US Empire

The Aimless Empire

June 5, 2021 Patrick Lawrence, Consortium News. Educate! Biden administration, Foreign Policy, US Empire, US Imperialism

Bitter and frightening realities face us four months into Joe Biden’s presidency. On the domestic side it is a Potemkin village, behind the façades of which lies a slum of unfulfilled promises that are no longer even part of the Washington discourse. That is the bitter part. The frightening part is this: Biden and the amateurs he has named as statesmen and stateswomen do not have an inconsistent foreign policy, or a miscalculated foreign policy, or a confused foreign policy. Such shortcomings and weaknesses might be repaired. This flummoxed bunch does not have a foreign policy. And the world’s most powerful, most heavily armed, most determinedly righteous nation shows little sign of figuring one out: Readers may perhaps join me in finding this very frightening.

US Joins Past Empires In Afghan Graveyard

April 22, 2021 Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies, The Progressive. Educate! Afghanistan, Joe Biden, US Empire, Wars and Militarism

An Afghan taxi-driver in Vancouver told one of us a decade ago that this day would come. “We defeated the Persian Empire in the eighteenth century, the British in the nineteenth, the Soviets in the twentieth. Now, with NATO, we’re fighting twenty-eight countries, but we’ll defeat them, too,” said the taxi-driver, surely not a member of the Taliban, but quietly proud of his country’s empire-killing credentials. Now, after nearly twenty years of a war that has been as bloody and futile as all those previous invasions and occupations, the last 3,500 U.S. troops and their NATO brothers-in-arms will be coming home from Afghanistan. President Joe Biden tried to spin this as the United States leaving because it has achieved its objectives, bringing the terrorists responsible for 9/11 to justice and ensuring that Afghanistan would not be used as a base for a future attack on the United States.

Chris Hedges: The Unraveling Of The American Empire

April 20, 2021 Chris Hedges, ScheerPost.com. Educate! Afghanistan War, US Empire, Wars and Militarism

America’s defeat in Afghanistan is one in a string of catastrophic military blunders that herald the death of the American empire. With the exception of the first Gulf War, fought largely by mechanized units in the open desert that did not – wisely – attempt to occupy Iraq, the United States political and military leadership has stumbled from one military debacle to another. Korea. Vietnam. Lebanon. Afghanistan. Iraq. Syria. Libya. The trajectory of military fiascos mirrors the sad finales of the Chinese, Ottoman, Hapsburg, Russian, French, British, Dutch, Portuguese and Soviet empires. While each of these empires decayed with their own peculiarities, they all exhibited patterns of dissolution that characterize the American experiment.

Media Once Again Trolling US Withdrawal From Afghanistan

April 16, 2021 Caitlin Johnstone. Educate! Afghanistan War, Media, System Change, US Empire

I don’t write much about the specific individuals who drive the oligarchic empire because individuals are not the problem, the system is. Right-wing conspiracy analysts prefer to focus on specific corrupt elites because they like to think if you just got rid of them, capitalism would work fine. And it just wouldn’t. If you rounded up and executed all the sociopathic ruling elites today but left our current systems intact they’d just be replaced tomorrow. A competition-based model where war, corruption, oppression and exploitation remain profitable guarantees this. A lot of right-wing conspiracy analysis today ultimately boils down to “These bastards are ruining the capitalism!” But capitalism is already ruined, and ruinous.

How Cutting Down Military Spending Could Bring About Peace

April 2, 2021 Ron Forthfer, Palestine Chronicle. Create! Military Budget, Peace, US Empire, Weapons makers

Since the end of WWII, especially since the breakup of the Soviet Union, it appears as if US political leaders feel they are trapped in a time warp and are unable to break free. They seem to believe that they must repeat the same disastrous foreign policy of regime change over and over. Since 9/11, the US has attacked or supported attacks against Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen. The attacks, especially the horrendous US-led war crime against Iraq, have destabilized and created havoc in the Middle East, devastated these nations and caused death and appalling suffering for the people. In addition, the US has troops in about 800 locations worldwide, further threatening international stability.

Opposing All Governments Equally Is Supporting The Most Powerful Government

April 1, 2021 Caitlin Johnstone. Create! China, Imperialism, US Empire, Wars and Militarism

The US-centralized empire is waging nonstop wars that have killed millions of human beings just since the turn of this century, and people will still say things like "We've really got to do something about Cuba." The US-centralized empire is circling the planet with hundreds of military bases, working to destroy any nation which disobeys its dictates and brandishing armageddon weapons at its enemies like a drunken hillbilly with a shotgun, and people are still like "Something must be done about China's intellectual property theft!" Among the violent and destructive governments in our world, one towers high above all the others in a league entirely of its own. Add in the malign behavior of its allies, who effectively function as arms of the same single empire on foreign policy, and the gap between it and the next-worst offender grows even greater.

A Guide To US Empire In Africa

March 15, 2021 AbMartin, Empire Files. Resistance Report Africa, AFRICOM, Neocolonialism, US Empire

Abby Martin speaks to Eugene Puryear to discuss the big picture of US imperialism in Africa: From the Berlin Conference to the subversion of liberation movements to neocolonial puppets and the current sprawl of AFRICOM "counterterrorism."

