STEVE GELLER is retired from a four-decade career in anti-poverty work, including 18 years as director of SEVCA, the local Community Action Agency.
SPRINGFIELD-Remember when candidate Trump constantly promised an “America First” policy in which the U.S. would pull back from virtually all foreign entanglements, reduce foreign military involvement, and prioritize domestic needs?
He said we would “never send our finest into battle unless necessary” nor “go abroad in search of enemies.” Rather, he would always prioritize American interests and end “the policy of intervention and chaos.”
“We will stop racing to topple foreign regimes that we know nothing about, that we shouldn’t be involved with,” he swore as president-elect in 2016.
After winning re-election, he said: “I’m not going to start a war, I’m going to stop wars.” And in his inaugural address, he vowed: ”We will measure our success not only by the battles we win but also by the wars that we end — and perhaps most importantly, the wars we never get into” and said his proudest legacy would be that of a “peacemaker and a unifier.”
Just a year later, it’s crystal clear what that legacy is going to be: warmonger and imperialist. Promises made, promises obliterated, like the 35 Venezuelan boats destroyed and the 115 civilians killed without due process at the behest of this wannabe Nobel Peace Prize recipient.
In addition to those atrocities, Trump initiated hundreds of other deadly bomb strikes on various countries, including a port in Venezuela; on groups in Nigeria he claimed to be committing “Christian genocide”; on nuclear facilities in Iran in support of Israel’s war in Gaza; and on groups in Somalia, Syria, Yemen, and Iraq who he claimed to be affiliated with ISIS.
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And, while not involving direct U.S. military action, Trump’s unconditional support of Israel’s brutal (many say genocidal) response during the Gaza war — when strong disapproval of its actions, such as by imposing strong sanctions, might well have stopped or at least reduced its attacks — likely contributed to the over 71,000 deaths and 170,000 injuries that resulted.
And now, to top off this unsavory list of obviously nonpeaceful accomplishments, Trump has outdone himself (and every other president in American history) by committing the unmistakably warlike act of invading Venezuela’s sovereign territory, bombing its capital and other sites.
In the action, the U.S. killed 40 people, including civilians, and abducted Venezuela’s elected president and his wife to be tried on (literally) trumped-up drug- and weapons-related conspiracy charges, and Trump declared that he will “run the country” and that the U.S. will seize Venezuela’s massive oil reserves.
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Are these the acts befitting a self-styled “peacemaker”? They’re more like those of a would-be tinpot despot harkening back to our country’s most shameful imperialistic episodes, including those involving both direct military interventions (e.g., Iraq, Panama, Grenada, Vietnam) and covert operations (e.g., Iran, Guatemala, Congo, Cuba, Indonesia, Chile, Nicaragua, and many more).
But Trump’s actions are really most like the Nazi stormtroopers in the 1930s who marched into Czechoslovakia, Poland, and eventually most of Europe, removed the elected governments, abducted and imprisoned (or killed) their elected officials, and ran their countries — all because Hitler thought those countries were acting against the interests of Germany and the so-called “Aryan race” by not dealing adequately with the Jewish “problem.”
The specific rationale and military technology may have been different, but the general impulse and justification are the same: If other nations don’t conform with our leader’s worldview, no matter how deranged it may be, and won’t bend to his will, then it’s perfectly OK, even necessary, to invade them and run them as Trump sees fit — and, of course, take all their valuable resources in the process.
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Pure and simple, Trump and his minions are violating both American and international laws and norms and committing egregious war crimes — or they would be war crimes if we were actually at war with any of these countries.
But we’re not, for two reasons: 1) Because none of them have attacked us or, by any rational standard, behaved in an aggressive manner toward us; and 2) Congress has neither declared war nor authorized or approved any of Trump’s actions. In fact, Trump has never even attempted to obtain such authorization or approval, and hardly even bothered to inform key lawmakers of his prior intentions or subsequent actions.
And yet, the Republican-controlled Congress has not taken a single step to stop or even question these illegal and violent acts, much less to actually declare war or even a national emergency that could possible justify any of them.
Lacking any of the required Congressional authority to legalize these actions, everything Trump has done amounts to murder, kidnapping, theft, and fraud, on a massive scale and without the slightest acknowledgement of the requirements of the Constitution or due process of law.
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So in a significant way, the most criminal behavior enabling all of this depravity is that of Congress for its failure to do, or even attempt to do, anything to stop it.
If we are to retain our democratic system and our basic American values, that do-nothing Congress must stand up and start taking its role seriously as the co-equal branch of government that makes the laws, determines policies, issues funding, and imposes limits on extreme, illegal, and violent actions of out-of-control presidents.
Otherwise, we’ll continue to be subject to the whims and impulses of someone who is clearly unable or unwilling to control himself and will continue to start wars whenever and wherever the urge hits him.
This Voices Viewpoint was submitted to The Commons.
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