Inkwell Institute
Subject: War On Terror
For decades there have been many that have accused the US of being imperialistic, especially in their foreign policy….those accusations were the loudest during the Cold War and most recently by the Islamist states of the Middle East….but could there be any reality to those accusations?
According to some the US Congress is doing its level best to install a policy of imperialistic adventurism and they are trying to cloud this with vague references to the War on Terror…..CommonDreams.org has weighed in on this happening….original article was from the Boston Globe……
The House of Representatives is debating a new definition of America’s military mission in the world, replacing the mandate adopted immediately after 9/11. Instead of merely authorizing the president to make war against those who “committed or aided” the 2001 attacks, the proposed National Defense Authorization Act expands the notion of America’s enemy to include forces “associated” with named antagonists like Al Qaeda and the Taliban.According to its critics (including numerous House Democrats who asked last week that such language be dropped), this seemingly innocuous expansion would, in effect, license an open-ended bleeding of the American battle away from Iraq and Afghanistan to any location in which such vaguely defined associates operate. The two present wars could become three, four, or five, and could shift from the Middle East to Africa, South Asia, or anywhere that a photo, say, of Osama bin Laden hung in the barracks.
For a time in the Bush era, officials and public intellectuals promoted the idea of American empire, declaring it the duty of the United States to maintain planet-wide dominance through military force for the sake of political order and economic well-being — not only of Americans but of the world. This virtuous purpose would make America, in a phrase of the historian Niall Ferguson, “an empire by invitation.” The arrival of terrorism as a mass threat made this hegemonic mission seem inevitable. At some point, the word “empire” fell out of fashion, even on the right. Yet the structures and ideology — and bases — of world-wide dominion reproduced themselves, and soon enough the central assumption of empires embedded itself in American consciousness — the idea that the global rules of order apply to every nation except the one that enforces them.
According to the popular definition……imperialism is the policy of extending a nation’s authority by territorial acquisition or by the establishment of economic and political hegemony over other nations. If you do not appreciate that definition how about a simple one for adventurism? Involvement in risky enterprises without regard to proper procedures and possible consequences, especially the reckless intervention by a nation in the affairs of another nation or region……now does any of that sound a bit familiar?
But hey! If we must invade and flex our military muscle….I think that Jane Stillwater has the perfect solution in BuzzFlash……
Of course plundering Libya does have its good points, I’ll be the first to admit. By sacking and pillaging its oil-producing cities for their loot, there is much swag to be had — especially if you are working for BP. However, dollar for dollar, the Cayman Islands have much more loot to offer than almost anywhere else in the world — and I’m not just talking about some eye-popping booty here either. Unlike Libya, the Cayman Islands are also offering a really first-class place to invade.
Just imagine all those billions and trillions of dollars stored in the bank vaults at Georgetown, just lying there waiting to be had. And them thar hearty treasures are easy pickings too — because the Caymans, unlike Libya, doesn’t even have an army to defend itself. No major guided missile systems, no nuclear weapons, not even very many tanks. Plus the hotels in the Caymans are much nicer than the ones in Libya, giving Anderson Cooper much more comfortable digs to report from than in the Middle East.
I like IT! Just think of all the billions that we have lost over the years…..Hawks want to use our military superiority…here is the perfect way to do so and pay down the deficit…win-win!