Tag: American Empire
Fatal Delusions of Western Man
Guest Post by Patrick J. Buchanan
Click to visit the TBP Store for Great TBP Merchandise
“We got China wrong. Now what?” ran the headline over the column in The Washington Post.
“Remember how American engagement with China was going to make that communist backwater more like the democratic, capitalist West?” asked Charles Lane in his opening sentence.
America’s elites believed that economic engagement and the opening of U.S. markets would cause the People’s Republic to coexist benignly with its neighbors and the West.
We deluded ourselves. It did not happen.
Yet Another Senseless Mass Killing: Women And Children Among 25 Dead
Authored by Carey Wedler via TheAntiMedia.org,
This week, 25 people were slaughtered in yet another mass killing, and half of those deaths were women and children.
But you won’t see these murders broadcast relentlessly on CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, nor discussed at length in social media threads. That’s because the U.S. military committed them in their crusade against the Islamic State’s “last enclave on the Euphrates in Syria,” Reuters reported Monday.
It is for this reason that many Americans will dismiss comparisons between this type of mass killing and school shootings and other domestic mass atrocities. Their grossly overfunded (yet somehow financially irresponsible) military is fighting the good fight. If some innocent people have to die in the process Americans can feel safe in their homes and shopping malls, so be it.
Continue reading “Yet Another Senseless Mass Killing: Women And Children Among 25 Dead”
Eric Margolis: “There’s No Justice In Our World”
Authored by Eric Margolis via ericmargolis.com,
A gathering of rich oil Arabs pledged $30 billion this week at a meeting in Kuwait to start rebuilding war-shattered Iraq. Sounds nice but these kinds of conclaves are notorious for offering big but delivering little.
The event was billed as helping Iraq repair war damage caused by ISIS. In fact, most of the damage from that short-lived conflict was caused by US bombing and a few Russian air strikes. ISIS, as this column has long been crying in the wilderness, was largely a paper tiger confected by the US, Britain and France to justify their military re-entry into Syria.
Continue reading “Eric Margolis: “There’s No Justice In Our World””
The US Is Executing A Global War Plan
Authored by Finian Cunningham via The Strategic Culture Foundation,
Washington is moving inevitably on a global war plan. That’s the grim conclusion one has to draw from three unfolding war scenarios.
Ultimately, it’s about American imperialism trying to assert hegemony over the international order for the benefit of US capitalism. Russia and China are prime targets for this global assault.
The three unfolding war scenarios are seen in Syria, North Korea and Ukraine.
These are not disparate, disassociated conflicts. They are inter-related expressions of the American war plans. War plans which involve the moving of strategic military power into position.
Ron Paul Warns America’s “On The Verge Of Something Like 1989’s Soviet System Collapse”
Authored by Damir Mujezinovic via Inquisitr.com,
Ron Paul does not believe the U.S. will break into separate countries, like the Soviet Union did, but expects changes in the U.S. monetary policy, as well as the crumbling of the country’s “overseas empire.”
The godfather of the Tea Party movement and perhaps the most prominent right-leaning libertarian in America, Ron Paul, believes the economic boom the United States experienced under President Trump could be a “bit of an illusion.”
Mr. Paul sees inequality, inflation, and debt as real threats that could potentially cause a turmoil.
“the country’s feeling a lot better, but it’s all on borrowed money” and that “the whole system’s an illusion” built on corporate, personal, and governmental debt.
“It’s a bubble economy in many many different ways and it’s going to come unglued,”
In a recent interview with the Washington Examiner, Paul said,
“We’re on the verge of something like what happened in ’89 when the Soviet system just collapsed. I’m just hoping our system comes apart as gracefully as the Soviet system.
We have ownership of these countries, but it’s not quite like the Soviets did. I think our stature in the world and our empire will end, and that’s when, hopefully, the doors will be open.”
“You Grow Up Wanting To Be Luke Skywalker, Then Realize You’ve Become A Stormtrooper For The Empire”
Authored by US Army combat veteran Daniel Crimmins via Upriser.com,
You grew up wanting so bad to be Luke Skywalker, but you realize that you were basically a Stormtrooper, a faceless, nameless rifleman, carrying a spear for empire, and you start to accept the startlingly obvious truth that these are people like you.
