The Sorrows of Empire : Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic [The American Empire Project ]

Rating:
Summary: Nemesis looming
Review: I'm worried about my ability to do this important book justice. It's at various time enraging, astonishing, and depressing ... and always enlightening. It makes connections and draws together pieces I had never seen as a whole before. It's probably one of the most significant books I've read in several years.

Chalmers Johnson is relentless in describing the rise of characteristic aspects of militarism in the United States and showing how the rise of an American Empire is undermining what remains of our Constitutional republic. And while many writers are employing the word "empire" these days, Johnson builds a solid case, with historical parallels, for the precise application of the term to the situation we face today.

Far more than the old Eisenhower definition of "the military-industrial complex," the American Empire is a web of military power, industrial and trade dominance, media influence, domestic pork-barrel politics, international arm-twisting, and more. And while the Bush Administration has made the military unilateralism more evident than before, Johnson shows how its roots thread solidly through the Clinton years as well, and back several generations. His chronicle of America's increasing military presence in bases across the globe, and the arrogance with which we built this imperial archipelago, is itself very disturbing.

Some may criticize Johnson for his book's gloomy outlook and its substantive lack of a "what can we do about it?" element. But at the risk of sounding self-righteous, there are still so very many people who need to wake up and see the picture Johnson is painting. So long as Americans remain "kirbywildered" (to coin a term perhaps understandable by Seattle talk-radio listeners) by avowals of American exceptionalism and military triumphalism, it's enough to do all we can to help Johnson's message, and that of others like him, be heard and understood.

Read this book. You may not like it. You may not agree with it. But you need to see how he's put the pieces together and decide how you're going to respond.

Rating:
Summary: Everyone should read this book.
Review: This is a great book showing where the United States is now and the direction we are heading toward a new Roman Empire. Should be read by all intelligent people in the USA and the rest of the world. Very frightening.

Rating:
Summary: A real eye opener, like a strong cup of coffee
Review: After 9/11, I found myself more inclined to feel traditionally patriotic, maybe nostalgic: I've had flags pasted on my car windows since that day, and I smile and nod affirmatively at people in the Service when I pass them in the airport. I felt safe that my govt. was globally righteous.

After reading this book, I'm a skeptic again. I want to learn more. I can't watch Fox news and feel innocent and self-satisfied anymore. I'm mad because I can't support politics-as-usual as a reflex. I worry about Republocrats and Demopublicans being part of a staged act, a little like professional wrestling.

Where's the Press been for the last 20 years? Where are they today? Today, they spend their time reporting on Michael Jackson and Scott Peterson. With politics, they talk only about candidate debating performance and past blemishes. The only story they report is the one about the requisite poise for winning the grand Beauty Contest. No education, debate or catharsis here for us groundlings at all.

Maybe we're all just being fed rations from the elite, like we're their sheep. Then the Tax Man shorns us sheep: He takes our treasure to build bases and pursue economic policies that ultimately export jobs, so those left with jobs can buy $40 DVD players (that break) from people who make $400 a year. We grow it all back. We don't make too much trouble. We get more DVDs, and we can afford a trip for Mouse Ears every few years: Life is not that bad. The USA is the greatest country in the World.

Maybe it's really as bad as a bad B-Movie script: It's all about keeping the world safe for CEO pay raises, a return of profitable stock options and the preservation of the world view and tenure of a cadre of career bureaucrats whose intellectual incest allows them to avoid the truths of our day because society's herd behavior and a mute Fourth Estate provide them no stimulus to do otherwise.

This book paints a portrait that inspires skepticism and curiosity. You can tell the writer has an opinion, but who cares: I know my opinions are going to be reformed as they become more informed. The book is a public service.

"And though your very flesh and blood
Be what your eagle eats and drinks,
You'll praise him for the best of birds,
Not knowing what the eagle thinks."

- Edwin Arlington Robinson

Sleepers awake!

