American Triumphalism

The more a person boasts, the less there is of real substance to boast of.

If we were doing things the right way, it would be SOP, and we'd hardly notice.

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Another American Empire

In Bloomberg today:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-30/manning-s-crime-stealing-the-dirty-secrets-of-war.html

When the Pentagon Papers were first leaked to the New York Times, White House chief of staff H.R. Haldeman shared a fascinating insight with President Richard Nixon. Haldeman had been talking about the papers with another Nixon aide -- Donald Rumsfeld -- who had said that “to the ordinary guy, all this is a bunch of gobbledygook.”

“But out of the gobbledygook comes a very clear thing,” Haldeman told Nixon. “You can’t trust the government. You can’t believe what they say. And you can’t rely on their judgment. And the implicit infallibility of presidents, which has been an accepted thing in America, is badly hurt by this, because it shows that people do things the President wants to do even though it’s wrong, and the President can be wrong.”

(emphasis mine)
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The Teflon Mind of Empire

The Mind of Empire is devoted to self-preservation, usually at any cost. If self-preservation is normally considered to be a matter of fighting and violence, then those segments of society involved with violence and weapons of violence will be most closely identified with empire; other segments of society may be sloughed off or mistreated or amputated with impunity.

I think it is a shame that in so many sciences there is such progress, creativity, and discovery as there is now, and that there is also the realization that the major funding and progress that will be made in most of these fields will be in those which are most clearly able to be "weaponized".

It is the Teflon frame of mind, you see, that is responsible for it.
Teflon early on found important use and substantial funding in the Manhattan Project.
Ever since World War II, we have partially justified enormous military expenditures based on the fact that discoveries used in weaponry "leak" out into the general public in time, and then make our lives better.
(Apparently it never dawned on us that non-military funding on a comparable scale to military funding would accomplish the same discoveries and break-throughs without weapons and war.)

The only common ground present day groups of mankind seem to be able to find is a battle ground.

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Technology of War

Afghan president rejects NATO apology for air strike that killed 9 boys
Patrick Quinn
KABUL, Afghanistan— The Associated Press
Published Sunday, Mar. 06, 2011 12:44PM EST
Last updated Sunday, Mar. 06, 2011 12:59PM EST

...The killing of the nine boys took place on March 1 in the Pech valley area of Kunar province in eastern Afghanistan.

Lieutenant-General David Rodriguez, who directs day-to-day operations of coalition forces across Afghanistan, later issued a video statement of apology.
In the video, Lt.-Gen. Rodriguez said troops at a base in the valley were responding to a rocket attack and dispatched attack helicopters to the location they were told the rockets came from. He said the helicopters thought they were engaging insurgents, but it later turned out they were boys from a nearby village who were cutting firewood...

I bet those boys were using AK-47s to cut the wood with.

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Ancient Rome

Roman Eagle Standard: SPQR = Senatus Populus Que Romanus

Exactly how are we different from the pagan Roman Empire? We have our panis et circenses, bread and circuses, to soma the minds of the populace , we are pretty much pagan in our cult of celebrity and sex and violence, we are going to go to war on the Parthian frontier... I heard someone behind my back - that is, someone on cable tv chattering while I am at the computer...and they are somewhat indistinguishable in the heated fervor of their rantings - say that someone, Cheney or Palin, had said the President did not believe in American Exceptionalism, and opined what a bad thing that was, and this was stoopid...and so on... American Exceptionalism is the notion that the USA - not the American continent per se, but the political entity known as the USA - is exceptional; that is, it is "better" than other countries, and stands head and shoulders above the rest. In its extreme form, God loves us and USA; we become better than other folk because we live in the good ol' exceptional US of A.

This idea came into being in the period of our Genocide of the Native Peoples. It is part and parcel of the genocidal portion of our history. The fact that I can hear it mentioned on public broadcasts, and nobody seems to bat an eye or complain is a measure of our pagan nature. Such a belief is idolatry, setting a country up as a golden calf, and praying to it. Irony moves too gently for idolatry; Jehovah's wrath will smite the idolatrous. Or at least, that's what we believe when the idolatrous are other folks.

