Fantina - Empire, Racism and Genocide: A History of U.S. Foreign Policy

In its entire history, there has been very little time when the United States has been at peace. As it wages its many wars and interventions, the stated goal is always something few people could argue with: fostering democracy when a struggling people are resisting tyranny, removing threats to U.S. security, or punishing a cruel dictator for unspeakable misdeeds.

Yet on closer scrutiny, these reasons are seldom valid. They simply hide the true purposes of U.S. military involvement, which are power and wealth. Starting with the barbarous destruction of Native American culture in order to gain farmlands, right through to the Iraqi invasion for oil, money and power have always motivated U.S. foreign policy decisions. Dictators with appalling records of human rights violations are upheld by the U.S. if they agree to whatever economic or strategic demands the U.S. makes. Conversely, democratically elected leaders are overthrown if they dont.

Empire, Racism & Genocide: A History of U.S. Foreign Policy looks at U.S. history from shortly before the American Revolution, up to the present time, and details the U.S. governments true motivations for its ongoing, deadly war machine.

Having already published the most insightful and well-researched study we have of U.S. military desertion, and a powerful novel dramatizing the tragedy of participation in a U.S. war, Robert Fantina now brings us a comprehensive survey of the history of U.S. war-making. This new book is as clear-eyed and unflinching as Fantinas others. It belongs in our classrooms and perhaps our doctors offices, where it might be prescribed as a cure for television viewing. David Swanson, best-selling author of War Is A Lie and other books

We were sent to Iraq in 2003 and one of the tasks my unit had to search for the chem/bio weapons we were told were there. Everywhere we went, we found nothing. Sure, there were lots of standard munitions in warehouses and other places. But they were not my concern. I wasnt worried about them. Then we were tasked to guard oil wells along the route we were taking as we made our way north. We harassed a lot people who were doing nothing to us.

Empire, Racism & Genocide: A History of U.S. Foreign Policy tells the true story of why the U.S. has been at war almost constantly from its inception to the present time. Lies I was told about the reasons for invading Iraq were only revisions of lies that had been told to soldiers and the citizenry from the War of 1812, through Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq and every other imperial misadventure the United States started. Additionally, the dehumanizing aspects of the U.S. military, from the time a soldier enters basic training to the time they leave service, are detailed. The book is an important addition to any realistic study of U.S. foreign policy. Kevin Benderman, 10-year veteran, war resister, peace activist

Robert Fantina

Red Pill Press

Copyright 2013 Robert Fantina (www.robertfantina.com)

First Kindle Edition, 2013
Red Pill Press (www.redpillpress.com)
ISBN 978-1-897244-94-4

All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, or otherwise, other than for fair use, without the written consent of the author.

Period 1: 17501898. Manifest Destiny

Period 2: 18991953. A New World Power

Period 3: 1954 Present. Fighting Invented Enemies

Conclusion

For Edwina and Travis.

Despite what is taught in public schools across the nation, the U.S. is not unique in the road it took to become a world power. The happy thought of the Founding Fathers, finding themselves in an unpopulated land, rich in natural resources, and only needing to shed the oppression of Britain in order to fulfill the Manifest Destiny of the United States, is similar to the myths of Santa Claus and the tooth fairy. Pleasant, whimsical, but void of any truth.

Yet unlike other fairy tales, this one hides the horrendous crimes of murder, land theft and blatant and shocking disregard for human rights, all in the greedy pursuit of wealth and power. From the extermination of the Indians, natives whod lived on the North American continent since time immemorial, through the barbaric murders of Filipinos defending their nation from U.S. invasion, to the killing of insurgents (Iraqi freedom fighters), the U.S., often under the guise of freeing an oppressed people, has caused those very people far more suffering than the governments they were supposedly being freed from.

The irony of an imperial U.S.A. is striking:

[H]ere is a government created in the fires of bourgeois-democratic revolution against colonialism, and a government whose success in revolution served as an inspiration for scores of similar efforts in many parts of the world in subsequent years; at the same time, this very government, as the U.S. economy became monopoly capitalist towards the close of the 19th century itself entered upon a career of colonialism and in our own day stands as the main bastion of what still remains of colonialism.

The anti-colonialist nature of U.S. beginnings and the inspirational character of the American Revolution have been among the elements helping the American ruling class obscure the pro-colonial and therefore anti-popular essence of its foreign policy.

In the early part of the twenty-first century, the myth of a freedom-loving people, spreading American-style democracy everywhere, began to be cracked. The U.S. invaded the sovereign nation of Iraq in March of 2003, in order, the world was told by U.S. President George W. Bush, to protect the U.S. from the imminent threat that Iraq posed to the U.S. With these lofty and frightening ideas, Congress, always wanting to appear strong against whatever current bugaboo threatened the U.S. (e.g. communism in the 1950s; terrorism in the early 2000s), granted the president broad powers to wage war, powers he wasted no time in exercising. Although the war ravaged Iraq; killed hundreds of thousands of its citizens and thousands of U.S. soldiers; displaced millions of Iraqis and left at least hundreds of thousands of them homeless, many languishing in refugee camps in neighboring countries, no weapons of mass destruction, believed by many Americans, based on the statements of Mr. Bush and his cohorts, to be aimed at the living rooms of middle America, were found. In his memoir, published in 2008, Republican economist Alan Greenspan, whod served as chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve for nearly 20 years, said this about the Iraq war: I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.

Like that war, most, if not all, of the U.S.s wars have had more to do with the accumulation of wealth and the increase of power than forcing U.S.-style democracy on foreign nations, whether they wanted it or not. Even during World War II, which established the U.S. as an undisputed world power, and defeated the horrific Hitler regime, the U.S. granted special permission for some U.S. companies to deal with the Nazi regime. Despite Hitlers savagely cruel trek across Europe, the idea of making a buck from his activities was too enticing for the U.S. to avoid.

An investigation of the nations past wars shows stark similarities to those it currently wages. Certainly, the means of invading a nation, overthrowing its government and killing its citizens has been made far more effective with modern weaponry. President James Madison may have been happy to have had heat-seeking missiles when he invaded Canada, but he had to manage with horses. But the reasons for the wars have changed little, and the lies that are used to convince either the populace or Congress, or both, to invade sovereign nations, are alarmingly similar.