America... The last Super Power

[Maniac]

[crowMAW]

Originally posted by GrimCO
However, if you examine these past fallen "Empires", each one involved a conquering nation trying to spread it's physical borders to gain influence. Occupying defeated nation after defeated nation eventually stretched the occupier's military beyond it's capacity to quell any uprisings or resistance.

Greetings Grim...I would agree that for nearly the last 100 years (or at least since a decade past the Spanish-American War) the US has had many opportunities to build an empire and has resisted that temptation.  However, we seem to be entering a "new American century" where the idea of being a representative for democracy is giving way to one that calls on the US to create a "benevolent hegemony".

Some of us know of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) and the agenda of its neo-conservatives who now appear in the highest posts of the Bush Administration.  And it is knowing their agenda that brings fear to those who recognize their ambitions as nothing less than creating an American Global Empire.

There is an excellent op/ed analysis of PNAC that was done By Jay Bookman of the Atlanta Constitution which you can read at:

http://site.[url]www.umb.edu/faculty/salzman_g/Strategy/Discussion/2002-09-29Bookman.html[/url]

However, simply note that PNAC's chairman, William Kristol, along with columnist and PNAC member Robert Kagan are on record about the role the US should play in a post Cold War world:

What should that role be? Benevolent global hegemony. Having defeated the "evil empire," the United States enjoys strategic and ideological predominance. The first objective of U.S. foreign policy should be to preserve and enhance that predominance by strengthening America's security, supporting its friends, advancing its interests, and standing up for its principles around the world.

The aspiration to benevolent hegemony might strike some as either hubristic or morally suspect. But a hegemon is nothing more or less than a leader with preponderant influence and authority over all others in its domain.  http://www.ceip.org/people/kagfaff.htm

To me that bolded statement is the most dangerous.  I have no problem with the US attempting to influence others using our ultrapower status, but I do not agree that our authority should be preeminent over other sovereign nations.  That smacks of an empire especially when the alternative to submitting to our authority is "regime change".

The other characteristic of an empire you mentioned was a military presence in "conquered" lands to gain influence.  Based on the concept of benevolent global hegemony, the PNAC goes on to say in their neo-con manifesto, Rebuilding America's Denfenses, that the US should take up global "constabulatory" duties.  In order to do this, they call for expansion of "permanent" US military presence in a number of global areas where the US is not currently welcome.  If you read that whitepaper, the number of times "permanent" military presence arises is disturbing at the least.  And realizing that the areas where the presence is "required" would also require "regime change" is even more disturbing.

I think given the agenda currently being implemented by the Bush Administration gives cause for drawing a parallel to some of those past empires you mention.  Of course PNAC does not help the situation by calling the fruits of implementing their agenda "Pax Americana"...the parallel to Rome is a little too close.

[Arlo]

"Strapping on a dildo in hopes to get bush."

This seem pathetically amusing to anyone else?

[Toad]

The problem PNAC has is threefold: the legislative, the executive and the judiciary branches.

PNAC can propose anything they like.. just like other special interest or ideological groups.

Members of PNAC can pariticpate in the government in either elective or appointive offices just like members of OTHER special interest or ideological groups have in adminstrations of the recent past.

However, it's the legislative branch that controls the purse strings and the authorization to use the miliatry. Thus, unless PNAC manages to achieve a majority in the House and Senate, their agenda is no more a matter of unstoppable destiny than any of the other special interests and ideological groups that have come and gone before.

I remember people voicing extreme concern over membership in the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission. The world was going to end as we knew it.

Yet here we are, shuffling along much the same as we always have been.

I try to restrict the number of boogey men under my bed; PNAC hasn't made the cut yet.

[Toad]

Yeah, Arlo.... some folks have some strange ideas of aggression, eh?

[Swoop]

Originally posted by JoeSmoe
America is the future... europe will eventually become america part II..

Oh God yes, bring Wall-Mart with ya as well will ya?   And teach the natives what the "fast" part of fast food means.

[NUKE]

Originally posted by Swoop
Oh God yes, bring Wall-Mart with ya as well will ya?   And teach the natives what the "fast" part of fast food means.

we'll teach you how to build spacecraft if you teach us how to make beer...

Wal-Mart is not a bad store...I bought the compressor for my airbrush there at a great price .

[GrimCO]

Crow,

With all due respect, I pay about as much attention to the PNAC issue as I do to many of the other conspiracy theories.

