We can't normalise this.
Donald Trump's barbarism isn't even raising eyebrows
You can pre-order my new book THE FALL OF THE WEST now…
We’ve had over a decade now of news cycles revolving around the latest outrageous tirade Donald Trump has fired off on social media.
I get it: the shock has long since dissipated. These days, such posts can often expect to attract, at most, an exhausted eye roll or perhaps a mildly raised eyebrow.
We’re now over a month into Trump’s illegal war on Iran, and the president is repeatedly and openly posting flagrant threats and admissions of war crimes.
We cannot normalise this.
All the way through Israel’s genocide, many of us warned that the consequences would not just be felt by the Palestinian people. Israel was (and is) committing every war crime imaginable in the world’s first livestreamed genocide. Its leaders repeatedly flaunted their bloodcurdling genocidal statements of intent.
The lack of outrage - let alone accountability - would normalise our slide into barbarism, we warned. The international order was always defined by deception and hypocrisy, rigged as it was in favour of the West. But the naked, shameless abandonment of the most basic norms governing the conduct of state violence would have devastating consequences.
The Iran war began with the US slaughtering 165 mostly Iranian schoolgirls. The lack of outrage over this was itself indicative of our slide into the darkness. Which brings me to Trump’s latest post:
Blasting Iran “back to the Stone Ages”, he declares, not even bothering to pretend that he isn’t presiding over the total abandonment of the Geneva Conventions.
There was this post from 10th March:
This was straightforwardly genocidal, threatening as it did to make it impossible for Iran “to ever be built back.” He’s also declared that Iran “is dead”. Gone are any lies about liberating Iran’s people.
That’s without even discussing his so-called War Secretary Pete Hegseth, who has the air of someone who spends much of his time furiously masturbating over footage of exploding bombs.
This cannot be dismissed as Trump sounding off, as the unhinged rhetoric of an internet troll. This is the despotic leader of an admittedly declining superpower, and specifically the commander-in-chief of its military engaged in illegal warfare.
Indeed, there is ample evidence of Trump’s bile being acted upon. Here are photographs of Mobarakeh Steel Company, Iran’s largest industrial unit and the biggest steel complex in the Middle East. It has been destroyed. The impact on Iran’s economy - and its people - is incalculable.
And then there’s this. Israeli missiles have destroyed a major pharmaceutical factory in the Iranian capital. Note that sanctions have meant that Iran has had to manufacture most of its medicine production domestically:
These are blatant, unapologetic war crimes.
But of course, the context is the last two and a half years. Israel destroyed schools and hospitals and mosques and libraries, slaughtered over 1,600 medics, blew up most civilian homes, and ravaged agriculture, livestock and plantlife. It butchered well over a hundred thousand people, including deliberately shooting children in the head. It disappeared, tortured, raped civilians, and arbitrarily killed its kidnap victims. It starved an entire population, and deprived them of the necessities of life.
We could go on. And the West not only failed to express its outrage - it armed and facilitated those crimes.
And now what? The Iran war will prove the greatest strategic military defeat the US has suffered since it emerged as a superpower. But that will only amplify Trump’s murderous rage. Unable to emerge victorious, he will simply escalate his vengeful crimes.
This depravity is being entirely normalised. The fall of the West is chaotic indeed, and far more barbarism awaits.
I feel all this Owen. The structures to ‘fuel’ this hideous phase have been put in place since the first spigot spouted. We’ve been worshipping at this oily wellspring and what it brings to our hypercapitalist extractive societies for too many years without any thought of forming a humane governance for all, on the back of our collective subterranean bounty. This phase of human history appears to be the shameful outcome that we in the West have enabled by not getting to grips with all our colonial pasts and the countless misdeeds committed - we may not be witnessing our physical descent to our new collective moral level viscerally yet, but the bomb beat of that new reality is getting closer without anything seemingly able to stop it.
For trump’s depravity to be normalised, the world has to accept it. This we will not do. In using words like ‘depravity,’ we are already showing that we do not, in any way, consider his behaviour to be normal or acceptable. What ‘ordinary’ people must do, is to continue to speak up about all the atrocious war crimes being committed by the usa and israel, and others. Ask questions; write to M.P.s; go on demonstrations; and sign petitions, and so on. All these things do help. We must tell the present grossly immoral government to stop supporting israel and the usa in any way. Those who went to Palestine to ‘fight’ with the zionist israelis must be severely punished, for example by prison sentences; loss of dual nationalities etc. The one thing no-one must do, is to give up. We cannot give up until Palestine is completely free from occupation, and all war criminals have been held accountable.