America’s influential neocons and their liberal-hawk sidekicks want U.S. interventions pretty much everywhere, but other powers are chafing against this U.S. “global policeman,” as ex-CIA official Graham E. Fuller explains.
By Graham E. Fuller
Global disorder is on the rise. What can the U.S. do about it? There are two fundamentally different approaches one can take — it all depends on your philosophy of how the world works.
U.S. Army forces operating in southern Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom, Apr. 2, 2003 (U.S. Navy photo)
The first school thinks primarily in terms of law, order and authority: it accepts the need for a global policeman. The second school is more willing to let regional nations take the initiative to eventually work things out among themselves. Both schools possess advantages and disadvantages. Something called Balance of Power politics lies halfway between the two.
Global policemen nominate themselves from among the ranks of the most powerful — and ambitious — states of the world. Over the last half century the U.S. has assumed this role — but a significant shift is already under way. In Washington this school argues that growing American disinclination to assert order is a key reason for a more chaotic world. From the end of World War II to the fall of the USSR in 1991 Washington had shared, reluctantly, that role with the Soviet Union — rivals but both unwilling to let the world spin out of control into chaos and nuclear war. Then, after the fall of the USSR, the U.S. triumphantly assumed the role of “the world’s sole superpower.” In an earlier century the British Empire played the same role, although contested by Germany, France and others.
In Washington right now, neoconservatives and liberal interventionists (export democracy, by gunpoint if necessary) lead the charge against what they see as U.S. abandonment of its moral duty, leaving the world in the lurch. Their list of American failed duties is long: if only we had moved earlier to remove the Kim dynasty in North Korea, or Assad in Syria, or blocked the referendum that reincorporated Crimea into Russia, or brought about regime change in Iran, or backed Saudi Arabia against Qatar to keep the Gulf from splitting, or employed sufficient force to put an end to civil conflict in Afghanistan, or backed Ukraine to the hilt against Russia, pressed more vigorously in Venezuela, established firmer lines in the China Sea, warned Philippine leader Dutarte off from his murderous anti-drug policies, and intervened to prevent looming Ethiopian-Somali-Eritrean war in the strategic Horn of Africa, etc. The list of U.S. duties, neglected in the eyes of this school of “benign” intervention, is endless.
Troubling Questions
Yet this perspective raises troubling questions:
Iraqi children caught in the ongoing chaos of Iraq. (Photo credit: Cathy Breen)
–Is the U.S. willing to perpetually expend its blood and treasure around the world in military and covert interventions to remove undemocratic leaders — or simply leaders we don’t like? Simply to maintain U.S. pre-eminence? What is the overall gain in a cost-benefit analysis?
–How acceptable are the opportunity costs of such interventions — as opposed to better use of U.S. taxpayer money domestically?
–How much can the U.S. really prevent the rise of other powers with their increasing sense of their own interests and entitlements? Small powers are willing to sacrifice quite a lot when it involves interests on their doorstep — compared to limited American enthusiasm for intervention across an ocean for dubious gain.
–How do we respond to rising weapons technology abroad which increasingly circumscribes U.S. freedom of action? Nuclear weapons employ technology from the mid-Twentieth Century. And by now many powers are developing a meaningful cyber capability against rivals and opponents. To a cyber-warrior the world is a candy store of targets. Ditto for drones — simple technology spreading fast, capable of inflicting potentially great damage.
The counter-perspective to the global policeman accepts the reality of new powers arising all around us. There is little we can do to prevent them. We increasingly face major alternative power centers out there. China, a non-player for the last hundred years or more (unlike in much earlier centuries), is formidably back on the scene and asserting political, economic and cultural power. China even assumes a new degree of global leadership functions, some of which contain positive features.
Europe, after over a century of murderous and suicidal wars, is finally back on its feet representing perhaps the most progressive political grouping in the world. With a lot of soft and hard power Europe feels increasingly independent.
Russia has a global vision stemming from centuries of exercising power widely across Eurasia, and in the Cold War, as a “global super-power.” Its diplomatic and military power far overshadows its poor economy, but it is willing to pay the cost to be part of the global game. As with China, Russia is not entirely a negative factor on the world scene either, except to those U.S. hawks reluctant to compromise with any alternative power.
Additionally the world is witnessing more and more medium powers asserting their interests in their own regions than the U.S. or the Soviet Union would ever have “permitted” during the Cold War. Today that list includes states like India, Brazil, Japan, South Korea, Turkey, Iran, Canada, and South Korea with strong perceptions of their own interests.
Many Flashpoints
Any world policeman today faces a growing number of flashpoints beyond its capabilities. Many are ugly and may cost lives of millions of people. Humanitarian crises will continue to abound (like Palestine, Yemen, South Sudan, the Congo, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Myanmar, Afghanistan, global refugees.)
President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney receive an Oval Office briefing from CIA Director George Tenet. Also present is Chief of Staff Andy Card (on right). (White House photo)
Global warming and environmental degradation create powerful refugee mills that produce millions of hungry and angry have-nots. U.S. intervention is not designed to cope with these issues.
And then routine intervention by a world policeman also creates another major negative: the continued political infantilization of so many countries in the world. Routine U.S. intervention invariably leads to warring parties who prefer in the end to deal with Washington rather than with their own rivals for power. We see this repeatedly, most recently in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Ukraine and elsewhere where factions prefer to manipulate Washington to get what they want rather than face local realities. The Gulf States today are similarly playing Washington against Iran rather than communicating.
So a difficult and deeper issue arises: should most countries and peoples be “allowed” to stew in their own juices? To settle their own issues? Should they not take local responsibility? Doesn’t political maturity arise from being compelled to deal with rivals within a country, or a region? Remember, everybody in the world is eager to enlist the U.S. to fight on its side. Didn’t it take two hideous World Wars (preceded by many uglier centuries before then) before war-like Europeans finally figured out that enough was enough, and created alternative mechanisms for dealing with each other? Yet now it is an article of faith in European politics that war in Europe must be unthinkable.
Do problems have to “ripen” (to use that ugly political science term) before warring factions decide it is simply too damaging, dangerous, costly — even immoral — to press the conflict forward?
In a thoughtful and skillfully-argued recent essay, long-time journalist and conservative geopolitical observer and thinker Robert Kaplan shows himself to be in the first camp: the indispensable need for imposed law and order.
He argues that only continuing American commitment to its deepest international ideals is what makes the U.S. what it is; that if we fail to uphold our ideals we are left with no organizing national principle — and thus no national purpose. (Never mind that these “ideals” are upheld on a highly selective, transient, cherry-picked basis.)
Dubious Neocon Logic?
But do we really believe that the U.S. will atrophy as a society in the absence of “maintaining global values?” It would be sad to think that U.S. greatness depends on constant intervention and war in the name of the global order.
Barack Obama and George W. Bush at the White House.
How long can the U.S. go on “generously,” supplying international order? Perhaps we are indeed doomed to watch an increasingly Darwinian world out there, operating without Big Brother. But the handwriting is on the wall: few in the world still support American policing of the world — or perhaps policing by any single state.
