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Imperialism
To identify barriers to private sector development at the local and federal levels in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and to push for legislative change ... [and] to develop strategies for private sector growth.
National Endowment for Democracy, describing one of its 1997-98 programs
America is today the leader of a world-wide anti revolutionary movement in defense of vested interests. She now stands for what Rome stood for. Rome consistently supported the rich against the poor in all foreign communities that fell under her sway; and, since the poor, so far, have always and everywhere been far more numerous than the rich, Rome's policy made for inequality, for injustice, and the least happiness for the greatest number.
Arnold J Toynbee, british historian
The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit
Martin Luther King, Jr., 1967
Imperialism means the denial of political and economic rights and the perpetual subjugation of people by a foreign power.
Nelson Mandela
Globalization-is-US.
Thomas Friedman, foreign policy columnist for the New York Times
The trouble is that when American dollars earn only six percent over here, they get restless and go overseas to get 100 percent. The flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.
Gen. Smedley Butler, 1935
[Terrorism:] the unlawful use of force or violence committed by a group or individual, who has some connection to a foreign power or whose activities transcend nationa1 boundaries, against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.
FBI definition of terrorism
We have about 50% of the world's wealth but
only 6.3% of its'
population. In this situation we cannot fail to be
the object of envy
and resentment. Our real task in the coming
period is to devise a
pattern of relationships which will permit us to
maintain this position
of disparity. We need not deceive ourselves that
we can afford today the
luxury of altruism and world benefaction. We
should cease to talk about
such vague and unreal objectives as human
rights, the raising of living
standards and democratisation. The day is not
far off when we are going
to have to deal in straight power concepts. The
less we are then
hampered by idealistic slogans, the better.
George Kennan, former Head of the US State
Department Policy Planning
Staff, 24th February 1948
Today, the United States spends more on military arms and other forms of 'national security' than the rest of the world combined. U.S. leaders preside over a global military apparatus of a magnitude never before seen in human history.
...
In 1993 it included almost a half-million troops stationed at over 395 major military bases and hundreds of minor installations in thirty-five foreign countries, and a fleet larger in total tonnage and firepower than all the other navies of the world combined
Michael Parenti 1995
The real reason that the war we just finished took place was that Germany was afraid her commercial rivals were going to get the better of her and the reason why some nations went into the war against Germany was that they thought Germany would get the advantage of them.
Woodrow Wilson, U.S. President, 1919
Is there any man, is there any woman, let me say any child here that does not know that the seed of war in the modern world is industrial and commercial rivalry?
Woodrow Wilson, U.S. President
We should cease to talk about vague and... unreal
objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standard and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts...
George Kennan, Director of Policy Planning U.S.
State Department, 1948
...the good Lord didn't see fit to put oil and gas only where there are democratically elected regimes friendly to the United States. Occasionally we have to operate in places where, all things considered, one would not normally choose to go. But, we go where the business is.
Dick Cheney, later Vice President of the U.S.A., in 1998
Never forget your country has 4 percent of the world's people and 22 percent of its wealth. We've got to sell something to the other 96 percent if we want to hold on to our standard of living.
U.S. President Bill Clinton, in a speech before the Democratic Leadership Council, October 13, 1999
...in a foreign policy establishment committed to imperialist domination by any means necessary, employees tend to rise to the level of cruelty they can live with.
William Blum
The WTO is dominated by a few major industrial countries - while the poorest developing countries have little or no representation or negotiation capacity.
UNDP, FN:s utvecklingsorganisation, 2002
I dream that someday the United States will be on the side of the peasants in some civil war. I dream that we will be the ones who will help the poor overthrow the rich, who will talk about land reform and education and health facilities for everyone, and that when the Red Cross or Amnesty International comes to count the bodies and take the testimony of women raped, that our side won't be the heavies.
Richard Cohen
... the operative priciples dictating U.S. support and hostility in the Third World have been business criteria first, military convenience second, and any humanistic considerations third and thus effectively irrelevant. In fact, they are less than irrelevant - they are in conflict with the first two criteria, and therefore ... humanizing forces [become] "threats".
Edward Herman
Många delar av den fattiga världen betraktar USA som Darth Vader.
