It is fair to say that the U.S. military has created a worldwide sexual playground for its personnel and protected them to a large extent from the consequences of their behavior. I believe a better solution would be to radically reduce the size of our standing army and bring the troops home from countries where they do not understand their environments and have been taught to think of the inhabitants as inferior to themselves.
10 STEPS TOWARD LIQUIDATING THE EMPIRE
Dismantling the American empire would, of course, involve many steps. Here are ten key places to begin.
We need to put a halt to the serious environmental damage done by our bases planetwide. We also need to stop writing SOFAs that exempt us from any responsibility for cleaning up after ourselves.
We must end the burden of our empire of bases and of the “opportunity costs” that go with them—the things we might otherwise do with our talents and resources but can’t or won’t.
We must end the use of torture. In the 1960s and 1970s we helped overthrow the elected governments in Brazil and Chile and underwrote regimes of torture that prefigured our own treatment of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan. (See, for instance, A. J. Langguth, Hidden Terrors, on how the United States spread torture methods to Brazil and Uruguay.) Dismantling the empire would potentially mean an end to the modern American record of using torture abroad.
We need to cut the ever-lengthening train of camp followers, dependents, civilian employees of the Department of Defense, and hucksters—along with their expensive medical facilities, housing requirements, swimming pools, clubs, golf courses, and so forth—that follow our military enclaves around the world.
We need to discredit the myth promoted by the military-industrial complex that our military establishment is valuable to us in terms of jobs, scientific research, and defense. These alleged advantages have long been discredited by serious economic research. Ending empire would make this happen.
As a self-respecting democratic nation, we need to stop being the world’s largest exporter of arms and munitions and quit educating Third World militaries in the techniques of torture, military coups, and service as proxies for our imperialism. A prime candidate for immediate closure is the so-called School of the Americas, the U.S. Army’s infamous military academy at Fort Benning, Georgia, for Latin American military officers.
Given the growing constraints on the federal budget, we should abolish the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps and other long-standing programs that promote militarism in our schools.
We need to restore discipline and accountability in our armed forces by radically scaling back our reliance on civilian contractors, private military companies, and agents working for the military outside the chain of command and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. (See Jeremy Scahill, Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army.)
We need to reduce, not increase, the size of our standing army and deal much more effectively with the long-term wounds our soldiers receive and the combat stress they undergo.
To repeat the main message of this essay, we must give up our inappropriate reliance on military force as the chief means of attempting to achieve foreign policy objectives.
Unfortunately, few empires of the past voluntarily gave up their dominions in order to remain independent, self-governing polities. The two most important recent examples are the British and Soviet empires. If we do not learn from their examples, our decline and fall is foreordained.
NOTE ON SOURCES
All but the introduction to this book and two of the pieces in it appeared first online at the website TomDispatch.com, and there they were heavily sourced. Instead of footnotes, most had links, and, even when there were footnotes, the cites were normally largely to the URLs of various websites. A long set of URLs as footnotes in a book is, however, both awkward and largely useless. As a result, the essays in this book are unfootnoted and unsourced. However, if you go to TomDispatch.com and use either the search window or the website’s month-by-month archives, you can check the original sourcing on any of these pieces. The Internet offers the first democratic form of footnoting; unfortunately—fair warning—a certain number of those links do go dead over time.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am grateful for the helpful suggestions and inspiration of several good friends and colleagues. These include Kozy Amemiya, Alfredo and Maricler Antognini, Marshall Auerback, Juan Cole, Sam Coleman, Bruce Cumings, Sandy Dijkstra, Giorgio and Noretta Freddi, Pat Hatcher, Barry Keehn, Ken Kopp, Thomas Royden, Michael Rubano, Chiho Sawada, Nick Turse, and Dustin Wright. Also, many thanks to my eagle-eyed copy editor, Emily DeHuff.
My greatest debt, however, is to my devoted publisher, Sara Bershtel of Metropolitan Books, and to my two exacting editors, Tom Engelhardt of TomDispatch.com and Sheila K. Johnson, my wife.
INDEX
The index that appeared in the print version of this title was intentionally removed from the eBook. Please use the search function on your eReading device to search for terms of interest. For your reference, the terms that appear in the print index are listed below.
A-10 “Warthog” aircraft
abortion
Abraham Lincoln, USS (aircraft carrier)
abstract expressionism
Abu Ghraib
Acquisition Streamlining Task Force
ADCS Inc.
