Imperialism ain't what it used to be.

[happydreams]

I remember times when with a little money and ruthlessnes you could co-opt, or coerce foreign elites and get what you wanted. The US corporate backed military brought home the bacon in those days. Guatamala was a cinch when Arbentz was snuffed for the interests of United Fruit and US geopolitical power, Mossadegh's overthrow in Iran a piece of cake. Allende in Chile, though there was political blowback that still haunts the US intelligence community, was a great success.

I guess Vietnam really is where all the problems began when democracy ran amok and an irresponsible Public took things into their own hands stopping the war. We've never been the same since. Ronald Reagan tried to get us back on the "beaten" path, Grenada, then Panama and the first Iraq War culminated in splendid little victories, reminiscent of the Spanish American war. But then "The Wall" came down pulling the carpet out from under the neoconservative raison de etre'. Goddamn sneaky Communists, even in their death throws they are a menace! Glasnost spelled doom for the Cold War and the mentality that went with it. Bipolar went multi-polar.

In search of new enemies we found terrorism was an easy sell and with many of the terrorist networks previous or present CIA assets it was easy to focus the terrorism where we wanted it thereby limiting the risk of exposure and political collateral damage. Following the "War is Peace" principle of Orwell's "1984" seemed so easy when you read the book, but for some reason it was much more difficult in practice.

All we needed was to get Clinton out of the way. He seemed to really live up to his name of slick Willie. We fed him false intel on Osama's whereabouts and he bombed the wrong buildings in the Sudan. We gave him phony coordinates for terrorist hideouts in Yugolslavia that, just coincidently, were the exact coordinates of the Chinese embassy. After blowing up the embassy, slick Willie didn't even seem to break stride. After being fed BS on Saddam's "reconstituted nucular program" Clinton bombed Baghdad and no matter how hard US Press Inc. tried to make it look like a political move, slick Willie kept on keeping on.

What nearly brought him down was a blow job, but who would ever have thought this would bring more outrage than the perception of incompetence on more serious matters we tried to foster. Even the conservatives learned something about the depth of the US publics ignorance and sexual hangups. Who would of thought the public would get this outraged after the sexual revolution of the sixties and seventies???

But after it all war as we once profited from it isn't what it used to be. Iraq is simply, after everything else is considered, not bringing home the bacon and it is THAT which will be remembered. It is inevitable that the US must find another way of satifying its immense appetite for other countries resources; it doesn't look like war and terrorism will work anymore, sniff, sniff.

[bemildred]

1. Yep, the days when you could just take over a continent are long gone.

Anything much bigger than Grenada, and you can't make it pay.

[malaise]

2. Interesting that you mention Grenada

The anniversary of the invasion is this week.

[bemildred]

6. It just sticks in my mind because I remember what a bizarre, looney

enterprise it was. All the chest thumping and jingo
blather in the press was sort of disorienting in a
hallucinatory way.

[malaise]

7. Won't forget that week

after that week the neoliberal/globalization agenda was pushed across our region. Most of the left ran scared from that day.

[Lindsay]

4. Oh, but it's paying certain interests very, very well.

Halliburton, KBR, Blackwell...and the Pentagon is getting funded hand over fist.

The difference is, I think, that we're no longer in it to win it. We're in it so the profiteers profit, and share the profits with the party they support, so the party will keep making war for profit....

Around and around and around it goes.

[bemildred]

5. It is true that it all depends on how you look at it.

But it is also true that colonial enterprises have at times
required much less military force and hence paid off politically
and economically much better than they do now. The USA itself
is arguably the most successful colonial enterprise ever undertaken.

[happydreams]

8. Good point. It's true that some

companies are making money in the short term, but these operations are not bringing home the bacon to the US Public like they used to and are causing enormous political damage as well.

For instance if Iraq was won adn the oil secure, there wouldn't be all of this commotion about the morality of it. The only reason the majority of the US would ever introspect on an issue like Iraq is if it is an economic problem. The only reason the Press and Public is interested in Iraq is because it is a huge loss.

IN the past these invasions and overthrows served to, at least temporarily, to stabilize the situation and make the world safe for capitalism.

PS. I don't have a computer, so it takes a day or so for me to respond.

[prescole]

3. There's always a bogeyman out there

but fewer and fewer are a-scarded of him.