Home » Posts tagged 'empire' (Page 12)

Tag Archives: empire

Is the Buildup to World War I Being Repeated for WWIII?

December 28, 2017

Is the Buildup to World War I Being Repeated for WWIII?

The great scholar of Turkish history, Taner Akçam, has described today’s geopolitics — the alliances and hostilities toward possibly another World War — as being not ideologically based like WWII, but instead greed-based (empire-grabbing) like WWI:

These are wars of power, influence, and control over the use of Middle Eastern energy resources and the “security issues” related to it. It is quite obvious that the sides in this war are not “those who want democracy and human rights” versus “those in favor of evil dictatorships.”

The axes that are now starting to take shape are proof of this: Saudi Arabia and Israel – openly supported by the United States (and likely Egypt over time) – are forming one alliance; Russia, Iran, and Turkey are establishing another.

A tableau reminiscent of 1918 power blocs.

Today’s alliances are modernized versions of WWI.

World War I was a mess of alliances on each of its two sides, the Central Powers, versus the Entente Powers. The aristocracies that were on the side of the Central Powers included (among others) the following: Jabal Shammar (Saudi Arabia allied with Turkey); Germany; Austria (including Croatia & Bosnia); Ukraine; Poland; Lithuania; Georgia; Turkey; Italy.

The aristocracies that were on the side of the Entente Powers included: China; Japan; Czechoslovakia; Russia; Serbia; UK; Canada; US.

Today, we instead have the West: US; UK; Saudi Arabia (UK-allied ‘Arab Revolt’ that ended in 1925 with Ibn Saud’s victory); Israel; EU led by Germany; Ukraine; Japan; South Korea; versus the East: Russia; Iran; Turkey; China.

An odd-man-out is North Korea, which will be supported by China if it stops developing its nuclear program beyond what’s needed for its self-protection (protection against repeating what had happened to Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi), but which will be opposed by China if it develops an aggressive, conquest-oriented, imperialistic, nuclear capability (which would reduce security not only for Japan and South Korea, but also for China).

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Expect Desperate and Insane Behavior From Government in 2018 – Part 3 (War)

December 8, 2017

Expect Desperate and Insane Behavior From Government in 2018 – Part 3 (War)

In the first two installments of this series, I discussed the potential for the U.S. federal government to make some spectacularly foolish moves against its own people in the realms of cannabis and Bitcoin. My basic assumption is that government tends to despise freedom, and that “leaders” of an empire in decline like the U.S. are particularly vulnerable to very bad decisions.

Government propagandists constantly instruct the public that they need to be fearful of their neighbors or some guy in a cave overseas (who they probably funded in the first place), when they themselves tend to be the most unethical, corrupt thieves of all. It’s a very clever scam.

Michael Krieger@LibertyBlitz

If you want to ban Bitcoin because of money laundering, crime and violence, we should really ban government first.

11:43 AM – Dec 6, 2017

With that in mind, today’s post will zero in on what I consider to be the greatest threat to world peace going into 2018. While I remain unsure as to what the U.S. government may attempt when it comes to cannabis and Bitcoin, I’m far more concerned about the prospects of Donald Trump entangling this nation in an escalating and increasingly disastrous conflict in the Middle East. The signs are everywhere, and it’s all becoming very obvious. In fact, I’ve probably written more articles on this topic than any other in 2017.

