Three Reasons Anti-War Activists Should Not Celebrate John Bolton’s Firing
As someone who is strongly anti-war, when John Bolton was fired, I was happy. I couldn’t believe it! John Bolton is gone! Happy day happy day. That was actually the article I planned to write the day when I first saw the news, however, after looking at it, I simply can’t. I want to do my happy dance, but these three reasons stop the music in its tracks.
1. The Man Who Appointed John Bolton Is Still President
Let’s start to think about why John Bolton was fired from being National Security Adviser. I don’t mean ideology, I mean how Bolton was ever in a position where he could be fired from National Security Advisor. Simple, Donald Trump made him National Security Advisor.
I know, that sounds obvious, however, as Matt Walsh recently said “You knew Bolton was a war hawk. Everyone knew that. How did Trump not know it?”
From this we have two possibilities:
- Trump honestly did not know John Bolton was a war hawk, meaning he’s so ignorant he could end up picking another (more on that later).
- Trump picked Bolton because he wishes to have a war hawk as National Security Advisor.
The second one is the most likely, as both Flynn and McMaster were war hawks, although not to the same extent as John Bolton. For that matter, no top member of this administration has been a committed non-interventionist since Steve Bannon left — back in August 2017.
Yes, he invited Tucker Carlson to the North Korean summit, that’s great and all. But Tucker Carlson is still a news host and is decently popular on right-wing television. Far as I’m aware, the President would never even dare mention the name of an obscurer left-wing non-interventionist — Howard Zinn or Noam Chomsky, for instance. Nor would he waste his time to a smaller right-wing one, such as Pat Buchanan, who the most he’s ever done is quote on Twitter in regards to immigration.
Maybe I’m just more-internet savvy than the President, but shouldn’t an anti-war president stop wasting his time with main-stream media that loves military intervention? Do AMA’s on r/antiwar every now and again, write something for antiwar.com, do something other than go on Hannity every other night when he supported US military intervention until Trump told him not to.
For God sake, you’re the President of the United States! You don’t need to go on mainstream-media anymore because every knows who you are. Am I the only one seeing the scam here?
2. Mike Pompeo, Elliott Abrams, And Tons Of Other Hawks Are Still In The Administration
At time of writing, Elliott Abrams is still the Special Representative to Venezuela — a position Trump made up to give Abrams something to do, the President still meets with Henry Kissinger a couple of times a year, and the Republican Party is still ran by neo-cons.
Let me just remind who is in the executive branch:
- Mike Pence, who pushed the Republican Party line of foreign policy no matter the context since at least 2000.
- Mike Pompeo, who said Snowden should be executed and ran on continuing all war on terror policies. He also said he believes in regime change in North Korea.
- Elaine Chao, the wife of Mitch McConnell.
- Gina Haspel, who engaged in brutal torture over at Guantanamo Bay.
And I could go on for a while.
Expecting me to believe this is Trump trying to fight war is nonsense, Trump has appointed hawks in every other area and let Bolton stay on for over a year, but he just woke up today against war? If that truly is the case, I won’t go after him for it, however, I need quite a bit more evidence than what the President is giving me.
3. We Do Not Know Who Trump Is Going To Replace Him With
That is the main factor keeping me worried, we do not know who Trump plans to replace Bolton with. At this point, I’d be willing to bet it is worse than I could possibly imagine.
