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Title: Three Good Reasons To Liquidate Our Empire and 10 Ways to Do It
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URL Source: http://www.alternet.org/world/14168 ... r_empire_and_10_ways_to_do_it/
Published: Jul 31, 2009
Author: Chalmers Johnson,
Post Date: 2009-07-31 10:20:15 by tom007
Keywords: None
Views: 117
Comments: 7
Three Good Reasons To Liquidate Our Empire and 10 Ways to Do It By Chalmers Johnson, Tomdispatch.com. Posted July 31, 2009. The failure to begin to deal with our bloated military establishment will condemn the U.S. to a devastating trio of consequences. However ambitious President Barack Obama's domestic plans, one unacknowledged issue has the potential to destroy any reform efforts he might launch. Think of it as the 800-pound gorilla in the American living room: our longstanding reliance on imperialism and militarism in our relations with other countries and the vast, potentially ruinous global empire of bases that goes with it. The failure to begin to deal with our bloated military establishment and the profligate use of it in missions for which it is hopelessly inappropriate will, sooner rather than later, condemn the United States to a devastating trio of consequences: imperial overstretch, perpetual war, and insolvency, leading to a likely collapse similar to that of the former Soviet Union. According to the 2008 official Pentagon inventory of our military bases around the world, our empire consists of 865 facilities in more than 40 countries and overseas U.S. territories. We deploy over 190,000 troops in 46 countries and territories. In just one such country, Japan, at the end of March 2008, we still had 99,295 people connected to U.S. military forces living and working there -- 49,364 members of our armed services, 45,753 dependent family members, and 4,178 civilian employees. Some 13,975 of these were crowded into the small island of Okinawa, the largest concentration of foreign troops anywhere in Japan. These massive concentrations of American military power outside the United States are not needed for our defense. They are, if anything, a prime contributor to our numerous conflicts with other countries. They are also unimaginably expensive. According to Anita Dancs, an analyst for the website Foreign Policy in Focus, the United States spends approximately $250 billion each year maintaining its global military presence. The sole purpose of this is to give us hegemony -- that is, control or dominance -- over as many nations on the planet as possible. We are like the British at the end of World War II: desperately trying to shore up an empire that we never needed and can no longer afford, using methods that often resemble those of failed empires of the past -- including the Axis powers of World War II and the former Soviet Union. There is an important lesson for us in the British decision, starting in 1945, to liquidate their empire relatively voluntarily, rather than being forced to do so by defeat in war, as were Japan and Germany, or by debilitating colonial conflicts, as were the French and Dutch. We should follow the British example. (Alas, they are currently backsliding and following our example by assisting us in the war in Afghanistan.) Here are three basic reasons why we must liquidate our empire or else watch it liquidate us. 1. We Can No Longer Afford Our Postwar Expansionism Shortly after his election as president, Barack Obama, in a speech announcing several members of his new cabinet, stated as fact that "[w]e have to maintain the strongest military on the planet." A few weeks later, on March 12, 2009, in a speech at the National Defense University in Washington DC, the president again insisted, "Now make no mistake, this nation will maintain our military dominance. We will have the strongest armed forces in the history of the world." And in a commencement address to the cadets of the U.S. Naval Academy on May 22nd, Obama stressed that "[w]e will maintain America's military dominance and keep you the finest fighting force the world has ever seen." What he failed to note is that the United States no longer has the capability to remain a global hegemon, and to pretend otherwise is to invite disaster. According to a growing consensus of economists and political scientists around the world, it is impossible for the United States to continue in that role while emerging into full view as a crippled economic power. No such configuration has ever persisted in the history of imperialism. The University of Chicago's Robert Pape, author of the important study Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism (Random House, 2005), typically writes: More at link
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#1. To: tom007 (#0)
These massive concentrations of American military power outside the United States are not needed for our defense First, most of those grunts are being relocated to Guam, with Japan paying for the move as we do not have the money. Second, as much as most people feel that all of the troops should come home, one MUST be realistic in assessing what would be the world wide consequences. History is replete with the results of what happens when a power vacuum occurs.
I thought Obama's election slogan and platform was "change". This sure don't sound like any "CHANGE" to me. Has ANYTHING CHANGED.?
The Smooth Criminal Transition from Bush/Cheney to Obama Corrupt new administration deepens and expands systemic criminalization and war agenda by Larry Chin
We've gone from the frying pan, straight into the fire.
America maintained a high level of military spending following WWII because of the Cold War with the Soviets, a concoction of Bolshevik Jews to maintain control of the Russian population by offering a defense against fabricated enemies abroad. Soviet organized Jewry used warmongering as a distraction from its thievery of private property and administrative ineptitude just as today's Zionist criminals continue to promote wars to obscure their thievery in Palestine to get land for their illegal state. Without these shenanigans by Organized Jewry, America, post WWII, would be no more militaristic than Europe or the rest of the world, might not have been involved in WWII were it not for Zionist connivance. And unfortunately as long as the Israeli lobby maintains its stranglehold on Congress as a result of its funding of election campaigns, America will be coerced into maintaining a costly military to do Israel's fighting to the detriment of trade wherein wealth, power and influence is centered.
Some food for thought here.
"Satan / Cheney in "08" But getting back to the main topic, the best and probably only effective way of getting rid of the empire is to elect legislators who will phase out government at the state and national level, leaving only local metropolitan administrations which is all that needed anywhere in the world to meet people's needs. City "states" can form a federation for the sole purpose of promulgating uniform standards and perhaps settling disputes in cases where people elected politicians too stupid to know the importance of fairness in all of their dealings.
Some 13,975 of these were crowded into the small island of Okinawa, the largest concentration of foreign troops anywhere in Japan.
#2. To: tom007 (#0)
"Now make no mistake, this nation will maintain our military dominance. We will have the strongest armed forces in the history of the world."
#3. To: sizzlerguy (#2)
#4. To: sizzlerguy, Cynicom, tom007, all (#2)
Has ANYTHING CHANGED.?
#5. To: tom007 (#0)
(Edited)
...our longstanding reliance on imperialism and militarism in our relations with other countries...
#6. To: Tatarewicz (#5)
#7. To: tom007 (#6)
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