Rather than rehash everything I’ve already said, below are links to my October series on the matter:

Empire Destroying Wars Are Coming to America Under Trump – Part 1

Empire Destroying Wars Are Coming to America Under Trump – Part 2

Empire Destroying Wars Are Coming to America Under Trump – Part 3

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Flirting With War in North Korea

November 15, 2017

Flirting With War in North Korea

Photo by Stefan Krasowski | CC BY 2.0

The most surprising part about Donald Trump’s Wednesday speech, directed at the North Korean regime via Tokyo, is that more people of a certain type weren’t gushing over it. After all, if sending cruise missiles at Syria makes a man presidential, condemning North Korea accurately as “a hell that no person deserves” and sounding vaguely concerned about its miserable treatment of its civilians should make Trump worthy of Mr. Rushmore

Trump is locked into an eternal squabble with Kim. This is nothing new for the United States — we’ve been messing with Korea for 70 years. On the other hand, Trump is usually a blowhard almost in the manner that the Kim family tends to be. Trump hasn’t released any dramatic videos of what it would like if the US nuked North Korea, but he’s done the American version — constantly threatening terrible things towards a nation that has had a victim complex since its inception, as well as delivering goofy schoolyard insults like “little rocketman” at a regime that clearly believes that it is to its benefit to acquire and keep nuclear weapons.

Never mind his vague nods to anti-interventionism on the campaign trail. Trump started his presidency by enthusiastically bombing the same countries his predecessors did. He even joined in on the hot new presidential trend, helping to eliminate members of the Awlaki family(and at least a dozen other civilians, in the disastrous SEAL January raid in Yemen).

Now, Trump truly joined the American Empire family with his summer speech to the UN, in which he declared that the US “may have no choice but to totally destroy” North Korea if it does not behave.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

New York Times Acknowledges US Global Empire

October 30, 2017

New York Times Acknowledges US Global Empire

One big advantage the war party has is the public’s ignorance about the activities of the far-flung American empire. Athough frustrating, that ignorance is easy to understand and has been explained countless times by writers in the public choice tradition. Most people are too busy with their lives, families, and communities to pay the close attention required to know that the empire exists and what it is up to. The opportunity cost of paying attention is huge, considering that the payoff is so small: even a well-informed individual could not take decisive action to rein in the out-of-control national security state. One vote means nothing, and being knowledgeable about the U.S. government’s nefarious foreign policy is more likely to alienate friends and other people than influence them. Why give up time with family and friends just so one can be accused of “hating America”?

In light of this systemic rational ignorance, we must be grateful when a prominent institution acknowledges how much the government intervenes around the world. Such an acknowledgment came from the New York Times editorial board this week. The editorial drips with irony since the Times has done so much to gin up public support for America’s imperial wars. (See, for example, its 2001-02 coverage of Iraq and its phantom WMD.) Stlll, the piece is noteworthy.

The Oct. 22 editorial began:

The United States has been at war continuously since the attacks of 9/11 and now has just over 240,000 active-duty and reserve troops in at least 172 countries and territories.

That alone ought to come as a shock to nearly all Americans. The UN has 193 member states — and the U.S. government has a military presence in at least 89 percent of them! The Times does not mention that the government also maintains at least 800 military bases and installations around the world. That’s a big government we’re talking about. And empires are bloody expensive.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Pay Any Price, by Robert Gore

October 25, 2017

Pay Any Price, by Robert Gore

Empires get stupider and more corrupt as they age.

Why are US Green Berets, four of whom were recently killed, in Niger? Why does the US have at least 36 bases, outposts, and staging areas in Africa, located in 24 countries? Why does a website, TomDispatch, have to file a Freedom of Information Act request to get that information, which contradicts years of assurances from AFRICOM, the US’s African military command, that the US has only one base in Africa, in the Republic of Djibouti? Why is AFRICOM headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany? How does anything that happens in Niger, or most of the rest of Africa for that matter, affect anyone’s way of life in the US? Why do we say the dead were heroes protecting our way of life when the country where they died poses no threat?

From the AFRICOM website:

The United States and Niger have a long-standing bilateral relationship. Our militaries have been stalwart allies focused on working together to deter and to defeat terrorist threats in the West African nation and across the Sahel region.

