Looking at a map of current American military engagements
overseas, one cannot help but notice their wide geographical spread and their
seemingly interminable nature. Battles have raged in Europe (Yugoslavia and
Ukraine), in Africa, in the Middle East, and in central Asia. The American
Empire has launched this country into a series of battles that have no end in
sight and no location that may not become a focal point of military force.
These battles, each a war in its own right, have drawn in forces and
resources from U.S. allies in Europe through NATO and even drawn in Japan.
The scope of this war is global. In fact, one part of this war has been
called the Global War on Terror. To understand this war and grasp its
meaning, in the hope of bringing it to an end, a descriptive name is needed
that tells us what this war is about. The name suggested here is the “Great
War of the American Empire”. Since World War I, another disastrous war that
American joined, is called the Great War, we can refer to the Great War of
the American Empire also as Great War II.
Great War II comprises a number of sub-wars. The American
Empire is the common element and the most important driver in all the
sub-wars mentioned below. American involvement has never been necessary in
these sub-wars, but the decisions to make them America’s business have come
from the Empire’s leaders. The name “Great War of the American Empire”
emphasizes the continuity of all the sub-wars to produce one Great War, and
the responsibility of the American Empire in choosing to participate in and
create this Great War. Had America’s leaders chosen the radically different
path of non-intervention and true defense of this continent, rather than
overseas interventions, Great War II would not have occurred and not still be
occurring.
The Great War of the American Empire began 25 years ago.
It began on August 2, 1990 with the Gulf War against Iraq and continues to
the present. Earlier wars involving Israel and America sowed the seeds of
this Great War. So did American involvements in Iran, the 1977-1979 Islamic
Revolution in Iran, and the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988). Even earlier American
actions also set the stage, such as the recognition of Israel, the protection
of Saudi Arabia as an oil supplier, the 1949 CIA involvement in the coup in
Syria, and the American involvement in Lebanon in 1958. Poor (hostile)
relations between the U.S. and Libya (1979-1986) also contributed to a major
sub-war in what has turned out to be the Great War of the American Empire.
The inception of Great War II may, if one likes, be moved
back to 1988 and 1989 without objection because those years also saw the
American Empire coming into its own in the invasion of Panama to dislodge
Noriega, operations in South America associated with the war on drugs, and an
operation in the Philippines to protect the Aquino government. Turmoil in the
Soviet Union was already being reflected in a more military-oriented foreign
policy of the U.S.
Following the Gulf War, the U.S. government engages
America and Americans non-stop in one substantial military operation or war
after another. In the 1990s, these include Iraq
no-fly zones, Somalia, Bosnia, Macedonia, Haiti, Zaire, Sierra Leone, Central
African Republic, Liberia, Albania, Afghanistan, Sudan, and Serbia. In the
2000s, the Empire begins wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, and gets into
serious military engagements in Yemen, Pakistan, and Syria. It has numerous
other smaller military missions in Uganda, Jordan, Turkey, Chad, Mali, and
Somalia. Some of these sub-wars and situations of involvement wax and wane
and wax again. The latest occasion of American Empire intervention is Ukraine
where, among other things, the U.S. military is slated to be training
Ukrainian soldiers.
Terror and terrorism are invoked to rationalize some
operations. Vague threats to national security are mentioned for others.
Protection of Americans and American interests sometimes is made into a
rationale. Terrorism and drugs are sometimes linked, and sometimes drug
interdiction alone is used to justify an action that becomes part of the
Great War of the American Empire. On several occasions, war has been
justified because of purported ethnic cleansing or supposed mass killings
directed by or threatened by a government.
Upon close inspection, all of these rationales fall
apart. None is satisfactory. The interventions are too widespread, too
long-lasting and too unsuccessful at what they supposedly accomplish to lend
support to any of the common justifications. Is “good” being done when it
involves endless killing, frequently of innocent bystanders, that elicits
more and more anti-American sentiment from those on the receiving end who see
Americans as invaders? Has the Great War II accomplished even one of its
supposed objectives?
The Great War of the American Empire encompasses several
sub-wars, continual warfare, continual excuses for continual warfare, and
continual military engagements that promise Americans more of the same
indefinitely. There is a web site called “The
Long War Journal”that catalogs events all over
the globe that are part of the Great War II, what the site calls the Long
War. This site is a project of the “Foundation for Defense of Democracies”,
which is a neocon organization that is promoting the Great War of the
American Empire.
What they see, and accurately see, as a Long War is a
portion of what is here called the Great War of the American Empire. The
difference is that all the interventions and sub-wars of the past 25 years
and all the military outposts of the U.S. government that provide the seeds
of future wars and interventions are included in the Great War II. They all
spring from the same source, even though each one has a different specific
character.
