[Peace-discuss] liquidating the empire

[E. Wayne Johnson]

Patrick Buchanan writes at AntiWar dot Com about the Empiring American 
Crumble.

http://www.antiwar.com/pat/?articleid=13588

October 14, 2008
Liquidating the Empire
by Patrick J. Buchanan

"Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmers."

So Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon advised Herbert Hoover in the Great 
Crash of '29.

Hoover did. And the nation liquidated him – and the Republicans.

In the Crash of 2008, 40 percent of stock value has vanished, almost $9 
trillion. Some $5 trillion in real estate value has disappeared. A 
recession looms with sweeping layoffs, unemployment compensation 
surging, and social welfare benefits soaring.

America's first trillion-dollar deficit is at hand.

In fiscal year 2008 the deficit was $438 billion.

With tax revenue sinking, we will add to this year's deficit the $200 to 
$300 billion needed to wipe the rotten paper off the books of Fannie and 
Freddie, the $700 billion (plus the $100 billion in add-ons and pork) 
for the Wall Street bailout, the $85 billion to bail out AIG, and $37 
billion more now needed, the $25 billion for GM, Chrysler, and Ford, and 
the hundreds of billions Hank Paulson will need to buy corporate paper 
and bail out banks to stop the panic.

As Americans save nothing, where are the Feds going to get the money? Is 
the Fed going to print it and destroy the dollar and credit rating of 
the United States? Because the nations whose vaults are full of dollars 
and U.S. debt – China, Japan, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf Arabs – are 
reluctant to lend us more. Sovereign wealth funds that plunged billions 
into U.S. banks have already been burned.

Uncle Sam's Visa card is about to be stamped "Canceled."

The budget is going to have to go under the knife. But what gets cut?

Social Security and Medicare are surely exempt. Seniors have already 
taken a huge hit in their 401(k)s. And as the Democrats are crafting 
another $150 billion stimulus package for the working poor and middle 
class, Medicaid and food stamps are untouchable. Interest on the debt 
cannot be cut. It is going up. Will a Democratic Congress slash 
unemployment benefits, welfare, education, student loans, veterans 
benefits – in a recession?

No way. Yet, that is almost the entire U.S. budget – except for defense, 
the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and foreign aid. And this is where the 
ax will eventually fall.

It is the American Empire that is going to be liquidated.

Retrenchment has begun with Bush's backing away from confrontations with 
Axis-of-Evil charter members Iran and North Korea over their nuclear 
programs, and will likely continue with a negotiated peace in 
Afghanistan. Gen. Petraeus and Secretary Gates are already talking 
"reconciliation" with the Taliban.

We no longer live in Eisenhower or Reagan's America. Even the post-Cold 
War world of George H. W. Bush, where America was a global hegemon, is 
history. In both relative and real terms, the U.S.A. is a diminished power.

Where Ike spent 9 percent of GDP on defense, Reagan 6 percent, we spend 
4 percent. Yet we have two wars bleeding us and many more nations to 
defend, with commitments in the Baltic, Eastern Europe, and the Balkans 
we did not have in the Cold War. As U.S. weapons systems are many times 
more expensive today, we have fewer strategic aircraft and Navy ships 
than Ike or Reagan commanded. Our active-duty Army and Marine Corps 
consist of 700,000 troops, 15 percent women, and a far higher percentage 
of them support rather than combat troops.

With so few legions, we cannot police the world, and we cannot afford 
more. Yet, we have a host of newly hostile nations we did not have in 1989.

U.S. interests in Latin America are being challenged not only by Cuba, 
but Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Honduras. Brazil, 
Argentina, and Chile go their own way. Russia is reasserting hegemony in 
the Caucasus, testing new ICBMs, running bomber probes up to U.S. air 
space. China, growing at 10 percent as we head into recession, is 
bristling over U.S. military sales to Taiwan. Iran remains defiant. 
Pakistan is rife with anti-Americanism and al-Qaeda sentiment.

The American Empire has become a vast extravagance.

With U.S. markets crashing and wealth vanishing, what are we doing with 
750 bases and troops in over 100 countries?

With a recession of unknown depth and duration looming, why keep 
borrowing billions from rich Arabs to defend rich Europeans, or billions 
from China and Japan to hand out in Millennium Challenge Grants to 
Tanzania and Burkina Faso?

America needs a bottom-up review of all strategic commitments dating to 
a Cold War now over for 20 years.

Is it essential to keep 30,000 troops in a South Korea with twice the 
population and 40 times the wealth of the North? Why are McCain and 
Obama offering NATO memberships, i.e., war guarantees against Russia, to 
a Georgia run by a hothead like Mikheil Saakashvili, and a Ukraine, 
millions of whose people prefer their kinship to Russia to an alliance 
with us?

We must put "country first," says John McCain.

Right you are, Senator. Time to look out for America first.