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United States as a Global Power: New World Disorder
The US is struggling with a paradox: while its military power retains global reach, its role as world leader is gradually ending
The time has long since past when it became fashionable to talk about a new world order. The collapse of the Soviet Union provided an opportunity to fashion one. But instead of using that opportunity to create a new security architecture in Europe, Nato expanded eastwards as the military anchor for democracy promotion. Not content to have seen off one global military competitor in the Soviet Union, the western military industrial complex and the think-tanks they funded scurried around for a worthy replacement. When 11 September happened, they thought they were in business again. For a brief moment, al-Qaida seemed to fulfil some of the characteristics of communism: it could pop up anywhere in the world; it was an existential enemy, driven ideologically and uncontainable through negotiation; and it was potentially voluminous. Neither the doctrines of the pre-emptive strike, nor attacking a foreign country abroad to ensure security at home, were new. Swap the domino theory of the Vietnam era for the crescent of crisis of the Bush and Obama eras, and you had the same formula for a foe that hopscotched across the globe.
But here's the curious thing. Al-Qaida failed, not by being bombed out of the tribal areas of Pakistan or by losing its video-hugging leader. It failed as an ideological alternative, in its own terms and for its own people. It failed in Egypt, the country that mattered most to its chief thinker, the Egyptian-born doctor Ayman al-Zawahiri. When the opportunity arose for millions of Muslims to shed their brutal Arab yoke (this was supposed to be the fourth phase in the construction of the Caliphate, to be accompanied by physical attacks against oil suppliers and cyber ones on the US economy), nothing of the sort happened. Islam is indeed winning the day, but it is political rather than military. It seeks alliances with the apostate and says it is committed to democratic partnership and the rule of law.
Al-Qaida's failure was all the more significant because the western response, the interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq, also failed. Not because the enemy was especially daunting, but because the mission was impossible to start with. Mission creep started with democracy promotion, continued as state-building, and ended with withdrawal at any cost, by the appointed date. The quality of life in the country US combat troops left behind – most likely one that in Iraq will break up into a loose federation on sectarian lines – became less important than the fact of departure itself. Military ceremonies proclaiming victory in the war in Iraq had as much sense of reality as Kim Jong-il's funeral. This is the next feature of the world we live in. It is an age of the self-defeating intervention. The quests through military means to build stable states out of a dictatorship in Iraq or a failed state in Afghanistan did not and are not failing at the hands of a conventional enemy. They implode. They self-destruct.
Military overreach and serial economic crises have bequeathed us a generation of small leaders who battle with events that outsize them. They have stopped trying to fashion them, but appeal instead to a defensive desire. Protectionism not internationalism rules the day. The Middle East has been transformed from a zone of allies to one in which Washington has been reduced to the role of spectator. It is now largely a taker of Middle Eastern policy, not one of its makers. There are other parts of the globe where US power projection finds natural allies, such as the Pacific, where China's rise is feared. So the paradox is that while US military power retains global reach (it is working on supersonic cruise missiles, and long-range drones) its stewardship as world leader, as a generator of the next big idea, is gradually ending. There may come a time when international institutions are rebuilt to fill this vacuum. But that time is not yet. Until then, a new world disorder would be nearer the mark.
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103 Comments so far
Show AllThe rages of our collapsing empire are all to obvious to the world, minus Americans whose media continues to promote the bankruptcy.
Well the Brits oughta know about the perils of decadent empire. If not The book then they certainly wrote a lot of books on the subject. UK out of Ireland!
The rationals for US invasion of Iraq metamorphized so often because they were all bullshit trying to hide the real objective, Operation Iraqi Liberation - I think that's what it was originally called by the neocons.
The reasons are as follows:
Banking
Oil
Israel
Logistics (as in military)
That covers a good 95% of the reasons for the multiple US invasions of the muslim world
Weapons testing also.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were also "weapons testing." Our moral bankruptcy continues faster than our literal one.
