64

The Quiet Imperialism

Frank Lee reviews Beyond US Hegemony by Egyptian economist Samir Amin, who died earlier this year.

This work by the Egyptian Marxist, Samir Amin, was first published in 2006, but has been remarkably prescient in its evaluation of US strategic imperial policy before, and, a fortiori, after that date. Many, if not most, Americans and of course their Petainist vassals in Europe, have always been in denial about the imperial ambitions and practises of the US.

There are honourable exceptions – Pilger and Chomsky come immediately to mind – but on the whole the motives of US foreign policy have been regarded by the Atlanticist public as being conceived in good faith and benign in intent.

This America qua global good-guy was very well illustrated in the British writer Graham Greene’s novel The Quiet American. Set against the background of the first Indo-China war, the novel has also been made into two motion pictures, the most recent starring inter alia the British actor, Michael Caine.

The plot involves one of the central characters in the book, Alden Pyle, the ostensibly idealistic young American Aid Worker, who presents himself as a proto third-way reformist opposed to the excesses of French colonialism on the one hand, and Chinese Communism on the other. He is in fact nothing of the sort, and his ostensible humanistic motives are soon uncovered by the cynical, world-weary, British journalist, Thomas Fowler. Pyle had been working for the CIA all along. Those lavishly funded US CIA-front NGOs and colour revolutions perhaps serve to illustrate the timeless axiom of Biblical wisdom, namely, that there is nothing new under the sun.

Thus, Greene’s novel served as a microcosm of actually-existing US imperialism; a theory and practise which, until recently at least, dare not speak its name. In what we used to call, the third world, however, and increasingly in the developed world, the facts are plain to see except for all but the ideologically purblind. The US, particularly since the neo-conservative ascendancy, is a rampaging imperial juggernaut, with a blatant empire-building agenda. The US imperial project was from 1945 onwards partially held in check by social democratic obstacles in western Europe, the existence of the Soviet and East Asian Communist bloc and national anti-colonialist movements in the south.

This fact seems to have been missed by what I will call the symmetrical left, that is to say the notion that the world struggle is between two rival imperialisms, which I believe to be wrong in theory, and disastrous in practise. The road to neo-conservatism has often started with the theory of imperial equivalence between east and west. The contrary view is that the anti-colonial struggle would have been impossible without the presence of the Soviet Union whose existence kept in check the imperial ambitions of the US. But with the collapse of communism, the ongoing enervation and retreat of social democracy and the stalling of the anti-colonial struggle in the south, the rapacious beast of American imperialism has been let off the leash.

Moreover, the US has made it perfectly clear that it will not tolerate the reconstitution of any economic or military power capable of challenging its global domination; this was first made clear in the Wolfowitz doctrine in the nineteen nineties. A doctrine described at that time by US politician, Edward Kennedy as “a call for 21st century American imperialism that no other nation can or should accept.”

How times change! To this end the US has arrogated to itself the right to wage ‘preventive wars’ and ‘humanitarian’ interventions against those who may in sometime in the future threaten its global ambitions. The global system is still (just) unipolar but is becoming increasingly less so – this in spite of the frenzied and desperate efforts by the Americans to hang on to the status quo.

Suffice it to say that the project is assuredly not lacking in ambition. It aims at extending the ‘Monroe Doctrine’ to the whole planet; the establishment of a new type of US global suzerainty. This would be difficult for the US to accomplish alone – it therefore has to form alliances and spheres of influence with other (subaltern) partners in the developed world. Roughly speaking the geopolitical configuration for America’s global project is as follows.

The phase of the (present) global development of capitalism … is characterised by the emergence of a collective imperialism. The “triad” – that is, the US, plus its Canadian external province, Europe west of the Polish frontier and Japan, to which we should add Australia and New Zealand defines the area of this collective imperialism. It “manages” the economic dimension of capitalist globalization and the political military dimension through NATO, whose responsibilities have been redefined so that in effect it can substitute itself for the United Nations.” Amin, op.cit

This project required some adept intellectual dexterity as well as diplomatic balancing between the US and its junior partners – particularly within the EU, where conflict between European states and the US has always been a possibility. To this end the mobilization of various Euro-Quisling elites – particularly in the UK, Poland, and the ‘new’ Europe – was vital for America’s policy of divide and rule in this area. It was a policy of euro-widening designed to offset the initial euro-deepening of the EU.

Thus the ‘new Europe’ of former soviet satellites and ex republics were cultivated as political courtesans and literally fell over themselves to become the enthusiastic, pro-American, pro-neoliberal, NATO-centric, anti-Finlandization supporters of the US intervention against the staider and less reliable social-democratic structures and institutions of western Europe. It should be remembered that both France and Germany along with Russia refused to endorse the US ‘the coalition of the willing’ in the war against Iraq.

Thus, the globalization agenda (the economic prong in the US global offensive) has now become the received wisdom in the EU as a whole. As for the Euro it has become a satellite currency of the dollar, although it is in fact a stronger currency since it is based upon a euro economy which runs persistent trade surpluses.

With the political marginalisation of the Gaullist counter-weight in France carried out by Sarkozy and Hollande, the EU now meekly tags along in the wake of the US hegemon ensnared in an Atlanticist doctrine for which the raison d’etre – if there ever was one – definitively ended with the first cold war. And the world pays a heavy price for this. According to Amin:

The US economy lives as a parasite off its partners in the global system, with virtually no national savings of its own. The world produces while North America consumes … The fact is that the bulk of the American deficit (on Federal and Current Account) is covered by capital inputs from Europe and Japan, China and the South, rich oil-producing and comprador classes from all regions in the Third World – to which should be added the debt service levy that is imposed on nearly every country in the periphery of the global system. The American superpower depends from day to day on the flow of capital that sustains the parasitism of its economy and society.” Amin, op.cit.

