The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic (The American Empire Project), by Chalmers Johnson   [Paperback 2005]

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• 1) 'War is a Racket' - General Smedley Butler USMC

  by Augustine Redux on April 01 2004
    570+ helpful votes

  Am I the only one who thinks the the rest of his countryman are nuts? For the past 60 years and three generations, Americans have been led to believe that that spending billions for the Defense of the country is not only necessary but patriotic.

  Forget conspiracy theories and ideological agendas, just contemplate one fact: The USA spends more on military and intelligence funding in 2004 than it has spent at any one time in history. Fourteen carrier groups to defeat the two remaining countries of the axis of evil, N. Korea and Iran? 750 and counting military bases outside the USA? However, the government tells us it is powerless to defend the country against an attack from a terrorist group with WMD??? So, the next time you watch television and the commentator tells you why we need another aircraft carrier, more tanks, more F-16's, etc., ask yourself: Who are we defending ourselves against? And, as Chalmers Johnson points out, follow the money!

  This book is an excellent primer on how our beloved country is being led down the road to ruin by a group of people who are lining the pockets of themeselves and their friends and supporters. All of this is being done in the name of Democracy, Freedom and Globalization. But, why do we want to liberate people who sit on oil while those countries being ruthlessly exploited and practcially enslaved are ignored since they can contribute little or nothing to the "world economy" (pick any poor third world country)?

  This review is written by a conservative American, cold war supporter and US Navy veteran (like Chalmers Johnson)who believes in the old Republic (when is the last time you heard that word mentioned in the era of the imperial presidency). Forget whether you are democrat or republican, take the blinders off and seek the truth, excellently told by Chalmers Johnson.

• 2) essential truths rather than pablum and propaganda

  by L. F Sherman on January 16 2004
    240+ helpful votes

  Essential truths are discomforting but critically important while there may still be time to save the United States from its worst enemies - antidemocratic ruling cliques that are part of the military industrial-complex (now oil and communications industries included) at its worst. This is not the pabulum and propaganda of most of the press and right wing think tanks or corporate media but rather a tough minded well documented and truly scary reality that most would prefer to ignore -- at their own risk. The American Empire of Bases, hidden expenses and private corporate military contracts, together with a plethora of lies make for mass hallucination that has but an inkling of truth. One chapter could stand on its own as a great description of recent economic and military history "What Happened to Globalization?". The chapter also effectively highlights how mythological is the "free market capitalism" that is ideology and far from reality. It is clear that the problem is not new - but also that is far worse than ever with the megalomaniac boy emperor and his irresponsible quest that is destroying everything from the Constitution to the economy. The practical first step - not mentioned directly by Johnson - is to get Bush out of office and work for major restoration of the promise of America for the people and the world rather than a few oil and war profiteers. Wake up! Pray there is still time to restore our country! Johnson does not say it in so many words but it becomes clear that no one has done more to make enemies and reduce our security than this President and his administration. After reading this one is not likely to be a total 'sucker' like Goering's public that could be manipulated by freaking people out about their enemies abroad and calling anyone who disagrees unpatriotic or traitorous.

• 3) Sobering, Makes an Important Case, Rough Around the Edges

  by Robert D. Steele on January 24 2004
    110+ helpful votes

  
  This double-spaced book is an indictment of American militarism and unilateralism, and it merits reading by every citizen. It loses one star to a lack of structure and sufficient references to a broader range of supporting literature, and to the author's tendency to go "a bridge too far" in blaming the CIA for everything and in assuming that our troops and their families are somehow enjoying their "luxurious" overseas deployments.

  It may be best to begin the review where the author ends, by agreeing with the case he makes for the potential collapse of America if the people fail to take back the power and restore integrity and participatory democracy to the Congress. Absent a radical reverse, four really bad things will happen to America: 1) it will be in a state of perpetual war, inspiring more terrorism than it can defeat in passing; 2) there will be a loss of democracy and constitutional rights; 3) truthfulness in public discourse will be replaced by propaganda and disinformation; and 4) we will be bankrupt.

  It merits comment that today, as I read and reviewed the book, which documents over 725 US bases around the world, many of them secret, there is a public discussion in which the Pentagon is acknowledging only 400 or so bases to exist.

