Once, we had wars of choice. Today, we have wars of distraction.
Call the catastrophically misguided war in Iran and the blink-and-you-missed-it war withVenezuelathe Epstein Wars.
These were not wars fought to defend U.S. national security. They were not wars fought to advance our national interests.
They were wars conjured up not by generals or seasoned foreign policy advisors but by a frightened old man and his public relations team to distract from a scandal he fears will be his undoing.
Their massive human, economic, and geopolitical costs being undertaken to serve the narrowself-interestsof not a nation but that man, the president of the United States.
The facts of what has unfolded to date in these wars make this clear. Trump and his team could not coherently express a rationale for entering into either “military operation.” They offered many possibilities, and spouted many blatant lies, but shifted between them carelessly as if they did not matter.
Because they did not matter.
Theleaders of Venezuelawere corrupt, criminal even. But they were not terrorists. They are not terrorists. They pose no direct threat to the people or territory of the United States.
Iran was nowhere near acquiring anuclear weapon. It had no ability to deliver such a weapon. There was no imminent threat and indeed, to the degree to which Iran had moved closer to gaining the ability to manufacture a weapon, it was in large part due to actions taken by the president during his first term, when he tore up the effective, successful nuclear agreement struck during the Obama administration.
The operation in Venezuela began with the murder on the high seas of occupants of small craft the U.S. alleged were trafficking in drugs. Weattacked themwith no evidence of these alleged crimes. We administered the death penalty to the occupants of the boats without due process. (In some cases, we did so consistent with orders that were in violation of international law and the military code of justice.) When we snatched the leader of Venezuela on a thin legal pretext, we then allowed his regime to remain in place if they would direct some of theiroil revenuesto us… or to interests identified by the president as beneficiaries. It is still unclear who is making the money produced by these sales, but the nature of the U.S. operation is crystal clear. It too was a crime. It was foreign policy as the mafia would conduct it—a shakedown, an extortion racket.
The attacks on Iran were undertaken under false pretenses, contrary to the Constitution and the letter of the War Powers Act. Civilians and civilian targets werevictimsin clear violation of international law.
In other words, the president chose to unleash a series of illegal wars to distract from the possible crimes that might be revealed as part of the Epstein investigation. Clearly, he is petrified what the facts of that case will reveal. He has devoted the full resources of the Department of Justice tobury the truthabout Epstein. He had the Deputy Attorney General cut a deal with Epstein’s sex-trafficking co-conspiratorGhislaine Maxwelland ignore the law passed by Congress demanding all files be turned over to congressional investigators. He apparently ordered the serial obstruction of justice, and then he appeared to reward that dutiful DoJ number two,Todd Blanche, with the nomination to be top dog at the agency.
Why go to that trouble if there was nothing to hide? Why take the risk? What could be so grave that it warranted such behavior?
The president’s behavior has only stimulated interest in the case.Allegationsagainst him made under oath suggested he had committed terrible crimes. The public and members of his own party were turning against him, angered that he did not release the full truth about the Epstein case—as he once had promised to do.
Clearly, trying to bury the case was not working. So he had to try something else…anything else. Indeed, the first of the “Epstein Wars” may well have been the ones he launched against American cities, sending in troops to combat illusory threats,killing U.S. citizensin the process. Spending millions. Depleting the resources that should be used for our defense. Achieving nothing but mayhem and more serial violations of the law.
