Anti-war activism and journalism need to become major parts of Americans’ everyday lives, in a way that I’d consider our collective duty to humanity. Because if people keep ignoring the increasingly erratic and dangerous actions of the U.S. military empire, world events will soon spin out of control.
Forget the partisan and unsubstantiated claim that President Trump is working for Putin; Trump, with the help of the Democrats and their recent Russia fearmongering campaign, is creating the largest escalation of military tensions with Russia since the Cold War. Last month, Trump withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty, which banned longer-range Russian and American nuclear missiles. This has created room for Trump’s massive planned expansions of the nuclear arsenal.
Why is the U.S. restarting the nuclear arms race? To prepare for the potential results of rising geopolitical tensions, almost all of which are created by the U.S. itself. After years of belligerent NATO troop advancements onto Russia’s borders and efforts from the West to help anti-Russian neo-Nazi militias in Ukraine, the situation in Eastern Europe has effectively turned into a standoff. It’s no wonder why earlier this year, Sweden put out leaflets telling the citizenry to prepare for war.
Naturally, the Pentagon is preparing for total war with Russia and China-the latter of which would side with Russia in the looming world conflict. In a report released last month, the Pentagon said that America should undergo a “seamless integration of multiple elements of national power—diplomacy, information, economics, finance, intelligence, law enforcement and military” in order to prepare for conflict with rival world powers, including the “growing risk to U.S. national security” that the report characterizes China as.
People need to understand that when government statements like these say “national security,” they’re using a euphemism for “worldwide U.S. military dominance.” Russia and China are not going to attack the U.S. without provocation, as this would be a pointless initiation of war. They’re building up their arsenals in response to threats against them from the U.S. NATO empire. And the empire is making these threats because in order to retain its shrinking global power, and to succeed in its current attempts at regime change in Iran and Syria, it needs to strong-arm nations like Russia and China into submission.
In short, we’ve entered into a new cold war that’s going to last for decades unless it first blows up into worldwide catastrophe. And unlike with the last cold war, there are numerous additional conflicts of U.S. imperialism that have the potential to start that larger confrontation. We have so many anti-war battles to win if we want to prevent this unprecedented tragedy: the ongoing U.S. aggressions against the Syrian government; the Trump administration’s horrific campaign of sanctions and military threats against Iran; the neocons’ dangerous efforts to arm Ukraine. And since the U.S.’ belligerence towards China and Russia is centered around nuclear policy, it seems like there’s nothing ordinary people can do to make peace more likely.
What gives me hope is the fact that these war campaigns need the consent of the American people. And recent events have shown that anti-war journalists have the power to undermine that consent.
Thanks to the efforts from alternative media reporters to expose the U.S./Saudi lead genocide in Yemen, even mainstream outlets like The New York Times and MSNBC have recently been pressured to join in on the condemnations of these horrors. As a result, the Trump administration has become clearly intimidated, as evidenced by the (so far meaningless and theatrical) concessions that it’s recently made on the issue. The zeitgeist has turned against involvement in Yemen, so top U.S. officials are feeling the pressure. And if the movement to end the slaughter in Yemen keeps growing, the government could finally be forced to comply.
This is how we win the rest of the fight to dismantle American imperialism: by doing everything we can to expose the lies and injustices that all of the pro-war rhetoric is founded on.
As Julian Assange has put it: “If wars can be started by lies, peace can be started by truth.”
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