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Street roots Jan. 7, 2011 Illi Expectation proves again the mother of all disappointments BY THOMAS VINCENT neoconservative and right wing officials he appointed ... drove the country as close to s a child, when I’d come home with a the precipice as was humanly possible.” report card full of C’s, my father, who But Johnson doesn’t lay the blame for was possessed of a plethora of America’s foreign policy follies solely at the platitudes, would invariably trot out a gem feet of any one administration. Rather he like: “He who expecteth nothing is seldom sees our current dilemma as the result of disappointed.” Thus, if I express years of post-Cold War hubris combined disappointment with “Dismantling the with a military-industrial bureaucracy that Empire,” it is largely because I expected has grown to leviathanic proportions, the something the book didn’t deliver. I don’t result of which has been nothing short of take issue with anything the author says. I disastrous. “The combination of huge simply wish he had said more. standing armies, almost continuous wars, an Chalmers Johnson has had a long, ever growing economic dependence on the distinguished career as a historian and military-industrial complex and the making foreign policy analyst. He has written of weaponry, and ruinous military expenses numerous books on history and political as well as a vast, bloated “defense” budget science including most recently, three ... has been destroying our republican examinations of the consequences of structure of governing in favor of an American empire: “Blowback,” “The imperial presidency.” Sorrows of Empire,” and “Nemesis: The As I said at the start, I*do not take issue Last Days of the American Republic.” either with Johnson’s historical analysis or Johnson’s thesis is that America’s current his extrapolations of what our recent actions foreign policy of attempting to maintain an mean for our future. What is disappointing, “empire of military bases” around the world however, is that he is not saying anything is not only ill-advised from a legal and moral new. Most of the topics in “Empire” have standpoint, but in terms of sheer economics already been covered in his previous trilogy. it is quite simply unsustainable: “Until we Indeed, as he notes at the end of the book, decide (or are forced) to dismantle our most of the essays in “Empire” have been empire, sell off most of our military bases in previously published on the website other people’s countries, and bring our “TomDispatch.com.” (He doesn’t even military expenditures into line with those of include footnotes, preferring to steer the rest of the world, we are destined to go readers to the web site for a list of URLs.) bankrupt in the name of national defense.” Aside from these minor annoyances, my In short, as the author says, continuing biggest complaint with the book is that down the militaristic path we are on is Johnson leaves the reader hanging. After nothing short of a “suicide option.” repeating over and over what a disaster As in his earlier works Johnson lives up America’s foreign policy is, the author waifs to his reputation for being plainspoken and until the last two pages of the book to direct: “During his eight reckless years as present a brief bullet point list entitled: President, (George W.) Bush, his Vice “Ten steps Toward Liquidating the Empire.” President Dick Cheney, his Secretary of Not only are most of the things on the list Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and the other obvious — “We m ust give up our CONTRIBUTING WRITER A DISMANTLING THE EMPIRE Book Review: Dismantling the Empire: America's Last Best Hope By Chalmers Johnson, Metropolitan Books, Hardcover, 2010, 212 Pages, $25 inappropriate reliance on military force as the chief means of attempting to achieve foreign policy objectives” - but the book is frustrating in that nowhere does Johnson advance any clue as to how he thinks America should go about achieving his “ten step” program. He’s like a doctor who says, “If you don’t quit smoking, you’re going to die,” and then leaves the room without telling us how we are supposed to quit To put it another way: I don’t need any more convincing that America is on a disastrous, suicidal path. I’m well aware we are hurtling down the “devil’s canyon” rapids on the river Styx. What I want to know is how exactly we’re supposed to get out of this God-forsaken handbasket. A codicil to the saying at the beginning of this piece might be: “Expectation is the mother of all disappointments.” If so, perhaps I am being unfair. However, “Dismantling the Empire” was advertised as a coda to the “Blowback” trilogy in which he was to give - according to the book jacket — “a prescription for a remedy” to our misguided foreign policies. Sadly, on this score, the book doesn’t deliver. By failing to even address the question implied in the title, as readers we are left with a feeling that hope is a train that left the station a long time ago. Nowhere is this more apparent that in Johnson’s last words of warning which come off sounding suspiciously like a proclamation of inevitable doom: “Unfortunately, few empires of the past voluntarily gave up th eir dominions in order to remain independent, self-governing polities ... if we do not learn from their examples, our decline and fall is foreordained.” Originally published by Real Change, Seattle, Wash. Chinook Book 1 wH ■ Save w here : you live ! with 400+coupons The future is in your hands Every day, 114 street papers like this one help homeless people w orldw ide to escape poverty. So far, thanks to millions o f readers like you, 200.000 vendors in 40 countries have earned a living and changed th e ir lives. 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