{"id":26178,"date":"2017-09-27T18:31:04","date_gmt":"2017-09-27T23:31:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=26178"},"modified":"2017-09-27T18:31:04","modified_gmt":"2017-09-27T23:31:04","slug":"trump-on-the-warpath","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=26178","title":{"rendered":"Trump on the Warpath"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"row \"><\/div>\n<div class=\"row parallax__fore article__container\" data-sticky-target=\"interaction-article\" data-page-area=\"article-top\" data-sticky-offset=\"20%\">\n<h3 class=\"small-12 medium-10 medium-offset-1 large-8 large-offset-2 xlarge-7 columns article__title article__title--main u-mb-se\" dir=\"ltr\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.project-syndicate.org\/commentary\/trump-warpath-iran-north-korea-by-jeffrey-d-sachs-2017-09\">Trump on the Warpath<\/a><\/h3>\n<div class=\"small-12 medium-10 medium-offset-1 large-8 large-offset-2 xlarge-6 xlarge-offset-3 columns\">\n<section class=\"u-mt-se\">The US suffers from an arrogance of military power disconnected from today\u2019s geopolitical realities. The US is on this path again, heading for a collision with a nuclear-armed adversary, and it will remain on it unless other countries, other American leaders, and public opinion block the way.<\/section>\n<section class=\"article__body article__body--commentary english\" dir=\"ltr\" data-page-area=\"article-body\">\n<p data-line-id=\"c18c0dce487e45628d8bf8f74dff3f52\">NEW YORK \u2013 Fifteen years after George W. Bush <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-srv\/onpolitics\/transcripts\/sou012902.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">declared<\/a> that Iraq, Iran, and North Korea formed \u201can axis of evil,\u201d Donald Trump, in his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/the-press-office\/2017\/09\/19\/remarks-president-trump-72nd-session-united-nations-general-assembly\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">maiden address<\/a> to the United Nations, denounced Iran and North Korea in similarly vitriolic terms. Words have consequences, and Trump\u2019s constitute a dire and immediate threat to global peace, just as Bush\u2019s words did in 2002.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"inlay inlay--slide slide__container show-for-medium editorpick-container\">\n<article id=\"editor-pick-59c8ab4078b6c708acf0ced4\" class=\"listing slide \" data-url=\"germany-new-government-economic-challenges-by-clemens-fuest-2017-09\" data-page-area=\"editorpicks\"><\/article>\n<div class=\"inlay__controls\" aria-hidden=\"true\">\n<div class=\"flex button__group slide__nav\">Back then, Bush was widely praised for his response to the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. It\u2019s easy to rally the public to war, and that was especially true after 9\/11. Yet, on every front \u2013 Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, and North Korea \u2013 US militarism squandered global trust, lives, finances, and precious time. And Trump\u2019s approach is far more belligerent \u2013 and dangerous \u2013 than Bush\u2019s.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p data-line-id=\"a4fec5123ded442596ff27f3a627acfe\">For Trump, as for Bush, there is Good (America) and Evil (Afghanistan under the Taliban, Iran, North Korea, and Iraq under Saddam Hussein). America the Good makes demands on the evildoers. If the evildoers do not comply, America can exercise the \u201cmilitary option\u201d or impose punitive sanctions to enforce \u201cjustice\u201d as the United States defines it.<\/p>\n<p data-line-id=\"8f5f22a4e1634802b3d98b396fb2302a\">Bush applied the logic of force vis-\u00e0-vis Afghanistan and the \u201caxis of evil,\u201d with disastrous results. The US quickly overthrew the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in 2002 but could not secure order. Fifteen years on, the Taliban controls considerable territory, and Trump has just ordered an increase in troops. America has spent roughly <a href=\"http:\/\/watson.brown.edu\/costsofwar\/files\/cow\/imce\/papers\/2016\/Costs%20of%20War%20through%202016%20FINAL%20final%20v2.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">$800 billion<\/a> in direct military outlays in Afghanistan, and indeed has been at war there almost non-stop since the CIA covertly intervened in 1979, helping to <a href=\"http:\/\/dgibbs.faculty.arizona.edu\/brzezinski_interview\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">provoke<\/a> the Soviet invasion of that country.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Trump on the Warpath The US suffers from an arrogance of military power disconnected from today\u2019s geopolitical realities. The US is on this path again, heading for a collision with a nuclear-armed adversary, and it will remain on it unless other countries, other American leaders, and public opinion block the way. NEW YORK \u2013 Fifteen [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[16187,4873,7844,442,16186,525,8402,827,9371,862],"class_list":["post-26178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","tag-axis-of-evil","tag-bush","tag-donald-trump","tag-iraq","tag-jeffrey-d-sachs","tag-military","tag-project-syndicate","tag-united-states","tag-via","tag-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26178"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26178\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26179,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26178\/revisions\/26179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}