It is not generally known that the US with its chronic federal and trade deficits is actually on the brink of technical bankruptcy, particularly when long term commitments on Medicaid, Medicare and social security payments are factored into the calculations.

According to research carried out by Professor Laurence Kotlikoff for the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis, a leading constituent of the US Federal Reserve, Fed liabilities come to a staggering $70 trillion – this is roughly 5 times the size of the US GDP.[1]

Against this backdrop the foreign policy of the US becomes clear. Its purpose is loot pure and simple. The south must continue to be plundered for cheap inputs and raw materials and in order to do this comprador elites must be promoted who are friendly to US interests. Economic development of course cannot take place in this context as there will be an outflow of capital from south to North. Markets must be opened up to the rapacious incursions of US and other western capitals.

Possible rivals – Russia, China – must be regarded as long-term enemies and will be divided and marginalised or possibly in 1970s geopolitical jargon ‘Finlandised’. And uppity allies in Europe – like France, now neutered – have been brought to heel.

Of course, this has and will continue to be met with stiff resistance. Most of this has been spontaneous and centred around the crisis in the Middle East, Eurasia the South and East China seas and South West Asia, and the growing opposition to the reputedly Promethean gifts of globalisation and dollar hegemony.

Amin identifies 4 aspects of a political programme which would give organizational coherence to this opposition.

1) A campaign against all American ‘preventive’ wars and for the closure of all foreign US bases
2) A campaign of right to access to the land, which is of crucial importance to the world’s 3 billion peasants
3) A campaign for the regulation of industrial outsourcing, and
4) A cancellation of third world external debts.” Amin,Op.cit

One could of course add more to this – imposition capital controls, global minimum wage and labour standards, global harmonization of taxes … and so forth. This would only be a beginning however. Amin himself looks forward to the reconstitution of the UN as a forum where the third world and smaller countries could find voice legitimate voice, as opposed to the dominant institutions of the present – the IMF, WTO, IBRD (World Bank) and NATO which are frankly little more than instruments of US led collective imperialism.

So, the post-1945 world order led by the imperial US-NATO bloc seems to be reaching a denouement – a slow-motion fragmentation brought about by its own internal and external contradictions and more specifically by the policy of imperial over-reach, an historical leitmotif of empires in decline. A period of indeterminate length and increasing geopolitical turbulence has opened up whose eventual outcomes can only be guessed at.

La lotta continua.

NOTES:-

[1] This was the figure just prior to the blowout of 2008. Herewith a more recent study.

First, corporate debt is now 72% of GDP. That’s in addition to the government debt that is US total debt – private and sovereign – is approaching (or has passed depending on how you count debt) 100% of GDP and household debt at 77% of GDP.

Add in 81% financial sector debt, and the U.S. combined debt-to-GDP ratio is near 330%.

Second, 60% of new corporate debt is coming not from bond sales but new bank loans—and those bank loans have much shorter maturity, averaging 2.1 years. That means refinancing time is coming for much of it, and rates are not going lower.

Third, IIF infers about $3.8 trillion in corporate loan repayments each year—just in the U.S. That’s a lot of cash companies need to find and I’m not sure all can do it. Aside from higher interest rates, the companies that need credit (as opposed to high-rated ones that borrow only because they can do it cheaply) tend to be riskier.

From a recent Moody’s report, we see that 37% of U.S. non-financial corporate debt is below investment grade. That’s about $2.4 trillion.’’

See Further: John Mauldin, June 2018 – Yet Another Debt Crisis is Brewing

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Thomas Prentice
Thomas Prentice
Nov 17, 2018 2:43 PM

Well, GREAT! Instead of cutting the military, colonial, surveillance, intelligence, CIA, Homeland Security and FBI and weaponization of local police budgets …

>>>>> this writer leaves no alternative than to cut the ” the long term commitments on Medicaid, Medicare and social security payments are factored into the calculations…..”

With friends like this writer, the US middle, working, double-or-triple-empoloyed, unemployed, poor and homeless classes need no enemies.

While military and other budgets are mere annual bills rather than “long-term commitments” the PATTERN SINCE 1945 HAS BEEN FOR INCREASE AFTER INCREASE, WAR AFTER WAR and should be CONSIDERED EQUIVALENT with the “long term actuarial commitments” to maintaining and improving the human condition by continuing Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Food Stamps, Public and higher education” and the rest of THE SOCIAL CONTRACT.

RE: It is not generally known that the US with its chronic federal and trade deficits is actually on the brink of technical bankruptcy, particularly when long term commitments on Medicaid, Medicare and social security payments are factored into the calculations.

vexarb
vexarb
Nov 6, 2018 11:07 AM

Uncle’s I$I$ $cam unravelling in Syria.

