This month's column weighs in some thoughts this editor has about how the mainstream media as well as the neo-con pundits (aka laptop bombadiers--an expression someone else made up) are waging the war for the hearts and minds of Americans to fight and die for (choose one) oil; the "new world order"; "the war on terrorism"; "democracy in Iraq"; the "war on Islam" or whatever nefarious pretext. (Can't you tell I just love the notion of more of our children being sent to another war where the best we can hope for is a draw? Replace Saddam with who? An Iraqi Karzai, who doesn't trust his own people enough to hire some of his own as body-guards? Just how weak a "leader" does Washington want?)
A recent Washington Post poll showed that 57% of adult Americans want the US armed forces to invade Iraq (as opposed to those folks in that "lapdog" country, Britain, where only about 33% favor sending Brits to Iraq, for instance). The only way I can reason this out is because, unlike Britain, the US is an empire, and Americans love it!
Now, most Americans know--even the most dumbed-down Americans from public school--what eventually happens to empires. Certainly the Brits know, having been party to the last great empire. What eventually happens to empire is that they crumble, never to return (and if it tries, it will be a parody of its former self, a-la Mussolini's Italy, a mockery of imperial intentions, taking a year to defeat spear throwers in Ethiopia, circa 1935, and getting exactly 100 yards of south France in its little spree during World War Two).
The problem with Americans is that, while they know empires crumble--the bigger, the harder they fall--most Americans believe in the nonsense called American "exceptionalism": unlike all other empires, US imperialism will never fall.
Well, fellow Americans, I got news (and commentary of course--but on the other hand some of you don't know the difference) for you: as wrong as he was about so many things, Chairman Mao was right about this one: US imperialism is a "paper tiger".
For one thing, not only doesn't US "intelligence" (one great oxymoron, eh?) know where al-Qaida is, but they don't even know how many there are, or if bin Laden is still leading them. See "http://www.spiked-online.com/articles/00...", Brendan O'Neill's Spiked Online article.
For another thing, folks like Henry "Mr. New World Order" Kissinger and his buddy Brent Scowcroft are not so thrilled by the possibility of empire-building if Bush and Co. have any hesitiancy at all about seeing it through, including maintaining a Karzai-like satrapy from the Middle East to South Asia. See "http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/18/opinio...", Maureen Dowd's commentary, "Junior Gets a Spanking" as well as references to Kissinger's statements at "http://www.antiwar.com/justin/j081902.ht...".