While the comments below are generally good - cogent, angry, intutive, and containing other qualities leading to movement and change - I'd like to use observations of two "nation-states" with which the US has recently made war:
1. Afghanistan was ALWAYS a failed state. In spite of history's claim that the various tribes banded together to create that nation over 200 years past, the tribes each have their only permanent loyalty to themselves, and nearly all retain that loyalty to portions outside Af's official borders. Tajiks, Haras, Uzbeks, Pashtun, Nuris, all have engaged in liquid coalition, quickly violently changing allies, sometimes surreptitiously. A nation there is unnatural, always dissolving in violence, in a forever partisan war.
2. Iraq is also artificially composed. The Kurds are another "cross-border" tribe. The Sunni Arabs presently hold center, and the Shia south are more loyal or associated with those making the same abstruse or invidious religious argument, and not to that nation.
A conspiracy theorist might claim that the aggression toward those two "nations" might have the strategy of destabilizing them, requiring US military presence to extract the oil, lithium, etc.
What historically does occur is essentially colonization for extraction.
However, US policy which includes the fast chilling relationship with Pakistan and the icy interaction with Iran, also has to do with US intelligence being aware that militant Islam recruitment and training occurs in some of those areas.
The hysterical citizens and officials in power in the US continually move toward a "security state", the rationale for Nazism and militarism everywhere across history.
The reason the irascible and argumentative citizens of the US perhaps hang together may well be, EXACTLY as the Afghan tribes, that they perceive exterior enemies as more severe threats.
The ends of empires and nation-states may primarily occur economically.
You may be in the period when nation-states end: we see greater autonomy given by Canada to Inuit, and some First Nations tribes, as meanwhile that nation sells its resources without consideration of ecosystems, health, climate.
Although such regional aboriginal control is not likely in the US, we see far more vituperative and insane politics: elected representatives actually attempting to return to unregulated toxics; predatory speculation by individuals, banks and other institutions; devastating "development" of the last ecologically sound land and water areas; deceptive politics with presidents who promised and strongly implied healthy change and turned instead to more torture, war, deregulation, abandonment of healthy civil, civil rights, and environmental policies, and now clearly seeking inordinate presidential power.
The very same governmental institutions that gather information engage in allying with the worst of violent fundamentalist Islamic groups (the policies and events are well-exposed by FOIA revelations and members of those agencies). We see the troubling rise of fundamentalist christian groups to power, denying clear science in that immoral quest to control this nation, moving toward the same ignorant violent periods as when the Inquisition or European wars over tiny distinctions within an utterly ridiculous frame of fictional belief.
The end of a nation can be as drawn-out as Rome, taking 400 years after dictatorship, and continuing through dark ages; or, it can come about as quickly as Third-Reich (the seemingly stupid sudden attack on USSR was due to Germany's not having ANY petroleum, striking straight toward the Baikal fields), or Soviet Union (which nation took several hundred years under differing regimes to acquire all north and central Asia, and control numerous European and a few other areas).
The USA has overextended its spending, now cutting near everything except military budget, electing officials who continue to follow that path. Islam is too fractious to create a large "enemy", although the seriousness of a religion which claims the right to kill its apostates/converts from that belief cannot be overstated as far as the human and biological world is concerned.
We are not by nature suited to live in nations. Significant violence and dissension exist in every one. Japan eradicated and absorbed its Ainu forebears; China is one nation due to the Qin policy of executing enemies, their entire extended families and all who allied with them. Its time of dissolution will come, but perhaps not until they either overuse all possible resources or have no one to sell to.
The empire is one of corporate control. The US is merely the presently most active source of violent military support for the relatively new corporate world.