If policing is required (and there may be an occasional role for it), it will ever more likely involve a consortium of major international players — at a bare minimum the European Union, China, and Russia. The United Nations Security Council, when it can agree, also plays an important role. Indeed, these three powers are determined to deny the U.S. any further monopoly of international power. And that was true before Trump.
In the end, how do we think about history? A process of gradual advancement? Or anarchy kept at bay only by great powers? Does history have any “meaning,” any trajectory? Or, as an earlier British statesman debunked the whole notion: “history is just one damn thing after another.”
If we believe that permanent conflict is simply a fundamental element of the human condition, then the argument for a policeman gains weight. But from now on international policing is going to be shared — like it or not. And however “inefficient” it may be.
After all, there aren’t many “benign” hegemons around any more to do the job — if they ever existed.
Graham E. Fuller is a former senior CIA official, author of numerous books on the Muslim World; his latest book is Breaking Faith: A novel of espionage and an American’s crisis of conscience in Pakistan. (Amazon, Kindle) grahamefuller.com
“So a difficult and deeper issue arises: should most countries and peoples be “allowed” to stew in their own juices? To settle their own issues? Should they not take local responsibility? Doesn’t political maturity arise from being compelled to deal with rivals within a country, or a region? Remember, everybody in the world is eager to enlist the U.S. to fight on its side. Didn’t it take two hideous World Wars (preceded by many uglier centuries before then) before war-like Europeans finally figured out that enough was enough, and created alternative mechanisms for dealing with each other? Yet now it is an article of faith in European politics that war in Europe must be unthinkable.”
Stay our of foreign entanglements? George Washington thought so. But the operative word was entanglement, not constructive participation. It does not mean we should be isolationists but constructive participants when asked. It means good faith efforts to restrict and roll back the arms trade and nuclear disarmament by all powers. Share out largesse, even profit from it.Today, it would mean a Marshall Plan for the Middle East to rebuild what we were instrumental in destroying. First and foremost, a change in our worldview and a purging of institutions who survive and thrive by promoting conflict. Easy to see all that as pie in the sky. Easy to know who likes things as they are and won’t go quietly into the night. Though a slave owner, our first president was a pretty smart guy.
rt: US never really planned to leave Afghanistan
https://www.rt.com/politics/400527-us-never-really-planned-to/
Just three thoughts… 1. The U.S. is utterly unfit to be a global leader and therefore a policeman. Both require virtue, something this country never had. 2. This country has been at war for almost its entire history and all wars were for political and economic gain. 3. The U.S. functions more like the firefighter who commits arson at night so he can fight it during the day.
Nice analogy, Beverly. I think most of us agree that the U.S. should not be trying to fill the role of world policeman. But I, for one, think that the world needs a policeman….no, not Russia, China, the EU or U.S. It has to be a democratized and empowered United Nations.
This will only happen when the U.N. gets reformed. The U.N. charter provides for a “charter review” 10 years from its founding. This, of course, has never happened…because the U.S., Russia, China, France and the U.K. have prevented it from happening…they don’t want to give up the veto. The veto is the main reason the Security Council has not been able to assume the role of world policeman.
It is time for the peace-loving nations of the world, such as the Scandinavian countries, Costa Rica and New Zealand to demand that the General Assembly institute the long over-due charter review. There are other reforms needed in the U.N., but elimination of the veto is the biggie.
New Pepe Escobar … linked in next comment
One thing I haven’t seen mentioned in a long time, and I’m not sure how much consensus there is about it in the first place, however …. the Chinese one-belt one-road was conceived and implemented “in part” in ANTICIPATION of (almost inevitable) American aggression complicating ocean transport of goods even with “international waters” … As Japan learned in WWII (and England and German notably experienced as well), a blockade or embargo can upset not just the availability of goods but also the national “bottom line” … Japan’s access to petroleum products was interrupted … etc. China needs to keep raw materials and finished goods in circulation … and Russia also certainly “appreciated” the infrastructure to be developed for their market expansion plans.
By going overland and enlisting/contracting/investing in the dozen or so countries along the route (with redundancies and detours built-in), the United State alone or in coalition will be near-helpless to embargo China, but all of those countries (who will then have more freedom of choice, minus that Damocles sword).
Even the recent fracas in Qatar saw British petroleum tankers taking the long way around the horn rather than risk getting caught up in the Arab Gulf / Suez Canal, adding — irrc — almost 2 weeks to arrival time …
If you’ve worked in “forward thinking” organizations, you likely first experienced the just-in-time inventory-free 20-30 years ago, point being that (likely neoliberal concept) that having an inventory or reserve was money sitting around doing nothing … the crunch comes when you desperately need something NOW and it’s simply not available (like gasoline at a reasonable price to keep interstate truckers moving) …
forewarned is forearmed, Clinton’s book all-about-the-election is going to hit the market in September and is already being previewed … yuck, yuck, yuck yuck … the Obama(s) book(s) do not yet have a release date so I’m guessing not this year, not this holiday season (leave their books apparently next year’s Must Buy Present under the Christmas Tree)
and … Clinton looks likely to further damage the party … yesterday’s sneak peek was all about how Trump was “creepy” and physicially intimidating during the debates … and why she didn’t call-him-out-on-his-shit … like Princess Diana, I stopped caring years ago.
Anyway … thought it was worth a mention … Guardian has a good history of neoliberalism in yesterday’s paper …
pepe: Counterpunch: https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/08/24/korea-afghanistan-and-the-never-ending-war-trap/
Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/aug/18/neoliberalism-the-idea-that-changed-the-world
Very dificult(especilay in a poor englsih) to explain why “we” europeans are stunned by this so ameriacn voice …i could pick up so many words which show the author sincerly thinks his so ameriacn point of vue of the world is reality and… not at all for “us”. It s just chocking, crude, childish but it comes from someone aware of some “disfonctions” at least… We feel like talking to americans who still live in the 80’s and we just give up trying to show things happened these last decades. things showing how wrong were the american way of understanding the world, and consequently how negative and destructive were us foreign policies. What the point of arguing when we are not talking the same language ? Let s just hope the man will be heard by americans. honestly we do not beleive it anymore.
The whole phony American narrative justifying intervention in foreign countries goes like this: We are the patriarchal parents of mankind. This is the onerous white man’s burden we have reluctantly taken on. The primitive others of the world are like wayward children. If they would only obey us (and give us their resources) then we would not have to spank them to make them be good. So goes the false logic of self-justifying tyrannical, abusive nations like America.
Exactly right, mike k. I wish to add that there is no better example of this collective, reprobate mindset for intervention than the disastrous 1991 Gulf War … and the pivot to global cop that immediately followed. It is critical to recall that this war to intervene to punish a disobedient Saddam Hussein occurred at the same time that the Soviet Union was disintegrating. While the MIC establishment could have been wise (sic), and allowed the once-allied-but-now-rogue Hussein to keep some Kuwaiti oilfields, and to direct aid to Russia for the development of its untapped oil reserves, they instead elected tragically to teach would-be ‘rogue conqueror’ Saddam a lesson (which is ‘who’s the boss?’) And the result was a (wholly disproportionate-to-the-offense) genocide against Iraq.