  There is a considerable amount of short-hand history in the book that can be skimmed rapidly--from the roots of American militarism in the Spanish-American war, to the non-partisan efforts of both Clinton and Bush fils to establish a military base structure in Arabia and in Central Asia.

  The author provides a number of worth-while commentaries on war crimes and associations with genocidal acts and repressive dictators on the part of Henry Kissinger, Wes Clark, James Baker, Dick Cheney, and other mostly Republican "wise men" associated with the oil companies of America.

  On pages 100-101 he draws on a number of authoritative sources to note that the casualty rate for the first Gulf War was close to 31% (THIRTY-ONE PERCENT) due to the exposure of the 696,778 veterans serving there being exposed to depleted uranium rounds and other toxic conditions *of our own making*, with 262,586 of these consequently falling ill and being *officially* declared to be disabled by the Veteran's Administration. I have no doubt that there will be an additional 100,000 or more disabled veteran's coming out of Gulf War II. These disabilities are multi-generational. Veterans disabled in the Gulf have higher possibilities of spawning children with deformities "including missing eyes, blood infections, respiratory problems, and fused fingers."

  The author excels, I believe, in bringing together in one book the combined costs and threats to the American Republic of a military that on the one hand is creating a global empire that is very costly to the US taxpayer and very threatening to everyone else; and on the other hand, is creating anti-democratic conditions within the United States, to include frequent and expensive preparations for dealing with "civilian disorder conditions" here at home.

  The author also excels in discussing both the collapse of US diplomacy (today the Pentagon manages 93% of the international relations budget, the Department of State just 7%), and the rise of private military companies that he carefully lists on page 140--Halliburton, Kellogg Brown and Root, Vinnell, Military Professional Resources, DynCorp, Science Applications Corporation, BDM (now TRW), Armor Holdings, Cubic, DFI, International Charter. There are more--they are all "out of control" in terms of not being subject to Congressional oversight, military justice and discipline, or taxpayer loyalty.

  In the middle of the book the author examines the change in the roles of the military from its World War II and post-Cold War missions to five new missions that have not been cleared with the American people: 1) imperial policing; 2) global eavesdropping; 3) control of petroleum fields and channels; 4) enrichment of the military-industrial complex; and 5) comfortable maintenance of the legionnaires in subsidized compounds around the world, such that numbers could be justified that could never be maintained in garrison within the USA.

  On page 164 the author notes most interestingly that China is among the greatest purchasers of fiber-optic cable in the world (thus negating much of NSA's 1970's capabilities), and on page 165 he discusses, with appropriate footnotes, how the US, UK, Canada, and Australia are circumventing the prohibitions against monitoring their own people by trading off--the Canadians monitoring British politicians for the British, the British monitoring US politicians, etcetera.

  Among the strongest sections of the book is the detailed discussion of America's love affair with ruthless dictators (and Muslim dictators at that) in Central Asia, all in pursuit of cheap oil our privilege elite think they can control. Of special interest to me is the author's delicate dissection of the vulnerability of any Central Asian energy strategy, and his enumeration of all the vulnerabilities that our elite are glossing over or ignoring.

  Summing it all up, the author attributes US militarism and the Bush fils "doctrine" to "oil, Israel, and domestic politics", and he bluntly condemns it all as "irrational in terms of any cost-benefit analysis." Quoting Stanley Hoffmann, an acclaimed international relations theorist, he condemns Bush's "strategy" (as do I) as "breathtakingly unrealistic", as "morally reckless", and as "eerily reminiscent of the disastrously wishful thinking of the Vietnam War."

  This is a fine book. Read widely enough, it has the potential for constructively informing the popular debate that is emerging despite all efforts by the Administration and its corporate cronies to suppress discussion [e.g. MoveOn.org's $2M in cash for a Superbowl ad has been rejected by CBS on the grounds of being too controversial]. Despite a few rough edges, I believe the author represents a body of informed scholarly and practical opinion such as I have tried to honor with my many non-fiction reviews, and I hope that everyone who reads this review decides to buy the book.