An American Thing

It's an American thing, you know. You have to really be an American to fully appreciate how it works: this business of not actually supporting Democracy until it needs one of our "Wars" du jour. It has been documented forever, and it goes on and on. We really cannot understand the world without a little bloodshed; it is not merely wishing to eat an omelet, and then sadly acknowledging the fact that one must break a couple eggs; if we want an omelet, first we must drop a few bombs on a chicken coop! The best fertilizer for Democracy is the blood of patriots, by gad!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6940148.stm

Pakistan's circular history By M Ilyas Khan

BBC News

...

Aid to dictators

Last, but not least, the Americans have tended to use their crucial financial and military support selectively against democratic governments.

The pattern is unmistakably clear. The first large-scale American food and military aid started to pour into Pakistan in late 1953, months after the dismissal of its first civilian government. Mullahs of the Red Mosque had openly threatened the government. It continued for a decade as Pakistan under a military regime joined various US-sponsored defence pacts against the Soviet Union...

This line would show up in the history of so many countries. Haven't we become sick of it yet?

1991 & 2008

This autumn will see the 18th anniversary of the fall of Communism, as well as the first anniversary of the fall of Liberal Capitalism. That second shoe that I had a hunch would fall, has indeed fallen, and we may mark it as such. This is not an isolated phenomenon in history where two antagonists have destroyed each other through various ways. Recall that the Roman Republic destroyed Carthage in a number of bitterly fought wars, and finally triumphed. However, the Roman Republic itself died within a century of the final destruction of Carthage. Many causes of the Republic's demise may be traced to its militarisation during the period of the Punic Wars. I am sorry. It is too late to change it. The way the USA was going the last few years, it was a game being played by mad men. You and I shall miss the old days, but I do think that the Future will look at the pitiful American Empire of Inept Greed and Ambition and be glad that it ducked that particular bullet. I am not gloating over it. I wish we had done things differently. The guys in power had a different outlook. I am saying that I have said this was going to happen, as did many others. I did not just say that I did not like Bush, Cheney, Torture Inc, and a war. I said it was going to destroy us. Now we shall make a new life.

Welcome, Comrades!

Mabruk, ya zumalaa' ! Congratulations to the newest American Province: Wilaaya 'Iraq ( or Vilaaya 'Iraq ) I am not sure whether we should use "wilaaya" or "vilaaya" for "province". I tend to favor Vilaaya. It is more Turkish and Ottoman. It reminds me of Empires past. ...vilaaya...VIlaaya....viLAAya... Oh, well. We had better get it right. John McCain is promising more wars and longer wars. We are gonna get us some Provinces!

The Empire Strikes Back

Bush Olmert Associates have brought about this:

where Palestinians are flocking across the Egyptian border to buy necessities of life. The Wall on the border was bombed and 7 miles of it were toppled. So far the Egyptian police and army have not done anything to stop them, mostly because they don't believe in letting all the people in Gaza die. We are beginning to realize that there is a price to be paid for allowing this monstrous malevolence to continue, for it was our gol-durned way of keep on keepin' on that makes us think that everything's ok and God's in heaven and all's right with the world. Well...God is in heaven and the world and its economy was and is run by gangsters! There is a bond not to flood the world again, but that doesn't mean our backsides will not be kicked up and down Main Street for a while.

The Empire Strikes Back

FOX has not allowed Dr. Ron Paul to be on their so-called debate. The reason is that Dr. Paul does not support the existence of an American Empire. FOX does. There is Politics, there is Persuasion, and there is Control...complete and utter unyielding control that pervades the lives of those who live under it.

110 Years In Iraq

Senator John McCain has said that the USA should stay in Iraq 100 years if necessary. This statement is not a factual depiction of events, but is a symbol of Senator McCain's determination. For who defines what is necessary?
Consider the history of our Iraq involvement. There were military goals: overthrow Saddam Hussein, secure WMDs; there were political goals: ensure a free and democratic Iraq. In the course of events, it became clear that some of the goals would not work together. A case in point is the continued existence of the state known as Iraq. It has been the genius - the military genius, not political genius - of a number of soldiers, including General Petraeus, to devise a strategy to allay the insurgency. This strategy is based on (1) empowering Sunni groups and turning them from Al Qa'ida, and (2) empowering the Kurds in the North, and (3) leaving the Shi'a to carve out their sphere of influence in the South. This strategy has worked militarily, but will be a disaster politically as concerns the continued existence of the state of Iraq. The best that may be expected now is some sort of federal union. Surely the Sunnis will not accept Shi'a hegemony now, having been embraced as allies of the Coalition Forces. The Kurds do not even pretend to want to return to the past. Therefore, we see the military needs have overturned the political goals. That is what happens.

