Category Archives: American History

Venezuela Next on Trump Hit List for Regime-Change Operation

While it appears that the United States has finally realized that it has little leverage over Russia in the Ukraine war either to halt hostilities or alter battlefield conditions, it has, for now, begun to disengage from the contest despite the desperate pleas from Ukraine and its European backers. President Donald Trump has said that he will no longer provide the besieged Eastern European country with aid, but will sell weapons to NATO nations who will then give them to the Volodymyr Zelensky regime.

As an aside, that there has been little criticism of Trump’s arms sales, which will be used for mass slaughter, the destruction of private property, and the enrichment of the military industrial complex, is a sad commentary on the ethical standing of the Western world. At one time, there was an adherence to the concept of a “just war” and the protection of the lives of non-combatants and their property. These topics have, however, long since perished into the Orwellian memory hole.

Trump’s decision to abandon his demand for a ceasefire and begin shifting the burden for the war to Europe was, no doubt, influenced by the MAGA supporters who were pushing him to fulfill his campaign promise of ending the war or, at least, America’s involvement in it. While some analysts have called the Alaska summit only a “tactical retreat” for the U.S. Empire, it was enough of a gesture to assuage MAGA that the president was going to at last put America first in foreign policy.

These hopes, however, have been dashed with Trump’s recent actions toward Latin America.

Earlier this month, Trump reignited hostilities with Venezuela and its president, Nicolas Maduro. It must not be forgotten that, in his first term, Trump supported efforts to overthrow Maduro in a failed coup led by then Venezuela National Assembly president Juan Guaido.

Attorney General Pam Bondi announced that the U.S. would double the reward (now $50 million) for information that would lead to the arrest of Maduro, who the Trump administration has accused of being “one of the largest narco-traffickers in the world.”

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yvan Gil dismissed Bondi charge, calling it “pathetic” and a “desperate distraction” from her handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case and Trump’s refusal to release the files pertaining to his former close friend’s heinous crimes according to the BBC.*

On Aug. 19, the United States escalated matters further by deploying three Navy destroyers, accompanied by 4,000 troops, off the Venezuelan coast. Not only was the move aimed at combatting Maduro’s supposed drug ties – denied by him and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum – but the action appears to be another attempt at regime change. According to the Trump administration, it does not consider Maduro a legitimate president. This opinion was seconded by White House Press Secretary Karolin Leavitt:

The Maduro regime is not the legitimate government of

Venezuela. It is a narco-terror cartel, and Maduro, it is the

view of this administration, is not a legitimate president.

He is a fugitive head of this cartel, he has been indicted in

the United States for trafficking drugs into the country. **

That’s funny. When Russian President Vladimir Putin makes similar claims about the legitimacy of the Zelensky regime in Ukraine, they are dismissed by the United States and its European partners even though Zelensky has suspended democratic elections and locked up regime critics.

If Trump believes his bellicose actions in the Caribbean, which also includes talk of attacking Mexican drug cartels, will stop the flow of illicit drugs to the United States, he is delusional. The war on drugs in the 1980s, Lyndon Johnson’s war on poverty, the war on alcohol in the 1920s (Prohibition), and all of America’s overseas wars have made the problems they intended to solve that much worse. The only constant from these follies has been the expansion of state power.

Drug addiction and alcohol abuse are vices that should be handled by families, churches, organizations, and,when necessary, professional medical personnel. The government cannot fix such problems nor is it constituted to do so. Even if Trump were to reduce the flow of narcotics, it may simply drive domestic illicit drug prices up, which will entice more sinister criminal elements into the trade.

Despite Trump’s campaign rhetoric, he is once again meddling in the affairs of another sovereign nation with threats of armed intervention if there is not regime change. While Venezuela has taken no military action against the United States.S. nor is it likely that a conflict between the two could lead to a nuclear conflagration like in Eastern Europe, Trump’s actions demonstrate that he has no intention of pursuing an America-first foreign policy.

Unfortunately for Venezuela – and whoever is next on Trump’s list for aggression – until America cannot financially afford to police the world, the United States it will continue its hegemonic path.

*Sean Seddon, “US Offers $50m reward for arrest of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro,” BBC, 7 August 2025, https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwy1wn1x521o

** Dave DeCamp, “Trump Administration Deploys Three US Navy Destroyers and 4,000 Troops Near Venezuela,” Antiwar.com, 19 August 2025. https://news.antiwar.com/2025/08/19/trump-administration-deploys-three-us-navy-destroyers-and-4000-troops-near-venezuela/

Antonius Aquinas@antoniusaquinas

https://antoniusaquinas.com

Economic Collapse May Be the Only Way to Prevent World War III

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The tensions between the West and Russia over the Ukraine have escalated over the past few months with an almost daily occurrence of provocations and belligerent talk mostly from members of NATO. In response, Russia sent a naval contingent to the Caribbean in a show of force. Some of the Western provocations include:

Polish President Andrzej Duda’s willingness to place U.S. nuclear weapons on Polish soil;
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius’ s call for reinstitution of a draft;
A hand-delivered check by Biden to Volodymyr Zelensky as part of the $95 billion U.S. “defense” package for Ukraine
A request by Zelensky for Westerners to train troops on Ukrainian soil; and
US and NATO okaying Ukraine to fire long-range American weapons as much as 12 miles into Russian territory

It is apparent that, until Russian President Vladimir Putin capitulates to Western demands in regard to Ukraine, NATO will continue to push the envelop. In hindsight, analysts such as Paul Craig Roberts have, from the start, urged Putin to swiftly finish off Ukraine militarily and replace the Zelensky regime with one favorable to Russia. A protracted struggle, Roberts warned, would give the West more time to supplement Ukraine: “The conflict dragged on, because having declared the intervention limited, the Kremlin left Kiev to continue the war, thus playing into Western hands as the West gradually widened the war.” *

Unfortunately for Russia, Paul Craig Roberts’s prognostication is now coming to fruition.

The counter argument to a more aggressive Russia is that Putin realizes that the West is run by a pack of sociopaths who would have no qualms launching WWIII, which would include the use of nuclear weapons, or ignite a major military conflagration in the area. The Russian president sees that the West holds a decisive military advantage over Russia even if it allied with China. The U.S. alone spends more than the combined expenditures of the top nine militaries in the world.

The United States has thus the ability and means to operate and intervene in almost any sector of the world. It is able to do so because it has had, for the longest time, an economy which was able to not only produce goods for the domestic market and also for its foreign adventures. It takes wealth to be able to arm, transport, deploy, and maintain men in distant lands.

