Monday, January 14, 2008

The Hundred-Year War

McCain wants us in Iraq permanently

By Justin Raimondo

"......The worst aspect of all this is that once the process of what might be called "imperialization" – for lack of a better word – is allowed to proceed unchecked and unchallenged, it builds political and social momentum until it is practically unstoppable. Calls for increasing the huge pool of resources available to the empire-builders become more frequent and more irresistible, and the transition from republic to empire is made all but inevitable as large sections of the population become economically dependent on military-related industries whose profitability rests on the defense of America's overseas protectorates........

On top of it all, the growth of presidential power – epitomized in the openly authoritarian legal "theories" of the current administration, which give the White House something very close [.pdf] to absolute power in wartime – is greatly accelerated by imperialization. Indeed, this has been the main engine of the growing imbalance of power between the three branches of the federal government. They don't call it the "imperial presidency" for nothing. Every empire must have an emperor or empress. The rise of American imperialism parallels the growing importance of dynastic politics in America, among the more worrying signs that our old republic is on the way out.

A hundred-year occupation of Iraq: John McCain wants to know "What's wrong with that?" God willing, the American people will tell him."

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