We are living in the most frightening times since WW2. Correction: considering that Germany didn’t possess nuclear weapons whereas the USA has no less than 3,700 nuclear warheads at its disposal, each with an explosive yield at least 100 times more powerful than the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki that killed over 550,000 people, and bearing in mind Trump and his gang are quite clearly more warmongering, belligerent, power-mad, incompetent and ignorant than even mass-murderers like Hitler and the Nazis ever were, not to mention their having access to infinitely more private wealth, then it is perfectly reasonable to state that these are actually the most dangerous and disturbing times in the entire history of the human race. So, anyone not scared to death is either an utter fool, a fucked-up psychopath, a religious nutcase craving Armageddon or a complacent, cowardly, anaesthetised nihilist.
For over a century the USA has been the richest, most powerful, most dominant nation on Earth, the self-appointed policer of the planet, controlling international bodies, throwing its weight around, overthrowing democratically-elected governments that dared to propose alternatives to turbo-capitalist hegemony and shoving its crass, corny, manipulative propaganda onslaught down the throats of the rest of the world. There was some consolation in the basic decency and warmth that ran through American society and the tremendous cultural achievements in literature, film, music and art. But all those faults and virtues have been rendered irrelevant and trivial since half the population of the US, unforgivably for a second time, put an embarrassing, infantile, crude, reckless, truculent bully in charge of the world’s largest military and the US rapidly transformed into something categorically different, something far far worse than anything that had gone before.
It is now an out of control rogue state run by toxic thugs according to the brutal principle of ‘might is right’ and wreaking death, destruction and chaos everywhere. The crimes are coming so thick and fast it’s hard to keep track:
●Imposing punitive trade tariffs spitefully and unilaterally like a protection racket;
●Threatening to illegally invade and annexe Greenland, the sovereign territory of an ally, in order to grab its mineral riches and hinting that Canada is also a future target for land-grab;
●Using the US veto to sabotage UN action on climate change and thereby menace the very future of life on Earth;
●Unprecedently interfering with the internal affairs of European countries by brazenly supporting various far-right parties (including Reform UK);
●Funding and arming Israel’s never-ending, genocidal onslaught on Palestine while proposing the future expulsion of any remaining Palestinians and Gaza’s transformation into a giant luxury holiday resort;
●Betraying Ukraine while cosying up to Putin’s murderous imperialist regime in Russia;
●Kidnapping the elected President of Venezuela and installing a puppet in his place while planning the wholesale robbery of the country’s vast oil resources;
●Making menacing warnings to both Colombia and Cuba that they are next in line for seizure and colony status;
●Withdrawing from no less than 66 international bodies, burning bridges of trust built up over decades, shattering the rules-based international order and asserting that America has no constraints and will do whatever it wants wherever it wants, however arbitrary, acquisitive, illegal and corrupt, and regardless of truth, justice, tolerance, democracy and sovereignty;
●Ruling by fear at home as well as abroad by flooding Democrat-run cities and states with troops for no reason, intimidating US institutions, from the media, courts, universities, museums and libraries through to cultural centres, and by making ordinary US citizens frightened of their own government as heavily-armed masked agents snatch people off the streets, dish out savage punishment to those who get in their way, and actually shoot people dead with impunity and complete disregard for the law;
●Starting, along with their fellow law-breaking rogue state Israel, an unprovoked, unjustified, entirely illegal war against Iran in which normal rules of engagement and moral and legal considerations are ignored, no coherent plans or war aims have been put in place and the US rampage has so far involved the assassination of Iran’s head of state, the killing of 2,000 civilians, the maiming of countless others and a litany of war crimes as the oil-rich country is subject to an unceasing barrage of air-strikes, its ships are torpedoed and Lebanon is cruelly attacked too while the whole middle-east is turned into a battlefield, millions of people are displaced and the global economy is plunged into crisis.
While effectively waging war on civilisation and the world, Trump has set up something called ‘The Board of Peace’ in a stunt straight out of Orwellian doublespeak. Charging countries that wish to join his board $1billion dollars, he is the chairman for life with exclusive, sole authority over all decisions and a stated aim to eventually replace the United Nations. The ‘members’ of the Board are a ghastly collection of sycophants, autocrats, grovellers and despots from the world’s worst rightwing tyrannies – their quality is typified by the presence of the atrocious, treacherous criminal Tony Blair (still a member of the UK Labour Party).
With his usual massive ego-mania and ludicrously over-stated hyperbole, Trump has described this ‘initiative’ as “the most prestigious Board ever assembled at any time, any place” and “the most consequential international body in history”. Those quotes can be filed away with all the other examples of Trump’s ego, so pathetically fragile it requires regular self-massaging, such as: “My IQ is one of the highest – and you all know it”, “My two greatest assets are mental stability and being really smart…I went from very successful businessman to top TV star to President of the United States…that would qualify as not smart, but genius”, “When I was young I was always the best athlete…always the best player at all sports”, “I’m so good-looking…I feel like a supermodel except, like, times 10…how handsome am I, right?”, “Everything I’ve done has been a tremendous success…nobody’s ever been more successful than me”, “I am the greatest President in history”, and so on endlessly.
