Trump Steps Up Campaign against ‘Military-Industrial Complex’ War Party

Oct. 15, 2019 (EIRNS)—President Donald Trump took his campaign to mobilize the American people to support him in shutting down the “endless wars” to the “Values Voter Summit” three nights ago, where he spoke to some 3,000 people. The “summit” is organized annually by the Evangelical Christian Family Research Council, some of whose leaders (e.g. its Executive VP, retired Gen. William Boykin) have been prominent cheerleaders for those wars.

The President made the effects of these wars personal for his audience, recounting again how hard it is to sign all those letters to the families of those who have died, or to accompany families as they receive the coffins of their loved ones at Dover Air Force Base.

We have been in these wars, one of them for 19 years, where the fight is not to win, but just to stay there. At what cost?

“We’re in there now for $8 trillion, thousands of our lives, and millions of lives on the other side, by the way,” he reminded his audience. “Millions. We’re talking about millions and millions of lives....

“So despite all of the blood that was spilled, the lives lost, and the money that was spent, the Middle East is ... less safe now. It’s less secure, less stable, and they fight.”

“I want you to understand these things,” the President said. “Going in was the worst decision. They went in for weapons of mass destruction, and there were none. There were none. That was the intelligence agencies. They’re real— real beauties.”

He reminded his listeners that he had ordered U.S. troops out of Syria a year ago—and what happened when he did. “I said, ‘That’s enough. Let’s get out.’ I got—you wouldn’t believe—the military industrial complex came down on me.”

“I think we’ll get along great with China. I think we’ll get along great with Russia,” he said at another point. “But when they create a phony Russia hoax, it makes it tougher to get along with Russia. When they create lots of different scenarios with China, it makes it tougher to get along with China. I think we will do great, but they got to let us run our country the way it is supposed to be run.”

The President made clear that he is willing to stand up to these pro-war interests, even if he finds himself to be “an island of one again,” as he said, now in his decision to pull U.S. troops out of Syria, rather than jump into the fight between the Turks and Kurds. He recounted how he had stood alone a year and a half ago, when he refused to back the Kurds after they launched a fight against the Iraqi government. “And everybody said, ‘We have to fight with the Kurds. We have to fight…’ ” and he refused, insisting “we’re not going to choose sides.” He was proved right, he said: With no backing, the Kurds left, and there was very little combat.

He showed the same gumption in the assault on Supreme Court Judge Brett Kavanaugh. “Plenty of people said, ‘Cut him loose, President’ ”—including a some of the people in this room, he observed.

“I’m never going to reveal your name, but the people in this room. They said, ‘Cut him loose, President. Cut him loose.’ I said, ‘Can’t do it. He’s done nothing wrong. They’re phony stories about him. They were made up, just like they were made up about me and other people. They were phony stories. Can’t do it, I’m sorry.’ ”