Now, why should the USA stay there 100 years? Senator McCain was correct on military strategy, but he sees through the eyes of an American of the Empire. A conservative like myself does not believe in foreign entanglements, whereas the American Imperials see the necessity to be entangled everywhere, although they explain it to themselves as bearing the burden of American power.
The American Empire began with the dislocation of the Native Americans and the Civil War. The outcome of the dislocations was morally indefensible, involving the subjugation of a population and undermining their society. The outcome of the Civil War was the morally elevated goal of ending slavery as well as the subjugation of a population and radically modifying their society.
If the Empire began from morally elevated and ethically lofty actions such as the utter destruction of slavery, that would be one thing. However, I believe that seed of Empire lay within controlling the Southern populations after their armies had been defeated, just as another seed lay within subjugating and controlling the Native Americans. At the time, even the Southern churches preached the crusade of pro-slavery. The South was politically, philosophically, and religiously pro-slavery. Forces in the North had been molded equally into anti-slavery prejudices. At this point, no quick change was possible short of war. There was nothing in the Constitution which could be used to eliminate slavery; the 14th amendment would wait until 1868 to become part of the Constitution.
At the end of the war, the people living in the South had to be controlled as long as necessary until generations could be born and raised and come into their majority which were amenable to the new order of society. This is the rationale of garrisons around the world: secure until the future - hopefully- makes the indigenous peoples amenable to the Imperialists...or gives the Imperialists some greater hold over them. As great as Senator McCain is, he uncritically accepts the necessity of the existence of the Empire. This is his fatal flaw. Dr. Ron Paul obviously does not accept the necessity of the existence of the Empire. He decries such intimate foreign entanglements, seeing them as pernicious and destructive. (If I were of a religious bent, this is the point at which I would say "He casts the mighty from their thrones and raises the lowly." However, this only shows how maladept I am at these things, for it is commonly known that what is held as popular wisdom trumps religion every time. )

American Empire 3: The End Of Freedom

When did the American Empire begin? Did it begin with the war against the Native peoples of the continent? Or did it begin with the Civil War and the period of despotism over the vanquished South? It may have begun with the invasion of the Phillipines and the Spanish-American War.
Certainly the Civil War showed what America was capable of in terms of firepower and sheer slaughter, as well as military innovation and invention.

In the 1/3 century, a generation, that followed the end of the Civil War, we awaited the next conflict. This was the Spanish-Ameridan War, started over what appears to have been a staged explosion of the battleship Maine. (Foreshadows of Tonkin Gulf and WMDs in Iraq...it never changes...the bloody minded have nothing new, but they don't have to, because their lies always work.) It reached its greatest power in World War II and continued through the era of reconstructing Europe and Japan.

When the Soviet Union fell apart and China decided it was better to export toys rather than revolution, there were no more wars. However, the men whose entire consciousness was based on war and emnity and competition and brutality could not conceive a world without war.
Therefore, they give us the denouement of Empire:
whereas the USA and Soviet Union achieved the enormous moral victory of not blowing up the world and actually beginning to decrease nuclear arms, now such arms increase again;
whereas the USA was a beacon of Democracy, it now uses Democracy as a punch line in a crank phone call at best;
whereas the USA used to have some fund of moral value which attracted others, it now has torture and Abu Ghraib;
whereas there used to be a belief that all citizens were participating in the growth of wealth and benefit in the country, it is becoming increasingly clear that more and more the USA is a country where a small number control a vast majority of the wealth. (This is demonstrated by the recent abuse wherein we provide the less wealthy with mortgages which will destroy them - potentially-and they will only be able to pay if the housing bubble were to continue indefinitely: sub primes. This ruse had the intention of DECEIVING the people who were not fully participating in the economic growth. It deceived them into thinking that they were. And it worked for a while.)
 

