Chalmers Johnson, who died in 2010, had a deep understanding
of all the US wars around the world.

A Summary of the Video
Don Smith / ThinkerFeeler

(May 27, 2024) — After WWII Great Britain realized it had to give up its empire, especially in India, because it could no longer afford it, either morally or financially. Chalmers Johnson says the US too should give up its empire of over 750 overseas military bases, “because if there is any one thing that doesn’t mix, it’s foreign imperialism and domestic democracy. You can’t have them both.” If you retain your empire, you’ll become like undemocratic Roman Empire. Johnson quotes George Washington, who warned against standing armies.

Imperialists always say they were invited in.

The Cold War created the self-interested military-industrial complex. It’s a jobs program for lawmakers.

Chalmers Johnson: “An example I like to use is … The two senators from the state of Washington State are two pleasant, very smart, democratic women, well educated, serious senators. All you have to do is to say ‘Boeing’ to them and, before your very eyes, they will turn into blood-lusting, fascist hyenas, doing everything in their power to keep Boeing in business.” The same for many other lawmakers.

 

Chalmers Johnson’s 50-minute video on American Hegemony.

Johnson says the MIC is “close to out-of-control.” The CIA in particular is like a private army of the president, but he too can’t control it. He thinks it’s too late to do anything about it.

The only thing that could maybe save us is to mobilize the citizens to realize that the political system isn’t going to protect us from the MIC. “The Democratic Party is no more interested in restoring checks and balances over the presidency than the Republican Party.”

Johnson says that the common view that corporate avarice explains the power of the MIC is over-simplified. It ignores the power of ideology: the impulse to dominate other countries. Though the US still prides itself on being the world’s lone superpower, it’s the world’s biggest debtor nation, is rapidly losing its manufacturing capacity, and is “dependent on the goodwill of bankers in China and Japan in order to continue to enjoy its lifestyle.”

Johnson says it was a huge mistake for George H. W. Bush to decide to station US troops in Saudi Arabia after the first Gulf War. Pious Muslims were adamantly opposed to the stationing of “infidel” troops in Saudi Arabia, home to the two most sacred Muslim sites, Mecca and Medina. Besides, Saudi Arabia was defended by being surrounded by seas and by US aircraft carriers.

Johnson says that if Saudi Arabia decided it wanted to be paid for oil in Euros rather than in dollars, the dollar and the US Empire would collapse. He points out that the collapse of the economy in Germany post WWI led to the rise of Nazism.

In China in 1948, it led to the Chinese Revolution and the rise of Maoism. If the US economy collapses, there would be tremendous pressure for revolution in the US [Think Trump.] Johnson says we’re toying with such a collapse by our fiscal imbalances and the refusal to tax the wealthy.

So-called military Keynesianism (providing jobs via military spending) is not productive. Instead of making real manufacturing goods, we make cluster bombs to drop on children overseas.

Johnson says imperialism and militarism are “a suicide pact. That’s the way that empires end.”

The imperial presidency (centralization of power in the Executive Branch) came about as a result of wars. Our Founding Fathers would have been shocked at the concentration of imperial power in the Pentagon and intelligence agencies. Article 1 of the Constitution says the Americans shall get an accurate accounting for how their tax dollars are spent.

But the budgets of all sixteen intelligence agencies are secret. That has turned these agencies into a private army of the President, who still can’t control them. 40% of the budget of the Pentagon is secret. “It can be seen by only a few uniformed military officers and by a couple of deeply hamstrung members of Congress who cannot report on anything that the military sees fit to tell them.” Earmarks bloat the Pentagon budget. “The CIA had no oversight of any sort until the mid 1970s” (the Church Committee).

Johson criticized George W. Bush’s unconstitutional use of the line-item veto. He also criticized Bush’s stacking the courts with “rather thoughtless flunkies will do his bidding.” Bush unconstitutionally tried to ignore the Geneva treaties.

“The public is scared to death. They actually know we’re in terrible trouble. We’re heading over a cliff and they don’t know what to do about it.”