Future of Imperialist America: Just Look at "Great" Britain
When we think of the great countries of the recent past, we think of "Great" Britain where the sun never set on its empire. We can also think of France and its colonies in North Africa and South-East Asia, the Dutch and their Indonesian colony, Italy with its Ethiopian colony, or Spain and Portugal with their vast South American empires. These imperialist nations of the recent past used brute force to conquer and enforce their colonial control over their possessions. They were quick to punish errant colonies by crushing any revolts therein. They always needed to physically occupy the countries they colonized to maintain control and to ensure their hegemony over their inhabitants.
Times have changed; only Israel uses brutal force nowadays to subdue the Palestinians. Present day imperialists do not need to use military force or physically keep troops in colonized lands to suppress its peoples, steal their resources and control their destinies. Instead, they use threats, political pressure and, more recently, economic measures, in collusion with other imperialist powers, to achieve the same objectives. The colonialists only need to maintain superior military forces and show that they are ready to use them and ensure that they are not to be disobeyed.
America today is the prime example of the modern imperialist power. It maintains the strongest and most advanced military in the world. It allies itself with like-minded countries in NATO and is forging similar alliances in other parts of the world. The United States' military budget is greater than that of the next fifteen nations combined. It has over 400 military bases all over the world and is capable of deploying its forces anywhere in the world within hours. It is willing to use, and has used, its military, to subdue others to its desires. Just think of the American-led wars in Vietnam, Korea, Iraq, Grenada, Cuba and Afghanistan. Those are only just examples.
None of these countries, in fact, presented clear and identifiable security threats to the United States per se. The US, with its chorus of like-minded colonialists applied severe economic pressure on Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Cuba, and now Russia, to ensure that they do what America wants. And this is done without much concern for the suffering of the people affected. As it stands now, all other nations must implement the American view of world affairs. Otherwise, the Americans will attack militarily or otherwise.
The United States has appointed itself the global leader and policeman. It assigned itself the prerogative of waging 'preventive war'. In one-way or the other, the entire world is becoming America's colony. It is a repeat of the 'Manifest Destiny' doctrine that embodied the early American invasion and control of the West.
History tells us that colonialism cannot, and will not, last. Just look at the colonial powers of the recent past: Britain, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain; they all lost their colonies and are now struggling just to survive. The United States will soon follow; it is already on its way. Fully one fifth of its citizens cannot afford to buy food. Yet the US government is spending more and more on armaments and foreign wars, real or imagined.
Perhaps the United States should learn from history and focus more attention on controlling its imperial ambitions. We Americans need to show more respect for other cultures and let them pursue their own ends and in their own ways. If we choose to help them, our help should not be tied to bending them to our way. The actual effect of our present policies is to envenom an immense part of the Arab and Moslem world and motivate the vengeance they have sought to inflict on us. Most observers believe that if it were not for the American forces on the ground in Saudi Arabia, 9/11 and Islamic terrorism against the United States would not have happened.
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