The Department Of War
Last week, the United States Navy attacked a Venezuelan vessel in international waters, killing everyone on board under flimsy legal pretext. Like the January 6 pardons and the deployment of the National Guard on American streets, the purpose of the shooting was not so much to intimidate drug cartels, but rather any Americans still willing to oppose the regime.
Days later, Trump signed an executive order renaming the Department of Defence the “Department of War” along with a lot of rhetoric about the purpose. Saturday, he posted this AI-generated image along with the caption: “I love the smell of deportations in the morning…” and “Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR” with 3 helicopter emojis.
As with everything provocative that he posts, there is an element designed specifically to irritate liberals, part of the “own the libtards” approach to politics that we see in both Canada and the US. Ignoring it, though, is out of the question — this cannot be allowed to be normalised.
When Trump pardoned 1500 violent actors from the January 6 coup attempt on his first day back in office, he was not excusing them for what they had done, but preparing them for what he still needed them to do.
Every action since then has followed the same pattern of preparing his supporters, the country, and the world, for his next act.
Allowing his secret police force to develop out of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and including facemasks as part of their uniform has been about having an unidentifiable, unaccountable paramilitary arm that he can directly control. It is about normalising their presence so that the public is inured to a sight that should always be jarring.
He has cancelled secret service protection for his opponents, most recently his presidential adversary Kamala Harris, sending a message to those who don’t fall in line that they do not deserve to be safe.
The people he sent to the CECOT prison in El Salvador and the concentration camp he opened in the Florida everglades were intended to show that he could do whatever he wanted to whoever he wanted whenever he wanted, and proved that the American people would protest it feebly, through the courts.
When he sent soldiers into LA and DC, the latter of which have been seen doing gardening work, they are there to get people used to seeing the army in the streets.
With the unprovoked fatal attack on a civilian vessel in international waters, he is normalising extrajudicial killing while testing the loyalty of the armed forces in following unlawful orders.
In inviting indicted war criminal Vladimir Putin to American soil, to walk down a red carpet on a US military base, he is sending a loud message that they are allies, aligned in the face of international law for which neither has any regard.
Renaming the Depart of Defence into the Department of War is a logical next step. With all the other pieces in place, he can threaten the metropolis of Chicago with war without consequence, without fear of reprisal or rebellion. Brownshirts have already received their pardons. The masked secret police are already at work. The prisons are already ready. Soldiers are already in the street. The new international allies are already lined up.
The opposition is still sure that they will retake control through the midterm elections next fall. They are still fighting back through legal challenges, court cases, and fair elections, believing the same legal and political system that gave the world President Trump will also rid us of him.
Worse, the vice president is even more ruthless than the current president. Assuming he succeeds Trump when the obviously unhealthy president inevitably kicks the bucket, we can look forward to a younger, healthier dictator ready to take over all the levers of power his administration has already prepared. Consider this Saturday exchange on X. Yes, that’s really the vice president saying he doesn’t “give a shit” about war crimes:
When these are the people in charge and they are changing the name of the Department of Defence to the Department of War, they are warning you of their plans. Take them at their word.
Should Canada’s own defence continue to depend on American military infrastructure, we are condemning ourselves to be either eventually invaded or resigning ourselves to our status as an American client state. Having an understaffed and ill-equipped military is no longer an option. We need to forge new alliances, rearm, and be ready for whatever comes.
The Americans have made it clear they will use their military for extra-territorial, extra-judicial killings. They are willing to declare war on their own cities. And they are no longer bothering with the pretence of having a strong military for its peaceful deterrent effect. War serves the ends of the oligarchs, and they need enemies to fight.
The United States is already at war with itself, but the rest of us are in their sights.
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