opinion@dailylobo.com
The world has become a far more dangerous place since September 11, 2001. Since that terrible day, America’s belligerent, counter-productive foreign policy has created a firestorm of chaos and escalating conflict around the world. In the wake of two catastrophic, incredibly costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in the midst of a never-ending “war on terror,” the U.S. can no longer pretend to be the champion of freedom and democracy in the world.
We’ve lost any credibility or influence we may have once had in global affairs, due to the misguided policies currently embraced by the military junta that runs this country. As I write this, the United States is planning to join the conflagration in Syria, Egypt is exploding in civil war and the reconstituted Israeli ‘peace process’ is already in tatters. Excuse me while I roll my eyes and sigh in disgust.
America now dominates the world through the use of military force alone. The U.S. accounts for 43 percent of the world’s total military spending and 30 percent of all global arms exports, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s Yearbook 2010. These figures confirm that America is the leader in both categories, and that business at present is booming for weapons manufacturers, pun intended. It’s virtually the only sector of the economy that’s healthy: America is by far Earth’s number-one exporter of weapons of mass destruction.
No wonder the world is so dangerous.
History has shown that we’re not too picky about who we sell our advanced military hardware to, either; we’ve sold to despotic regimes in Pakistan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt and Israel — to name just a few.
Today, our hyper-militarized global empire pervades every aspect of this supposedly “peace-loving” society.
America is a violent, brutal and unforgiving place to live. Many of our fellow citizens subsist under desperate conditions, barely able to survive. We occupy a reality more akin to a totalitarian police state than a democratic republic. Our aggressively militaristic culture is reinforced by a vast network of economic and political interests which are intimately connected to major American corporations, think-tanks and research universities like UNM.
Americans still find it hard to accept that their country is viewed in many parts of the world as an irresponsible, dangerous international bully rather than a “Global force for Good,” as the latest U.S. Navy propaganda claims.
Due to the extreme secrecy under which our government operates, the American people are kept ignorant of the fact that the United States currently garrisons the planet with over 800 military bases in more than 150 countries. Historians call this the ‘new American Empire,’ and we are witnessing its final death throes.
In addition to the proliferation of officially acknowledged military bases, the U.S. also maintains an unknown number of secret bases not found on any government audit. Many of these clandestine outposts are operated by the CIA, NSA and even more secret agencies like the National Reconnaissance Office.
They’re engaged in intercepting communications from all over the world, including those of American citizens. They keep tabs on everything we say, tweet, email or post online. The government employs millions of soldiers, spies, technicians, civilians and private contractors — along with their dependents — all over the world.
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Chalmers Johnson was an esteemed scholar, historian and professor at UC San Diego. He was also a former analyst for the CIA, so he had a deep understanding of how the national security state operates. Johnson died in November 2010, and he is sorely missed.
He was the author of several books, including “Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire,” in which he explored in minute detail the machinations of America’s foreign policy and its likely consequences. Johnson is responsible for introducing the terms “blowback” and “unintended consequences” into our political rhetoric, both of which describe CIA tradecraft.
Johnson was one of the most outspoken critics of U.S. foreign policy and militarism. He told Democracy Now!: “There is no more unstable political configuration, history tells us, than the one of the United States today, that is: a domestic democracy combined with a foreign empire. The two don’t mix. You can be one, you can be the other, but you don’t get to do both.” In other words, no military empire can survive forever and remain a democracy.
Unfortunately, few empires give up their domains voluntarily.
Johnson wrote: “The danger I foresee is that the United States is embarked on a path not unlike that of the former Soviet Union during the 1980s. The USSR collapsed for three basic reasons: internal economic contradictions driven by ideological rigidity; imperial overstretch; and an inability to reform. The similarities are obvious and it is nowhere written that the United States, in its guise as an empire dominating the world, must go on forever…”
Chalmers Johnson knew exactly what he was talking about.
