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Some Congress Members Need to Sit Down and Shut Up

Photograph Source: Alan Levine – CC BY 2.0
Not too long ago, senator Marco “Bring Back Aerial Dogfights” Rubio took to the airwaves to inform the American people that their military must send fighter jets to escort drones near Russia’s border. About th…

Photograph Source: Alan Levine – CC BY 2.0

Not too long ago, senator Marco “Bring Back Aerial Dogfights” Rubio took to the airwaves to inform the American people that their military must send fighter jets to escort drones near Russia’s border. About the same time as Rubio’s idiotic recipe for global nuclear annihilation, senator Tom “Invade Mexico!” Cotton lectured us on the necessity of sending MORE drones to Russian airspace, after those wily Slavic pilots disposed of one spying on Crimea. He followed up this imbecilic escalatory scheme with a proclamation that the U.S. should wage war on Mexico or on its drug cartels, the distinction was not too clear. Representative Marjorie “Jewish Space Lasers” Taylor Greene couldn’t keep quiet about that either. She announced that she was “beating the drums” for war with Mexico – this percussive endeavor not too long after she publicly averred that China is a military threat.

Then there was senator Lindsay “Bombs Away” Graham, shrieking, somewhat like Rubio, for shooting down Russian fighter jets on the border of that country. Under this senator’s asinine scheme, we’ll all soon be dust in the wind or glowing in the dark, you pick. So you would think all this frenzied ferocity was enough. But no such luck. Our bigwig warmongers weren’t done thumping their chests for battle, because next, former House representative, later CIA chief, later secretary of state and now presidential wannabe Mike “Sinophobic Rampage” Pompeo, got into the act, implying that…drumroll…the U.S. should launch drone strikes on Mexico!

On March 16, Pompeo wrote in an op-ed that Mexico “has either lost or abdicated control of vast portions of its country,” before touting his lobbying while in the Trump administration for drone strikes on the U.S.’s southern neighbor. Good to know that when Pompeo sinks his teeth into a bad idea he doesn’t let go. He was for drone strikes on Mexico years ago, and he implies that he pretty much still is. He promoted this madness with a philippic against, you got it, the drug cartels, the handy dandy new U.S. enemy du jour.

And don’t forget a year or so ago, after Washington arrogantly turned up its nose at Russian security proposals, thus inciting the whole Ukraine war fiasco, we had Donald “Fire and Fury” Trump, proclaiming that if he sat in the oval office, he would end the Moscow/Kiev combat by dropping a nuclear bomb on Russia. More proof, if it were needed, that we are and long have been ruled by sociopaths. Let’s just say Trump’s early contribution to the national freakshow about Ukraine didn’t add one iota of reason. But he has since then, happily, come to his senses. He now advocates peace negotiations and warns about the very real danger of nuclear war. Too bad Biden isn’t listening.

But rumor has it some in the Biden regime want to halt the Ukraine slaughter; certainly, a gigantic percentage of the electorate does. Well, you want an off-ramp? Here’s an unpopular idea: Pick any of the so-called authoritarians – Trump, Hungary’s Viktor Orban, Turkey’s Recep Erdogan or any other, the world has plenty of them – and empower him to negotiate peace. Or better yet, though I know this offends the breathtaking arrogance of American elites, we could adopt Beijing’s peace proposal. Lucklessly, all this requires thinking outside the very tiny, cramped, limited Washington box, to wit, putting aside the puerile fib that the world divides neatly into democracies and autocracies. This delusional dichotomy persists despite the fact that the western, so-called democracies are, in reality, oligarchies. But it’s such a useful lie that our rulers have grown quite attached to it.

Anyway, to return to the theme here: Some U.S. politicos just itch for bloodshed, whether in China, the Black Sea or Mexico, and they don’t care if they ignite a nuclear holocaust to get it. In short, they are a menace to the world and the continued survival of our species. They should sit down, cool off and shut up. They need to take a page out of representative George Santos’ book, who, having thoroughly disgraced himself, volunteered for a timeout. If such self-restraint is beyond the meager abilities of these loudmouths, they could, like Santos, spend their time less injuriously, by prevaricating on their resumes, or by sexually harassing someone, or stealing money from a veteran, or they could lie about their ethnic background – anything, no matter how repulsive, would be superior to jumping up and down like a bunch of ADHD monkeys, yowling and howling for military assaults on neighboring nations or for lunacy that leads to nuclear war.

Not that the Dems are any better. But for some unaccountable reason, that wing of the war party has been relatively quiet lately, perhaps chastened, one can only hope, at how their pet project in Ukraine morphed into a debacle. But it is undeniable that the Dems have refrained from calls to initiate new wars against China or Mexico. And nota bene: both hydra-heads of the all-American war party fell utterly speechless at the fait accompli, mediated by Beijing, of a decision to re-open embassies, in effect a peace pact between Saudi Arabia and Iran. When peace erupts, our public men and women haven’t a clue what to say or do – how about “Thank you, Beijing!” No, such words are anathema for our American warmongers. Gratitude at the cessation of the horrific genocide in Yemen that this treaty could bring is completely lacking. Nothing but offended silence emanates from Washington.

But maybe this reserve about Yemen has other roots. I read in the Cradle March 12 that Saudi Arabia has for some time quite sensibly wanted to end that conflict, but that the U.S. ain’t havin’ it. Washington wants to keep that slaughter going, for a whole crowded menu of despicable reasons. This is a far cry from just a few years ago, when congress ballyhooed a resolution against the war and Biden campaigned on ending the Yemen butchery. It just goes to show, things never get better in the Exceptional Empire, only worse.

So instead of carrying on like people who’ve lost their minds, our bloodthirsty congresspeople would do much better to put their umph into hollering for peace in Yemen. It would be an actual service to mankind. Instead of hysteria over Russia patrolling its borders, instead of war whoops about bombing, droning or invading Mexico, in lieu of huffing and puffing over China’s possible but not yet probable violent takeover of Taiwan, thousands upon thousands of miles away from  U.S. borders, our congressional bigshots could beat their swords into plowshares and call for an international effort to aid and reconstruct Yemen. After all, America did so much to wreck the place, it’s the least we could do.


This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Eve Ottenberg.


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