Re: If you want me to change my mind
Oh, no, far be it from me to aspire to that. I was merely pointing out that a great many people the world over see the USA as a threat.
Now why do they think that ? Is it all propaganda against Empire ? I should probably say "counterpropaganda," since Empire has its own propaganda
Let's review some counterpropaganda against Empire. Here is a brief list of some threats met by the USA and there are and were so many, many threats indeed. Blum has detail on US grand tour itenary since world war II to 2000, some repeats, since the audience so clearly wanted more.
China 1945-49, Italy 1947-48, Greece 1947-49, Philippines 1945-53, South Korea 1945-53, Albania 1949-53, Germany 1950s, Iran 1953, Guatemala 1953-1990, Middle East 1956-58, Indonesia 1957-58, British Guiana/Guyana 1953-64, Vietnam 1950-73, Cambodia 1955-73, The Congo/Zaire 1960-65, Brazil 1961-64, Dominican Republic 1963-66, Cuba 1959 to present, Indonesia 1965, Chile 1964-73, Greece 1964-74, East Timor 1975 to present, Nicaragua 1978-89, Grenada 1979-84, Libya 1981-89, Panama 1989, Iraq 1990s, Afghanistan 1979-92, El Salvador 1980-92, Haiti 1987-94, Yugoslavia 1999.
https://thirdworldtraveler.com/Blum/US_Interventions_WBlumZ.htmlAction to meet every one of those threats came with the accompaniment of the "mighty wurlitzer" of propaganda as it does today. Telling the organ grinders from the monkeys is not too difficult, but as we see in this very thread, many will carry the tune.
http://carlbernstein.com/magazine_cia_and_media.phphttps://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/08/11/wur1-a11.htmlAnd of course, the USA has met so many more threats since 2000.
An unkind person might ask, how come for every threat met, several more replace it ? Sorta like killing a terrorist creates a dozen more ?
More seriously, as Hudson and others have shown, meeting all these threats is expensive and profitable:
"The problem facing America’s military strategists was how to continue supporting the 800 U.S. military bases around the world and allied troop support without losing America’s financial leverage."
"After 1971, foreign central banks had little option for what to do with their continuing dollar inflows except to recycle them to the U.S. economy by buying U.S. Treasury securities. The effect of U.S. foreign military spending thus did not undercut the dollar’s exchange rate, and did not even force the Treasury and Federal Reserve to raise interest rates to attract foreign exchange to offset the dollar outflows on military account. In fact, U.S. foreign military spending helped finance the domestic U.S. federal budget deficit."
"So maintaining the dollar as the world’s reserve currency became a mainstay of U.S. military spending. Foreign countries to not have to pay the Pentagon directly for this spending. They simply finance the U.S. Treasury and U.S. banking system."
https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,2204.msg243351.html#msg243351"That’s what most U.S. arms are for: not really to use ... These arms are not for fighting; they’re for making profits ... It’s like what Keynes talked about, building pyramids in order to create domestic purchasing power "
https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,2204.msg243351.html#msg243351In short, Empire generates threats to fund itself.
But so expensive as well. Apart from death and destruction in foreign lands, the results are clearly seen inside the USA: An impoverished underclass, a rapacious oligarchy, decayed infrastructure, deeply racist law enforcement, failing schools, a health system from hell, enacted by politicians owned by plutocrats, enabled by a populace who, as Voltaire said, believe in absurdities and thus countenance atrocities.
In terms of realpolitik, a very good strategy for an adversary might be to grease the slide to ruin. Here is Osama bin Laden from 2004:
"All that we have to do is to send two mujahedeen to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al Qaeda, in order to make generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic and political losses without their achieving anything of note other than some benefits for their private corporations,"
https://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/11/01/binladen.tape/And, that, perhaps, is why China has turned Wall Street into an ally, besides they're probably not averse to making some money off the ruin of the USA.
"I told you once before that there were two times for making big money, one in the up-building of a country and the other in its destruction. Slow money on the up-building, fast money in the crack-up." -- Rhett Butler in Margaret Mitchell's "Gone with the Wind"
All counterpropaganda, of course. Including "Gone with the Wind."
sidd