Because of America’s relatively free economy, it could produce a seemingly endless supply of military hardware for itself, but also to buy off client states and fund proxy wars. In contrast, the Soviet Union could never export communism in any significant way after World War II because it lacked the means to do so. Its economy was a basket case that could barely feed its citizens.

While the U.S. may have the military capability to be the world’s policeman, its actions in the Ukraine are ultimately controlled by ideology. And, for the longest time, U.S. foreign policy has been one of interventionism and war with the ultimate goal of the establishment of a one-world state. Its proxy war in Ukraine is designed to cripple Russia, which stands as a roadblock to this long-desired goal.

Since it is apparent that the principles guiding U.S. foreign policy are not going to change anytime soon, the nation will continue on its bellicose course until it no longer has the means to do so. This would mean a financial crisis, most likely in the form of a dollar collapse, which would ground the economy to a halt.

In such a scenario, the United States would be following the course that Great Britain took after World War II, when its empire could no longer be sustained since the country insanely exhausted itself in the conduct of fighting two world wars.

A similar, earlier historical example was the Western Roman empire, which, through currency debasement, heavy taxation and government largesse, ruined its economy and then could no longer maintain its empire.

The ideology of Great Britain and Rome did not change, however, they simply no longer had the means to sustain and expand their empires.

Despite massive deficits, record-setting inflation, and a recent bank crisis in March, 2023, a financial crisis does not appear to be on the horizon. Although things can change quickly, for the foreseeable future, the U.S. empire is in no danger from internal collapse.

While an economic collapse would mean misery for millions of Americans, it would be, in a sense, retribution for the nation’s murderous and costly foreign policy, which has brought, and still is bringing, untold death and destruction to millions of people.

*Paul Craig Roberts, “Normalizing War with Russia,” PaulCraigRoberts.org, 6 June 2016, https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2024/06/06/normalizing-war-with-russia/

The Hypocrisy of the Sam Bankman-Fried Conviction

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Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), the founder of FTX and Alameda Research hedge fund has been found guilty on all seven counts related to financial fraud and money laundering in a lower Manhattan court room. The trial took a lot less time than expected as did the jury’s deliberation of the case which speaks to the overwhelming evidence against the onetime financial guru of entertainers, crypto enthusiasts, and politicians. SBF could face up to 100 years behind bars.

Gary Gensler, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, said that “Sam Bankman-Fried built a house of cards on a foundation of deception while telling investors that it was one of the safest buildings in crypto.”* Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damian Williams concurred, calling Bankman-Fried’s actions “one of the biggest financial frauds in American history.”**

SBF’s conviction is particularly fitting since he had marketed himself as a new-style capitalist who was more interested in philanthropy and giving away his wealth, instead of enriching himself. That so many were taken in by this charlatan, especially a number of supposedly savvy investors, demonstrates again that greed remains a significant part of the human condition.

While SBF will hopefully receive his just rewards for his wrongdoings, there is another fraud that has been taking place in the financial world for quite some time which dwarfs exponentially the scam of the one-time “crypto-king.” Unlike SBF, however, this entity continues to exist and faces no prosecution, but instead is often praised for its operations.

The institution, of course, is the Federal Reserve and, for that matter, all central banks. Central banks do what FTX did but on a colossal scale. While SBF’s crimes were limited to those who foolishly invested with him, the Fed’s customers are all those who hold dollars and have little option to not use them unless they want to revert to barter and become desperately poor. Like what SBF did to his investors, the Fed has defrauded (although surreptitiously) its “customers” by robbing them of their purchasing power through monetary debasement. The loss of purchasing power by the public has been redistributed to the Fed, the political class, and financial elites.

The Federal Reserve

While Fed officials, the government, academia, and the sycophantic financial press may try and obfuscate the matter, the fact remains that the Federal Reserve has the ability to create money out of thin air and without limit. It is counterfeiting writ large. No criminal, be it SBF, Bernie Madoff, or the Mafia could ever dream of such a scenario!

The Fed’s creation of money through credit expansion is certainly more subtler than the swindling which SBF engaged in or what took place in earlier times from “coin clipping,” but the criminality of the action is the same. Under Western jurisprudence, however, central banking is now enshrined in law as a legitimate part of financial life.

As SBF wrapped himself in an aura of a benevolent and charitable new-age businessman, the Fed hides behind its criminality by presenting itself as a necessary and indispensable factor for the nation’s economic well-being. Without the Fed and its dual mandate of “price stability” and full employment, the economy would collapse.

Yet, this is a ruse. Before the advent of central banking, economic life went about quite nicely. It was only when central banks appeared that the dreaded boom and bust cycle became more frequent and severe. Moreover, in the pre-central bank era, the world was on a metallic monetary standard which protected peoples’ purchasing power.

The Fed was created by the major U.S. banks and top politicos at the time to allow banks to counterfeit without facing the consequences of their actions. Stable prices and low unemployment are secondary functions of the Fed and mostly spoken about for public relations. Protection of the system, especially the solvency of the Big Banks and now funding the national government through debt monetization, remains the prime responsibility of the Fed.

This, of course, is not to exonerate SBF. Why is it though that the laws which convicted the rogue crypto financier are not applied to America’s central bank? When sovereigns of the past debased the money supply most acknowledged its immorality and pointed out who benefited. In this supposed enlightened age where “equal justice before the law” is a ruling mandate of the legal system, its application apparently does not apply to the monetary authorities of the world.

Capitalism, at its core, is a moral argument where respect for property rights, the freedom to exchange, honest money, and the liberty to become an entrepreneur are the foundations which the system rests. Those who legitimately satisfy consumer tastes and demand are rightly rewarded. Naturally, in doing so, entrepreneurs enrich themselves but they do so by providing for the needs of their customers and in the process create jobs and incomes for those they employ, all of which is done on a voluntary basis.

Central banking is the essential instrument of “crony capitalism” which is the antithesis of free enterprise. Crony capitalism is a new version of mercantilism which was condemned by the likes of Adam Smith and was one of the factors why the American Revolution was fought. It has since come back with a vengeance.

Besides the immorality of central banking, the Fed’s manipulation of the money supply has deleterious effects on economic life. Inflation hurts the poor and the working class disproportionately while the Fed’s control of interest rates and credit is the reason for the dreaded business cycle.

The present age has prided itself in its efforts to attain justice in regard to race relations, the environment, economic equality, and now gender recognition. Yet, the immorality of central banking remains and while Sam Bankman-Fried may be incarcerated, social justice warriors (as well as conservatives) willfully ignore the counterfeiting elephant in the room. Until central banking is outlawed, a truly just social order is an impossibility.