Given the complete lack of moral authority for punishing Iraq in the first place (we denied his peaceful retreat from Kuwait, had given him a green light, had supplied him with chem/bio weaponry, and had been secretly aiding both sides in his prior war with Iran), observers like myself knew we had set in motion the cycle of revenge that would doom our nation as we are seeing today. I and certain others (a small minority at the time) never got on board and tried to persuade, to no avail, our senators to vote against the 1991 war authorization by Congress, which passed the Senate 52 to 48. The warning was that a strong, ‘noble’, Arab prince would rise up and deliver the Arab peoples from the treacherous, greedy foreign destroyers, and bring a belated grim retaliatory attack upon us. I myself predicted 1999, and warned my governor, too, in a treatise (Bill Clinton.) The die was cast.
What followed a few months later was the collapse of the Soviet Union. While wise people in the U.S. clamored for a deserved “peace dividend” as a result of winning the Cold War, I watched (on C-SPAN) as a gaggle of generals persuaded Congress to limit the number of base closures, and adopt our present new role as world policeman. What a waste.
Writing an article titled ” America’s ‘Global Policeman’ Role ” is an exercise in fakery and deception. A more believable title would be ” America’s Role As International Gangster ” or simply ” America’s Role As Global Bully” . Do we forget LBJ’s Vietnam War to create profits for the Military Industrial Complex ? Do we forget Bush’s neocon plans to destroy numerous Islamic countries for the sake of oil, pipelines, minerals, war profiteering, zionist agenda, and military mayhem in general? Are we so brain dead that we can pretend that the American Government did not murder 3,000 of its own people on 9/11/2001, not to mention thousands of its servicemen and millions of civilians overseas ?
The idea of a global cop is offensive enough in any case but made a lot worse when that cop is a crazed corrupt criminal who has no interest in enforcing or abiding by genuine international law.
see also — self-appointed.
AMERICA FUCK YEAH!!!! sorry lol i can’t help saying that everytime i see a post about this ;p
Is Mr Fuller’s article here to “provide balance”? It has no other virtue so far as I can see, except the usual diagnostic one.
Yes, I was quite dismayed by the viewpoints, clichés & fallacies in Graham Fuller’s article & wondered WHY Consortium News published it; however, many of the comments are most delicious & quite worthy to read.
I think it is a given.. no matter the empire at the time, that empire leadership always kill all and take all
Chaos is a threat if and only if the people whom the governments try to rule allow it.
Not yet invented is a world where the governed rule the ACTORS who operate in the name of nation state governments. The governed people cannot determine the nation state government itself, but the governed people can police those who operate the nation state governments.
If the governed people organise, outside of all of the nation state governments, to police the streets and to prevent public chaos among themselves, then the governed can prevent chaos as a nation state crowd control weapon is neutralised. Importantly, the nation state governed people in every nation need a common universal standard of justice. From that standard of justice (an International Law regulating those who govern (ILRTWG) a whole system of forcing actors in actors in nation state positions to behave can be developed ILRTWG would allow people to act, independent of nation state governments, to try in court and punish convicted nation state offenders, in a manner, and from resources, totally independent of a nation state organised government. A ILRTWG court would arraign, try, and render judgement against all Nation state Actors charged by any citizen governed by a nation state government. ( I think much like the operating system “Linux” was developed, the people of the world should organise to develop the LRTWG, and to figure ways to fund courts, penal facilties and to enforce judgements of the ILRTWG courts.
So a LRTWG court does not try anyone not an actor or a person acting in privity to nation state government or one of its political sub-divisions.
Outer laws and courts and prisons will not change hearts and minds in the ways that alone can produce a world at peace.
To get there, the US would have to accept the ICC jurisdiction by signing the Treaty of Rome. Instead, the US not only refuses to sign it, but is the only nation that has passed a law to militarily attack the Hague if it prosecutes a US citizen for war crimes.
So it is necessary to get rid of the US oligarchy to establish international law. That cannot be done in the US because the oligarchy already controls mass media and elections, the tools of democracy. It also controls the UN in many decisions. So the BRICS nations and others must embargo the US, refuse its currency, and oppose its warmongering everywhere. This will be the world history of the next 20-80 years, the anti-US 21st century.
Sam F-
“So the BRICS nations and others must embargo the US, refuse its currency,…” That formula is just as likely to start WWIII as it is to undo the power of the oligarchy. I think we need a grassroots revolution, a new populist third party, and a constitutional convention. We must get rid of these basta**ds ourselves.
The US oligarchy is only the junior branch of the old oligarchy to be found operating in Europe and Britain. They are already moving to destroy USA in their “Maidan II” operation here. If successful, there won’t be any 20 to 80 years of anti-US world history, and the main oligarchy will have accomplished their strategic goal of PREVENTING any alliance between USA, Russia, and China, which is the ONLY effective way to destroy oligarchy, both the main branch in Euro-Britain and its junior branch in USA. Russia and China won’t be able to do it without us, and they’ll be broken by the main branch oligarchy in time, with us eliminated. Just which side are you working for? (from EIR website).
Yes, I don’t think the real oligarchs are beholden to any nation. They are globalists, and their power comes from the banks and the multi-national corporations. They seek to subvert any government from representing its citizens. It will take a real grassroots revolution to bring them to heel.
Yes, we certainly need a grassroots revolution, a populist third party, and a constitutional convention to get rid of oligarchy ourselves. It appears that the oligarchy mass media and election funding could prevent that indefinitely until they are isolated, discredited, and intimidated, which may require continuing recessions to motivate and arouse the public. Recessions may require economic coercion by BRICS and others, such as economic (rather than physical) embargoes, but one could argue that this would actually boost and broaden the US economy.
Like American Police forces in America, the World American Police force shoots Brown people in the back.
“Global disorder is on the rise. What can the U.S. do about it?” writes Fuller above.
Most of this, if not all, global disorder is created by U.S. What U.S. can do is stop it: close it’s bases abroad, dismantle NATO, stop all the Wars, and work with other major world powers, and U.N. to solve the World problems. I am sure there will be positive results right away.
Also, spending that money at home will help to have a good health care system for the entire population, and help rebuild Industrial Manufacturing base of the country. And it will improve race relations too.
Exactly.
Does America have values?
Perhaps as many 20 million people killed in US wars, coups, sanctions SINCE WW2 and many more millions displaced.
The conflagration of destruction in the Middle East, is that an American Value?
I get shivers when people talk about American values.
It seems that domination, profit and access to other peoples resources are the “values” that make America great.
Right on. Excellent. Why can’t the sheeple see that? Propaganda has clouded their minds. Sports, TV, sex, booze and drugs are too absorbing to leave time for study and reflection.
Horse ****!
The author cannot be unaware that the US of A is directly or slightly indirectly responsible for most if not all of those “flashpoints”.
I’m not at all sure what Mr. Fuller is peddling here.
Horses are not nearly as dirty as some humans.
Graham Fuller sees a world where all conflicts are caused only by local warring parties. It’s a world where innocent American leaders look on, wondering “why can’t people just get along?” before they feel compelled to intervene to fix other counties’ problems.
The biggest accusation that he makes against the USA is that maybe it’s misguided and should instead let other counties sort out their own issues. But still, its intentions are well-meaning, as he sees it.
The reality of American intervention is completely different. Most of the major wars in the world have been a direct result of military, political and financial support from the USA. Much of this has been provided to fanatical war-mongers who would otherwise have very little opportunity to cause trouble, if they did not serve American geo-political interests.
