Wednesday, August 3, 2016

Gilbert Doctorow — War or Peace: the essential question before American voters on November 8th

In matters of substance as opposed to character assassination that both parties’ candidates have engaged in freely, what separates the candidates and makes it worthwhile to register and vote on November 8th is the domain of international relations. This, as a general rule, is the only area where a president has free hands anyway, whatever position his party holds in the Congress. Here the choice facing voters is stark, I would say existential: do we want War or Peace?
Do we want to pursue our path of global hegemony, which is bringing us into growing confrontation with Russia, meaning a high probability of war, (the policy of Hillary Clinton), or do we want a harmonious international order in which the U.S. plays its role at the board of governors, just like other major world powers (the policy of Donald Trump).
Let me go one step further and explain what “war” means, since it is not something that gets much attention in our media, whereas it is at the top of the news each day in Russia.
“War” does not mean Cold War-II, a kind of scab you can pick to indulge a pleasure in pain that is not life threatening. War means what our military like to call “kinetics” to mask the horror of it all. It means live ammunition, ranging from conventional to thermonuclear devices that can devastate large swathes of the United States if we play our hand badly, as would likely be the case for reasons I explain below should Hillary and her flock of Neocon armchair strategists take the reins of power in January 2017.…
Une parole franche
War or Peace: the essential question before American voters on November 8th
Gilbert Doctorow | European Coordinator of The American Committee for East West Accord

3 comments:

Kaivey said...

I liked the end:

For reasons of Hillary’s past record of ill-considered adventurism abroad and for reasons of the mad advisers from the Neocon camp whom she has in her inner circle today, it could be a fatal mistake to vote Hillary Clinton on November 8th.

About Trump’s past record in power, there is not much to say. About his present promises on foreign policy, one may have doubts. However, the bad blood between him and the Neocons ensures us that a Trump presidency would finally put them out on the curb, where they belong. And if we step back from our present policies on Russia, Moscow will surely reciprocate and seek accommodation. After all, even as late as 2008 Vladimir Putin harbored hopes of his country joining NATO.

Peter Pan said...

For his part, in a recent press conference, President Vladimir Putin asked rhetorically why Western leaders “don’t get it” – why they are not heeding Russia’s warnings on its determination to protect vital security interests, including by means of preemptive strikes.

Maybe they want an incident to ensure that we will be in a cold war for the next 50 years. Or maybe they want all out war.

Unknown said...

With all of the billionairs and all of the neocon murderers backing Clinton why would anyone doubt that she is a the peace candidate who will do all that she can for the people? I can't wait until she cleans up Wall Street.