Rating:
Summary: the end of the dream is in sight
Review: These United States were created by those who wrote, signed and ratified our constitution well over 200 years ago. George Washington was the first of a handful of generals ever elected to the presidency and Dwight D. Eisenhower was the last. Both these warriors bequeathed to posterity a signal warning concerning militarism in their farewell addresses. Washington addressed the dangers of a large standing army and Eisenhower warned of our burgeoning military industrial complex. In the 1960s and again in the 1980s, an Arkansas Cassandra named J. William Fulbright, once chairman of the Senate Foriegn Relations Committee back when that position meant something, wrote two prescient books, the first called "The Price Of Empire" and the second one called "The Arrogance Of Power." Now along comes Chalmers Johnson to expand on all these works and show us just how close we are to losing our democratic republic because we have lost our way. The American nation and its people have long refused to see where the militarists now in almost total control of the machinery of our government have been taking us over the last sixty years. Once upon a time, we could rationalize our government's anti-democratic acts and blatent militarism by citing the very real danger posed by cruel and well armed dictatorships in the former USSR and China. No longer do we have that excuse. But today, as Johnson makes very clear with an extensively documented tome, the most reactionary and dangerous administration this country has ever been cursed with is in almost complete control of our economy, the media, both houses of congress, and a majority of the Supreme Court. These now captive institutions - acting in concert with an evermore out-of-control military and armaments industry - present the greatest danger to our freedoms, and to the founding American values responsible for what has been the most remarkable experiment in self-government the world has ever seen. Johnson illuminates the almost unbelievable extent that the professional military and its incestuous relationship with the American armaments industry are now under the control of an evermore powerful and repressive far right wing political reality. Once Rome was a republic blessed with an alert and politically active citizenry. Rome never achieved the degree of freedom for all its populace that we have enjoyed for so long because the title of "citizen" was not bestowed on all its inhabitants. But when the Roman citizens relinquished to the Cesears and their Praetorian Guard the right to control almost all of Roman life, Rome's citizens became slaves to an evermore dominating dictatorship and its evermore powerful war machine. Johnson explores just how far down this road we have traveled, reading the sign posts along the way. Perhaps we've not yet reached the awful sign that says "You have passed the point of no return", but Johnson clearly indicates, and I firmly believe, we must be getting very close. Don't read this book unless you intend to vote to take your country back by electing to high national office men and women who will honor our nation's history and its values.
This will be a very disturbing book for many of you who have had your heads in the proverbial sand for the past 50 years. I would give it six stars had I them available. wfh

Rating:
Summary: Exhaustive and Enlightening
Review: I didn't know about this book until I'd read a favorable review of it in the New York Times Book Review section. Like other reviewers have pointed out, this book contains information and opinions that will offend most Republicans and astonish the rest of us. Regardless of political bent, all informed citizens should read this book. It is chock full of information that makes one realize just how committed the U.S. is overseas.

I was amazed to learn of 37 military facilities just on the Island of Okinawa. Johnson details the various crimes that have been committed by GIs on that island and around the globe, pointing out that a soldier's extraterritorial status gives him immunity from local law and places him under the jurisdiction of military law.

There are several errors to point out. Besides the ones mentioned by other reviewers, I find it disconcerting that Johnson would equate the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with the bombing of villages and targets in Afghanistan. The former intentionally targeted civilians. The latter did not. He failed to point out, by the way, that concrete practice bombs were given "smart" i.e. laser guidance and used on several targets in Baghdad because they would only destroy the target and not create an incendiary blast that would result in civilian casualties. Obviously, there were still casualties, as smart bombs still fell off course or created blasts due to their ordance.

Another error Johnson makes regards Delta Force. First, he says they were responsible for the failure of the operation in Iran in 1980. Actually, the more you read on the operation, the more you learn that the culprit was the inexperienced Navy helicopter pilots who wanted out of the operation but went along grudingly. As a result, the 160th was created to keep a cadre of helicopter and fixed pilots who were experienced in special operations. Johnson says the 160th fly operations for Delta Force, which is partly true. They also fly Army Special Operations (Green Berets) missions. You will note that the 160th is based at Ft. Campbell, KY, home of 5th Group Special Forces.

The sections dealing with space warfare are frightening. He details how the U.S. wants to create a military hegemony in space, not even allowing allied military satellites to operate.

Two particularly disturbing accounts included the 1953 removal of Inuit people for the creation of Thule AFB in Greenland (for which the Danes are still fighting the U.S. in court) and the dumping of some Okinawans in Bolivia by the U.S. after they protested the presence of the U.S. military on their island.