*https://www.zerohedge.com/political/sam-bankman-fried-found

**https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/12/sam-bankman-fried-has-been-arrested.html

Antonius Aquinas@AntoniusAquinas

https://antoniusaquinas.com

The Convention of States Project: A Bad Idea

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Similar to Patrick Buchanan’s campaigns, Newt Gingrich’s “Contract with America,” the Tea Party, and to some extent Donald Trump’s presidency, the Convention of States Project* will not solve the crises that America faces. It will, undoubtedly, like most of the previous reform and populist movements be sabotaged by the ruling class if it ever gets close to accomplishing its goals.

The Project’s rhetoric is “old-style” conservative/populist-speak which seeks to “[propose] amendments that impose fiscal restraint on the federal government, limit the power and jurisdiction of the federal government, and limit the terms of office for its officials and for members of Congress.”** Some of the proposed amendments include:

Congressional term limits
Requiring a two-thirds vote of the House and Senate to increase the public debt
Restoring the Commerce Clause to its original intent and scope
Repeal of the 16^th Amendment, which gave us the income tax
Giving states, by a three-fifths vote, the power to negate any federal law, regulation or executive order giving Congress an easy means of overriding regulation

So far, 19 state legislatures have called for a constitutional convention, 34 states are needed for a convention to be called and, for an amendment to be passed, it must be approved by three quarters of state legislatures.

The state legislatures who have signed on have realized that the federal government has become omnipotent and the individual states are now merely appendages to Washington. “The states,” said South Carolina state representative Bill Taylor, “have sort of lost their voice, and all we can do now is beg from the cheap seats and say, ‘Hey, don’t do that.’”***

After the totalitarian and draconian efforts of the U.S. government and those around the world the past two years in response to the “pandemic,” Mr. Taylor’s sentiment is, to say the least, an understatement!

The fundamental problem with efforts such as the Convention of States Project is that they do not understand the nature of the crises that both America and most of the world face. For America, its current malaise can be traced shortly after its independence with the adoption of the Constitution itself.

While it has long been touted as a great document of freedom and liberty, it is anything but. The “founding fathers” knowingly created a powerful central government and decreased the sovereignty of the individual state governments which had existed under the Articles of Confederation.

In the words of Murry Rothbard, the Constitution was a coup that, for the most part, was the antithesis of the spirit and drive of the American Revolution which was a movement against political centralization and empire:

It was a bloodless coup d’etat against an unresisting

Confederation Congress. . . . . The Federalists, by use

of propaganda, chicanery, fraud, malapportionment of

delegates, blackmail threats of secession and even

coercive laws, had managed to sustain enough delegates

to defy the wishes of the majority of the American people

and create a new Constitution.****

Worse than the power grab was the establishment of an omnipotent state as Rothbard incisively continues:

The drive [for ratification] was managed by a

corps of brilliant members and representatives

of the financial and landed oligarchy. These

wealthy merchants and large landowners were

joined by the urban artisans of the large cities in

their drive to create a strong overriding central

government – a supreme government with its

own absolute power to tax, regulate commerce,

and raise armies.*****

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The celebrated “separation of powers,” and “checks and balances” within the federal system and even the Bill of Rights, so often lauded by conservative and populist commentators, have proven from the very start to be ineffectual in stopping the expansion of state power.

The Constitution itself declares that it is the ultimate authority as Article VI states:

This Constitution and the laws of the United States which

shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made,

or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States,

shall be the supreme law of the land. . . . [Italics mine.]

The massive and now unresolvable social, economic and political troubles both in the U.S. and around the world stems from a concentration of political power that is inherent in the nature of constitutional government. This power is augmented and sustained by a system of central banking which provides the nation state with seemingly unlimited financial power to implement its various social engineering schemes, conduct continuous warfare, and has the ability to crush any opposition to its hegemony.

The solution, which is all too obvious, but not attainable in the current ideological atmosphere dominated by statist thinking, is political decentralization.

The smaller political alignments under decentralization would probably coalesce around peoples with similar economic, social and religious affiliations and status and those with similar ethnic and racial backgrounds. Such a system would be truly diverse and undoubtedly lower social tensions which derive from the central state’s forced integration polices.

Once political decentralization became a reality, the natural and mutually beneficial relationships and interactions between peoples would emerge. The immense advantage of free trade – the widening of the division of labor and specialization – would be the norm between societies since smaller countries could not afford to restrict trade since doing so would lead to autarky and the resultant fall in standards of living to primitive levels.

Likewise, a universal monetary standard, most likely based on gold and silver, would arise among differing communities since a multitude of currencies would lead to monetary chaos and render economic calculation an impossibility. Since no central state could impose its currency, the only honest and sound money – gold/silver – would be quickly adopted by all.

The mass invasion of the U.S. taking place under the negligence and encouragement of the Biden Administration could also be thwarted through political decentralization. Areas where the lives and property of people are threatened by invaders have more of an incentive to effectively deal with unwanted groups than bureaucrats living often times thousands of miles away.

Each jurisdiction would make its own policies on who or how many it wanted in its territory. Moreover, each community could expel undesirables without interference from those who are not property owners or members of such communities.

While those behind the Convention of States Project and the state legislatures which have called for a constitutional convention may be well meaning, they will ultimately fail. Such efforts are a wrongheaded approach to address the myriad of problems that plague the U.S. and, for that matter, the entire world.

Instead of attempts to amend the Constitution or though the electoral process by finding the “right candidate,” the very viable and historically proven alternative of de-centralization through secession is the only pathway to ultimate success. Until the break-up of the nation state is accomplished, America and the world’s future will be considerably bleak.

*https://conventionofstates.com/

**https://starkrealities.substack.com/p/activists-more-than-halfway-to-forcing

***Ibid

**** Murray N. Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty. Vol. 5, The New Republic, 1784-1791, ed., Patrick Newman. Auburn, AL.: Mises Institute, 2019, p. 306.

*****Ibid.

Antonius Aquinas@AntoniusAquinas

https://antoniusaquinas.com

On the 75th Anniversary of V-E Day and the Coronavirus Scamdemic

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The iconic Champs-Élysées and its Arc de Triomphe stand eerily empty before V-E Day ceremonies Friday in Paris.

This month (May 8th) marks the 75^th anniversary of “V-E Day” when German forces unconditionally surrendered to the “Allies.” Numerous articles, essays, and monographs have appeared commemorating the anniversary and while all are mostly laudatory, some have acknowledged that the outcome had its “drawbacks.”

By any objective rendering, for Western Civilization WWII was an unmitigated catastrophe whose reverberations continue to this day. Forty-three million troops were senselessly killed between American, British and Continental forces while 38 million civilians perished. Europe’s current demographic nightmare had its unfruitful seeds cut down with the depopulation of the Continent’s finest for the maniacal aims of the world’s power elites. Not only the loss of life, but the destruction of property and the cultures upon which they were built have been incalculable. Although the US emerged in the post-war world as the dominant economic and political power (as its mainland remained unscathed from wartime destruction), its participation in the conflict was a titanic geopolitical blunder.

