Trump Is Carpet-Bombing U.S. Foreign Policy
EDUCATE! DONALD TRUMP, US FOREIGN POLICY
By Phyllis Bennis, www.fpif.org
January 28th, 2017
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Above Photo: AK Rockefeller / Flickr
Already Trump is super-charging U.S. militarism, gutting diplomacy, and
punishing the victims of wars Washington started.
Very soon, Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order regarding
refugees and entry to the U.S. for a whole swathe of people. In effect, the
edict would be aimed at banning Muslims from the United States, demonizing
people from Muslim-majority countries across the Middle East and North
Africa.
It's no accident that of the seven countries identified, the U.S. is bombing
five (Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya and Somalia), has troops deployed and
military bases in another (Sudan), and imposes harsh sanctions and frequent
threats against the last (Iran).
These military actions all reflect policies that fuel refugee flows in the
first place. In a grim irony, the order bans refugees from wars that in many
cases the U.S. itself started.
The order violates international law requiring countries to provide refuge
to those in desperate need, and completely reverses the long history of the
U.S. claim - however often that claim is actually denied - to be a country
that welcomes refugees and immigrants.
We should also note that the list of Muslim-majority countries targeted in
the new regulations all happen to be countries where the Trump business
empire has no holdings. Exceptions just happen to be countries like Egypt
and Saudi Arabia, Muslim-majority states where Trump has major investments
and business partnerships.
One might think that Egypt and Saudi Arabia, the two countries that nearly
all the 9/11 hijackers came from - and which are currently known to be
backing ISIS and other terrorists, in Saudi Arabia's case, and facing
serious terror attacks on their own soil largely in response to government
repression, in Egypt's - would be included in Trump's twisted analysis as
potential sources of terrorism.
But no, those countries were ignored. Conflicts of interest? Nah, just a
coincidence.
The order goes on to call for the Pentagon to create a "safe zone in Syria
and in the region" to absorb local refugees, to prevent them from heading to
Europe and beyond to the U.S. Yet almost inevitably, that means launching
more airstrikes on the country - a recipe for more war and more refugees.
This is the opposite of what we should be doing. If we're serious about
taking care of refugees and ending the conditions that give rise to their
plight, we must welcome far more of the 65 million people currently
displaced in the world. And crucially, we must provide real support - not
with more war, but by working to end the wars that create refugees in the
first place.
That means demanding that our government privilege diplomacy over war. The
Obama administration's successes in foreign policy - the Paris climate
agreement, the moves towards normalization with Cuba, and most especially
the nuclear deal with Iran - all emerged from hard-fought campaigns to
choose diplomatic over military means.
And even if anyone near the top of the new administration were interested in
diplomacy (though there's no evidence of that!), it just got a whole lot
harder.
The soon-to-be-signed executive order creates a lot more work for federal
workers, especially in the Department of Homeland Security and in the State
Department. Yet the entire top echelon of the State Department's management
just quit and walked out. There are conflicting stories about whether these
leaders, who weren't political appointees, were pushed out by new political
leaders or left on their own after being presented with unacceptable
demands. But either way, State is now severely understaffed in key areas
such as consular services.
For those of us convinced that real internationalism should be the basis of
U.S. foreign policy, the State Department has never been a full-fledged
ally. U.S. diplomacy is too often deployed in the interest of military
goals, U.S. corporate profits, and the undermining of governments deemed
insufficiently submissive to U.S. strategic interests - and too rarely in
compliance with international law.
But diplomacy and multilateralism, however flawed, are still the key
alternatives to military force. Getting rid of the key civil servants who
kept U.S. diplomacy functioning fits far too well into the opposite goal -
privileging war over diplomacy.
The new president's budget calls for the Pentagon to get a huge influx of
new funds, beyond the $600 billion or so base budget it already has (a
figure that doesn't include the funds that support the nuclear arsenal, care
for veterans, or even the war on terror, which run several hundred billion
dollars more). The military forces are about to get a lot bigger. And the
nuclear arsenal is about to get an enormous influx of money for
"modernization."
Combine that with a State Department more or less incapable of doing
anything because they've lost all the people who actually know how to make
diplomacy happen, and you have a perfect storm of war winning out over
diplomacy.
It's kind of like the way elites have carried out neoliberal policies of
privatization and de-regulation: You de-fund and under-staff the public
agencies, while shifting money to now deregulated private sector entities.
Then you watch while the government agencies fail, thus "proving" that
government can't do anything nearly as well as the private sector.
Only in this case, it's not the public that fails while the private
succeeds. It's diplomacy that fails while the military wins out. Which means
everyone loses.
