{"id":51053,"date":"2025-01-28T10:29:19","date_gmt":"2025-01-28T18:29:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=51053"},"modified":"2025-01-28T10:29:19","modified_gmt":"2025-01-28T18:29:19","slug":"for-the-protection-of-the-free-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2025\/01\/28\/for-the-protection-of-the-free-world\/","title":{"rendered":"‘For the Protection of the Free World’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Trump is sounding<\/a> more and more like George W. Bush and Dick Cheney:<\/p>\n

“I think the people want to be with us,” Trump said when asked about the island in the press room on board the presidential plane.<\/em><\/p>\n

“I don’t really know what claim Denmark has to it, but it would be a very unfriendly act if they didn’t allow that to happen because it’s for the protection of the free world <\/strong>[bold mine-DL],” he added.<\/em><\/p>\n

“I think Greenland we’ll get because it has to do with freedom of the world,” Trump continued.<\/em><\/p>\n

It goes without saying that trying to take over someone else\u2019s country against the wishes of the inhabitants has nothing to do with freedom. The people of Greenland have no desire to be part of Trump\u2019s Greater United States, as their own leaders have said<\/a> many times. When an American leader declares that the people of another country will welcome our domination of their land (\u201cwe will, in fact, be greeted as liberators<\/a>\u201d), that is usually a prelude to an act of aggression. American nationalists can\u2019t imagine that other nations don\u2019t want to be Americans, and they assume that that the U.S. is doing the others a favor by annexing or attacking them.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Many people wanted to treat Trump\u2019s Greenland fixation as a joke at first because it was so stupid, but he isn\u2019t kidding. According to The Financial Times<\/em>, Trump\u2019s call<\/a> with the Danish prime minister went very badly as he threatened Denmark with punitive measures if they didn\u2019t go along with selling the island. As usual, his first and only move is to use coercive threats to try to intimidate the other side into giving him what he wants. This approach usually provokes anger and defiance, as it has in this case.<\/p>\n

One of several flaws in this heavy-handed approach is that Trump\u2019s demand is so unreasonable and obnoxious that no self-respecting government could agree to his terms. Another flaw is that the goal itself is wrong. The U.S. should not be pursuing territorial expansion. The fact that it is threatening friendly countries in the process makes it even more despicable.<\/p>\n

Read the rest of the article at Eunomia<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

Daniel Larison is a contributing editor for Antiwar.com and maintains his own site at Eunomia<\/a>. He is former senior editor at<\/i> The American Conservative. He has been published in the<\/i> New York Times Book Review, Dallas Morning News, World Politics Review, Politico Magazine, Orthodox Life, Front Porch Republic, The American Scene, and<\/i> Culture11, and was a columnist for<\/i> The Week. He holds a PhD in history from the University of Chicago, and resides in Lancaster, PA. Follow him on Twitter<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Trump is sounding more and more like George W. Bush and Dick Cheney: “I think the people want to be with us,” Trump said when asked about the island in the press room on board the presidential plane. “I don’t really know what claim Denmark has to it, but it would be a very unfriendly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[747],"class_list":["post-51053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":"It goes without saying that trying to take over someone else\u2019s country against the wishes of the inhabitants has nothing to do with freedom."},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/56"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51053"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51053\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51058,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51053\/revisions\/51058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51053"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=51053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}