The defeat of Germany and Japan, which would have not come about without US military might, left vast power vacuums in Eastern Europe and the Far East that Soviet Russia and Red China ruthlessly filled. Half of Europe would fall behind the Iron Curtain, subjected to fierce political repression and debilitating socialistic economic planning. In Asia, Communist regimes sprang up with the assistance of China and the Soviet Union which America attempted to counter in Korea and Vietnam at a staggering cost to its domestic economy and social tranquility.

Even after the fall of Soviet Communism, the US’s supposed lethal enemy, America maintained its empire as its “defense” spending continued to escalate beyond all reasonable levels which has led, in part, to the decline of domestic living standards of nearly all except, of course, for the politically well-connected. Not only has military adventurism bankrupted the country, but there is now “blowback” from the countless enemies either real, imagined, or contrived – created by US overseas meddling. Moreover, the nation’s military-industrial and security complex has turned on its own citizens with spying, surveillance, and data gathering that would be the envy of Stalin’s Cheka. Yet, it was US participation in WWII which cemented the nation on its ruinous course as global policeman. This was predicted and feared by “isolationists” at the time which is why they so courageously fought to keep the country neutral.

While the peoples of the world suffered from the Apocalyptic-like destruction of the war, certain groups did gain. The benefactors were obvious – Stalin and the Soviet state which was given free reign in Eastern Europe; the US military and security industrial complex which had a world empire to police; Chinese Communists, with Imperial Japan decimated, it left little opposition for them to gain control in China and beyond. For almost everyone else, even the so called “victors,” WWII was a Pyrrhic victory at best.

For the remainder of 20^th century American history, US entry into the Second World War proved to be the catalyst which led to the immense cultural, economic, and political changes, which many conservatives, libertarians, and traditional-minded people at the time and afterwards opposed. Yet, it was US participation in the war which meant that all of those changes would become permanent. Harry Elmer Barnes, who was a keen social theorist and wrote extensively in sociology, clearly understood the effects of US entry into the war:

Drastic changes in the domestic realm can also be attributed to the impact of our

entry into the second World War. The old rural society that had dominated

humanity for millennia was already disintegrating rapidly as the result of

urbanization and technological advances, but the latter failed to supply adequate

new institutions and agencies to control and direct an urban civilization. This

situation faced the American public before 1941 but the momentous transformation

was given intensified rapidity and scope as a result of the extensive dislocations

produced by years of warfare and recovery.*

Harry Elmer Barnes

While every sector of American life was unalterably changed, the most ominous took place in the political order. Although the federal government had begun to expand during the Progressive Era, its scope and involvement in society drastically accelerated during and after the war. Barnes, holding many libertarian beliefs, observed the totalitarian features of the post-war nation:

The complex and cumulative aftermath of [WWII] has played the dominant role in

producing the menacing military pattern and political impasse of our time, and the

military-industrial-political Establishment that controls this country and has sought

to determine world policy.**

The rise of America to world power status diverted attention and scarce resources away from the domestic front, which further exacerbated social and economic changes. The societal strife would become more and more acute as the nation’s overseas commitments mushroomed, as Barnes incisively explains:

The social problems of an urban age were enlarged and intensified, crime increased

and took on new forms that became ever more difficult to combat, juvenile

disorganization became rampant, racial problems increased beyond precedent, and

the difficulties of dealing with this unprecedented and complicated mass of domestic

issues were both parried and intensified by giving primary but evasive

consideration to foreign affairs in our national policy and operations.***

While domestic problems received less attention as the American empire expanded, foreign lands which held different patterns of social order or had non “democratic” forms of government, were targeted for “regime change,” even if they had taken no hostile action toward the US:

. . . the results of [WWII] already indicate that this produced drastic and possibly

ominous changes in the pattern of American relations to the rest of the world. We

voluntarily and arbitrarily assumed unprecedented burdens in feeding and

financing a world badly disrupted by war. . . . The United States sought to police the

world and extend the rule of law on a planetary basis, which actually meant

imposing the ideology of our eastern seaboard Establishment throughout the world,

by force, if necessary. . . .****

Had the US remained neutral as the isolationists and American First supporters had pleaded, the world today would be markedly different – undoubtedly freer, more prosperous, and likely more peaceful. Since every society is governed, in part, by its understanding of the past, the post-WWII world is built on a lie. The lie, of course, was that the attack on Pearl Harbor was unprovoked and that the Roosevelt Administration had negotiated in good faith with the Japanese in the months and years leading up to it.

While not recognized at the time and even today the outcome of WWII ushered in the totalitarian nation state which would become a permanent and intimate fixture in the lives of its citizens. There was no appeal to its dictates and as the decades rolled on it accrued unthinkable power over the society and economy. It attempted to solve every social and economic problem or inequality (most of which it created) and in each action enhanced its power and control dramatically.

The corona scamdemic may be the state’s greatest power grab yet. Besides the infringement of civil liberties, the shut down has been adroitly used to cover for the titanic economic collapse which began in the weeks prior to the draconian response measures. Actually, the financial breakdown began last September with the Fed’s “repo” operations.

All of this has been quietly and deliberately forgotten by the financial press and under the cover of fighting the virus, the Fed and the rest of the world’s central banks have expanded their power and control of financial markets to unprecedented levels, making a mockery that the economy is in any sense “capitalistic.”

The adage that “history is written by the victors” has never been more apparent than in regard to V-E Day, however, the coronavirus scam has shown once again that the consequences of the day and the war which it commemorates are now being ominously fulfilled.

*Harry Elmer Barnes, “Pearl Harbor After a Quarter of a Century.” In Left and Right: A Journal of Libertarian Thought. Vol. IV, 1968, p. 11.

**Ibid., pp. 9-10.

***Ibid., p. 11.

****Ibid., pp. 10-11.

Antonius Aquinas@AntoniusAquinas

https://antoniusaquinas.com

The Constitution IS the Crisis

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A Review of Murray N. Rothbard’s Conceived in Liberty, Vol. 5The posthumous release of Murray Rothbard’s fifth volume of his early American history series, Conceived in Liberty, is a cause of celebration not only for those interested in the country’s constitutional period, but also for the present day as the nation is faced with acute social, economic, and political crises. The fifth volume, The New Republic: 1784-1791, stands with Boston T. Party’s 1997 release, Hologram of Liberty, as a grand rebuttal of the cherished notion held by most contemporary scholars, pundits on the Right, and, surprisingly, many libertarians who believe that the US Constitution is some great bulwark in defense of individual liberty and a promoter of economic success.

