Once you get beyond the partisan puppet show, Caitlin Johnstone says you see a single oligarchic empire continuing the same murderous agenda.
U.S. presidential debate, Sept. 29, 2020.
By Caitlin Johnstone
CaitlinJohnstone.com
There’s a news story about a U.S. military convoy entering Syria being shared around social media with captions claiming that President Joe Biden is already “invading” Syria which is getting tons of shares in both right-wing and left anti-imperialist circles.
The virality of these shares has inspired clickbait titles like “Joe Biden Invades Syria with Convoy of U.S. Troops and Choppers on First Full Day as President,” which are being shared with equal virality.
But if you read the original report everyone jumped on, accurately titled “U.S. military convoy enters northeast Syria: report,” you don’t have to read too far to get to this line:
“Other local media report that such maneuvers are not unusual as the U.S. often moves transfers equipment between Iraq and Syria.”
So, while this is a movement of troops between illegitimate military occupations which have no business existing in either country, it is nothing new and would have been happening regardless of which candidate had won the last U.S. presidential election.
Another inaccurate narrative that’s gone completely viral is the claim that Biden is sending more troops to Iraq. This one traces back to a single Twitter post by some Trumpy account with the handle “@amuse” who shared a Jerusalem Post article with the caption “BREAKING: President Biden is considering reversing Trump’s drawdown in Iraq by adding thousands of troops to combat growing terror threats in the region as evidenced by Thursday’s attack near the U.S. embassy.”
If you read the actual JPost article titled “Baghdad bombing could be the Biden admin’s first challenge” you will see that it contains no such claim, and if you were to search a bit you would find @amuse claiming that they were sharing something they’d learned from “sources” in D.C. instead of accurately summarizing the contents of the article.
Unless you know this person and know them to be consistently trustworthy, there is no valid reason to believe claims allegedly said by alleged anonymous sources to some openly partisan anonymous account on Twitter.
But the bogus tweet was amplified by many influential accounts, most notably by Donald Trump Jr with the caption “Getting back into wars on the first full day. The Swamp/War Inc. is thrilled right now.”
Getting back into wars on the first full day.
The Swamp/War Inc. is thrilled right now. ??? https://t.co/rfKVVXEREh
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) January 21, 2021
Its virality then caused it to work its way outward to dupe many well-meaning anti-imperialists (myself included until I looked into it) who are vigilant against Biden’s notorious warmongering, and now there’s a widespread narrative throughout every part of the ideological spectrum that Biden is escalating warmongering in both Syria and Iraq.
It is entirely possible – probable even – that reliable warmonger Joe Biden will end up sending more U.S. troops to Iraq and Syria at some point during his administration. But if the antiwar community keeps staring at the movement of ground troops with hypervigilant intensity, they won’t be paying enough attention to the areas where the more deadly aspects of Biden’s hawkishness are likely to manifest.
Trump’s base has been forcefully pushing the narrative that the previous president didn’t start any new wars, which while technically true ignores his murderous actions like vetoing the bill to save Yemen from U.S.-backed genocide and actively blocking aid to its people, murdering untold tens of thousands of Venezuelans with starvation sanctions, rolling out many world-threatening Cold War escalations against Russia, engaging in insane brinkmanship with Iran, greatly increasing the number of bombs dropped per day from the previous administration, killing record numbers of civilians, and reducing military accountability for those airstrikes.
Jan. 28, 2019: The Trump administration’s U.S. National Security Advisor John R. Bolton, left, and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announce sanctions of the Venezuela oil company PDVSA. (The White House, Wikimedia Commons)
Trump may not have started any “new wars,” but he kept the old ones going and inflamed some of them. Just because you don’t start any new wars doesn’t mean you’re not a warmonger.
Rather than a throwback to “new wars” and the old-school ground invasions of the Bush era, the warmongering we’ll be seeing from the Biden administration is more likely to look like this. More starvation sanctions. More proxy conflicts. More cold war. More coups. More special ops. More drone strikes. More slow motion strangulation, less ham-fisted overt warfare.
It is certainly possible that Biden could launch a new full-scale war; the empire is in desperate straits right now, and it could turn out that a very desperate maneuver is needed to maintain global domination. But that isn’t the method that it has favored lately.
