35 Comments

Maybe because I’m older and was part of the anti Vietnam War protests, I clearly see the repeating pattern of justification for military action. I’ve learned not to believe what is being said by our government. In fact, studying wars prior to Vietnam, there are examples of the manipulation of the public to support our participation in military actions. I wish more people could spend time examining the past, which would bring current events into perspective.

Expand full comment

if you pose a threat to their economic interests they will make war on you too. Their banner of capitalism uber alles is the ROOT of the problem!

Expand full comment

As the saying goes, Follow the Money.

Expand full comment

Yes but it's even worse than that. These warriors of the international Corporatocracy - the synergy of governments, corporations, institutions fueled by the Covid epidemic and the World Economic Forum seem to have license right now to do what they wish. They are blinded to the fact these types have used force against people just like them and for less reason.

Expand full comment

Completely agree with you Margaret. The official narrative about Russia’s invasion, that one day Putin went insane and invaded Ukraine unexpectedly without any provocation, and so on…this is eerily similar to the story I was taught about Pearl Harbor as a child…that Japan attacked “out of the blue” with no warning, no provocation, etc.. Years later I was able to learn more about Pearl Harbor, and the conflict between Japan and the US that went back at least as far as WWI.

I learned about the Washington Naval Conference, where the US mobbed up with other western colonial powers to exclude Japan from the club and enforce rigged treaties forged after intensive spying on the communications of the Japan delegation (note the the Wikipedia article on this historical event calls it a success!). I learned about US efforts to destabilize Japan’s growing imperial holdings by stoking insurgencies leveraging existing cultural, ethnic, and political divisions. I learned about Japan’s exit from the League of Nations after years of unfair and hypocritical treatment by the west. And the oil embargo and severe financial sanctions the US imposed on Japan just prior to Pearl Harbor.

This is not to defend Japan’s actions, nor overlook the atrocities that occurred as they responded to these uprisings…but it is very clear that the US provoked Japan in the years leading up to 1941 and left few options outside of war…just as the US provoked Russia in Ukraine in the years leading up to 2022. And once you see the man behind the curtain, it is impossible to not wonder what other fibs he has been manufacturing. And upon closer examination the truth begins to appear out of the noise of lies and propaganda we’ve been told by our government.

I have lately been looking into how Pilgrims and other settlers used similar tactics against native Americans in the centuries before the US became a nation. Finding the enemy of the enemy, using their own divisions as wedges to divide and conquer, provoking attacks and counter-attacks to justify intervention, mass murder and seizure of land. And making the frontier a bloody and dangerous place, putting people’s lives at risk and stoking constant wars that blew up and finally made the King of England crack down…and this stoked the US revolution and then they could keep going as before, across the continent, and then across the world.

In other words, this behavior runs deep in US history, from its formative years to today. Nothing has really changed, this is who we are, and how we have always been. It is past time to face it and address it.

Expand full comment

The other thing I learned recently is that the attack on Pearl Harbor was not the biggest attack. The Japanese also attacked Philippines, Wake Island, Guam, Malaya, Thailand, Shanghai and Midway (as well as British territories). The attack on the Philippines was more comprehensive than Pearl Harbor. However, it was decided that Hawaii would be considered more American and its attack would garner more support in the US. Makes a person cynical, doesn’t it?

Expand full comment

Citizens were uninformed and unconcerned about Yemen, Libya and Syria. They were just informed about the fate of women in Afghanistan, after the departure of American troops and the return of the Talibans. And they thought that the million Irak citizens were killed on the basis of mistaken evaluations about the existence of WMD and the role of Saddam Hussein in 9/11, and not on the basis of outright lies. So they were also uninformed and unconcerned about the progressive encirclement of Russia by NATO, the presence of soldiers, military bases and weapons getting closer and closer to the Russian borders, the withdrawal of the IMF Treaty, the existence of an internal war leading to 14 000 deaths in the Donbass region, the failure of implementing the 2015 Minsk agreements, the important role of the extreme right in the army and the numerous warnings concerning the inclusion of Georgia and Ukraine into NATO. But when the invasion of Ukraine by Russia took place, suddenly everyone was «informed» and «concerned» and people thought that it was the «moral duty» of USA to intervene. They did not realize that they were puppets in the hands of pimp warriors.

Expand full comment

Excellent analysis!

Expand full comment

Being unconcerned and uninformed is the great American pastime.

Expand full comment

Well this is growing like cancer i EU and Scandinavia too...

Expand full comment

US began putting out info about ‘the plight of Afghan women’ at the start of US intervention years ago. Stand back and see the pattern

Expand full comment

and what drew US in was the

"Babies, torn from Incubators!"

yet another Lie.

Expand full comment

The deceptions are plastered where we all can plainly see them:

Understanding this is s deep betrayal is in our DNA, in our culture. Why are so few listening?

(1) https://youtu.be/5ZLIPmg74p8

(2) https://youtu.be/QW7n8hklwsk

(3) https://youtu.be/Z7x4ZS7ZZWc

(4) https://youtu.be/diwF1-xJwZM

Expand full comment

Great article. Thank you for standing up to the madness.