John Lloyd i Financial Times
...there is considerable room for making
global institutions more democratic. Many proposals
have been made to remove such patently
undemocratic practices as the veto on the UN
Security Council and the way the leaders of the
IMF and World Bank are selected.
UNDP 2002
För att sätta in det i en terminologi, som vänder tillbaka till den mer brutala tidsåldern av gamla imperier, är de tre stora imperativen för en imperialistisk geostrategi, att förhindra hemliga samförstånd och vidmakthålla säkerhetsberoende hos vasallerna, att hålla de underlydande eftergivliga och skyddade och att hindra att barbarerna kommer samman.
Zbigniew Brzezinski 1997
Jag frågar alltid två frågor, och bara två: hur många länder har militärbaser i USA? Och i hur många länder har USA militärbaser?
José Saramago
Historical data show a strong correlation between US involvement in international situations and an increase in terrorist attacks against the United States.
A U.S. Department of Defense study in 1997
It is perhaps no coincidence that the more
representative international institutions, such
as the UN Economic and Social Council and the
UN General Assembly, are also considered the
least powerful. The reality is that powerful countries
— crucial to the success of any international
institution — tend to gravitate towards institutions
that give them the most influence. And they
take their power with them: whether it is to the
WTO’s "green room" meetings or the meetings
of the IMF executive board. Increased pluralism in
global politics has been aided by new forms of
collaboration between governments and global
civil society groups
UNDP 2002
Privatpersoner har ofta möjligheter att med större flexibilitet än regeringar verka för nya och bättre former för internationellt samarbete.
David Rockefeller, den amerikanske kapitalist som tillsammans med Zbigniew Brzezinski bildade Trilaterala kommissionen 1973
De flesta i väst vet till slut att deras gemensamma intresse är att stora delar av världen inte tas över av barbarerna.
Per Ahlmark om varför EU och USA håller ihop
A world in which others controlled the course of their own development ... would be a world in which the American system would be seriously endangered.
Benjamin Cohen
The U.S. will not permit constructive programs in its own domains, so it must ensure that they are destroyed elsewhere to terminate "the threat of a good example".
Noam Chomsky
Folkets längtan efter frihet kan i det långa loppet inte slås ner. Den komer att leva och segra till sist.
Olof Palme
Amerika är idag en vulkan; den har inte brutit ut, men den skälver av det överväldigande mullret från underjorden, som varslar om det som skall komma.
Che Guevara
Mot hur många stater kan USA förklara krig utan att självt bli definierat som ett hot mot världsordningen?
Bryan Hehir
The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist — McDonald's cannot flourish without McDonnel Douglas, the designer of the F-15.
Thomas L. Friedman 1999
From 1945 to the end of the century, the United States attempted to overthrow more than 40 foreign governments, and to crush more than 30 populist-nationalist movements struggling against intolerable regimes.
William Blum
I believe that if we had and would keep our dirty, bloody, dollar soaked fingers out of the business of these nations so full of depressed, exploited people, they will arrive at a solution of their own. And if unfortunately their revolution must be of the violent type
because the "haves" refuse to share with the "have-nots" by any peaceful method, at least what they get will be their own, and not the American style, which they don't want and above all don't want crammed down their throats by Americans.
General David Sharp, former United States Marine Commandant, 1966
The greatest purveyor of violence on earth is my own government.
Martin Luther King Jr 1967
Fuck your Parliament and your Constitution. We pay a lot of good American dollars to the Greeks, Mr. Ambassador. If your Prime Minister gives me talk about Democracy, Parliament and Constitutions, he, his Parliament, and his Constitution may not last very long.
President Lyndon Johnson to a Greek Ambassador
We [the U.S.] has over 200 incidents in which we have put our troops into other countries to force them to our will.
John Stockwell, former CIA official
We need to exert ourselves that much more, and break out of the vicious cycle of dependence imposed on us by the financially powerful: those in command of immense market power and those who dare to fashion the world in their own image.
Nelson Mandela
A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.
Allen Weinstein in 1991, about the National Endowment for Democracy, which he helped to set up in 1983
Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival... First, the US must show the leadership necessary to establish and protect a new order that holds the promise of convincing potential competitors that they need not aspire to a greater role or pursue a more aggressive posture to protect their legitimate interests.
