FOCUS: Requiem for a Chickenhawk

11 September 19 The Small Donors Are Trying, We Need Matching Funds The September fundraiser is in deep trouble but the small donors are still checking in and contributing. We currently have roughly 2K in very small donations for September. Is there someone out there who can match that. This is important. Marc Ash Founder, Reader Supported News Sure, I'll make a donation! Update My Monthly Donation If you would prefer to send a check: Reader Supported News PO Box 2043 Citrus Hts, CA 95611

11 September 19 It's Live on the HomePage Now: Reader Supported News HELLO OUT THERE: WE NEED A “FEW” DONATIONS: We do not need very much money to run RSN at a high level. That’s the good news. The bad news is that we are talking to people who are pretty reluctant to donate. The problem begins and ends with the difference between how many people we serve and how many contribute. The difference is huge. / Marc Ash, Founder Reader Supported News Sure, I'll make a donation! FOCUS: Requiem for a Chickenhawk Branko Marcetic, Jacobin Excerpt: "John Bolton is a glassy-eyed fanatic who wants to wage war on the entire world. Miraculously and thankfully, his tenure in the Trump White House before being fired by the president was largely a failure." EXCERPT:   Though several new fronts did fail to open in the United States government’s ongoing war with the rest of the planet, Bolton’s tenure as Trump’s national security advisor has gone roughly as expected. From the start, he resumed the war against international law and multilateral institutions he had started during his Bush administration days, with the US pulling out of the UN Human Rights Council and Bolton announcing both its de-funding and that of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. He then threatened to impose sanctions on the International Criminal Court (ICC), ban its judges and prosecutors from US entry, and even criminally prosecute them after the court began investigating alleged US war crimes in Afghanistan. He also closed the Palestine Liberation Organization’s office in Washington for good measure, because it called for an ICC inquiry into Israel. On Latin American policy, Bolton looked to swing the pendulum way, way back to nineteenth century-era overt imperialism, declaring that he and the rest of the Trump administration were “not afraid to use the word Monroe Doctrine.” As the US continued fighting wars in at least seven different countries, Bolton identified Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua — countries whose total amount of foreign wars numbered zero — as a “Troika of Tyranny” and a “triangle of terror,” and vowed to take “direct action against all three regimes.” To that end, he cozied up to just-elected Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, another ecocidal bigot who shares Bolton’s goal of collapsing any government that remotely smacks of leftism in the region, and later threatened that the Nicaraguan government’s “days are numbered.  It was under Bolton that Trump began his attempt to depose Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in earnest, with Bolton leading the way. Bolton spearheaded the ever-tightening rounds of murderous sanctions on the Venezuelan people whose interests he solemnly claimed to be working in, as he and the Trump administration placed increasing pressure on the shambolic Maduro government, hoping to install a neoliberal replacement that would undo the Chavez reforms. At one point, he strolled out of a White House briefing with the words “5,000 troops to Colombia” visible on his notepad, sparking fear of invasion. Unfortunately, Bolton’s exit demonstrates yet again the utter cluelessness of the liberal establishment, with figures like Rep. Ted Lieu and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer decrying the “chaos” of the White House. Even Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, typically referred to as  leading liberal voice on foreign policy, responded to the news by confessing he was “shaken by the grave instability of American foreign policy today,” with the “revolving door of US leadership” undermining the “stable American hand” that’s needed. Nicholas Kristof, one of the New York Times op-ed section’s few nominally liberal voices, professed that while he “often disagreed with Bolton,” he was also “well-informed and willing to push back,” and that his exit would “make it easier for Trump to make nice to Putin,” especially if his next national security advisor is “a yes man.” READ MORE Contribute to RSN Update My Monthly Donation