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Editorial
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Title: Why Living In The American Empire Isn't All That It's Cracked Up To Be
Source: [None]
URL Source: [None]
Published: May 2, 2012
Author: pcr
Post Date: 2012-05-02 10:32:45 by tom007
Keywords: None
Views: 522
Comments: 21

Why Living In The American Empire Isn't All That It's Cracked Up To Be The Daily Reckoning | Apr. 3, 2012, 6:57 AM | 6,374 | 40

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The Daily Reckoning

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The Daily Reckoning features Entertaining Ideas on the Economy, Markets, Gold, Oil and Investing Strategies Recent Posts

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Great empires, such as the Roman and British, were extractive. The empires succeeded, because the value of the resources and wealth extracted from conquered lands exceeded the value of conquest and governance. The reason Rome did not extend its empire east into Germany was not the military prowess of Germanic tribes but Rome’s calculation that the cost of conquest exceeded the value of extractable resources.

The Roman empire failed, because Romans exhausted manpower and resources in civil wars fighting amongst themselves for power. The British empire failed, because the British exhausted themselves fighting Germany in two world wars.

In his book, The Rule of Empires (2010), Timothy H. Parsons replaces the myth of the civilizing empire with the truth of the extractive empire. He describes the successes of the Romans, the Umayyad Caliphate, the Spanish in Peru, Napoleon in Italy, and the British in India and Kenya in extracting resources. To lower the cost of governing Kenya, the British instigated tribal consciousness and invented tribal customs that worked to British advantage.

Parsons does not examine the American empire, but in his introduction to the book he wonders whether America’s empire is really an empire as the Americans don’t seem to get any extractive benefits from it. After eight years of war and attempted occupation of Iraq, all Washington has for its efforts is several trillion dollars of additional debt and no Iraqi oil. After ten years of trillion dollar struggle against the Taliban in Afghanistan, Washington has nothing to show for it except possibly some part of the drug trade that can be used to fund covert CIA operations.

America’s wars are very expensive. Bush and Obama have doubled the national debt, and the American people have no benefits from it. No riches, no bread and circuses flow to Americans from Washington’s wars. So what is it all about?

The answer is that Washington’s empire extracts resources from the American people for the benefit of the few powerful interest groups that rule America. The military-security complex, Wall Street, agri-business and the Israel Lobby use the government to extract resources from Americans to serve their profits and power. The US Constitution has been extracted in the interests of the Security State, and Americans’ incomes have been redirected to the pockets of the 1 percent. That is how the American Empire functions.

The New Empire is different. It happens without achieving conquest. The American military did not conquer Iraq and has been forced out politically by the puppet government that Washington established. There is no victory in Afghanistan, and after a decade the American military does not control the country.

In the New Empire success at war no longer matters. The extraction takes place by being at war. Huge sums of American taxpayers’ money have flowed into the American armaments industries and huge amounts of power into Homeland Security. The American empire works by stripping Americans of wealth and liberty.

This is why the wars cannot end, or if one does end another starts. Remember when Obama came into office and was asked what the US mission was in Afghanistan? He replied that he did not know what the mission was and that the mission needed to be defined.

Obama never defined the mission. He renewed the Afghan war without telling us its purpose. Obama cannot tell Americans that the purpose of the war is to build the power and profit of the military/security complex at the expense of American citizens.

This truth doesn’t mean that the objects of American military aggression have escaped without cost. Large numbers of Muslims have been bombed and murdered and their economies and infrastructure ruined, but not in order to extract resources from them.

It is ironic that under the New Empire the citizens of the empire are extracted of their wealth and liberty in order to extract lives from the targeted foreign populations. Just like the bombed and murdered Muslims, the American people are victims of the American empire.

Paul Craig Roberts for The Daily Reckoning

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Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 20.

#1. To: PSUSA2 (#0)

deleted

Eric Stratton  posted on  2012-05-02   10:39:46 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#4. To: Eric Stratton (#1)

Glad you support their "education" in this way.

A good number of Paul supporters are young.

But I understand what you're saying. If those kids don't care about the same things you care about, they're uneducated.