We must account sufficiently for the interest of the advanced industrial nations to discourage them from seeking to overturn the established political and economic order. Finally, we must maintain the mechanism, for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role.
From a 1992 Pentagon policy document
The US must carry out some act somewhere in
the world which shows its'
determination to continue to be a world power.
Henry Kissinger in April 1975
Never before in modern history has a country dominated the earth so totally as the United States does today. America is now the Schwarzenegger of international politics: showing off muscles, obtrusive, intimidating. The Americans, in the absence of limits put to them by anybody or anything, act as if they own a kind of blank check in their McWorld.
Der Spiegel 1997
The nations were promised liberation and justice, but we have witnessed and are witnessing, even now, the sad spectacle of liberating armies firing into populations who want their independence and social equality, and supporting in those countries by force of arms, such parties and personalities as appear to be most suited to serve vested interests. Territorial questions and arguments of power, obsolete though they are, still prevail over the essential demands of common welfare and justice.
Albert Einstein
America is today the leader of a world-wide anti-revolutionary movement in the defense of vested interests. She now stands for what Rome stood for. Rome consistently supported the rich against the poor in all foreign communities that fell under her sway; and, since the poor, so far, have always and everywhere been far more numerous than the rich, Rome's policy made for inequality, for injustice, and for the least happiness of the greatest number.
Arnold Toynbee, 1961
Efforts to deepen democracy in international
institutions must confront the realities
of global power. Powerful countries will inevitably
invest more energy and political capital
in institutions that enable their power to be
exercised. Once they are members of an elite
club, countries are reluctant to lose that power
or see it diluted by opening to new members.
This explains why proposals for reform always
encounter stiff resistance. And that is why broad
acceptance of the principle of democratization
has translated into so little progress at the level
of specific proposals.
UNDP on the IMF, World Bank, UN Security Council and WTO
...existing international institutions
need reform. Developing countries should
be given a stronger voice in their operations.
Given their enormous — and growing — influence,
these institutions should also be held more
accountable for their policies and actions.
UNDP 2002
...only fear will re-establish respect for the U.S.
James Woolsey, former director of the CIA, advocating the invasion of Iraq by arguing that the Arab public went silent after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan
Världens idag största våldsutövare.
Martin Luther King om USAs regering
There is no United Nations. There is an international community that occasionally can be led by the only real power left in the world, and that's the united States, when it suits our interests and when we can get others to go along.
John Bolton, UN Ambassador for the United States
1) Other nations are not allowed to mess around with the internal affairs of nations in this hemisphere. 2) But we are. 3) Ha ha ha.
Dave Barry, explaining what the Monroe Doctrine is
German politicians still support the rather naive idea that political allies should not spy on each other's businesses. The Americans and the British do not have such illusions...
Udo Ulfkotte, journalist specializing in European industrial espionage, on the German industry complains about the disadvantage they get because their government forbids its security services from conducting industrial espionage
[I ask you to] work together with me for a better life for oil... I mean all.
Senator Henry Jackson, campaigning in 1976
Democracy, as Americans understand it, is not necessarily the future of all mankind, nor is it the duty of the U.S. government to assure that it becomes that.
George Kennan, head of U.S. State Department Policy Planning Staff, 1948
One hundred nations in the UN have not agreed with us on just about everything that's come before them where we're involved, and it didn't upset my breakfast at all.
President Reagan, 1983, in response to a overwhelming majority in the UN General Assembly voting to disapprove of the US invasion of Grenada
There never was a war at arms that was not merely the extension of a preceding war of commerce grown fiercer until the weapons of commerce seemed no longer sufficiently deadly.
Hugh Johnson, U S General, någon gång på fyrtiotalet
If you thought the army was here protecting people like yourself I've some news for you, we're here to defend wealth.
Billy Bragg
För oss finns det två sorters människor i världen: det finns sådana som är kristna och stödjer fri företagsamhet och sedan finns det andra.
John Foster Dulles, en av de främsta arkitekterna bakom USAs utrikespolitik efter andra världskriget
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