Is the United States an empire?
The history of the US is quite unique. It stretches more than two centuries of unabated expansion by conquest and annexation. First it spanned the continent from East to West, then it crossed the oceans. US Military bases are now established in 80 or more countries of 195 countries total. (Politifact: 130) The US turned from a militarist approach (Hawai 1893, Philippines, 1899, …) to a neo-colonial mode after 1945 that creates vassal states friendly to its corporate economic demands not just by gunboat diplomacy or invasion but increasingly by gray- and black operations - operations like regime change and by synthetic revolt (the ‘midwifed color revolutions'), strategies of tension and destabilization using false flags and pseudo-gangs, bribe-or-blackmail operations (see Jeremy Perkins) and social engineering / assassination.
As if organized naturally or by necessity, this 'hard power' is balanced like arms of a tweezer, by a ‘soft power’; the industry and institutions that mold the public mind to suit its pragmatism and long term goals, by indoctrination and psychological operations. This power is transmitted to the public in large part through agents in the established media, and media (cross-)ownership. Notably it employs (particularly in issues of State or foreign affairs) the inconspicuous propaganda of 'repressive tolerance' administered by a conformist bias media management, public gatekeepers (agents) and the formal or informal requests and guidelines (D-notices) issued by state security, that are to procure 'strategic omission', half-truth, distortion, distraction, repetition, meme- and myth building. The general strategy is to frame issues in ways that (taboo-) shrink the acceptable spectrum of public debate, while maximizing the charge and abundance of the debate - a case for group psychology that leads to perceived correctness, and conformity to the narrative preferred by one particular social group (the corporate class) that is otherwise known as ignorance engineering or 'artificial stupidity' - a benchmark for differential intelligence.
The art of soft power has been pioneered by Edward Bernays (aka. the father of ‘Public Relations’) and others like Walter Lippmann (writer / inventor of 'the stereotype', and memes like ‘the cold war’), from about a century ago and has been developed over time. Dr. Jaques Ellul presented an interesting review and warning with a French perspective in the book ‘Propaganda’ (1953) - about ‘myth built on factoids disseminated in education and entertainment’.
The US recovered from the depression of the twenties during WW2, as the result of Government spending. After WW2 it did not reforge cannons into plowshares. Instead, the US economy turned its business model to one of global conquest and war. As early as 1939 a secret study had been made that advised (to David Rockefeller and the CFR) of how to prepare to enter the post-war era and replace the European empires that would fall as the result of WW2 without the colonizer appearance. This endeavor of the corporate state was to be wrapped in its own flag as a banner of international benevolence: 'democracy, justice and freedom' (William F Engdahl), plus a stretched perception of liberal virtues. That faith has since WW2 materialized in a minority of cases.
Who would have thought that the US has been involved in four out of five armed conflicts since WW2? (252 total) Its wars destroyed the lives of tens of millions of people (not counting the suffering and disruption) - a higher toll than other conflicts combined. Has that come from its benevolence, policing the world? Not likely. The next working day after the death of president Kennedy, the Pentagon’s logistics department received a tenfold war plan (projecting 57 000 veteran casualties) to replace JFK’'s plans for retreat. This as well as Eisenhower's warning of the emerging military industrial complex (MIC), suggests that other people than diplomats and politicians dictate US foreign policy in a coherent way, like a Deep State / shadow government. This millennium has seen another astute policy disruption in 2001, prior to the regime-changes and destabilization of large regions around Europe as foretold in Pentagon’s (2001) plan to take down ‘seven countries in five years’ leaked by General Clark (2007).
During the past decades the US military and State security institutions (in tandem with some US Corporations and foreign allies) have supported and organized the emergence of failed states, burdened states and regime changed states in a rim of countries around Europe and Israel (think of Libya, Syria, Ukraine, Yemen, Egypt etc). Involved were agents, local affiliates, NGO’s, billionaire funds (philanthropy), ultra-nationals and proxy mercenary armies like AlQaeda, Isis, some Neo-Nazi’s (extremist) out of sight of the media lens.
Who is aware that a ‘'belt’' of US foreign bases encircles China, Russia and Iran. There are over 800 such bases worldwide. Who recalls that the US tore up the cornerstone of NATO’s security infrastructure - the ABM treaty. (December 13, 2001) No discussion! Offers to wield a new European security structure’, one that was verifiable by both sides, were scoffed at by Nato throughout the new millennium.
General Clark 'a policy coup sept 2001'
These are not speculations, these are secrets only for those waking up to these taboos. Not for Washington insiders and old school investigators like Stephen Cohen, Paul C Roberts, Eric Zuesse, Michael Chossudovski, Seymour Hersh (exposed MiLai, Abugraib), Chris Hedges (ex NYT), John Pilger (ex Guardian) Karel van Wolferen (ex-NRC), Kees van der Pijl (University of Sussex), still visible online (sites like OffGuardian) and alt channels - like Really Graceful (YT). Long lists of suggestions: unz.co | criticalthink.