Mr Fuller should already know all of this this. As a CIA official in the 1980’s he advocated intervention in various parts of the Middle East.
In his 1983 document “Bringing Real Muscle to Bear Against Syria”, Mr Fuller wrote:
“Syria at present has a hammerlock on US interests both in Lebanon and in the Gulf — through closure of Iraq’s pipeline thereby threatening Iraqi internationalization of the [Iran-Iraq] war. The US should consider sharply escalating the pressures against Assad through covertly orchestrating simultaneous military threats against Syria from three border states hostile to Syria: Iraq, Israel and Turkey.”
Now doesn’t much of that sound familiar, three decades later?
Mr Fuller was also the author of a document recommending covert arms supplies to Iran, according to the New York Times in 1988:
“Mr. Fuller’s name came to public attention last year when it was disclosed that he was the author of a ”think piece” circulated in the intelligence community in May 1985 suggesting the possiblity of pursuing openings in Iran.
The study was instrumental in persuading some top-ranking Reagan Administration policy makers to begin considering covert contacts with Iranian leaders. It eventually led to the covert sale of United States weapons to Teheran in what became the Iran-contra affair.”
Continuity of Agenda: Destroying Syria Since 1983 : https://journal-neo.org/2017/02/20/continuity-of-agenda-destroying-syria-since-1983/
“Bringing Real Muscle to Bear Against Syria” : https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP88B00443R001404090133-0.pdf
Washington Talk: Briefing; C.I.A. Secrets Washington Talk: Briefing; C.I.A. Secrets : http://www.nytimes.com/1988/02/15/us/washington-talk-briefing-cia-secrets.html
Fuller Memorandum : https://pt35b.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/memorandum_1985_gfuller.pdf
No way is he that dumb.
Thanks for the fuller exposure of Fuller. Digging deeper uncovers the truth.
Fuller, the perpetual spin doctor, creating another false choice paradigm.
Either we accept the necessity of the US police state imposing law and order, or we accept chaos and the breakdown of civilization.
How does Afghanistan’s heroin trade, the slave markets in Libya, or the rise of terrorism in the middle east, all occurring after, not before US intervention, fit into your narrative?
Heroin trade in Afghanistan has been going on since the 1800s under British Empire auspices. It is such a lucrative product (now for the Inter-Alpha group of banks , centered in London) that the British Empire farmed out their slave trade to the Spanish and Portuguese Empires (Yankee traders, the Essex County Junto crowd, got a piece of the slave trade and opium trade action). The British Empire fought opium wars with China when China tried to say “no thanks” to opium ruining their people. Talaban interrupted the opium business sparking this most recent war(contrary to opinion, America is the lap dog of City-of London and Inter-Alpha Group of Euro-Brit financiers. When they tell us go to war, via interlocked intelligence communities, we go to war, having nothing to do with our actual national interests). Nixon got the brilliant idea to just pay off the poppy growers to not grow poppies. He got run outta town for that one. American is just the latest sucker to get sucked into the Euro-Brit Empire business (with many willing Anglophile participants, unfortunately. They’re the children of the Tories, not the Patriots, of 1776).
As for the rest of your charges, this is ALL the doings of those ideological descendants of all those Euro-Brit Empires working to keep any Muslim Empires from reawakening…no more Ottomans from the Balkans to Algiers. Again this has NOTHING to do with actual U.S. interests, just suckered in again to doing the dirty work of Empire for the Euro-Brits (Campaigner Trump was RIGHT on that charge…not so sure about President Trump), again via INTERLOCKED intelligence communities;the “Five Eyes” (when our Intel community was taken over by MI6 and their NAZI field assets, with the help of the Dulles brothers, right after FDR died). We have virtually NO U.S. interests outside of North America; and interests in the total Western Hemisphere is even a stretch. The Old World has been playing their geopolitical games for thousands of years. The Patriots tried to sever relations with that Old World. The Tories wouldn’t let that happen, as they WANTED a piece of that Old World action, and brought it here.
The first step in deciding what role the U.S. should play internationally is to understand that our government’s historical role has been closer to global gangster than policeman. All governments (including the U.S.) are made up of egomaniacal, often megalomaniacal, members/servants of their country’s respective oligarchy. They have no interest in overseeing humanitarian organizations. For the most part they serve the economic interests of the ruling class both at home and abroad, while manipulating their news media to disguise their agenda. When they are able to subjugate other nations, they do it out of self-interest, not benevolence. They exploit other societies the same way they exploit their own, that is, allowing the plebes just enough to get by so they will produce more profits for their overseers. They “keep order” only to the extent it serves their economic agenda. So the real questions we should be asking ourselves are: Do we really want the U.S. government to continue playing the role of global gangster? If not, what is to be done?
We might try being global friends. Quakers would recommend that. Help instead of hurt? It’s just good policy, so why not? Oligarchs would not like it, and they control every thing.
Or, just mind our own business. It seems that missionaries, ex-pats, NGOs and other supposed “do-gooders” are often the first step in an intervention.
This not is about global cops but does have some of my favorite pictures.
https://www.mintpressnews.com/declaring-opioid-crisis-national-emergency-trump-sends-troops-guard-afghan-poppies/231216/
Enjoy and weep:-(
Good article.
“The world’s policeman” is another propaganda phase like “war on terror”, “human shield”, and “collateral damage”. They are designed to provide a deceptive metaphor allowing the people to accept mass murder as somehow a good thing. Yes, someone in the bowels of the war machine is really designing this special language to engineer public support, or at least acquiescence, to the murder and plunder of millions off people.
When you hear someone use these phrases, you know their mind has been fucked.
Doublespeaking mother f…ers!
Europe will do whatever to cooperate with USA. It seems USA & EU are always on the offensive around the world except for middle East and Afghanistan at the beginning. How can USA is allied with al-qaeda in Syria?
We link with terrorists because they are like us, natural allies in rape and pillage, our national pastime.
The US oligarchy started AlQaeda in Afghanistan & Pakistan in the 1980s to oppose the USSR-supported government of Afghanistan. The socialism-hating oligarchy led by Brzezinski wanted to “give the USSR its own Vietnam” there, and of course had no concern for the people of Vietnam or Afghanistan or even those of the US. The CIA smuggled $3 to 4 billion in small arms and portable SAMs through Pakistan to AlQaeda. It was when the US abandoned AlQaeda after the collapse of the USSR 1991-3 that they turned against the US.
You’re kidding right? You are pushing the same “miniskirt” narrative? When the communists took over Afghanistan there was no Al-Qaeda and Bin Laden was 19 years old and living in Florida. He was 21 when the USSR invaded, and the Mujhadeen where overwhelmingly Afghans who (like the Vietnamese before and the Taliban today) fought against foreign invaders. As far as the CIA abandoning Al-Qaeda they continued relations with the US (mainly through Saudis) throughout the Balkan wars. In Bosnia there whole battalions of CIA/Saudi backed AlQueda fighters. (Reference BBC Documentary “Bosnia: Birthplace of Jihad”.) Three of the 9/11 hijackers where commanders of foreign fighters in Bosnia. After 9/11 Bosnia (a virtual NATO Protectorate) shut down two Al-Qaeda training camps (but left the fighters free to travel to elsewhere and fight for Jihad).
