ANOTHER NEW ENEMY?

I don't care if the president is white, black, a woman, a Republican or a Democrat. When choosing which president you want, we need to be honest about what the role of the American president actually is: starting wars. Not necessarily because the US is under any threat, but because our president and Congress are paid to do the bidding of weapons manufacturers and defense contractors. Wars mean that these industries get paid, so our "leaders" are willing to cast aside the wishes of the American people who've said we don't want war. And who are tired of being the world's police and nation-building while this country falls apart. We've expressed that clearly, yet even a Nobel Peace prize winner like Obama is always on the look-out for new military conflicts. Is ISIS awful? Sure, but it's heavily armed neighboring countries all have powerful militaries which could step in and defend the region if the US did nothing.

So we're back in Iraq, which the last 4 presidents have found a reason to invade. And 1 day ago, the White House changed it's plan to withdraw troops in Afghanistan to a level of 5,800. Now we'll stay there with 9,800 until 2016. (Does anyone else recall the from 2014 "We'll be out of Afghanistan" deadline Obama set while campaigning as a peace-loving, war-ending president?) We're fighting ISIS without a war authorization from Congress and Obama's proposed authorization will officially give future White Houses frightening new powers. Why are we arming Ukraine--because we're hoping for a new conflict there? Hey, we've messed up the Middle East--let's revive the old war with the commies! And suddenly, there is an issue with...Venezuela?

Last week, the White House called Venezuela an "unusual and extraordinary threat to national security." We've placed sanctions--the way our bullying nation says "We don't like you" on seven top Venezuelan officials for alleged human right violations and corruption. Because with police departments like Ferguson all over the US unfairly targeting blacks, 1 in 5 women raped on our college campuses and a similar number in the military, we need to hunt for alleged injustices in Venezuela. There's injustice all over the world, but which country are you president of, Obama?

I ask you--are you guys aware of the threat from Venezuela? Not that you should have access to the info that the president does, but it's wise to question our government. I'm a drag queen with no access to state secrets, but I knew the evidence tying Iraq to 9/11 was faulty. Hillary proved she was no leader by voting for the Iraq war as a Senator. And that war, led to the chaos in Iraq which enable ISIS to take hold! But if you always want war because it's profitable, a new enemy's existence--even one as savage as ISIS--is a win for the US. The war profiteers can continue to get paid. And the public will support the fight against ISIS if you blast enough images of gruesome beheadings on TV. Just don't show any images of the grim murder scenes from Obama's secret drone wars which are just as savage and which many civilians die in. Beheading and getting burned in a cage are savage, to be sure. But does it really matter how an innocent person dies as a result of someone's misplaced aggression? If you die from ISIS decapitating you or you die because a US drone blows your head off, you still die and that death is still wrong!

So I have to question any new "extraordinary threat" announced by my government, which has a dreadful track record of foreign policy. Here's what they're up to in Venezuela:

"On February 19, the mayor of Caracas, Antonio Ledezma, was arrested for allegedly being involved in a U.S.-backed coup plot. Days later, Venezuela announced it had arrested an unspecified number of Americans for engaging in espionage and recruitment activities. Venezuela also announced a series of measures, including visa requirements for U.S. citizens and restrictions and the downsizing of the U.S. Embassy in Caracas. This all comes as Venezuela faces an economic crisis in part because of the plummeting price of oil."

And their president's response to the sanctions:

"PRESIDENT NICOLÁS MADURO: [translated] President Obama has decided to put himself into a box with no way out, a box of failure. And he has decided that he wants to be remembered in the future like Richard Nixon and George W. Bush. President Obama will be remembered in the future for his decision today and the aggression against the Venezuelan people, the noble people, because the people of Venezuela are a peaceful people. President Obama, you don’t have a right to attack us nor to declare that Venezuela is a threat to the people of the United States. You are the threat to the people of the United States, you who decide to invade, to kill, to finance terrorism in the world."