On Shedding An Obsolete Past

March 12, 2021 Andrew Bacevich, Tom Dispatch. Educate! Joe Biden, Pentagon, US Empire, US State Department

You may have noticed: the Blob is back. Beneath a veneer of gender and racial diversity, the Biden national security team consists of seasoned operatives who earned their spurs in Washington long before Donald Trump showed up to spoil the party. So, if you’re looking for fresh faces at the departments of state or defense, the National Security Council or the various intelligence agencies, you’ll have to search pretty hard. Ditto, if you’re looking for fresh insights. In Washington, members of the foreign policy establishment recite stale bromides, even as they divert attention from a dead past to which they remain devoted. The boss shows them how it’s done. Just two weeks into his presidency, Joe Biden visited the State Department to give American diplomats their marching orders.

Haiti’s Century Of US Coups, Invasions And Puppets

February 22, 2021 AbMartin, Empire Files. Resistance Report Haiti, Jovenel Moise, Revolution, US Empire

Major demonstrations continue to rock Haiti as protesters demand that US-backed President Jovenel Moise step down from office. On February 7th, his constitutional mandate to rule ended. But instead of holding new elections, or stepping down, he’s just staying put. The Biden Administration announced it would continue to recognize Moise as the legitimate President, and actually declared he has the right to stay in power through 2022. For almost two years now there have been daily mass protests demanding Moise step down over extreme corruption, including the embezzlement of billions of dollars for social programs. These demonstrations have been met with severe violence, many times with the assistance of occupying United Nations troops. But while Haiti has drawn the attention of the world, it’s a good time to revisit the history of not just how Moise ended up in power, but how the American Empire has determined the destiny of the Haitian people for generations.

The Failure Of Trump’s ‘Coup’: A Victory For The US Empire

February 21, 2021 Stansfield Smith, Popular Resistance. Educate! Capitol, Democrats, President Trump, US Empire

The Democrats’ second trial of Trump ends like the first: the outcome known in advance, the entire process designed to sell to the anti-Trump masses that the Democrats were leading some progressive counter-attack. Both impeachments enabled these politicians to present a national diversion to avoid addressing real issues the US people suffer from: the pandemic, lack of vaccines, no national health care program, increasing homelessness, closed schools. The Democrats' first impeachment over Trump’s phone call to Ukraine aimed to sully his name for the benefit of the 2020 Democratic presidential campaign. hey purposely did not address Trump’s actual crimes: his cruelty to Latino immigrants on the border, his indifference to police abuse of Blacks and Latinos, his racist attacks on non-white US citizens and residents, his neglect of the threat of global warming, funding the genocidal war against Yemen, bombing other countries, such as Syria, illegal and cruel sanctions on Cuba and Venezuela.

The Decline And Fall Of The American Empire

February 4, 2021 Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies, Popular Resistance. Educate! Failed State, Martin Luther King Jr, Trade, US Empire

In 2004, journalist Ron Susskind quoted a Bush White House advisor, reportedly Karl Rove, as boasting, “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.” He dismissed Susskind’s assumption that public policy must be rooted in “the reality-based community.” “We’re history’s actors,” the advisor told him, “…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.” Sixteen years later, the American wars and war crimes launched by the Bush administration have only spread chaos and violence far and wide, and this historic conjunction of criminality and failure has predictably undermined America’s international power and authority.

Chris Hedges: Papering Over The Rot

February 1, 2021 Chris Hedges, ScheerPost.com. Educate! Chris Hedges, oligarchy, US Empire, wealth inequality

The death spiral of the American Empire will not be halted with civility. It will not be halted with the 42 executive orders signed by Joe Biden, however welcome many are, especially since they can, with a new chief executive, be immediately revoked. It will not be halted by removing Donald Trump, and the crackpot conspiracy theorists, Christian fascists and racists who support him, from social media. It will not be halted by locking up the Proud Boys and the clueless protestors who stormed the Congress on January 6 and took selfies in Mike Pence’s Senate chair. It will not be halted by restoring the frayed alliances with our European allies or rejoining the World Health Organization or the Paris Climate Agreement.

Afghanistan War Exposed: An Imperial Conspiracy

February 1, 2021 AbMartin, Empire Files. Resistance Report Afghanistan War, US Empire, Wars and Militarism

The perpetual occupation of Afghanistan has become so normalized and mostly serves as background noise to Americans -it's even jokingly referred to as the "forever war" - accepted as just a constant reality. A soldier dies now and again. A couple dozen civilians get killed in another bombing. It's never enough to stir the population to pressure Washington to stop it. The endless war drags on. Abby Martin covers the whole truth about the Afghanistan War, from the CIA construct of the 80's through today's senseless stalemate. Two decades, three administrations, tens of thousands of lives; it's time to #EndTheForeverWar.

While America Was Sleeping

January 27, 2021 Alfred McCoy, Tom Dispatch. Educate! Failed State, Joe Biden, Trump, US Empire

After four years of Donald Trump’s fitful tenure, America is awakening from a long, troubled sleep to discover, like the fictional character Rip Van Winkle, that the world it once knew has changed beyond all recognition. In that classic American tale by Washington Irving published in 1819, an amiable but shiftless farmer strolls out of his colonial village to go hunting in the Catskill Mountains. There he happens upon a group of mysterious men, drinks deep from their keg of liquor, and falls into a long sleep. He awakens to find that he’s grown a white beard down to his belly and his youth has withered into an unrecognizable old age.

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