Take the Skulls for example. Rumor has it they are the ones who actually run this country. I was wondering though... With the Republican Skulls in charge of everything and all, how did Clinton ever get elected? Their planted agents at the voting booths must have called in sick or something.

I'll put some stock in the theory of a second gunman in the grassy knoll, or even an alien spacecraft crash in Roswell. But PNAC taking over the United States government? I think I'd sooner wear a tinfoil hat to stop the aliens from taking my brainwaves...

There are a TON of special interest groups in this country... I hate all of them tossing their money around to get officials elected. I wouldn't even consider myself either Democrat or Republican. I just vote for whoever seems to be less of a moron these days.

I also have an extreme distaste for our news media here. Talk about a special interest group! Hiding under the guise of keeping the public informed. It's pathetic. Like our own little form of Al Jazeera trying to steer the public this way and that with their own selfish viewpoints and adjendas.

At any rate, the point I was trying to make is that the United States isn't some imperialistic war mongering juggernaut, hell bent on taking over the world. I think by now, it's pretty much a given that democracy is the best way to go. Even the majority of peoples who are Anti-American will agree with that.

I'm just trying to say that the vast majority of U.S. citizens wouldn't tolerate this country becoming a land grabber. That's not what we're all about.

[Animal]

I think the US may be capable of using nuclear weapons rather than let any other nation step up as #1 super power.

[Nash]

Does the meaning of 'empire' have to involve physically taking and holding land?

Is that it? Is that the only criteria?

Seems awfully outdated to me...

[Steve]

"I think the US may be capable of using nuclear weapons rather than let any other nation step up as #1 super power."

Put down the bottle or rum.

[crowMAW]

Originally posted by GrimCO
With all due respect, I pay about as much attention to the PNAC issue as I do to many of the other conspiracy theories.

Take the Skulls for example.

As far as I know the Skulls, Illuminati yadda yadda yadda, haven't published their membership list as PNAC has done.  Take a look at the Rebuilding America's Defenses link.  At the end is a list of participants.  Five of the folks responsible for that document now serve in high level positions in the Bush Administration:

Paul Wolfowitz; Deputy Secretary of Defense
Eliot Cohen; Defense Policy Board
I. Lewis Libby; Vice President Cheney's Chief of Staff
Dov Zakheim; Undersecretary of Defense
Stephen Cambone; Director of Office of Program, Analysis and Evaluation - Department of Defense

Now look at PNAC's Statement of Principles and note some of the signers of this organization's founding document:

Elliott Abrams; National Security Council
Paula J. Dobriansky; Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs
Peter W. Rodman; Assistant Secretary of Defense for
International Security Affairs
Donald Rumsfeld; Secretary of Defense
Dick Cheney; Vice President of the United States

Want more...look at some of the signers of the letters sent by PNAC to sitting Presidents.  They include:

Richard L. Armitage; Deputy Secretary of State
John R. Bolton; Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security
Dr. Zalmay Khalilzad; National Security Council and Special Envoy for the President
Richard Perle; Chairman of the Defense Policy Board until last month but still a board member
William Schneider; Chairman Defense Science Board - DoD
Robert B. Zoellick; U.S. Trade Representative (Ambassador)
Seth Cropsey; Director of the International Broadcasting Bureau
Mark P. Lagon; Department of State Office of Policy Planning

I dunno...maybe I am just paranoid.

[GRUNHERZ]

So this super secret evil organization is made more evil by publishing its membership list...

Havent you read your evil conspiracy guide, its supposed to be SECRET!

Hell does anyone doubt these guys would we crying for the evil secretive PNAC to publish its membership if it did not do so.. "If you have nothing to hide why are you keeping your membership secret?  Ha?

[GRUNHERZ]

Originally posted by crowMAW

I dunno...maybe I am just paranoid.

Yea that pretty much sums it up!

[crowMAW]

Originally posted by Toad
The problem PNAC has is threefold: the legislative, the executive and the judiciary branches.

I agree with that assessment.  I'm not sure that anything PNAC has done is criminal nor is what they are proposing unconstitutional, so the judicial branch does not seem to be a hindrance however.  It seems that the executive branch has enough neo-con members to where that is a non-issue too.  But there is hope with the Congress as it does appear that the Bush hegemony there is not as strong as once believed, which is evident by the defection of many Republicans on the tax cut issue.  Hopefully, Congress will consider more carefully the evidence the President presents as excuses for the next unprovoked invasion.