For almost all of the Bush administration, Democrats were the anti-war party. They took to the streets, to the airwaves, to the print media, wherever they could, to tout their anti-message. During Obama’s presidency, the anti-war cohort vanished, even as he dropped bombs, created terrorist groups, started wars, and triggered mass refugee movements. Then came Trump, a truly anti-war president who was the first president in decades not to start a war. With Biden now the AP's declared president, leftists are openly thrilled about the military-industrial complex moving into the White House.

President George W. Bush was the last of the Wilson Doctrine presidents: He believed that America could “make the world safe for democracy” by sending her blood and gold overseas to kill totalitarian dictators. Of course, he didn’t spell it out in such simple terms, but that was the gist of his belief that you could end Islamic terrorism by bringing Western-style democracy to the Middle East.

In retrospect, it was a dumb idea or, at least, it was a failed idea. The reason we were able to use war to bring democracy to Japan, Italy, and Germany was because, by WWII’s end, we had blasted those countries into dust and were able to rebuild them from the ground up. In addition, we left our troops in place to keep an eye on things for the next 75 years. 

In both Afghanistan and Iraq, America didn’t fight to win. Instead, she repeated the mistake from Vietnam, which was to fight bad guys within the country while simultaneously trying to be nice to the ordinary people caught in the crossfire. As my father, a veteran of two wars, always said, you can no more "sort of" fight a war than you can be "sort of" pregnant. If you don’t fight to win, you’re losing.

The Iraq War turned around only with the Surge when Bush decided to fight to win, rather than wallow in a Vietnam-esque quagmire in the face of guerilla (and Iranian) warfare. The gains from those bloody battles might have lasted if America had kept her troops there for a decade or two, not to fight but to maintain the peace. Instead, Obama, the “anti-war president,” pulled American troops out of Iraq rather than acknowledge victory, creating a giant gaping hole that ISIS and Iran quickly filled.

Of course, Obama was a pretty deadly guy for an anti-war president. He personally targeted the victims of drone strikes in the hinterlands between Pakistan and Afghanistan. He decided to engage in regime-change in Libya, even though the execrable Qaddafi had already laid down his arms against America. Having toppled Qaddafi, Obama left, turning the country into a terrorist haven. And of course, Obama meddled in Syria, creating a refugee crisis that permanently changed Europe for the worse.

And what about the Democrats as a whole? From 2002 to January 2009, they were the anti-War party, taking to the streets on a regular basis to call President Bush "Hitler incarnate." (Where have we heard that before?) They turned the pathetic Cindy Sheehan, who had broken down mentally after her son died fighting in Iraq, into a saint, only to dump her when she ceased to be useful.

In January 2009, when Obama entered the White House, the anti-war movement stopped. Suddenly, American aggression was fine, contingent upon one thing: Samantha Power’s “Responsibility to Protect” theory meant that America could engage in war provided that the war did not confer any direct benefit on her. America’s troops would henceforth die as martyrs to the causes of other nations.

Eventually, America’s working and middle classes, the people whose sons and daughters were filling up the ranks of martyrdom, were done. They rejected self-styled elites using their children as vehicles for the elites’ own sense that, by sacrificing the little people, they were doing a form of penance for America’s sordid history of capitalism and liberty.

That’s one of the reasons we got Trump, who didn’t like seeing Americans die pointlessly. He made it clear to our enemies that, like Teddy Roosevelt, he would speak softly and carrying a "yuuge" stick. It worked. Despite the leftists’ certainty that Trump was Hitler, he was the first president in decades not to embroil America in new wars. Naturally, the Pentagon crowd hates Trump. A peacetime military doesn’t provide scope for promotion, nor is the money following the military businesses that give well-paying jobs to retired Pentagon types.

Leftists have now become the party of war. They are incredibly pleased that Biden will bring the military-industrial complex and pointless wars back to the forefront of American politics. Paul Joseph Watson, with his usual acumen, points out what Obama did to the world and what Biden promises to do. It’s ugly. (As usual, these Watson videos come with a language warning.)

Image: Refugees heading to Europe. YouTube screengrab.