The “Department of War” Is the Most Honest Thing Trump Has Ever Done

Two years later, the Congress revised the law, transformed the establishment into an executive department at the level of the cabinet and renamed it from the Ministry of Defense, partly fearing that the acronym looked too much “enemy”. (Maybe they feared that it was Also on the nose.) The new name helped to whiten what was, in practice, a permanent mobilization for world domination.

Trump tries to cancel this rhetorical movement. In some respects, it is more honest on the nature of American power than its predecessors. He does not want to dress the Empire in the language of humanitarianism. He wants to revel in the thirst for hot blood.

For two decades, US officials insisted that wars in Afghanistan and Iraq aimed to fight terrorism and to ensure democracy. What they delivered was the occupation, the torture, the black sites, the war of the drones and the mass death – all, while the defense entrepreneurs left with billions of Boodle taxpayers. All this large scam was managed under the banner of “defense”. By calling it “war”, Trump aligns the language with reality at least.