This is a response to a correspondence I am having with a good friend who seems to believe we are the good guys in the Ukraine mess. As I try to explain, we have never been the good guys. It doesn’t mean the others are but I am more concerned with what we are doing wrong. Please leave a comment at the end.

Tübingen, Germany–November 14, 2022. Socrates G. Kazolias: I’m sorry it took a while to get around to answering this one.

All industrial countries, including, as the US and its multiple military interventions between 1918 and 1940 attest, were countries of military, imperial, aggression (General Smedley Butler’s famous speech and paper: War is a Racket). So, Japan’s intervention in China or Italy’s in Libya were not the catalysts. Actually, an argument can be made that it was the US imposed oil and steel embargo on Japan which sparked the chain of events. On the US desire to expand American domination and FDR’s and his cabal’s efforts to get us into WWII, I recommend  Tomorrow, the World: The Birth of U.S. Global Supremacy, Stephen Wertheim.

Click here for my book review.

Others say that Wertheim is right in everything he writes but argue the US had no other choice. I agree if you wanted the US to be the world’s main imperialist and aggressive power for the next 80 years, responsible for the deaths of millions and the impoverishment of hundreds of millions, to the benefit of the comfortable ‘American Way of Life.’ I would not have backed this world view, nor do I today.  Here is one such argument in favor of the ‘no other choice‘ of FDR’s and his cabal’s work to get us into the war and take over the world: Cick Here. 

One could also argue that US military aid to the UK against Germany, like (US, UK, NATO, EU ) in Ukraine today, was an act of war. I maintain, neither WWI, nor WWII, were our wars and that we should have stayed out and that the fact we got involved was for imperialist interests and not to save Jews, or anybody else, for that matter.

“The destroyers-for-bases deal was an agreement between the United States and the United Kingdom on September 2, 1940, according to which 50 Caldwell, Wickes, and Clemson class US Navy destroyers were transferred to the Royal Navy from the US Navy in exchange for land rights on British possessions.” (This on Wikipedia, click here) And this was 15 months before Pearl Harbor!

On whether our ignorant, war-mongering, administration (ass holes like Blinken, Nuland, Sullivan & Co.) are taking us into WWIII despite pushback from people like General Milley, I suggest Professor Doctor Christopher Clark’s book on walking blindly into WWI called Sleep Walkers (click here for Clark talk and here for book review).

It is funny how Americans draw red lines not to be crossed but never recognize the red lines of others; Just saying.

One last thing in your mail I take issue with:

Many, like you, argue countries can do whatever they want even if neighbors feel threatened. More reasonable and realistic voices, like Mitterrand’s arguing against recognizing too soon the independence of Yugoslavian statelets or Thatacher’s arguments against a fast march to German Reunification, or Professors Mersheimer’s and Sachs’ and Kissinger’s (among so many other voices of reason not allowed on the mainstream media) warnings about moving NATO east and incorporating Ukraine and Georgia, have all proven in retrospect to have been right. Small countries cannot do whatever they want no matter what it means to their neighbors.

Cuba cannot harbor Soviet missiles; Panama cannot take over the Panama Canal as Noreiga learned; Gaddafi cannot renationalize his oil, nor use his abundant gold reserves to create an African currency and African Central Bank which would sideline the US controlled World Bank and IMF as well as the dollar and the French controlled African CFA Franc; Saddam cannot defy US dominance in the Persian Gulf; Iran cannot question Israel’s aggressions or US “owning” the Persian Gulf; Assad cannot offer a safe harbor to Russian military forces in the Middle East, nor defy Israeli expansion, aggression and uncontrolled state terrorism; Vietnam could not decide its own path to independence without US domination.  

I cannot count the number of times the US has invaded Caribbean and Lat Am countries to impose its Will (US Army invasion against the Dominican Republic’s new leftist military government which overthrew a vicious US backed dictator in 1965 comes to mind). Click on photos below to open them up. All photos Creative Commons.

For the 469 US military interventions since 1776 and the 251 since 1991, according to the Congressional Report, click here. I believe the number much higher and some estimate up to 20 million have died due to US military interventions since 1945 (click here). This doesn’t even include the US sponsored and organized Coups d’Etat such as the 1953 Iran coup, or Kissenger’s work in Chile, 1973, the US organized Indonesian Coup which the Army itself said killed one million people, just to mention a couple.

And how many times since Chavez came to power has the US worked to overthrow the leftist governments in Venezuela? What about the 2019 overthrow of Morales in Bolivia, just to see his people re-elected and the US backed coup people beaten in the elections?

On the US Backed Bolivian Coup click here. 

It has never been a question of ‘good versus evil‘ (Iraq, Syria), nor preserving ‘democracy,’ (Dominican Republic, etc.), nor ‘humanitarian intervention,’ (Grenada, Kosovo), as they constantly lie to us. It has always been about American, imperial, interests and what the 1% want and need.

I am very interested to see what the US is going to do as the Saudis and UAE join forces with others (including Russia, China, and India) to put an end to the ‘Oil Dollar.‘ The Carter Doctrine is nearing its end, just as the US bungling in the Middle East put an end to Sykes-Picot.

And those nuts in Washington are crazier than I thought if they believe they can do to China what they are trying to do to Russia. I am convinced sounder minds in the Pentagon realize this.  The real danger for WWIII is what the US is doing in the Straights of Formosa and against the wishes of most of those in Taiwan. This takes us back to the earlier question: so, what are the top Brass planning to do about this?

I’ll leave the last word to General Smedley Butler. Please write a comment below and share with your friends if you agree. Thank you.

“WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.” 

General Smedley Butler, USMC