“Former members of US-backed terrorist groups are joining forces with the Lebanese Hezbollah movement, operating in Syria, _the Wall Street Journal_ reported on November 1. According to the report, approximately 2,000 former U$ mercenaries had joined the Resistance forces and have even started receiving salaries. The Wall Street Journal claimed that it was due to their losing funding from the U$A. However, the reason pointed out by local experts is that the U$ $trategy in Syria had lost credit even in the eyes of some of its own proxies. In the period from 2016 to 2018, thousands of former members of U$ funded terrorist groups have reconciled with the Damascus government. A notable proportion of them are now serving in newly formed units of the Syrian military”

vexarb
vexarb
Nov 5, 2018 2:36 PM

Uncle $cam unravelling from within,; article in Saker Vineyard:

Amerikanski on November 04, 2018 · at 6:19 pm EST/EDT
“Oh, and by the way — before we declare this war, could we borrrow a few hundred more of those rocket engines, and say fifty tons of neodymium? Thanks in advance, Russia and China, that’ll be great!”

http://thesaker.is/the-pentagon-realised-what-it-has-done-the-chinese-put-the-us-army-on-its-knees/

DunGroanin
DunGroanin
Nov 5, 2018 11:32 AM

So what we have here is a failure of… a lot more CRAPITA

https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/defence/military-campaigns/news/99584/foreigners-who-have-never-lived-uk-will-be-free-join

In this week of all weeks!
Lols – ‘shut up and go away!’

This appears to be how head choppers like the White Helmets can be given the official recognition they have been promised.

These non-British, non-commonwealth ‘soldiers’ could be deployed on Britains streets to curtail civil disobediance with shoot to kill orders and they will do it without qualms – not having anything in common with the civilians.

They can also be sent to commit atrocities across the world and be canon fodder because no one will see their body bags flying back.

Consider this as a ratchet up of the threat by the wankers against the 99.9% of us.

Gezzah Potts
Gezzah Potts
Nov 5, 2018 10:30 AM

What really impresses me about this site, is apart from the excellent, hard hitting articles almost every day, its the depth of knowledge and understanding of what is happening by virtually all the commenters who post here. Massive contrast from when I go on more mainstream media sites to comment on something. And then get shot down by all these right wing loons, or alleged ‘progressive’s’ who just regurgitate the Empires narrative on World events. This sounds weird, but seeing all the comments here, sort of don’t feel so alone, and its comforting Knowing that others out there Know the truth also. I think things are almost at the point of no return, the build up of NATO right to Russia’s borders, the constant demonising and provocations of both Russia and China, the lashing out and threats by psychopathic creatures like Bolton, Pompeo, Haley, Hunt, etc, the inevitable economic collapse, while the Doomsday Clock sits at 2 mins to midnight. The sad thing is they who rule are so few, and we are so many, yet their propaganda system has done such a great job at blinding people to the truth. It gets really tiring and frustrating as f*** trying to enlighten others.

Eddison Flame (Chris Carlson)
Eddison Flame (Chris Carlson)
Nov 5, 2018 2:46 PM
Reply to  Gezzah Potts

It is my firm belief that there will be a war, and a devastating one. I believe this primarily for reasons that don’t necessarily hold much water here, (I had a religious experience in which I was told that a massive and devastating war is coming. If you’re interested, please read about it here: http://chriscarlson.me/rationalization).

Nonetheless, there is ample evidence to suggest that society is headed for war, even without the religious element. I imagine most of the guests here are aware of the international flashpoints I’m alluding to. This is why I advocate for a two pronged strategy.

First, continue to wake up whoever will listen. This is important. But second, and probably more important, begin to identify and organize with each other – we need to get organized as the group of woke individuals who see what is coming.

Recognize that our means of communication could be cut off or limited suddenly and severely in the event of a war. We need to know each other beforehand. We need to have plans in place beforehand. We need to work to identify others like us, people who see what is going on, and we need to get organized with them into local and regional groups. We should have alternate means of communication established ahead of time.

We need to plan for contingencies like sudden food shortages, and dealing with displaced individuals. We need to plan for the likely contingency that martial law will be declared in many places. If this happens, people like us, people advocating for peace, will soon find ourselves imprisoned, (and therefore unable to help), if we don’t have plans in place for where to go and what to do.

In response to your comment. Yes, you’re in a good place. People here are more aware than any other place I know of. Welcome to the club. Now strap in, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

P.S. Feel free to email me. God willing, I will start a mailing list for the purpose of getting organized and prepared. [email protected]

frank
frank
Nov 5, 2018 7:04 PM

Nothing of the sort is going to happen. Things will keep moving in the same direction as they’ve been moving all along until we end up in some kind of Orwellian dystopia. In a lot of respects we’re already there, and the population at large is clueless.

‘City of Surveillance’: Google-backed smart city sounds like a dystopian nightmare

CIA “Signature School” Is Creating Total Surveillance Smart Cities

Or there will be a new world war and then who knows what’s going to happen.

Eddison Flame
Eddison Flame
Nov 5, 2018 8:35 PM
Reply to  frank

“Or there will be a new world war and then who knows what’s going to happen.”

This is precisely what I am discussing. “It is my firm belief that there will be a war, and a devastating one.”

