Soviet Union
Scrub the CIA
Contrary to popular opinion, the CIA has done valuable, even critical work for our nation. Its predecessor, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), helped us win World War II. And during the Cold War, someone had to counter the ruthlessness of the Soviet KGB. That kind of work is dangerous, and often messy. But early on in its existence, the CIA strayed from what it was chartered to do: gather intelligence.
The agency has had many low points. George Tenet’s WMD “slam dunk” in Iraq was just the last in a long line of criminally incompetent actions. I believe the beginning…
August 28, 2008 | Read More
World Boss History Reason #5: Dirty Tricks Around the World
Ever seen one of those pro-American bumper stickers that say, “These colors don’t run”? It makes no sense, as we’re the bullies always looking for a fight. Since World War II, the United States has played a part in at least thirty different assassinations, coups, or other insurrections. We installed autocrats like the Shah of Iran, Fulgencio Batista in Cuba, and Sese Seko Mobutu in the Congo. It didn’t matter to us if they oppressed their people. All we cared about was their loyalty to Uncle Sam.
The Cold War was the excuse for many of these interventions. If we didn’t install…
August 28, 2008 | Read More
World Boss History Reason #4: The Platt Amendment - U.S. Imperialism Begins in Cuba
Thanks to Hearst, The Colonel, and other media warmongers, American troops poured into Cuba and expelled its Spanish rulers. With our victory in the Spanish-American War, we took over Spain’s colonies in Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Guam. We chose to let Cuba remain “independent,” but in name only. She was really just another American possession.
Our triumph against Spain was the beginning of the end of America as a peaceful democratic republic and the beginning of America the Empire. We’d gotten a taste of imperial ambition and there was no stopping us after that.
In 1902, Congress enacted the Platt Amendment.…
August 28, 2008 | Read More
World Boss History Reason #1: Strange Fruit
Our military is not supposed to protect private companies and their profits. But for well over a century, that seems to be what many leaders have thought was its prime role. The case of the United Fruit Company is a choice example. In the early 1950s, United Fruit, a U.S. company, owned vast tracks of land in Central America. At one time they controlled more than 400,000 acres in Honduras alone. And on the east coast of Guatemala the company controlled 550,000 acres. They seemed to be everywhere you looked.
But in 1951, the Guatemalan people elected as president a man…
August 28, 2008 | Read More
Reason #87: The Myth That World Boss Won the Cold War
Many an old general crows that being World Boss won us the Cold War. According to them, our massive military brought the Soviets to their knees. Ronald Reagan’s Star Wars plan was supposedly the final blow, because the Soviets went broke trying to match it. But this is a gross exaggeration. The USSR never even considered trying to compete with us in space. By the mid-1980s, they were actually scaling back their military budgets, a well-kept secret concealed from the American public.
The truth is that Mikhail Gorbachev set the Perestroika process in motion for his country’s reconstruction. The United States actually…
August 28, 2008 | Read More
A Moon Shot over Manhattan Project to Solve our Energy Crisis
Over the course of our recent history, the U.S. government has engineered two enormous scientific successes. The first was the Manhattan Project, which resulted in the atom bomb. The second, launched by NASA, was the space program, which took human beings to the moon for the first time. It’s time for a third massive undertaking on the scale of these historic triumphs to end our reliance on foreign oil. The only long term, sustainable solution to the problem is a massive investment in renewable energy.
We need to put someone in office who doesn’t think in the old either-or ways when…
August 27, 2008 | Read More
Reason #71: The Truman Doctrine and the Birth of World Boss
In 1947, the Truman Doctrine made America’s new dominant role in the Middle East official. Following World War II, most of the world expected a Third World War to erupt between the United States and the USSR. The Truman Doctrine guaranteed that the United States would “protect” Greece and Turkey against the communists. But what the United States was really protecting in Greece and Turkey was the main route for Middle Eastern oil: over land via pipeline and then on tankers through the Mediterranean.
Why would the U.S. government pledge our military to secure a pipeline route halfway around the world? To…
August 27, 2008 | Read More
Reason #1: The Dance of the D.O.P.es
When I was a student at UCLA, I used to debate members of the American Communist Party in Pershing Square in downtown L.A. They tried to argue that the Soviet Union was a “worker’s paradise,” but I knew that was a fantasy. The USSR was nothing but a repressive dictatorship, with communist party bosses hoarding all the goodies while the “workers” beneath them barely got enough to get by. Back in those days I would have never dreamed that we’d wind up in a similar situation here in America. But that nightmare has come true.
We’re facing an almost Soviet-style manipulation…
August 25, 2008 | Read More
