{"id":368239,"date":"2018-07-06T08:13:55","date_gmt":"2018-07-06T07:13:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/the-pentagons-new-mission-statement\/"},"modified":"2018-07-06T08:13:55","modified_gmt":"2018-07-06T07:13:55","slug":"the-pentagons-new-mission-statement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/the-pentagons-new-mission-statement\/","title":{"rendered":"The Pentagon\u2019s New Mission Statement"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t                            \t<!-- S3 Cache --><!-- S3:S3:Non-Original -->\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>The US has long sought to deny its hegemonic character while emphasizing its democratic character. It now seems all such pretence has been abandoned.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cFalse face must hide what the false heart doth know,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0Shakespeare writes, in words that for time immemorial should have sat pride of place under the Great Seal of the United States on front of the podium whenever any president, cabinet member, congressman, or indeed any US official proclaimed their country a champion of democracy.<\/p>\n<p>Now, with the US Department of Defense amending the mission statement of the US military from a \u2018<em>deter war<\/em>\u2019 stance to a \u2018<em>sustain American influence abroad<\/em>\u2019 stance<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>all pretense, as mentioned, is over, allowing the country\u2019s political and military elite to bask in the warm glow of hegemony unmasked.<\/p>\n<p>According to\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/taskandpurpose.com\/pentagon-mission\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Task &amp; Purpose<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 a news site tailored to US veterans \u2013 this semantic shift in mission statement \u2018seems a significant change for the department [Department of Defense] under President Donald Trump.\u2019 But though perhaps for some it may constitute a \u2018significant change\u2019, students of US history will no doubt counter this particular assertion with the point that though it may constitute a change in form, it is anything but when it comes to content.<\/p>\n<p>How could it otherwise when\u00a0imperialism and hegemony are the very fulcrum of US foreign policy, and always have been? Both, in fact, lie at the very foundations of the country\u2019s existence, reinforcing a muscular identity rooted in nationalism, exceptionalism and supremacy \u2013 a toxic brew responsible for some of the most heinous crimes in human history.<\/p>\n<p>From the Mexican-American War of 1846-48, resulting in the US seizing half of Mexico at that time \u2013 an episode lambasted by&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lewrockwell.com\/2018\/07\/no_author\/the-pentagons-new-mission-statement-neo-colonialism-hegemony-unmasked\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The US has long sought to deny its hegemonic character while emphasizing its democratic character. It now seems all such pretence has been abandoned. \u201cFalse face must hide what the false heart doth know,\u201d\u00a0Shakespeare writes, in words that for time immemorial should have sat pride of place under the Great Seal of the United States [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-368239","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368239","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=368239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368239\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}