<div dir="ltr">
<div class="gmail-container gmail-content-width3">
<div class="gmail-header gmail-reader-header gmail-reader-show-element">
<font size="1"><a href="https://orinocotribune.com/as-the-us-empire-declines-its-war-efforts-are-becoming-more-desperate/">https://orinocotribune.com/as-the-us-empire-declines-its-war-efforts-are-becoming-more-desperate/</a>
</font>
<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">As the US Empire Declines, its War Efforts are Becoming More Desperate<br></h1></div>
<hr>
<div class="gmail-content">
<div class="gmail-moz-reader-content gmail-line-height4 gmail-reader-show-element"><div id="gmail-readability-page-1" class="gmail-page"><div><p>By Rainer Shea – April 3, 2020</p><p id="gmail-51d9">A generation ago, Umberto Eco wrote an <a href="https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/umberto-eco-ur-fascism" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow noreferrer">essay</a> titled
“Ur-Fascism,” where he applied the emotional characteristics of fascist
movements to predict what fascism would look like when it next rose in
the United States. Eco concluded that among aspects of fascism like a
desire for tradition, a culture of militant hierarchy, and a contempt
for nonconformity, there was a uniquely fascist view of war, one that’s
increasingly come to apply to American militarism. Eco wrote that
fascists embrace a paradigm of eternal warfare, one where enemies both
external and internal must and can constantly be beaten back. And as he
described, this mentality of unshakable confidence in one’s own military
might is unpragmatic and ultimately self-defeating:</p><p id="gmail-86d1"><em>By
a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same
time too strong and too weak. Fascist governments are condemned to lose
wars because they are constitutionally incapable of objectively
evaluating the force of the enemy.</em></p><p id="gmail-4f63">Like
all of the other ways Eco accurately envisioned what Trump-era politics
would be like, this quote is becoming an increasingly good
representation of American foreign policy. When Trump assassinates an
Iranian general under the fabricated rationale that he had been planning
to blow up the U.S. embassy, or <a href="https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/full-scale-war-is-avoided-and-trump-goes-right-back-to-warmongering-e4169d69a8c0?source=search_post---------0" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">goes</a> right back to Iran warmongering after war with Iran is averted, or carries out a bombing campaign that <a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/03/15/coronavirus-iraq-us-iran/" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow noreferrer">reintroduces</a> the
possibility of such a war, he’s risking war with a country that’s
militarily powerful enough to devastate the U.S. army. But he and the
neocons who support such provocations against Iran are all the while
acting confident that it will turn out fine for the U.S., because their
default attitude is to treat enemies as weaker than is actually the
case.</p><p id="gmail-b7e0">The same applies to
how the U.S. has been approaching all of its other adversaries since the
beginning of the 2010s. This was when Obama <a href="https://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R42448.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow noreferrer">began</a> a
“pivot to Asia,” where the U.S. expands its military presence in the
southwestern Pacific in order to counter China’s rise. It was a
preparation for the era of escalating cold war tensions with China
that’s since appeared, and it was accompanied by the start of proxy wars
in Syria and Ukraine that have set off rising nuclear tensions with
Russia. The Washington imperialists started a great-power conflict in
reaction to the decline of U.S. influence, which itself was a
consequence of the U.S. empire’s self-detrimental invasions of
Afghanistan and Iraq.</p><p id="gmail-4148">When
Trump took the job of leading this great-power conflict, he and his
administration exacerbated all the reminiscently fascist aspects of
America’s recent foreign policy approach: an abandonment of diplomacy, a
paranoid and hyperbolic rhetoric about the supposed threat that the
designated enemies pose, a refusal to consider that belligerent behavior
will further harm American power.</p><p id="gmail-cd9f">Trump
fired missiles at Syria, expanded the sanctions against Russia, and
armed anti-Russian forces in Ukraine. He threatened the DPRK with
nuclear annihilation while imposing more crushing sanctions against its
people. He <a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2019/05/15/pretexts-for-an-attack-on-iran/" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow noreferrer">used</a> familiar
WMD accusations against Iran to justify ever more inhumane Iran
sanctions, in addition to the other ways he’s antagonized the country.
He started a trade war with China while escalating the <a href="https://www.workers.org/2019/08/43250/" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow noreferrer">proxy war</a> against China’s internal stability, and while <a href="https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/03/23/the-coming-war-on-china%E2%80%8A-%E2%80%8Awatch-john-pilgers-powerfully-relevant-documentary/" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow noreferrer">continuing</a> the military buildup in China’s surrounding regions.</p><p id="gmail-a989">Building
upon the Obama administration’s absurd claim that Venezuela poses a
“national security threat” to the U.S., the Trump administration has
also concocted a series of narratives that it uses to justify its
destabilization campaigns and military threats against the country.
After the <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/02/05/trump_america_will_never_be_a_socialist_country_we_were_born_free_and_we_shall_stay_free.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow noreferrer">Red-baiting</a> tactics and the <a href="http://johnpilger.com/articles/the-war-on-venezuela-is-built-on-lies" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow noreferrer">disinformation</a> about Maduro being a “dictator,” the White House has <a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/03/30/going-after-maduro/" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow noreferrer">fabricated</a> a
series of drug-related crimes and used them to indict Venezuela’s top
leadership. Now they’re accusing Maduro’s government of a
“narco-terrorist” plot to flood the U.S. with cocaine, and they’re
sending navy ships to Venezuela as part of a new plan for overthrowing
the Chavistas.</p><p id="gmail-8517">Like the <a href="https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/10/how-an-ever-sanctioning-superpower-is-losing-its-status.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow noreferrer">anti-Russia sanctions</a>, the <a href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/14359" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow noreferrer">pronouncement</a> from Washington that Juan Guaido is the true president of Venezuela, or the <a href="https://off-guardian.org/2020/01/06/is-soleimani-murder-beginning-of-the-end-of-us-imperialism/" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow noreferrer">drone murder</a> of
General Soleimani, these actions are ultimately helping make the U.S.
more isolated and ineffectual. To further its current Venezuela regime
change project, Washington is tightening sanctions and cutting
Venezuelans off from the resources they need amid the Covid-19 crisis.