Who is aware of these facts? Not too many people. That is soft power protecting hard power from disobedience. CIA directors Casey and Colby both made explicit statements to this effect, as have various insiders like J E Hoover (FBI) and William Blum. They confirm that the content of Western media is colored by the State, and truth is of the least concern. A recent book, ‘Journalists for hire’ by the retired German Publisher Ulfkotte exposed behind the scenes soft power dominance and some of its excess in journalism.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Skv4tYZM_VQ
Publisher Ulfkotte explains.
Issues as the above may not have been mentioned in your news feed, for obvious reasons. Perhaps once or twice, or not in context. But strikingly, there is ample airtime for harmless diversions, opinions and speculative estimations etc on which we build fact-free conclusions that stir anger or fear. Day after day, like gospel in secular world this propaganda in camouflage (molded for effectiveness) saturates our senses and keeps us occupied, aroused or opinionated. It effectively creates conformity and action throughout society, and it foots the bill of the war machine and a financial cabal while it has brought WW3 on the horizon. Through a process resembling selective breeding in a cultured bubble the best indoctrinated people have become media managers themselves and with them a political class, the decision makers. Educated people belong to the most indoctrinated class, prone to a paralysis of reason. With terms like ‘creative destruction’ and ‘protecting jobs’ one can address them on television about the murder, destruction and dispossession of another society for war profit (media clip) without stirring the slightest uproar - as if we have entered a state of group psychosis, the pride of 'perception management'.
Interventions by the US tend to be heavy-handed. Nonetheless their objectives are notoriously light-headed. Were there any WMD’s in Iraq? Was the regime installed in Seoul in 1948 democratic? Were babies ‘thrown from incubators’ in Kuwait in 1991? Was the Tonkin incident real? Did Gaddafi bomb his own people? Did we contain the USSR, and prevent 'domino’s’ to fall (after Vietnam)? Was security served by keeping NATO in full swing after the Warsaw pact ended - and cheering crowds invited US economists to run Russia for a decade? (until it brought Russian life expectancy down by eight years) Is a 'war on terror' realistic? …that is all to be debated, but as soft-power attributes such tools have been unrivaled.
The US' interventions are particularly noted for two traits: to be illegal and ineffective. Nonetheless, they are positively effective for finance and corporate suppliers to government. These economic interests keep the wheel spinning at the expense of the (largely ignorant) taxpayer by unlimited financial access to Congress. Omnipresent in circles of power, and throughout all parties, is the war party - supremacists allergic to diplomacy (dead set against Moscow-Berlin cooperation), never they saw a conflict they did not like. Popular General Smedley Butler warned of this already in ‘War is a Racket’ (1932).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Skv4tYZM_VQ
Webster Tarpley brings you up to speed on demonization, pseodo-gangs and false flags
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYWdzigyzNk
Bill Hicks about how USA arms smaller countries and the Kennedy assassination
In line with the (Neocon) Wolfowitz doctrine (1992) the US accepts NO equals in international relations - no partners. (vassals, despots or extremists will do) In promoting its principles around the world while achieving the opposite, the US is in a league of its own. It has destabilized, coerced, and controlled other nations (except Israel) as it saw fit: 40 countries have been regime-changed while it interfered in the elections of at least 80 countries since 1945. On balance is is safe to say that this has had a less than constructive result for humanity.
[While foreign peoples suffer its interventions, US war veterans commit suicide at a remarkable rate (over 20 per day). Welfare is another casualty of the war machine. Poverty has reached nearly every second US citizen while the middle class strugggles . Even life expectancy is declining (to differ about ten years between social strata) and still most of the discretionary spending is directed to the military, a tenfold spending above any rival nation - and recently increased when ‘the joint commanders attested to the house committee they could not win a WW3 ‘as swiftly as desired’.]
But regardless of this controversial militarism and its costs to civil society, the ultimate goal may not be lost according to Neocons and their heartland theory (which holds a promise of glory to the conqueror of the Eurasian continent). So Washington's interference on multiple fronts can be seen as a tip toe to global hegemony or as a ‘new world order’. The latter has been the object all along of those seeking to abolish ‘sovereignty’, organized since 1923 in the institute of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) - a think-tank / politbureau under corporate patronage that provides counsel, and policy advisers to the US government.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUQaNJILTdg
Alternative Views 334. WHO RULES AMERICA? (PART I) (1987)
In the New World Order 'economy and politics are integrated’ and ultimately brought under a World Government for which the UN and the EU are prototypes. The scenario is well on its way according to David Rockefeller (a goodread) some time ago. The ultimate sole opponent of this NWO, when China and Russia would be integrated (after Syria-Iran had fallen) would be the People. In this plan, under planet wide surveillance, the general population (unfit for self rule say pseudo-democrats the likes of David Hume) is to be ‘protected from itself’ and to be governed (through the facade of state institutions) by private corporations who themselves are to be controlled ‘in feudal fashion‘ (literally, p. 324), by the ‘apex’ of a world financial system consisting of a patriarchy of private corporations. [Barack Obama once referred to that stealth bankers crusade as ‘thought leaders’ with a long term ‘investment’ - not to mention G H W Bush.]