A war on a tactic, terror, can provide the rationale for anything. Terror is ubiquitous, it can be fought anywhere. Anyone who uses or threatens to use violence in furtherance of political or economic ends can be deemed a terrorist. Any “terrorist” who yells, “Death to the United States!” can be deemed a threat to Americans. Terrorism will never be eradicated, so the war against it is perpetual. President George W. Bush even arrogated the right to wage that war preemptively, before terrorists actually struck the US or its citizens. And that’s how the US finds itself in Niger, its “long-standing” and “stalwart” ally that 999,999 out of a million Americans can’t find on an unlabeled map.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Depravity, Frivolity, and Dissent: Are We Watching the End of an Empire?

October 23, 2017

Depravity, Frivolity, and Dissent: Are We Watching the End of an Empire?

(ADULT CONTENT WARNING)

A 40-year-old essay predicted the end of an empire and current events sure make it look like we’re watching it happen in real time.

I spend a fair bit of time scanning the news every day for my site, Preppers Daily News. And some days, I just have to shake my head as I realize that people are so desperate for…something…that they just keep going to further and further extremes to try and find that elusive thing their lives are missing.

The more I read, the more likeness I see to Sir John Glubb’s essay, The Fate of Empires and Search for Survival. (It’s only 24 pages and you should definitely read it – it’s brilliant.) Sir Glubb wrote this outstanding work when he was 79 years old, after a lifetime of being a soldier, traveling the world, and analyzing history. It’s well worth a read as he goes into detail about the fall of empires past.

The final stage of the end of an empire is the Age of Decadence. Some signs of this age are political dissensions (Antifa, anyone?), an influx of foreigners (Europe, anyone?), the welfare state (America, anyone?), despair (350 million people diagnosed), depravity (see below), and the rise of frivolity as people try to fill lives that have less and less meaning.

Sound familiar?

This video is a brief synopsis of the signs of an empire that is near its end.

A synopsis I read makes Glubb’s theory entirely applicable to modern society:

In the age of decadence many people choose to behave in ways that are unsustainable, apparently unaware of the consequences. They indulge in excessive, often conspicuous, consumption.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The American Century’s Final Curtain

October 16, 2017

The American Century’s Final Curtain

History will show that the United States, more than a decade after being drawn by rabid neo-conservative war hawks into costly and ill-advised conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, saw the final curtain drawn on its post-Cold War “American Century.” The inauguration of Donald Trump, who acts more like the Roman emperors Caligula or Nero than an American statesman, is hastening the final act in the Pax Americana stage play.

Crafty world leaders are using the dysfunctionality of US foreign policy to push the envelope, while America is pre-occupied with what Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called a moron, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Senator Bob Corker called a child in need of adult day care, and the North Korean government called a senile “dotard” in the Oval Office. The final chapter of the American Century has given problematic leaders like Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, Saudi King Salman, and Moroccan King Mohammed VI encouragement to carry out their own agendas in the absence of America’s past framing of the geo-political map.

Trump has outsourced American policy in the Middle East primarily to Israel, with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates acting as cheerleaders for the Israelis. The first clue that Trump would hand Middle East policy to Israel came with his nomination of the anti-Palestinian Zionist David Friedman as US ambassador to Israel. That was followed by Trump’s appointment of his pro-Likud son-in-law, Jared Kushner, as a special envoy to the Middle East. Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, a friend of the Trump family since the 1980s, has taken advantage of a powerless State Department to annex more Israeli-occupied lands in the West Bank in violation of multiple UN Security Council resolutions. Netanyahu is also a close friend of Kushner and his father, Charles Kushner.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Elites ‘Have No Credibility Left’: Interview With Journalist Chris Hedges

October 16, 2017

Elites ‘Have No Credibility Left’: Interview With Journalist Chris Hedges

Pulitzer Prize winner and Truthdig columnist Chris Hedges. (Cheryl Biren / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

On Monday, WSWS International Editorial Board Chairman David North interviewed Chris Hedges, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, author, lecturer and former New York Times correspondent. Among Hedges’ best-known books are War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, The Death of the Liberal Class, Empire of Illusion: the End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle, Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt, which he co-wrote with the cartoonist Joe Sacco, and Wages of Rebellion: the Moral Imperative of Revolt.