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Trump Is Carpet-Bombing U.S. Foreign Policy
Educate! Donald Trump, US Foreign Policy
By Phyllis Bennis, www.fpif.org
January 28th, 2017
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Above Photo: AK Rockefeller / Flickr
Already Trump is super-charging U.S. militarism, gutting diplomacy, and
punishing the victims of wars Washington started.
Very soon, Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order regarding
refugees and entry to the U.S. for a whole swathe of people. In effect, the
edict would be aimed at banning Muslims from the United States, demonizing
people from Muslim-majority countries across the Middle East and North
Africa.
It's no accident that of the seven countries identified, the U.S. is bombing
five (Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya and Somalia), has troops deployed and
military bases in another (Sudan), and imposes harsh sanctions and frequent
threats against the last (Iran).
These military actions all reflect policies that fuel refugee flows in the
first place. In a grim irony, the order bans refugees from wars that in many
cases the U.S. itself started.
The order violates international law requiring countries to provide refuge
to those in desperate need, and completely reverses the long history of the
U.S. claim - however often that claim is actually denied - to be a country
that welcomes refugees and immigrants.
We should also note that the list of Muslim-majority countries targeted in
the new regulations all happen to be countries where the Trump business
empire has no holdings. Exceptions just happen to be countries like Egypt
and Saudi Arabia, Muslim-majority states where Trump has major investments
and business partnerships.
One might think that Egypt and Saudi Arabia, the two countries that nearly
all the 9/11 hijackers came from - and which are currently known to be
backing ISIS and other terrorists, in Saudi Arabia's case, and facing
serious terror attacks on their own soil largely in response to government
repression, in Egypt's - would be included in Trump's twisted analysis as
potential sources of terrorism.
But no, those countries were ignored. Conflicts of interest? Nah, just a
coincidence.
The order goes on to call for the Pentagon to create a "safe zone in Syria
and in the region" to absorb local refugees, to prevent them from heading to
Europe and beyond to the U.S. Yet almost inevitably, that means launching
more airstrikes on the country - a recipe for more war and more refugees.
This is the opposite of what we should be doing. If we're serious about
taking care of refugees and ending the conditions that give rise to their
plight, we must welcome far more of the 65 million people currently
displaced in the world. And crucially, we must provide real support - not
with more war, but by working to end the wars that create refugees in the
first place.
That means demanding that our government privilege diplomacy over war. The
Obama administration's successes in foreign policy - the Paris climate
agreement, the moves towards normalization with Cuba, and most especially
the nuclear deal with Iran - all emerged from hard-fought campaigns to
choose diplomatic over military means.
And even if anyone near the top of the new administration were interested in
diplomacy (though there's no evidence of that!), it just got a whole lot
harder.
The soon-to-be-signed executive order creates a lot more work for federal
workers, especially in the Department of Homeland Security and in the State
Department. Yet the entire top echelon of the State Department's management
just quit and walked out. There are conflicting stories about whether these
leaders, who weren't political appointees, were pushed out by new political
leaders or left on their own after being presented with unacceptable
demands. But either way, State is now severely understaffed in key areas
such as consular services.
For those of us convinced that real internationalism should be the basis of
U.S. foreign policy, the State Department has never been a full-fledged
ally. U.S. diplomacy is too often deployed in the interest of military
goals, U.S. corporate profits, and the undermining of governments deemed
insufficiently submissive to U.S. strategic interests - and too rarely in
compliance with international law.
But diplomacy and multilateralism, however flawed, are still the key
alternatives to military force. Getting rid of the key civil servants who
kept U.S. diplomacy functioning fits far too well into the opposite goal -
privileging war over diplomacy.
The new president's budget calls for the Pentagon to get a huge influx of
new funds, beyond the $600 billion or so base budget it already has (a
figure that doesn't include the funds that support the nuclear arsenal, care
for veterans, or even the war on terror, which run several hundred billion
dollars more). The military forces are about to get a lot bigger. And the
nuclear arsenal is about to get an enormous influx of money for
"modernization."
Combine that with a State Department more or less incapable of doing
anything because they've lost all the people who actually know how to make
diplomacy happen, and you have a perfect storm of war winning out over
diplomacy.
It's kind of like the way elites have carried out neoliberal policies of
privatization and de-regulation: You de-fund and under-staff the public
agencies, while shifting money to now deregulated private sector entities.
Then you watch while the government agencies fail, thus "proving" that
government can't do anything nearly as well as the private sector.
Only in this case, it's not the public that fails while the private
succeeds. It's diplomacy that fails while the military wins out. Which means
everyone loses.
