DONA LD Trump`s rebranding of the US Department of Defence as the Department of War may seem incongruous for a president hankering after the Nobel Peace Prize. Inevitably, there is a degree of domestic hostility. But might the unsubtle shift in nomenclature have some merit? Could it not be viewed as an inadvertent nod to greater honesty in public life? Sure, that concept might be considered anathema to an administration whose messaging unabashedly relies on chicanery and mendacity. But its mask often slips, unveiling a visage even more grotesque than the public image it seeks to project.

Trump seems to think that since the US has not decisively triumphed in any of the significant conflicts it has embarked upon in the past 80 years, reverting to the Department of War terminology can revitalise its reputation as an aggressor. His ignorance on a vast range of fronts presumably clouds his impression of World War II, in which the American role, no doubt key to the outcome, relied to a considerable extent on the efforts of its allies --notably the Soviet Union and the British Empire.

Post-war American interventions were far less impressive not because the Pentagon did not devote enough resources, but because they were misguided. The anti-communist crusades in the Cold War era cost millions of (mainly Asian) lives without bringing the US any strategic advantage as a global hegemon, and much the same could be claimed about its 21stcentury interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq and so on. Throughout these decades, it would have been not just appropriate butaccurateforthePentagontobetagged as the Department of War.

The US failed to triumph in these conflicts not due to a dearth of resources, but because in each case as Omar Bradley, the then chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, put it in the context of Korea and `Red China` almost 75 years ago `the wrong war, at the wrong place, and with the wrong enemy`. Remarkably, a lifetime later the US still sees red in the context of China. Trump was impressed by the military parade in Beijing, but equally jealous of Xi Jinping`s ability to attract both Vladimir Putin and Narendra Modi to Tianjin.

His military`s deadly assault in international waters on a boat purportedly conveying drugs from Venezuela to the US has revived the prospect of US aggression in its Latin American `backyard`. That includes threats of intervention in Mexico, whose president has warned against any incursions. But the biggest danger, as far as Americans are concerned, lies in domestic military deployments. Trumphas already flexed his muscles in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., and repeatedly threatened other Democraticrun cities such as Chicago and Baltimore.

He has also involved himself in the upcoming New York City mayoral contest, decrying an impending `communist` takeover by Zohran Mamdani and trying to woo away the deeply compromised and vastly unpopular incumbent Eric Adams by offering him the potential post of ambassador to Riyadh in order to afford the corrupt former state governor Andrew Cuomo a clear run against Mamdani. In this wretched quest, the Democratic establishment is onside with Trump. Should their joint enterprise flounder, it will serve as a useful reminder that the current state of affairs might indeed be an aberration.

But the refusal of far too many Democrats to endorse a refreshing NYC candidate or to denounce Trump helps to explain America`s plight. The likes of Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are complicit in the Trump ascend-ancy. It would not have come to this had they overcome their neoliberal predilections and devotion to Zionism. Should it win congressional approval, the Depar-tment of War will be their legacy as much as Trump`s.

George Orwell`s dystopian 1949 novel Nineteen Eighty-Four imagined a Ministry of Peace carrying out the war aims of Oceania. There`s cause to appreciate the fact that Trump has, instead, favoured a rather less inaccurate option. There`s no guarantee, though, that he`ll escape other Orwellian predictions. The Ministry of Truth is reflected in the almost daily barrage of bilge that flows from Truth Social, and the Ministry of Plenty is echoed in the genocide-adjacent Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. The Ministry of Love holds sway in Mar-a-Lago as long as Jeffrey Epstein is left out.

In the Vietnam era, a hit song wondered: `War ... What is it good for? / Absolutely nothing.` All too little has changed in the interim. Except that the guy who was granted five deferments from being drafted into a conflict he supported but wasn`t inclined to participate in, complaining of bone spurs, is now willing to pursue wars as long as they shore up his bottom line.

Time, as John Lennon declared 50 years ago, wounds all heels. • mahir.dawn @gmail.com