Nobody in Afghanistan ever “turned against the US” and the current US or previous USSR invasion was no more justifiable than the Bush Iraq invasion. That the Afghans turned to and accepted aid from the prime enemy of the USSR (the US) was not unexpected.
Somehow “policing” isn’t the term I would use for American foreign policy around the globe. It implies an attempt to administer the rule of law in a just manner and most of us here are aware that corporate exploitation has been the root of U.S. foreign interventions. I’m convinced these interventions and the resultant wars, misery and climate degradation are all related to an unregulated free market mantra that can only have catastrophic results. If policing was a goal we wouldn’t so readily rebuff the overtures of cooperation coming from Russia and China and we would make a greater effort to discipline rogue allies like Saudi Arabia, Israel and Turkey. The idea of nation building has been categorically rejected, so what does that leave, nation destroying? Trump(or rather the generals behind his present policy) states our goal is not to build nation-states in our own image. Fine, but what efforts have been made toward reconstruction and civic stability? The cost in both human terms and dollars is staggering. Although a nuclear disaster is always present with this kind of reckless foreign policy, I’m still convinced there is an even greater risk that the over-extension is leading to a global collapse, the likes of which we’ve never seen.
I’d love to see a knowledgeable assessment of what a withdrawal from hostilities would mean to the American economy … not just immediately in terms of expenditures, but also “trickle down” terms … look at the literally millions of folks employed in the network that his homeland security and law enforcement (and the myriad companies that cater to their every $$$ need).
It might help scales to fall from eyes of those who “hate big government” to understand that increasingly career-type “good jobs” are overwhelmingly in the MIC or the (extended) government. (I’m not sure how far along the gutting of healthcare has advanced, my job was outsourced to India)
“It might help scales to fall from eyes of those who “hate big government” to understand that increasingly career-type “good jobs” are overwhelmingly in the MIC or the (extended) government.”… Susan, unfortunately those who “hate big government” are usually unable to connect dots…sorry to hear about your job(and what that loss might mean to the quality of health care).
I admit little success in explaining that in many cases when the federal government has “meddled” and exerted influence over “states rights” issues, it has been because courts have determined that civil rights were being violated (or being ignored) and/or in some cases because entrenched corruption was leading to virtually the same thing for citizens. Ferguson and Chicago are only the most recent examples …
Yes. “Policing” is Orwellian doublespeak. Our “police” are a horde of ruthless pirates.
I am Italian, therefore European, and can’t but smile when reading that Europe “is finally back on its feet representing perhaps the most progressive political grouping in the world”. I even have doubts it can be thought of as a group.
What surprises me is how America appears to live in a dream world: with all your military might and power and all the electronic gizmo you claim to have, you’ve bee beaten by the vietnamese, you can’t win in Afghanistan and Iraq turned out to be a nightmare. I even wonder if you should be considered a superpower! Even your navy appears easily crippled by cargo vessels …
Add to all this that America has zillions worth of debt that is held by unreliable foreign countries! If one day things were to get nasty with China they could squeeze your b…ls and cripple you.
Because Europe is not what you claim, but only a group of different nationalities who mostly don’t trust each other, we absolutely need a strong America, so stop thinking you can police force the world, clean up your financial mess, and your credibility will be restored.
No offence meant to the USA! I have thinking about this since, shortly after the brexit referendum and a recent speech by Mrs. Merkel, some stupid TV talking head said proudly that the germans were standing up against the Anglo-Americans. I jumped on my chair! We’ve seen that happen, didn’t like it at all and have been grateful to the americans ever since.
So, pull yourselfs together, chase the war mongers into the Hudson river, and get back to business.
“pull yourselfs together, chase the war mongers into the Hudson river”…Do zombies drown?
We’re not a superpower. Hell, up until WWII we hardly had a footprint on the World. Sure we’ve always had some Anglophile Imperial Tory wannabes, ripped a few pieces of decrepit Spanish Empire away, ran some ops in Central America for Chiquita Banana, that’s about it. Our foreign policy mainly was keeping out of the grasp of the British Empire (we failed miserably, seduced by “special relationship” BS). Also just trying to keep British, French, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese Empires out of the Western Hemisphere (failed at that too, with our own imperial Globalists throwing in with said Empires, via the “special relationship”). Look into your own backyards. There you’ll find the ideological descendants of all those Euro/Brit Empires, STILL at feverish work. They’ve danced propaganda circles around us, to the point we don’t even know our own history. I’d recommend you go to Executive Intelligence Review (EIR) website. Go to their search box and Type in “Return of the Monarchs; Politics for a new Dark Age”, and “Synarchy against America”. We’re caught in the same Strait Jacket that has bound up Europe for MANY centuries now. You’ll have to confront your own Dynastic families and their Oligarchy of loyal retainers in Finance and Business and Intelligence. Do you know the master teachers of all of those Euro/Brit Empires? The Dons of Venice, some of whose families trace their roots to the imperial oligarchs of the Ancient Roman Empire who ran up to the swamps of Venice after the Collapse and Fall of the Western half of the Roman Empire. Also recommend Webster G. Tarpley.net website and his free E-book in the left hand column: “Against Oligarchy” where it all starts with Venice. We’re defeated over here, for now…but that will change.
Yes, but those giant cargo vessels crept up on our billion-dollar surveillance vessels, who had only a few hundred technicians and officers to look out the window, or watch a cheap radar screen. We only had multiple radar, multiple watch officers, automatic ship identification, automatic collision avoidance warnings. So it isn’t fair to compare them to a teenager in an outboard motorboat, who keeps watch and knows the rules of right-of-way.
Sam F-
As a retired merchant seaman I’ve wondered about this myself. We used to have two guys on the bridge at night, and only one (the mate on watch) during the daytime, and in 27 years I was never involved in a collision. We had two radars, and in later years, a collision avoidance system. How in the world (except by gross incompetence) could these collisions have happened?
The Fitzgerald steamed right into the path of a freighter that had the right of way, while the McCain was the overtaken vessel, both on clear nights when nav lights should have been warning enough. No doubt the admirals are wondering the same thing: drugs, laxness, distractions, fools playing chicken, jammers against the other ships’ radar. These would be very rare unless the common element is recent Navy procedures. The few near misses among yachts are in tight quarters with objects obstructing vision, while on open water another vessel is a focus of interest.
Me too Skip. I served aboard 3 WWII Navy ships, and I swear we guided our way through the oceans using the stars. Nothing on those old WWII tubs worked, and if it did work, well it was soon to break.
I heard the Navy was also investigating the chances of hacking into the ship’s GPS equipment. Here again I know nothing of how that equipment works, but think of it, if these ships computers were hacked? What a shock that would be.
I also think, that possibly these ships were made with defects, and that these over priced boats & planes & tanks, are nothing more than a profit motivator for the defense contractor. Remember, long after price is forgotten, quality will be remembered. Now that’s something you say when you want to point out how a more expense purchase maybe better than just buying cheap. Well, our defense department, has a habit of getting ripped off, and their being okay with it. Once again, the MIC isn’t about making a better mouse trap that works, but they are hell bent on making more expensive mouse traps, and who cares if the annoying mice stay on the loose, because by then the money is in the bank.
