reagan there is virtually no opposition to the US war machine. That includes the US Congress, all US presidents since Reagan and the overwhelming majority of the US mainstream media.

Some activists blame Barack Obama for the end of an active peace movement. A lot of political activists believed Obama would put an end to the endless wars the US was fighting. Most were disappointed when he made no effort to rein in on this country’s many wars. It was as if this country just gets into one more endless war after another one. Since that time many anti-war activists have become disillusioned as well as just plain overwhelmed with this country’s militarism.

National Public Radio (NPR), usually considered to be a liberal source of news, has been very supportive of the military, covering its “warier heroes” and US’ wars.

Here in Wichita I have written to The Wichita Eagle,[1] with a letter opposing this country’s meddling in Venezuela. It has not been published. But they ran a pro-war editorial column Sunday by Marc A. Thiessen,[2] “Great nations don't quit wars before they prevail.” While complaining that we have endless wars, his way of fixing them is to try and win all of these un-winnable “anti-terrorism” wars:

“Great nations do not fight endless wars,” President Donald Trump declared in his State of the Union address. It was a line that could have been delivered by President Barack Obama, who in 2015 memorably said, “I do not support the idea of endless war.”

Just a few days before Trump’s address, his own party delivered the president a stinging rebuke when Senate Republicans passed a resolution opposing his Syrian and Afghan withdrawals by an overwhelming bipartisan 68-to-23 vote. Trump’s defenders say: That’s just the foreign policy establishment advocating “forever war.” When, they ask, will these wars end? When will we be able to declare victory and go home?”

His article is full of contradictions. Just how many materials, assets and how many lives are we supposed to sacrifice in order to win these wars? How do we know when we have won such a war? Will we ever consider ending these wars? We have had 30 years of people running around with those giant styrofoam hands yelling “we’re number one,” as if we were simply at a football game. Enough is enough. A country dedicated to the conquest of others can never feel safe. Such attitudes erode civility and lead to a false sense of security. And for those who want to bring about change in this country, how will that be tolerated when change is not tolerated in our puppet regimes or of those democratic countries we are supposedly installing around the world. Change will not come easy to a nation that has forged a culture of force and coercion.

Tulsi Gabbard: US Taking Dangerous Path on Venezuela

[1] I sent this Letter to the Editor of The Wichita Eagle—and a week later it hasn’t been posted—so here is the un-published letter finally published, here at my blog:

I am sick and tired of living in a country where hypocritical leaders believe they have the right to tell every other leader in the world what they can and can’t do and decide who should lead in every country in the world, including Venezuela.

One of the biggest hypocrisies of our country is that our president, Donald Trump, who was never elected by a majority of the people, can claim that he is trying to defend democracy in Venezuela. Originally Nicolás Maduro was elected by a simple majority of the people. Donald Trump has never been elected by a majority. If Trump and Mike Pence are so concerned with spreading democracy, why did they turn a blind eye to Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, of Turkey, when he changed the system to strip congress of most of their power, leaving him as a powerful dictator? Trump and Pense did nothing.

When the two of them talk of returning Venezuela to democracy, what they really mean is capitalism. Socialism does not automatically mean dictatorship. It is an economic system. Trump has sanctioned Venezuela and sabotaged their economy so he can say the socialism doesn’t work. No system works well when they are sanctioned and sanctioned just because Trump and his ilk simply don’t like socialism.

We, in the US, are supposed to have a free and open press with open debates. But the main stream press today seems to completely ignore Maduro’s supporters, who are mostly poor and working class, and side solidly with Maduro’s opponents, including Juan Guaidó . In foreign affairs, today in this country, there is NO debate and no looking at both sides. Maduro’s opponents are mostly upper class and middle class people who traditionally had the support of the government and they ignored the poorer classes and their needs. Now the US has convinced the opposition that there is no need to care about the plight of the poor. They can take over the country and go back to ignoring poor and working class people and neglecting them as they have done traditionally.

This is not something I take pride in for my country. This country needs to let the people in these countries solve their own problems. The US, Trump especially, need to but out. Let the people in Venezuela solve their own problems and stop treating socialist leaders as if they are all dictators simply because they have chosen not to follow capitalism.

Steve Otto

[2] Marc A. Thiessen, “Great nations don't quit wars before they prevail,” The Wichita Eagle, February 10, 2019, p. 21A.