In my long experience in Washington, vice presidents did not make major foreign policy announcements or threaten other countries with war. Not even Dick Cheney stole this role from the weak President George W. Bush.
But Wednesday the world witnessed VP Pence threaten North Korea with war. “The sword stands ready,” said Pence as if he is the commander in chief.
Perhaps he is.
Where is Trump? As far as I can tell from the numerous emails I receive from him, he is at work marketing his presidency. Once Trump won the election, I began receiving endless offers to purchase Trump baseball caps, T-shirts, cuff-links, coffee mugs, and to donate $3 to be entered into a raffle to win some memorabilia. The latest offer is a chance to win one of “personally signed five incredible photographs of our historic and massive inauguration.”
For Trump, the presidency is a fund-raising device. If his VP, national security advisor, secretary of defense, UN ambassador, CIA director, whoever, want to start wars wherever, that’s just more memorabilia to raffle off for a $3 donation.
As a result of Trump’s failure to govern his own government, we have VP Pence telling Russia and China that there could be a nuclear exchange on their borders between the US and North Korea. Although Pence is not smart enough to know, this is not something Russia and China will accept.
Washington worries about North Korea having nuclear weapons, but the entire world worries that Washington has nuclear weapons. And so many of them. World polls have shown that the majority of the world’s population are far more concerned about the threat to peace posed by Washington and Israel than by Iran, North Korea, Russia and China.
Pence prefaced his “the sword stands ready” remark with “the United States of America will always seek peace,” which after Serbia, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Pakistan, and Syria is as false a statement as it is possible to make. From Washington’s perspective it is always Washington’s victims that are “reckless and provocative,” never Washington.
The US stands for war. If the world is driven to Armageddon, it will be Washington, not North Korea, Iran, Russia, or China, that brings life on earth to an end.
Copyright © 2017 Paul Craig Roberts
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts’ latest books are The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West and How America Was Lost and The Neoconservative Threat to World Order.
“… But Wednesday the world witnessed VP Pence threaten North Korea with war. “The sword stands ready,” said Pence as if he is the commander in chief.
Perhaps he is.”
He could have easily said, “I am going to stomp my boot on you and I am going to crush you.” Isn’t that what he did to the gay community when he signed his Freedom Restoration Law in 2015? Isn’t that what he did when he stepped on women’s rights by casting the tie breaking procedural vote that, ” allowed the Senate to move forward with an effort to nix an Obama-era rule that blocked states from defunding healthcare providers for political reasons. ”
AND didn’t he step on EDUCATION and CHILDREN when he cast a tie breaking vote to confirm Betsy DeVos as Education Secretary?
Yeah. He likes to stomp his boot on anyone and anything that is caring and humane.
It makes him feel all so powerful.
We talk about Muslims being radicalized here.
Mike Pence went through a radicalization of his own, as I understand it, when he transformed himself from a John F. Kennedy admiring Democrat to a Ronald Reagan Republican adulator.
Perhaps as one of six children born to his family he felt powerless.
Perhaps the Ronald Reagan Republicanism and the Tea Party later on gave him a taste of what a little man feels when he stomps his boot whether it is on women, children, people of color, other nations ..
That sense of power makes him feel elated. [Just like it makes Jeff Sessions feel elated...but I am digressing.]
So Mike Pence likes the feeling of elation he gets when he stomps his boot.
That is just how he felt Wednesday when he said, ” “The sword stands ready,”
Oh! Wonderful Elation, You make Me feel so Good-And-Powerful … just like imbibing most precious wine.
It made him feel good, and powerful …
The country that he says he loves did not matter to him. Nor did the world, nor did the planet. He did not take into account the worth of other people’s life … he did not care one darn bit about the planet, nor about the birds living in it; just like he does not care about the lives of women, or children in this country of which he is supposed to be one of the Stewarts.
He does not care for our democratic process which would take him to the Senate to get approval before he gets to use that sword that he says stands ready. No. He does not care because he needs to and likes to stomp his boot And every time he does it he likes it more and more. It becomes an addiction. It becomes his addiction.
Basically it seems he feels diminished every time he has to clean up Trump’s fluidity of malodorous words evacuation.
Perhaps in order to compensate for that, he has to stomp his boot on just about anyone or anything just as long as he doesn’t have to stand up and come face to face with whomever he is intending to stomp upon.
In that sort of face to face confrontation, he knows he would probably come out feeling like a worm inside of himself.
So he goes about his business just stomping out and stomping out.
You’re missing the point! If Pence’s “stance” were a valid political ‘moment,’ do you really think Trump would let the V.P. bask in the glory of the moment? No! This was a “fake” posturing, designed to assuage the lower common denominations.
As “insouciant” a posturing, which one could manage….