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DEFEAT CAPITALISM AND ITS DEADLY SPAWN, IMPERIALISM
ecological murder •
Currently, the U.S. has exactly 900 military bases in foreign countries, in addition to the 749 bases inside the U.S. itself. The U.S. Government minimizes and tries to hide this reality from the public. Furthermore, although the U.S. is officially estimated to spend around 36% of the entire world’s military expenditures, the actual figure is around 50% of the world’s military expenditures, and the added approximately 14% is being paid-out through federal U.S. Departments other than the ‘Defense’ Department, so as to make the total U.S. figure appear to be only 36% of the global total. Moreover: on November 15th, the U.S. Department of ‘Defense’ announced that “The results of the fifth annual DOD [Department Of Defense] wide financial audit will be a disclaimer of opinion for DOD” and used other such obtuse phraseology, so that the reality that — as one of the very few published news-reports that was based on it headlined optimistically — “Defense Department fails another audit, but makes progress”, and it opened:
The Defense Department has failed its fifth-ever audit, unable to account for more than half of its assets, but the effort is being viewed as a “teachable moment,” according to its chief financial officer.
After 1,600 auditors combed through DOD’s $3.5 trillion in assets and $3.7 trillion in liabilities, officials found that the department couldn’t account for about 61 percent of its assets, Pentagon Comptroller Mike McCord told reporters on Tuesday.
at least ever since the year 2000, the most respected “institution” of all, by the American people, is “The military.” It’s a great PR success.
There is only a single empire remaining in the world: the U.S.-and-allied empire. It relies upon the U.S. military. U.S.-and-allied media have been serving it well.
On 1 December 2019, The Conversation dot com headlined “Why does the US pay so much for the defense of its allies? 5 questions answered”, and said:
1. What’s in it for the US?
The U.S. currently has approximately 174,000 active-duty personnel deployed to overseas locations in approximately 140 countries. The Department of Defense Comptroller’s Office estimates the total cost of overseas bases and deployments at US$24.4 billion in fiscal year 2020. These figures generally exclude the costs of ongoing combat operations.
When stronger countries provide security for weaker countries, they receive non-material benefits in return.
For example, the weaker country may sacrifice control over their foreign policy.
To “sacrifice control over their foreign policy” is to be a vassal-nation, or ‘ally’, of the imperial power. It’s to serve the imperial power’s billionaires — to give them control over the vassal nation. That’s to “sacrifice” a lot. The imperial power’s billionaires benefit enormously. So, their media serve it. Here’s why that is being allowed:
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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s new book is AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change.