Aletho News

The Arrogance and Hypocrisy of the United States

By Robert Fantina | Aletho News | June 19, 2015

From its earliest days, the United States has been an imperial power, taking what it wants from whoever has it, killing those who get in its way. Even prior to its establishment as a nation, it abused the welcoming friendship of the natives, seeing them as less than human and, therefore, expendable.

Once it threw off the yoke of Great Britain, who saw the colonies as sources of revenue, the new nation saw the Native Americans as impediments to its growth. The ugly concept of Manifest Destiny was introduced early by journalist John O’Sullivan, and embraced by an ambitious and blood-thirsty nation. Mr. O’Sullivan said that the mission of the United States was “to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions.” Further, he claimed that ‘Until every acre of the North American continent is occupied by citizens of the United States, the foundation of the future empire will not have been laid.” By the time this was written, that goal had been thwarted by Canada, but Mexico was not to be so fortunate. Shortly thereafter, the Mexican territory of Texas was annexed by the U.S.

The Monroe Doctrine, introduced in the same generation as Manifest Destiny, warned European countries not to interfere in North America, at the risk of U.S. intervention. The U.S., of course, saw all of North American as England previously saw its North American colonies, simply as a source of revenue, which included cheap labor. Such lucrative opportunities must not be taken by Europe.

With increasing wealth and power came increasing lust for more of the same. As the nineteenth century drew to a close, Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt, an unabashed imperialist, was desperate to make the U.S. a world power. Once the battleship Maine exploded in Havana Harbor, Mr. Roosevelt rushed to silence the legitimate theory that this had been due to spontaneous combustion resulting from the positioning of the magazine by the coal bunkers. No, for Mr. Roosevelt, this was an opportunity to show Spain that the U.S. will not be trifled with, proof positive of Spain’s brutal actions, and sufficient reason to declare war; thus, the Spanish-American War began. This resulted in the annexation of Guam, Puerto Rico and the Philippines by the U.S. This spawned the Philippine-American War; the Filipino people, for some reason that escaped anyone in U.S. governance, were not willing to surrender their country to the U.S. So, with the unspeakable violence and inhumane actions with which it came to be identified, the U.S. crushed the Filipino people.

When the U.S. entered World War I, it was its first foray into a European conflict. In 1917, at least six ships either owned by the U.S., or carrying U.S. citizens, were sunk. While this caused outrage in the U.S., it was the business community that was most concerned. By 1917, U.S. financiers had lent the Allies at least $2.3 billion. U.S. economic expansion depended on an Allied victory, so war was inevitable to ensure it. Towards the end of the war, even President Woodrow Wilson, who led the U.S. into the war, and thus presided over the deaths of 117,000 Americans, admitted that the war was waged for commercial purposes, and not for some lofty ideals of freedom. Said he: “Why, my fellow-citizens, is there any man here, or any woman – let me say, is there any child here – who does not know that the seed of war in the modern world is industrial and commercial rivalry? This war, in its inception, was a commercial and industrial war.”

Under President Lyndon B. Johnson, the U.S. found beneficial the model it had previously successfully used to enter or start wars, to escalate hostilities with Vietnam. The U.S. had long ago decreed Communism as the great threat to civilization, and with the Communist North of Vietnam attempting to reunite with the U.S.-puppet-run South, the U.S. needed to act. In order to increase the number of U.S. soldiers sent to that beleaguered nation, an excuse had to be found. The so-called Gulf of Tonkin incident, which was really a non-incident, was the excuse this time.

The staging area for the U.S. Seventh Fleet was the Gulf of Tonkin. On August 2, 1964, the U.S. destroyer Maddox was on an espionage mission when it was fired on by North Vietnamese torpedo patrol boats. The Maddox, with supporting air power, fired back, sinking one North Vietnamese boat.

Two evenings later, the Maddox and another destroyer, the C. Turner Joy, were again in the gulf. The Maddox’s instruments indicated that the ship was under attack, or had been attacked. The captain began an immediate retaliatory strike. Both ships began firing in to the night. However, officials on the ships later determined that they were shooting at ‘ghost images’ on their radar. The evidence indicated that they had not, in fact, been attacked.

Regardless of this, the incident was presented to the world, and more importantly, to the U.S. Congress, as an act of aggression against the United States. The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, empowering the president to take any and all means necessary to repel this ‘aggression,’ quickly passed Congress.

Eleven years later, with over 55,000 U.S. soldiers and at least 2,000,000 Vietnamese men, women and children dead, the last U.S. soldiers and administrators fled Saigon as the Vietcong swept through. U.S. hubris has been defeated.

The U.S. public relations organization works overtime to foster the myth of the country as a beacon of peace and freedom. Yet its demands that other nations adhere to some lofty standard of respect for human rights cannot withstand any close scrutiny. The U.S. has used its veto power at the United Nations at least 40 times to protect Israel, a nation that can only be described as apartheid, from any consequences of its barbaric practices. Its own cities are not safe for young, unarmed African-American men, who are shot and killed by white police officers in epidemic proportions. It is rare for any of the officers pulling the trigger to be indicted, let alone convicted of these racist crimes.

The U.S. condemned Syria for allegedly using chemical weapons, but finances all of Israel’s weaponry, including its chemical weapons, used routinely against the Palestinians. ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) has been condemned, legitimately, for beheading its prisoners, but the U.S. has full diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia, which uses public beheading as a means of execution, and has used that method over 80 times this year alone. Should ISIL ever establish a relatively stable government on oil-rich lands, its barbaric practices will also be overlooked.

Over half of U.S. senators are millionaires, and they increase taxes on the middle class and poor as they reduce taxes for the rich. The government condemns the deaths of innocent people in war-torn countries, as it sends drones around the world that kill thousands of innocent people. The government demands a military ‘defense’ budget larger than that of the eight next largest international military budgets combined, depriving schools of much-needed revenue as it strengthens its deadly war machine, yet those other countries are not plagued with constant attacks and invasions, despite their much-smaller military budgets.

In the U.S., there is a separate justice system for the wealthy, with bankers confessing to felonies paying small fines, while poverty-stricken people caught with small amounts of marijuana spend years in prison. Wealthy pedophiles are sentenced to small fines and a few months in prison.

Poor and middle-class students who want to attend U.S. colleges and universities can borrow money from the government at an interest rate of 4.66%. Banks borrow money from the government at an interest rate of 0.75%. And if the bank fails, the U.S. government will rescue it. If a former student declares bankruptcy, his/her student loan is not absolved.

When in desperation a young person enlists in the military, he/she may find themselves killing men, woman and children that pose no threat to them. Then, on returning home, not only is the tuition program offered to veterans minimal, good luck to them in trying to get assistance for post-traumatic stress disorder. Over 50% of veterans will experience homelessness at some point after their time in the military, and they have higher-than-average rates of suicide, substance abuse, divorce and domestic violence. The U.S. government is happy to send them off to war, but is not interested in them when they return, broken and bruised. They have served their corporate purpose, and can now be discarded.

This is life in the much-touted ‘land of opportunity’, the ‘home of the free and the brave’. Yes, opportunity abounds for the rich, but for the poor and those who are struggling to maintain a middle-class standard, things are not so rosy. But ask the common man or woman on any U.S. street what they believe to be the greatest country in the world, and their hearts will swell pride and their eyes become moist as they proclaim it to be the U.S.A. And the U.S. public relations effort scores another victory, while the blind lemmings fall off the cliff.

June 19, 2015 - Posted by aletho | Militarism | United States, Zionism