in order to comprehend the policy that is amerikanism around the world one needs to get the notion of chaos in their minds
chaos is good. through chaos one can make changes
while its true the nwo as run by fascist amerika is disordered that doesn't mean it is not working and working well
amerika does appear to be grasping at the very end of its power and influence - it is reduced to killing killing and more killing. it's modus operandi is to destroy as it did in iraq and aghanistan
as opposed to the chinese who invest in infrastructure
the other aspect of amerika is it's debt - there is no way for amerika to repay its mountains of debt and most everyone knows it, including the chinese who hold nearly 2 trillion dollars of it
the question is how long can amerika keep the debt prison working - the peril is that sooner or later our friends/enemies will start using some other currency and that will be the end of the party for fortress amerika
selling oil in euros got saaddam killed and threatening to start an african bank using gold as backing got ghadaffi killed
the rothschilds/nwo/city of london debt servitude prison is about all we have left other than the military
slim pickings indeed
meanwhile we get to witness the destruction of amerika where now half of the sheeple are on the government dole
other places in the world are experiencing good times economically and socially but not in the debt servitude prison where obummer has now decided he can kill anyone anywhere anytime
in this world there are places of light and there are places of darkness - we live in the darkness of fear, unemployment and homelessness
we have leaders in congress and the senate who inside trade to get rich while rome burns - and that folks is par for the course in a crumbling empire
Until USAn's realize that their forced contributions, withholding taxes, by taxing labor to save the broken, fraudulent, corrupt Wall St., Wash., DC Axis of Evil capitalist system, a criminal conspiracy. The forced contributions pay interest on the COUNTERFEIT DEBT created by the banksters. It also funds the counterfeit stocks/stock options such as the 9/11 counterfeit stock options. Cyberspace reported an suspicious increase in airline stock options. Even more curious, these options were for the hijacked companies. These were counterfeit options which were acquired post 9/11 and predated to pre 9/11. This accounts for the abnormal number of options not exercised which were profitable. Steve Jobs, RIP, had dealt in these counterfeit options . I refer to maxkeiser.com for more extensive information about the COUNTERFEITING of the USA and the interest being paid by the forced contributions of USAn'ers .
"the other aspect of amerika is it's debt - there is no way for amerika to repay its mountains of debt and most everyone knows it, including the chinese who hold nearly 2 trillion dollars of it."
An alternative view can be found at:
http://moslereconomics.com/mandatory-readings/the-innocent-fraud-of-the-trade-deficit-whos-funding-whom/
Since foreign countries such as China hold billions in US dollars and “indebtedness” to China is in the form of US treasuries, all of these assets China holds are circulating in the US economy and exist as numbers in various accounts at the Federal Reserve. To “pay back” China, the US simply needs to transfer numbers between different accounts at the Fed, from savings accounts to reserve accounts (a form of checking account).
“In other words, the US government’s promise [to China and other governments] is only that a non-interest bearing reserve balance will be substituted for an interest bearing Treasury security. This is not a potential source of financial stress for the government.” – Warren Mosler
“Myth: US consumers need to borrow $billions from foreigners.
Fact: US consumers are funding $billions in foreign savings.
While the media continuously bemoans an assumed US dependence on foreign capital, a recap of the actual transactions involved reveals the reverse.
Let’s begin with the example of US consumer buying a German car.
If the consumer pays cash for it, the consumer’s checking account in a US bank is debited and the German carmaker’s account is credited, thereby increasing foreign savings of USD [US dollar] financial assets. Total deposits in the US banking system remain unchanged.
If the consumer borrows to buy the car, the bank makes a loan to the consumer, which results in a loan on the asset side of the bank’s balance sheet and a new deposit on the liability side (loans create deposits). After the car is paid for the German car company has the new bank deposit. Consumer borrowing increased total bank deposits and funded foreign savings of USD.
That’s what the finance behind the trade gap is all about – foreigners desire to net save USD financial assets and sell goods and services to the US to obtain those assets.” – Warren Mosler
It is a misconception to think of US government “debt” the way one thinks about an individual’s debt. The crucial difference is that the US government issues its own currency.
“Just as every asset has a corresponding liability in accounting, the currency issuer’s debt is dollar for dollar equal to the currency user’s savings. All monetary operations by the issuer are derived in government liabilities. All liabilities by the issuer create a corresponding asset for the currency user as a matter of accounting. The issuer’s debt is a digital resource – a digital account corresponding to all the savings of currency users’ in banknotes, deposits, and treasuries.
