<div dir="ltr">worth reading on 'empire'<div><br><div class="gmail_quote">---------- Forwarded message ----------<br>From: <b class="gmail_sendername">Orsan</b> <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:orsan1234@gmail.com">orsan1234@gmail.com</a>></span><br>Date: Fri, Apr 3, 2015 at 2:29 PM<br>Subject: [NetworkedLabour] Fwd: [Debate-List] (Fwd) US imperialism stumbles towards collapse, blasting away (Dmitry Orlov)<br>To: "<<a href="mailto:networkedlabour@lists.contrast.org">networkedlabour@lists.contrast.org</a>>" <<a href="mailto:networkedlabour@lists.contrast.org">networkedlabour@lists.contrast.org</a>><br><br><br><div dir="auto"><div>Orlov forgets though mentioning the general-systemic and transnational dynamics i.e. class struggles, as well as other feedback-loops, so to speak, that keep re-create the pattern :</div><div><br></div><div> </div><blockquote type="cite"><div><h2><span>March 31, 2015</span></h2>
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<a name="14c7e2fadde2349d_1536028851624160354"></a><span>Dmitry Orlov</span>
<h3>
License to Kill
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<td style="text-align:center">Jakub
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The story is the same every time: some nation, due to a
confluence of lucky circumstances, becomes powerful—much
more powerful than the rest—and, for a time, is dominant.
But the lucky circumstances, which often amount to no more
than a few advantageous quirks of geology, be it Welsh coal
or West Texas oil, in due course come to an end. In the
meantime, the erstwhile superpower becomes corrupted by its
own power.<br>
<br>
<a name="14c7e2fadde2349d_more"></a>As the endgame approaches, those still
nominally in charge of the collapsing empire resort to all
sorts of desperate measures—all except one: they will refuse
to ever consider the fact that their imperial superpower is
at an end, and that they should change their ways
accordingly. George Orwell once offered an excellent
explanation for this phenomenon: as the imperial end-game
approaches, it becomes a matter of imperial
self-preservation to breed a special-purpose ruling
class—one that is incapable of understanding that the
end-game is approaching. Because, you see, if they had an
inkling of what's going on, they wouldn't take their jobs
seriously enough to keep the game going for as long as
possible.<br>
<br>
The approaching imperial collapse can be seen in the ever
worsening results the empire gets for its imperial efforts.
After World War II, the US was able to do a respectable job
helping to rebuild Germany, along with the rest of western
Europe. Japan also did rather well under US tutelage, as did
South Korea after the end of fighting on the Korean
peninsula. With Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, all of which
were badly damaged by the US, the results were significantly
worse: Vietnam was an outright defeat, Cambodia lived
through a period of genocide, while amazingly resilient
Laos—the most heavily bombed country on the planet—recovered
on its own.<br>
<br>
The first Gulf War went even more badly: fearful of
undertaking a ground offensive in Iraq, the US stopped short
of its regular practice of toppling the government and
installing a puppet regime there, and left it in limbo for a
decade. When the US did eventually invade, it
succeeded—after killing countless civilians and destroying
much of the infrastructure—in leaving behind a dismembered
corpse of a country.<br>
<br>
Similar results have been achieved in other places where the
US saw it fit to get involved: Somalia, Libya and, most
recently, Yemen. Let's not even mention Afghanistan, since
all empires have failed to achieve good results there. So
the trend is unmistakable: whereas at its height the empire
destroyed in order to rebuild the world in its own image, as
it nears its end it destroys simply for the sake of
destruction, leaving piles of corpses and smoldering ruins
in its wake.<br>
<br>
Another unmistakeable trend has to do with the efficacy of
spending money on “defense” (which, in the case of the US,
should be redefined as “offense”). Having a lavishly endowed
military can sometimes lead to success, but here too
something has shifted over time. The famous American can-do
spirit that was evident to all during World War II, when the
US dwarfed the rest of the world with its industrial might,
is no more. Now, more and more, military spending itself is
the goal—never mind what it achieves.<br>
<br>
And what it achieves is the latest F-35 jet fighter that
can't fly; the latest aircraft carrier that can't launch
planes without destroying them if they are fitted with the
auxiliary tanks they need to fly combat missions; the most
technologically advanced AEGIS destroyer that can be taken
out of commission by a single unarmed Russian jet carrying a
basket of electronic warfare equipment, and another aircraft
carrier that can be frightened out of deep water and forced
to anchor by a few Russian submarines out on routine patrol.<br>
<br>
But the Americans like their weapons, and they like handing
them out as a show of support. But more often than not these
weapons end up in the wrong hands: the ones they gave to
Iraq are now in the hands of ISIS; the ones they gave to the
Ukrainian nationalists have been sold to the Syrian
government; the ones they gave to the government in Yemen is
now in the hands of the Houthis who recently overthrew it.