Washington is also increasing its resource blockade against the people
of Iran, and it hasn’t halted any of its other sanctions. In response to
this atrocity, eight countries have <a href="https://www.struggle-la-lucha.org/2020/03/27/eight-countries-demand-lifting-of-u-s-killer-sanctions/?fbclid=IwAR13GweQ86UsK832FTsvfUnZYaT_eZsX95F909j-bLg1NHcQ97TxuaOv6c4" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow noreferrer">called</a> upon
the U.N. to make the U.S. halt its economic warfare operations, and
America’s reputation will no doubt be further harmed by its actions
during this pandemic.</p><p id="gmail-882d">Like is the case for the idea of an invasion of Iran, which would <a href="https://archive.thinkprogress.org/war-iran-us-troops-draft-trump-bolton-e649c4a98b98/" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow noreferrer">require</a> bringing back the draft, invading Venezuela isn’t a very safe option at this point in America’s imperial decline. It would <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-09-17/a-u-s-military-intervention-in-venezuela-would-be-a-disaster" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow noreferrer">require</a> a
military commitment on the same level as Iraq, and it would cause far
more damage to America’s global influence and military capabilities.
Being mired in Middle Eastern conflicts that have arisen because of its
reactive late-stage imperialist war campaigns from the last two decades,
the U.S. doesn’t want to further spread its resources by trying to
militarily overthrow another government. This notably wasn’t the case
only nine years ago, when the U.S. invaded and overthrew Gaddafi.</p><p id="gmail-5e9d">With
this phase in the decline of U.S. imperialism, American militarism more
than ever matches Eco’s depiction of fascist militarism. Trump’s
America is obsessed with military might, stamping out socialism, and
crushing its enemies, yet largely as a result of Washington’s own
belligerence the country is rapidly losing its former power. China,
Russia, Iran, the DPRK, Assad, and Chavez are portrayed as weak compared
to America, yet with each year they and their allies gain more of an
upper hand.</p><p id="gmail-f029">This does not
mean the U.S. and the other fascist countries are no longer a threat to
the world’s colonized and exploited people. In the coming years, these
countries will use all available tools for fulfilling fascism’s ultimate
goal, which is to protect capitalist interests. They’ll continue to
carry out genocide for the sake of corporate power, enact police terror
against the populace, increase wealth inequality through privatization
and austerity, and carry out coups and invasions at every opportunity.
The extent of their remaining reach was demonstrated with last year’s
U.S. coup in Bolivia, where the new fascist government is <a href="https://orinocotribune.com/bolivia-faces-croatian-style-ethnic-cleansing-south-african-like-apartheid/" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow noreferrer">ethnically cleansing</a> indigenous people, <a href="https://www.mintpressnews.com/bolivia-interim-government-privatizing-economy/263529/" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow noreferrer">privatizing</a> essential services, and <a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/03/11/elon-musk-is-acting-like-a-neo-conquistador-for-south-americas-lithium/" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow noreferrer">opening</a> the country’s lithium up to corporate oligarchs like Elon Musk.</p><p id="gmail-98bc">Yet
when Eco proclaimed that all fascist governments are destined to lose
wars, he didn’t mean that they’re incapable of succeeding in any
attempts at conquest. He meant that their hubris makes them inevitably
prone to getting into some conflicts that they can’t win. Such is the
nature of all empires, which are bound to win many wars but are also
bound to lose others. Even in the first several decades after World War
II, when the U.S. empire was reaching its height, it experienced two
great defeats by failing to keep the DPRK and Vietnam from remaining
communist.</p><p id="gmail-3cd1">In those
moments, we saw American militarism take on the desperate nature that
would ultimately come to define it. The communists of Vietnam and the
DPRK had both made the fascists lose. This is why in an address to the
leadership of socialist Korea, the Black Panther Party leader Eldridge
Cleaver said that “the BPP joins hands with the 40 million Korean people
in our common struggle against our common enemy- the fascist,
imperialist United States government and ruling class. Comrade Kim Il
Sung is the most relevant strategist in the struggle against U.S.
fascism and imperialism in the world today and he has put the correct
tactical line for the universal destruction of fascism and imperialism
in our time.”</p><p id="gmail-4030">To replace
the system of the fascists, we must stand in solidarity with those
resisting imperialism while working towards socialist and anti-colonial
revolution. In this effort, it’s still useful to apply the resistance
strategy that Kim Il Sung put forth, which is Songun. Songun is a
doctrine of “military first,” stating that in order for the revolution
to protect itself from the inevitable violent attacks of the
imperialists, an armed and trained proletariat must exist
unconditionally.</p><p id="gmail-9864">This
practice of sufficiently arming and training the revolution’s members
should therefore be followed by all who resist capitalism and
imperialism, from those within the <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/02/venezuela-adds-civilian-militia-armed-forces-200211200206055.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow noreferrer">Chavista movement’s militia</a> to
the members of the revolutionary organizations in the United States. In
addition to building the movements and institutions for socialist and
anti-colonial revolution, we must equip ourselves for when the fascists
turn their war against us.</p><p><a href="https://medium.com/@rainershea612/as-the-u-s-empire-declines-its-war-efforts-are-becoming-more-desperate-96c360040b1c" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Source URL: Medium</a></p><div><p><br></p></div></div></div></div>
</div>
<div>
</div>
</div>
</div>