“Currency issuers do not “borrow” money, they create it. The proper way to think of it is that issuers create the currency that users either save or spend. In other words, China does not lend to the US government. China saves in the currency the US government produces. This is not a theory this is double entry accounting.” – Craig Austin
yes! so taken a step furthur:
:saddam was killed for trying to take euros for oil:
:usa doesn't need to worry about trade deficits:
so what's real? running out of oil!
Cathy: Pretty much agree with your account of things. One thing: "All monetary liabilities by the issuer are derived from government liabilities." Can't banks create lines of credit out of nothing? (Not just the Fed) When a bank loans you money to buy the car, that wouldn't be a government liability. It would be the bank's liability. Is that right? Where am I going wrong?
the amerikan "government" does NOT issue its own currency.
October BBC production..."Justin Rowlatt crosses Brazil and the United States on an epic journey as he continues to investigate the spread of Chinese influence around the planet. In Rio, local industries, including bikini factories, are threatened by cheap Chinese imports, and in the Amazon, Justin witnesses the phenomenal impact of the Chinese hunger for resources on the indigenous people and the environment. In the US, from California to the rust belt, Justin encounters the rising undercurrent of American fury over their own decline in the face of competition from China."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fN9bdqGwaMA&feature=related
Whether intentional or not, the context reaffirms the arguments of Occupy. Listening to the closing interviews with US representatives, I am reminded of the rhetorical inversion, that is, what is said about China in terms of power reflects the US reach.
The US naval fleet in the Indian Ocean is for the purpose of keeping the shipping lines open there by protecting shipping. Ironically, they also protect the Chinese shipping because the Chinese shipping includes those goods destined for the USA and other corporations that are located in China. This saves the Chinese from having to have as large a fleet of warships in the Indian Ocean. All the Chinese have to do is to have defensive surface to surface missiles, which they do. China has missiles with speeds of 3500 mph. USA Warships have no capability to stop these missiles.The forced contributions, withholding taxes, of taxing USAn's labor also provides protection for Chinese shipping which is the delusional enemy of the Pentagon. This appear to be an insane waste of USAn taxpayers forced contributions, withholding taxes on labor, of the USAN'ers and it is insane which is why it appears to be so.
"Nato expanded eastwards as the military anchor for democracy promotion ... "
"Mission creep started with democracy promotion ..."
The only thing anyone needs to understand is that the stated objective called "democracy promotion" has nothing whatever to do with promoting democracy as any ordinary human being would or should comprehend that terminology. It is, rather, the imposition by armed force on foreign lands and cultures of the same system of corporate rule that calls itself "freedom and democracy" at home.
And the same citzens of "Western democracies" who seem completely baffled (and often claim to be disgusted) by that domestic facade are the chief contributors to its global imposition. Indeed, they vigorously cheer its victories and "loyally" support the troops who pilot the drones and operate the torture chambers involved in its "promotion" abroad -- and at home as well in the very near future, although likely to be more "privatized" in the homeland.
Having failed miserably to avert and prevent such "globalization" by military and other means, any chance of success in the heart of the empire appears slim indeed, except insofar as the core is rotten and may well destroy itself through more ill-advised foreign adventures now in the late planning and development stages -- not to mention increasingly shaky economic underpinnings as the entire capitalist ponzi scheme draws inexorably nearer to its "infinite expansion" limits.
Don't look to any "worm turning" of the original victims for any solution. In fact, when the big "democracy promoting" guns get turned on a bunch of vapid, web-blogging, park-occupying Gandhi followers, their chances are roughly equivalent to those of a snowball in hell. They'll be "disappeared" like so much transient mist muttering "passive resistance" slogans and (since revealing their fate will be a crime in itself) no one will even know about it, let alone care. Why should they?
Most excellent post, RV! I wanted to say exactly the same thing myself, but you saved me the time and effort. Thanks!
RV -- I was troubled by the same assertion-- "NATO expanding eastward for democracy promotion".
This is another version of the "invading Iraq and Afghanistan to promote democracy" mythology. To the neoliberal elites of Amerika and Europe "democracy" means 'open' markets for corporate exploitation. Often these economic 'reforms' are coupled to sham elections -- if possible.