GPS satellite spoofing is an interesting possibility, although it would probably affect both ships. Hacking vulnerabilities would be surprising, but such concerns could be the reason for the brief shutdown. You may be right that there were multiple equipment defects and perhaps inadequate contingency procedures did the rest. It sure would show the vulnerability of complex digital systems versus simple vigilance and “using the stars.” I have made such arguments to companies using vulnerable internet connections to critical equipment, and have been told that marketing concerns and field service convenience outweigh security. Until it breaks.
Our ‘business” is WAR.
Back in 1969, while I was cleaning up our living room, I came across a US Army Zippo lighter someone had left behind. It had the insignia of some unit embossed on it. Quite nicely done.
And it had a motto engraved on the back:
“Killing Is Our Business….
And Business Has Been Good.”
I never figured out who’d left it, and it disappeared some time later. We had quite a flow of people in and out, including a LOT of anti-war activists, and I’ve long wondered if some COINTELPRO infiltrator had left that behind, probably accidentally after getting too high.
I seem to be seeing more and more young people understanding that this “overbearing” (“control freak”) tendency cannot be uncoupled from capitalism and its endless appetite for and competitive model of bigger, better, faster and more profitable. Like a secret drug addiction ($1000 a day habit for an individual) or some occult hemorrhage, there’s no peace possible when “getting ahead” despite ongoing depletion drives not only the economy but also too many people’s lives.
As a young person, I used to be fascinated how often “pillars of the community” were caught committing egregious breeches of trust (when not simple crimes of theft and abuse). It seemed to me then and I still suspect that many felt “owed” this or that “sin” because of their years of stawart “community service” … so often, scratch the surface, and some charity drive turns out to have secondary motives and rewards … or the “opportunities” are recognized in the process … remember the laundry list of “good things” invading Afghanistan was going to accomplish? Remember Tom Friedman saying he didn’t care about WMD in Iraq, that the chance to create a democratic free market example in the middle east was too good to pass up … and he didn’t even get a potemkin village … iow, the ambitions grow as the projects take shape … more and more birds to kill with one stone. etc. more and more grifters added to the “team”
Gosh, did you read about Carl Icahn? Advising the president on matters in which he had personal interests … yeah, it starts at home.
“… and he didn’t even get a potemkin village”…LOL(but with tears)
Capitalism is the disease; socialism is the cure. People before profits. Simple and effective. But entrenched oligarchs don’t like it. In fact they hate it, and will kill you or anyone who has a serious chance of getting it done, and removing them from their stolen wealth.
Capitalism, as it is defined, not as it has been criminally distorted, is a system (In my opinion) worth exploring. It has been shown in many anecdotal examples that personal incentives do lead to increased effort, thus, personal improvement/advancement. Socialism, as its been tried in the Soviet Union and China, where the least, and, most, productive earn an equal amount has been a failure. (I don’t want to go searching Google for examples right now, so, please take my word for it. P.S. I was born in Russia.) Russian collective farms were found to be quite inefficient, and, the Leadership were very dissatisfied with their output. As an incentive, individual farmers were permitted to carve out a small plot of land for their family’s personal use. The output of these personal plots proved to be so much more productive than that from the collectives, in quality as well as in quantity, that the experiment’s results could not be ignored. This revelation, to some small extent, was seen by some as just another cut in the eventual deterioration, and, collapse, of the whole Soviet experiment.
So, what went wrong with America’s embrace of capitalism? Capitalism seemed to work very, very well in the 19th. & most of the 20th. centuries. Everyone, I believe, agrees that the growth and prosperity enjoyed by virtually, everybody during that period was nothing short of breathtaking. And, the answer turns out to be quite simple….corruption. By way of illustration, I like to use the, uniquely American sport, Football. You have two very skilled, very determined teams competing with each other to win a prize (the game.) The fact that the two teams are (almost) equal in skill and ability makes the game all the more exciting. For three hours the two teams strategize and struggle against other until, finally, when time runs out, one team has moved the ball over the goal line more times than the other, and, wins the game.
And, now, the reason I use the comparison between Capitalism and Football as my example. I believe football has succeeded, and, become America’s #1 spectator sport, is because it has rules. And, those rules are very, very stringently enforced by the referees & umpires. Our Founders, and, early lawmakers understood this, and knew very well that unrestricted capitalism would, inevitably, run amuck, and, become corrupted to the extreme. So they tried to imagine all the ways it could go astray, and, instituted laws to prevent such results. The first big one that comes to mind is the natural desire to grow one’s enterprise to Monopoly status. And, of course, they put in laws to deal with that eventuality. Now, I’m not going to bore you with the rest of the story; You all know it better than me, I’m sure. Politicians were voted into office, some Pro Business, some Pro Consumer. And, this experiment in Capitalism worked quite well, until, like I said, the 4th. quarter of the 20th. Century.
I use Jan, 1981, Ronald Reagan’s inauguration, as the moment in time that our grand experiment with Capitalism went all to hell. You know the rest. Rules….Schmools. Everything’s a profit center now. Journalism, prior to Reagan, had, for the most part, been designated as loss leaders in Corporations owned by the very wealthy. Making fortunes in their other enterprises, this was their “benevolent contribution,” their way of “giving back.” After Reagan, you got Fox, MSNBC, Rush Limbaugh, the consolidation of most media companies into a small group of ultra wealthy hands, and, the closing of most actual news bureaus, locally, and, internationally. Bye, bye, Walter Cronkite, it was nice knowing you. The lure of money, money, money has been corrupting individuals, and, societies since time immemorial. The election of Reagan proved to be that moment of critical mass when the idea of “law and order” in our institutions were shoved aside for the debauchery of “Everything’s For Sale,”……..including our referees & umpires (aka our representatives, regulators, courts, and arbitrators.)
“Greed is Good” won out.
Socialism and capitalism are not opposites; they both achieve certain goals very well. Capitalism as regulated free enterprise can harness self-interest to increase productivity and innovation; but if not heavily regulated it leads to rampant lying, cheating, and stealing. Socialism is far more efficient and directs effort toward the goals of society, but if not energized can lead to laziness and stagnation.
I advised a group of Chinese engineers in the 1980s that free enterprise is like gasoline: the West throws it around and finds itself in a bonfire every few years. But if they could build an engine it would do a lot of useful work for them. They did that (I cannot to say how well) but we have not learned.
Capitalism and socialism can be combined easily to any desired degree, so long as the institutions of democracy are protected from economic power and foreign meddling. Debate and diplomacy to combine North and South Korea would be a fine place to start.
The US oligarchy is our curse: economic concentrations control mass media and elections, and have destroyed democracy in the US. The zionist and anti-socialist one-percenters have led us to genocides around the world to serve only themselves, that have ruined our security and reputation. Destroying the oligarchy and restoring democracy is our only hope. In doing that, we must protect mass media and elections from economic power by restricting their income to limited individual donations.
BS. The Military Industrial Complex is a giant government program. What in the world could there be in the Hindu Kush of ANY PRACTICAL economic interest – especially to a country like the US who hardly manufactures anything any more. It is all about the brass, the military contractors and government bureaucrats who live off this pointless tax payer funded boondogle.