Robbobbobin
Robbobbobin
Nov 6, 2018 5:19 PM

“I believe this primarily for reasons that don’t necessarily hold much water here, (I had a religious experience…”

Different cultures tend to resolve answers to disturbing questions in different ways and, within cultures, an even greater variability exists between the mental frameworks behind the resolution methodology of different individuals. Our current Western culture still expresses its recent rationalist culture in the state of euphoric intoxication that usually accompanies the emergence of most new–or seemingly new–frameworks of understanding, to the extent of dubbing it “enlightement”, a word co-opted from the immediately prior metaphysics it rejects. Nothing of consequence: c’est la vie. “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven … Wherefore I perceive that there is nothing better, than that a man should rejoice in his own works; for that is his portion: for who shall bring him to see what shall be after him?” Like all things, intoxication passes. However, and ironically, whether that will occur before the very intoxication of such “enlightenment” passes and that enlightenment in itself in consequence takes all other things with it is also problematical. Que serà, serà. There is nothing better, than that a man should rejoice in his own works; for that is his portion…”

Humberto
Humberto
Nov 6, 2018 4:06 PM
Reply to  Gezzah Potts

Very well said.

vexarb
vexarb
Nov 5, 2018 7:46 AM

[After the victory of Syria and Allies, “The unravelling begins”. In the heartland of the AZC Empire, remember Winston Churchill’s, “I have set 3 Kings upon their Thrones”? Harrow educated, Sandhurst trained little King of Jordan is teetering on a tightrope, despite (more likely because of) the UK / U$ / Israeli military and terrorist training camps on his territory which he is now desperately trying to reject. From Lebanon’s Al Masdar News:

“Jordan’s refusal to back Israeli and Saudi support for Mr. Trump’s approach coupled with his rebuttal of Saudi pressure to join the one year-old Saudi-UAE-led economic and diplomatic boycott of Qatar and more recent symbolic overtures to Iran have won it little sympathy in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi and cost Jordan badly needed financial aid.

Said Jordan scholar Sean Yom: _“The real heart of public outrage is not about tax brackets, but something far broader – the notion of the state radically scaling back its end of the social contract and not providing anything in return._ From the monarchy’s perspective, it has little choice. Nonetheless, the prospect of more social turmoil makes the search for a new geopolitical conduit to survival even more pressing.”

_Survival could well mean that Jordan forges closer ties to countries like Iran, Turkey, Qatar and Russia – a prospect that is raising concern in [AZC colonial capitals] Jerusalem, Riyadh and Abu Dhabi._

Already, Jordan’s smouldering discontent has Israeli and Western [socalled “Intelligence”] analysts worried.

vexarb
vexarb
Nov 5, 2018 7:20 AM

[“The unravelling begins”. Among a stream of upbeat reports, rumors and opinion in SyrPer, both Editorial and BTL, inspired by Syria & Allies victory against The Quiet Imperialism]

António Ferrão #280101

Russia will have a new base in Cuba.
Havana changes its position and, after resisting the presence of Moscow during the thaw with Obama, opens the island to Putin in response to Trump’s attitude.
According to La Voz de Galicia

Antonym
Antonym
Nov 5, 2018 7:15 AM

Vexarb could you spare us reading time and list the nations NOT bought up by Rothschild according to you? The rest of the world does believe Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/billionaires/list/#version:static

vexarb
vexarb
Nov 5, 2018 6:45 AM

“The unravelling begins”. Even in Rothschild-owned Westminster the Friends of Israel are expressing disquiet over the inhumanity of British aid to Rothschild’s Saudi goons in Yemen. More from PacificNorthWest BTL SyrPer:

Pacificnorthwest #280083

“The unravelling begins…. even the [Westminster] rats themselves are becoming increasingly queasy about becoming too closely associated with the on-going Saudi barbarity in Yemen.

_UK-supported Saudi coalition ‘killing civilians and bombing own aid supplies,’ MPs told_

A _former_ cabinet minister has said Britain is “complicit” in creating a famine in war-torn Yemen because of its support for the Saudi-led coalition, amid growing calls for the UK to halt its sales of arms to the group.

Andrew Mitchell, who was international development secretary in [mass murderer] David Cameron’s government, has urged foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt to reassess the government’s stance on the issue.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/yemen-civil-war-saudi-arabia-arms-sales-uk-famine-coalition-houthi-rebels-a8609516.html?amp&__twitter_impression=true

PS: linking to that article is not an endorsement by me [PNW] of the Independent, which used to be more independant, but has for many years now become a blathering organ of narrative mass dissemination.”

vexarb
vexarb
Nov 5, 2018 5:34 AM

[Yemeni civil resistance to the Quiet Imperialism behind the Quiet Imperialism, reported by PacificNorthWest BTL SyrPer. The boys from Rothschild’s KSA gas station and their divisive religious fanaticism not welcome]:

“Large civil protests now occurring in the Yemeni city of al Gheydah, al Mahra Governorate today against the Dar al Hadith Islamic Centre in the city, which was set up under Saudi occupier’s military protection & (according to the local Yemeni population) is housing mercenary foreign nationals whom the local people say are Salafi-jihadists. Where did they come from?

Why is Saudi Arabia flooding the parts of Yemen it controls with head choppers? (A rhetorical question — [ask Rothschild for the answer]).

In pictures of these protests it looks like the whole city is out in the street…. they do not seem like some marginal faction. Even in the areas of Yemen, under its control the Saudi’s need to rely on imported salafist indoctrinated mercenaries… and the local (and these would be mostly Sunni as well) people do not seem very happy about the state of affairs.”

[Chris Carlson above asks what we civilians can do. Emulate the Yemeni, protest against Saudi funded (ie, Rothschild funded) Wahabi mosques, against Rothschild’s plan to divide people on all possible grounds. Protest against Rothschild funded Anti-Semitism witch hunts, against Rothschild-owned Charley Hebdo, against Rothschild funded Hilary LGBT fake left Identity Politics, against Rothschild’s prize pet project Israel getting more of our foreign aid than every other little nation combined. etc]

Chris Carlson
Chris Carlson
Nov 5, 2018 2:37 AM

Most of is here are by now well aware of the terrible state of affairs the world is in. We know that the US is leading a coalition of nations in perpetuating incredible crimes against humanity around the globe. We know that this is being done by a vast network of oligarchs and for the express purpose of enriching the few at the expense of the many. We know the media is complicit in this scheme. We know these things. The problem we are facing is: what should we do?

