Peace Tasmania         
Home

Peace Movement

Building Peace

Human Rights

Events and actions

Issues
Iraq now and future
Iraq war
Israel-Palestine
American Empire
Terrorism - cause & cure

Weapons

Links

 

The new American Empire

For those of us who have lived in the USA, have relatives and friends there, and admire the vision of the drafters of the US Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, it is deeply saddening to have watched the systematic destruction of so many of those ideals by recent Administrations in Washington. 

This page identifies some details of that destruction, mostly from US sources, and the transformation to what has been called "Imperial America".  What is our response?

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." - 
The US Declaration of Independence
 
Afghanistan disaster 
A Senlis Council 2007 report shows "Afghans see the international military coalitions as taking sides in a civil war situation, and as NATO-ISAF troops retreat to their fortified military compounds in southern Afghanistan, locals perceive that the Taliban-led insurgents are once again defeating global military powers." 
Bushflash.com 
A lively site with diverse, amusing comment, resources and movie clips on the Bush Administration. 
Bush energy and military plans are linked 
Perceptive article by Michael Klare in January 2004 edition of Foreign Policy In Focus. "A two-pronged strategy governs U.S. policy toward much of the world. One arm of this strategy is to secure more oil from the rest of the world, and the other is to enhance the capability to intervene. While one of these objectives arises from energy preoccupations and the other from security concerns, the upshot is a single direction for U.S. dominance in the 21st Century. It is this combination of strategies, more than anything else, that will anchor the United States’ international relations for years to come." 
Bush regime - and after by Richard K Moore in Global Research, Dec 27, 2007 
"The Post-Bush Regime: A Prognosis" including the "Gore agenda" on global carbon emissions. 
"Bubble" of American Supremacy 
Financier George Soros analyses US security strategy. He likens American power to a stock market bubble - Atlantic Monthly December 2003. 
Cindy Sheehan: Pro-American = Anti-BushCo 4 May 2006 
"I steadfastly believe that to be anti-BushCo. means being pro-American, pro-life, and most of all, pro-peace." 
Defend the Constitution - American campaign 
An online grassroots movement combating the growing power of the religious right ..., while respecting people of faith and their beliefs. 
Democratisation of destructive power  5 September 2006 ZMag article by Gabriel Kolko.
There has been a qualitative leap in technology that makes all inherited conventional wisdom, and war as an instrument of political policy, utterly irrelevant, not just to the U.S. but to any other nation that embarks upon it. 
Dollar hegemony - 17 February 2006. 
Dr. Ron Paul is a Republican member of Congress from Texas. In this long speech he warns of the dangers of US military and dollar power. One quote: -
"Our whole economic system depends on continuing the current monetary arrangement, which means recycling the dollar is crucial. Currently, we borrow over $700 billion every year from our gracious benefactors, who work hard and take our paper for their goods. Then we borrow all the money we need to secure the empire (DOD budget $450 billion) plus more. The military might we enjoy becomes the “backing” of our currency. There are no other countries that can challenge our military superiority, and therefore they have little choice but to accept the dollars we declare are today’s “gold.” This is why countries that challenge the system – like Iraq, Iran and Venezuela – become targets of our plans for regime change." 
"Dreams of Empire, Eulogies for International Law" 
An article by John Gershman, March 25, 2003 from: Project Against the Present Danger.
Foreign Policy in Focus 
A lengthy article on building a global movement against empire
George W Bush in the Moscow Times, 27 June 2003 
"God told me to strike at al-Qaida and I struck them, and then He instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. If you help me, I will act, and if not, the elections will come and I will have to focus on them." 
International Action Center 
Founded by former US Attorney General, Ramsey Clark. "Information, Activism, and Resistance to U.S.
Militarism, War, and Corporate Greed, Linking with Struggles Against Racism and Oppression within the United States." 
Iraq regime change planned long before 2000 
This article in the Information Clearing House links to the PNAC PDF document Rebuilding America's Defences 
Krauthammer - Washington Post's War-mongering scribe - Michael Whitney 6 July 06. 
An interesting window on White House and "Neocon" policy development. 
National Security Strategy of the USA 
Released by the Bush administration in September 21, 2002, this is a strategy of pre-emptive war, undermining one of the key norms of collective security. 
Noam Chomsky describes the American Imperial Ambition
An interview in the May 2003 Monthly Review. 
Prison Medicine 
An archive to promote scholarship of medical activities, ethics and policies pertaining to US facilities in Iraq, Afghanistan and at Guantanamo Bay that are managed by the Department of Defense and its intelligence agencies. It includes access to a number of very large reports as well as various findings by many different agencies relating to torture, cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment.  
Progressive Policy Institute 
"PPI's mission is to define and promote a new progressive politics for America in the 21st century". This is the US Democrat Party's equivalent of the Project for the New American Century. PPI's Progressive Internationalism: A Democratic National Security Strategy seems to include similar objectives of world domination. 
Project Against the Present Danger
In defence of international law, international cooperation and multilateralism. It has a journal Foreign Policy in Focus
Project for the New American Century 
The key "Neo-Con" think tank for building American domination of the world. Its Statement of Principles was written in 1997 by the key figures in the current US Administration to specify their imperative for world domination. Read about it in the MoveOn Bulletin
Resource Wars - can we survive them? 6 June 2007 
Article on oil and US intentions - Stephen Lendman 
Review of major recent books on American empire
Well worth reading, from the New York Review of Books, 9 October 2003. 
Rogue actions of the USA - a catalogue 
"Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the biggest rogue of all?"  - from ZNet 7 August 2003. 
Security Scholars for a Sensible Foreign Policy 
A nonpartisan group reaching out to conservative as well as liberal experts on foreign affairs. 
Top Ten US Administration outrages 
From the 26 December 2003 LA Weekly
Torture - current US Administration policy. (See also Prison Medicine.)
"A Question of Torture : CIA Interrogation, from the Cold War to the War on Terror"  - a book by Alfred McCoy, January 2006.
The CIA’s method combines “sensory deprivation” and “self-inflicted pain”. They are widely used throughout the world. 
At amazon.com, copy the title into the "Books" search, to read detailed reviews.
The Abu Graib files, with commentary have been published (March 2006) by Salon.com. They illustrate the latest implementation of the CIA torture process.  
War plans of American militarism 
This is an abridged version of an article by Floyd Rudmin. Before 1939, the USA had secret war plans against Mexico, Japan, the UK and Canada, among others. 

Date .  Maintained for the Peace Coalition by WebWeaver. Peace Tasmania thanks Writings on the Wall for hosting these pages.