The U.S. empire much prefers nowadays to pour its resources into less visible acts of violence like economic siege warfare and arming proxy militias; the Iraq invasion left Americans so bitter toward conventional war that any more of it would increase the risk of an actual antiwar movement in the United States, which would be disastrous for the empire.
So rather than tempt fate with the bad publicity of flag-draped coffins flying home by the thousands again imperialism is now served up with a bit more subtlety, with the military playing more of a backup role to guard the infrastructure of this new approach.
It appears clear that this would be the Biden administration’s preferred method of warmongering if given the choice.
The incoming Secretary of State Tony Blinken now advocates replacing the old Bush model of full-scale war with “discreet, small-scale sustainable operations, maybe led by special forces, to support local actors.” Biden’s nominee for CIA Director William Burns urged caution in the lead-up to the Iraq invasion and later expressed regret that he didn’t push back against it.
Rather than picking bloodthirsty psychopath Michele Flournoy for defense secretary as many expected, Biden went with the less cartoonishly evil Raytheon board member Lloyd J. Austin III. All this while depraved coupmonger Victoria Nuland is being added to the administration and the murderous Venezuela coup is folded into its policy.
Antiwar protest in San Francisco, Aug. 29, 2013. (Steve Rhodes, Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Too much of the antiwar community is still stuck in the early 2000s. The Western war machine just doesn’t generally kill that way anymore, and we need to adjust our perspectives if we want to address the actual murderousness as it is actually showing up. If you keep looking out for obsolete ground invasions, you’re going to miss the new form of warmongering completely.
Trump supporters who claim to oppose war missed this completely throughout the entirety of his presidency, confining the concept of “war” solely to its most blatant iterations in order to feel like their president was a peacemaker instead of a warmonger.
One of the few positive developments that could potentially arise from the Biden administration is helping such people to recognize acts of violence like starvation sanctions as war, since they will be opposing Biden and that is how this new administration will be manifesting much of its murderousness.
The political/media class likes to keep everyone focused on the differences between each president and his immediate predecessor, but we can learn a whole lot more by looking at their similarities. Biden’s warmongering is going to look a lot like Trump’s — just directed in some different directions and expressing in slightly different ways — despite all the energy that has been poured into painting them as two wildly different individuals.
Once you see beyond the partisan puppet show, you see a single oligarchic empire continuing the same murderous agendas from one sock puppet administration to the next.
Caitlin Johnstone is a rogue journalist, poet, and utopia prepper who publishes regularly at Medium. Her work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking her on Facebook, following her antics on Twitter, checking out her podcast on either Youtube, soundcloud, Apple podcasts or Spotify, following her on Steemit, throwing some money into her tip jar on Patreon or Paypal, purchasing some of her sweet merchandise, buying her books Rogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone and Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers.
This article was re-published with permission.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
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Caitlin gets it right.
Democrats pretend to be moral people while supporting war crimes, ethnic cleansing and every other vile thing they can get away with.
Then when the shit hits the fan they blame others. Hillary looses, it must be Russia’s fault. It couldn’t possibly be because Klinton sold the Rust Belt and put millions of workers out of a job. It couldn’t possibly Obama being a war criminal or bailing banks while homeowners get the shaft.
I love how Democrats think they’re so good and better than the other side when the fact is they’re monsters. Equal opportunity monsters perhaps but really just using EO to cover for their many crimes against humanity.
Yes it’s a knock out how Trumpers manage to glorify the Trump. I guess the poor buggers have to have Something to believe in. It’s comforting to get into their fantasy about him, and unsettling to see the reality.
Anyway, “Meet the New Boss…..” if Boss he is. Won’t be long before Harris takes over is my guess.
I would add that under Trump the military budget again expanded while we were treated to grotesque Trumpisms such as “our beautiful military.” And yes the insane brinksmanship with Iran could have, except for the sane measured leadership of the Iranians, sent home thousands of flag-draped coffins.
What has not and will not be acknowledged is that the US is now in the 7th decade of a domestic military coup.
Thanks to Caitlin for exposing how the diversionary partisan psyops operatives keep the proles engaged in our self-defeating partisan diversionary internecine warfare. She is also correct that the current theme is hybrid warfare, because the wet dream of the worst of the US militarists – engaging in multiple simultaneous large theater campaigns – only ends one way.