What can we do about it? That’s the problem. We are on the outside, largely marginalized, watching in horror, without any clear idea of what we can do to help!

Now, many of us are doing the one thing we can do to help. We are talking about it. That’s a positive thing. Thank God for the internet. Thank God that we can connect with others to share our feelings of horror and disgust. But we need to do more. That’s what I love about this piece. It comes with some pretty clear ideas about what could be done:

1) A campaign against all American ‘preventive’ wars and for the closure of all foreign US bases
2) A campaign of right to access to the land, which is of crucial importance to the world’s 3 billion peasants
3) A campaign for the regulation of industrial outsourcing, and
4) A cancellation of third world external debts.

The author also suggests:

imposition capital controls, global minimum wage and labour standards, global harmonization of taxes

I say, this needs to be our focus all the time. We need to come to an agreement on what the most effective form of resistance will be, and we need to do it. First, we have to agree. If we can’t work together, we don’t stand a chance. We need to pick something, and then we all need to work toward that goal.

Maybe it works, maybe it doesn’t, but at this point it doesn’t really matter. We all know the score. We see what is going on. Either we do something or we get steamrolled by these bastards.

Please feel free to email me with suggestions. [email protected]

Chris Carlson
Chris Carlson
Nov 5, 2018 4:46 AM
Reply to  Chris Carlson

*Most of us here.

frank
frank
Nov 5, 2018 7:13 PM
Reply to  Chris Carlson

Yes.

And now kindly explain how exactly we are supposed to achieve those aims?

(My apologies for the cynicism. ;))

Mulga Mumblebrain
Mulga Mumblebrain
Nov 5, 2018 8:02 PM
Reply to  frank

NOT possible. The ruling psychopaths will KILL anyone who threatens their eternal power and dominance. The future is El Salvador or Guatemala, or Argentina in the ’70s. ‘Trouble-makers’ pushed out of planes over the sea. Then comes either thermo-nuclear war, or full ecological collapse, or the latter causing the former.

Gary Weglarz
Gary Weglarz
Nov 5, 2018 1:55 AM

(“the project is assuredly not lacking in ambition. It aims at extending the ‘Monroe Doctrine’ to the whole planet;”) – exactly!
Thank you.

Resistance to U.S. hegemony is of course punishable by death – preferably through one of our patented – “humanitarian” interventions. We in the U.S. (and Western Europe) have now evolved to become so incredibly “humane” that now we only kill you “because we care about you so much!” I mean if we didn’t kill you your own leaders might accidentally kill you while they are busy fighting off our invasion or that of our jihadist buddies – and of course we just couldn’t live with ourselves if that were to happen.

Antonym
Antonym
Nov 5, 2018 9:06 AM
Reply to  Gary Weglarz

We? MI6, CIA, DGSE, Mossad, etc. are not me. They are clubs unaccountable to the voters of the respective nations.

James Connolly
James Connolly
Nov 4, 2018 4:58 PM

It is worth thinking about what attitudes in the west would be if America’s imperialist wars occurred in reverse. Vietnam, for example. Say the Vietnamese had invaded and occupied America, propping up a Vietnam-sympathetic regime and dropping hundreds of thousands of tons of napalm on all American cities and causing tens of millions of deaths (the U.S. population equivalent to the number of deaths in Vietnam). It would not be possible for people in the west to look at such an occupying power as having made a “tragic but well-intended mistake.” They would rightly be seen as having committed an international crime of the severed magnitude.

The reason why the Hegemon’s murderous rampages are not looked at in reverse is clear as day: it challenges American exceptionalism, the belief that the United States is the greatest nation on earth, unrivaled not only in its wealth and power, but in the quality of its institutions and values, and the character of its people. If it was acknowledged that it had committed terrible crimes, its treasured moral authority would collapse. Hence why the “liberal” Ken Burns interpretation of US imperialism holds sway, not just in America but also in Western Europe: Massacres like Vietnam were an honourable mistake, the kind any noble country might reasonably be expected to make from time to time. While ones like Hiroshima and Nagasaki are still not even acknowledged to be mistakes.

harry stotle
harry stotle
Nov 4, 2018 5:56 PM
Reply to  James Connolly

I know, its incredible – imagine a hulking school bully going round beating up younger, weaker children then blaming the victims rather than the bully.

This is how a substantial part of US foreign policy has worked since the terrible crimes committed against Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The enormous devastation inflicted by the US military-industrial complex is plain for all to see and no amount of media propaganda alters this undeniable fact.

Mulga Mumblebrain
Mulga Mumblebrain
Nov 4, 2018 8:51 PM
Reply to  James Connolly

The USA makes these genocidal ‘mistakes’ over and over again, and doesn’t ever learn any lessons from it. The brainwashed masses love it, too. It makes them feel ‘tough’.

Mulga Mumblebrain
Mulga Mumblebrain
Nov 5, 2018 8:15 AM
Reply to  James Connolly

I’d love to see China send its ships to sail off California and New York, in ‘Freedom of Passage’ exercises.