ConceivedInLiberty4in1 Volumes 1-4

Rothbard’s narrative highlights the crucial years after the American Revolution focusing on the events and personalities that led to the calling for, drafting, and eventual promulgation of the Constitution in 1789. Not only does he describe the key factors that led to the creation of the American nation-state, but he gives an insightful account of the machinations which took place in Philadelphia and a trenchant analysis of the document itself which has become, in the eyes of most conservatives, on a par with Holy Writ.

What Might Have Been

While Rothbard writes in a lively and engaging manner, the eventual outcome and triumph of the nationalist forces leaves the reader with a certain sadness. Despite the fears expressed by the Antifederalists that the new government was too powerful and would lead to tyranny, through coercion, threats, lies, bribery, and arm twisting by the politically astute Federalists, the Constitution came into being. Yet, what if it had been the other way around and the forces against it had prevailed?

It is safe to assume that America would have been a far more prosperous and less war-like place. The common held notion that the Constitution was needed to keep peace among the contending states is countered by Rothbard, who points out a number of instances where states settled their differences, most notably Maryland and Virginia as they came to an agreement on the navigation of the Chesapeake Bay. [129-30]

Without a powerful central state to extract resources and manpower, overseas intervention by the country would have been difficult to undertake. Thus, the US’s disastrous participation in the two world wars would have been avoided. Furthermore, it would have been extremely unlikely for a Confederation Congress to impose an income tax as the federal government successfully did through a constitutional amendment in 1913.

Nor would the horrific misnamed “Civil War” ever take place with its immense loss of life and the destruction of the once flourishing Southern civilization. The triumph of the Federal government ended forever “states rights” in the US and, no doubt, inspired centralizing tendencies throughout the world, most notably in Germany which became unified under Prussian domination.

In a failed attempt in 1786 to enact an impost tax under the Confederation, Abraham Yates, a New York lawyer and prominent Antifederalist, spoke of decentralization as the key to liberty as Rothbard aptly summarizes:

Yates also warned that true republicanism can only be preserved in small states, and

keenly pointed out that in the successful Republics of Switzerland and the

Netherlands the local provinces retained full control over their finances. A taxing

power in Congress would demolish state sovereignty and reduce the states, where

the people could keep watch on their representatives, to mere adjuncts of

congressional power, and liberty would be gone. [64]

Antifederalists, such as Yates, had a far greater understanding of how liberty and individual rights would be protected than their statist opponents such as Alexander Hamilton and James Madison. The Antifederalists looked to Europe as a model, which, for most of its history, was made up of decentralized political configurations. The Federalists, on the other hand, got much of their inspiration from the Roman Republic and later Empire. There is little question that an America, with the political attributes of a multi-state Europe, would be far less menacing to both its own inhabitants and to the rest of the world than what it has become under the current Federal Leviathan if the Constitution never passed.

Speculation aside, historical reality meant that America would be fundamentally different than it would have been had the Articles of Confederation survived, as Rothbard points out:

The enactment of the Constitution in 1788 drastically changed the course of

American history from its natural decentralized and libertarian direction to an

omnipresent leviathan that fulfilled all of the Antifederalists’ fears. [312]

Limited Government Myth

One of the great myths surrounding the American Constitution – which continues within conservative circles to this very day – is that the document limits government power. After reading Rothbard, such a notion can only be considered a fairy tale!

The supposed “defects” of the Articles of Confederation were adroitly used by the wily nationalists as a cover to hide their real motives. Simply put – the Articles had to be scrapped and a new national government, far more powerful than what had existed under the Articles, had to be created as Rothbard asserts: “The nationalists who went into the convention agreed on certain broad objectives, crucial for a new government, all designed to remodel the United States into a country with the British political structure.” [145]

In passing the Constitution, the nationalist forces gained almost all they had set out to accomplish – a powerful central state and with it a strong chief executive office, and the destruction of the states as sovereign entities. The supposed “checks and balances,” so much beloved by Constitution enthusiasts, has proven worthless in checking the central state’s largesse. Checks and balances exist within the central government and is not offset by any prevailing power, be it the states or citizenry.

There was no reform of the system as it stood, but a new state was erected on the decentralized foundation of the Confederation. Why the idea of the founding fathers as some limited government proponents is a mystery.

The Chief Executive

As it developed, the Presidency has become the most powerful and, thus, the most dangerous office in the world. While its occupants certainly took advantage of situations and created crises themselves over the years, the Presidency, especially in foreign policy, is largely immune from any real oversight either from the legislature or judiciary. This was not by happenstance. From the start, the nationalists envisioned a powerful executive branch, and though the most extreme among the group were eventually thwarted in their desire to recreate a British-style monarchy in America, the final draft of the Constitution granted considerable power to the presidential office.

As they did throughout the Constitutional proceedings, the nationalists cleverly altered the concept of what an executive office in a republic should be, by subtle changes in the wording of the document as Rothbard incisively explains:

[T]he nationalists proceeded to alter . . . and exult the executive in a highly

important textual change. Whenever the draft had stated that the president ‘may

recommend’ measures to the Congress, the convention changed ‘may’ to ‘shall,’

which provided a ready conduit to the president for wielding effective law-making

powers, while the legislature was essentially reduced to a ratification agency of laws

proposed by the president. [190-91]

As if this was not bad enough the office was given the ability to create departments within its own domain.

In another fateful change, the president was given the power to create a

bureaucracy within the executive by filling all offices not otherwise provided for in

the Constitution, in addition to those later created by laws. [191]

The totalitarian federal agencies that plague the daily lives of Americans were not some later innovation by the Progressive movement or New Dealers, but had been provided for within the document itself. The efforts of those opposed to the various social welfare schemes of the past, which have been put into effect through the various Cabinet departments, have been in vain since the power was given to the Presidency and has been taken advantage of by nearly all of its occupants.

Rothbard’s analysis of the chief executive office is especially pertinent since the nation is once again in the midst of another seemingly endless presidential election cycle. The reason that the office has attracted so many of the worst sort (which is being kind) is because of its power. If elected, the ability to control, regulate, impoverish, and kill not only one’s fellow citizen, but peoples across the globe is an immense attraction for sociopaths!

