The Sorrows of Empire

It has been a while since posting a commentary on a book. The book under review is by the (not so very) late Chalmers Johnson who died roughly 1/2 year ago. I had  run across some of his work following 9/11 but did not have the time to buy a book and read it. I had ordered several in his recent series on "Empire" and Barb brought them back in January.
  The Sorrows of Empire was published in 2004 and so is slightly dated. Its subtitle 'Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic' is a succinct summary. Chalmers was well enough known that he participated in as outside counsel to the CIA and surely other agencies. He was a long time observer of the situation in Asia and the founder of Japan Policy Research Institute.
  Although he "retired" in the early 1990s, he was still quite active intellectually. He was one of several (not many of us) that realized on the afternoon of September 11 2001 that what we were seeing was a "blowback" (his term) of reaction against the ever increasing USA empire. I remember the sensation that day of realizing that 911 was a reaction towards "ugly Americans" that I had seen over a period (then) of nearly 30 years of living and working internationally. Obviously I couldn't put in the same context as Johnson, but I remember thinking "that this attack is not really a big surprise."
  At any rate in Sorrows Johnson shows how the hundreds of foreign bases that the USA has established have created a certain animosity around the world. He traces back to Presidents T. Roosevelt and W. Wilson some of the factors that later led the USA to establish such a far flung and extensive network of bases around the world. Written in the then recent aftermath of the Iraq invasion, it is indeed poignant with all that has come to pass in the eight years since then.
   Sorrows filed in a lot of details and analysis that I was not aware of, but have sensed from now living/working outside of the USA for a 1/3 of my life in Latin America. It is indeed sad, very sad and sorrowful. At the end of the book Johnson lists his four 'sorrows' in summary. The most prophetic to me is the bankruptcy that the ever expanding empire is bringing upon the USA. Long before any Bagger, and in the throes of Bush II's reign, I don't think that I know of any other prophetic voices mentioning or even thinking of how the expansion of empire was leading to bankruptcy. 
  MUST reading for those who believe in peace and the impulse of Jesus in that direction. Johnson uses the example of the Roman empire (and also British) as examples of how extension of empire inevitably leads to loss of empire. And collapse. My own view is that by defunding education and infrastructure in order to keep taxes low and add continually to empire, that the USA will accelerate its own demise. In a world now driven by technology and dominated by the Occident for 500+ years, emerges another set of players long suppressed by colonial powers in Asia. India, China, Taiwan, Korea, Singapore (and if it can recover nicely, Japan) are the future. And the future will rapidly shift to them if the USA does not disengage from its militaristic and unsustainable obsession with empire.