Amid growing anger over criminal response to COVID-19 crisis, Washington threatens war

[wsws.org]

[What would a US war against Iran or Venezuela accomplish under present conditions? It could only serve to further discredit US capitalism, which is increasingly perceived as an abject failure as the world’s population stares horrified at scenes of COVID-19 victims standing in lines outside hospitals and corpses loaded onto refrigerated trucks with forklifts. The unleashing of military violence against either country could only serve to create massive human suffering, new flows of war refugees and the further spread of the pandemic.

Even within the US military, there is undoubtedly substantial dissension over the war threats. As warships are being dispatched to South America, the USS Theodore Roosevelt, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the supposed ultimate symbol of American military might, has been crippled by the coronavirus, with 100 sailors infected, its crew of over 4,000 threatened with disease and its captain pleading for them to be disembarked, stating, “We are not at war. Sailors do not need to die.” The Trump administration is as indifferent to their lives as it is to those of the Venezuelans and Iranians targeted by its aggression.]