A Coup d’état and Counter Revolution

Rothbard makes the compelling case that the Constitution was a counter revolution, which was a betrayal of the ideology that brought about the Revolution:

The Americans were struggling not primarily for independence but for political-

economic liberty against the mercantilism of the British Empire. The struggle was

waged against taxes, prohibitions, and regulations – a whole failure of repression

that the Americans, upheld by an ideology of liberty, had fought and torn

asunder. . . . [T]he American Revolution was in essence not so much against Britain

as against British Big Government – and specially against an all-powerful central

government and a supreme executive. [307]

He continues:

[T]he American Revolution was liberal, democratic, and quasi-anarchistic; for

decentralization, free markets, and individual liberty; for natural rights of

life, liberty, and property; against monarchy, mercantilism, and especially

against strong central government. [307-08]

There was, however, always a “conservative” element within the revolutionary leadership that admired Great Britain and wanted to replicate it in America. It was only when there was no alternative to British political and economic oppression that they joined with their more liberal-libertarian brethren and decided for independence.

Conservatives did not go away after independence, but would continue to push for an expansion of government under the Articles and finally, after most of their designs were consistently thwarted, did they scheme to impose a powerful central state upon the unsuspecting country.

Yet, they would not have triumphed had a number of key liberal-libertarians of the revolutionary generation moved to the Right during the decade following independence. Rothbard shows why he is the master in power-elite historical analysis in his discussion of this tragic shift, which would spell the death knell to any future politically decentralized America:

[O]ne of the . . . reasons for the defeat of the Antifederalists, though they

commanded a majority of the public, was the decimation that had taken place in

radical and liberal leadership during the 1780s. A whole galaxy of ex-radicals, ex-

decentralists, and ex-libertarians, found in their old age that they could comfortably

live in the new Establishment. The list of such defections is impressive, including

John Adams, Sam Adams, John Hancock, Benjamin Rush, Thomas Paine, Alexander

McDougall, Isaac Sears, and Christopher Gadsden. [308-09]

As the country’s elite became more statist and as political (Shays Rebellion) and economic (a depression) factors played into their hands, conservatives seized the opportunity to erect on America a powerful national government:

It was a bloodless coup d’état against an unresisting Confederation Congress. . . .

The drive was managed by a corps of brilliant members and representatives

of the financial and landed oligarchy. These wealthy merchants and large

landowners were joined by the urban artisans of the large cities in their

drive to create a strong overriding central government – a supreme government

with its own absolute power to tax, regulate commerce, and raise armies. [306]

Conclusion

The Mises Institute and the editor of the book, Patrick Neumann, must be given immense credit for bringing this important piece of scholarship into print. Once read, any notion of the “founding fathers” as disinterested statesmen who sublimated their own interests and that of their constituents to that of their country will be disavowed. Moreover, The New Republic:1784-1791 is the most important in the series since the grave crises that the nation now faces can be traced to those fateful days in Philadelphia when a powerful central state was created.

Volume Five shows that the problems of America’s past and the ones it now faces are due to the Constitution. The remedy to the present societal ills is not electing the “right” congressman, or president, but to “devolve” politically into a multitude of states and jurisdictions. For the future of liberty and economic well-being, this is where efforts should be placed and Murray Rothbard’s final volume of Conceived in Liberty is essential reading if that long, arduous, but much necessary task is to be undertaken.

Antonius Aquinas@AntoniusAquinas

https://antoniusaquinas.com

posted 02-10-’20

Mike Pompeo and John Bolton: Trump’s Tag Team of Death and Destruction!

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Trump Pompeo Bolton Trump’s Men!

With the welcome departure of war mongering UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, the Trump Administration’s neocon tag team of death and destruction – Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo and National Security Advisor (NSA), John Bolton – have enthusiastically taken up where the repellent Haley has left off. It is highly doubtful that the former Ambassador will meekly return from under the rock in which she crawled, but will reappear possibly as a primary challenger to her former boss in 2020, and, most certainly, as a Presidential contender in 2024.

Last week, Messrs Pompeo and Bolton were dutifully carrying forth Haley’s promises of mayhem to anyone opposed to US hegemony even if those “enemies” have never taken hostile action against the US mainland. Of course, threats and attacks against nations which have done nothing to America have never much mattered to the foreign policy establishment!

Haley Pompeo Bolton Neocon Triumvirate

In one of the most provocative comments ever made by a US diplomat, maniacal Mike threatened Iran with mass starvation of its population (via US sanctions) if it does not submit to Uncle Sam’s outrageous and humiliating demands. In a BBC interview, the Secretary of State warned that:

[Iran’s] leadership has to make a decision that they want their people to eat.*

Following up on his genocidal warning, the Secretary of State (with a supposedly straight face) said that Iran was a “destabilizing influence” in the Mideast and was a state sponsor of terrorism.

Incredibly, the sociopathic Pompeo actually believes that Iran has been the greatest disrupter of peace in the Middle East when, in fact, it has been the nation in which he represents (along with Israel) that has been the real culprit of state sponsored terrorism with its destruction of Iraq, the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, and the attempted regime change in Syria to name just a few of America’s nefarious activities in the region.

A Brown University study shows the absurdity of Pompeo’s claims. The study estimates that between 480,000 to 507,000 people were killed in America’s post-9/11 wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. For the US, some 60,000 troops have lost their lives or been wounded.***

US Destruction of Iraq

After threatening genocide of the Iranian people, Pompeo told an outright lie as he accused Iran for the catastrophe that is taking place in Yemen:

[The] Iranians are responsible for the starvation of Yemen civilians.****

No one outside of the Western controlled press or among the clueless American populace believes such a claim and knows that the starvation which is taking place in Yemen has been caused by the US’s ally, Saudi Arabia, which America has armed for decades. It is not the Iranians, but the US which is guilty as an accomplice for the genocide taking place in that misbegotten land.

Yemen Drone Stike Yemen Drone Strike

Not to be outdone by his fellow merchant of death, John Bolton focused his most recent bellicose talk on Latin American regimes that have not fallen in line with the US Empire’s wishes. He labeled three countries as “the troika of tyranny in this hemisphere – Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua.”** Big Bad John boasted that the three had “finally met [their] match” in the Trump Administration.

Wow, John, you are so tough, but saying that these three hellholes are a “match” for the US is a bit much when it is unlikely that the three combined could even defeat Rhode Island’s National Guard in a pitched battle!

While Bolton ruled out (for now) military intervention, he did say that sanctions would soon be placed on the “troika of tyranny.” Bolton proclaimed that “Under this administration, we will no longer appease dictators and despots near our shores.”

Yes, by all means, a possible invasion by a Cuban/Venezuelan/Nicaraguan juggernaut rolling up to the shores of south Florida should be a concern for all Americans. No telling how much damage inflicted and territory conquered the “Latin American Axis” could accomplish! It is good that perceptive and ever vigilant foreign policy experts like John Bolton keep a watchful eye out for such threats!

These are dangerous and evil men who think nothing of inflicting pain and suffering upon innocent people who have little control over what their nation’s leadership does, just as Americans have little say in the policies and actions of their government.

