America’s National Security Wonderland
While America is battling exhaustion and political polarization at home, it is now facing something it’s never faced abroad: it is locked into a security competition against multiple opponents who, when taken together, are in fact vastly superior to America in terms of industrial capacity. This on its own would be an incredibly tough row to hoe, even at the best of times. The times, however, are not particularly good: the U.S. military currently finds itself in a state of acute crisis, beset by a number of intractable problems that neither the political nor military leadership have been able to solve.

126 years since the launching of the Philippine-American War
Trump, McKinley, and US imperialism in Asia

February marks the 126th anniversary of the beginning of the Philippine-American War. The conflict crushed the fledgling Philippine republic and reduced a nation of more than 7 million people to an American colony. The United States stepped onto the world stage as an imperialist power at the dawn of the twentieth century, caked with the blood of hundreds of thousands of Filipinos.


The American president responsible for setting the United States down the path of imperialist conquest was William McKinley. The Republican Party candidate for President in 1896, McKinley ran on a platform of high tariffs to promote the interests of American corporations. His campaign was the first in US history to run with massive financial support from major capitalist interests.

In his second inaugural address on January 20, President Donald Trump called McKinley a “great president,” and announced that he was reimposing McKinley’s name on Mt. Denali, the highest peak in North America. Trump has repeatedly praised McKinley and clearly sees the long dead president as a model. Trump hailed McKinley as a president of tariffs and a “natural businessman” who made possible the construction of the Panama Canal under his successor Theodore Roosevelt.

Trump’s admiration for McKinley is apt. Trump speaks openly of colonizing Gaza, of the territorial annexation of Greenland and Panama, and wields tariffs as an instrument of economic warfare to browbeat rival powers into submission to the dictates of American capitalism. The presidency of McKinley was the fulcrum in the transformation of the United States into an imperialist power. It was under McKinley, that the United States annexed Hawaii in 1898, took Guam, Cuba, and Puerto Rico in the Spanish-American War, and launched a war of conquest in the Philippines that continued long after McKinley himself was dead. (...)

The wrong means to an expected end? China not playing along gets itself labelled as "assertive."

Grenell vs. Rubio: Team Trump's competing Latin America visions
Old maximalist policies vs. making deals with adversaries — which one wins out?

Rogue, rabid and reactionary. And from ROFLida.

Chris Hedges EXPOSES How America’s FAKE Christian Right & Billionaires Are DESTROYING Us!!!

Chris Hedges: The Empire Self-Destructs
We share the pathologies of all dying empires with their mixture of buffoonery, rampant corruption, military fiascos, economic collapse and savage state repression.

Sounds like a Mearsheimer 'realist', though Secretaries of State tend to say one thing and do another...

 kurtster wrote:

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F-35 crashes same day Lockheed CEO touts its success
The US military's biggest boondoggle keeps boondoggling

New neocon manifesto: Keep US troops in the Middle East forever
The 'Vandenberg Coalition' wants Trump to prioritize Israel and maintain Iran as enemy number one

A leading neoconservative for most of the last half century has released a comprehensive series of recommendations on Middle East policy for the new Trump administration nearly all of which are ideas that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud Party would happily embrace.

The 16-page report, entitled “Deals of the Century: Solving the Middle East,” is published by the Vandenberg Coalition, which was founded and chaired by Elliott Abrams, who has held senior foreign policy posts in every Republican administration since Ronald Reagan (except George H.W. Bush’s), including as Special Envoy for Venezuela and later for Iran during Trump’s first term.

Created shortly after former President Biden took office, the Coalition has acted as a latter-day Project for the New American Century, a letterhead organization that acted as a hub and platform for pro-Likud neoconservatives, aggressive nationalists, and the Christian Right in mobilizing public support for the “Global War on Terror,” the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and the move away from a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict, particularly under the George W. Bush administration in which Abrams served as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Near East and North African Affairs, surviving a number of purges of leading neoconservatives in that administration after the Iraq occupation went south. (...)

 steeler wrote:

Have to remember who is real audience is, see Kurtster. 

 ColdMiser wrote:

He might think that the swagger and ludicrous demand as a start to negotiations makes him seem like a tough guy, but all the world (except ⅓ of ‘Merica) see him as a capricious doofus.

 steeler wrote:
I find this methodology maddening. Running a country by sending out social media posts while taking a dump. Hit send and everyone runs around with their hair on fire till the next stupid post. 

 haresfur wrote:

The totally inexplicable thing is why he chooses to make these threats by public tweet. Diplomacy — even when the talk is tough — is best done in private dialogue. 


Edit: I read some details and see that there were exchanges between Trump and Pedro on social media.

 haresfur wrote:

You know, the best approach will be for EVERYONE to be the enemy. One person can be ignored, but if three people - I said three people... then it's a movement....

 R_P wrote:
The Donroe Doctrine — hilarious.  Best thing that has happened to Canadian nationalism in a long time.  Good wakeup call for Europe. 

The Panama Canal nonsense will ultimately hurt US business interests throughout Latin America as did the recent unconditional support for ethnic cleansing terrorism and baby killing in the Gaza concentration camp.    Perhaps it does not matter as long as the bipartisan view is that money falls from the skies.