The US Empire –Beginning of the End Game



The Research Intelligence Unit – www.riunit.com

The following is edited from research by Gajendra Singh, Indian ambassador (retired), served as ambassador to Turkey and Azerbaijan from August 1992 to April 1996. Prior to that, he served terms as ambassador to Jordan, Romania and Senegal. He is currently chairman of the Foundation for Indo-Turkic Studies.

His story

A 15th century Ottoman Sultan Murat II arranged for Mehmet II, not the favorite son, to be trained in the art of governing at the capital city Edirne, under an able Grand Vizier. Mehmet II had been a wild and disobedient brat, so Murat II advised his teacher use of the rod, which was done to good effect. A Sunni, Sultan Mehmet II fell under the unwholesome influence of a Shia cleric, fought with the Grand Vizier and the military Janissaries rebelled. Before Mehmet II could create further mess, Murat II returned from Manisa, where he had retired for spiritual pursuits and took back the reins of the empire.

US President George W. Bush, has made such an unholy mess of US polity and its foreign policy that Papa George W. H Bush, a former President, had to create a bipartisan Baker-Hamilton Commission, not only to salvage, whatever remains of his son's Presidency, but to arrest the fast decline of the hyper power, still with enormous powers of destruction. Bush courtiers, led by the Neo-cons with their racist Staussian policies, till 2003 were claiming Washington to be the new Rome, but alas without redeeming graces of an empire, are now ratting on the Bush Regime.

With the Ottoman star on the rise, after the course correction, Mehmet II went on to conquer Constantinople in 1453, became Fethi (the Victorious) and extinguished the millennia old Byzantine Empire. This laid the foundations for the Ottoman expansion westwards who twice knocked at the Gates of Vienna, a memory which still rankles, which Europe now uses to keep Turkey outside the Europe Union. The ebb and flow of domination between the East and the West is as old as history, beginning with the Greek – Persian rivalry. US led Christian West, now dominate and exploit Muslim Middle East, Asia and Africa and are ranged against Orthodox Slavs. Iranians remain a hard nut to crack.

Bush has only succeeded in putting the US Empire’s decline into fast forward mode. Nothing is likely to reverse the course, much to the relief of most of the world, victim of its unilateralist policies. In 6 years USA, from being a fairly popular country, with its many good points in spite of flaws, has become one of the most unpopular. The US regime has become the most hated, with Bush being rated a greater danger to the world peace than even North Korean dictator Kim IL Jong, even among neighbors and allies like UK.



Bush is now received formally only because he is the US President. People from Britain to India demonstrate against his visit .Recently in Indonesia, there were vociferous protests against his visit, with his handlers risking a bare 6 hours stay in the country. In the most populous Muslim nation, US popularity has come down from 70% in 2001 to 30 % now, as it has all around the globe even among allied nations. At the Asian Pacific summit in Vietnam, leaders rebuffed Bush's line on North Korea, which has become a nuclear power with missiles, because of flawed US policy and its preoccupation with the Iraqi quagmire.

In the 7 November mid-term US elections, in which his Republican party lost control of both the Senate and the House and many Governor Mansions, when many party candidates declined to even have Bush for canvassing, he has become a dead 'lame duck'. Pre-election polls showed electorate opposed to Iraq war and Bush's performance by 2 to 1. You can not fool all the people all the time, not even the Americans, where 5 big corporations controlling 90% of US media have kept US public misinformed. But nearly three thousand GI body bags from Iraq war and twenty thousand maimed and injured GIs can no longer be kept hidden.

US Incorporated

Americans proudly call their state 'US Incorporated', which it has truly become, a mighty but a dangerous company; manufacturing, selling arms and using them recklessly all around the world (while experimenting with chemicals and depleted Uranium munitions). The Mongols, Turks and other wild tribes used arms for expanding empires but in US Inc, arms manufacture and its use has become an end itself, to hell with the US public interest. From hundreds of billions of US taxpayer’s money spent so far since the illegal invasion of Iraq, the US arms manufacturers remain the main beneficiaries. They are Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, General Dynamics, Honeywell Halliburton, BAE Systems and thousands of smaller defense companies and subcontractors.

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969), 34th US President in his Farewell Address on Jan. 17, 1961 said,"[The] conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. . . . In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."

But now this monster has imposed itself on USA and is expanding, going for more lethal and profitable means of destruction even against international treaties and conventions. The end of the Cold War did not reduce this monster's appetite. US now spends over $400 billion on defense ie for attacking other nations, almost equal to what the rest of the world does. Russia spends a mere fraction of it. Members of US Congress are too deeply involved through lobbies and influence peddling and keep this monster alive and kicking. Tame generals after retirement can look forward to cushy jobs in the defense industry. Currently this monster is fed by an almost equal US trade deficit.

The other players in the ruling US oligarchy are energy interests whose members and nominees are the major decision makers in the US Administration. President Bush, Vice-President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condi Rice, US Ambassador in Baghdad, you name it. While Americans with gas guzzlers, who contribute half carbon dioxide to climate warming, have paid dearly at the gas station, by manipulation and insider trading US and UK oil multinationals have reaped massive profits. But to US chagrin, higher oil prices have enriched energy rich Russia, Iran and Venezuela and stand up to USA. While US hold over oil reserves is becoming shaky in the Middle East, emerging economic powers China and India are tying up energy resources around the world.

Most of the Congressmen are millionaires and each term enriches them further .No wonder the poor in US remain neglected, their number increasing and income disparities widening. There are 37 million poor, one in every four blacks. The top 1 percent of the population now owns 33.4 percent of US wealth while the bottom 50 percent has 2.5 percent. The Bush-Cheney team has racked up another $3 trillion in debt in just 6 years. The US national debt now stands at $8.4 trillion dollars while the trade deficit has ballooned to $800 billion nearly 7

What hope?

Recently, the Pentagon suggested three options for Iraq: send in more troops, shrink the force but stay, or pull out. These have been described as Go Big, Go Long and Go Home. But one solution gaining favor among military commanders is summed up as "Go Big but Short While Transitioning to Go Long". No Go home for the time being.

Powell was cajoled into lying about WMDs in the Security Council before the invasion, smirching his own standing and seriously denting US credibility in the world. After he was eased out, his chief aide publicly denounced the cabal of Cheney, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and other neo-cons for having high jacked US policy making. Even when it was proved by US teams that there were no WMDs or plans for nuclear bombs or connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda, Cheney and others continued to disseminate lies .A retired US Ambassador, who exposed the US lie on Iraq getting Uranium from Niger, was harassed, cover of his wife Valery Plame, a CIA operative exposed, a crime under US laws.

US and UK troops now face a Dunkirk in Iraq, with US convoys being stopped near the Kuwait border and mercenaries escorting them being abducted .The time for escape is running out from the blow back of the 'Desert Storm". Billions of dollars have been outsourced to mercenaries outfits and others with little audit or control over the loot. Even the British , who occupy regions inhabited by Shias , who were happy with the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's Sunni regime but oppose foreign occupation , are quitting Basra and are camping in the safety of the Desert , protected by jets and helicopter gun ships .

However, there is room for hope that worse may not come to worst: a saving grace of the US constitutional system of checks and balances is that Bush may be the most powerful man in the world, but he can't ignore Congress. And, however much George Bush Sr might hate Saddam, he would not want his son's presidency to end in disgrace."

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