{"id":110349,"date":"2014-03-27T07:43:00","date_gmt":"2014-03-27T07:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?guid=7e1aa7952e460f61bf09c8863f7ff4af"},"modified":"2014-03-27T07:43:00","modified_gmt":"2014-03-27T07:43:00","slug":"the-real-evil-empire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/editorials\/the-real-evil-empire\/","title":{"rendered":"The Real Evil Empire"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\"><b>The Real Evil Empire<\/b><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">by Stephen Lendman<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">None in human history compare to America. It&#8217;s by far the most lawless. It&#8217;s the world&#8217;s most egregious civil and human rights abuser.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">It&#8217;s done more harm to more people for longer than any combination of other nations. None match its ruthlessness.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">It&#8217;s genocidal legacy is longstanding. It began in pre-colonial days. Expanding America from sea to shining sea claimed tens of millions of lives.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Mass extermination became policy. Centuries of slaughter reduced America&#8217;s indigenous population to a tiny fraction of its original numbers.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Ward Churchill&#8217;s chilling quote bears repeating. He minced no words, saying:<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Millions were &#8220;hacked apart with axes and swords, burned alive and trampled under horses, hunted as game and fed to dogs, shot, beaten, stabbed, scalped for bounty, hanged on meathooks and thrown over the sides of ships at sea, worked to death as slave laborers, intentionally starved and frozen to death during a multitude of forced marches and internments, and, in an unknown number of instances, deliberately infected with epidemic diseases.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Five centuries of slavery were horrific. Black Africans were captured, branded, chained, force-marched, beaten, encaged, and stripped of their humanity.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Around 100 million were sold like cattle. Millions perished during the Middle Passage.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Imagine packing human beings like cargo. Imagine them under deplorable conditions. Imagine them in coffin-sized spaces.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Imagine practically one atop others in extreme discomfort. Imagine poor ventilation, dysentery, smallpox, ophthalmia, and other epidemic-level diseases.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Imagine dark, filthy, slimy, bloody, vomity conditions below deck. Imagine it filled with human excrement.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Imagine women beaten and raped. Imagine claustrophobia driving some victims insane.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Imagine floggings and clubbings to death. Imagine anyone thought diseased dumped overboard like garbage.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Imagine 50 million or more lost lives. Imagine slave traders calling it a cost of doing business.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Genocidal US policy continues in new forms. Mass murder proceeds efficiently.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Technological advances facilitate it. America&#8217;s killing machine knows no limits. One genocide follows others.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Countries are ravaged and destroyed. Neither world war should have been waged. Tens of millions died needlessly.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Making the world safe for democracy is a convenient illusion. America tolerates it nowhere.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Achieving unchallenged raw power drives US policy. Mass slaughtering human beings doesn&#8217;t matter.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Imperial Japan was defeated many months before WW II ended. In February and March 1945, Tokyo was gratuitously firebombed twice.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">So were many other Japanese cities. Hundreds of thousands of civilians perished. Millions were left homeless.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Hiroshima and Nagasaki were two of history&#8217;s great crimes. Imaging incinerating civilians gratuitously.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Imagine horrific radiation poisoning. Imagine disfigurations and birth defects. Imagine the effects of what happened still being felt.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Imagine no apologies for generations of crimes. Imagine turning North Korea into rubble. Imagine running out of targets to bomb.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Imagine an uneasy armistice persisting. Imagine possible nuclear war erupting. Imagine East Asia caught in the fallout.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Imagine crazed US policymakers bearing full responsibility. Imagine Washington&#8217;s unparalleled killing machine power.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Imagine ruthlessness writ large. Imagine horrendous suffering beyond human comprehension. Imagine all humanity threatened.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">America&#8217;s post-WW II ravaging repeats with disturbing regularity. Southeast Asia was laid waste. Proxy wars killed millions worldwide.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">All US direct, indirect and supported wars have no rules. Laws of war are ignored. Rampaging goes unchecked.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">America was complicit in Rwandan massacres. Desert Storm was a well-planned criminal attack.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Essential to life facilities were destroyed. Tens of thousands were gratuitously slaughtered.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Twelve years of genocidal sanctions followed. Children under age five suffered most. Bush II killed millions more.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Afghanistan remains America&#8217;s longest war. No end in sight looms.<span style=\"font-family: Times; font-size: 12px;\"> <\/span>The cradle of civilization was destroyed.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Free market plunder replaced it. Inside the bubble is paradise. Outside reflects dystopian hell.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Balkan wars destroyed the former Yugoslavia. They culminated in US-led NATO terror-bombing Serbia\/Kosovo.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Thousands of sorties ravaged and destroyed them. Imagine considering schools, churches, hospitals and cultural landmarks strategic targets.