Besides the fact that there are some 725 bases overseas, it surprises me to learn that the U.S. is either based or training foreign troops in 133 of the 189 U.N. member countries!

The section towards the end on economics was rather short and seemed a bit meaningless. It's towards the end that you also learn the U.S. is building a new base on the island nation of Sao Tome, off the west coast of Africa. This country just experienced a military coup last summer following the discovery of oil reserves underground.

Johnson's tracing of the construction of military bases in Central Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Balkans atop or near oil reserves or pipelines was particularly interesting. He could have added that the Subic Bay and Clark bases in the Philippines also helped the U.S. oversee the huge petroleum reserves in the South China Sea that contain the tiny Spratley Islands. This is why China and the Philippines have silly spats over them and also partly why the U.S. is so eager to reintervene in the Philippines. Check out Michael Klare's Resource Wars, as well.

Rating:
Summary: The old Imperial Overstretch and Johnson Overreach
Review: Foreign policy is becoming the topic of the day. And, that is a very good thing. The American reading public has an insatiable appetite for foreign policy books. Authors have only been too pleased to meet this booming demand. Every other month if not every other week a new must-read foreign policy book comes on the market. The quality of such books is erratic at best. Most authors' analytical judgments get biased by their political stripes. As a result, the resulting political analysis suffers. Unfortunately, this book is no exception.

Johnson gathers a lot of very interesting historical information. But, he makes a mundane and weak argument regarding the now well-known 'Imperial Overstretch.' In other words, every empire eventually falls apart because of the fiscal burden associated with controlling an ever expanding and eventually unmanageable territory. Paul Kennedy in 'The Rise and Fall of Great Powers' made such a case so much better and forcefully back in 1989. Johnson's book by comparison seems shortsighted. The problem with this theory (Imperial Overstretch) is that its time may not have come yet. Yes, defense spending is now growing. But, its fiscal burden at around 5% of GDP is much less than during the Reagan Years in the mid eighties. Also, Johnson mentions a private defense sector that is bulging. But, the employment count within this sector is no higher than it was several decades ago.

Regarding foreign policy, this book reads often like an X File, or a blog from a conspiracy theory aficionado. Yes, it is true that with 20/20 hindsight the U.S. government made what seems like diplomatic errors. What is also true is that foreign policy is an incredibly complex and liquid domain. Alliances and momentum shifts all the time. The same political leader of a foreign country may be the only factor keeping a country together at one point, and be rightfully perceived as an infamous dictator a decade later. That Johnson does not get. His entire book is like Tuesday morning quarterbacking.

Another thing lacking from Johnson's book is any realistic solutions. He raises interesting issues, and questions the usage of our power. But, he does not address the contemporary political dangers threatening our planet. Terrorists do exist. Islamic insurrection is not an illusion. North Korea's development of a nuclear arsenal is not fiction. We should do something about those threats. And, Johnson does not suggest anything.

In many respect, Johnson's book reminds me of 'Fear's Empire' by Benjamin Barber. They both overreach in criticizing every minute aspect of our foreign policy. But, they don't come up with truly sensible alternatives. They are both somewhat blinded by their liberal perspectives. In a sense, they counteract the equally ineffective 'An End to Evil' by David Frum, who is blinded by his own archconservative perspective. For my part, I recommend books written from a far more effective centrist perspective. These include Wesley Clark's excellent 'Winning Modern Wars' and Robert Cooper's 'The Breaking of Nations.'

Rating:
Summary: Sobering, Makes an Important Case, Rough Around the Edges
Review:

This double-spaced book is an indictment of American militarism and unilateralism, and it merits reading by every citizen. It loses one star to a lack of structure and sufficient references to a broader range of supporting literature, and to the author's tendency to go "a bridge too far" in blaming the CIA for everything and in assuming that our troops and their families are somehow enjoying their "luxurious" overseas deployments.

It may be best to begin the review where the author ends, by agreeing with the case he makes for the potential collapse of America if the people fail to take back the power and restore integrity and participatory democracy to the Congress. Absent a radical reverse, four really bad things will happen to America: 1) it will be in a state of perpetual war, inspiring more terrorism than it can defeat in passing; 2) there will be a loss of democracy and constitutional rights; 3) truthfulness in public discourse will be replaced by propaganda and disinformation; and 4) we will be bankrupt.