I have no reason to trust the Venezuelan president since I have no knowledge of him. I do remember cheering the last Venezualan president, Hugo Chavez, however. He told the truth about George W. Bush in 2006. At a UN speech the day after Bush had spoken at the same podium Chavez said: "The Devil is right at home. The Devil, the Devil himself, is right in the house. And the Devil came here yesterday. Yesterday the Devil came here. Right here. [crosses himself] And it smells of sulphur still today." What a great read!

The video I've linked shows an insane exchange where the State Department's Jen Psaki claims: "These latest accusations, like all previous such accusations, are ludicrous. As a matter of long-standing policy, the United States does not support political transitions by nonconstitutional means. Political transitions must be democratic, constitutional, peaceful and legal." A reporter than refers to the many coups that we've been involved in in South America. The US is screwing around all over the world in ways we don't even hear about because our news media, unlike Democracy Now!​, doesn't run ads by companies which profit from war. Or because we are more interested in entertainment news like Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan or Justin Bieber doing jail time or how "black" the Oscars are.

But the State Department is lying when it claims we don't support political transitions which aren't legal. Was it legal to lie about Iraq's supposed weapons of mass destruction and ability to create a nuclear weapon? No, and Bush and Cheney should be tried for war crimes. Is supporting Syrian rebels to overthrow their leader constitutional? The US has a long history of overthrowing governments. Here's a historian's list of our interventions just from South America in this fascinating video.

MIGUEL TINKER SALAS: "I would have loved if that kind of exchange would have got broader diffusion in the U.S. press, but the fact is that it hasn’t. And we continue to have the belief that the U.S. does not—is not involved in unconstitutional change in Latin America. And as a historian, the record speaks just the opposite, from ’53 in Guatemala to the Dominican Republic, to Chile in ’73, and through the support of the Argentine military dictatorships and Brazil, and, if we want to go even closer, to 2002 in Venezuela, when the U.S. actually did support a coup against the democratically elected Hugo Chávez, the shortest coup in the world, and the coup that brought Chávez back to power, and then again in Honduras in 2009, and, not shortly thereafter, in Paraguay with Lugo, where they said it was a democratic transition, when in fact it was an unconstitutional shift in power. So, again, the notion that the U.S. has not supported both military coups directly or through what they call soft power is really ludicrous."

US foreign policy is what's ludicrous. And our president sets foreign policy. Sanctions are sometimes a lead-up to war and Obama's assertion that Venezuela represents an "extraordinary threat" to the US is nonsense. The analysis in this piece suggests that we're sanctioning Venezuela because we've eased sanctions on Cuba. And I guess we've got to have an enemy in Latin America? Or somewhere close? Also very interesting to note: the US is Venezuela's largest trading partner. What does Venezuela sell us? 95% of VZ's exports are oil. Hmmm. We've never started a war over oil before, have we?

There is no presidential candidate currently arguing for peace except the rotten Rand Paul. And even if they do campaign for peace, we see how peace worked out once Nobel Peace prize-winning Obama got into office. In fact, Rand Paul's argument for peace is anti-Hillary, because she's more of a hawk than Obama. So we have the Democrats, formerly the party which skewed towards peace currently at war with the choice of one more hawkish presidential candidate in Hillary Clinton. See any avenues running towards peace  with Democrats? (Which is why this lifelong Democrat has rejected what my former party has become.) And Rand Paul, from the traditionally more hawkish Republican party, is thinking he can gain traction against his rivals by calling the GOP too hawkish. Sadly, only Rand Paul is articulating what the American people overwhelmingly want: PEACE. If our government supposedly represents us, why do we never get the peace most of us desire from either party?

If you've made it through this insanely long post, bless your heart. Maybe you're interested enough to watch the video. I have to giggle a little because I never dreamt that I'd be writing anything like this. But our country is on the wrong track and everyone who sees it needs to raise their voices.