A recent academic report published in the West states that the US military has killed between 20-30 million people around the world since 1945 (after WWII) to the present time. This number does include the those killed by the US military between 1776-1945. If it did, of course, this could theoretically include the ‘loyal’ British killed by the ‘disloyal’ British who rebelled against sovereign British rule of the colony. Furthermore, it might well include a substantial share of the estimated 60 million native Americans killed by the process of general European colonisation of the Americas between 1492 and around 1620 (yet another recent academic article published in the West). The United States is a prime example of the ongoing trend of destructive European colonisation around the world. Some people like to include the two atomic bombs dropped on an already devastated Japan in 1945 as being both a ‘War Crime’ and ‘Crime Against Humanity’. Between 1950-1953 the US military killed around 500,000 North Korean and Chinese troops, whist between 1960-1975 – the US military killed around 3 million Vietnamese. In the twenty-year campaign in Afghanistan (2001-2021), for example a conservative estimate of Taliban deaths stands at around 50,000 killed (going on up to around 200,000).
Part of the problem of assessing US culpability is its cultural ‘denial’ of its own destructive nature and its preferred defence mechanism of ‘anti-intellectualism’. This stems from the US Constitution which raises ‘stupidity’ onto an equal footing with ‘reliable knowledge’. Add to this a significant dose of ‘denial’ and the essential nature of US predatory capitalism is writ large. The US government, from the time of its inception has used ‘violence’ to illicit change in the world that benefits and serves its geo-political vision. At least this is how the US government works regardless of who holds the reins of power. To prevent its own people from rebelling against this process, the US government, particularly since the inception of consumer capitalism in the early 1920s, has instigated a system of education throughout America that stifles freedom of thought, hides the truth of what its government is doing, and prevents the formation of any genuine home-grown movements opposed to US violence in the pursuit of predatory capitalism around the globe. After nearly a century of calling ‘Black’ ‘White’ – and ‘up’ ‘down’ the intellectual landscape of the US is in very poor shape.
This reality does not prevent the US industrial-complex cynically making use of the best science money can buy, and using that science to develop the best weaponry available on the planet, whilst keeping the US population ‘ignorant’ of the bigger picture. The problem Europeans face is the spread of US anti-intellectual through the passive absorption of US culture, and the bullying political tactics of the US government. Non-Americans owe it to the future of humanity not to succumb to the horrors of US anti-intellectualism, and in so doing retain a genuine ‘freedom of thought’ and ‘freedom of expression’ premised upon a non-inverted logic and reason! Whereas the Taliban are ‘pre-modern’ in their approach to interpreting the world, (a viewpoint which suggests that Islamic theology has solved all the problems of life and that objective science, as it denies ‘god’ is not required), the US system is both ‘modern’ and ‘post-modern’ – but anti-intellectualism prevents the Americans from advancing ‘beyond’ the ‘high capitalism’ their industrial output has produced. This unnatural dialectic is maintaining the US system in a general state of arrested development and is not allowing the American people to organise and progress to the next level of ‘Socialism’. Although certainly not reliant upon religion – the US system certainly makes use of religious rhetoric and exploits belief by advocating the myth that ‘Socialism’ is tantamount to embracing the Judeo-Christian devil! This attitude helps cement the principle of anti-intellectualism amongst the religiously minded.
Despite the cynical nature of the US system, it is highly logical where it counts – such as in the careful military planning of campaigns. In such high-level meetings, intelligent officers, religious experts, military authorities and politicians all converge on a single intellectual objective and workout ways of defining and defeating an enemy. Such an in-depth and precise analysis requires the minute breakdown of the psychology of the enemy, and how this works through their particular political, cultural, social and military milieu. Such careful planning seeks to inflict the maximum material damage on the enemy whilst minimalizing the damage inflicted by the enemy upon the US Forces. As I specialise in the psychology and behaviour of religiously and spiritually motivated people, this is my area of academic expertise. I recently shared an article posted on this blog on my tumblr account – about ‘how’ the Taliban interpret their victory over the Americans with reference to the Holy Qur’an (just as I am sure intelligence officers are doing in Washington as I write) – and tumblr ‘terminated’ my account without warning for the alleged violation of ‘glorifying terrorism’! This is where we must be careful not to lower ourselves to the level of manifest US anti-intellectualism. The utter stupidity of the behaviour of tumblr is exactly why the US lost in Afghanistan! It is the inability to think clearly and understand exactly what is going on. In Olde England, understanding something is not the same as ‘supporting’ or ‘agreeing’ with something! The best approach is to retain our own ‘freedom of thought’ and do not allow ourselves to become entrapped by the primitive religious thinking of the Taliban – the post-modern anti-intellectualism of the United States!
THE SANGHA KOMMUNE (SSR) 