Imperial Bankruptcy

Many of us are not aware of how inevitably and speedily our imperial capitalist economy is moving toward bankruptcy. We are sailing on a magnificent yacht that is moving downstream toward an immense waterfall and we are deaf to the crashing sounds of falling water.

The money we spend on the military, not just in Iraq and Afghanistan, but world wide far exceeds the TARP bail out funds. But if you include the cost of Iraq, now 2-3 trillion dollars, on top of Tarp which Geithner, the Secretary of the Treasury, says we may need 2 trillion dollars to fix Wall St. and the banks, we are looking at an economic crisis that cannot continue. Keep in mind that all this money is borrowed. Income tax is insufficient to cover the expense. Bush did not raise taxes for his imperial war, he lowered them. We are borrowing from China, Japan and other Asian countries. Add the service on the debt and you feel as though you are becoming mentally unsound. It cannot be real. Oh, but it is.

Now let’s consider what we actually manufacture for export. Guess? It’s weaponry. We don’t manufacture much of anything else. We produce more arms and munitions than anyone else in the world and we ship this weaponry to 730 American military bases throughout the world, actually in 130 countries. The money spent also includes global communications, espionage installations, military operations, nuclear weapons, construction, pension, hospitalization and disability payments for veterans and much, much more.

We are now at the point where we may not raise enough money to pay for all of this. We cannot continue to rely on massive spending for armies and weapons to keep the economy afloat and prevent collapse. It is not productive. It is dead end spending. Furthermore, an economy based on war leads to the destruction of the human spirit. We tend to think of war only in terms of victory or defeat when in reality “it is about death and the infliction of death.” We do not consider our adversary as people and we kill without conscience. As a result, we also kill unarmed civilians and we establish secret prisons where our soldiers torture the inmates. Torture was permissible because Attorney General Gonzalez decreed that the Geneva Conventions prohibiting torture was obsolete. It happens that this prohibition was a ratified treaty signed by the U.S. and was therefore a law. According to our Constitution a ratified treaty is a law of the land. Gonzalez had no power or authority to nullify it. Bush then issued a memo stating that captives from the battlefields are not POWs but rather are “illegal combatants.” There is no such term in International Law. Bush’s attorneys made it up.

Thus the Geneva Conventions in regard to POWs did not apply, according to Bush, Gonzalez and John Yoo in the Office of Legal Counsel. Troops were then free to torture.

Those responsible for torture should be prosecuted. It is a violation of the law. The subject is not debatable.


References: .
Fisk, Tom. The Great War for Civilization. 2005.
Johnson, Chalmers. Nemesis. 2006.
Stiglilitz, J. and Bilmes, L. The 3 Trillion Dollar War. 2008.