Afghanistan. See also Afghan War; Anglo-Afghan wars; Soviet-Afghan War
Carter and
CIA and
civil war and Taliban takeover of
coups of 1973 and 1978
Pakistan and
Saudi Arabia and
Afghanistan (Dupree)
Afghan War (2001– )
cost of
Obama and
Pakistan and
Agency for International Development (USAID)
aircraft
aircraft carriers
Air Mobility Command
Albright, Madeleine
Alexander the Great
Algeria
Allende, Salvador
al-Qaeda
American Council for Cultural Policy
American Enterprise Institute
America Right or Wrong (Lieven)
Ames, Aldrich
Anderson, Frank
Anglo-Afghan wars
anti-Americanism
antiballistic missile ban
anti-ICBM (Intercontinental Ballistic Missile) network
Arbenz, Jacobo
arc of instability
Arendt, Hannah
Argentina
Arjomand, Saïd
Armitage, Richard
arms sales
Army and Air Force Exchange Service
Assyrians
Auerback, Marshall
Augustus Caesar
Australia
automotive industry
Aviano Air Base (Italy)
Avrakotos, Gust
B-2 stealth bomber
B-52 bomber
Babylon
Bacevich, Andrew
Baghdad
Mongol invasion of
Baghdad International Airport
Baghdad National Museum
Bagram Air Base
Bahrain
Bahrani, Zainab
Baker, Dean
balance of powers
Bamiyan Buddhist statues
bank bailouts
Barnes, Julian
Barnett, Correlli
Barr, Jay
“Base Structure Reports,”
Bashur airfield
Batista, Fulgencio
Bay of Pigs invasion
Bearden, Milton
Belgrade Chinese embassy bombing
Benedict, Helen
Berger, Sandy
Berke, Richard L.
Berlin Wall, fall of
Berlusconi, Silvio
Beyond the Green Zone (Jamail)
Bhutto, Benazir
Bilbray, Brian
&n
bsp; Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, base
Bissell, Richard
Black, Cofer
black budgets
Blackwater
Blackwater (Scahill)
Blair, Tony
blowback
Blowback (Johnson)
Boeing
Bolivia
Booz Allen Hamilton
Boyd, John
Boyd (Coram)
Brazil
Bremer, L. Paul, III
British Empire. See also Great Britain
British Petroleum
Bromwich, David
Bryan, William Jennings
Brzezinski, Zbigniew
Bulgaria
Burns, John
Busby, Francine
Bush, George H. W. (Bush I)
Bush, George W. (Bush II)
bin Laden and
defense spending and
Iraq and
preventive war and
private contractors and
Business-Industry PAC
CACI International
Caesar, Julius
California 50th Congressional District
Cambodia
campaign contributions
Camp Anaconda (Iraq)
Camp Bondsteel (Kosovo)
Camp Butler (Okinawa)
Camp Justice (Diego Garcia)
Camp Lemonier (Djibouti)
Camp Schwab (Okinawa)
Canada
Cannistraro, Vincent
Capabilities-Based Acquisition
Cardiff School Board
Caribbean
Carlucci Acquisition Initiatives
Carter, Jimmy
Casey, William
Castro, Fidel
Catholic Action
Catholic Church
CENTCOM
Center for Economic and Policy Research
Center for Responsive Politics
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). See also specific countries and operations
Afghanistan and jihadis and
blowback and
budget of
creation of
history of crimes and bungling of
need to abolish
9/11 and
oversight and
private contractors and
secrecy of
Charlie Wilson’s War (film and book)
Cheney, Dick
Chicago Sun-Times
Chile
coup of 1973
China
Chinese Communist Party
Chinese National People’s Congress
Chomsky, Noam
Christian Coalition
Christian Democratic Party (Italy)
Christian Science Monitor
Christie, Thomas
Chun Doo Hwan
CIA Records Search Technology (CREST)
Cinematical
Clarke, Richard
Clarridge, Duane R. “Dewey,”
Clinton, Bill
Coalition Provisional Authority
Colby, William
Cold War
end of
Cole, USS, attack on
Coll, Steve
Colombia
Communist Party of Italy
Complex, The (Turse)
Congo-Zaire
Congressional Budget Office
Congressional Record
Congressional Reference Service
Conrail
containment
Control Supply Company
Coram, Robert
corporate power
Correa, Rafael
corruption
counterinsurgency doctrine
counterterrorism
Counterterrorist Center
coups
covert action
Crile, George
Cruise, Tom
cruise missiles
Cuba
Cubic Corporation
Cultural Cold War, The (Saunders)
Culvahouse, Arthur B.