It merits comment that today, as I read and reviewed the book, which documents over 725 US bases around the world, many of them secret, there is a public discussion in which the Pentagon is acknowledging only 400 or so bases to exist.

There is a considerable amount of short-hand history in the book that can be skimmed rapidly--from the roots of American militarism in the Spanish-American war, to the non-partisan efforts of both Clinton and Bush fils to establish a military base structure in Arabia and in Central Asia.

The author provides a number of worth-while commentaries on war crimes and associations with genocidal acts and repressive dictators on the part of Henry Kissinger, Wes Clark, James Baker, Dick Cheney, and other mostly Republican "wise men" associated with the oil companies of America.

On pages 100-101 he draws on a number of authoritative sources to note that the casualty rate for the first Gulf War was close to 31% (THIRTY-ONE PERCENT) due to the exposure of the 696,778 veterans serving there being exposed to depleted uranium rounds and other toxic conditions *of our own making*, with 262,586 of these consequently falling ill and being *officially* declared to be disabled by the Veteran's Administration. I have no doubt that there will be an additional 100,000 or more disabled veteran's coming out of Gulf War II. These disabilities are multi-generational. Veterans disabled in the Gulf have higher possibilities of spawning children with deformities "including missing eyes, blood infections, respiratory problems, and fused fingers."

The author excels, I believe, in bringing together in one book the combined costs and threats to the American Republic of a military that on the one hand is creating a global empire that is very costly to the US taxpayer and very threatening to everyone else; and on the other hand, is creating anti-democratic conditions within the United States, to include frequent and expensive preparations for dealing with "civilian disorder conditions" here at home.

The author also excels in discussing both the collapse of US diplomacy (today the Pentagon manages 93% of the international relations budget, the Department of State just 7%), and the rise of private military companies that he carefully lists on page 140--Halliburton, Kellogg Brown and Root, Vinnell, Military Professional Resources, DynCorp, Science Applications Corporation, BDM (now TRW), Armor Holdings, Cubic, DFI, International Charter. There are more--they are all "out of control" in terms of not being subject to Congressional oversight, military justice and discipline, or taxpayer loyalty.

In the middle of the book the author examines the change in the roles of the military from its World War II and post-Cold War missions to five new missions that have not been cleared with the American people: 1) imperial policing; 2) global eavesdropping; 3) control of petroleum fields and channels; 4) enrichment of the military-industrial complex; and 5) comfortable maintenance of the legionnaires in subsidized compounds around the world, such that numbers could be justified that could never be maintained in garrison within the USA.

On page 164 the author notes most interestingly that China is among the greatest purchasers of fiber-optic cable in the world (thus negating much of NSA's 1970's capabilities), and on page 165 he discusses, with appropriate footnotes, how the US, UK, Canada, and Australia are circumventing the prohibitions against monitoring their own people by trading off--the Canadians monitoring British politicians for the British, the British monitoring US politicians, etcetera.

Among the strongest sections of the book is the detailed discussion of America's love affair with ruthless dictators (and Muslim dictators at that) in Central Asia, all in pursuit of cheap oil our privilege elite think they can control. Of special interest to me is the author's delicate dissection of the vulnerability of any Central Asian energy strategy, and his enumeration of all the vulnerabilities that our elite are glossing over or ignoring.

Summing it all up, the author attributes US militarism and the Bush fils "doctrine" to "oil, Israel, and domestic politics", and he bluntly condemns it all as "irrational in terms of any cost-benefit analysis." Quoting Stanley Hoffmann, an acclaimed international relations theorist, he condemns Bush's "strategy" (as do I) as "breathtakingly unrealistic", as "morally reckless", and as "eerily reminiscent of the disastrously wishful thinking of the Vietnam War."

This is a fine book. Read widely enough, it has the potential for constructively informing the popular debate that is emerging despite all efforts by the Administration and its corporate cronies to suppress discussion [e.g. MoveOn.org's $2M in cash for a Superbowl ad has been rejected by CBS on the grounds of being too controversial]. Despite a few rough edges, I believe the author represents a body of informed scholarly and practical opinion such as I have tried to honor with my many non-fiction reviews, and I hope that everyone who reads this review decides to buy the book.

