1 - Support of Dictators
For all the happy talk of spreading
Democracy and protecting human rights, the empire has repeatedly not
only supported dictators, but in many cases overthrew popularly elected
leaders and replaced them with puppet tyrants.
Examples range from,
...to name a few.
Actions speak
louder than words to those who can navigate the storm of propaganda with
a moral compass set to recognize good from evil.
Dictators and freedom
cannot coexist.
Rumsfeld and Saddam Hussein 1983
2 - Preemptive Wars of Aggression
It could be said that all wars are
preemptive in nature because so many entities benefit from war.
Yet,
even before America's latest crusades, they covertly and surgically
attacked countries that never threatened them. This allowed them to
maintain the moral high road in the public's eye while constructing the
foundation of their empire.
That was until
the Bush Doctrine; the use of
preemptive military action to confront possible threats was unofficially
adopted to be the new foreign policy for combating terror. Since then,
America has become the violent aggressors, having officially invaded two
countries - Afghanistan and Iraq - without legitimate provocation.
Violent aggressors have always been judged by history as evil.
But it
gets worse....
3 - Torture
Torture has never been acceptable by those
promoting a high moral standing in the global community.
Nazis and
Japanese soldiers were convicted and executed for engaging in the exact
same torture techniques that America has redefined as 'enhanced
interrogation'.
"I was just following orders,"
...was not a justifiable
excuse for such inhumane behavior, much like it wasn't a good enough
defense for the low-ranking patsies who took the heat for the sinister
Abu Ghraib torture scandal even though their actions were
approved at
the highest levels.
Can state-sanctioned torture of prisoners held
without charges ever be viewed as anything less than brutal?
torture
4 - Suppression of Dissent
All tyrannical regimes throughout history
have suppressed homeland dissent.
As government oppression grows bolder
at home and abroad, more citizens will naturally express outrage,
resulting in even more oppressive controls. This is happening in the
United States through the all-seeing eye of the Department of Homeland
Security with
warrantless spying, arbitrary watch lists,
citizen spy
campaigns, and TSA molestation to travel anywhere.
Additionally, in an
attempt to squash free speech, they arbitrarily seize websites and
violently confront peaceful protesters. Unfortunately, as awareness of
the topics in this very article expands, the U.S. will likely become
even bolder in their pursuit of stifling dissent.
In other words, the
worst is yet to come, and history will judge the U.S. as not quite the
beacon of freedom they have pretended to be.
Suppression
5 - Elimination of Habeas Corpus
Say goodbye to the notion of being innocent
until proven guilty, the right to face charges and your accuser, and the
right to a free and fair trial.
Habeas corpus, considered the only
humane path to "which a prisoner can be released from unlawful
detention," has been eliminated for those vaguely labeled 'enemy
combatants' of the empire.
As Guantanamo prisoners rot under such
pretenses, prominent lawmakers in the empire propose the exact same lack
of rights for American citizens if they're labeled an 'enemy
belligerent'.
Similar to
the Spanish Inquisition, now you're guilty
until you're tortured to admit your guilt.
Can it get
more evil? Why
yes, it can.
Read on...
6 - Assassinating Citizens
That's right. No judge, no jury, no
conviction; just straight to execution.
America has set another
precedent in their tyrannical march toward empire when they openly
assassinated an American citizen and government patsy,
Anwar al-Awlaki,
and his teenage son on the suspicion of terrorism.
Paul Craig Roberts
laments,
"Now the US government not only can seize a US citizen and
confine him in prison for the rest of his life without ever presenting
evidence and obtaining a conviction, but also can have him shot down in
the street or blown up by a drone."
Isn't this the reason America claims
to be knocking off dictators around the world - the deliberate killing
of their own citizens?
Assassinations
Anthony Freda Art
But Awlaki was a bad apple because the intelligence community said so.
What's most telling that America will continue this wickedness is that
almost every US lawmaker turned a blind eye to the grotesque violation
of Constitutional rights.