Question: How do you Americans as a people walk around head held high, knowing that every few months your country is committing a 9/11 size atrocity to other people. Imagine if the 9/11 terror attacks were happening in America every few months. Again and again, innocent people dying all around you. Your brothers and sisters. For no reason.
Daniel Crimmins from U.S. Army 3rd Infantry Division answered:
The Exit Strategy of Empire
The Roman Empire never doubted that it was the defender of civilization. Its good intentions were peace, law and order. The Spanish Empire added salvation. The British Empire added the noble myth of the white man’s burden. We have added freedom and democracy.
— Garet Garrett, Rise of Empire
The first step in creating Empire is to morally justify the invasion and occupation of another nation even if it poses no credible or substantial threat. But if that’s the entering strategy, what is the exit one?
One approach to answering is to explore how Empire has arisen through history and whether the process can be reversed. Another is to conclude that no exit is possible; an Empire inevitably self-destructs under the increasing weight of what it is — a nation exercising ultimate authority over an array of satellite states. Empires are vulnerable to overreach, rebellion, war, domestic turmoil, financial exhaustion, and competition for dominance.
A Letter to My American Friends
Guest Post by The Saker
Introduction by the Saker: During my recent hurricane-induced evacuation from Florida, I had the pleasure to see some good friends of mine (White Russian emigrés and American Jews who now consider themselves American and who fully buy into the official propaganda about the US) who sincerely think of themselves as liberals, progressives and anti-imperialists. These are kind, decent and sincere people, but during our meeting they made a number of statements which completely contradicted their professed views. After writing this letter to them I realized that there might be many more people out there who, like myself, are desperately trying to open the eye of good but completely misled people about the reality of Empire. I am sharing this letter in the hope that it might maybe offer a few useful talking points to others in their efforts to open the eyes of their friends and relatives.
Dear friends:
During our conversation you stated the following:
- The US needs a military
- One of the reasons why the US needs a military are regimes like the North Korean one
- The US has a right to intervene outside its borders on a) pragmatic and b) moral grounds
- During WWII the US “saved Europe” and acquired a moral right to “protect” other friends and allies
- The Allies (USSR-US-UK) were morally superior to the Nazis
- The Americans brought peace, prosperity and freedom to Europe.
- Yes, mistakes were made, but this is hardly a reason to forsake the right to intervene
I believe that all seven of these theses are demonstratively false, fallacies based on profoundly mistaken assumptions and that they all can be debunked by common sense and indisputable facts.
All The Countries America Has Invaded… In One Map
by Tyler Durden
Aug 26, 2017 9:15 PM
From Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli, the US has had a military presence across the world, from almost day one of its independence. For those who have ever wanted a clearer picture of the true reach of the United States military – both historically and currently – but shied away due to the sheer volume of research required to find an answer, The Anti Media points out that a crew at the Independent just made things a whole lot simpler.
Using data compiled by a Geography and Native Studies professor from Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, the indy100 team created an interactive map of U.S. military incursions outside its own borders from Argentina in 1890 to Syria in 2014.
To avoid confusion, indy100 laid out its prerequisites for what constitutes an invasion:
“Deployment of the military to evacuate American citizens, covert military actions by US intelligence, providing military support to an internal opposition group, providing military support in one side of a conflict, use of the army in drug enforcement actions.”
US Military Presence Overseas Mushrooming: Here, There, And Everywhere
Authored by Alex Groka via The Strategic Culture Foundation,
Around 200,000 US troops are stationed in 177 countries throughout the world. The forces use several hundred bases, more than 1,000 if the figure includes overseas warehouse and installations. The US may need more soon, with its presence and involvement in armed conflicts on the rise.
It was reported on August 7 that the Pentagon plans to conduct airstrikes on Islamic State (IS) in the Philippines. This move will be part of the effort to rout IS militants who occupied Marawi, a city in the south of the Philippines, in May, prompting President Rodrigo Duterte to declare martial law in the entire southern region of Mindanao and ask the US for help. In June, the Joint Special Operations Task Force Trident joined the battle. Continue reading “US Military Presence Overseas Mushrooming: Here, There, And Everywhere”
Milk-Bar Clausewitzes, Bean Curd Napoleons: In the Reign of Kaiser Don
Guest Post by Fred Reed
Why do those inadequate little men in Washington and New York dream of new wars? Because the empire is near a tipping point.
