The U.S. need never again be at peace, because it has so many ways to get war going.
There is now a new way to create a war. Obama has invented it.
At this point in its history, the empire no longer needs to be attacked, by an actual or fabricated attack. It no longer needs to manufacture a pretext. It no longer needs to say that there is a threat of a threat. It no longer needs to suspect weapons of mass destruction. It no longer needs to point to an humanitarian concern. It no longer needs to mention national security.
Obama’s method is simple. Make a threat by drawing a red line. There need be no relation of that line to any U.S. interest or to national defense or an attack on America. The red line can refer solely to the behavior of some government (maybe even some splinter group) in some foreign land.
Then when the line is breached, the president declares that he must attack or else his resolve and reputation for strength will be undermined. The maintenance of a commitment to make war becomes the reason for the war.
This is a bootstrap method of getting a war going. The threshold for making a war has been lowered again and again and again. This is the lowest bar yet.
Bush invented his own red line method. He created a global war on an unbeatable foe — terror — where terror could be defined as any resistance to the empire anywhere. This is also a red line method where the red line is simply any form of armed resistance to the empire.
America is now in a very bad way. If I were Isaiah or Jeremiah, I’d have plenty to say.
8:09 pm on September 2, 2013