Well, here's a news flash for you. As people grow older and wiser, beliefs change. At least for some. Others remain stuck in the same crap their entire lives. And, they try and justify that, by saying "I have the same religious beliefs / political beliefs, but I'm not like THAT. I'm more reasonable than THEY are".

I really doubt you were such a know-it-all genius when you were a kid, even though you probably thought you were. Having seen your posts lately, I really REALLY doubt that.

I bet you played war or cops and robbers when you were a kid too, and when you got older, war movies were fun to watch.

I don't remember any of my teachers glorifying war. Just the opposite. Some were veterans.

PSUSA2  posted on  2012-05-02   12:21:25 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#5. To: PSUSA2 (#4)

deleted

Eric Stratton  posted on  2012-05-02   15:44:53 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#6. To: Eric Stratton (#5)

In your world you support the miseducation of that same youth,

Show me where.

Honestly dude, give it a f'ing rest already, if you cannot see that the pubik edumakational system is at the core of our issues as a nation,

Did I ever say it was good? Fuck no. But somehow you think that is what I said. All I said is I had faith in the teachers and they need to be left to do their jobs. It's obvious that if they can't do the job, then they go away.

Those higher up I have no faith in. I said as much but you somehow missed that, You got it into your pointy little head that I said things are just great.

Whatever, but seriously, give it a f'ing rest already, will ya!

I'm just responding to you. I didn't start this, you did. So, fuck off.

PSUSA2  posted on  2012-05-02   16:00:36 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#7. To: PSUSA2 (#6)

deleted

Eric Stratton  posted on  2012-05-02   16:02:36 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#10. To: Eric Stratton, BSUSATOO (#7)

OK ...

: )

Oh, he has to defend der state - after all they're paying his freight, but its a job - I guess you could call him "gainfully" employed. Well, sort of anyway. At least he has a job even if it is hanging out on internet forums sowing disruption, hate, and goobermunt polizy.

Original_Intent  posted on  2012-05-02   16:51:29 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#11. To: Original_Intent (#10)

Every time you say I'm an agent, Xenu drops a million kittens in a Hawaiian volcano.

You kitten murderer you.

PSUSA2  posted on  2012-05-02   16:58:27 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#12. To: PSUSA2 (#11)

You are just such a charming disinformationist and you use such cute metaphors.

Of course I can't prove that your are a paid shill even though you operate exactly like one.

However, there is always an alternative. You could go hang out on Stormfront with your homies' and just feel the "love".

Original_Intent  posted on  2012-05-02   17:51:56 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#18. To: Original_Intent (#12)

Of course I can't prove that your are a scientologist even though you operate exactly like one.

PSUSA2  posted on  2012-05-02   18:28:25 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#19. To: PSUSA2 (#18)

Oh. And why is that?

Because I wish well toward all people regardless of superficialities such as race?

Or is it that I reject the materialist viewpoint that man is nothing more than a biological automaton?

Or that I reject activities that harm while claiming to help, oppose wars, torture, murder, and criminal banking syndicates?

Perhaps it is because I respect the rights of all to live their lives in freedom and dignity and oppose tyrannical government which would make people surrender their inherent dignity and submit as slaves?

Or perhaps it is just because I reject your spew of hatred and denial of the humanity of others?

"You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person will not be found: You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve your love and affection." - The Buddha

Original_Intent  posted on  2012-05-02   20:30:21 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#20. To: Original_Intent (#19) (Edited)

Because I wish well toward all people regardless of superficialities such as race?

Or is it that I reject the materialist viewpoint that man is nothing more than a biological automaton?

Or that I reject activities that harm while claiming to help, oppose wars, torture, murder, and criminal banking syndicates?

Perhaps it is because I respect the rights of all to live their lives in freedom and dignity and oppose tyrannical government which would make people surrender their inherent dignity and submit as slaves?

Or perhaps it is just because I reject your spew of hatred and denial of the humanity of others

You're so heroic, so valiant, so noble. in your own mind

When someone has to pat themselves on the back like you just did, they are the exact opposite of what they are trying to portray themselves as being.

It's no different than gay bashers / family values scumbags getting caught in a motel room with another man and a meth pipe.

PSUSA2  posted on  2012-05-02   21:05:54 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


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End Trace Mode for Comment # 20.

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