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Comment by wpietri | Hacker News Reader

And I'd add that it need only be a solution to the person who can start the war. Authoritarian leaders find fights with external enemies extremely useful to quash dissent. Given the global drift toward authoritarianism and nationalism, and especially given how the world's largest military is in the hands of an authoritarian, I think the risk for war is disturbingly high.

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Was Obama an authoritarian? What about Bush? What about Clinton (Bill)?

The previous few presidents got the US involved in lots of stupid wars. This president has expressly said he doesn't want to do that and has avoided it.

> Was Obama an authoritarian? What about Bush? What about Clinton (Bill)?

> The previous few presidents got the US involved in lots of stupid wars. This president has expressly said he doesn't want to do that and has avoided it.

I'm not sure how you can find fault with Obama and Clinton but absolve Trump. What do you make of his continuation of the many wars we are involved in? Or his bombings in Syria?

With John Bolton around don't keep your hopes up. Iran's humanitarian invasion is just around the corner.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/news.vice.com/amp/en_us/article...

They are ramping up ‘engagements’ in Africa not lowering them.

>has avoided it.

While explicit declarations of war don't exist, airstrikes and threats do.

Trump has accelerated bombing rates over the Obama administration: https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/08/09/donald-trump-is-droppin...

Trump has threatened Iran: https://fox8.com/2018/07/23/trump-tweets-explosive-threat-to...

Trump has threatened North Korea: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump-un-north-...

I'm going to ignore the whataboutism and skip to your apparent core point, that Trump saying he doesn't want to get involved in war means something. Trump has made 5000 false or misleading statements so far: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/09/13/president...

Trump has an extraordinary ability to do and say whatever is to his momentary perceived advantage. He's excellent at creating scary distractions; note how the sinister migrant caravan, so dangerous as to require thousands of US troops on the border, became a non-issue as soon as the election was over.

There are many who have made the case that Trump is a clear authoritarian. Today there's a great thread from David Neiwart on the topic: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1062018162500153344.html

And authoritarians definitely love external threats, creating them as necessary, just as Trump did with the migrant caravan.

Obama was not an authoritarian. Bush 2 was maybe a little bit (remember after 9/11 and the spokesman said don't question the president). But trump is far far past all recent presidents in being an authoritarian. He lives for that, and sucks up to leaders like that in other countries. He says he doesn't want to get us in a war, but he seems willing to do anything to divert public attention (like his recent completely racist tv commercial he was pushing before the election).

> Bush 2 was maybe a little bit

"With us or with the terrorists" definitely had a authoritarian bent to it

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