Rating:
Summary: Loyal subjects
Review: "We have no desire to dominate, no ambitions of empire."

-George W. Bush, Jan. 20, 2004 SOTU

Rating:
Summary: More comprehensive and engaging than Blowback.
Review: I read "Blowback" (1998) some years back and found it a sobering look at the consequences of our neo-imperialist policies. His treatment of East Asia - and of our military presence in South Korea and Okinawa - was a forceful demonstration of how our imperial arrogance is manifested in our expanding military base network, our treatment of foreigners in their own lands, and such special arrangements as "status of force agreements" which shield US service personnel from being prosecuted for such acts as raping 13-year-old girls.

"The Sorrows of Empire" not only picks up where Blowback left off but deepens our understanding of our worldwide military imperium. He argues that the "War on Terror", ringing from every Republican office, is actually more of a shield to permit the military to extend its intelligence-gathering and military installation network into formerly remote areas like Kosovo and Central Asia. In his discussion on Rumsfeld's Pentagon, he shows how our secretary of defense is gradually extending the DoD into such spheres as domestic law enforcement (illegal since the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878) and diplomacy which are eroding civilian authority. Moreover, the assault on civil liberties that Ashcroft's DoJ has launched starting with the Patriot Act (and the, for now, scuttled Domestic Enhanced Security Act) fits hand-in-glove with the increasing militarization of our country.

Perhaps most enlightening - simply because he ties a lot of different threads together - is his discussion on the expansion of our military base network in East Asia. Bush and Co. claim that these support the "War on Terror"; yet this war is a counter-blowback since we're really waging war on our former operatives Saddam Hussein (lucratively funded in the 1980's to fight the Iranians; just ask Rumsfeld - he was special envoy to Baghdad to negotiate arms purchases) and Osama bin Laden (CIA-trained to fight the Soviet army occupying Afghanistan around the same time).

In actuality, the "War on Terror" is actually a "War for Oil", a point many people have made, but one that Johnson clarifies and places in a wider context. He shows how the Taliban were installed by us in 1996 (!) in order for Unocal to negotiate a pipeline deal and how the Bush Administration decided before 9/11 to remove them when they proved unreliable. Seen in the context of a large war to control the last remaining untapped oil reserves, the "War on Terror" takes on a darker and more frightening prospect: long-term US garrisoning throughout East Asia to ensure that Americans can drive their SUVs for perhaps another twenty years.

Johnson isn't particularly strong on recommendations; indeed, "The Sorrows of Empire" subtly infers that barring a revolution, it will be next to impossible to curb the Pentagon's domination of our foreign policy. This book, however, should be required reading for anyone who wants to know why Americans are becoming so disliked in the world. It is more substantial than Gore Vidal's "Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace" (still good though) and Mark Heertsgard's "The Eagle's Shadow."

Rating:
Summary: Bashing the "New Rome and its fiddler Emperer
Review: Before 9/11 in BLOWBACK, Chalmers Johnson anticipated dire consequences and negative active reactions to the American U.S. foreign policy that has run roughshod over much of the world, but especially Asia. In his latest cautionary book, Mr. Johnson pulls no punches as he accuses the Bush crowd of global militarism using a "private army" of Special Forces to keep the American colonies "in line". Referring to Presidents like Eisenhower, Mr. Johnson makes the case that the military-industrial complex has already happened, but is really a federal government-industrial complex. He insists that the State Department, EPA, and Interior, etc. have been silenced by the war machine and the oil magnates. "Preemptive intervention" is just a fake way of covering the administration's belief that the USA is the New Rome."

Though he takes the clever Clinton to task as a disguised imperialist, Mr. Johnson spends much of his criticism on Bush bashing. The author insists that the "boy emperor" and his merry men (and a few women) are destroying the nation with their illusions of grandeur policies. This segment of THE SORROWS OF EMPIRE is the strength of the book as Mr. Johnson lays out powerful evidence with astounding and absorbing details of outlandish defense overkill with related scenarios and incredible spending that Everett Dirksen could not imagine. However, the book lacks substance on what can be done besides booting out the current Congress perhaps because the author feels we have crossed the Potomac. Still the case for American imperialism endangering the future of this country is strongly made.

Harriet Klausner