As we have seen so many times, most recently with President Biden’s attack on Iranian-backed militias in Northern Syria, a change in American leadership doesn’t necessarily mean a change in American foreign policy: perpetual war.
20 years after the War on Terror began, we have accepted that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan only represent the start of a much larger strategy. To make our continued action even more alarming, think about the near-complete lack of support our military actions receive from the general public.
Worse than that, our last two chief executives held the public’s opinion before office.
Dipping his toe in the water of politics back in 2013, Donald Trump produced a volume of tweets outlining his opposition and disgust over then-President Obama’s bombing of Syrian government forces. 4 years later, the roles would be reversed, with Trump dropping bombs and Joe Biden accusing the administration of going against the Constitution.
To show the scope of our current war theater, the US conducted counter-terrorism operations in 85 countries from 2018-2020. As illustrated in this graphic below,
When we pair this chart with our knowledge of history, what we see is an ongoing conquest. While president after president has failed our current public’s call to get out of the Middle East, what we see is that America never leaves any country – and our spread of power is only expanding.
What do you say of a culture that simultaneously seeks equal representation of genders in all high-paying jobs and the indiscriminate bombing of innocent women and children in 7 countries? When we hear that infrastructure costs are too high and hospital supplies too low, think of the Republicans and Democrats who have told us that our safety and freedom depend on the virus-like spread we see in the info-graphic.
Without self reliance on energy we will never leave the middle east. Trump was headed in the right direction. Pulling out Afghanistan was a priority for the Trump administration. The left was totally against that even though they were up in arms when Bush junior went back in. The inconsistencies are baffling to say the least. Trump’s war was of an economic nature. He was more than clear that he felt war was a waste of human life and conventional war could not be won by any country. In a world of mutually assured destruction conventional war is pointless. Cyber wars and economic war is the only war that’s winnable. If Trump had a second term I’m sure the United States would have walked away from the middle east. Three major peace deals were brokered on the middle east under Trump’s administration yet nothing was reported in the news. Saudi Arabia was soon to follow. Three Muslim nations agreed to accept Isreal’s right to exist for the first time in history and nothing is said. This report itself fails to mention such historic events. Amazing what is considered news worthy.