meehawl

all that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned

Imperial Ambitions

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And yet another post-Afghan War analysis of US imperial ambitions in Central Asia.

The United States is engaged in a strategic power grab in central Asia of epic proportions. In previous eras, this sort of expansionism would have been called colonialism or imperialism. It would be portrayed as a dutiful mission to civilise the less fortunate of the world or as a legitimate expression, perhaps, of America’s manifest destiny. Now it is simply called the “war against terrorism”.

If moral justification were required, there is no need, it seems, to look beyond Ground Zero. Current American certitude of the rightness of its cause is as unshakeable as that of any Victorian missionary society or Palmerstonian gunboat skipper.

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