People vote but have no actual influence over economic policy-- including the corporate & banking powers (often foreign) that dominate their lives.
NATO's eastward expansion is also part of the program to encircle Russia militarily so it can never rise again to challenge Amerika or Western European 'interests'.
The reason why Putin is so vilified in the west is not his autocratic behavior but his interference with Western oil companies and corporations in their programs for bleeding Russia dry. When Putin started jailing oligarchs, challenging Shell oil, etc. and using Russian natural gas for nationalist aims, then he became a demagogue.
The Soviet Union peacefully withdrew its forces from Eastern Europe and dismantled the Warsaw Pact with a promise from the U.S. & Europe that NATO would not expand eastward. Naturally, they were duped.
"After all, Moscow was burnt once by taking the western military bloc at its word. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, NATO officials promised not to expand further in Russia’s direction. The pledge, however, carried no written guarantees, and NATO conveniently forgot its promise at the earliest opportunity. Understandably, therefore, Russia is drawing the line on NATO expansion at European missile defense. Although it may not be able to halt the system, it can take preventive measures to ensure that its managers – who may change allegiance according to the unpredictable US political winds – do not wake up one morning with the notion that Russia is the enemy."
http://rt.com/politics/medvedev-missile-defense-us-russia-reset-143/
Your openly contemptuous description of the Occupiers as "a bunch of vapid, web-blogging, park-occupying Gandhi followers" is rather ironic. Don't sit there web-blogging denunciations of the effeminate Occupiers - get out there and show us how someone in the full vigor of manhood does it - go blow away some cops.
"They'll be 'disappeared' ... and ... no one will even know about it, let alone care. Why should they?" Your derisive contempt for people that are trying to show the world a more humane way to live sounds an awful lot like the sneering ridicule that issues from the mouths of GOP presidential candidates.
... or as seen by the "1%" they apparently expect to dethrone. Reality is a bitch, which is probably why so many people try to avoid it with no little help from the beneficiaries. While you dream about a "more humane way to live", they prepare to defeat it with all the means at their command -- and that goes far beyond passive and peaceful resistance. I'd be kind and wish you "good luck", but it would be the false kindness of more delusion that wouldn't help in the least.
As for blowing away some cops, I've seen what they do to mere "occupiers" and hopeful dreamers. No thanks. You don't attack a superior force at its strong points -- and certainly not without a real army.
doesn't sit right hearing your negativity towards occupiers.
you are intellectual... you have valuable things to say to {mere} comrades... it doesn't feel good to read that you feel your 'safety' is more important than truth and justice
when you suggest a fear of superior force... I hear... pragmatism... is that damn word associated with obummer...
My "intellect", such as it is, tells me that there are two sides lined up against one another more or less as follows:
Side 1 thinks nothing of exterminating people, including kids, by the thousands to achieve its selfish goals and currently has at its disposal every means and control mechanism (political, military, institutional and societal) by which its imperial agenda can be implemented.
Side 2 comprises mainly "politically correct" dreamers (plus a few starry-eyed astrologers and "karma" promoters) totally constrained by their own self-imposed philosophical limitations whose primary contributions to date have taught the other side that it can get away with absolutely anything without any real consequences whatever.
Frankly, I have no "comrades" on either side and I don't want any, If, in those circumstances, my declining to attack Side 1 at its strongest points by "blowing away some cops" constitutes some damnable pragmatism in the eyes of Side 2, I'll live with it. Personally, I'm cheering for the Huns, Visigoths and other guerrillas who know how to face and deal with the realities of empire, hit hard at weak points and run like hell. Americans have lost the talent.
Underground Man
"when the big "democracy promoting" guns get turned on a bunch of vapid, web-blogging, park-occupying Gandhi followers, their chances are roughly equivalent to those of a snowball in hell."
So your solution would be to stop following Gandhian non-violence and return fire with fire? About as useful as throwing a charcoal briquet at hell. If these web bloggers are so vapid, what's your solution? (And why are you blogging here at all?) Sounds like just throw up your hands in despair and make sure to sneer at and trample on the hopes of those actively seeking answers. Thanks and have a nice day.