From the foregoing, we see that a period of Imperial Growth is often marked with great benefits and great good. Empire is not necessarily a perjorative term. However, when Empires go bad, they go bad quickly.

We have not yet reached the point where the imperial party has gained absolute control and all politics has become merely the machinations of the rich...but we are close. This business of the possibility of the Presidency being in to exclusive possession of exactly 2 families for a quarter of a century is ominous.

During this time we have seen how outsiders are marginalized by the political process. ( Perot, Nader, et al. Mr. Ron Paul is the most recent. He has been studiously ignored by the Large Media. However, his supporters have utilized the Internet for fund raising. Mark it well: if he has a measure of success, the Republicans and Democrats will seek to hobble the Internet after the 2008 elections.)

The next year will be very informative. I believe that things will happen in politics domestically which will absolutely astound us.

American Empire Revisited

It is fairly obvious that the American Empire is already in existence. I have been writing as if it were a future phenomenon. Sorry about that.

What Would The American Empire Look Like?

If there is to be an American empire, it would resemble the USA.

It would grow the way the US grew. In this process, the inhabitants of the USA will see similarities to their glorious past and thus conclude that the imperial present and the 1,000 future of the American Empire will be particularly blessed by God.
There will be interludes resembling the American Wars of Indian Extermination. There will be comical sketches based on a humbug understanding of new science that will resemble the Eugenics schemes of the early 2oth century. Please recall that the earliest scheme for a travelling extermination chamber to kill undesirables was in the USA, not Nazi Germany.
There will be the insidious belief in our own rectitude and alliance with the will of God, a bit of hybris we like to do 3 times before breakfast and which will lead the USA to a spiritual vacuum where the only thing they believe in is the perverted creations of their own puny intellects, rather like the schemes of Pastor John Haggee of San Antonio. Pastor Haggee is merely the precursor of the deception.

No empire is exactly like another. Many foolishly believe America will follow Rome,...or Byzantium. No empires exactly parallel each other. We are facing a serious loss of sense of Community. We prat and chatter about being a Christian country, yet we hold all men to be islands, complete unto themselves. Our commitment to the welfare of the community is vestigial. This commitment is what Christianity is about. This commitment is what Islam is about. This commitment is what Judeaism is about.

How can Community survive in the midst of Wars based on deception, whose very being is a scandal and whose support requires a cycnicism beyond anything we had hitherto dreamed of? A War for Oil...and everyone stands in foolish crowds and moans: what of the soldiers who died? did they die for naught? How do you make evil right? By what machinations will you pervert the perversion? The soldiers say: tell them at home we fought and died here, according to their command. Our command. Our responsibility. Our evil. When the sense of being a community dies, the community itself has died, and what is left is the hulk of Imperium and Compulsion and Power and Force.

The Great Wonders Of The American Empire: (1) The Looting Of The Baghdad Museum

When the Baghdad Museum was looted, prominent Neoconservatives said that it was the proper thing to do. If the bricks and potsherds and clay tablets contained information which agreed with Neoconservative views, then they were redundant and superfluous and may be disposed of as imperfect forerunners of the 1,000 year regime of Neocon. If, however, the articles of the Baghdad Museum contradicted the tenets of Neoconservative philosophy, then they were pernicious and must be destroyed and scattered to the four winds. And this reminds us of the Great Library at Alexandria established by Ptolemy I, the destruction of which provided a time-line of the disintegration of the Ancient World.

(So...in my dreams, I stand up in the House of Burgesses amidst the clamoring of voices. Waiting a long time for silence, I begin my speech and come to the conclusion: "...the Great Library at Alexandria ended in flames, just as Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose ends in a scene of conflagration, just as Fahrenheit 451 ends in Fire and Snow, so may this Administration..." At this point, Neoconservatives and their running dogs were heard to shout "Treason! Treason!".

I waited for them to quiet their slavering jaws. "...so may the present Neoconservative Administration profit from their example. If this be treason, then make the most of it."