In an article published in Truthdig September 17, titled “The Silencing of Dissent,” Hedges referenced the WSWS coverage of Google’s censorship of left-wing sites and warned about the growth of “blacklisting, censorship and slandering dissidents as foreign agents for Russia and purveyors of ‘fake news.’”

Hedges wrote that “the Department of Justice called on RT America and its ‘associates’—which may mean people like me—to register under the Foreign Agent Registration Act. No doubt, the corporate state knows that most of us will not register as foreign agents, meaning we will be banished from the airwaves. This, I expect, is the intent.”

North’s interview with Hedges began with a discussion of the significance of the anti-Russia campaign in the media.

David North: How do you interpret the fixation on Russia and the entire interpretation of the election within the framework of Putin’s manipulation?

Chris Hedges: It’s as ridiculous as Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction. It is an absolutely unproven allegation that is used to perpetuate a very frightening accusation—critics of corporate capitalism and imperialism are foreign agents for Russia.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Empire Destroying Wars Are Coming to America Under Trump – Part 3

October 12, 2017

Empire Destroying Wars Are Coming to America Under Trump – Part 3

The first two parts of this series focused on how Trump-specific factors could lead the American empire into another series of foolish and highly destructive wars. Part 1 discussed my concerns regarding Iran deal certification, as well as Trump’s increased coziness with Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton, who appears to get turned on by the use of violent force. Part 2 considered how Trump might sell his wars by promoting an environment of slobbering, superficial patriotism, and also speculated that corporate media might rally behind Trump if the target of his aggression happens to be Iran.

Today’s piece will be slightly different. The prior posts focused on Trump-specific angles with regard to how America’s forthcoming military mistake might play out, but I want to make one thing clear. While Trump carries his own unique risks when it comes to militarism overseas, this is all much bigger than Trump.

In the aftermath of the financial crisis, I’ve become convinced that the U.S. empire will never reform on its own. There’s simply too much money and power at stake, and we already know oligarchs are above the law under our two-tier justice system. The biggest financial criminals of a generation were not only spared prison for their actions, but were handsomely rewarded. Wall Street ran the Obama administration before, and it runs the Trump administration now. It’s become clear to me that these lawless elite crooks and their enablers will continue with their insane and oppressive policies until the whole thing collapses. Whether Trump, Pence or Hillary Clinton run the charade doesn’t change where this train is headed.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Empire Destroying Wars Are Coming to America Under Trump – Part 2

October 11, 2017

Empire Destroying Wars Are Coming to America Under Trump – Part 2

WAR is a racket. It always has been.

It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small “inside” group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.

– Major General Smedley Butler, War is a Racket (1935)

Yesterday’s post, Empire Destroying Wars Are Coming to America Under Trump – Part 1, outlined my view that President Donald Trump, despite campaign slogans to focus on “America First,” is likely to entangle the nation in major new wars which will precipitate a chaotic and dangerous collapse of U.S. empire.

I base this view on his actions since coming into office, as well as the bloodthirsty war hawks he’s increasingly turning to for advice, with Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton being the most concerning of all. Today’s post will dig into how Trump will attempt to sell his wars, and will also address the role corporate media is likely to play in the legitimization of any future destructive conflagration.

To understand how Trump will attempt to rally his base to support another idiotic overseas conflict, all we have to do is look at his recent obsession with promoting fake patriotism via the NFL national anthem controversy. As I noted in the recent post, Thoughts on Trump, Fake Patriotism and ‘Taking a Knee’:

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Six ‘Secret’ Tactics of Empire

October 11, 2017

The Six ‘Secret’ Tactics of Empire

The 6 ‘secret’ tactics of empire are strategies of change used by governments, usually covertly, to attain political or military ends through means not normally acceptable to the populace as a whole. The strategies are as follows:

