Trump is a liar – but it is the unbearable honesty of Trump we really should be worried about in a world ruled by the weapons industry.
That Trump is a pathological liar is unquestioned. But in between all the derision, ridicule and condemnation let’s not lose sight of the sometime uncomfortable honesty of Trump – inadvertent or not.
Yesterday Trump was quoted as saying the Khashoggi killing just “is what it is“, which is the ugly, unvarnished truth of the world we inhabit. The rest of us may (and should) protest, condemn and abhor it, but a journalist killed by a Saudi prince is a mere trifle in the eyes of those that rule and those blindly supporting their evil.
Jamal Khashoggi – Rest in Peace
If it had happened under any other US President – at least during the last 100 years – the outcome would have been much the same, just a different rhetoric.
Although oil is not the lever it once was for the House of Saud, the importance of weapons supply to the American economy far outweighs the death of a single journalist, and a “troublesome” one at that. And in Yemen the Saudi Coalition continues to slaughter the innocents with weapons supplied by America, Britain, France, Sweden, Russia and China to name a few.
War is big business.
And not just war. According to Amnesty International the aggregate economic and financial cost of violence – war, murders, domestic violence, any violence and the consequences of violence, including hospital and rehabilitation costs – was estimated at U$14.3 trillion in 2016 – or 12.6% of the global economy. So when Trump says he will not put the world economy at risk, Trump is literally dead right – it is what it is.
And that is what needs to change.
We can only hope that fifty years from now the era of Trump will be remembered not just for the chaos created or the lives lost under his reign, but for the unbearable honesty of Trump revealing the truth about the world in a way that started the movement for change.
Stranger things have happened – not so long ago, rulers and emperors were thought to be not just dressed when they were naked, but divine…
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