By Caitlin Johnstone
October 18, 2019 "Information
Clearing House" - Humanity was treated to an important lecture on
peace at a recent event for the NIR School of the
Heart by none other than Ellen Degeneres BFF and
world-renowned peace expert George W Bush.
“I don’t think the Iranians believe a peaceful
Middle East is in their national interest,” said the
former president according to The
Washington Post‘s Josh Rogin, whose brief
Twitter thread on
the subject appears to be the only record of Bush’s
speech anywhere online.
“An isolationist United States is destabilizing
around the world,” Bush said during the speech in
what according to Rogin was a shot at the sitting
president. “We are becoming isolationist and that’s
dangerous for the sake of peace.”
For those who don’t speak fluent neoconservative,
“isolationist” here means taking even one small step
in any direction other than continued military
expansionism into every square inch of planet Earth,
and “We are becoming isolationist” here means “We
have hundreds of military bases circling the globe,
our annual military budget is steadily climbing
toward the trillion-dollar mark, and we are engaged
in countless undeclared wars and regime change
interventions all around the world.”
It is unclear why Bush is choosing to present
himself as a more peaceful president than Trump
given that by this point in his first term Bush had
launched not one but two full-scale ground invasion
wars whose effects continue to ravage the Middle
East to this very day, especially given the way both
presidents appear to be in furious agreement on
foreign policy matters like Iran. But here we are.
From a certain point of view it’s hard to say which
is stranger: (A) a war criminal with a blood-soaked
legacy of mass murder, torture and military
expansionism telling Trump that he is endangering
peace with his “isolationism”, or (B) the claim that
Trump is “isolationist” at all. As we’ve discussed
previously, Trump’s so-called isolationism has
thus far consisted of killing
tens of thousands of Venezuelans with starvation
sanctions in an attempt to effect regime change in the
most oil-rich nation on earth, advancing
a regime change operation in Iran via starvation
sanctions, CIA
covert ops, and reckless military
escalations, continuing to facilitate
the Saudi-led slaughter in Yemen and to sell
arms to Saudi Arabia, inflating the
already insanely bloated US military budget to
enable more
worldwide military expansionism, greatly increasing the number
of bombs dropped per day from the previous
administration, killing record
numbers of civilians in airstrikes for which he
has reduced
military accountability, and of course advancing many,
many new cold war escalations against
the nuclear superpower Russia.
But these bogus warnings about a dangerous,
nonexistent threat of isolationism are nothing new
for Dubya. In his
farewell address to the nation, Bush said the
following:
“In the face of threats from abroad, it
can be tempting to seek comfort by
turning inward. But we must reject
isolationism and its companion,
protectionism. Retreating behind our
borders would only invite danger. In the
21st century, security and prosperity at
home depend on the expansion of liberty
abroad. If America does not lead the
cause of freedom, that cause will not be
led.”
As we discussed
recently, use of the pro-war buzzword
“isolationism” has been re-emerging from its
post-Bush hibernation as a popular one-word debunk
of any opposition to continued US military
expansionism in all directions, and it is deceitful
in at least three distinct ways. Firstly, the way it
is used consistently conflates isolationism with
non-interventionism, which are
two wildly different things. Secondly, none of
the mainstream political figures who are
consistently tarred with the “isolationist”
pejorative are isolationists by any stretch of the
imagination, or even proper non-interventionists;
they all support many interventionist positions
which actual non-interventionists object to.
Thirdly, calling someone who opposes endless
warmongering an “isolationist” makes as much sense
as calling someone who opposes rape a man-hating
prude; opposing an intrinsically evil act is not the
same as withdrawing from the world.
Nobody actually believes that US foreign policy is
under any threat of anything remotely resembling
isolationism. The real purpose of this buzzword is
to normalize the forever war and drag the Overton
window so far in the direction of ghoulish
hawkishness that the opposite of “war” is no longer
“peace”, but “isolationism”. By pulling this neat
little trick, the propagandists of the
political/media class have successfully made endless
war seem like a perfectly normal thing to be
happening and any small attempt to scale it back
look weird and freakish, when the truth is the exact
opposite. War is weird, freakish and horrific, and
peace is of course normal. This is the only healthy
way to see things.
Are You Tired Of
The Lies And
Non-Stop Propaganda?
|
It would actually be great if George W
Bush could shut the fuck up forever,
ideally in a locked cell following a
public war tribunal. Failing that, at
the very least people should stop
looking at him as a cuddly wuddly teddy
bear with whom it’s fun to share
a sporting arena suite or
a piece
of hard candy or to hang
award medals on for
his treatment of veterans. This mass
murdering monster has been growing
more and more popular with
Democrats lately just because he offers
mild criticisms of Trump sometimes, as
have war pigs like Bill
Kristol and Max Boot and even
John Bolton for
the same reason, and it needs to stop.
And in the name of a million dead
Iraqis, please don’t start consulting
this man on matters of peace.
Caitlin's articles are entirely
reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece
please consider sharing it around, liking her on
Facebook, following her antics on
Twitter, checking out her
podcast, throwing some money into
her hat on
Patreon or
Paypal, or buying her book
Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers.
https://caitlinjohnstone.com
Do you agree or disagree? Post
your comment here
==See Also==
Note To ICH Community
We ask that you assist us in
dissemination of the article published by
ICH to your social media accounts and post
links to the article from other websites.
Thank you for your support.
Peace and joy