A global empire attracts personality types like Haley, Pompeo and Bolton. It needs such sociopaths to provoke others and stir up troubles where there is none to justify its existence. A more peaceful world will only come about with the demise of the American Empire, not changing the personalities who guide it.

Sadly, for Americans who have to fund it and the peoples of the world who are in its path, until there is an economic collapse and/or a dollar crisis, the American Empire will continue to threaten and, in some instances, carry out those threats led by the likes of Michael Pompeo and John Bolton.

*Tyler Durden, “Iran’s Leadership Must Decide ‘If They Want Their People to Eat’ – Pompeo.” Zero Hedge. 9 November 2018.

**Alex Gorka, “US Declares War on ‘Troika of Tyranny’ Pushing Them Closer to Russia.” Strategic Culture Foundation. 7 November 2018.

*** Jason Ditz, “US Wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan Killed 500,000 People.” Antiwar.com 8 November 2018.

****Durden, “Iran’s Leadership Must Decide.”

Antonius Aquinas@AntoniusAquinas

https://antoniusaquinas.com

The United States of Terror!

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Two recent articles* have again demonstrated that the greatest “terrorist” entity on earth is not the bogymen – Russia, China, Iran, North Korea – so often portrayed by Western presstitudes and the American government, but the United States itself! Ever since World War II, the US has been the most militaristic, far surpassing all of the Communist and dictatorial regimes combined.

Some startling and rarely reported facts:

Currently, the US drops on someone or something a deadly explosive once every12 minutes

W. Bush’s military dropped 70,000 bombs on five different nations during his murderous regime

Nobel Peace Prize recipient, Barrack Obomber, launched 100,000 bombs on seven countries

Funding this mass murder is a reportedly $21 trillion (!) that is unaccounted for in the Pentagon’s coffers

Despite all of the “America First” bluster at the start of the Trump Administration, little has changed but, in fact, things have escalated. While G.W. Bush in his wicked eight years dropped over 24 bombs per day and his successor upped that total to 34 bombs per day, the current Bomber-in-Chief has, in his first year in office, averaged 121 bombs per day! For the initial year of his Presidency, 44,000 bombs were dropped on people and lands despite the fact that the US is not officially at war with a single country!

Despite these grisly statistics, which are hardly ever reported by the mainstream press, the military industrial complex and the controlled Western media outlets have propagated the lie of “precision bombing.” Precision bombing has been trumpeted to minimize the effect of US aggression to the public that only true belligerents are targeted and not innocents.

When US bombing is reported by the press, the actual casualties and property damage are never accurately given. The most notorious example of this mendacity was the coverage of Bush II’s Iraq war. “The US and its allies ruthlessly carpet-bombed Iraq,” a UN report acknowledged, “reducing it from ‘a rather highly urbanized and mechanized society’ to a ‘pre-industrial age nation.’”

Later accounts of what actually happened showed that “only seven percent of the 88,500 tons of bombs and missiles devastating Iraq were ‘precision weapons.’”

Yet, it is hypocritical US policy makers that call certain regimes “rogue” and/or “terrorist” while their own defense budget is set at $700 billion to increase next year by $16 billion. Yes, more taxes extorted from the public for the pulverization of peoples and their homes across the globe!

Even if these statistics were of common knowledge, do not look for things to change. The majority of the American public loves its military and government and has been conditioned to overlook and accept nearly all of its military engagements and the propaganda that attempts to justify them.

What must change is ideology which, at one time, was strongly anti-interventionist, but gradually became pro-war. Through education, the press, books, and the electronic media, the intelligentsia was able to manipulate public opinion. Americans began to glorify war under the guise of spreading democracy and “freedom” to everyone, whether they wanted it or not.

Under current ideological conditions, a reversal of thinking to a non-interventionist foreign policy is not likely. The only way that the nation’s rampaging foreign policy will be checked is through an economic collapse or a severe dollar crisis, the latter of which would end the greenback’s status as the world’s reserve currency.

If America no longer has the means to fund its military around the world, its imperialism will quickly come to an end. It is extremely burdensome on a domestic economy to maintain a global empire and one that is actively engaged in costly military operations. If the nation’s economy severely contracts or the dollar can no longer be printed with impunity, the bombing of other peoples and political involvement in overseas affairs would have to cease, or be drastically curtailed. A historical example of this is Great Britain after WWII.

As it stands now, only financial calamity will bring down the world’s foremost terrorist state. If such a scenario comes about, the US may become the recipient of the destruction, loss of life, and mayhem it has unleashed upon the world.

Antonius Aquinas@AntoniusAquinas

https://antoniusaquinas.com

*Tyler Durden, “America’s Military Drops a Bomb Every 12 Minutes, and No One is Talking About it.” Zero Hedge, 6 June 2018, *https://antoniusaquinas.com https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-06-22/trumps-military-drops-bomb-every-12-minutes-and-no-one-talking-about-it

Tyler Durden, Debunking the Persistent Myth of U.S. Precision Bombing,” Zero Hedge. 23 June 2018, https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-06-23/debunking-persistent-myth-us-precision-bombing

Heaven Forbid Peace Should Break Out Between the US and North Korea!

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US bombing Korea

Hamhung, North Korea, June 30, 1950

As long as the US Empire can be funded and maintained on the backs of its taxpaying public, the chance of de-escalation of tensions not only on the Korean peninsula, but throughout the world are practically nil. And, as long as the nation’s current interventionist ideology holds sway, it will only be through a financial meltdown that the US’s role as global policeman will come to a much-needed end.

The most recent example of the world’s biggest bully escalating matters is its on-again, off-again badgering of North Korea. In contrast to Western/CIA media reports, the November 28 launch of what appears to be an intercontinental ballistic missile, the Hwasong-15, was not unprovoked. Instead, the North Korean test firing was in response to the unexpected announcement of further US/South Korean military drills to take place starting on December 4. The exercises are, in part, to show off the latest mass murdering “product” of America’s military industrial complex, the USF-22 Raptor stealth fighter jet.

Before the latest launch, the Kim Jong Un regime had not fired a missile for two months and was in discussions with other intermediaries about how tensions could be lessened on the Korean peninsula. For the bellicose US, however, not even an uneasy “truce” can be tolerated. The next American scheduled drill was not to take place until the spring of 2018, yet, while negotiations were taking place, the US abruptly, and to the outrage of everyone involved, renewed exercises. Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, explains:

We have been working with Pyongyang. Then,

all of a sudden two weeks after the United States

had sent us the signal [about readiness to dialogue],

they announced unscheduled drills in December.

there is an impression that they were deliberately

provoking [North Korean leader] Kim Jong Un to

make him break the pause and gave in to their

provocations.*

This, of course, is not the first time that the US has acted with duplicity in foreign matters. Its barbaric dealing with two Middle Eastern strongmen (Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi) are grisly examples of what happens to those who run afoul of the US Empire, especially those who do not possesses a nuclear deterrent.