• 4) Thoughtful Critique of our Militarism from a True Patriot

  by Mike Walsh on March 04 2004
    80+ helpful votes

  I bought The Sorrows of Empire thinking it would focus almost exclusively on the 9/11 attacks and the Bush administration's response. It turned out to be a broader history of US military expansion and the rise of the military-industrial complex that Eisenhower warned about in his farewell address, with a particular emphasis on our penchant for planting military bases of questionable usefulness just about anywhere on the planet we can elbow our way in.

  The historical record of expansionist empires (and don't kid yourself - semantic niceties aside, we've become the latest in a series) is ugly indeed, and Johnson's book implies that we are not likely to be history's sole exception.

  In certain chapters Johnson is critical of the Bush administration and its armchair theoreticians, to be sure, for the unspoken "Oil and Israel" agenda they've roped us into, but does not dwell on it throughout the book. He instead puts into better historical perspective than most writers the fact that we did not arrive at hegemony overnight, and seems to despair at the possibility of change given how far we've strayed from our anti-imperialist republican roots.

  Johnson's take on economic matters is for me less solid than he is on military and diplomatic affairs. He seems to link free trade with imperialism but I find his logic a little fuzzy on the connection. I am no economist, but it sure looks to me like the successful nations all trade a great deal.

  The book is very well-written and makes an excellent read, and for all Johnson's criticism of our policies, at no point did I doubt that this self-described former "spear carrier for the empire" (he worked for the CIA years ago) is a true American patriot who cares deeply about his country.

  Highly recommended.

• 5) Vital Information

  by Bruce Ballard on January 12 2004
    70+ helpful votes

  While Johnson recognizes that US military and economic imperialisms are well known throughout much of the rest of the world, their depth and breadth are not at all well known and least of all to the majority of US citizens (especially the military 'empire of bases' Johnson details). No one who reads this fact-packed and meticulously documented account can walk away with the slightest doubt about the matter. Of special note are the many detailed connections shown between the Bush administration and every manner of special energy and private military contracting interest over the last few decades, most of all in Iraq. The book is also very well written--hard to put down. A work, along with Johnson's earlier _Blowback_, of vital importance to every American, especially before the upcoming presidential election. Thank you, Chalmers Johnson, for writing it.

• 6) SCARY

  by Anonymous on April 25 2004
    60+ helpful votes

  Mr. johnson points out in the beginning of the book that he does not have an optimistic view of our democracy and after reading only about 50 pages I'm scared. I've read or have on my desk most of the current crop of books about this illegal administration and this is the most unsettling of the lot so far. People don't hate us because we're free. They hate us because our government has acted like bullies for a very long time. We get upset because 3000 of our citizens were murdered by zealots but are completely unaware of the millions of people world wide who have been murdered and tortured in our name for the profit of our american corporations. Johnson points out that war has been an abstract concept to most americans until now. We'd better get our act together before some nut sets off a "nuculer" bomb in one of our cities.
  Turn off the damn box and crack open a book and learn more about your world. Our lives depend on it!
  epistemology: the study of how we know what we know.

• 7) It's an objective, non-partisan look at reality

  by Raymond Marble on October 25 2004
    50+ helpful votes

  It's obvious that Gabriel Jones, whose "review" is below, has not read the book. The book has nothing to do with embracing socialism or leftist thought. Johnson criticizes Democratic and Republican administrations and attributes the fall of the USSR to the inherent weaknesses of its socialist system.
  
  This is a valuable book about reality and its consequences. It is about how a corrupt and rigged political system has abandoned America's founding principles and has subjected the country to needless wars and terrorism. The result could be the destruction of the good life we've enjoyed.
  
  The citizenry had better wake up fast or else it will soon be too late. Ignoring the truth won't change it.

• 8) More comprehensive and engaging than Blowback.

  by K. Garner on January 21 2004
    40+ helpful votes

  I read "Blowback" (1998) some years back and found it a sobering look at the consequences of our neo-imperialist policies. His treatment of East Asia - and of our military presence in South Korea and Okinawa - was a forceful demonstration of how our imperial arrogance is manifested in our expanding military base network, our treatment of foreigners in their own lands, and such special arrangements as "status of force agreements" which shield US service personnel from being prosecuted for such acts as raping 13-year-old girls.