It’s all very well to say that the US should no longer intervene in other people’s countries but what is the US going to do to put right the messes its earlier interventions have caused? If ever the US had a “duty”, it is that.
Join China and Russia in New Silk Road policies to develop the World and achieve the peace so long sought by the people of America and the World. This is quite simply, the answer, believe it or not. And we’re VERY close to achieving it, hence all the hysteria within the “Established Order” of imperial warmongers.
Hey Michael once again I will agree with you. Reparations are in order, for the U.S. to make it right. Although Vietnam never got the 3 billion dollars Nixon had promised them.
Hi Joe-
I’m wondering if somebody stole Michael Kenny’s handle. This comment doesn’t conform at all to any of his other postings that I’ve seen.
Good to see your back Skip, and yes Michael from time to time, has said some things which are outside of his purview of his usual thought line. I’m okay, with anyone’s opinions, as long as they are civil (& Michael is that) and at least polite enough to keep it on the down low with their name calling. I hate being harassed, as it brings out the worst in me when I have to respond to it. Again Skip, you were missed, so get busy with your comments. Joe
you might refresh your memory about our reconstruction of Iraq’s power grid, Fallujah’s santitation system and that hydroelectric dam in Afghanistan …. billions spent … results poor and projects unfinished after a decade … we flood these countries with U.S. dollars producing a pyramid of grifters, from penny-ante con men to millionaires, the “new elite” — new judiciary (see Afghanistan), entire new governments pumped up on the steroids of easy money with little oversight and no accountability.
(those minerals lighting up Trump’s eyes were “discovered” over a decade ago … yeah, he’s the guy to turn that project around –oh wait, irrc, China got the biggest contracts … a decade ago)
http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/economy-budget/339528-Rare-earth-rancor%3A-Feds-must-stop-Chinese-purchase-of-US-mine
http://www.mining.com/mountain-pass-sells-20-5-million/
someone needs to ask Trump about Mountain Pass Mine in California (America’s only rare earth mine), sold in June 2017 to the Chinese ….
Apparently those who live on our taxes don’t know how to build a nation, or even care to find those who can, when they promise to spend our money to do that. They target destruction, spend all the money, and blame the victim.
If our zionist and anti-socialist oligarchy had any good intentions, they would have a long history of humanitarian work where it is most cost-effective. It is much simpler for them to kill and lie, their life skills.
We could try sharply reducing tour military presence everywhere, and using the money saved to begin making reparations for all the harms we have caused in other countries.
Yes, simply re-purposing most of our military to building infrastructure would permit reparations and reverse our destructive course, devoting surplus to the needs of humanity, without reduction of defense capability.
The various Quislings, NGOs and ex-pat “activists” that always seem to involved in the run up to these interventions should NOT be allowed to flee the problems they incited. Making sure that they are present to accept the justifiable retribution of their people when US Troops go home should be enough.
As Lao Tzu wisely said, when laws and police increase, lawlessness increases. A hell of a lot of good all this “policing” does. Look at the world. This mess is not in spite of our busybody, greedy, violent ‘policing” – it is more largely because of it.
Short and to the point!
“Global disorder is on the rise. What can the U.S. do about it?” Have you been watching CNN (AKA the Crisis News Network) a little bit too much lately?
It is awfully confusing to evaluate the success of the U.S. Policing of the World, when it appears that the U.S. stirs up more trouble than it elevates. Add to this, how the U.S. when decided necessary by the powers of the D.C. Beltway crowd purposely ignores international law, and thus invades a sovereign nation, all in the name of promoting democracy, has become standard operating procedure. Yet, after the U.S. extinguishes whatever leadership it must in order to establish a democratic government, it instead leaves invaded nations in ruin and chaos. How can this be good?
I believe that this policing salvation can only be done, if the UN were to legislate it, and only if a coalition of governments were assigned by the UN, were to enforce this power. Any one nation to take this responsibility all on its own, will certainly be flawed, as we see how the U.S. has devolved into this ugly world power due to its Neocon influences. America must join the world, and not continue with its quest for world hegemony.
The evidence seems pretty clear to me that the Imperial demand for total dominance has not slowed in the slightest. This Empire of a few families who control earth’s resources and markets (except the parts which are completely surrounded with nuclear weapons). The machinery of this Empire is what is referred to as the establishment – the political parties, the press, and what is referred to as the deep state or the military industrial complex. Even though they appear divided into two camps the reality is that there is only one common goal – “Global full spectrum domination.”
Like all Empires this one is ruthless far beyond the comprehension of us commoners and concerned only with its own power. Human life is expendable, the environment doesn’t really matter as technology will protect those with power. Power is now with the machines the Empire controls – the Empire controls all new knowledge – if Pasture made his discovery today it would become the property of the oligarchy and royalties would be collected on all milk while children die of curable diseases.
We only see the tip of the ice burg even with the revelations from leakers and whistle blowers there is much we do not know. And the Empire seems to care less now.
There is no intent on the part of the Empire to reduce human suffering their power now is diffuse throughout the globe in the machines, blow up NYC, DC so what – the servers that maintain Imperial power are in Colorado or inside some bunker.
Until or unless control of earth’s resources is taken from these families nothing will change. Governments come and go – the Porsche, Daimler, Siemens, Bayer families keep their property no matter who is in power or who they are warring against. The Samsung, Toyota, Mitsubishi families thrive on.
Right on. Our essayist makes it seem as if all of this chaos is the product of rational actors, rather than the power crazed oligarchs and their rotten American Empire bent on world domination.
You would find the documentary ” Zeitgeist” very interesting indeed. ” Zeitgeist The Movie”, Zeitgeist, Addendum” And Zeitgeist, Moving on”. Documentaries that explain the origins of christianity, fractional banking, debt, the Fed, War and it´s beneficiaries. A very indepth look at what you are talking about in your post. If people want to know why they are drawn to news outlets like ” Consortium News”, Counterpunch”, “R T News” etc. these documentaries will supply the answer and explain the points that have been nagging at us for so many years and are never ever brought up in the MSM.. Oh and yes. Mr. Fuller is part of the problem.
Don’t fool yourselves, there is no such thing as policeman of the world. No country spend money for nothing. All these actions from the US are an investment but since they don’t issue a prospectus to taxpayers for these investments we don’t know exactly what they invest in or who is the beneficiary of these investments. Hint: rich people only benefit.
Taxpayers are just issuing a cheque and asking for something they can believe in as an answer, well there you have it, how about democracy? Do you like it? then democracy it is.
It’s a con and a way for the rich to tax the people. The best elaborate theft there is. They use institutions like parliaments, presidencies, military (who are supposed to protect the territory). They use media manipulation in all its forms etc…
Thanks for this good post, it’s so true but much to brave. Thinking about the CIA-coup against Mossadegh 1953 because of oil interests and the consequences till today: Awful dictatorship under the Shah, Islamic counterrevolution, Irak-Iran-war with US supporting both side but especially Saddam, training his army, which members became founders of the Islamic State.
US “policeman” role is also to protect the US-$ as world currency, the base for US economic supremacy and military power. Who wants to trade oil or gas in other currency know he is at risk to be eliminated by US-Power. The US role as “policeman” is to ensure US-primacy over others.
