History Forum / General / British History / May 2008

In a new book that will infuriate the fake conservatives who inhabit
the Republican Party, Patrick J. Buchanan documents how British self-
righteousness, delusion, and hubris destroyed both the British Empire
and Western ascendancy in two unnecessary wars launched by a small
cabal of morons that ruled Britain

Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War shows that the two world
wars that destroyed European civilization began when England declared
war on Germany, thus dragging in the Empire, Commonwealth, and United
States.  This was a strategic blunder unparalleled in history.  Mighty
Britain emerged from World War II as an American dependency.

Buchanan cites such British notables as F.J.P. Veale, B.H. Liddell
Hart, and C.P. Snow to document that it was Winston Churchill who
committed, in Veale’s words, “the first deliberate breach of the
fundamental rule of civilized warfare that hostilities must only be
waged against the enemy combatant forces.”  It was Churchill, not
Hitler, who first targeted civilian populations in World War II and
caused the structure of civilized warfare to collapse in ruins.

The Americans quickly adopted Churchill’s criminal policy of attacking
civilians, culminating in the outrageous use of nuclear weapons
against two Japanese cities, the slaughter of Vietnamese civilians,
and the ongoing slaughter of Afghan and Iraqi civilians.
A popular American myth is that “the greatest generation” saved the
world from Nazi tyranny.  As Buchanan points out, the fact of the
matter is that the Normandy invasion in June 1944 played little, if
any, role in Germany’s defeat.  By the end of 1942 Hitler had lost
World War II at Stalingrad, long before any American troops appeared
on the scene.  What the Normandy invasion achieved 18 months later was
to keep the Red Army from over-running all of Europe.

Although Buchanan’s book is about how the British destroyed
themselves, Buchanan is clearly thinking about America.  In the
closing pages Buchanan shows how the Bush Regime has broken from the
sound policy of President Reagan and is replicating the British folly
of self-destruction.  “There is hardly a blunder of the British Empire
we have not replicated,” laments Buchanan.

The distinct American hubris that we are “the indispensable nation”
and the braggadocio that we are an “omnipower” has us overcommitted in
alliances that we cannot fulfill.  Despite 25 percent of the Iraqi
population killed, injured or displaced, the “world’s only superpower”
cannot even control Baghdad.  To deal with the pointless war we
started in Afghanistan, we have had to sucker our NATO allies into a
conflict that is no concern of theirs.  Militarily overextended and
with a faltering economy and collapsing currency, the cabal of morons
that rules America still hopes to attack Iran, Syria, and to drive
Hezbollah from Lebanon.  American idiots in think tanks are busy at
work drawing up plans about how the US is going to check China and
prevent her emergence as a power beyond US control. The Republican
presidential candidate has boasted that he will challenge Russia and
bring Putin to heel.
Amazing.

The world’s greatest debtor is going to take on the two powerful
countries with the largest trade surpluses.  According to the World
Factbook, an annual publication of the CIA, Russia’s 2007 current
account surplus is $465 billion and China’s is $363 billion.  In
contrast, the US current account deficit is $987 billion--an amount
larger that the total deficits of all other countries in the world
combined.  The out-of-pocket and already incurred future cost of
Bush’s wars of aggression is between $3 and $5 trillion, every dollar
of which must be borrowed.  That comes on top of the unfunded
liabilities of the US government totaling $53 trillion.  By any
account the US is the world’s worst credit risk. The “mighty” US
relies on foreigners to finance its consumption, its wars, and the
daily operations of its government.

When Buchanan looks at the collection of idiots that comprise
America’s ruling class, he despairs.

In truth, American power is already broken, and the country is already
lost.

The country is lost, because the brownshirt Bush Regime has destroyed
the US Constitution with the complicity of the opposition party and
the federal courts.  There is no organized power that can restore the
Constitution or even much concern that it has been overthrown.

The country is broken, because American capitalists have moved
offshore so many US manufacturing, engineering, and research jobs that
US imports now exceed US industrial production.  American dependency
on imported manufactured goods, advanced technology goods, and energy
is astounding.

Moreover, the dependency is escalating dramatically.  In March 2002,
prior to Bush’s decision to impose Israel’s will on the Middle East,
oil was $25 a barrel.  Today oil is $125 a barrel, a five-fold
increase that has seen our oil import bill rise from $145 billion in
2006 to $456 billion presently, a $300 billion addition to a trade
deficit that was already running $700-$800 billion annually.

There is no possibility of the US closing its trade deficit.  The US
is able to survive such enormous deficits only because the US dollar
is the world reserve currency.  This role for the dollar is nearing an
end as the world looks for more stable stores of value.  Although oil
is still nominally priced in dollars, in reality it is being priced in
euros as oil producers raise the dollar price with a view to keeping
their oil revenues at a constant purchasing power in euros.

When the dollar loses its reserve currency role, foreign financing for
US trade and budget deficits will evaporate.  US living standards will
collapse, and the indispensable omnipower will be just another washed
up country.

For a world weary of “American exceptionalism,” this can’t happen too
soon.

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the
Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street
Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He
is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.He can be reached at:
PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com

http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts05132008.html