Only Ron Paul
said that assassinating an
American citizen without charges is nothing less than an "impeachable
offense". Too bad most of the country cheered the Awlaki killing as a
"victory" in the war on terror, indicating that it is now an acceptable
tactic.
Americans beware:
you may be moved from a secret watch list to a
secret kill list in this brutal empire.
7 - Unauthorized Drone Wars
Unprovoked wars without authorization,
accountability, or independent oversight only seem to be escalating; and
with little resistance.
The US Congress no longer votes to "declare
war". They simply give the Commander in Chief broad "authorization" to
use force against specific nations.
However, even that is not broad
enough in the rapid pursuit of empire.
Now, joystick 'warriors' (above
image) directed
by the CIA and Pentagon have targeted at least three countries with
"unauthorized" military strikes; Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia.
Even
worse, they waged a full-scale war for regime change and resource
plundering in Libya without any authority inside the United States.
Under the NATO flag, which is
75% funded by the U.S., they flew over
9200 strike sorties in Libya to
illegally topple Gaddafi. Drunk with
success, the bloodthirsty empire marches on to their next preemptive
targets, Syria and Iran.
Quick morality check: unprovoked killing and
stealing as a first resort is still wrong, right?
Drones
8 - Use of Weapons of Mass Destruction
How ironic that the world's policeman for
weapons of mass destruction is the only one to use them on a mass scale.
The United States is on record using chemical, biological and even
nuclear weapons. From the atomic bombs dropped on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki
in WWII, to
Monsanto's Agent Orange in Vietnam, to the
depleted uranium
used in Afghanistan and Iraq, America only condemns itself when speaking
about the evils of WMDs.
However, killers don't appear to care how the
killing is accomplished, so long as it achieves their goals. The real
firecrackers will likely be brought out in a confrontation with Iran, or
if China and Russia are lured into the conflict.
It won't really matter
much what history says if the use of WMD escalates by either side, but
the aggressors should rightly be blamed for the ensuing scorched earth,
while the defenders against killers and thieves should be viewed as
righteous.
9 - World's Largest Drug Dealer
The American empire is the
largest drug
dealer in the world? Say it isn't so.
Well, in addition to forcing legal
drugs and
genetically modified organisms on nations, usually under the
cover of foreign aid, America also leads in the illegal drug trade.
In
fact, many researchers reveal that the war on drugs is only utilized to
control and monopolize the illicit drug trade.
The US government has
been caught multiple times shipping in cocaine (above video),
colluding with certain
cartels to control the industry, and now openly
protects and transports
opium from Afghanistan (below video).
In fact, Global Research
points out that in
2001,
"according to UN figures, opium production had fallen to 185 tons. Immediately following the October 2001 US led invasion, production
increased dramatically, regaining its historical levels."
This month,
the U.N. announced that Afghanistan now provides
93% of the world's
opium production; up 61% compared to 2010 to a whopping 5800 tonnes.
Although the empire tries to keep it secret, they can't hide the
hypocrisy forever.
10 - World Reserve Currency Prison
Although using Weapons of Mass Debt is a
non-violent form of expanding the empire, it's perhaps the most brutal
and effective form of control.
Requiring foreign nations to purchase oil
and other imported commodities with US dollars wields immense power.
Because all nations must acquire dollars to purchase critical resources,
they quickly become indebted to the US
Federal Reserve, their affiliate
central banks, and
the IMF.
Before long, the entire world is colonized
by debt. It seems that only the nations that don't need or refuse credit
from Western banking institutions are the ones in danger of facing the
wrath of the imperial
war machine.
Incidentally, most oil-rich nations
in the Middle East have outlawed usury (lending money with interest),
making them impossible to conquer diplomatically through debt
(below video).
Controlling the world reserve currency means controlling the tap of life
itself, which is a dangerous weapon in the hands of an aggressive
empire.
Debt is the ultimate WMD the empire uses to enslave the world,
which leaves dissidents with two clear choices: slavery or death.
Reserved Currency