James Connolly
James Connolly
Nov 5, 2018 2:14 PM

Yes, the trans-pacific intimidation of China is perhaps the most glaring double standard of all. Especially when China is then accused by the US of bullying. But as ever it all goes unquestioned, even (perhaps esp) by the Guardian, BBC, C4 News etc..

Mulga Mumblebrain
Mulga Mumblebrain
Nov 5, 2018 8:15 PM
Reply to  James Connolly

In fact, the USA’s trade-mark bullying lies do not just go ‘unquestioned’. The Western fakestream media presstitute vermin are in an absolute fury of racist hatred against China. The filthiest and most ludicrous lies are simply peddled, and ALL opposing opinion ruthlessly suppressed. The Fraudian cancer had a Sinophobic tract last week, where all the allowed Comments, bar one or two, were racist and hateful, many savagely, insanely, so. The familiar hate propaganda aimed at vivisecting the country, with demands for carving off Xinjiang, Tibet, Hong Kong, Taiwan, ‘Manchuria’??!!, were joined by a new one-the demand that Guandong and Guanxi in the south be seen as ‘colonised’ by the evil Han monsters. A veritable frenzy of hatred, which we also see in Austfailia, where the Government owned by Murdochite staffed and controlled ABC, runs at least two or three anti-Chinese hate-spews every day. On Sunday they had two in a row on the radio, the latter a BBC tirade with the usual arrogant contempt for the untermenschen that is such a BBC trade-mark, concerning China’s trade activities in Africa. And the Xinjiang lies have pipsqueak nonentities from the lower depths of academia freely allowed to compare China to Nazi Germany, and if that is not indoctrination in hatred preparatory to war, then I’m very much mistaken.

John2o2o
John2o2o
Nov 4, 2018 12:10 PM

IMO:

“(5)” A global moratorium on arms manufacture and trading.

harry stotle
harry stotle
Nov 4, 2018 11:41 AM

This is a splendid synopsis by Frank Lee, thank you.

What is truly dispiriting is the herd mentality which either cannot see or does not care about the way military violence, or economic intimidation is routinely employed to satisfy the insatiable greed of corporate America.

Can the public not smell a rat the moment the US begin to soften up the latest target, be it Iran, Venezuela, or elsewhere?

No, apparently not, most of the time they seem to behave like goldfish without memory or ability to connect the dots – not helped, of course, by a MSM shamelessly promoting the Empie’s version of events, for example the Guardian portraying the ‘White helmets’ as heroes or claiming the ‘eye doctor’ used ‘chemical weapons on his own people’.

Not even a generation of grotesque politicians like Trump, Boulton, Ryan or Jeff Sessions can rouse them from their slumbers.

Are they too busy taking selfies, or posting status updates on Facebook to understand their complicity with the actions of their political representatives – who knows?

Neil MacLeod
Neil MacLeod
Nov 4, 2018 6:39 PM
Reply to  harry stotle

“We watch impassively as the wealthy and the elite, the huge corporations, rob us, ruin the environment, defraud consumers and taxpayers and create an exclusive oligarchy that fuses wealth and political power. We watch passively because we believe we can enter the club. It is greed that keeps us silent.” – Chris Hedges

Gezzah Potts
Gezzah Potts
Nov 4, 2018 11:32 PM
Reply to  harry stotle

Harry Stotle: your comment nails it in one hit. Regards the murderous rampages of the American Empire (with its tag along vassal’s) I have tried to explain to friends what is actually happening in the World. To my utter dismay, several just Don’t Want To Know. At All. And one who claims to be anti capitalist politically, believes the mainstream (establishment) narrative on Syria, White Helmets and other subjects, and questions me on my being ‘a tad Orwellian’! It was incredibly frustrating trying to point out who the White Helmets really are. Like head butting a wall. Edward Bernays comes to mind.

harry stotle
harry stotle
Nov 5, 2018 8:42 AM
Reply to  Gezzah Potts

What makes me laugh is the way neocons are one minute feigning outrage about human rights abuses (code for: we are about to invade your country) the next high-fiving with anti-democratic extremists like Mohammed bin Salman, Jair Bolsonaro, and Rodrigo Duterte.

The scandalous treatment of the poor in their own country tells you all you need to know about what corporate America really thinks about vulnerable or disadvantaged groups.

Gezzah Potts
Gezzah Potts
Nov 5, 2018 9:37 AM
Reply to  harry stotle

Harry Stotle: agree with you 100℅ again #2. I love one of the terms these creatures use: ‘international rules based community’, which um, means what exactly?

frank
frank
Nov 5, 2018 7:31 PM
Reply to  Gezzah Potts

“international rules based community”

If only this actually existed. The US has been steadfastly breaking down and ignoring the international rules.

frank
frank
Nov 5, 2018 7:24 PM
Reply to  harry stotle

“Can the public not smell a rat?”

No they cant. Here’s why:

Leftist Debunks John Oliver’s Venezuela Episode

Just one of the best examples of propaganda and its debunking I have ever seen.

Robbobbobin
Robbobbobin
Nov 5, 2018 7:49 PM
Reply to  harry stotle

“Are they too busy taking selfies, or posting status updates on Facebook to understand their complicity with the actions of their political representatives – who knows?”

To wrench Lao Tzu from his underlying meaning in pursuit of a glib quote applied to a Sun Tzu like strategy of strategic corruption: “A wise ruler keeps his subjects’ minds empty and their bellies full.”