1/ False Flag Attacks

2/ Coercive Engineered Migration

3/ Colour Revolutions

4/ Fake News

5/ Humanitarian Intervention

6/ Proxy Armies

The relationship of the state or a political force to the various strategies depends on the political aim. Sometimes there is a direct and openly admitted relationship to the strategy and sometimes it is fervently denied. The outcome of any such strategy is never guaranteed and, indeed, may even have the opposite effect to that intended. This makes the strategies of change high-risk ventures for the participants as well as those for whom the strategy is hoped to benefit. In some cases these strategies of change seem to be perceived as the only way to change a situation, or at least the most expedient. Their role is to manipulate public opinion on a particular government, state or upcoming political movement to suit the actions, thoughts or desires of another internal or external political force. Like a good magician, the perpetrator of the strategy must make people conscious of the ends but not the means. If the people support a changed environment brought about by strategies of change without realizing or understanding why, then the result can be seen as ‘successful’.

1/ False Flag Attacks

False Flag Attack
Triptych – Oil on canvas – (60cm x 180cm / 23.6 in x 70.6 in)

False flag attacks are actions carried out covertly to look like another group, nation or state were responsible.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Empire Destroying Wars Are Coming to America Under Trump – Part 1

October 10, 2017

Empire Destroying Wars Are Coming to America Under Trump – Part 1

There are a variety of reasons Trump supporters voted the way they did in November, but one clear message many found attractive was the idea his administration would be driven by an “America First” doctrine. America first meant a lot of things to a lot of different people, running the gamut from economic populism and immigration, to an avoidance of barbaric and costly overseas wars. The economic populism part was the biggest ruse from day one, a betrayal which (as we had seen under Obama) became undeniable as soon as he started appointing lifelong swamp-dwelling billionaires and Goldman Sachs partners to run his administration. Irrespective of who you elect, Wall Street runs the empire, as Trump proved once again.

The coming massive pivot when it comes to destructive wars abroad will take a little longer, but the writing’s been on the wall for months. I’ve published several posts on the topic, with the most popular one titled, Prepare for Impact – This is the Beginning of the End for U.S. Empire. Here’s an excerpt:

This is not the sort of thing you see in a confident, brave, and civilized nation, it’s the sort of stuff you’d expect to see toward the end. It’s the stuff of craven war-mongers, of dishonest cowards, of a totally deranged and very dangerous media. The signs are everywhere; imperial decline is set to accelerate rapidly in the coming years…

Expect more of all the above as the U.S. empire enters its most devastating phase of collapse. Think about what it might mean for you and your family and prepare accordingly.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Challenging the Dollar: China and Russia’s Plan from Petroyuan to Gold

October 5, 2017

Challenging the Dollar: China and Russia’s Plan from Petroyuan to Gold

As seen in my previous article, US military power is on the decline, and the effects are palpable. In a world full of conflicts brought on by Washington, the economic and financial shifts that are occurring are for many countries a long-awaited and welcome development.

If we were to identify what uniquely fuels American imperialism and its aspirations for global hegemony, the role of the US dollar would figure prominently. An exploration of the depth of the dollar’s effects on the world economy is therefore necessary in order to understand the consequential geopolitical developments that have occurred over the last few decades.

The reason the dollar plays such an important role in the world economy is due to the following three major factors: the petrodollar; the dollar as world reserve currency; and Nixon’s decision in 1971 to no longer make the dollar convertible into gold. As is easy to guess, the petrodollar strongly influenced the composition of the SDR basket, making the dollar the world reserve currency, spelling grave implications for the global economy due to Nixon’s decision to eliminate the dollar’s convertibility into gold. Most of the problems for the rest of the world began from a combination of these three factors.

Dollar-Petrodollar-Gold

The largest geo-economic change in the last fifty years was arguably implemented in 1973 with the agreement between OPEC, Saudi Arabia and the United States to sell oil exclusively in dollars.