Cunningham, Randy “Duke,”
current accounts
Curtis, John
Czech Republic
Danics, Anita
Daoud, Sardar Mohammed
Dar es Salaam embassy bombing
Darwin, Charles
data-mining
death squads
debt. See also federal deficits; national debt
Decision Research
Decline in America’s Reputation, The
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)
Defense Authorization Bills
defense contractors (munitions industry). See also military-industrial complex; private contractors
Defense Department (DOD, Pentagon). See also military bases; and specific bases, countries, weapons, and wars
base inventories by
base repositioning and
budgets of
Inspector General
Iraqi museums and
munitions industry and
private contractors and
procurement by, and reform attempts
Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA)
Defense Management Review
“Defense Power Games” (Spinney)
defense reform movement
Defense Science Board
Task Force on Strategic Communication
defense spending. See also Defense Department; military-industrial complex; military Keynesianism
economic impact of
overseas bases and
public-private partnerships and
size of, vs. other countries
supplementary, for Iraq and Afghanistan
wasteful, and reform attempts
democracy
empire and
defined
imposing, on others
privatization and
Democracy Incorporated (Wolin)
Democratic Party (Japan)
Democratic Socialist Party (Japan)
Denmark
Deterring Democracy (Chomsky)
Deutch, John
Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, killings
dictatorships
Diego Garcia
Djibouti
dollar, value of
domestic spying
Dominican Republic
Donovan, William J. “Wild Bill,”
Dornan, Bob
Douglas, Paul
Drug Enforcement Administration
drugs
Dulles, Allen S.
Dupree, Louis
Durand Line
Dutch empire
Dying to Win (Pape)
DynCorp
earmarks
East Asia
Eastern Europe
Ebert, Roger
economy. See also current accounts; federal deficits; Great Recession; military Keynesianism
cost of bases and
domestic spending and
empire and
impact of defense spending on
Ecuador
education
Egypt
Ehmann, Amy
82nd Airborne Division
Eisenhower, Dwight D.
elections, foreign
elections, U.S.
of 2000
of 2004
of 2008
El Salvador
Emergency Wartime Supplemental Appropriations Act (2003)
empire and imperialism (hegemony). See also military bases
Afghan War and
democracy vs
economic impact of
“footprint” of
ideology of
Middle East and
militarism and
Obama and
steps for dismantling
“empire of consumption,”
Encounter (magazine)
Endangered Species Act
Energy Department
environmental damage
espionage
Europe
>
bases in
imperialism and
European Union
Euro Zone
Evans, Don
“Exterminate All the Brutes” (Lindqvist)
F-16 fighter planes
F-22 Raptor supersonic stealth fighter
F-35 Joint Strike Fighter
F-105 fighter
Falcon and the Snowman, The (Lindsey)
Fallows, James
Fallujah
fascism
FBI
federal deficits
Federal Election Commission
Federal Financial Management Improvement Act (1996)
Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA, Pakistan)
Federation of American Scientists
Feinstein, Dianne
Fighter Mafia
Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks (9/11 Commission Report)
Fisk, Robert
Fitzgerald, Paul
Fitzhugh (Blue Ribbon) Commission
Foggo, Kyle “Dusty,”
Ford, Gerald
foreign military aid
Foreign Policy in Focus
Foreign Terrorist Tracking Task Force
fourth-generation warfare
4th Infantry Division
France
empire of
Frank, Barney
Frank, Thomas
Franks, Tommy
French Foreign Legion
Friedman, Benjamin
Friedman, Stephen
front-loading
Futenma Air Station
Galápagos Islands
Garmisch vacation center
Garner, Jay
Gates, Robert M.
Geithner, Timothy
General Dynamics
Geneva Accords (1988)
Gentile, Giovanni
George, Clair
George H. W. Bush, USS (aircraft carrier)
Georgia
Germany
bases in
empire and
Nazi
Ghana
Ghost Wars (Coll)
Gibney, Alex
Gibson, McGuire
Gingrich, Newt
“global cavalry,”
Global Insight
Global Security Organization
Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act (1986)
Gorbachev, Mikhail
Goss, Porter
Gould, Elizabeth
Grace, J. Peter, Jr
Grafenwöhr Training Area
Great Britain (United Kingdom). See also British Empire
Afghanistan and
bases in
Iraq and
Great Depression
Great Recession (financial crisis of 2008–10)
Greece
ancient
Greenland
Green Zone
Groen, Rick
Gromov, Boris
Guam
Guantánamo Bay
Dismantling the Empire Page 18