Another “Peace Candidate” just started another war.
By Rich Gibson
Wilson, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Bush One and Two, and now Trump.
William Blum, my friend, now deceased and lifetime radical made a list of the countries the US has bombed and/or invaded. Here it is https://williamblum.org/chapters/rogue-state/united-states-bombings-of-other-countries
This is what empires MUST do, relentlessly seek cheap labor, raw materials, markets and regional control. The US, an empire in rapid decline, is thrashing about internally and externally as China, with a vast military and new weapons, uses soft power to blithely invade all continents, including the Americas.
The socio-pathic narcissist Donald Trump, mushroom deep in the Epstein files, says “we will bring freedom to the Iranian people.” When did that ever happen in the past?
The Democrats, save a few, wring their hands and say, “Why didn’t you give us a chance to say, ‘hooray for another war.? It ain’t fair! We want to vote!” The two parties of the empire, trapped within the exploitative confines of Capital, are two heads on the same snake.
Imagine a billiards table the size of a football field. Then plunk thousands of round balls on that table. Now, take a giant cue ball and slam it into those other balls. They’ll all be slamming and crashing for weeks, months, even, perhaps, years.
Those balls are countries and people, each staged at unfair odds with one another.
That’s what just happened. It’s not all that unusual. It happened after the 2001 attacks, with the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.
It happened in 2009/09 with the bailout of the banks to the tune of 12.9 Trillion dollars (Bloomberg). A trillion is a lot of socialized losses. Twelve Trillion is free health care for everyone, and free college or university or training school.
The working class, in this great financial collapse, took it in the heart. The United Auto Workers Union, a counterfeit union that sells the pacified labor of the members to the Big Bosses in exchange for dues income—off which the Labor Bosses live very well—except in some instances where their corruption becomes too glaring—a dozen UAW bosses were jailed in the last decade.
But, the rank and file was forced to accept wage cuts, multi-tier pay levels, and a no strike agreement for five years.
It happened with the Arab (farcically tragic) Spring. A fruit vendor in Tunisia, denied the right to sell his fruit, immolated himself. He was, well, an accelerator, a good way to show how things change. Grievances had piled up, and up, like land mines, one on top of the other. Quantity became quality. There was a leap.. Tunisians rebelled. The dictator fled.
Then the Obama administration, with Hillary Clinton, Samantha Power, and Susan Rice, looked on approvingly.
They decided to overthrow, with France, the man who had been torturing renditioned prisoners on behalf of the US—Ghaddafi of Libya—who had said, “I am the cork on top of Africa. Overthrow me and hundreds of thousands of Africans will be wandering in Europe. Mostly Muslims, they won’t be liked. Rightists will be elected on the grounds of mass, illegal immigration.”
He was murdered, sodomized with sticks, then shot.
Libya collapsed. It’s huge arms caches were looted. The subsequent civil war is still going on, after a decade, and the arms are being used in civil wars and hy jihadists south of Libya as countries like Mali suffer.
Libya went so well for the Obama gang that they decided to do Egypt, another torture ally and the recipient of billions in US military aid.
The torturer/dictator was overthrown.
Jimmy Carter approved of the subsequent election.
Then, shocker!
The Muslim Brotherhood, operating illegally, mostly underground, for years, won.
Oh No! That won’t do. The Muslim Brother new dictator, Morsi, was overthrown, put in jail under brutal conditions for six years where he died awaiting a kangaroo court.
Muslim Brotherhood out.
That want so well, the Obama gang went to work on Russian AND US torturer ally, Assad. The evidence is clear. The Assad regime was torturing renditioned prisoners on behalf of the CIA.
But Assad had to go, and with him the Russian base on the Mediterranean. It took a decade, with Assad fighting with Russian backing and the US using the Kurds (so often betrayed) and jihadists to battle his regime. But Assad went and now a “former” jihadist rules Syria. Trump likes him a lot.
The there is the Zionist genocide in Gaza (“communism begins with atheism “Marx—and why is the left so unwilling to attack superstition?) which left the headlines but the maiming, killing, disease and misery continue while the Trump fascists plan resorts and US bases, replacing the Palestinians who seem to vanish from any current planning.
Putin’s Russia invaded the Ukraine (and tried to take Key-ev, not Keev) four years ago. Why do that? Well, NATO and the US had crow-hopped toward Russia for years. You can listen to the US’s Victoria Nuland planning the overthrow of the Ukrainian government here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUCCR4jAS3Y
The Ukrainians had given up their nukes years ago, on the promise they would not be invaded. That promise seems to be a lesson, not only to North Korea, but to Iran today.
