Stephen Lendman

His August 15 foreign policy address in Youngstown, OH showed he’ll govern as an establishment leader if elected in November - continuing dirty geopolitical business as usual vital to end once and for all.

He’ll wage endless wars to “defeat radical Islamic terrorism,” he said - without explaining its US creation and support at least since the 1980s in Afghanistan against Soviet Russia.

Bin Laden was a Pakistani intelligence-recruited CIA asset. Obama didn’t kill him. He died of natural causes in December 2001, widely reported at the time.

Earlier mujahideen fighters are today’s Taliban, Al Qaeda, Nusra Front, ISIS, Boko Haram and similar groups - created, supported and used by America as imperial foot soldiers to do its killing and dying where they’re deployed with the aim of replacing sovereign independent governments with US puppet regimes.

America isn’t at war with “radical Islamic terrorism.” It actively supports it as an instrument of US imperial foreign policy.

Obama and Hillary didn’t create today’s deplorable geopolitical landscape. They exacerbated decades earlier policy - begun under Jimmy Carter, continued under Reagan, Bill Clinton, Bush II to today, certain to go on seamlessly under duopoly governance no matter who succeeds Obama.

Today’s gravest issue is systemic - neocon infested Washington bent on world dominance, doing whatever it takes to accomplish its objective, color revolutions and wars its strategies of choice.

Will Trump as president change things? No!! Will he differ from another Clinton co-presidency? Only by being less likely to start WW III if he follows through on wanting better relations with Russia.

If he continues waging imperial wars on the phony pretext of combating terrorism, US/Moscow geopolitical policies will be intractably at odds.

“ISIS…operat(es) in 18 countries with aspiring branches in 6 or more for a total of 24, and many believe it is even more than that,” said Trump.

Fact: ISIS operates where US policymakers deploy their fighters, under commanders chosen by CIA and Pentagon officials - recruited, armed, funded and directed by America, NATO, Israel and other regional rogue states.

Fact: The way to defeat ISIS and other radical Islamic groups is stop supporting them. They can’t exist without foreign backing.

Instead of diverging from America’s imperial agenda if elected president, Trump could exacerbate it by belligerence against all nations where he says ISIS exists.

He’ll continue drone wars, mostly killing noncombatant men, women, children, the elderly and infirm threatening on one.

He’ll maintain Guantanamo (and likely America’s global torture prison network) instead of shutting it down. He’ll introduce ideological screening tests to suspend immigration from certain countries.

He claims wars on Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya were mistakes he opposed after supporting them earlier. He called failure to seize Iraq’s oil fields poor judgment. “In the old days when we won a war, to the victor go the spoils,” he blustered.

He failed to explain all wars violate core international, constitutional and US statute laws without Security Council authorization. US presidents and Congress have no right to wage them without it - especially against nations posing no threat to America or any other countries.

All ongoing US direct and proxy wars are illegal acts of aggression. Trump promised to continue them - justified by pledging to combat radical Islamic terrorism America supports.

US war on humanity will continue no matter who succeeds Obama. Prospects for world peace and stability are nonexistent - a deplorable situation threatening everyone.

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Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks World War III".

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

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