You're welcome. And have a nice hopeful active seek. Don't let me dissuade you. But as I said, don't look to any "worm turning" of the original victims for any solution. It's much too little much too late and you're now thoroughly screwed.
And no, I sure wouldn't advise returning fire at this point. But even if you did, it wouldn't make much difference either way unless you could persuade a real army to join you. You don't think your local cops are acquiring military-grade weaponry (from drones to long-range pain inducers) just to deal with a few illegals and drug pushers, do you?
I agree with der when he/she writes... "collapsing empire are all to obvious to the world" but only to the academics and some politicians. The myth of American exceptionalism amongst the great masses from China to Nigeria, from Siberia to Chile and from Mexico to The Philippines. In each of these areas of the world I have been offered $30,000 cash for a U.S. passport, but only a fraction of that for a Canadian, German or Australian passport. This is due in large part to the effect that Hollywood has had globally. People still believe that most Americans live comfortable middle class lives in which democracy and human rights are cherished. They see a world in which Americans are a happy, attractive and slim bunch of people whose major problems revolve around their fight for the little guy. For better or worse, this is the perception of America by the vast majority of people around the world despite our sociopathic, corporate bought, money grubbing leaders, absence of healthcare, 50% poverty rate, an epidemic of obesity, high rate of illiteracy and a landscape of broken families, bitterness and ignorance.
On the upside, if America ever does establish a functioning democracy that is truly representative of the 99%, it will find out that it has many friends out there in spite of the crimes of the 1%.
One way to escape the debt prison is to default on the debt. I am all for it. Let China, Brazil, India and Russia have capitalism. Go for it guys. Fairly obvious capitalism is a house of cards that eventually leads to a feudal society controlled by corporate barons and bloated bureaucracies. We will never find a new direction with a compass arrow always pointing to profit. Have no fear. If the capitalist castle crumbles, the serfs will look to their neighbors and Mother Earth for answers.
Empires such as the US and China will continue to play at "The Great Game" while their coastal cities flood, their central farmlands turn to deserts and and endless sequence of ever-greater natural disasters pounds their economies to ruin. Climate and environment and population will determine everything in the future, whatever the political and economic plans of power structures may be.
I was going to reply to some of the insults being exchanged (above) but Agrippa addresses the real world events: coastal cities flood, farmlands turn to deserts, an endless sequence of ever-greater natural disasters pound their economies.... Climate and environment and population will determine everything.... Yes, exactly. And there is nothing we can do to stop it. It would be like stopping the collapse of the Roman Empire. Not possible (or desireable), but you can find ways to live in such a time.
Cheap energy is over. Pollution is still strong, but it is killing the oceans. The U.S. military is close to being the biggest polluter and it is very expensive. The debt can only go up with fewer people working and paying taxes. The cost of food and fuel is bound to increase, so does the cost of credit for people. Stop buying stuff we don't need, grow some of your own food, reduce driving and going places, and practice doing more with less, until we get good at it.
"Mission creep started with democracy promotion, continued as state-building, and ended with withdrawal"
More delusional journalism. Iraq and Afghanistan are corporate imperial war crimes designed to gain hegemony over the resources of those regions and various global energy markets. Afghanistan also has other significant natural resources.
And the degree of "withdrawal" remains to be seen. The largest U.S. embassy on earth is in Baghdad and a similar embassy is being built in Kabul.
Not delusional at all. The editorial is talking about what happened AFTER the invasion-namely mission creep and its consequences. Of course the decision to invade was delusional in itself, but that's not what they're talking about. Chose your delusions. Or, you can have all of them if you want.
gonzonews:
I would not call it an embassy; a better term would be diplomatic base.
