The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic

There is one development that could conceivably stop this process of overreaching: the people could retake control of Congress, reform it along with the corrupted elections laws that have made it into a forum for special interests, turn it into a genuine assembly of democratic representatives, and cut off the supply of money to the Pentagon and the secret intelligence agencies. We have a strong civil society that could, in theory, overcome the entrenched interests of the armed forces and the military-industrial complex. At this late date, however, it is difficult to imagine how Congress, much like the Roman senate in the last days of the republic, could be brought back to life and cleansed of its endemic corruption. Failing such a reform, Nemesis, the goddess of retribution and vengeance, the punisher of pride and hubris, waits impatiently for her meeting with us.

NOTES

PROLOGUE: THE UNVEILING OF THE AMERICAN EMPIRE

1. Paul Sperry, “Defense Department Orders 273,000 Bottles of Sunblock,” WorldNetDaily, October 9, 2002, <http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp? ARTICLE_ID=29225>.

2. Arthur Schlesinger Jr., “The Immorality of Preventive War,” History News Network, August 26, 2002. Also see Jimmy Carter, “The Troubling New Face of America,” Washington Post, September 5,2002.

3. “U.S. Soldiers in Prison Handled Well Thanks to SOFA; Even Beefsteak Served; 40 Percent More in Calories Taken by Them than Japanese, with Even Desserts Served at Every Supper,” Asahi Shimbun (Tokyo), October 11, 2002, p. 39.

4. See, e.g., “The Pentagon’s Colonial Pretensions Thrive in Asia,” Los Angeles Times, November 2, 1995; “Fort Okinawa: Go-banken-sama, Go Home!” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 52:4 (July/August 1996), pp. 22–29; “The Okinawan Rape Incident and the End of the Cold War in East Asia,” California Western International Law Journal 27:2 (Spring 1997), pp. 389–97; Okinawa: Cold War Island (Cardiff, Calif.: Japan Policy Research Institute, 1999) (editor and contributor); “Time to Bring the Troops Home: America’s Provocative Military Posture in Asia Makes War with China More Likely,” Nation, May 14, 2001, pp. 20–22; and “Okinawa between the United States and Japan,” in Josef Kreiner, ed., Ryukyu in World History, JapanArchiv 2 (Bonn: Bier’sche Verlagsanstalt, 2001), pp. 365–94.

5. See Chalmers Johnson, “The CIA and Me,” Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars 29:1 (Jan-Mar. 1997), pp. 34–37. Also see Willard C. Matthias, America’s Strategic Blunders: Intelligence Analysis and National Security Policy, 1936–1991 (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001), pp. 297–98.

6. Tim Weiner, Blank Check: The Pentagon’s Black Budget (New York: Warner Books, 1990), p. 114.

7. Eric Schmitt and Alison Mitchell, “U.S. Lacks Up-to-Date Review of Iraqi Arms,” New York Times, September 11,2002.

8. Tom Bowman, “Special Forces’ Role May Expand,” Baltimore Sun, August 3, 2002; Lawrence J. Korb and Jonathan D. Tepperman, “Soldiers Should Not Be Spying,” New York Times, August 21,2002; Rowan Scarborough, “Study Urges Wider Authority for Covert Troops vs. Terror,” Washington Times, December 12, 2002; Scarborough, “Rumsfeld Bolsters Special Force,” Washington Times, January 6, 2003; and Douglas Waller, “The CIA’s Secret Army,” Time, January 26, 2003. For an excellent summary of the CIA’s record in running “secret wars,” see “America’s Shadow Warriors,” New York Times, March 3,2003.

9. Max Weber, Economy and Society (1922), in H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills, eds. and trans., From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1958), pp. 233–34. Also see William Pfaff, “Governments Don’t Like to Be Accountable,” International Herald Tribune, September 2, 2002; and Daniel P. Moynihan, Secrecy: The American Experience (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999).

1: IMPERIALISMS, OLD AND NEW

1. Manuel Miles, “The USA Is Not an Empire,” <http://www.strike-the-root.com/milesl4.html>.

2. Robert M. Gates, From the Shadows: The Ultimate Insider’s Story of Five Presidents and How They Won the Cold War (New York: Touchstone Books, 1996), p. 266. Also see John Tirman, “How the Cold War Ended,” Global Dialogue 3:4 (Autumn 2001), pp. 80–90. For the White House’s version, see George Bush and Brent Scowcroft, A World Transformed (New York: Vintage, 1998).

3. Anatoly Dobrynin, In Confidence: Moscow’s Ambassador to America’s Six Cold War Presidents (1962–1986) (New York: Times Books, 1995), p. 620.

4. Quoted by Frances Fitzgerald, Way Out There in the Blue: Reagan, Star Wars and the End of the Cold War (New York: Touchstone Books, 2000), p. 410.

5. Ibid., p. 331.

6. Hans-Hermann Hertle, “The Fall of the Wall: The Unintended Self-Dissolution of East Germany’s Ruling Regime,” in “The End of the Cold War,” Cold War International History Project, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Bulletin, no. 12/13 (Fall/Winter 2001), pp. 133–34.

7. Vladislav M. Zubok, “New Evidence on the ‘Soviet Factor’ in the Peaceful Revolutions of 1989,” in “The End of the Cold War,” p. 6.

8. Thomas Blanton, “When Did the Cold War End?” Cold War International History Project, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Bulletin, no. 10 (March 1998), pp. 185,191.

9. See Chalmers Johnson, “The Three Cold Wars,” in Ellen Schrecker and Maurice Isserman, eds., Cold War Triumphalism (New York: New Press, 2004).

10. See Ed A. Hewitt [NSC staff official], “An Idle U.S. Debate about Gorbachev,” New York Times, March 30, 1989; Michael Wines, “CIA Accused of Overestimating Soviet Economy,” New York Times, July 23, 1990; and Colin Hughes, “CIA Is Accused of Crying Wolf on Soviet Economy,” Independent, July 25, 1990. Michael R. Gordon, New York Times, January 31,1990; and National Security Strategy of the United States, March 1990, both quoted by Noam Chomsky, Deterring Democracy (New York: Hill and Wang, 1992), pp. 29–30. My thanks to Professor Chomsky for drawing my attention to these