In this trenchant analysis, Professor Paul Rogers, who has been cataloguing the manifest failures of the “war on terror” since its inception, demonstrates how President Trump appears determined to continue this folly.

[George W. Bush] crafted not a new American century leading to a more peaceful world, but a wasteland: sixteen years of war, hundreds of thousands of civilians killed, millions of refugees fleeing their homes and livelihoods, states such as Afghanistan, Iraq and especially Libya wrecked, and expanding insurgency and insecurity across a vast swathe of territory. (Paul Rogers)

President Donald J. Trump appears utterly blind to this 16-year debacle. In a State of the Union address replete with blatant falsehoods, he references seemingly all that was hostile and misdirected in his republican predecessor’s rhetoric:

• Pre-emptive and unilateral use of force is highlighted;
• Guantánamo Bay — the veritable symbol of extra-legal methods — is to be kept open indefinitely; and
• Failed and counterproductive military approaches in Afghanistan and elsewhere — indeed in every conflict theatre — are augmented.

This worldview has not worked since Bush’s address, and it won’t work in the future…. Trump’s signal in 2018 is that nothing has been learned since 2002. (Paul Rogers)

For the full article, click: A speech too far: Trump’s delusion (Paul Rogers, Opendemocracy.net, 1 February 2018).

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