The True Evil Empire--in Red, White, and Blue

One of the most perverse things about America is that no matter how many countries the USA bombs, invades, exploits, threatens, regime changes, or colonizes around the globe, many Americans still cling to the delusion that their country is a “force for good” in the world.

America is the Land of the Free (which has freed hundreds of thousands people in Iraq and Afghanistan of their lives, according to even lowball estimates).

America is the Beacon of Liberty (as evidenced by Gitmo Gulag, Abu Ghraib torture, and secret CIA prisons around the globe).

America is nobly defending democracy, freedom, media freedom, human rights, women’s rights, workers’ rights, animal rights, the environment, and all that is good and true everywhere on Earth. NOT.

This belief is the cult of American Exceptionalism–the idea that the USA is a “Shining City on Hill” uniquely blessed by God to act as a beacon for all humanity, according to people from John Winthrop to Ronald Reagan.

For adherents of this secular religious cult, America is God’s chosen nation in everything but name.

Moreover, American Exceptionalism is the basis of US national identity itself and explains how many Americans and its apologists rationalize in their own heads the fundamental and irreconcilable contradiction between what the USA claims to stand for and what the USA in reality is.

More outrageous still is the fact that Americans will accuse other nations of crimes of which the USA is guilty a million times over.

The USA demonizes the Other as “Evil” in order to uphold itself as the epitome of the Good.

It claims to be threatened by other nations–even as the USA and its “democratic allies” are actually engaged in bombing, invading, and threatening nations the world over.

You might call this Uncle Sam’s Evil-Doers-Hate-Our-Freedoms doctrine of US foreign policy:

• America smears Iraq, Iran, and North Korea as an Axis of Evil.
• America labels other countries as “terrorist” states–despite the fact that the USA (and allies) are engaged in covert sponsorship of terrorism on a massive scale, and a guy named Usama Bin Laden was a US intelligence asset during the anti-Soviet Afghan Jihad in the 1980s.
• America accuses Latin American nations of being “narco-states”–even though it is a dirty secret that America is engaged in drug trafficking as a covert policy for decades.

• America paints nations that oppose US/Western policy as “rogue states”–ignoring the uncomfortable idea that America itself is the preeminent rogue state on the planet.
• America invokes thinly disguised forms of Yellow Peril against Asian nations like Japan in the past and  China today.
• During the Cold War, America called the Soviet Union the “Evil Empire.”

This last accusation is the most hypocritical of them all.

As they say: Pot. Kettle. Black.

Psychological projection  is the Anglo-American Way, it seems.

Most Americans are in deep denial that their vaunted “democracy” in fact is an empire–and has been an empire since it was spawned in 1776.

Currently, America has over 700 imperial military bases/outposts in over 100 nations. In fact, there are probably more nations on this planet with an American military presence than there are countries without one!

And in terms of its “defense” (sic) spending, America spends more on its military than the next 14 countries combined, comprising over 46% of the world’s military spending by itself.

As John Perkins has stated, America is the “world’s first truly global empire”–an empire whose way of life and economy are fundamentally premised upon exploitation of the (Developing) world. Perkins should know what he is talking about, as he was personally an “economic hitman” for the US Empire while working as an agent for the National Security Agency and the “private” consulting firm of  Chas. T. Main.

Today is the anniversary of the September 11th attacks, which has become a sort of quasi-religious, nationalist “holy day” in America.

Behind all the patriotic propaganda, Islamophobia, and pious posturing about Sept. 11th, however, is a more disturbing reality: It’s a lie.

A Nazi-style Big Lie.

Not only is the official American story about the Sept. 11th “terrorist” attacks riddled with holes and increasingly challenged by many people but the American-led War on Terror in general is a geopolitical deception on a world historic scale.

Simply put, America’s “War on Terrorism” is not about fighting terrorism. It’s about expanding global American dominance, or what the US military calls  its policy of Full Spectrum Dominance.

In short, the America-driven War on Terrorism is about empire–American Empire.

For American apologists,  raising these issues makes one an extremist, a terrorist-sympathizer, a Commie, a crackpot, a conspiracy theorist, …  an anti-American thought criminal in all but name.

Here is a funny but very incisive video that captures both examples of the American Exceptionalist mindset and the “rap sheet” of America’s endless crimes. It’s based upon William Blum’s work. Like John Perkins, Blum is a former US government insider-turned-dissident. While working at the US State Department, Blum personally witnessed how the American Empire operates up close and personal: