December 30
GUEST: Matthew Hoh, US Marine veteran with two deployments to Iraq, former Department of Defense and State Department war analyst, and contributing writer for the Guardian, the Huffington Post, Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post, talks about the US military empire and why it remains addicted to war.
Nearly 3/4 of the world’s dictators receive US weapons
Matthew Hoh has seen it all first hand, with two war tours and then various analyst jobs in the Department of Defense. And he tells it like it is. War is our most important product.
Perhaps we can trace this back to the end of World War II, when our country eagerly ramped up its military capabilities rather than scaling them down because there was no country left to fight.
The invasion of Korea was a part of the new war culture. We weren't content to have a unified Korea if it wasn't under our military influence. We killed two to three million Koreans but only achieved a military stalemate. Vietnam was next. We didn't belong there any more than we belonged in Korea. But we bombed and slaughtered them too. All the Vietnamese were seeking was freedom from being occupied. The US killed two to three million Vietnamese before our armies were finally driven out.
Perhaps militarism is a disease that counties get when they are too powerful. Other empires have behaved in a remarkably similar way. England ruled the world for over two centuries by invading and brutally exploiting foreign peoples. Other empires like Rome and Athens have acted remarkably the same. First came the military dominance, and then the great wealth extracted from occupied countries. Somewhere in the process, their democracies collapsed, replaced by a brutal and very unequal society.
Too simple? Probably. But making the comparisons help us understand the endless wars the American Empire will pursue in the twenty first century. The downfall of our democracy is even now something that we as citizens are becoming acutely aware of. January 6 was a close call, and if it weren't for Trump's failure to adequately prepare for the coup, he would still be ruling.
Is it the fault of the two major parties? I think the last two Democratic presidents have been as guilty as the Republicans. Clinton and Obama were warmonger presidents, eager to push China and Russia into military confrontations. There is no peace party, despite what Democrats claim. If that is what the party runs on next time, it will be time to bid farewell to the facade of democracy that we have all grown up believing.