Even if you are right to give the Empire the benefit of the doubt in this one instance, with the reinstatement of Nuland, Raytheon and numerous other hawks, it is only a matter of time before “Assad Must Go!” is once again, official policy in the Middle East.
Thanks again for another great article Caitlin! Keep the truth coming!!
Biden may not be able to do much warmongering, even if he wants to. Aside from the generals, many military people think the Biden people stole the election and fewer may be willing to put their lives on the line for Biden. That includes young people who were considering joining. Biden’s domestic agenda will fail also. Trump is lucky to have escaped the consequences of Obama’s and Trump’s policies.
Additionally, Russia and Syria are both stronger despite the harsh sanctions they are living under. Putin is very patient and will take his time before letting Syria send troops to the north east.
“The most basic principle of all is that of not harming others, and that means all people, all life and all things.”
— ROLLING THUNDER Native American spiritual leader
*
Imagine the world’s people grasping the concept of Oneness and then taking the necessary steps to manifest Oneness as forever reality on planet Earth. Some might call such imaginative people dreamers or impractical artists, however – as confirmed by evidence clearly visible upon gazing intently in any of the four directions – contemplation of such an ideal global society and actions to bring it to fruition will create heartfelt tears of joy and the greatest of appreciation from those yet unborn, seven generations from now.
Peace.
Core pro-Israel Lobby war hawk organizations like Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA) lauded Trump’s order (15-January-2021) that relocated Israel to CENTCOM’s area of responsibility.
Using the religious phrase “Abraham’s command” (25-November-2020), JINSA lobbied hard to “smooth the way for the Pentagon to utilize Israel for more regional operations, most directly by updating the prepositioned U.S. stockpile there” in preparation for the “looming major war” Israel desperately wants to inflict on the region.
Policy papers by pro-Israel Lobby Swamp/War Inc groups JINSA (Red) and Brookings (Blue) vividly depict wars Biden will execute on behalf of Israel (+GCC BFFs).
Article discussing implications here
hXXps://ejmagnier.com/2021/01/21/dangerous-escalation-in-the-middle-east-the-us-and-israel-hand-in-glove-in-the-next-battle/
It’s all good if Biden/Obama/Democrats do it, especially if the CIC and/or his team represent one of many “diverse” identify groups. Right?
So many people I interact with, especially those who hate Trump, find what I describe above perfectly acceptable or have managed to ignore it.
Nathan try thinking out of the box, step some distance away from thinking about our abnormal binary political system, this madness is killing the country. Make a legitimate effort to view this current mess with an open mind and think constructively..
By the way I can do very well with out Trump & company.
I fear that Uncle Joe is going to kiss and make up with the republicans who have obviously taken leave of their senses. This is something you seem to miss entirely.
I have never thought Biden was the answer to our problems but the guy who said he “could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and get away with it” has in fact managed to do far worse. Last I heard our population is down by 500K and he will never be held to account for his failures in his dealing with the virus.
But I digress.
Biden is a hawk, we don’t need any more very least one as president. The need is to strike out in a new direction, Biden is not of the adventurous nature. Fifty years in D.C. is enough to ruin any one. See his picture. Just as the very few that Obama spent there tainted him. And I blame the “corrupted by money” democratic party. The republicans are no different.
We clearly have the worse government ever and corporate money bought it.
The Deep State does not see a difference in parties other than how they need to be persuaded to drink the kool aid. I dislike the Clinton bunch at least as much as I do Trump. But even the Clintons can’t suicide us all.
Believe what you want to believe but there is very little difference in either party.
Bidens proclivity to kiss and make up with the republicans in the sake of unity is pure nonsense. The party of no wants no unity, they cannot survive be obstructionist then. But the Deep State would love it.
Biden keeps up his Zionist war like ways and he will not see another term. Trump seemed to be in love with Benny “the Blade” natinyahoo & company, like two birds of the same feather.
So no it isn’t ” all good ” , at this point damned little is “all good”, it’s that millions of other Americans thought the fake president needed to go.
All the while the two part system prevails the rest of us lose.
Thanks CN
You left out Venezuela,
Twitter blocks Venezuelan National Assembly account,
Almost Unnoticed Biden Continues Trump’s Cruel Venezuelan Policy