Specifically, Nixon arranged with Saudi King Faisal for Saudis to only accept dollars as a payment for oil and related investments, recycling billions of excess dollars into US treasury bills and other dollar-based financial resources. In exchange, Saudi Arabia and other OPEC countries came under American military protection.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

North Korea and Yemen: the Costs of Empire

October 3, 2017

North Korea and Yemen: the Costs of Empire

Photo by Tom Thai | CC BY 2.0

As the war of words between the governments of Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un has spiraled into child-like name calling and escalating military threats, the world shudders at the possible consequences. The Pentagon has reportedly estimated that a North Korean attack with conventional weapons against the South would kill 20,000 people a day; but deaths could reach the millions in the event of a nuclear war.

Meanwhile, in Yemen, the US is already participating militarily in what humanitarian aid groups have labe led crimes against humanity. US military forces are participating in refueling Saudi bombers and also in their targeting, which has killed thousands of civilians. By cutting off food imports, the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen’s civil war has put more than seven million people at the brink of starvation.

The “Saudis are deliberately trying to create a famine inside Yemen in order to essentially starve the Yemenis to the negotiating table” — and “the United States is participating,” said Senator Chris Murphy.

And now, as a result of the destruction, Yemen has the worst cholera outbreak in the world, which has infected more than 500,000 people, with at least 2,000 deaths so far. The UN estimates that a child in Yemen dies every 10 minutes from preventable causes.

When our government threatens whole nations with annihilation, or participates in massive cruelty and collective punishment in far-away
places, it is important to at least try to understand why this happens. While these crimes are illegal (even Trump’s threats against North Korea are prohibited by the UN charter) and nothing could justify them, our political leaders and policy analysts nonetheless fill the mass media with rationales that often win at least tacit support from many people who should know better.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

2009 – 2016: Was the Eight-Year Experiment in Maintaining the Status Quo a Success or a Failure?

October 1, 2017

2009 – 2016: Was the Eight-Year Experiment in Maintaining the Status Quo a Success or a Failure?

Clearly, the core strategy of maintaining the status quo is to borrow and spend trillions of additional dollars every year.

The Obama presidency was a grand experiment to test this thesis: the status quo of the U.S. is a self-correcting mechanism. Left to its own devices, it will automatically correct any socio-economic-political imbalances, given enough time.

The Grand Strategy of the post-Global Financial Crisis era was simple: maintain the status quo as is. The Obama administration’s major policy initiative, ObamaCare, a.k.a. the Affordable Care Act, was nothing but the formalization of the existing status quo in healthcare, i.e. the taxpayers subsidize private-sector profiteering.

That is the Affordable Care Act in a nutshell. Costs have not declined, the health of Americans can hardly be said to have improved significantly, but garsh, did healthcare sector profits soar. Most importantly, the status quo was maintained: nothing actually changed in the insurance, pharmaceutical or hospital sectors.

The same can be said for every other sector of the economy: nothing really changed, just more of the same. Higher education: nothing changed, just more student loan debt was issued. The defense industry: more of the same. Global War on Terror, a.k.a. The National Security State–more billions sluiced into the shadows.

President Obama was a master of telling everyone what they wanted to hear while changing nothing in the basic structure of the Empire. The Imperial Imperative of destabilizing nations that didn’t meet with Imperial approval continued unchanged. The murder-by-drone campaign expanded, the support of a hopelessly corrupt regime in Afghanistan continued unchanged, and so on.

There were two unstated assumptions in this eight-year experiment:

1. The status quo is perfectly fine and didn’t need changing

2. The self-correcting mechanism of the status quo–the self-serving pursuit of maximizing private gain–naturally yielded up whatever policy tweaks were deemed beneficial/ necessary.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Tag Archives: empire

Content

Post categories

Economic Links

Energy/Resource Links

Environmental Links

Geopolitical Links

Liberty Links

News Links

Other Links

Survival Skills

Post Archives by Category

Post navigation

Latest Posts