Five Years of Accelerating U.S. Decline

[Joanne98]

Thursday, 27 March 2008

by BAR Executive Editor Glen Ford
Five years ago, anti-war forces were in deep depression, having failed to prevent Bush from launching his illegal war against Iraq. Pro-war circles were floating on top of the world, imagining that Washington was about to become the new Rome under an American arms umbrella that would hold the entire planet in Shock and Awe. As it turned out, the American offensive was tied down by indigenous Iraqis – a great defeat for a superpower. So repulsed was the world at Washington’s assault on global order and civilization, itself, that the U.S. has been on a many-fronted free-fall ever since March 30, 2003. This article includes a piece written by our team on the day of the invasion.

Five Years of Accelerating U.S. Decline
by BAR executive editor Glen Ford

On March 20, 2003, the day the U.S. and its “coalition of the willing” launched the long awaited invasion of Iraq, leftist groupings in the United States behaved as if the last vestiges of civilization were crumbling before their eyes, and that somehow the American anti-war movement was singularly responsible for failing to hold back Bush’s legions. Although it is true that U.S. peaceniks have always harbored wildly inflated assessments of their own importance on the domestic and world scene, it is a group flaw they share with Americans of all political persuasions, most of whom believe themselves to be at the center of the universe, and therefore the greatest losers or the mightiest warriors in history, depending on which way the drama unfolds.

“Fat, flatulent pundits seriously contemplated whether the United States was about to assume the global responsibilities once borne by ancient Rome.”

So it was natural that the anti-war “losers” and bellicose “winners” of March 20, five years ago, were both wildly out of touch with the probable consequences of U.S. aggression. Anti-warists seemed to shrink into little balls of hurt and fear, as if the massive armed assault would inevitably usher in some multi-decade U.S. Cowboy Reich. The pro-war crowd convinced itself that nothing could stop the U.S. military on the march. Fat, flatulent pundits seriously contemplated whether the United States was about to assume the global responsibilities once borne by ancient Rome – and whether that was a good or bad thing.

Nobody, it seemed, appeared aware of a fundamental truth
http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=568&Itemid=1

[bemildred]

1. Kick for all the "Fat, flatulent pundits". nt