Bogged down, and faced with a brief Wagner Group mutiny, Russia has taken, reportedly, more than a million killed and wounded. How much longer can these human billiard balls, crashing into each other, keep it up? The same movement, described below, is needed in the former Soviet Union.
Then there is Epstein, the degenerate millionaire, exposed by the crusading Julie K. Brown. There are more than one thousand victim/survivors, which must mean at least one hundred debased rich men and women.
Brown insists, and most agree, that Epstein did not commit suicide, but was murdered. Makes sense.
As a likely asset to many intelligence services, like Mossad, his videos and memories would be markedly dangerous. Ms. Maxwell is interred in a fairly comfy prison with her mouth shut: lesson learned.
Now, really, would the recently deposed Clintons lie? Remember, the lesson Monica taught every young woman involved with an exploitative older man—save the dress and don’t swallow. The Clintons are habitual liars.
Brown insists the Epstein issues involve more than the corruption of sexuality, but also power, and in the main, money. Epstein was floating millions all over the world, including into Russia, frequently through Trumps, favorite bank, Deutsche.
Now, the cover story for the billiards-crashing war on Iran, is the proliferation of nukes. Who is the greatest proliferator? Who bailed from the non-proliferation deals. None but the US.
Remember, always, China is coming. An empire, it must come to surpass the US as the world hegemon. The tyrant, Xi, said he would take Taiwan by 2027, and when China does that, the US billiard will lose its round bottom.
Trump, the greedy socio-pathic narcissist, ordered the attack on Iran with blessing of his Department of War drunk, Pete Hegspeth.
They took out the Supreme Leader and about half of his cabinet (no crazier than Trump’s cabinet which includes the delusional RFK Jr and the Epstein buddy, Howard Lutnik).
The Zionist/US bombing campaign, so reminiscent of Vietnam, quickly exploded a girls’ school, killing around one hundred and seventy kids, the body bags lined up in front of the school. As the billiards continued to crash, Iran attacked Qatar, Kuwait, the UAE, Bahrain, Israel, mediator nation Oman, and Saudi Arabia, with some hits on civilians, others on bases.
Trump’s declared “regime change,” may be more than difficult.
The son of the King of Kings (installed by the CIA’s Kermit Roosevelt in 1953), the Shah’s kid, hasn’t been in the country since 1979.
Does he still speak the language? Is he akin to the hacks the US installed initially in Iraq, who failed, and today the big winner in Iraq is Iran (the US is filled with nearly-ruined vets from the two wars of choice—Afghanistan and Iraq—while the US flight from Afghanistan mirrors the run-away from Vietnam).
France, Germany, and the UK have all threatened to intervene in the war on Iran, to “protect our interests,” which probably means protecting the movement of oil in the region. Oil tankers are already stalled, anchors down. The price of oil could easily hit $100 a barrel.
What stops this?
Well, a class conscious, anti-racist, international movement for reason (opposition to superstition) and equality (see the Declaration of Independence—created equal, economically?)
What steps can produce that, the ideas that can defeat men with guns?
Little steps at first, a la Minnesota, peaceful mass nonviolent protest, or the good humor of Portland Froggies, plus whistles and phones and cameras. Of course the Freikorps Ice might kill you, but there is risk in social change.
Then a general strike, not a one day action every six weeks monitored by that cork over a class conscious movement, Move-On, the Dem’s front, but a mass movement withdrawing labor with no date certain at the end.
I wrote earlier in Counterpunch about why that hasn’t happened. https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/01/07/the-empire-is-teetering-why-is-there-no-general-strike/
To shorten the story, the unions’ leaders will oppose a general strike with the same determination their allies, the Big Bosses will. But Minnesota, to a surprising degree, shows that the labor bosses can be swept aside by a persevering, determined, movement of direct action.
Even as the US empire teeters and decays, devolves into more profound forms of fascism, as the ICE/Freikorps becomes the US’ SS, within a general strike, an organization most grow, deepening class consciousness and the willingness to sacrifice.
Now we oversee a billiards table that is beyond my pay grade.
Most Counterpunch readers are familiar with democratic centralism, and the latter half of that contradiction defeating the former.
I won’t call for violence. Indeed I abhor it. But I remind you of the Declaration of Independence (happy 250th) and the duty to make a revolution.
The core issue of our time is the reality of perpetual imperialist war and color coded inequality met by the potential of a mass, activist, class conscious movement for justice, equality, and democracy.
Rich Gibson (rg@richgibson..com) is emeritus professor of history from San Diego State University. With Wayne Ross, he is a co-founder of the Rouge From (online).