Cavalier disrespect for the rule of law is showing in various places across the US as Trump deploys the military.
Donald Trump is correct in saying that his renaming of the department of defence to the department of war sends a message to the rest of the world.
He may think that message is that the US won’t be pushed around, but his actual and potential foes – and his allies – may see that as the first step on the road to World War III.
Trump believes America won all the important wars of the 20th century… conveniently and insultingly omitting the sacrifices of US allies during World War II and the ignominious loss in the Vietnam War.
In the ’40s, America considered itself the “arsenal of democracy” and built its current massive economic power upon history’s biggest industrialisation project, to supply weapons and supplies for the effort to defeat Hitler’s Nazis and Imperial Japan.
That massive military-industrial complex is still there – and it still needs feeding, through war.
Warmongering is already in evidence as Trump has dispatched the US military to confront Venezuela over that country’s alleged involvement in harbouring the drug cartels supplying illicit drugs to the US.
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JD Vance responds to war crime allegations
Vice-President JD Vance, in responding to criticism that the US had committed a war crime in sinking a Venezuelan alleged drug-running boat, killing its 11 occupants last week, without due judicial process, opined that “I don’t give a sh*t” about what people think.”
That macho attitude and the cavalier disrespect for the rule of law are showing in various places across the US as Trump deploys the military to deal with domestic issues like crime and even pushback protests against his policies.
When the US department of war mobilised an entire country in World War II, it was to defeat dictatorships and further the cause of democracy.
The irony is that Trump is looking more and more like a dictator himself.
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