Russian President Vladimir Putin referred to the United States as an “empire of lies” in his Feb. 24, 2022, speech.
Most Americans dismiss such rhetoric; they neither regard the United States as an empire much less one of lies. Yet, this phrase is perhaps the most accurate descriptor of our nation ever spoken by a world leader.
To the phrase, most Americans recoil, mock, and find even more reason to buttress their existing hatred toward Putin and Russia. That hatred is deeply ingrained in the American psyche, propagated by American government war hawks who know well how to emotionally stir the American people into a war-accepting, war-seeking, frenzy. Cold War prejudices continue and are exploited.
From Putin’s perspective and analysis, as stated in that speech, the West has engaged in “modern absolutism” in which it systematically built its might using aggression and intervention worldwide. He cited with detail but a few examples, including the United States’ military operations in Yugoslavia, Libya, Syria, and, of course, the “invasion of Iraq without any legal grounds.” Having mentioned “the most glaring but far from only examples of disregard for international law,” Putin also identified the result, “tremendous loss in human life, damage, destruction, and a colossal upsurge of terrorism.”
Sadly for decades, the federal government of the United States has, antithetically to its founding principles, sought to expand its power and acquisition of geopolitical might through non-Congressional military operations worldwide. Why would any nation focused merely on defense need what is estimated to be some 800-1,000 military bases worldwide? Why would any nation focused only on its defense have dropped hundreds of thousands of bombs in total in just its recent past? From Yemen to Somalia to Afghanistan, to mention just a few, the deaths and suffering imposed on civilians worldwide by American weapons number in the millions.
The constitutional requirement for Congressional approval is mostly skirted, formal declarations of war are rare. The list of interventions is too long to list, beginning with President Truman getting America into the Korean War by calling it a “police action.” Civil wars are often understandably intrinsically complex and always a deadly quagmire to enter.
Add to this the numerous proxy (as well as covert) wars it has engaged in, and a picture arises of a nation not focused on self-defense but rather on money and power. Be it through conquest or coercion, the USA has become a country whose control extends over hundreds of territories worldwide. With just a little research into any of the above conflicts, the underlying discord between what the federal government (and the mainstream media) state as reasons for its interventions and the actual ones (though not always known to the masses at the time) – the benefits to its economy/resources- is apparent.
Having supported numerous regime changes throughout the world, US government interventions are ubiquitous. Unfortunately, US dominance, at any cost, not true self-defense, defines foreign policy.
Consider, too, the classified matters kept from the American people for decades on end. Consider Operation Northwoods. The American people know very little about our government’s operations, obtaining only a glimpse from of what is known sometimes decades later, but a glimpse that we should always recall in times of international conflict.
Regretfully, America can easily be referred to as an “empire” due to its aggression and subsequent control worldwide, and likewise, “lies” are sadly how it has been able to entice the American people into supporting whatever fight it sees will give some benefit to the country. Thus, “empire of lies” is a most accurate term, and one Americans would do well to consider before continuing to blindly believe the one-sided propaganda by the government and media regarding the Ukraine-Russia conflict. Remember what you have learned in the past when it comes to international conflicts; you cannot trust that it is the truth being told to you in the mainstream narrative.
As it is, the American people, most without any knowledge of the multi-faceted Russian-Ukrainian history (such as the Maidan coup) and the West’s (including the US) years of meddling in that region, willingly support our government giving Ukraine billions in military/security aid (as well as other tools of economic warfare such as sanctions, which ironically have backfired). By providing such weapons, the United States is again meddling in a foreign war that is none of its business.
The devastating suffering in Ukraine is what war is. The same human suffering was and is being experienced by civilians in numerous countries worldwide as a result of American interventions in distant parts of the world – the two differences being that 1. the US government and media do not show that destruction and pain to you on the nightly news, and 2. Russia tried for many years to negotiate with the world to stop Western military/NATO expansion from coming closer to the Russian border (Ukraine simply needed to declare it would not join NATO) before it decided to take action while America’s devastating military interventions worldwide were/are in regions of the world far from its border and which posed no threat whatsoever to the United States.
Whether evaluated by the unjust wars and the false reasons stated by the US government for them or the lies told to the populous to otherwise manipulate them, the country is one in which the government lies freely and it is accepted. When the lies are exposed, as many throughout history have been, it changes nothing. Why? Because the people themselves accept the lie as a way of life. Thus, for politicians, the more they lie, the greater power they achieve, and nobody cares. It appears that lies are a prerequisite to gain power – a credential almost, leading to greater power.
So, what should the US government do about Ukraine? Absolutely nothing.
Long ago, America ceased to respect “the independence of other nations while asserting and maintaining her own” and instead became exactly as John Quincy Adams warned against by going abroad “in search of monsters to destroy.” The America Adams knew and loved, was “the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all,” and “the champion and vindicator only of her own.”It is more than past the time our country evolve from being an “empire of lies” back to John Quincy Adams’ 1821 beautiful descriptor of the America we once had.
USA, “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.” – John 8:44, KJV.
Spiritually, the United States is in its darkest time, it is indeed an empire of lies…an empire of Satan.
When sharing or excerpting from this essay, its website link must appear with it: http://americanorthodoxchristian.com/empire-of-lies/