Every sane observer of the international scene, from Andrew Bacevich to Ray McGovern to Bhadrakumar, to Chris Hedges to Govre Vidal to Noam Chomsky to Traiq Ramadan to Adam Habib to Paul Samuelson, to Freeman Dyson, has been advising the US, in its own best interest, to embrace geopolical multipolarity. And that, even before the invasion of Afghanistan. Freeman Dyson's Templeton Award lecture, delivered not long before the invasion of Iraq, still deserves a reading. But, more stubborn than a donkey, the US has pursued its madness of "American exceptionalism", and, in the process, it has got itself mired in quicksands from Afghanistan to Iraq to Pakistan to the financial meltdown from which it cannot extricate itself. No amount of frantic clamour about terror and failed states can erase the fact that America is in decline. The longer American policy makers wait to acknowledge the obvious, the more it fritters away prospects of the country remaining a world leader but not a hegemon. As I did not hesitate to tell the dumb nurses who, when I had three stents during my recent cardiac operation, were stupidly asking me questions that barely hid their racist prejudices : "No matter how overwhelmingly superior is America's miltary might, you simply cannot kill 6 billion people". Considering Pew Global Research polls about America's image in the world, that is what continued American aggression against other sovereign states in the world would imply, so intense is worldwide hatred ofr America's barbarity.
Hardly anyone now believes that is exactly what was planned-for by FDR, post-WWII: a world of former colonies, transformed into sovereign nations in a U.N., with world peace sponsored by U.N. and ESPECIALLY by a partnership of U.S./U.S.S.R./China, in support of Marshall Plan/Peace corp-type of actions for developing the newly-minted nations, and war-torn nations. Sane statesmen ALREADY KNEW that war, itself, was over. WWII proved in spades that war is dead (as far as accomplishing anything of value; as an imperial tool of national destabilization for the 1%er portfolios, it still showed promise). But FDR died, wallstreet/cityoflondon intelligentsia took over FDR's intelligence community (the unknown civil war was on; those "economic royalists & american tories" took over policy-making functions), and, by JFK's murder, the USA was converted, by FDR's ENEMIES, into the Guarrantor of covert Empire (especially the world-wide, english-speaking one, but ALL imperial holdings, covertly, for the 1%er portfolios).The Red Scare was on (part of that covert civil war). Walstreet/cityoflondon managed to start the cold war (another coup by FDR's enemies; we were now enemies with our most important, strategic ally, namely the USSR, our most needed ally in our national history, since Catherine the Great). They also started a cold war between USSR and China (thus breaking up the all-important block of FDR's US/USSR/China). We can get back to this same, FDR-inspired plan, after this global imperial fever has broken (very close now), IF we can prevent WWIII from happening.
Helluva post, Not Fuzzy at all.....
Instead of saying it is America's fault, which includes us who had nothing to do with this disaster, it would be much more accurate to say, "it is the American oligarchy's fault".
what three books by these folks do you recommend?
i'll add timothy mitchell to the list.. his request is that big oil discloses the amt of oil remaining in their drilled reserves.
let's just get it all out on the table
I don't quite get it. How seriously do people believe this that the attributes listed in the first paragraph ("it could pop up anywhere in the world; it was an existential enemy, driven ideologically and uncontainable through negotiation; and it was potentially voluminous") are what really defined communism? How seriously do people believe the tale of Communist provocation? What are the people who believe in that crap: are they ignorant idiots or are they intentionally lying?
And really, how can anyone with any integrity pretend that Iraq and Afghanistan were responses by the West to the Al Qaeda "threat"? Really? Really, really? What kind of lack of integrity does one need to spout this kind of bullshit?
The kind that gets one elected.
I remember when Nikita Khrushchev addressed the UN. He was speaking about economics and how the CCCP would simply out perform and out grow the West. He was so angry he took off his shoe and banged it on the podium for emphasis saying, "We will bury you!"
Our Military-Industrial-Congressional-Complex immediately started a propaganda blitz that Russia was going to attack us. Instant cold war, instant profits for the MICC.
Several trillion$ later, the same charade goes on. Only the names change, the MICC profits go on forever.
that's MAXITRUE
Unfortunately quite many do actually believe the attributes listed in the first couple paras. And believe the crap about al-Qaeda etc.