  "The Sorrows of Empire" not only picks up where Blowback left off but deepens our understanding of our worldwide military imperium. He argues that the "War on Terror", ringing from every Republican office, is actually more of a shield to permit the military to extend its intelligence-gathering and military installation network into formerly remote areas like Kosovo and Central Asia. In his discussion on Rumsfeld's Pentagon, he shows how our secretary of defense is gradually extending the DoD into such spheres as domestic law enforcement (illegal since the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878) and diplomacy which are eroding civilian authority. Moreover, the assault on civil liberties that Ashcroft's DoJ has launched starting with the Patriot Act (and the, for now, scuttled Domestic Enhanced Security Act) fits hand-in-glove with the increasing militarization of our country.

  Perhaps most enlightening - simply because he ties a lot of different threads together - is his discussion on the expansion of our military base network in East Asia. Bush and Co. claim that these support the "War on Terror"; yet this war is a counter-blowback since we're really waging war on our former operatives Saddam Hussein (lucratively funded in the 1980's to fight the Iranians; just ask Rumsfeld - he was special envoy to Baghdad to negotiate arms purchases) and Osama bin Laden (CIA-trained to fight the Soviet army occupying Afghanistan around the same time).

  In actuality, the "War on Terror" is actually a "War for Oil", a point many people have made, but one that Johnson clarifies and places in a wider context. He shows how the Taliban were installed by us in 1996 (!) in order for Unocal to negotiate a pipeline deal and how the Bush Administration decided before 9/11 to remove them when they proved unreliable. Seen in the context of a large war to control the last remaining untapped oil reserves, the "War on Terror" takes on a darker and more frightening prospect: long-term US garrisoning throughout East Asia to ensure that Americans can drive their SUVs for perhaps another twenty years.

  Johnson isn't particularly strong on recommendations; indeed, "The Sorrows of Empire" subtly infers that barring a revolution, it will be next to impossible to curb the Pentagon's domination of our foreign policy. This book, however, should be required reading for anyone who wants to know why Americans are becoming so disliked in the world. It is more substantial than Gore Vidal's "Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace" (still good though) and Mark Heertsgard's "The Eagle's Shadow."

• 9) The Sorrows of Empire or The Empire of Sorrow

  by Thomas Fleenor on March 29 2006
    40+ helpful votes

  In The Sorrows of Empire Chalmers Johnson has compiled and constructed a brilliant analysis of United States military policy and its history, as well as evolution, of imperialistic tendencies. The book presents an overwhelming amount of superbly done research as well as an incredible array of statistical information to buttress the arguments that Johnson wishes to promulgate. Most importantly, Johnson is providing an increasingly unaware world population, especially and most-importantly that of the American contingent, with information and analysis that is being progressively more and more silenced by mass media conglomerations and the U.S. Government's Orwellian methods of knowledge distribution and censorship.
  
  Johnson starts his book off with a very thorough examination of the history of U.S. foreign policy, roots of imperialism, and an illumination behind much of the motivation for classic shifts in the direction of the U.S. methods of international engagement. I found this section of the book to be one of the more interesting, because it provided me with some foundational understanding for some of the current direction of U.S. policy. Because most American students and laypeople's understanding of U.S. history regarding the military and foreign policy is antiseptically produced by major U.S. publishing companies, information that Johnson elucidates in The Sorrows of Empire is as vitally important to an educated public as it is unsettling to the average persons' consciousness.
  
  Branching out from his discussion of history, Johnson moves on to discuss the sheer numbers involved regarding the U.S. military hegemony. Unfortunately, as much as these chapters of the book are extremely important to a full understanding of U.S. militarism, I found that the sections are so full of facts and statistical information that they began to read like VCR manuals. However, in wading through the numbers, estimates, pricings, and projections, I've found that not only did I not know how pervasive the military establishment was, but that the world is essentially dotted and monitored by an unfortunate web of U.S. military concrete and steel.
  
  I was perhaps most impressed by the fact that Johnson did not stop at the exposing of the military establishment at home and abroad, but rather he continues to discuss the terrible inequality and hardship that has come as a result of current neoliberal tendencies in the form of domestic and international economic free-market fundamentalist policy design. Johnson goes on to discuss how the U.S.' hypocritical non-market funding and deployment of the military regime cooperates with the self-benefiting establishment and execution of institutions such as the World Trade Organization, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund to provide for world-wide economic hegemony of the ruling Capitalist economic states. While, this may not be the way he describes it, at its fundamental level this is the contradictory relationship the U.S. and its "allies" in exploitation have chosen as the most effective route to strip-mining the Third World.
  
