It's Time to Finally Admit We're an Empire

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/world/its-time-finally-admit-were-empire



Is America an empire or not? It is a loaded question because in the modern age, that word -- empire -- is not a moniker citizens proudly embrace in the way we might imagine the Ottomans or the Romans did during their reigns. Instead, the word today evokes images of the Death Star. And so we shirk the term's implications and insinuations, much as President Obama did this week at the United Nations.

"The United States has a hard-earned humility when it comes to our ability to determine events inside other countries," he declared in his speech to the General Assembly. "The notion of American empire may be useful propaganda, but it isn't borne out by America's current policy."

The rhetoric sounds nice and it deftly portrays the United States as the sympathetic victim of an international conspiracy. The problem is that it glosses over how current U.S. policies do, in fact, create an imperial footprint.

This is most easy to see when it comes to our military. According to a 2010 report by the Pentagon, the United States has 662 overseas bases in 38 different countries. Additionally, the United States recently invaded and occupied Iraq and Afghanistan and helped invade Libya. It is also prosecuting undeclared wars in Yemen and Pakistan, while propping up dictators in most of the Middle East. Oh, and we are also the world's biggest exporter of weapons and spend more on our military than most of the world combined.

[1917]

1. .

A declining empire.

[redgreenandblue]

2. IMO, the US is an empire, both the most powerful and the most short-lived in world history.

It is like the arc of a regular empire was put on steroids and played in fast-forward. The US empire was a the peak of its power shortly after the second World War, after a short and steep rise of only a few decades. The first real "test of empire", the Korean War, ended with a less-than-victory and it pretty much was down hill from there. The USA, by now, has the power to obliterate the whole planet many times over, but aside from that is almost consistently unable to enforce its own interests in various contested areas of the world.

[Junkdrawer]

3. Empire by deception....

Genuine Fly-the-flag colonies with Governors and the requisite civil servants are expensive. And, after WWI, when most thinking persons came to understand that empires mean endless wars, they became unpopular in the home countries.

So....

The game became puppet governments, the illusion of independence, and when necessary, destabilization by covert operations with invasions-to-restore-order as a last resort.

[HereSince1628]

5. You left out...free-trade deals. Our's is an empire of capitalist imperialism

The goal is demographic rather than geographic empire, it gives our overlords' empire the strange appearance of being anti-self.

[bvar22]

9. Exactly!

Thanks for the inclusion.
These "Free Trade" deals make it easier to to bring the Slave Labor loot
pillaged from the local natives back home for the enrichment of our 1% Lords.

[Enthusiast]

12. That is precisely correct.

It's a "new and improved" variation on empire.

[KG]

4. if it's an empire, they're doing it wrong.

[WatermelonRat]

6. In an informal sense, maybe.

It doesn't match the traditional definition of an empire, but these days the term is so abused that trying to define a single academic meaning is pointless.

[LWolf]

7. Of course we're an empire.

A particularly arrogant and incompetent empire.

[randome]

10. Not an empire. But we do pretty much rule the world.

In our economy and military force. And most of the world prefers it that way.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]I'm always right. When I'm wrong I admit it.
So then I'm right about being wrong.[/center][/font][hr]

[Generic Other]

11. Oxford Dictionary says we are an empire

"An empire is a state with politico-military dominion of populations who are culturally and ethnically distinct from the imperial (ruling) ethnic group and its culture." So quit lying to yourself. This is what your taxes are bankrupting your nation to pay for.

And me too. Sorry.

I wish I knew what to do about it, how to quit feeding the beast.

[soundsgreat]

13. bruhaha

[joshcryer]

14. Sure, the US is an empire.

What does the rest of the world want to do about it? Oh, right, most countries welcome our bases and aid and even some that don't are happy to turn a blind eye.

Until countries like Pakistan or Yemen start shooting down our drones we'll continue dominating them.

And it will continue to poll high in the American public.