The world needs China and Russia to step forward and offer a stiffer resistance to American power or else we will see nothing but more and more aggressive wars by the United States. With a right wing neocon administration in power in Washington and right wing poodles all over Europe we are heading towards one disaster after another.
You forgot the Canadian right wing poodle and his minions. They adore countries dressed in militaristic clothes so much they want to emulate them.
I agree completely. I think just as America hasn't realized it's been in decline for quite sometime, I don't think China and Russia have fully appreciated their relative strength vis-a-vis a declining US. I think the bellicose rhetoric over the Strait of Hormuz, if it goes beyond rhetoric could be a good opportunity for China and Russia to demonstrate their newfound strength, especially with regard to shore-to-ship missles and the US fifth fleet.
I don't think you realise that the Chinese and Russians are not insane. While it might seem cool to some people on cd, a war between china and America benefits few people, other than the military industry. China's economy is growing, though it might be heading into problems, whereas that of Europe and the us is going down the toilet. Why would it want to fight any kind of war when all it has to do is bide its time?
as for Russia, it has dramatically cut military spending, since the gorby yeltsin days. Nowadays russia spends about the same amount as france or the uk, and only slightly more than Germany. Hell the Russian navy has been complaining that it needs more money, or it might lose its blue water capability otherwise
I don't think either China or Russia needs to personally get involved. China has some of the best shore to ship missles in the world, that the U.S. acknowledges that they haven't come up with an adequate defense for. Similarly, Russia has a very advanced anti-aircraft system that can inflict losses on all but the best U.S. aircraft. If China and Russia provided Iran with advanced capabilities, they could enter a conflict by proxy without directly attacking the U.S. and risking a world war.
"China has some of the best shore to ship missles in the world, that the U.S. acknowledges that they haven't come up with an adequate defense for"
No one has come up with adequate defenses for such missiles, since they operate on the throw enough shit and some will stick approach.
"If China and Russia provided Iran with advanced capabilities, they could enter a conflict by proxy without directly attacking the U.S. and risking a world war."
But that is the issue. China and Russia do not necessarily want to give Iran the best that they have. For example, those very advanced Russian AA systems that Russia has repeatedly promised to Iran, it has yet to deliver.
"killing killing and more killing"
Surprise! Surprise! Is that not how america started? Slaughtering the Native Peoples of this continent?
The way you start is the way it goes. Surprise! Surprise!
"When 11 September happened, they thought they were in business again. For a brief moment, al-Qaida seemed to fulfil some of the characteristics of communism: it could pop up anywhere in the world"
The fact that the people of the world are still beaten over the head with the false narrative of events is simply astonishing given the evidence of the following:
1) 9/11 was a false flag event that succeeded wildly in enriching a chosen few, stripping away the last vestiges of the US Constitution and putting the US/NATO on permanent war footing.
2) The people who made TRILLIONS of dollars of the ensuing wars and security build-up are still swimming in their blood money.
3) The US now exerts more military control over a larger swath of resources than ever before - don't forget the heroin!
Thus, the audience for this propaganda piece is NOT the elite for as is abundantly clear by now they have no allegiance to silly notions like America or the US.
This piece is for the common person so they can formulate - like the US electoral process - some sense of understanding - however false - of forces that are seemingly too large for them to comprehend.
Sure, it looks like America has failed.
But what if the people who instigated all of this killing and theft DON'T CARE ABOUT AMERICA OR THEIR NATIVE COUNTRIES?!!
Gee whiz, is this too hard for people to grasp in an era where we've seeing the literal stealing of TRILLIONS of dollars from countries by citizens of those very countries?
When we're seeing the subjugation of European nations to a techno-fascist regime?
This why an investigation of 9/11 has always been of the utmost importance:
Because it would have shown in clear and easy to understand terms - traitor, mass-murderer, genocide, etc - the depths of the depravity of the world's elite.
So any time the official narrative is promulgated as in the above article, another chance towards recognizing what we are facing is lost.
TomnJ -
Well-stated. Agree completely. I'm experiencing one of those days when the mass delusion feels tragic and heart-breaking.