  The Sorrows of Empire in its final pages appeals to the American people to attempt to at the very least be mindful of the reality with which it has presented throughout the previous analyses. Unfortunately, Johnson does not provide much in the way of useful suggestion to create positive global social change and eradicate the massive military establishment, but he does warn that it may soon be too late, if it is not already, to redirect the course of the United States away from that of all previous empires. Johnson warns the American public against the possibilities of casting the die and crossing the Rubicon, and we should all be listening.
  

• 10) A real eye opener, like a strong cup of coffee

  by Anonymous on February 20 2004
    40+ helpful votes

  After 9/11, I found myself more inclined to feel traditionally patriotic, maybe nostalgic: I've had flags pasted on my car windows since that day, and I smile and nod affirmatively at people in the Service when I pass them in the airport. I felt safe that my govt. was globally righteous.

  After reading this book, I'm a skeptic again. I want to learn more. I can't watch Fox news and feel innocent and self-satisfied anymore. I'm mad because I can't support politics-as-usual as a reflex. I worry about Republocrats and Demopublicans being part of a staged act, a little like professional wrestling.

  Where's the Press been for the last 20 years? Where are they today? Today, they spend their time reporting on Michael Jackson and Scott Peterson. With politics, they talk only about candidate debating performance and past blemishes. The only story they report is the one about the requisite poise for winning the grand Beauty Contest. No education, debate or catharsis here for us groundlings at all.

  Maybe we're all just being fed rations from the elite, like we're their sheep. Then the Tax Man shorns us sheep: He takes our treasure to build bases and pursue economic policies that ultimately export jobs, so those left with jobs can buy $40 DVD players (that break) from people who make $400 a year. We grow it all back. We don't make too much trouble. We get more DVDs, and we can afford a trip for Mouse Ears every few years: Life is not that bad. The USA is the greatest country in the World.

  Maybe it's really as bad as a bad B-Movie script: It's all about keeping the world safe for CEO pay raises, a return of profitable stock options and the preservation of the world view and tenure of a cadre of career bureaucrats whose intellectual incest allows them to avoid the truths of our day because society's herd behavior and a mute Fourth Estate provide them no stimulus to do otherwise.

  This book paints a portrait that inspires skepticism and curiosity. You can tell the writer has an opinion, but who cares: I know my opinions are going to be reformed as they become more informed. The book is a public service.

  "And though your very flesh and blood
  Be what your eagle eats and drinks,
  You'll praise him for the best of birds,
  Not knowing what the eagle thinks."

  - Edwin Arlington Robinson

  Sleepers awake!

• 11) A nation reaps what t sows

  by Luc REYNAERT on August 28 2004
    40+ helpful votes

  C. Johnson wrote a dark and very revealing book.
  He shows forcefully that the US became a militarist empire, which eroded the democratic underpinnings of the constitutional empire and transfered power tot the Pentagon and the intelligence agencies. His thesis is profusely illustrated: US military and intelligence interventions worldwide, the enormous defense budget and hundreds of US bases all over the planet.
  This imperialistic behaviour has also an economic veil (neo-liberalism), which the author castigates as 'rich countries kicking the ladder to keep poor nations from catching up' via the WTO and the IMF.
  But this brutal behaviour brings with it inhuman sorrows.
  First, a state of perpetual war leading to more terrorism. For the author, the war on terrorism is only a cover-up for imperialist expansion. Further, in order to maintain its empire, the US pays off client regimes, uses state terrorism, forces 'regime changes' via coups, assassinations, economic destabilizations and invasions, with millions of civilian casualties. As an example, his analysis of the Iraq war is brilliant. Its ultimate goal is imperialistic: the creation of permanent military bases in this country in order to dominate the Middle East.
  Secondly, a loss of democracy and constitutional rights. The 'echelon' system dwarfs George Orwell's Big Brother. After September 11, the US acts as if it is no longer bound by international laws.
  Thirdly, information becomes disinformation, mere propaganda and glorification of war and power. Orwell's newspeak 'war is peace' became a reality with the notion of 'preventive war'. In the Iraq war, the US troops allegedly bombed deliberately the offices of international journalists (the trial is still going on) showing clearly that it is not interested in free speech (objective reporting).
  Fourth, perhaps ultimately bankruptcy by financing an overstretched unproductive army and colossal military investments. The author quotes judiciously Robert Higgs who characterizes this military-industrial complex as 'a vast cesspool of mismanagement, waste and criminal conduct.'
  On top of the tremendous margins on military contracts, he quotes the deputy inspector general saying 'that adjustments of 4,4 trillion dollars in the Pentagon books were needed, and that 1,1 trillion dollars were simply gone.' Mind-boggling.
  The author also torpedoes the fable that the US caused the collapse of the Soviet Union and that it won the Cold War.
  Ultimately the author is very pessimistic about the state of the Union and believes that the actual situation is irreversible!
  This is a brutal but necessary book. A must read for all those interested in the future of mankind.

