America’s defeat in Afghanistan is one in a string of catastrophic military blunders that herald the death of the American empire. With the exception of the first Gulf War, fought largely by mechanized units in the open desert that did not — wisely — attempt to occupy Iraq, the United States political and military leadership has stumbled from one military debacle to another. Korea. Vietnam. Lebanon. Afghanistan. Iraq. Syria. Libya. The trajectory of military fiascos mirrors the sad finales of the Chinese, Ottoman, Hapsburg, Russian, French, British, Dutch, Portuguese and Soviet empires. While each of these empires decayed with their own peculiarities, they all exhibited patterns of dissolution that characterize the American experiment.

Imperial ineptitude is matched by domestic ineptitude. The collapse of good government at home, with legislative, executive and judicial systems all seized by corporate power, ensures that the incompetent and the corrupt, those dedicated not to the national interest but to swelling the profits of the oligarchic elite, lead the country into a cul-de-sac. Rulers and military leaders, driven by venal self-interest, are often buffoonish characters in a grand comic operetta. How else to think of Allen Dulles, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, Donald Trump or the hapless Joe Biden? While their intellectual and moral vacuity is often darkly amusing, it is murderous and savage when directed towards their victims.

The core belief of imperialists, whether they come in the form of a Barack Obama or a George W. Bush, is racism and ethnic chauvinism, the notion that Americans are permitted, because of superior attributes, to impose their “values” on lesser races and peoples by force. This racism, carried out in the name of Western civilization and its corollary white supremacy, unites the rabid imperialists and liberal interventionists in the Republican and Democratic parties. It is the fatal disease of empire, captured in Graham Greene’s novel The Quiet American and Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient.

phuketrichard wrote: ↑Fri Apr 23, 2021 12:36 pm I am proud to be an American but fuck, it is no longer the country it was...

truffledog wrote: ↑Fri Apr 23, 2021 1:42 pm I just hate it when they claim their pizza is better than ours.

Big Daikon wrote: ↑Fri Apr 23, 2021 2:59 pm

truffledog wrote: ↑Fri Apr 23, 2021 1:42 pm I just hate it when they claim their pizza is better than ours.

Them's fightin' words!

The Untouchables-ish wrote: Trust an Italian to bring a knife, and fork, to a pizza fight!

but honestly, what you posted is epic cheese on toast!

Spigzy wrote: ↑Fri Apr 23, 2021 3:08 pm

Big Daikon wrote: ↑Fri Apr 23, 2021 2:59 pm

truffledog wrote: ↑Fri Apr 23, 2021 1:42 pm I just hate it when they claim their pizza is better than ours.

Them's fightin' words!

The Untouchables-ish wrote: Trust an Italian to bring a knife, and fork, to a pizza fight!

but honestly, what you posted is epic cheese on toast!

Spigzy wrote: ↑Fri Apr 23, 2021 3:08 pm

Big Daikon wrote: ↑Fri Apr 23, 2021 2:59 pm

truffledog wrote: ↑Fri Apr 23, 2021 1:42 pm I just hate it when they claim their pizza is better than ours.

Them's fightin' words!

The Untouchables-ish wrote: Trust an Italian to bring a knife, and fork, to a pizza fight!

but honestly, what you posted is epic cheese on toast!