But it is much worse than that, the US acts not as policeman, this is much to friendly put, the US acts like a criminal mafia-like organisation, see John Perkins “Confession of an economic hit man”. See also the Wolfowitz Doctrine among others Neocons Doctrine, which leads to the cause of the war in the Ukraine and the escalation against Russia.
Other anecdotes of this mafia: the suppression of discovery of revolutionary technology: Royal Rifles cancer cure, the use of “free energy” (what would have brought down the oil and gas industry and threatens the basis of the dollar as world currency).
And there are much more sad things to say about the US as know by the books of Antony C. Sutton. It could not be worse, it’s just plain evil: Some powerful US-Peoples stands for helping the bolshevik-revolution to success (so stands for suppression and killings under Stalin and Mao!), for supporting Hitler and his Army to success to run WWII, for horrendous war-crimes against civilian at the end of WWII, for atomic bombing, for the Korean-war 1953 (billions people killed), for the Vietnam-war, for the Afghanistan-war (Brzezinskis plan to offer the Sovjets “their Vietnam”), for the Iran-Irak-war and so on.
An endless bloody story that couldn’t be more cruel, that continue producing crisis after crisis (e.g. Korean crisis, Afghanistan, Middle-East at general, see http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/02/rfk-jr-why-arabs-dont-trust-america-213601) and at the end brings humanity at risk of extinction by atomic war.
America was never a policeman, this is propaganda only, this would implies, that it helped makes the world more secure, what is plain wrong and by far the opposite of the truth. What is needed is a “Nürnberg Tribunal” for all crimes that the US and their helpers brought over the world. To put an end of this perpetuation of crimes. This perhaps could be the beginning of more peace in the world. Letting running by far the most criminal nation in history, disguised as “policeman” is completely crazy.
This article has many very serious flaws.
1. The article conspicuously omits the only “international ideal” that would serve the people of the United States: humanitarian aid for development. If we had done that instead of warmongering since WWII, we would have built every road, school, and hospital in the developing nations, lifting the poorest half of humanity from poverty, and would have no enemies, a true American Century.
2. Instead the oligarchs who control our mass media and elections, have caused us to murder tens of millions of innocents for nothing, and have ruined our security and reputation. These zionists and anti-socialist one-percenters like Kaplan are war criminals deserving execution, and have nothing whatsoever to do with “humanitarian interventionism” or “democracy promotion” or “global policing.”
3. The article’s what-if questions posit potential advantages of even more genocidal interventions to serve oligarchy alone, in Russia, China, Korea, SE Asia, the Mideast, Latin America. Those “questions” are a shopping list for imperialist murderers.
4. It is unconstitutional for the US to engage in any foreign wars, only repelling foreign invasions, and only the abuse of the purely-defensive NATO treaty has allowed the zionist and anti-socialist oligarchy to abuse the US military as an offensive force.
5. Mr. Fuller conjures a warmonger’s fearsome vision of foreign monsters posing dire threats, but this is all sound and fury, signifying nothing. It is propaganda that China is “formidably … asserting political, economic and cultural power.” It is a large part of the world’s population, doing better economically, and inclined to have a small sphere of influence and some foreign interests, with a few military bases. It has no history of aggression at all in the last century. It is propaganda that Russia has a “global vision” and that its “diplomatic and military power far overshadows its poor economy.” It is a large part of the world, with an expanding economy, and a few percent of the military bases of the US.
The US has no humanitarian policy in its militarism, which serves only zionism in the Mideast, and anti-socialism everywhere else. Those are the interests of economic oligarchy and no one else.
The only historical meaning of our era and our lives in the US, is the overthrow of oligarchy and the restoration of democracy. Mr. Fuller needs to study the problem.
No doubt Mr. Fuller sees that the “failed duties” claimed by neocons and “liberal” interventionists are not humanitarian opportunities lost. I hope that he sees that the US has not been “generously supplying international order,. but rather genocides with no moral plan, that in most cases would have been far greater if the US had not been beaten.
But there are far better means between the extremes of “global policemen” who “nominate themselves” and merely letting the world “work things out among themselves.” The halfway point is not global policing by a “consortium of major international players” except in the “occasional role for it” but global humanitarian and development aid.
Sam F-
Thank you for these excellent posts. They shed far more light than Graham Fuller’s article.
“Global warming and environmental degradation create powerful refugee mills that produce millions of hungry and angry have-nots. U.S. intervention is not designed to cope with these issues.”
This quote from the article jumped right out at me for it’s lack of mentioning the biggest cause for the refugee crisis, namely our ill-conceived regime change wars.
We must learn to wage peace in a multi-polar world or we are doomed as a species. If we don’t realize this very soon, it will be too late.
Thank you, Sam F. The most sensible thing I’ve read on this topic for some time.
Indeed. It is ALL a con.
The author of this article, Graham Fuller has an interesting history. From his official biography, we learn that he was “the National Intelligence Officer for Near East and South Asia at CIA, and in 1986 Vice-Chairman of the National Intelligence Council at CIA, with overall responsibility for national level strategic forecasting.”
In that capacity, he wrote the recently declassified 1983 CIA plan to “regime change” Syria. Immediately following their failed attempt to topple the Syrian government with the Muslim Brotherhood, this new plan once again began with stirred up local Islamic Extremists, but then called for shipping in Jihadists from around the Muslim world. Just as they were doing at the time in Afghanistan.
https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP88B00443R001404090133-0.pdf
But it gets curiouser and curiouser.
We all remember the Boston Marathon Bombing event. Remember Uncle Ruslan Tsarni? He was the guy who was all over the corporate media denouncing his nephews, the Tsarnaev brothers as “losers.” Of course, the Tsarnaevs were from Chechnya – Fuller’s area of expertise.
Well, Ruslan was married to Graham Fuller’s daughter, and actually lived in Fuller’s home. From that address, Ruslan ran an operation that worked with CIA and may have funded Chechen Terrorist Groups who have been fighting against Russia since the 1990s.
http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2013/05/03/uncle-ruslan-tsarnis-organization-may-have-funded-terrorists/
So, what is his real goal in writing this “balanced” article? Because we can be pretty sure it’s not what it appears to be.
The linked article notes on the Boston Bombing by the Tsarnaev brothers that:
“On Tamerlan’s trip to Russia in 2012 (Jan. to July), there is a report by Georgian intelligence that Tamerlan Tsarnaev attended “training” at the Jamestown Foundation, connected with the Caucasus Fund. All have ties to CIA.”
It also notes that Fuller gave a 2008 speech to the Jamestown Foundation titled “Turkey & the Caucasus after Georgia.” As I recall, Fuller was “vacationing” with CIA officials just outside Turkey during the coup attempt there that broke US-Turkey relations.
Fuller appears to have a long history of claiming “liberal interventionism” as a front for imperialist warmongering around Russia. Perhaps he will explain to us what his real goal was in the Boston Bombing and the Turkey coup attempt, and why it is a secret from the people of the United States.
It would seem likely that he knows of the CIA’s next Pearl Harbor intended to get the US into wars in the Mideast or around Russia or China. The people of the United States would like to know.