The End of the Anglo-American Empire?
by Richard C. Cook
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=3Dva&aid=3D9473
Much of the world=92s history over the last century has been
dominated by the United States . But by the turn of the
millennium in 2000-2001, the =93American Century=94 had begun to
descend into a chamber of horrors.
The years since then have been marked by the huge financial
bubbles engineered by the U.S. Federal Reserve System and
the virus of predatory global capitalism. We have the
looming worldwide economic crisis with rising bankruptcies,
credit disruptions, and soaring fuel and food prices.
Alongside has been the thinly-disguised but continuing
attempt by the U.S. to conquer the Middle East by force of
arms under the heading of the =93War on Terror.=94
Some have argued that the U.S. at war is nothing new and
that we have always been a nation of aggression and
militarism. While this may be true, the expansion of the
original thirteen states to cover much of the North American
continent was done with far less violence than the constant
fighting among the European nations over the centuries for
domination.
The key event was President Thomas Jefferson=92s choice to
purchase the Louisiana Territory from France in 1803, thus
turning America =92s energy to westward expansion rather than
competition with the European powers for colonial empires.
The long-term result has been a nation that has led the
world in science, technology, social and political
innovation, and individual prosperity and freedom.
Still, there seems to have been a critical change that took
place in both America and the world in the early 1900s.
To many, the arrival of the 20th century seemed to be a time
of great hope. There had not been a major international
conflagration since the Napoleonic Wars which ended with the
Treaty of Vienna in 1815. Despite inequities in income, the
industrial age showed promise of raising the standard of
living everywhere. Four large nations whose territory had
been consolidated during the latter part of the 19th
century=97the U.S. , Russia , Germany , and Italy =97were
flouri****ng.
But by 1914, the worst war in history=97World War I=97had begun.
A century of conflict and chaos, which has not yet ended,
was underway, with hundreds of millions of non-combatants
eventually losing their lives through war, famine,
epidemics, or genocide. The modern world has seen many
holocausts in addition to the one befalling European Jewry
during World War II.
Alongside miracles of medicine, agriculture, sanitation,
engineering, trans****tation, communications, and information
technology have come terrible weapons of mass destruction,
the latest being depleted uranium. There have been appalling
refinements in the diabolical arts of assassination,
torture, propaganda, mind control, and political
manipulation.
Economic crime has occurred on an epic scale, including
currency manipulations, privatization of public resources,
the aforesaid financial bubbles, involvement of governments
in the illicit drug trade, attacks by financiers on national
economies, the creation of offshore tax havens, money
laundering, destruction of entire industries to benefit
global capitalism, human trafficking, cornering of markets
on food and other vital commodities, speculative hedge funds
whose managers earn a billion dollars a year, and looting of
private companies and pension funds by highly-paid CEOs and
executives..
What then happened, especially during the latter part of the
=93American Century,=94 to turn so much promise into the
continuing spectacle of prosperity for some side-by-side
with recurrent catastrophes for others? Likely this question
will be debated for centuries.
It would appear, however, that once it became apparent how
much wealth the industrial revolution was capable of
generating, the world=92s economies began to develop so fast
that the traditional means of resolving the distribution of
power and wealth among and within nations and social cl*****
fell apart. Because human beings were not capable of
exercising the wisdom, generosity, fairness, and restraint
to master the industrial genie that was now out of the
bottle, the worst inclinations of individuals and society
exerted themselves. The history of the 20th century and the
battles among nations and blocs for supremacy resemble
nothing so much as neighborhood gang wars among Mafia dons,
the latest being the Bush-Cheney cabal that has controlled
the U.S. government since 2001.
Another gang has been those among the world=92s money-lenders
who became experts at parasitic high finance and got rich
through the explosive growth of fractional reserve banking.
These people have dominated the economies of nations through
such institutions as the Bank of England, the Federal
Reserve System, the Bank of International Settlements (BIS),
and other central and commercial banks, currency and
commodity exchanges, and stock and bond markets.
