In what sectors of the economy does the U.S. lead? That would be entertainment, tech where it is currently being challenged by China, and above all, weapons; making, selling, and using, where the budget is more and about to be even more than the nine arms-making countries under it. Weapons, though, as this point not always superior weapons as the U.S. is finding out in Iran and Ukraine, are what make the world go round, even more so now under Trump, where the “human rights” gloves are off, and the country is seen by the rest of the world as both a supporter of and a participant in genocide.
Can you say Minab, with 165 schoolgirls murdered and the Ukrainian bombing in its former territory of Lugansk killing 21 schoolchildren, most likely with the aid of the U.S. and NATO? These killings also follow the Israeli pattern of secondary, follow-up bombings, which then kill those attempting to rescue the victims. This bellicosity is unceasing and given a free ride in the Western media. Note the recent New York Times headline: “Tensions Rise as Iran Threatens to Retaliate Against U.S. Strikes.” The headline makes it seem like the problem is Iran’s, which is “threatening.” But as soon as we start the story, we realize the story and headline ought to have been, “U.S. Breaks Ceasefire by Attacking Iran.” Instead, it’s Iran that is threatening. The U.S. bombed the south of Iran in a clear violation of the ceasefire in what the story calls, quoting the Pentagon, “self-defense strikes.” The U.S., of course, is never the aggressor, but instead always a victim that only attacks in “self-defense.”
The wanton and wasteful spending of the U.S. war machine is seldom questioned, and when it is, the questioning, as presented by the paper of record, functions not as an exposé but as a cover-up. In its story on the war exposing shortcomings in the military-industrial complex, War Secretary Pete Hegseth is given credit for “taking on a problem that the Pentagon and Congress have tried but mostly failed to address.” But Hegseth’s braggadocio is superficial and meant only to answer the increasing criticisms of the now even more money demanded of the war machine. The story mentions nothing about the general lack of industrial capacity in the country, the result of industry fleeing, the bloated spending that functions as a giveaway to the leading arms makers, and the failure of the Pentagon to pass an audit for eight consecutive years. The result is that the story ends up cheering for Trump’s and Hegseth’s request to expand the budget to $1.5 trillion, since we now know the money will be well spent because Hegseth is on the case.
The hammer was also out just prior to Trump’s trip to China. Trump, to his credit, had taken businesspeople and wanted to make deals. Not the neo-con hawks in both the Trump and former Biden administrations. They want to keep pushing for war. They chastised Trump for sidelining the Taiwan issue, where a majority of the Taiwanese are not in favor of war, which China claims as a red line, and which the remnants of the old China lobby, the Blinken-Sullivan-Biden warmongers, and the Republican neo-cons are looking at as the provocation point for a war.
Not a mention during the trip in the Western media of the Belt and Road Initiative, China’s plan for raising the Global South out of poverty. China’s lead in selling non-gas guzzling, environmentally-sound autos to the rest of the world was presented in the Times as an attempt to take over American auto manufacturing, as the Times put it, “The Chinese Communist Party,” resulting in “an unacceptable national security risk.” This threat to turn cars communist is not the way Britain, Canada, and much of Europe have reacted, mostly welcoming this attempt to make breathing in smog-filled cities more bearable.
The neo-cons at the Times also claimed that there was a “deep distrust in the United States toward Chinese firms, which many workers blame for the hollowing out of American manufacturing.” This is an entirely disingenuous proposition because it was organizations like the Times that mislead and misdirected that anger, not at the American firms that fled the U.S. for cheaper wages, but at the Chinese trying to raise their standard of living.
Finally, the Chinese overtures toward peace and backing away from hostility were characterized in the publication by a former Obama advisor as “geopolitical quicksand” where “Once you step in, you cannot get out, and the more you try, the deeper you get pulled in by China.” That’s one way to describe moves toward global cooperation and away from war. Again, the holder of the hammer must reduce everything to a nail, as the neo-cons in Western media present peaceful co-existence, which the rest of the world would cheer, as a trap. They just want to keep pounding.
As with all op-eds published by People’s World, the views reflected here are those of the author.
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