More than 40 years after its release, an exchange in the opening scene of Warren Beatty’s Academy Award-winning film Reds floats to the front of my mind whenever I think about war.

Master of Ceremonies: “I, for one, see no reason why we here at the Liberal Club shouldn’t listen to what Jack Reed has to say. What would you say this war is about, Jack Reed?”

Reed, standing, looking a bit confused and annoyed: “Profits.”

The one-word answer, while correct — Reed, as a staunch Communist,  held to some fairly silly ideas on economics — was also incomplete.

World War One was indeed about profits. It was a clash of declining empires: Empires purpose-built to  rake off a share of profits, taken by imperially protected business enterprises from colonized places and peoples, for the benefit of the imperial political classes.

World War Two largely killed off the old empires, but created new ones for its victors, the US and the Soviet Union.

Eighty years later, the declining remnants of THOSE two empires (and even smaller European remnants of the imperial age) rage against the dying of their light, scrapping over territory and the attached profits in the Middle East, Africa, the Americas, and, of course, Ukraine.

Nearly three years into the second phase of that war (the first phase involved the 2014 secession from Ukraine of, and subsequent “frozen conflict” over, Donetsk, Luhansk, and Crimea), I’ve still got friends who want to believe the war is over “democracy” versus “authoritarianism,” “protecting ethnic Russians from literal Nazis,” etc.

In fact, that war is, and always has been, about whether poor, politically corrupt — but resource-rich, and geographically located in ways that maximize its strategic importance —  Ukraine will go forward as the US/EU/NATO imperial satrapy it became in 2014, or revert to its former status as a Russian imperial satrapy.

In other words, it’s about profits for Rome on the Potomac versus profits for Constantinople on the Moskva.

An odd bifurcation: Whenever I point this fact out on X, I’m accused of being “pro-Russia.” Whenever I point this fact out on a site where I frequently comment, I’m accused of being “pro-US/EU/NATO.”

But I’m going to stick to my guns — pardon the militaristic turn of phrase — on this one.

There are no “good guys” at the policy level here. The only moral principle at stake is whether it’s acceptable for imperial gangs to murder each other’s colonial serfs to benefit their own political classes.

I say no, but hey, that’s just me. Your mileage may vary. If it does, and if you think you must take a “side” in this war other than the side of peace, at least be honest with yourself about what you’re supporting.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

In 1989,  US forces invaded, conquered, and occupied Panama, replacing its pet dictator, Manuel Noriega with a new regime.  Then-president George H.W. Bush’s justifications for the invasion included protecting US citizens in Panama and prosecuting the ill-conceived and ill-fated US war on drugs. The more likely reason is that Noriega, after many years of obedient service to his US masters, had increasingly become his own man (not necessarily in good ways, but that wasn’t the issue — he was plenty bad before, too).

In 2025, president-elect Donald Trump proposes that the US regime regain control of the Panama Canal, ceded to Panama in 1999 pursuant to a 1977 treaty proposed by then-president Jimmy Carter and ratified by the US Senate. Implementing Trump’s proposal would likely require another invasion, another conquest, another occupation, and imposition of another regime change.

Trump’s justifications for his proposal include his expressed opinion that the US acted “foolishly” when it ceded the canal to Panama, that the transit fees charged to move ships across it are “ridiculous,” and that the Chinese regime’s influence in Panama is strategically dangerous to the canal in particular and US interests in general.

Unmentioned, but worth wondering about: According to the Panamanian courts, the Trump Organization evaded, and owes, millions of dollars in taxes to the Panamanian regime. The case is currently in the US federal court system. Presumably any Trump-installed new regime would take a more forgiving attitude.

Personally, I don’t care if someone avoids taxes — of any kind, in any amount, in any way, or to any regime.

But neither do the other supposed justifications hold water, if for no other reason than that attempting to re-take the canal, even if successful, would likely end up with it shut down for a significant period of time, costing US consumers far more than the “ridiculous” transit fees Trump complains of and increasing rather than decreasing Chinese influence in Central America as the region’s regimes start looking for help with their own prospective defense from US predation.

And frankly, this one is personal to me.

I won’t name names because I think it would be disrespectful in the context of making a political argument, but if you care to look, you can find the name of the only Marine who was killed in the 1989 invasion.

I knew that Marine. I went to boot camp with him. Because the first letter of his name was close to the first letter of my name, he slept one bunk down from me, and we sometimes stood fire watch and other details together. I won’t pretend we were best friends, but he was one of the recruits I got to know better than most during a formative life experience.

I’ve not always been anti-war, and wouldn’t have considered myself anti-war in 1989. But never, at any time, did I consider the US objectives in Panama worth his loss.

If Trump follows through with this ambition, people — American and Panamanian alike — will die. And, again, the results won’t be worth that cost.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

It’s “year in review” time for most political columnists, so here’s my opinion on 2024, along with a recommendation for 2025.

Opinion: Zero out of ten, would not recommend. If you’re reading this in the year 2525 as you’re preparing to test a time machine and trying to decide what past year to visit, avoid this one.

At the societal level, I can’t think of any major positive events — political or cultural — worth your energy. No Armistice Day, Beatles on Ed Sullivan, or man on the moon moments come to mind (maybe the Bob Dylan biopic, A Complete Unknown, will help with that — it comes out on Christmas Day, after this column goes to press).

The year was equal parts anger, outrage, violence, and boredom.

The US presidential campaign was weird in certain ways, but not in ways that make it uniquely interesting unless dementia, opportunistic ladder-climbing, and the Truth Social equivalent of “mean tweets” happen to be hobbies of yours.

Wars in Ukraine and the Middle East continued, but they were more “major downer” than “major development” in character. A lot of bodies, not very many moves toward peace or even closure.

And so on, and so forth. It just really hasn’t been a very good year.

I’m not complaining on a PERSONAL level, mind you. I’m happy that my family made it through 2024 without major medical or financial setbacks, and that I started getting a little more adventurous as my golden (grayen?) years approach (to wit, with my nuclear birth family all dead and unable to worry about, or scold, me, I started riding a motorcycle). I hope your year was good as well and suspect it probably went better in inverse relation to the attention you paid to politics and world affairs.

I also wish you and yours a happy, healthy, prosperous holiday season and new year.

Which brings me to my recommendation for helping bring that result about NEXT year.

There oughta be a law.

If you know me at all, you know I don’t say that very often.

But I really think this one could be important. In faux legalese, here’s my proposal:

“No government employee, elected or appointed government official, or candidate for election or appointment to government office, shall make, utter, or issue any public statement relating to those positions between midnight on December 18 of the current year and midnight on January 1 of the next year.”

No speeches. No press conferences. No press releases. No social media posts on “official” accounts. If you want to tell family members “Merry Christmas,” etc., in person, by phone, or on your personal social media accounts, fine. But none of this “my fellow Americans” stuff. When you’re not annoying or enraging your fellow Americans, you’re just boring us. So shut your yappers for a couple of weeks and leave us alone.

I guess that kind of law would run afoul of the First Amendment … but most of the people affected don’t care about the First Amendment anyway, right?

Happy holidays.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY