Napoleon is supposed to have said something to the effect that graveyards are filled with indispensable men. History’s graveyard is filled with indispensable nations. From Melvin Goodman at counterpunch.org:
Photo by Saad Alfozan
“But if we have to use force, it is because we are America; we are the indispensable nation. We stand tall and we see further than other countries into the future, and we see the danger here to all of us. Our nation’s memory is long and our reach is far.”– Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, 1998.
“We are the indispensable nation. American leadership is what holds the world together.”
– President Joe Biden, 2023.
“The United States is still…the ‘indispensable nation’ in the Middle East.”
–David Ignatius, Washington Post columnist, 2024.
There is no better declarative indicator of American arrogance and hubris than the self-appointed title of “indispensable nation.” Liberal pundits and critics believe that the notion of the indispensable nation had its origins in the post-Cold War era following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. In actual fact, the ideological origins of the indispensable nation were “present at the creation,” if I can borrow the title of Secretary of State Dean Acheson’s trenchant memoir.
The idea of the unique international standing of the United States was part of the Founding Fathers’ debate over our global role in 1789. Liberal pundits and critics argue that U.S. “internationalism” was unique to twentieth-century diplomacy, but our notions of free commerce and liberal democracy were there at the outset. They cite former presidents Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, and Harry Truman in their discussion of “internationalism.” But John Quincy Adams, arguing that America “goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy,” envisioned the United States as a threat to Europe’s autocratic regimes. Adams added that the “influence of our example” would “overthrow them all without a single exception.”
I forget who made the quote about America is another world regarding agitprop and deception and the old joke about Russian being asked by an American what propaganda, exactly.
The curse of Puritanism was the Long March before it had a name.
The rest of the Global South MENA Eurasia world fails to recognize the magnificence of the rainbow sodomite sewer pipe as they carry on with their quaint old nation and culture ways.
Clown World is for the LULZ! and as the losses pile up for god’s gift to the world (sarc) the popcorn stash goes down.