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Imagine a gratuitous humanitarian disaster. Imagine it against one nonthreatening country after another.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Libya remains a cauldron of violence. No one is safe anywhere. Obama&#8217;s war on Syria continues. Iran&#8217;s turn awaits.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Expect other targeted countries to be attacked. Expect no safe place to hide.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Imagine the supreme crime of aggression. Imagine it ongoing in multiple theaters.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Imagine America&#8217;s dirty handiwork. Imagine crimes too grim to ignore. Imagine genocide as official policy.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Imagine new victims following earlier ones. Imagine dead bodies piling up. Imagine young boys and girls. Imagine the elderly, infirm and disabled.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Imagine America bearing full responsibility for devastated landscapes. Imagine what desperately needs ending continued.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Imagine humanity threatened. Imagine media scoundrels cheerleading what demands condemnation.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Imagine supporting Israel&#8217;s killing machine. Imagine billions of annual aid dollars supporting it.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Imagine ongoing subjugating talks called peace ones. Imagine longstanding occupation turning Palestine into a virtual open-air prison.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Imagine being denied all rights. Imagine world leaders turning a blind eye. Imagine dying for many being their only escape.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Imagine what no human being should tolerate being done to another.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Imagine Washington and Israel partnering in each other&#8217;s crimes. Imagine both nations being lawless warrior states.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Imagine them using weapons causing injuries, disfigurements and other effects never seen before.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Imagine unparalleled barbarism. Imagine crimes against humanity without end. Imagine weapons able to end life on earth. Imagine possibly using them.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Imagine hubris writ large threatening everyone. Imagine overreach risking armageddon.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Washington&#8217;s Ukrainian agenda reflects its latest imperial adventurism. Protests didn&#8217;t erupt by chance.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px; min-height: 22px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">They were well-planned in advance. At issue is weakening and isolating Russia. It&#8217;s turning Kiev West, not East. It&#8217;s plundering its resources. It&#8217;s exploiting its people.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px; min-height: 22px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">It&#8217;s incorporating all former Soviet republics and Warsaw pact countries into NATO. It&#8217;s establishing US bases on Russia&#8217;s borders.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px; min-height: 22px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">It&#8217;s having nuclear-armed missiles targeting its heartland.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Including Ukraine in NATO risks WW III.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">America, Israel and key EU partners comprise the real axis of evil. They&#8217;re out-of-control rogue states.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px; min-height: 22px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Former French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau (1841 &#8211; 1929) once said &#8220;America is the only nation in history which miraculously has gone directly from barbarism to degeneration without the usual interval of civilization.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; min-height: 15px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Oscar Wilde (1854 &#8211; 1900) said the same thing. He called patriotism &#8220;the virtue of the vicious.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; min-height: 15px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">George Bernard Shaw (1856 &#8211; 1950) called democracy &#8220;a form of government that substitutes elections by the incompetent many for the appointment of the corrupt few.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px; min-height: 22px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Perhaps he had America in mind. Obama&#8217;s rap sheet reflects the worst of its policies. He&#8217;s in charge until January 2017.<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px; min-height: 22px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">He&#8217;s got lots more warmaking in mind. He plans hardening America&#8217;s police state apparatus. He wants dissent silenced.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px; min-height: 22px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">He wants opposition crushed. He wants freedom destroyed. It hangs by a thread. So does world peace.<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px; min-height: 22px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Neocon infested Washington wages war on humanity. Obama risks extinguishing it altogether. Stopping him matters most.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Resistance is crucial. It&#8217;s our only defense. Solidarity unites us. We&#8217;re all in this together. We&#8217;re on our own to survive.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">His new book is titled &#8220;Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">http:\/\/www.claritypress.com\/LendmanII.html<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">It airs three times weekly: live on Sundays at 1PM Central time plus two prerecorded archived programs.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">http:\/\/www.progressiveradionetwork.com\/the-progressive-news-hour<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Real Evil Empireby Stephen LendmanNone in human history compare to America. It&#8217;s by far the most lawless. It&#8217;s the world&#8217;s most egregious civil and human rights abuser.It&#8217;s done more harm to more people for longer than any combination of other nati&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1217,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[461],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-110349","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-editorials"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1217"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110349\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}