Trump nominated for a peace prize – What are these governors smoking?

Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant says he’s “proud” to have joined a group of Republican governors supporting the nomination of President Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize.   And the president’s great contribution to peace?  His “firm stance against nuclearization, coupled with his willingness to engage one-on-one with Pyongyang, has succeeded in opening new avenues of cooperation, friendship and unity between the two Koreas – and the rest of the world.”

Leave aside the rather significant detail that so far nothing peaceful has so far in fact been accomplished, and that the most recent news reports suggest that the spirit of amity between the two Koreas may already be fizzling.   More pertinent is that Trump the Nobel peace prize nominee fits the bill of the saber-rattling warmonger better than any leader on the planet.

President Trump has committed to expanding military spending beyond even what the Pentagon requested, upgrading the U.S. nuclear arsenal, and massively increasing arms sales to other belligerent countries.  He has demanded a military parade (that even the military does not want) to showcase U.S. military prowess.  He has pulled the U.S. out of the Iran nuclear accord, and moved the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, an act directly related to the protests and killings of Palestinians going on right now.  He has assisted and continues to assist Saudi Arabia in its murderous assault on Yemen’s civilian population, and has attacked Damascus in violation of international law.  He has replaced more moderate advisers with long-standing hawks like Mike Pompeo (secretary of state) and John Bolton (national security adviser), who seem bent on making the case for war with Iran.  He has threatened to “totally destroy” North Korea, and has wondered aloud about the worth of nuclear weapons if they’re never used.

If Donald Trump receives a peace prize, it will mark the indisputable arrival of Orwellian “newspeak” and “doublethink” to America.  As the slogan of the all-dominant Party had it in Orwell’s dystopian “1984” – “War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength.”   It seems that a number of Republican governors, including ours, are already there.