Washington must either either start a war in Korea, or gets faced down by the North, its carriers ignored, its bombers “sending signals” and making “shows of force” without result. For the empire this is a loss of face and credibility, and an example to others that America can be challenged.
Iran has not caved to Washington’s threats and sanctions and clearly isn’t going to. Another strategic loss, a big one, unless–the hawks seem to think–remedied by a war. Iran wants to trade with Europe and Europe likes the idea. Worse, Iran is becoming a vital part of China’s aim to integrate Europe and Asia economically. To the empire this smelñls of death. The frightened grow desperate.
Continue reading “Milk-Bar Clausewitzes, Bean Curd Napoleons: In the Reign of Kaiser Don”
QUOTES OF THE DAY
“Rome has grown so much from its humble beginnings that it is now overwhelmed by its greatness.”
Titus Livius
“What we have freed ourselves of, however, is any genuine consciousness of how we might look to others on this globe. Most Americans are probably unaware of how Washington exercises its global hegemony, since so much of this activity takes place either in relative secrecy or under comforting rubrics.
Many may, as a start, find it hard to believe that our place in the world even adds up to an empire. But only when we come to see our country as both profiting from and trapped within the structures of an empire of its own making will it be possible for us to explain many elements of the world that otherwise perplex us.”
Chalmers Johnson
“We are imperial, and we are in decline.”
Lawrence Wilkerson
Are America’s Wars Just and Moral?
Guest Post by Patrick J. Buchanan
“One knowledgeable official estimates that the CIA-backed fighters may have killed or wounded 100,000 Syrian soldiers and their allies,” writes columnist David Ignatius.
Given that Syria’s prewar population was not 10 percent of ours, this is the equivalent of a million dead and wounded Americans. What justifies America’s participation in this slaughter?
Columnist Eric Margolis summarizes the successes of the six-year civil war to overthrow President Bashar Assad.
“The result of the western-engendered carnage in Syria was horrendous: at least 475,000 dead, 5 million Syrian refugees driven into exile in neighboring states (Turkey alone hosts three million), and another 6 million internally displaced. … 11 million Syrians … driven from their homes into wretched living conditions and near famine.
Donald Trump and the Coming Fall of American Empire
Guest Post by Jeremy Scahill
Even as President Donald Trump faces ever-intensifying investigations into the alleged connections between his top aides and family members and powerful Russian figures, he serves as commander in chief over a U.S. military that is killing an astonishing and growing number of civilians. Under Trump, the U.S. is re-escalating its war in Afghanistan, expanding its operations in Iraq and Syria, conducting covert raids in Somalia and Yemen, and openly facilitating the Saudi’s genocidal military destruction of Yemen.
Meanwhile, China has quietly and rapidly expanded its influence without deploying its military on foreign soil.
Continue reading “Donald Trump and the Coming Fall of American Empire”
US Military Establishment Study Admits The American Empire Is “Collapsing”
Authored by Darius Shatahmasebi via TheAntiMedia.org,
A new study conducted by members of the U.S. military establishment has concluded that the U.S.-led international global order established after World War II is “fraying” and may even be “collapsing” as the U.S. continues to lose its position of “primacy” in world affairs.
“In brief, the status quo that was hatched and nurtured by U.S. strategists after World War II and has for decades been the principal ‘beat’ for DoD is not merely fraying but may, in fact, be collapsing,” the report states.
The report, published in June by the U.S. Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute, evaluated the Department of Defense’s (DOD) approach to risk assessment at all levels of Pentagon policy planning. The study was supported and sponsored by the U.S. Army’s Strategic Plans and Policy Directorate; the Joint Staff, J5 (Strategy and Policy Branch); the Office of the Deputy Secretary of Defense for Strategy and Force Development; and the Army Study Program Management Office.
Continue reading “US Military Establishment Study Admits The American Empire Is “Collapsing””