CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

What a world! It couldn’t be much stranger, could it?

And by the way, what is it about the Middle East? Since the Gulf War of 1990-1991, it’s just never really ended, has it? Who cares that the region is halfway around the world from Washington, D.C.? Yes, the U.S. fought Iraq there from 2003 to 2008. And recently, of course, Donald Trump has gone after Iran. If you want to spread out just a bit more, you could toss in this country’s relatively brief war in Libya and its almost endless one this century in Afghanistan. And don’t blame me if I left something out. After all, I’m almost 82 years old and starting to forget a few things.

I mean, Iran makes particular sense, right? After all, it’s a mere 6,000-odd miles from this country. Anyway, why not shut down part of the world’s supply of fossil fuels and threaten us all with global economic disaster? And since you asked, how could anyone be surprised? After all, since World War II, my country has indeed been the definition of a (if not the) global imperial power and it’s never really stopped making war.

In my youth, for instance, Washington spent almost 20 years fighting in Vietnam. Of course, who even remembers these days, given all the wars that have followed?

Still, on a planet with so many other problems, particularly heat, you might wonder why our government continues to periodically turn up the heat in the Middle East and beyond, led, of course, by a president who, once upon a time (in the wake of his first term in office) in what now seems like another age and another universe, was proud of not going to war anywhere. Oops! Except — yes again, in the Middle East — Syria. Oh, double oops, and I almost forgot to look in the direction of Africa and so include his more recent brief bombing campaign........

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