Nicholas Riley
Nicholas Riley
Nov 4, 2018 11:17 AM

‘The Project for the New American Century’ lays down the ground rules for the Empire http://www.newamericancentury.org/

Nicholas Riley
Nicholas Riley
Nov 4, 2018 11:25 AM
Reply to  Nicholas Riley

In particular, have a look at the ‘Statement of Principles’ http://www.newamericancentury.org/statementofprinciples.htm

Mulga Mumblebrain
Mulga Mumblebrain
Nov 4, 2018 8:55 PM
Reply to  Nicholas Riley

The PNAC was the quintessential Zionazi project to use the USA to do Israel’s dirty work in the Middle East, and after the MOSSAD 9/11 false-flag, to launch the USA’s ‘War of Terror’ on all humanity, in order to consolidate US, and therefore Zionazi as they control the USA (as Ariel Sharon boasted)hegemony over all the world.

Makropulos
Makropulos
Nov 4, 2018 9:33 AM

Thanks for this. It explains a lot. The little bubble of security that I (and everyone else in the west) grew up in over the last six or so decades is deflating rapidly although most media still seems to work on that old model.

Sorry to hear about Samir Amin’s death. He has written some great stuff – although his style tends to be concentrated and requires a lot of work. I’d recommend his “Liberal Virus: Permanent War and the Americanization of the World”.

The real problem is that the American ruling class have access to the most formidable weapons ever and have shown very clearly that they are prepared to use them. We are living in the presence of an increasingly paranoid infant with his hands on the doomsday machine.

Mulga Mumblebrain
Mulga Mumblebrain
Nov 4, 2018 8:57 PM
Reply to  Makropulos

The US ruling elite, particularly since the Zionazis gained total control over US politics and finance, is the most quintessentially Evil group of psychopaths that humanity has ever produced. They will destroy us, and soon.

p0000t
p0000t
Nov 4, 2018 8:42 AM

This is a valuable summing up of the situation which for me is The Problem, and needs this focus for the urgent political resistance movement.

白矛
白矛
Nov 4, 2018 7:43 AM

Always worth looking at MediaLens – very well informed and very active in scrutinising the media: example: http://www.medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/2018/876-israel-is-the-real-problem.html

Makropulos
Makropulos
Nov 4, 2018 9:44 AM
Reply to  白矛

Thanks for that link. A couple of days ago there was a depressingly typical BBC report about how the “Labour/anti-Semitism” issue “will not go away” ( I love it when they use the passive voice – as if these matters are somehow just happening without the media poking with a big stick). This involved an investigation by Scotland Yard into the Labour Party. Naturally Dame Hodge was brought out to do her little song and dance.

Antonym
Antonym
Nov 4, 2018 5:41 AM

This work by the Egyptian Marxist, Samir Amin, was first published in 2006
Dated; can’t find US imperialism so quiet too.

For up to date really quiet imperialism look no further than Xi -China: through out Africa but even more inland Asia with its “Belt and Road initiative” and its “string of pearls” on water. Examples of victims of this dept trap bait and hook scheme are respectively Pakistan and Sri Lanka. That is the populations, not the elites who got the goodies. There was some noise on the South China sea + 9 Dash map but money talks for the elites.

Mulga Mumblebrain
Mulga Mumblebrain
Nov 4, 2018 9:10 PM
Reply to  Antonym

The Zionazi race hatred for the Chinese goyim is very strong, as this creature illustrates with its racialist lies. First the Chinese do not worship Jews, as is mandatory in the slave regimes of the West, but treat them as fellow human beings. Secondly no Zionazi Fifth Column will ever take over China, as in the West. And the Chinese, while no doubt humanly sympathetic, do not buy the ‘Holocaust’ religion’s insistence that the murder of the Jews by the Nazis is the greatest human tragedy ever, that outweighs all other genocides and massacres in history. In the West the other genocides by the Nazis of Roma, Sinti, Soviet citizens and POWs, Poles, Slavs etc, are almost totally ignored, as are all the other genocides of history, while the ‘Holocaust’ is raised to the status of a pseudo-religion. The Chinese lost thirty million to Japanese genocide, so will be disinclined to accord the Jews the unique status among human populations that they DEMAND, and that makes the Zionazis such deadly enemies of China.

Antonym
Antonym
Nov 5, 2018 2:49 AM

So 14 million Jews can take over the Globe (except China) while 1400 million Chinese are to be ignored in the power field? Israel’s Nethanyahu depends on elections and politicking to stay in charge; China’s Xi is much more in control nationally. You deflection exercise is weak on numbers and facts.

As for your deflection:
The Chinese lost thirty million to Japanese genocide you write: Wikipedia’s low and high for whole East Asia and pacific are 3 and 14 million deaths https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_war_crimes#Mass_killings
You’ll need Mao Zedung to morph into Japanese to reach 30 million Chinese deaths due to WW II Japan.

The Holocaust affected >= 50% of all Jews then; WW II Japanese massacres affected <= 2% of all Chinese.

Mulga Mumblebrain
Mulga Mumblebrain
Nov 5, 2018 8:19 AM
Reply to  Antonym

Look! The Zionazi is a Chinese Holocaust denier. No surprise there.