And so the efficacy of lavish military spending has dwindled
too. At some point it may become more efficient to modify
the US Treasury printing presses to blast bundles of US
dollars in the general direction of the enemy.<br>
<br>
With the strategy of “destroying in order to create” no
longer viable, but with the blind ambition to still try to
prevail everywhere in the world somehow still part of the
political culture, all that remains is murder. The main tool
of foreign policy becomes political assassination: be it
Saddam Hussein, or Muammar Qaddafi, or Slobodan Milošević,
or Osama bin Laden, or any number of lesser targets, the
idea is to simply kill them.<br>
<br>
While aiming for the head of an organization is a favorite
technique, the general populace gets is share of murder too.
How many funerals and wedding parties have been taken out by
drone strikes? I don't know that anyone in the US really
knows, but I am sure that those whose relatives were killed
do remember, and will remember for the next few centuries at
least. This tactic is generally not conducive to creating a
durable peace, but it is a good tactic for perpetuating and
escalating conflict. But that's now an acceptable goal,
because it creates the rationale for increased military
spending, making it possible to breed more chaos.<br>
<br>
Recently a retired US general went on television to declare
that what's needed to turn around the situation in the
Ukraine is to simply “start killing Russians.” The Russians
listened to that, marveled at his idiocy, and then went
ahead and opened a criminal case against him. Now this
general will be unable to travel to an ever-increasing
number of countries around the world for fear of getting
arrested and deported to Russia to stand trial.<br>
<br>
This is largely a symbolic gesture, but non-symbolic
non-gestures of a preventive nature are sure to follow. You
see, my fellow space travelers, murder happens to be
illegal. In most jurisdictions, inciting others to murder
also happens to be illegal. Americans have granted
themselves the license to kill without checking to see
whether perhaps they might be exceeding their authority. We
should expect, then, that as their power trickles away,
their license to kill will be revoked, and they find
themselves reclassified from global hegemons to mere
murderers.<br>
<br>
As empires collapse, they turn inward, and subject their own
populations to the same ill treatment to which they
subjected others. Here, America is unexceptional: the number
of Americans being murdered by their own police, with
minimal repercussions for those doing the killing, is quite
stunning. When Americans wonder who their enemy really is,
they need look no further.<br>
<br>
But that is only the beginning: the precedent has already
been set for deploying US troops on US soil. As law and
order break down in more and more places, we will see more
and more US troops on the streets of cities in the US,
spreading death and destruction just like they did in Iraq
or in Afghanistan. The last license to kill to be revoked
will be the license to kill ourselves.
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<br></div><br><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div>Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: <a href="http://commonstransition.org" target="_blank">http://commonstransition.org</a> </div><div><br></div>P2P Foundation: <a href="http://p2pfoundation.net" target="_blank">http://p2pfoundation.net</a> - <a href="http://blog.p2pfoundation.net" target="_blank">http://blog.p2pfoundation.net</a> <br><br><a href="http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation" target="_blank"></a>Updates: <a href="http://twitter.com/mbauwens" target="_blank">http://twitter.com/mbauwens</a>; <a href="http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens" target="_blank">http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens</a><br><br>#82 on the (En)Rich list: <a href="http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/" target="_blank">http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/</a> <br></div></div></div></div>
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