• 12) The Collapse of the US Empire

  by J.W.K on February 17 2005
    30+ helpful votes

  Author Chalmers Johnson became an intellectual superstar after his last book, Blowback (2000), predicted the horrors of 9-11. With this book, Johnson traces the origins of the US Empire, first as a by-and-large economic empire (via the World Bank and WTO), and now as a military empire, under neoconservative leadership. Scarier than the neoconservative agenda, though, has been the bipartisan acceptance of a growing, secretive military-industrial complex (MIC), with it's "black budgets" and lack of accountability and public oversight. Johnson traces the history of the MIC all the way to the present, showing how it expanded in the post-cold-war era to become a de facto "empire of bases", ruling the world through unilateral gunboat diplomacy. For those Americans who have enjoyed the benefits of global economic and military hegemony, life seemed good until 9-11. Now, it seems rather insecure, to say the least. And, according to Johnson, the road ahead is only going to get bumpier, as our foreign policy increases global insecurity, both social and economic, as well as the threat of terrorism. The argument Johnson weaves together is highly cogent and well-researched. Most remarkable for a book of such leaning, he only utilizes the most rigorously conservative sources. A powerful, necessary read for anyone concerned about the fate of the nation. For further reading, I suggest A People's History of the U.S., by Howard Zinn.
  
  j.w.k.

• 13) Stop the Violence

  by T. Hooper on March 15 2004
    30+ helpful votes

  Is America going the way of Imperial Rome? Chalmers Johnson presents this idea in this book. America, the lone superpower, is setting up an empire not of territory, but of military bases and economic policy.

  The first point he sets up is the militarization of the American government. He argues that the increasing web of military installations (over 700 in a post-Cold War world!) drains more and more resources from our nation. As the superpower within our own government, the military has become powerful with the cooperation of the military-industrial complex. One of the key features of this military style of government is the increase in secrecy. Americans have a right to know what their government is doing, but more and more documents are labeled "Top Secret", so increasingly, Americans are unaware of what their government is doing around the world, and the government is working harder and harder to make sure that no one finds out what it is doing. What kind of government would seriously consider setting up an agency to dispense disinformation and lies to cover its own tracks? If you answered the United States, you're correct. Also, the military is taking over many of the functions of the civilian government. During the Bush administration, the responsiblilites of diplomacy (stolen from State) and information gathering (stolen from the CIA) have drifted into the military's sphere of influence. As more responsibility is pulled into the secre world of the military, Americans risk losing control of their government.

  Johnson also looks into the idea of globalization, and how it is used by the American government to control the world economy and keep smaller nations under control. For example, Johnson points out that nations that followed IMF stipulations in recent economic crisises are now in worse condition, while those who did it their own way (which is the same way that America had built its power) could improve their economies. In other words, globablization is a way of kicking away the ladder after getting to the top.

  As an American, I am worried about the direction America is headed in. If you're worried about the future of America, I recommend this book.