Antonym
Antonym
Nov 5, 2018 9:18 AM
Reply to  Antonym

See here : Exposing China’s Overseas Lending : https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/china-opaque-foreign-development-loans-by-carmen-reinhart-2018-10

Why the secrecy, here is one reason: ISLAMABAD: The Senate was told on Friday that 91 per cent of the revenues to be generated from the Gwadar port as part of the China-Pakistan Econo­mic Corridor (CPEC) would go to China, while the Gwadar Port Authority would get 9pc share in the income for the next 40 years. https://www.dawn.com/news/1372695/china-to-get-91pc-gwadar-income-minister-tells-senate

Mulga Mumblebrain
Mulga Mumblebrain
Nov 5, 2018 8:22 PM
Reply to  Antonym

Just saw the Pakistani Finance Minister giving the lie to your Zionazi, race-hatred fueled, garbage. Debt to China is 10% of Pakistan’s external debt, much of which is to the Zionazi controlled IMF and World Bank, those ‘economic hit-men’ of the ‘Washington Consensus’. Of course racist hypocrites like you have NO problems with debt owing to those Evil organisations, or the conditions of austerity and social retrenchment that they have imposed on scores of countries over decades, but you get your racist dander rising if China dares lend money to the despised untermenschen, without the onerous and humiliating ‘conditionalities’ that the Western thugs insist on. You are such a vile hypocrite.

archie1954
archie1954
Nov 4, 2018 5:14 AM

Very succinct truth for all to understand and think about. The almighty US needs a comeuppance like no other. It has been long building but will be well worth it when it happens!

John G
John G
Nov 4, 2018 3:26 AM

Federal ‘liabilities’ are only liabilities in accounting terms. They are of little to no practical importance as the US government issues the US$.

Quoting a (paid by the oligarchy) nut job like Kotlikoff harms your own credibility.

vexarb
vexarb
Nov 4, 2018 4:58 AM
Reply to  John G

John G, I thought Rothschild’s private bank The Fed prints new U$ dollars and Uncle $cam buys them from Rothschild by laying more debt on future generations of U$ citizens? If this is incorrect I would be grateful for a correction because I know even less about economics than I do about politics.

jag37777
jag37777
Nov 4, 2018 8:01 PM
Reply to  vexarb

No. The Fed is a government agency. It does not ‘print’ US dollars. Nor does the US government borrow from it.
The very concept of a private Fed creating dollars to lend to government to earn dollars is absurd on its face.

vexarb
vexarb
Nov 5, 2018 5:15 AM
Reply to  jag37777

Jag: “The very concept of a private Fed creating dollars to lend to government to earn dollars is absurd on its face.”

I did not ask whether it was absurd but whether it is true. For instance, the very concept of such a great country as the USA being ruled in unbroken succession by the comic strip Joker criminals Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama and Trump is absurd but alas …

John G
John G
Nov 5, 2018 9:01 AM
Reply to  vexarb

Tell me why they would create dollars to lend so as to profit in dollars.

Then go and give yourself an uppercut. It’s ridiculous.

Thew government creates dollars by spending and extinguishes them by taxation. No $ are ‘borrowed’ in the process.

Nor does the government create dollars by ‘printing’. Bank notes are swapped for electronic (government) dollars with banks. They are merely representations of $ temporarily outside the Fed system.

Antonym
Antonym
Nov 5, 2018 5:28 AM
Reply to  vexarb

Why mention only Rothschild as FED influencing bankers, there are dozens of Americans involved. https://www.stlouisfed.org/in-plain-english/who-owns-the-federal-reserve-banks

Nobserver
Nobserver
Nov 4, 2018 8:42 AM
Reply to  John G

JohnG , a smple question, who owns the federal reserve bank?

If it i has only the state treasury as 100% shareholder – then you are correct.

If it is owned by anyone else – then you are incorrect. Accounting wise.

Vexard – if you are not yet aware of MMT – time to catch up! Economics has been made deliberately opaque and mystical to hide the plain truth of Money – how it is created and not completely destroyed in a ‘virtuous cycle’, unless it is hoarded by ‘bankers’ and plutocrats.

Time the world pulled it’s collective finger out, about the ineffectiveness of the UN charter. Lets start with getting their accounts and audit them – no such thing exists! No one knows what is spent or how it is funded. It is mostly a play thing of covert funds and operators and has no independent authority. The planet needs it, if life on Earth is to survive into the millenia ahead, with human civilisation disappearing into the sands like Ozymandaius.

Robbobbobin
Robbobbobin
Nov 6, 2018 2:03 AM
Reply to  Nobserver

“Vexard – if you are not yet aware of MMT – time to catch up!”

C9H7MnO3?

Robbobbobin
Robbobbobin
Nov 6, 2018 3:58 PM
Reply to  Robbobbobin

Testing, testing: C9H7MnO3.

Robbobbobin
Robbobbobin
Nov 6, 2018 4:02 PM
Reply to  Robbobbobin

Automattic WordPress subscript: FAIL

Hope K
Hope K
Nov 4, 2018 1:26 AM

I’ll have to check this book out. I friggin love Graham Greene. In fact, I just read the Quiet American a couple of months ago. Pyle was an educated idiot. Have you read Our Man in Havana? It’s hilarious. Somebody needs to remake that movie.

Francis Lee
Francis Lee
Nov 4, 2018 11:04 AM
Reply to  Hope K

The latest version of the movie was in 2004 with Michael Caine (Thomas Fowler) Brendan Fraser (Alden Pyle) together with the third person in a love triangle Do Thin Ha Yen, the beautiful mistress of Fowler with whom Pyle becomes besotted.

The earlier version was an old monochrome version made in 1958 starring Audie Murphy (Alden Pyle) and Michael Redgrave (Thomas Fowler) which in some ways is superior to the later version.