American Herald Tribune| KIM PETERSEN: Former Ronald Reagan administration official Paul Craig Roberts continues to take aim at the Left. Why this time? Apparently Roberts supports Trump’s ban on Muslims (a ban on people from seven countries, all Muslim majority countries).

“The mindlessness is unbearable,” writes Roberts of the Left’s protesting the selective ban on refugees and migrants.

Roberts argues,
Clearly America’s wars on Muslims wreck far more lives than Trump’s ban on immigrants. Why the focus on an immigration ban and not on wars that produce refugees? Is it because Obama is responsible for war and Trump for the ban? Is the liberal/progressive/left projecting Obama’s monstrous crimes onto Trump? Is it that we must
hate Trump and not Obama?
Roberts asks questions as if the answer is only one-or-the-other. Many leftists (anarchists, socialists, Communists among them) would distance themselves from much of what liberals profess. One should not view liberals as composing a Left monolith anymore than Nazis should be viewed as representing a monolithic Right. The Democratic Party is not a left party. So Democratic supporters of Obama are not considered leftist in any meaningful sense by this writer. Nonetheless, there were plenty of people from the Left who did oppose Obama and his wars. Those who did not oppose Obama and his wars are, at best, pseudo-leftists.

Left and Right is an oversimplification. People ought to regard all wrinkles of the political spectrum and the politicians within the spectrum by supporting what is good and rejecting what is anathema. Trump has positions that resonate with leftists; however, he also stakes out positions that are highly objectionable. It is the balance between the supportable and insupportable that should determine how the politician will be viewed.

“Immigration is not a right protected by the US Constitution,” states Roberts. Whether immigration is protected or not by the constitution is irrelevant because belief in such a “right” is fundamental to the presence of non-Indigenous people on Turtle Island. Their settler/colonial forebears believed in a God-given right to the land. After all, the Catholic Church in the Papal Bull of 1493, Inter Caetera, gave its blessing to taking territory belonging to “savages.”

Roberts opines, “The liberal/progressive/left is demonstrating a mindless hatred of the American people and the President that the people chose.”

This “logic” from the politico-cum-scribe is puzzling. How does opposition to the policies of a president transmogrify to hatred of the American people? First, the warmongering Hillary Clinton garnered more votes than Trump. Second, approximately half of Americans didn’t vote, and Trump received less than half of those votes. Therefore, the best Roberts can claim is “a mindless hatred of [less than 25% of] the American people and the President that the people chose.”

Accusations of “mindless hatred” is just ad hominem. But Roberts does present good points:
The easiest and surest way for the Trump administration to stop the refugee problem, not only for the US but also for Europe and the West in general, is to stop the wars against Muslim countries that his predecessors started. The enormous sums of money squandered on gratuitous wars could instead be given to the countries that the US and NATO have destroyed. The simplest way to end the refugee problem is to stop producing refugees.
I am in 100 percent in agreement with Roberts here.

Unfortunately for all anti-war types, Trump is carrying on where Obama left off by authorizing military strikes. This was done far from US shores, in a country that poses no credible threat to the USA. Thirty fatalities have been reported, including 10 women and children, among them an eight-year-old American girl, Nawar Al-Awlaki — all murdered in war-torn Yemen.

Why did were these thirty people killed? The New York Times reported, “The main target was computer materials inside the house that could contain clues about future terrorist plots.” [italics added] Thirty people and one American commando died for what _could_ be clues. In other words, people slaughtered based on a maybe.

This attack would better be construed as “mindless hatred” and terrorism. Although when US forces do this it is called “counterterrorism” by corporate media.

The Anti-war Focus

It didn’t take long. As of now, Trump has revealed himself to be a war criminal. A focus of people opposed to war should be on charging, bringing Trump to the docket, and prosecuting him.

A war on warmongers is what should guide people of conscience.

Trump has clearly demonstrated that he does not differ from the Bush/Obama war on Muslims.

Opposition to wars is a crucial issue, but this does not demand, except in the mind of Roberts and like-minded people, that support for fellow human beings and opposition to other human rights abuses should be in
abeyance. Surely one can oppose war and at the same time oppose racism, sexism, torture, and other heinous practices.

Conclusion

I agree wholeheartedly with Roberts that wars must be ended. But now Trump stands revealed as a war criminal, a warmonger, and he must be opposed as well as his warmongering.

A deterrent must be firmly established. Trump and his presidential predecessors — Obama, the Bushes, Clinton, Carter — should all be prosecuted for war crimes during their administrations.