The US is now fighting in Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Libya and Somalia. Yet “no vital American interest is at stake” in any of these places. In 1980, president Jimmy Carter declared that any challenge to American positions in the Persian Gulf would be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the US, but back then we were engaged in a standoff with the Soviet Union and depended on oil supplies from the Persian Gulf. That’s no longer the case. Today, the US’s naval presence in the Gulf “serves mainly to increase tensions” and “escalate conflicts”. And the only beneficiary of that is the US arms industry.

Regarding Hillary  Clinton, one of the  things I felt uncomfortable about was her readiness to use military force and her support of the various wars in the Middle East.  It would be one thing if the wars were brutal, short and successful, but they never seem to be. Trump appears to be much less militaristic, and this is promising, if true,  and if he is not captured by the miltary-industrial complex.

Tomorrow, I would like to discuss some of the things Trump says he wants to do early on in his Presidency. Some are predictably damaging, but others look promising, if hard to deliver. Epicureans try to keep an open mind.