The bankers on the one hand and the political racketeers on
the other merged over a century ago under the oversight of
figures associated with the creation of the Anglo-American
Empire, such as Cecil Rhodes, Lord Milner, Colonel House,
Winston Churchill, the House of Windsor, and, as examples of
families involved, the Rothschilds, Schiffs, Morgans,
Harrimans, Rockefellers, Myers, and Bushes. Among the major
projects of the empire in recent decades have been the
creation and maintenance of both the kingdom of Saudi Arabia
and the state of Israel as Western bridgeheads of influence,
power, and wealth in the Middle East .
This has led to the ongoing campaign by the U.S. to exercise
complete military control of that region, with Israel the
principal beneficiary. It is an astoni****ng spectacle to
watch the =93world=92s greatest superpower=94 bankrupt itself
financially and in its world reputation because its
politicians are too corrupt and cowardly to take a stand
against the domestic Jewish lobby.
This campaign of conquest seems to have had its roots in the
1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy, who
intended to bring a new era of peace through rapprochement
with the Soviet Union, restraint of Israel =92s nuclear
ambitions, withdrawal of combat forces from Vietnam , and
dismantlement of the CIA as an agency of covert warfare.
Kennedy=92s brief presidency coincided with an amazing period
of social and spiritual renewal among America =92s youth in
the 1960s.
With the killing of Kennedy, the dogs of war were unleashed.
After America =92s disastrous war in Vietnam ended in 1975,
President Jimmy Carter tried to introduce a policy of
civility and restraint in domestic and world political
affairs, but he was swept away in the election of 1980 by
the =93Reagan Revolution,=94 whose catastrophic legacy we see
today.
President Ronald Reagan set in motion the current mudslide
of worldwide cataclysms through his huge military build-up,
the =93Reagan doctrine=94 of proxy warfare in third-world
countries, the pathologically paranoid Strategic Defense
Initiative=97=93Star Wars=94=97program, and the deregulation of the
financial industry. Since our economy is the largest in the
world, such action was bound to affect every other nation in
making them subservient to the U.S. bankers and financiers
who organized themselves in such institutions as David
Rockefeller=92s Trilateral Commission.
Bill Clinton, elected in 1992, did little to stem the tide
of barbarism. He completed the destruction of the U.S. as an
industrial democracy by signing the legislation for NAFTA
and opening the floodgates to foreign control of U.S.
business. He also completed the deregulation of the
financial industry by repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act which
had prohibited the merger of investment and deposit banks.
But Clinton still was attacked by the right-wing who wanted
him to unleash a new military assault against Iraq .
When George W. Bush became president in 2000, the grand
strategy of Middle East occupation was facilitated by the
skillful exploitation of the 9/11 attacks as the excuse for
military mobilization to be financed by the housing bubble
and the forced sale of U.S. Treasury debt to foreign
investors. The historic jack-up of petroleum
prices=97including the most recent ones that have brought gas
at-the-pump in the U.S. to $4 a gallon=97are clearly a de
facto tax on the American public to pay for these wars.
It has become obvious in recent months=97even as Bush et. al.
plot a possible attack on Iran before the end of his
presidency=97that the rest of the world is heartily sick of
U.S. arrogance. Even our allies in NATO have refused to
allow us to build a defensive missile ****eld virtually to
the borders of Russia .
And there are indications that the European financial
community=97headed by the Bank of International
Settlements=97may force the Federal Reserve to start raising
interest rates again to stem inflation, even if this drives
the U.S. domestic population into an economic depression.
Recent signs from the Council on Foreign Relations are that
the U.S. will accept that the dollar can no longer reign
supreme as the world=92s sole reserve currency and that it
must give way to the Euro and the Chinese Yuan in sharing
this role. Thus the U.S. political leader****p seems to have
begun to realize that we will no longer be allowed to
posture as the unchallenged bully of the world.