The fact that this person is the most powerful man in the world would be hilarious were it not so terrifying. What should happen now, as atrocity after atrocity is committed in the illegal war of aggression against Iran, is Netanyahu – already charged with war crimes in Gaza – and Trump should face prosecution by the International Criminal Court; the US and Israel should face the same sanctions that have been imposed on Russia for the invasion of Ukraine; all governments in the world that still respect the UN charter, human rights and the rule of law should recognise that the US and Israel are outlaw states, hostile powers that are an existential threat to us all; economic, cultural and military relations with both these pariah states should be halted forthwith and the many concerned citizens of goodwill in the US, failed by the much vaunted constitutional checks and balances that have proved useless up against a tyrant hell-bent on doing whatever he wants, should be encouraged to organise and implement the ousting and arrest of the evil fascists* who have taken over their country. The travesty has gone on long enough.
For the UK, duped for decades by a non-existent ‘special relationship’ which actually amounted to nothing more than the historical accident that English is also the USA’s official language, the situation is particularly perilous. The US Air Force has 12 military bases in the UK, the UK relies on US technology to operate the unaffordable and useless Trident nuclear submarines, and the UK is entangled with the US in areas of security, intelligence-gathering and defence. All these connections should cease and American forces should be evicted – ending inadvisable and dangerous dependencies that ought to have been curtailed long ago in any case, and which the presidency of Trump has now shown to be absolutely intolerable. Trump’s threats to NATO, appalling insults about British war dead and contemptuously rude remarks about Keir Starmer just because he didn’t immediately join his homicidal rampage, show that the UK should have nothing to do with the US – particularly as, even assuming there will one day be a ‘post-Trump’ era, the fascist seeds that have taken root and the billionaire tech-bros who control American minds inspire no confidence that even worse monsters aren’t lying in wait to take power in the future – like, for instance, Trump’s ‘Secretary of War’ ex-Fox News demagogue Pete Hegseth, a bible-bashing bigot who treats it all like a video game, openly revels in death itself and makes Trump sound like Mahatma Gandhi.
Starmer, after 18 months as Prime Minister, has at long last got something right by standing up to Trump. His position is supported by 60% of the UK population, while crypto-fascist fans Badenoch and Farage of course backed whatever their hero decreed (although ‘populist’ Farage quickly did a U-turn when he saw the opinion polls). Starmer is fortunate he is rid of people like Morgan McSweeney and Peter Mandelson, who no doubt would have urged him to do Trump’s bidding, and even he now pays no attention to what the despicable Blair says.
Trump’s chaotic war has quickly become a humiliating failure: it is costing the US more than $11 billion a week, the body-bags of dead Americans are being flown home, oil prices are rocketing, catastrophe is engulfing the Middle-East, the lack of strategic planning, war aims and refusal to consult either NATO or supposed ‘allies’ has proved disastrous – and now he has the gall to demand countries he was insulting a few days ago, like the UK, come to his rescue and send their ships to the Strait of Hormuz, risking their own people’s lives while Trump, with the largest Navy in the world, doesn’t dare to and instead bombs islands in the Strait “for fun”. Trump was sucked into this war by Netanyahu and Netanyahu was enabled by his outrageous breaches of international law and UN resolutions for year after year being ignored by countries like the UK while they supplied Israel with weapons. Putting the USA to one side for a moment, these are the UK’s crimes and the UK’s share of responsibility for what is now happening. They date back decades and it’s about time the UK faced a reckoning. Yes, US and Israeli leaders should face prosecution for war crimes and crimes against humanity in national and international courts; yes, the USA should pay compensation to all the countries in the world adversely affected by this war; yes, Iran and Lebanon should receive full reparations; yes, Trump should be impeached in Congress for all his myriad abuses of power…and yes, Keir Starmer should now apologise for the UK’s complicity, set up a commission to calculate and pay the damages the UK owes to all injured parties, sever all ties with the US and Israel until they have both outlawed fascism as Germany was made to do after WW2, halt the planned state visit of King Charles III to the US in July and ban and seize the assets of the far-right and its media allies in the UK – or otherwise one day he may be arrested himself along with his Labour and Tory predecessors in government…oh, nearly forgot, and grow a pair of balls.
Meanwhile…it is surely about time that a mass anti-fascist movement was mobilised, as happened for instance in the 1936 Battle of Cable Street and the 1977 Battle of Lewisham, to resist and repulse the fascist propaganda tsunami. Turning away from the nightmare and burying your head in the sand is the worst possible response.
*NOTE
For a full definition and analysis of Fascism see this article from 2018