John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
“WATCH: US Occupying Troops Peacefully Pass Through Syrian Army Checkpoint
“Where is the threat that Pentagon claims warrants killing Syrian soldiers if they cross arbitrary lines in their own country?”
If you search for logic in many of the close-up workings of the massive enterprise called America's empire, you will look in vain.
There was no logic in the insane holocaust conducted in Vietnam, killing about 3 million people.
And the toppling of the neutral government of Cambodia, which resulted in the Khmer Rouge obtaining power to kill another million or so souls, hardly represented a masterstroke of far-sighted policy.
The continuing war in Afghanistan defies all logic. Eighteen years of slaughtering peasants to achieve absolutely nothing.
The bloody invasion of Iraq has been called by American experts the most destructive act in memory of American foreign policy. Its major results strengthened exactly those the United States would have chosen not to strength.
The chaos of Libya and massive flows of refugees hardly speak logical goals.
The American-encouraged and -supplied Saudi killing in Yemen also has produced little beyond terrible press, close ties to a bloody tyrant, and has literally shaken the Saudi Throne with the ability of poor Yemen to respond effectively.
All the stupidly unnecessary coups and attempts at coups, as in Bolivia, Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, Ukraine, Iran, and still other places have contributed what new security or wealth for Americans?
And while one mediocre, murderous, not-particularly-bright American President after another busies himself with such tasks, what do we see elsewhere?
China at peace for decades and with some of the greatest plans for human progress ever made underway with its Belt and Road Initiative (The New Silk Road) plus great numbers of massively productive projects from long-distance high-speed rail lines and galaxies of gleaming new airports to nuclear power stations and big new achievements in space and in fundamental science.
Likely with Huawei’s 5G Networks, being adopted by dozens of countries despite American faux warnings, we are seeing only the beginnings of things to come in applied technology. China certainly is making breakthroughs in military technology, from missiles and fighter planes and hypersonic vehicles to new non-traditional weapons like lasers and railguns.
And it forms friendships and ties with people all over the earth without ever hurling threats or enforcing its own laws illegally on others as sanctions.
Russia has turned, in response to deliberate American policies, from Europe to a considerable degree to embrace Asia, and China in particular, further strengthening China’s hand. Imagine, it is even building one of its advanced over-the-horizon anti-ICBM radars for the Chinese?
Russia has great numbers of huge projects from Arctic LNG to developing the Northern Sea Route. It has expanded to become the world’s preeminent exporter of grain, grain which tempts markets with the promise of no Genetically Modified content.
Russia is a mighty builder of bridges and rail lines and gas pipelines and nuclear power plants, including a new floating-style one to serve its northern-development projects and could usefully serve many remote locations in the world.
At peace, but having developed several major defensive military systems that are the envy of the world, including its multi-layered anti-craft, anti-missile systems, all while spending a fraction of what America burns through annually on its military. It also has a number of remarkable new weapons from hypersonic vehicles, an unlimited-distance, atomic-powered cruise missile, and lasers to its “blackhole” submarines.
Where is the logic of empire? It’s only in the heads of the establishment men in Washington who scrabble for personal wealth and high position through its complex, immensely well-funded workings.