What we may be seeing=97even as the U.S. military has extended
its reach to the insertion of uniformed personnel in 135
nations=97is the end of the Anglo-American Empire and the
birth of a multi-polar world. It appears that the more
level-headed among the U.S. and worldwide elite are tilting
toward Barack Obama as the best choice to manage America =92s
inevitable decline.
This decline is by no means a bad thing. Through graceful
acceptance, America may even have a chance someday to regain
its soul. A good place to start would be to establish a
National Historical Truth Commission to investigate such
historical puzzles as the real causes of U.S. entrance into
the wars of the past century; assassinations=97such as JFK,
Senator Paul Wellstone, and JFK, Jr.; and 9/11. Another
worthwhile proposal is for a tribunal on =93International and
Domestic Crimes Committed by High U.S. Government
Officials,=94 which will be discussed at a national conference
planned for Andover , Mass. , in September.
Can anything else be done to ease the shocks to come? If
people took the trouble to read the available literature,
they would see that hundreds of potential economic and
political reforms have been presented and discussed=97at least
in books and on the internet=97that could make our society
more just, functional, and humane and not just the ugly
police state it is rapidly becoming.
In the mind of this writer, a viable economic solution would
be policies based on government control of credit treated as
a vital public utility, rebuilding of our public and private
infrastructure, radical reduction of pollution and
dependence on foreign oil through green energy R&D,
enactment of a basic income guarantee, and implementation of
a national dividend which would monetize productivity and
savings.
The theory of a national dividend, not dependent on either
taxation or government borrowing, is sound and was worked
out decades ago by the British Social Credit movement. It
can be seen on a small scale in the annual residents=92
stipend provided by the Alaska Permanent Fund. Such a
program would be more in accord with the largely successful
social welfare policies of the Western European democracies
and less with the leanings, for instance, of the American
Libertarians. The manner in which they view with suspicion
any action taken by representative government to benefit the
general welfare=97misleadingly labeling it =93socialism=94=97is an
ideological dead end.
Of course the mainstream media ignore any real reform
proposals, because they are afraid to suggest that there are
any alternative political structures to ones that are
controlled by usurers and war-mongers.
Ultimately, we are all responsible for the current state of
affairs, because we have profited from it in one way or
another so must reap the consequences. There is no use
worrying about how we might escape the wave of events while
everyone else goes down with the ****p. But those who at
least recognize what is going on have an obvious advantage.
=46rom there the only conscionable approach is what it has
always been=97diligence, honesty, and prudence in all our
affairs.
Ultimately, mankind must grow up and became more humane and
compassionate. This includes the angry white male American
conservatives who=97under the tutelage of conniving European-
born intellectuals like Kissinger and Brzezinski=97have been
the real global terrorists for the past generation.
Philosophically, we need to realize that we live in an
infinite universe of abundance where all God=92s children can
be provided for, rather than one of scarcity where we can
only survive by taking away what belongs to our neighbor.
We can all choose to begin seeing the world in this manner.
We need to understand that we are at an early point of a new
age of humanity. If enough people attain a sufficient
degree of enlightenment=97and it won=92t take that many=97real
change in social, economic, and political relations will
follow, just as the flowers bloom in the spring.
Richard C. Cook is a former U.S. federal government analyst,
whose career included service with the U.S. Civil Service
Commission, the Food and Drug Administration, the Carter
White House, NASA, and the U.S. Treasury Department. His
articles on economics, politics, and space policy have
appeared on numerous websites and in Eurasia Critic
magazine. His book on monetary reform, entitled We Hold
These Truths: The Hope of Monetary Reform, will be published
soon by Tendril Press. He is also the author of Challenger
Revealed: An Insider=92s Account of How the Reagan
Administration Caused the Greatest Tragedy of the Space Age,
called by one reviewer, =93the most im****tant spaceflight book
of the last twenty years.=94
|
