Can the U.S. Brace Its Fall?
Analysis by Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON, Feb 17 (IPS) – “Is the American era over?” That was the big question that launched a lengthy analysis by veteran international affairs reporter James Kitfield in the influential ‘National Journal’ last May. Significantly, the article — which featured interviews with an all-star cast of former top U.S. policy-makers — was titled “The Decline Begins.”
[…]
What a difference five years and an invasion and bungled occupation of Iraq make! References to the Roman Empire at this point are more likely to refer to its decline than to its power — an observation confirmed even by Donald Kagan, a dean of neo-conservatism and Kennedy’s colleague at Yale, whose sons, Robert and Frederick, have been champions of the Bush Doctrine and the Iraq War.
“I’ve argued that not since the Roman Empire has anyone had such extraordinary power as the United States after the Cold War,” Kagan told Kitfield. “But all of the elements of our strength are now being challenged, and it’s perfectly possible that we are seeing a relative decline in U.S. power that will prove lasting.”
(Source)
I know little about the history of the Roman Empire, but I suspect that it never underwent so rapid, decadent, and degenerating metamorphis as has the United States of America the last twenty years or so (twenty years is almost nothing on the time scale of most empires). The governmnent, the armed services, and all aspects of American society have undergone a tremendous and rapid sea change. The government is corrupt and inept, the populace is a fat and moronic collection of (to use the Mexican phrase) “inultiles” (useless ones), and the economy is based on virtual money, absurdly low productivity, and absurdly high consumption.
Both in the cases of Rome and Washington, the empire has been doomed not by foreign powers or external threats, but by internal decadence, corruption, ineptness, and stupidity.
My point it that the America that defeated nazi Germany in World War II is not the same as the morally bankrupt United States of today. What ever happens to us now and in the near future, we certainly have it coming!
This is only one of a number of important materials now public thanks to Wikileaks. I list several others in my post. So, yes, Wikileaks is extremely important.