North Korea, too, has witnessed the wanton destructive capabilities of the American military during the so called “police action” of the early 1950s:

The US Air Force estimated that North Korea’s

destruction was proportionally greater than that

of Japan’s in the Second World War. . . . American

planes dropped 635,000 tons of bombs on Korea . . .

including 32,557 tons of napalm, compared to

503,000 tons of bombs dropped in the entire Pacific

theatre of WWII.**

The loss of life was, to say the least, catastrophic as 10% of the population, some 3 million people, perished due mostly to American bombing while the destruction of property was equally brutal. “By the end of the war,” North Korean sources assert, “only two modern buildings remained standing in Pyongyang.”***

Is it any wonder that the North Korean leadership gets a little antsy when the US scramble its jets. It does not want a repetition of the holocaust inflicted on it by the merciless American Air Force.

Of course, these inconvenient facts are rarely if ever spoken about in the Western media, academia, and certainly not by war-mongering politicos like U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley. They are simply ignorant of history or pretend not to know.

The US Empire only accepts peace if it favors its interests. For the Korean Peninsula that means that Kim Jong Un must disband his nuclear program. Such a move, however, would mean a premature death to Un and the eventual carpet bombing of his country. The North Korean strongman will do no such thing.

The Trump Administration may huff and puff all it wants and enact greater sanctions on the North, but unless it wants to risk a nuclear confrontation that may spread into a general world war, it has little options.

Instead of another round of destabilizing military maneuvers, maybe President Trump and his foreign policy team should try to engage in genuine negotiations to bring about an equitable solution to the matter.

Why not “give peace a chance?”

*”Russian FM Reveals First Victims in Case of War on Korean Peninsula.” Sputnik News. 2 December 2017. https://sputniknews.com/asia/201712021059640205-russia-provocations-korea-war/

**Charles K. Armstrong, “The Destruction and Reconstruction of North Korea, 1950-1960.” The Asian-Pacific Journal. http://apjjf.org/-Charles-K.-Armstrong/3460/article.html

Antonius Aquinas@AntoniusAquinas

https://antoniusaquinas.com

Donald Trump: Warmonger-in-Chief!

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Trump Warmonger

If a world conflagration, God forbid, should break out during the Trump Administration, its genesis will not be too hard to discover: the thin-skinned, immature, shallow, doofus which currently resides in the Oval Office!

This past week, the Donald has continued his bellicose talk with both veiled and explicit threats against purported American adversaries throughout the world. In a cryptic exchange with reporters during a dinner with military leaders, he quipped:

You guys know what this represents?

Maybe it’s the calm before the storm. It could be the

calm. . . before. . . the storm.*

A reporter asked if he meant Iran or Isis which the POTUS responded, “you’ll find out.” Instead of threatening supposed overseas foes with nuclear annihilation, none of whom have taken any concrete military action against the US, why not go after someone who has actually compromised the country’s security, namely Hillary Rodham Clinton!

While some dismissed the comments as typical Trumpian bluster, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders added further ominous overtones when questioned saying they were “extremely serious.”

Later in the week, Trump continued to threaten tiny North Korea, this time in not so veiled terms:

Presidents and their administrations have been talking to North Korea for 25 years,

agreements made and massive amounts of money paid hasn’t worked, agreements

violated before the ink was dry, making fools of U.S. negotiators. Sorry, but only

one thing will work.**

If war erupts either on the Korean Peninsula or in any other part of the globe that the U.S has wantonly poked its nose into, it can be safely assured that neither Trump nor any of the other “military leaders,” with which he recently had dinner with, will be in the midst of hostilities as the bombs and bullets are being cast about. No, these laptop bombers will be in safe quarters far away from enemy lines, giving orders, making speeches, and praising the troops while Congress will be hurriedly passing more “defense” funding legislation further lining the pockets of the military industrial complex.

The Warmonger-in-Chief, who has repeatedly bragged about America’s military prowess, had a chance to become a part of the organization he constantly gushes over during his youth at the time of the Vietnam War. Yet, he escaped military service, due to the machinations of his father, because of a mysterious foot/toe malady.

For all those who avoided being conscripted into America’s disastrous imperial exercise in Southeast Asia during those years, whether it was from phony medical conditions, escaping to Canada or beyond, or going to jail, they did so for justifiable reasons. The war was immoral, since Vietnam had taken no hostile action against the US and what made it worse, the government drafted thousands of America’s youth to fight it. It is reprehensible that those who got out of military service then are now at the forefront in advocating mass murder (war).

One resolution that would certainly curtail warmongering in the future would be that any legislator, president, cabinet officer, or ambassador that promotes military intervention abroad should be required to directly participate in field operations. This would quickly put the brakes on threatening talk from the likes of Trump and his crazed UN Ambassador, Nikki Haley.

A country’s leadership personally conducting military operations has had a long tradition in Western history. During the crusading era, princes and kings led their retinues and forces into battle risking life and limb such as the great Norman prince, Bohemond, whose courage, tenacity, and military acumen won the day for Christian forces at the battle of Antioch.

Bohemond

This venerable ideal can still be seen in Russia when recently one of its generals and two colonels lost their lives in the Syrian quagmire.*** When was the last time a US general has perished in active combat?

It is apparent that the current POTUS does not understand the catastrophic consequences of what his threats, if carried out, would lead to – death to millions, unimaginable destruction, and the end of civilization. Maybe, had he actually suffered through the horrors of combat or had been the victim of US aggression as the peoples of North Korea, Vietnam and Iraq have witnessed, he might refrain from such bellicose language.

Hopefully, cooler heads in the Administration will prevail, however, a more peaceful world is unlikely with the likes of Donald John Trump at the command of the greatest destructive force in human history.

*Tyler Durden, “President Trump Warns Ominously: ‘It’s the Calm Before the Storm.'” Zero Hedge. 6 October 2017. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-10-05/president-trump-warns-ominously-its-calm-storm

**Tyler Durden, “Trump Hints at War With North Korea: ‘Sorry, But Only One Thing Will Work.'” Zero Hedge. 7 October 2017. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-10-07/trump-hints-war-north-korea-after-25-years-failed-diplomacy-only-one-thing-will-work

***Alexander, “General Asapov Died Because as a Russian Officer He Led From the Front.” Russia Feed. 30 September 2017. https://www.lewrockwell.com/2017/09/no_author/general-asapov-died-because-as-a-russian-officer-he-led-from-the-front/

Antonius Aquinas@AntoniusAquinas

https://antoniusaquinas.com