NOURNEWS/NORTH CAROLINA - The problem with a country that is occupying another in some fashion for the purpose of making alleged gains either political or economic but has not achieved anything occurs because the opposition is determined and willing to sacrifice lives and treasure to make sure the occupier becomes so frustrated that eventually the scheme is abandoned.
This truly has been the story of U.S. military interventions going all the way back to the Korean War in the early 1950s. The war scuttled Harry Truman’s bid for another term as President, and more than a decade later President Lyndon Johnson tried to “defeat” the Vietnamese, pouring more than 500,000 U.S. soldiers into that country and accomplishing nothing but carnage. Johnson, too, who became President when Kennedy was assassinated, probably by the CIA, stepped down and decided not to run for another term in the White House.
It’s magnificent when one thinks of the possibility that the Empire will at last fail fast.
Aside from a few minor skirmishes against utterly weak foes, the U.S. has in fundamental ways destroyed itself financially and morally with military interventions in which nothing has been “won”, except that the components of the Military Industrial Complex (about which General Eisenhower warned in 1960 upon leaving the White House), particularly corporations large and small and their stockholding owners, that have supplied the materiel of war making and became more or less filthy rich. And those companies like Boeing or Raytheon or Lockheed have employed hordes of American workers such that, unlike China which for decades has avoiding war making, the U.S. became a country that has hollowed out its peacetime industry and shipped it off to Asia and even parts of South America. In fact, it has little to offer anyone for sale, except weapons, and the U.S. is the largest purveyor of military hardware ever.
And at this moment in the eastern US on November 4 as this is written, it appears Joseph Biden is going to become President. He is not going in with any mandate, which is good. He is likely to be the last of the tired old men in the White House of the Boomer generation. He will be weak and faces nearly insurmountable problems as the Empire further disintegrates along with the monetary system and the dollar. This also is promising for a better world future where Asia becomes the key power center. And Trump?
As he loses power, already his former Republican (former) allies in the U.S. House and Senate are abandoning him, questioning his demands for recounts in key states, and for a halt to further tallying of ballots. It’s the ultimate defeat of a craven narcissist. Will he hang himself in the cloakroom off the Oval Office? Probably not. But Trump has been characterized this week by the great intellectual, Noam Chomsky, as the “greatest criminal in world history” for his trashing of environmental accords, his abandonment of treaties like the JCPOA, and for moves that herald the destruction of organized human life on earth. Moreover, Chomsky has claimed that Trump, by his alliances along with Israel have been aiming to create an international coven of extremely reactionary states in the Middle East which can be controlled by a Trump White House. Trump’s allies along the Persian Gulf are nothing but dictatorships, the most reactionary in the world, along with an Israel that has also moved very far to the right. This has had nothing to do with real peace agreements, as Iran and most of the world well knows.
It’s not as if Biden is going to usher in any great changes, for he, like Trump, has not really championed progressive policies, but other, younger Democrats will push for them. At least Biden has said he will reestablish communications and linkages with the beleaguered Palestinians and may even try to get the U.S. to rejoin the JCPOA. These are all suggestions in a much better direction than Trump ever considered. So, Iran should be modestly heartened by Biden’s possible victory later this month after all the votes are counted.
Worth noting is that Iran’s leaders, after repeated provocations to war in the past three years, have maintained their cool and patience and now, going forward, maybe, this Biden election is going to pay off marginally for Iran’s people. Some relief from sanctions? This may happen.
But at the same time, the U.S. looks worse to foreign observers because of this close election where almost half of Americans, most of them ignorant, voted for Trump who by some accounts anyway has become reviled worldwide, and deservedly so.
At any rate, there is now a tiny bit of light in the gloom and given Biden’s lack of any mandate, and a Senate that is likely to remain with a majority of Republicans, the U.S. government may be somewhat paralyzed, too. Biden is, after all, a person who like so many other politicians beholding to Wall Street and the corporate oligarchs, but at least he is not Sheldon Adelson’s pet dog as Trump has long been.
NOURNEWS