Breathe
By Sofia Guadarrama
The history of the United States stands out because each of its presidents has created a villain at the beginning of each administration and, consequently, an armed conflict.
Harry S. Truman was in charge of the end of World War II, but intervened in the Korean War to contain communism in the region.
Dwight D. Eisenhower carried out a military intervention in Lebanon in 1958 to contain communism in the region.
Again, in obedience to the Cold War policy of containment of communism, John F. Kennedy became involved in the Vietnam War and the Cuban missile crisis in 1962.
Lyndon B. Johnson continued with the Vietnam War and, to prevent communism from spreading in the Dominican Republic, carried out an intervention in that country in 1965.
Richard Nixon continued the Vietnam War and ordered bombing raids in Cambodia.
Gerald Ford did not initiate new conflicts. He was responsible for ending the Vietnam War in 1975, after 19 years.
Jimmy Carter was one of the few who did not initiate war. On the contrary, he promoted peace and conflict resolution through diplomatic means. He intervened to achieve peace between Egypt and Israel, which led to the signing of the Camp David Accords, and returned control of the Panama Canal to Panama.
Ronald Reagan went back on the attack with Operation Urgent Fury against Bernard Coard, who had led the coup in Grenada in 1983, executed its prime minister Maurice Bishop and established a Marxist-Leninist regime aligned with Cuba and the Soviet Union. In addition, to combat communism in Latin America, he sent the CIA to support a 500-man force of rebels to defeat the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua and established an initial budget of $19 million to fund the Contras. In 1986, it carried out air strikes coordinated by the U.S. Air Force, Navy and Marines. The primary targets were military and intelligence installations in Tripoli and Benghazi, Libya.
George H. W. Bush launched a manhunt for Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega, who was accused of drug trafficking and organized crime. He also started the Gulf War in 1990 with Operation Desert Storm to "liberate Kuwait" and defeat Iraqi forces.
Bill Clinton carried out the intervention in Kosovo in order to stop the atrocities committed by Yugoslav forces against the Kosovo Albanians. He continued operations in Somalia, which were a failure and U.S. troops were withdrawn in 1994. That same year, Clinton authorized Operation Uphold Democracy to restore the government of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
George W. Bush continued the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which need no further explanation.
Barack Obama escalated the war in Afghanistan; carried out a military intervention in Libya and operations against ISIS in Iraq and Syria.
Donald Trump continued operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, but did not start any armed conflict.
Joe Biden did not initiate any war either. However, he provided military and economic support to Ukraine for its defense against Russia.
One of its main reasons is that, as a world power, it must maintain international order, and it has done so since the Cold War, following the Truman Doctrine and the Eisenhower Doctrine, which focused on containing communism and the expansion of Soviet influence. For the same reason, the United States has maintained a constant war against countries that seek to adopt - or have already adopted - communism, such as Korea, Vietnam, Lebanon, Cuba, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic.
Other reasons include the fight against global terrorism; protection of their economic, political and security interests; international alliances and commitments; and humanitarian aid.
However, their interests have been, are and will continue to be economic and commercial, beyond the forms of government of each country. If a country, such as Venezuela, declares itself socialist, maintains a dictatorship, violates all possible human rights, but allows the United States to extract oil, it is not as bad as it seems. The facade of the Gulf War was to liberate Kuwait, but its objective was to appropriate the oil of the Middle East.
The difference between Donald Trump and his predecessors is that they didn't go public. Trump has a big mouth and doesn't know how to keep quiet. Or, rather, he doesn't mind being embarrassingly honest and touts that he wants to turn the Gaza Strip into a tourist zone and publicly demands of Ukraine that, if they want military aid, they must pay with their rare earth.
Last but not least, U.S. presidents need a favorite villain and, to strengthen their image, they resort to union and national sovereignty and, therefore, to military actions.
In his first term, Donald Trump did not wage any war and, surely, his advisors let him know that politically it was a very big mistake. That is why, in this four-year term, the bad guy in the movie is and will be Mexico, its migrants and its drug traffickers.
Yesterday, Claudia Sheinbaum sent her a gift of twenty drug traffickers extradited to the United States with a bow on their heads so that she could show them off on all her social networks with her famous phrase: "Promises made, promises kept."
Unfortunately, that won't be enough. The Trumpist pack is bloodthirsty and will not rest until they have pictures and videos of U.S. soldiers invading Mexico, launching missiles and arresting drug traffickers. If Obama gave them a reality show in which they killed Osama Bin Laden, why couldn't Trump give them something like that?
The opinions expressed are the responsibility of the authors and are absolutely independent of the position and editorial line of the company. Opinion 51.
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