This NWO globalism actually seems to make progress in bringing various social parties in the orbit of the oligarch patriarchs. Political agendas are harmonized, original and charismatic thinkers with a positive agenda are marginalized and so are the indigenous people and everyone who does not fit a preferred profile. (An Orwellian 1984) The world’s cultures blend in a consumers mold. The new French president for instance recognizes ‘no such thing as French culture’. The phone-tapped president of (occupied) Germany, Angela Merkel, regularly aligns Europe with Atlantic goals to the detriment of European trade or security. Social and Economic policy in the EU, is a ‘democracy free zone’ as Yanis Varoufakis the Greek ex-minister of finance explained (TED talk). 'Tending the shop' is the preferred 'ideology-free' attitude today for any EU president. While soft-power blurs the view, wars are waged at will from a distance. Sovereignty can be sold off quietly to relieve austerity-engineered poverty - 'poverty a neo-liberal business model that is to wipe the bankers' tears since 2008'.
How has that come about? Shareholder capitalism in contrast to Adam Smith's liberalism has its roots in the late 19th century when ‘the corporation’ was elevated above the mortal individual by judicial privileges and lenient taxes. (This happened at the initiative of John D Rockefeller.) Before that, such corporate privileges were limited to projects dedicated for public benefit. This way and perhaps by the financial weight of the acolytes of the Rhodes Trust (endowed with spreading ‘the virtues of the British Empire’, later to be the virtues of capitalism itself) the Corporations have been able to grow richer than countries. They now exert a major influence over the political system of many countries. Still new laws creep up without clear justification that increase that imbalance, and never a law is passed against banking interests, even if it is patently detrimental to the economy - like the audacious financing of bailouts (via government debt) by imposing austerity on its victims.
While American corporations own half the wealth of the US, the US owns about half the wealth of the world. 147 corporations with particularily strong interconnections have accidentally been found to be capable to sway policy in a majority of global corporations. (like a mob)
A hidden structure in the madness shows through, in patterns and detail. The central bank, the Federal Reserve cannot be audited by Congress. (clip) Even its owners are a secret. It is not Federal except in name. In the exact words of its ex-president Alan Greenspan '…The FED is an independent agency. The FED, unlike any other agency of government …' 'Other'? While it is an independent agency? That contradicts with 'government'. In fact the FED is a cartel of private banks that has a money creation monopoly since 1913. (read: The Creature, this monopoly was granted because the majority of voters in Congress intended to regulate the bankers by a Federal System, not grant a monopoly.) The wordplay has been instrumental for its existence and it still is. It implies that the FED operates with finesse from behind the curtain of democracy, through the President, through Congress and their institutions. It creates business cycles and can set conditions suitable for war. (The FED enabled England and the US to continue the second half of WW so Germany’s offers for a truce could be dismissed.)
https://youtu.be/ol3mEe8TH7w?t=7m40s
Alan Greenspan
To a liberal US interventionist, International law is a hindrance, so we adhere to ‘international norms’ instead. A carpet of new US laws has emerged that obscure civil rights and the constitution, while a control substructure is engineered (a ’turn-key tyranny’ - in the words of Edward Snowden) via budgets wrapped in acts and orders (such as the NDAA) and clandestine operations that legislators are often not fully aware of.
[Similarly in Europe, EU president Junker: 'We keep adding directives. And if not contested, they are turned into law'. The moderator, the EU Parliament is only a working council with no power to reverse laws, so National governments are eroded, and this gradually leaves the citizen deprived of sovereignty and any means to hold one accountable. - Sue Governance? That is where the corporate friendly trade agreements come in to help spend more.]
Where does it lead? A patriarch’s dream at the end of this road you can find in detail in the biography of the Council on Foreign Relations, Tragedy and Hope, by Dr. Caroll Quigley. The author, a mentor of Bill Clinton, himself welcomed such a cultural revolution - albeit by a slow transition.
So yes. I’d say the United States is an empire - of the few.
“Too often, we judge other groups by their worst examples - while judging ourselves by our best intentions. And this has strained our bonds of understanding and common purpose.”
These insights from a presidential speech writer (2003) depicts accurately how some parties are viewed consistently through the lens of our established media - our dependent, industrial (single bias) media, the lens we rely on for understanding the world. So it is helpful to expand the range of news sources and perspectives beyond the usual. This helps discern fact from fiction in politics and everyday life. To find omissions in the mainstream narrative we need insights from beyond these familiar institutions, beyond the Washington post and The Guardian, beyond the mono culture we are immersed in with its dedicated stereotypes, labels, myth and our learned social reflexes.
You feel like we are in the ‘'wrong train’' …to an empire of illusion?
That is right. But there are exits before destination, so fear not. It is time to wake your fellow traveler.
West Wind
[To find the facts that matter you probably need the widest array of information. I tend to look for the full spectrum of opinion on an issue, to find opposing voices and check for background information and disinformation. Primary documents (unredacted material) and witness testimony with authentic details bring insight by comparison - using detective logic. Online search is great and the comment box, awesome!]
