Imagine choosing an individual like John Bolton, a former George W. Bush administration official, who saw no wrong in the Iraq War or the no-find WMD (weapons of mass destruction). Bolton continues to demonize Iran and any countries not fully aligned with the priorities of Saudi Arabia and Israel.
President Trump pledged to bring the troops home. He criticized our involvement in the Middle East. And, now, he does the exact opposite, recruiting neoconservative war hawks like John Bolton to be his national security adviser. Mike Pompeo, who replaced Rex Tillerson as secretary of state, sees no problem with executing “whistleblowers” or engaging in the same foreign policies that caused blowback to our homeland in the first place.
Knowing about Bolton’s history, either Donald Trump is delirious, has absolutely no real understanding of what neoconservatives want, or was a closet neocon. Neocons want more wars and foreign/military entanglements everywhere. For what reason?
Haven’t the past 17 years been enough? The suffering of millions of people in foreign countries, and troops dying, or with serious physical and mental injury. The government-launched War on Terror as a response to 9/11 got us into the Iraq War, the Afghanistan surge in troops, and funding and training of rebels in Syria, who later helped strengthen ISIS.
The U.S. is supporting Saudi Arabia’s dirty war of aggression against the poorest Arab nation, Yemen. The U.S. under Trump has created more instability by relocating America’s Israel embassy to Jerusalem, a city that was jointly held through past parties’ agreements. He has increased drone strikes and expanded the Pentagon’s discretion in matters of military bombing, and drone use, killing civilians and even rescue workers in targeting terrorists, on suspicion only.
There isn’t one campaign pledge made in foreign affairs that Trump hasn’t violated. He cleverly weaved in conservative-libertarian positions and political messaging to win the votes of libertarians who thought he would be a “peace” president. Unfortunately, he has done nothing but create more havoc on the world scene, empowering the war-mongering neoconservatives who started all these wars with their propaganda in the first place.
A Bolton and Pompeo takeover of these two cabinet-level governmental bodies is nothing more than the virulent continuation of the same old Bush/Obama policies that got us in this mess to begin with! Unfortunately, these reckless and irrational American policies have resulted in too many deaths of American troops and innocent civilians including children in foreign lands.
Isn’t it time that all Americans stand up and call it for what it is? It’s immoral! Until Trump reverses these decisions, “Make America Great Again” is nothing more than an empty campaign marketing slogan. Unless Americans oppose these unending wars, America will succumb to the worst vices one can imagine. Imagine a president that is friendly with Saudi Arabia, known for its beheadings of dissenters, and on the next leg of his 2017 overseas trip, presents Pope Francis with a tome of books by Martin Luther King, a great moral leader who promoted non-violence like Mahatma Gandhi.
What a disservice to the American people and our nation to continue down the same path, which will lead to the same outcomes: more destruction, more killing and deaths, less national security, greater government surveillance, and eventually the further reduction of individual liberties and freedom. The silence must stop!
Deborah K. Smarth
PUBLISHED IN APP.COM https://www.app.com/story/opinion/readers/2018/03/23/donald-trump-foreign-policy-john-bolton-george-w-bush-barack-obama/452954002/