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The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic (The American Empire Project) 1st Edition
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Editorial Reviews
Review
“Chilling . . . a frightening picture . . . of the spread of American military and economic control over the world.” ―The New York Times Book Review
“Original and genuinely important . . . The role of the prophet is an honorable one. In Chalmers Johnson the American empire has found its Jeremiah. He deserves to be heard.” ―The Washington Post Book World
“Trenchantly argued, comprehensively documented, grimly eloquent . . . Worthy of the republic it seeks to defend.” ―The Boston Globe
About the Author
Chalmers Johnson, president of the Japan Policy Research Institute, is a frequent contributor to the Los Angeles Times and The Nation. His previous books include the national bestseller Blowback, as well as MITI and the Japanese Miracle. He lives near San Diego.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
- The 725 U.S. military bases acknowledged by the Department of Defense do not include the many used for communications espionage, control of the world's oil supply, or those that are simply too embarrassing for the government to speak about openly (such as the fourteen permanent bases being built in Iraq).
- The United States maintains about 347,000
soldiers, airmen, and marines at military bases in 140 of 189 member states of the United Nations.
- The American military budget is so large that the next-highest military budget in the world-
Russia's-is only fourteen percent of our own.
- Ninety-three percent of the American budget dedicated to international affairs is allocated to the military and only seven percent to the State Department.
- The Congressional Budget Office projects federal deficits over the next five years of more than $1 trillion, on top of an already existing government debt in February 2003 of $6.4 trillion. Military operations in Iraq so far have cost $143 billion; reconstruction will run from between $50 and $100 billion.
Product details
- Publisher : Metropolitan; 1st edition (January 6, 2005)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 400 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0805077979
- Item Weight : 1.05 pounds
- Dimensions : 5.5 x 1 x 8.5 inches
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Best Sellers Rank:
#535,087 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #454 in International Relations (Books)
- #515 in Political History (Books)
- #569 in Government
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Johnson suggests that US militarism and imperialism (e.g. military bases
throughout the world) will lead to 4 sorrows:
1) perpetual war - leading to more terrorism against Americans wherever
they may be an a growing reliance on WMD among smaller nations as they try
to object to US imperialism
2) Loss of democracy and constitutional rights as the presidency
skirts Congress and as both are influenced by the Pentagon
3) Truthfulness will increasingly be replaced by a system of propaganda,
disinformation, and glorification of war, power, and the military.
4) Bankruptcy, as we pour our economic resources into every more grandiose
military projects and divert capital from the free market, and shortchange
education, health and safety.
Johnson states that American triumphalists, including Robert Gates, convinced the US public that the demise of the USSR was a great American victory, but the actual collapse of the USSR into the CIS was due to economics (Freidman and Barnett make that same point). The Pentagon, rather than restructuring and demobilizing after their major Cold War enemy folded, has looked for other areas to justify its budgets (e.g. B2 bomber, the Joint Strike Fighter, and nuclear programs). The Pentagon is now involved in the war on drugs, the war on terror, and overt and covert preventive interventions throughout the world. In a change that has nearly been unnoticed, US foreign policy has shifted from civilian control to military policy control, and now the US is acting as a law unto itself, withdrawing from treaties and disparaging international cooperation.
This book was published in 2004, well before the current situation due to the Iraqi war venture could have been predicted, and Johnson's predictions are prescient: he describes the worst case for Iraq as sectarian violence and civil strife.
Johnson makes the case that a revolution in US relations with the 'rest of the world' occurred between 1989 (the fall of the Berlin wall) and 2002. Foreign policy gave way to military expansionism: permanent bases and airfields, espionage listening posts, and strategic enclaves on every continent. This is militarism - because US national security does not depend on this expansion. He states the armed services have put their institutional preservation ahead of national security, and in the first chapter he draws historical parallels with the Roman empire, which fell to barbarians because it couldn't afford to sustain its far-flung outposts.
Johnson states the 4th Amendment should protect the US citizens' right to privacy and prevent unreasonable searches, but that is not the case. He argues the government has systematically been violating our privacy - and this was before the controversy of the Foreign Intel Surveillance Court broke in 2005, before Gen Hayden was appointed to the NSA.
Johnson quotes Jefferson, "that when the government fears the people, there is liberty; when the people fear the government, there is tyranny."
The SoE describes that militarism, going beyond what is needed for national security, damages globalism and international relationships by taking capital resources from the free market forces, reallocating money, talent, and resources to the military which is not responsive to real forces of supply and demand, and which is responsive to crony capitalism and false claims of effectiveness.
Some of Johnson's assertions bear further explanation: e.g. on pg. 287, he cites Immanuel Wallerstein's `world systems theory', but this concept is not described. On pg. 70, he asserts that "Most neocons have their roots on the left, not on the right." I would have liked further explanation of this. Johnson, like Chomsky, is very critical of both Democrats and Republicans - he is describing the systemic forces, larger than politics, that are shaping the future of the US. Certainly many of his assessments are opinions which are quite controversial, but these opinions deserve consideration.
What Chalmers Johnson does in The Sorrows of Empire is break through the disinformation campaign being perpetrated on the world and expose our practices for what they really are: maintenance and expansion of empire.
The word "empire" is taken by many as a pejorative, and they recoil from any serious consideration of the possibility that America may actually be one. When they think of an empire, they think about the Romans, Alexander, or Khan, and then they contrast their understanding of those ancient empires with their own contemporary lifestyle. They subsequently discount the notion that America has become an empire and continue to support the politicians who depend on their ignorance.
This book allows such a reader to see beyond the world he perceives through the blinders of corporate media obfuscation and government propaganda. It permits him to look beyond the smoke and mirrors and to see the world as it actually is.
From his recounting of the historical events that have brought us to empire, to his reporting of contemporary events that compel us to maintain empire, Chalmers Johnson is able to provide valuable insight to the American citizen who clings to the false notion that we remain the constitutional republic intended by our founders.
Top reviews from other countries
I couldn't get my head out of the damned book..... until Némésis arrived!
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