Expand full comment

You mentioned that the neocons who pushed us into these wars have never worn a military uniform. I used to say that until I researched for my book 6 years ago. Then, I learned that many of these chicken-hawk-war-monger neocons did wear the military uniform of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). So, I have modified my statement that these folks and their relatives have never worn a US military uniform.

The one neocon assigned to our prewar oil team at the Office of the Secretary of Defense in 2003 was my first exposure to one of these characters. He was the ONLY team member who refused to volunteer for Iraq. He remained at the Pentagon as the "Iraq Oil Expert." To my knowledge, he has never been to Iraq and his best oil experience before our planning team was changing the oil in his car. After many attempts to recruit him to come to Iraq, he finally admitted to me in 2004 that he was afraid he would get killed.

We learned in 2005 after I was sent a 1989 St Louis Post article from my CIA oil contact that this guy left the US in 1989 to do two years in the IDF followed by a career in the Israeli Foreign Service. My CIA contact told me that 98% of Israel's Foreign Service is Mossad. Most patriotic Americans would ask the question - How does an Israeli Mossad asset get a Top Secret SCI clearance and assigned to the Pentagon to develop our country's Middle East policies???

This neocon is currently the CEO of the Jewish Institute for National Security (JINSA), located a few blocks from the White House. He continues to do his mission of trying to get American resources engaged in more military Middle East wars and anywhere else that helps his country.

Expand full comment

I always look forward to The Chris Hedges Report for the truth in the geopolitical arena.

Expand full comment

#RenewableEnergyNow... for Peace Lights and Life on this very small Planet

Expand full comment

America is control by a ruling elite of money grabbers. We are a puppet of a certain Nation.

Expand full comment

"Can't see the Forest for the Trees" translates politically in 2022 into

"Can't see the Empire for the Issues & Money"

Expand full comment

When a person sells out there soul then all they can worship is a gross externalization

In the manipulation of the material energy that inevitably leds to a world that values most physical domination. Thanks to Chris Hedges and others we can hear the truth.

Expand full comment

This is the best analysis I’ve heard of the ideology and idiocy of the elite warmongers who control US foreign policy. Thanks, Chris!

Expand full comment

All of this is true, we know the brute and evil history of American expansionism, colonialism, the 800 military bases around the world not to mention the secret ones, the bullying, the racism. And above all we know capitalism is a bankrupt system which must be abandoned (along with patriarchy, Chris, you don't mention that much). BUT -- Putin is a gangster, a morally corrupt monster. He murders innocent people with impunity, just as he did in Chechnya and in Syria. Two wrongs don't make a right! Where's your spiritual side, Chris? Without seeing that darkness depends on an adversary forevermore you're simply indulging in more knee-jerk reactivity. We humans are at a stage in evolution where we need more than that!

Expand full comment

Michael, I think you’re drawing unwarranted conclusions. Chris has denounced Putin and the invasion. His analysis in this article is very sound apart from how one assesses Putin or the invasion of Ukraine.

Expand full comment

Perhaps I wasn't being clear. I agree his analysis here is very sound. The problem is it doesn't go beyond classic leftist orientation which doesn't actually LEAD anywhere. That is, socialism is not the answer, socialism is basically capitalism without teeth. And communism -- we all know what a failed system with horrific consequences that was. The "communist party" in China is just a front for the same elitism ruling the rest of the world. The bottom line is how life is lived in this system -- materialism, consumerism, a logical positivist mindset and above all, patriarchy. Without addressing this reality, analysis of neo-cons and liberalism sounds good but goes nowhere.

Expand full comment

Michael, I appreciate your substantive response. Having wasted too much time on Twitter I’m not used to civil debate! While I still don’t agree with you I respect your thoughtful reply.

Expand full comment

Yes, I've thought this many times. Any system - including socialism and communism - is more than capable of turning totalitarian. Don't understand this stubborn habit, or attraction of using lots of fancy words to bolster a system that has turned corrupt. History is replete with examples.

Expand full comment

So true - the fact that Putin is a bad guy even though he has good tactical reasons to go up against these control freaks just complicates an already complicated situation. It's a lose, lose proposition all around.

Expand full comment

#RenewableEnergyNow... for Peace Lights and Life on this very small Planet

Expand full comment

Wow!

Expand full comment

The Iraq war occurred at a time when Hussein was conducting the Kurdish Genocide. This was portrayed in the 2004 film Turtles Can Fly. Some hoped to end the genocide through war. The US conduct of the war proved otherwise. Some could now make the case for NATO engagement in Ukraine, rather than the current proxy war. However such an engagement doesn’t seem to meet conditions for war in the racist Neocon American think tanks. How will they try to twist the narrative to make Russians into non-whites?

Expand full comment

spot on!

Expand full comment

Interesting article, as usual. Thanks Chris Hedges 👍

Expand full comment