• 14) POWERFUL INDICTMENT OF CURRENT US MILITARY & FOREIGN POLICY

  by Shashank Tripathi on February 28 2004
    30+ helpful votes

  This book came as a recommended read from Amazon when I recently picked up "Hegemony" by Chomsky. I know a bit about Johnson as a formidable raconteur of the Japanese post-war political economy and more recently from his study of the unintended consequences of America's overseas military and political adventures called "Blowback", published before 911, which was, needless to say, prescient!

  Like Chomsky, Johnson attempts to create a context by bringing out a sprawling spectrum of recent American policies, which he contends are all calculated to maximize the influence + profits that US seeks abroad.

  But it is the focus that sets this thesis apart. Johnson focuses more on Asia, particularly Central Asia, and his gaze is more firmly on the Bush regime and its oil/energy interests in Central Asia that hold sway in foreign policy decision making.

  While a good deal of the book is filled with the typical rhetoric of the American Dream being increasingly being subordinated to the demands of war, we are offered interesting examples, which I have not heard before, e.g., Masirah Island, Kyrgyzstan, Kosovo, Uzbekistan and Ramstein. There are many interesting facts and observations, e.g., US has 725 bases in 120 countries.

  U.S. history has many sides. As Johnson convincingly demonstrates, US has committed blatant acts of imperial domination and exploitation. Yet in the aftermath of Vietnam, or the IndoChina involvement as recently as 40 years ago, Americans came to believe that the war provided the irrefutable lesson of the limits of U.S. power.

  But now a determined group of policymakers has induced amnesia on the subject. It doesn't acknowledge limits to U.S. power. President Bush has rightly condemned North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il and Saddam Hussein for their tyranny, brutality and oppression. But he neglected to mention how Rumsfeld heartily supported Iraq in its 1980s war against Iran, ignoring the gassing of Kurds, Iraqis and Iranians. Hussein was an impotant pawn then, if for no other reason than that he fought America's great Persian enemy.

  Even now, Bush entertains and rewards President Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan, President Askar A. Akayev of Kyrgyzstan, President Nursultan Nazabayev of Kazakhstan and President Saparmurad A. Niyazov of Turkmenistan because they allowed its troops to use their bases and fly over their territories. Democracy in these countries? The word is unknown. Their leaders are Stalinist relics of the old Soviet Union, hardly paragons for liberty, democracy, freedom and an open society. But they do know how to flatter the US.

  Johnson has given us a polemic, but one soundly grounded in an impressive array of facts and data. The costs of empire are a nation's sorrow, he contends. He documents a growing system of propaganda, disinformation and glorification of war and military power. In an extreme, he even fears economic bankruptcy as the president underwrites these adventures with a congressional blank check while neglecting growing problems of education, health care and a decaying physical infrastructure in the land hitherto known for its openness and success.

  A highly thought-provoking read, and a must for any collector's shelves.

• 15) Disturbing Information

  by Anonymous on March 18 2004
    30+ helpful votes

  Having been in the military and having studied political science, U.S. history, and government for the past several years, I found Chalmers' book to be extremely difficult to swallow. It's not that I don't beleive what he had to say about America and its pursuit of an empire, it's that I don't want to believe it. There is much information in Sorrows of Empire, and most of that information is well documented, substantiated, and scary. If all of it is true, and I have no way of verifying much of it, and can be taken at face value, then we, as Americans, are in for a wake-up call. It's hard to imagine living in this Donna Reed/Father Knows Best country and come to find out that it is covertly dominated by the U.S. military, while it masquerades as the savior of peace. But the information is here for dissemination. The question now becomes: what are we going to do about it?
  Left wing bashers have found fault with Sorrows of Empire, claiming that we had this "problem" before Bush. Obviously they have not read the book. Johnson is very clear that our efforts to act and react as an empire have been going on since the end of World War II. Actually, Johnson doesn't anymore blame Bush for this mess than he does any other president. His aim is directed at the military industrial complex. The same target that Ike warned us about in the 50s. Some Americans may be proud to hail from a country that can say it is the biggest, toughest, baddest dude on the block. But Johnson says that it will cost us, and cost us big time.
  I say read this book. It is very, very interesting, and it puts our country in a new light. At least a light I had not seriously before considered. I've always believed it is best to know your enemy, even if the enemy is within.

