Clouds of Conflict: Republican pacifism? Liberal war-mongering?

Our topic this time is war. Who seems hell-bent to start one… while accusing their opponents of the same thing. 

Rightists are accusing liberals of ‘seeking war with Russia’… while liberals helplessly watch the right foment war with Iran.

== The war they want ==

As I’ve been warning for a year, a US-Iran war has long been a centerpiece of Putin-Murdoch-Trump plans. Moreover, GOP presidents almost always go to war mid-way through their first terms, especially when – as we now see – they are desperate for a distraction.

Is a US-Iran war ‘winnable’? Look at a map! After all the silly-useless-made-for-TV tomahawk pips are done, there is only one end-game to such a conflict. It ends with Vladimir Putin extending the Russian umbrella to deter Yankee aggression, making Iran a protectorate, giving the Kremlin what's been a core Russian dream for 300 years. Geopolitically, no other outcome is even remotely possible. Look... at... a... map.

Who wins? Maximally Putin, but also every tyrannical power, from Trump and Murdoch to the Iranian mullahs (who get the perfect excuse for their mis-governance and a rationale to crush their democratic modernist youth). But above all Vlad, who gets an Iranian satrapy and high oil prices. Who loses? Look in a mirror. 

How might it start, in the wake of Donald Trump’s direct attack in the Iranian economy? Already, Iranian Revolutionary Guard boats are stepping up harassment attacks on a U.S. fleet that -- since we achieved energy independence under Obama -- no longer has any sane reason to be in the Straits of Hormuz, except to draw an attack. 

All it will take is a spark. So be familiar with these terms. Look them up. Know them. Teach them to your neighbors.

"Reichstag Fire."

"Gleiwitz Incident."

"Tonkin Gulf Incident."

"Saddam's Weapons of Mass Destruction."

“Remember the Maine!”

“And the Lusitania!”

“But believe Hitlers, because they can be trusted! As in the Munich (Helsinki) ‘deals.’” 

(Or when "dealmaker" Two Scoops gave Kim Jong Un everything on his wish list, and in return got empty promises that soon vanished in smoke. The U.S. and its staunchest ally are harmed, as in every trumpian deal.)

Oh, then there’s a phrase "the lying press" ~ or ‘lugenpresse’ as Goebbels put it. (Showing where Rupert Murdoch gets his ideas.)

Tell your neighbors to be ready for the coming trumped-up provocation event.

Ask them – in advance -- if that would suffice to be their "red line."

== A pot, accusing a new kettle ==

Oh, but accusations of war fever fly both ways! The latest riff from the murdochian right is that any hostility toward the Russian mafia-oligarchy boils down to liberal ’war-mongering’. 

Even participating in NATO and ANZUS and other mutual defense treaties - that deterred aggression and kept the world’s greatest peace for 70 years - is now tantamount to fomenting World War Three.

“Better Russian than Democrat” said the T-shirt at a recent Donald Trump rally. This enlightening article compares Moscow's current cozy support of the US radical right to their 1930s subversion via the American far-left. There are no essential differences. Indeed, some of the very same men are using some of the very same methods against us, as they did back when they wore hammer-and-sickle pins and sang the Internationale. This time, though "it’s not a proletarian revolution. Instead, it’s a kleptocratic coup d’état: The modern Kremlin project seeks to undermine Western democracies, break up the E.U. and NATO, and put corrupt relationships rather than the rule of law at the center of international commerce."

Again, there is one demographic that will make all the difference in coming months — ten million or so decent-conservative neighbors who are not racist jerks, or science haters, yet who remain loyal to the GOP/confederacy out of habit, or by mainlining doses of uncut Hannity.

Losing just ten million from his fragile coalition is Rupert Murdoch’s (and Putin’s) worst nightmare. So peeling away just a couple is your mission. Yes, yours. Moreover, you’ll never know which insanity might be the last straw, letting you pry one or two of these “ostrich republicans” out of the madness. This “liberal war-mongering” thing is just loony enough that it might turn the trick.

        

Only here’s an irony! As we’re about to see, “liberal war-mongering” is not a new riff. Nor is it 100% without historical justification.

== Democrats were soft on communism? ==

For starters, Republicans can claim zero credit for “containing communism” during the Cold War. Sure, they hated the left, diving into wild, divisive and hallucinatory crazes like McCarthyism. But starting with Taft, Dewey, Dirksen and onward, the actual GOP objective was isolationism. Some even said: “Let Stalin have Europe, and good riddance.”

When it came to acting assertively to counter Soviet aggression, that was almost entirely Democrats, beginning with George Marshall, Dean Acheson, Harry Truman and so on. In fact, vigor for containment of Leninism was especially propelled by the US labor movement and the AFL CIO. As I show in my article: The Miracle of 1947.

Yes, Eisenhower, Nixon and Reagan went along, though the latter two were zealous in seeking to make deals favorable to despotic leaders. And yes, the dems eventually went way too far in their eagerness to “contain,” falling for what we now know to be a well-planned trap in the quagmire of Vietnam. I’m not saying every Democratic reflex was executed wisely!

But what’s clear is that the GOP’s tendency toward isolationism and contempt for allies is nothing new. And they get no credibility or credit for the generally better world that emerged across the American Pax.

== Who benefits from war? ==

Look at the postings out there! Propelled by Kremlin-basement trolls and spinoffs from Fox News, the latest sally is for confederates to accuse America’s “deep state” - the FBI, civil service, intelligence agencies and U.S. military Officer Corps - of fomenting strife with Russia in order to make profits selling weapons!

Seriously. The very same guys yammering for war against Iran, and who quagmired us into Iraq and Afghanistan, are now the peaceniks denouncing any hostility to Russian aggression as motivated by War Profiteers!  (And many lefties are falling for it.)

Except… well, there’s a rub.

During the first World War, yes, there was some political manipulation of warring powers by spectacularly evil munitions makers, since that's what had to be replaced on the battlefield as massive numbers of shells were expended. But today's munitions are far more efficient. Contracts to replace a couple of hundred tomahawks ain't squat, nor worth risking damage to the home nation's policy and health. Nor worth the risk of getting caught.

Look at who actually benefited from the last three trumped-up GOP wars, in Iraq then Afghanistan, then Iraq again. It was not military contractors like Northrup, who do best with peacetime projects aimed at high-tech preparedness. (Note: levels of measurable military readiness are always better during democratic administrations. That’s always. And yes, I mean always.)

The only beneficiaries from those recent GOP wars were (1) the Saudis, of course, and (2) Bush-Cheney family companies that got sweetheart, no bid, logistics contracts to build giant U.S. bases filled with mess halls and video arcades, air conditioning and runways. Halliburton, Bechtel etc. made off with tens of billions in corrupt, “emergency” overcharges. (Along with the $12 Billion in raw cash bills that Cheney flew into Baghdad, never to be seen again.) And note this: our military folks hated all of it! But they saluted and obeyed.

There was a corrupt “deep state,” all right, but it was the GOP.  It was the Bush-Cheney clan. It was Fox.