President Biden, struggling to gain support for his $105 billion weapons boondoggle to further US wars against Russia and Gaza, sent out his chief advocate for perpetual war, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, to hammer away at advocates for a sane, peaceful US foreign policy.
Austin told the Reagan National Defense Forum in California, actually a forum for perpetual war, that Americans for peace are “Americans [who] prefer isolation to engagement…[trying] to pull up the drawbridge. [They’re Americans trying] to kick loose the cornerstone of American leadership. [They’re Americans who are trying] to undermine the security architecture that has produced decades of prosperity without great-power war. And you’ll hear some people try to brand an American retreat from responsibility as bold new leadership.” So when you hear that, make no mistake: It is not bold. It is not new. And it is not leadership.
Austin, shilling for his Commander in Chief Biden, seeks to keep funneling endless billions to support America’s proxy war that’s enabled hundreds of thousands of deaths in Ukraine. He’s also ensuring the genocidal ethnic cleansing of 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza that could not happen without US weapons and immoral support.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin should resign forthwith. So should his boss, President Biden, who appears bent on destroying Gaza and Ukraine for reasons having nothing to do with American national security interests. Their replacements might realize perpetual war is utterly self destructive to the individuals promoting it, America; indeed, the world. It might just inspire them to pivot to peace before they get drawn into the same vortex of defeat as their predecessors.
Walt Zlotow became involved in antiwar activities upon entering University of Chicago in 1963. He is current president of the West Suburban Peace Coalition based in the Chicago western suburbs. He blogs daily on antiwar and other issues at www.heartlandprogressive.blogspot.com.