• 16) Things I Never Knew and Am Sorry I Did

  by Constant Weeder on September 02 2004
    30+ helpful votes

  This book is a shocker. I thought I was pretty savvy on American history and politics, and economics too, but...the logic of the author's argument is irrefutable. We are spending ourselves blind on military weaponry and bases (in 153 countries), constantly expanding our "defensive" (read offensive) capacity, and blindly letting the Bush gang destroy our Constitution. We are allowing lies and disinformation make us cynical about government. We are looking for war. We teach state terrorism to foreigners. We violate treaties. We provoke attack. We oppress friendly nations. We are installing puppet governments. We have private armies. The war profiteers, linked to government, continue to fatten on the sales of arms. The WTO and IMF, which operate out of Washington DC are crippling Third World countries, dumping on them, restricting their development, controlling their governments, favoring dictatorships, bankrupting them in the name of "globalization." The media in our own country is controlled. Our Congress is ineffectual. Secret courts allow civil rights violations to go unchecked. We have bases that are secret, listening posts that are secret, government budgets that are secret. Next we'll have secret satellites designed to destroy other countries' satellites.
  
  It isn't all about oil and it isn't all about terrorism. It's about American imperialism and an out of control military. We are attempting to control all of Central Asia. We dominate space. Empires survive by aggression and expansion before they crumble and fall. America is an empire. I'm convinced that this author has got it right, and it's scary as anything I've ever read.

• 17) The trend is clear-- Read on...

  by Sean F. Keating on December 13 2004
    30+ helpful votes

  I almost always shake my head in disbelief when I see some of the reviews (like 'lefty intellectuals'). It is disturbing, yes, but one must imagine all the people out there watching Hannity and listening to Limbaugh, thinking that we as a nation are the new Holy Land. Some obviously like the tactic of Michael Savage- meet unwanted truth with vitriol and hatred. Wake up people. Not every theory out there about the evilization of the American agenda is wrong (many are for various reasons) but history - verifiable history is precious hard to argue against. I have several friends in other countries who tell a very different story from the one OUR media is feeding us. Their media outlets have no profitary or regulatory stake in telling the story through American eyes. In the case of Mr Johnson's work, there is undeniable mastery of history, and expert research to form his opinions. Taken as a whole with the events of the last 6 decades, it becomes exceedingly difficult to deny that something is wrong. That is especially true in witness to the past 20 years; there is an acceleration in progress, I think. I liken it to the experience one has when one finds out (through experience) that "happily ever after" is by-and-large a fairy tale. No, this is not fun stuff to read. It is sickening. Imagine the veterans of our last righteous war (WWII) and what some of them are now seeing, and keeping in mind Eisenhower's farewell address, and noting that we as a nation have living memory of the way we once were. Get in the time machine and witness the rising nationalism of Nazi Germany, and the suppression of dissent that enabled it. Never forget that the Nazis were ELECTED to office, and how the citizens were enthusiastic supporters of fascism until they were forced to enter the concentration camps to witness the horror their complicity helped to create. Still in the face of that, there were those who denied it happened. I, or anyone else cannot know what consequence could result from this nation's transformation to Imperialism and Empire, but the people of 1930's Germany could not forsee that, either. In this time and this nation, I don't know if it is true that only some form of revolution can right our course, but I do know that the neverending procession of reelection must end. That can only happen if, and when, truth wins out over propaganda. This book is one good place to start.

• 18) the end of the dream is in sight

  by William F Harrison on February 17 2004
    30+ helpful votes

  These United States were created by those who wrote, signed and ratified our constitution well over 200 years ago. George Washington was the first of a handful of generals ever elected to the presidency and Dwight D. Eisenhower was the last. Both these warriors bequeathed to posterity a signal warning concerning militarism in their farewell addresses. Washington addressed the dangers of a large standing army and Eisenhower warned of our burgeoning military industrial complex. In the 1960s and again in the 1980s, an Arkansas Cassandra named J. William Fulbright, once chairman of the Senate Foriegn Relations Committee back when that position meant something, wrote two prescient books, the first called "The Price Of Empire" and the second one called "The Arrogance Of Power." Now along comes Chalmers Johnson to expand on all these works and show us just how close we are to losing our democratic republic because we have lost our way. The American nation and its people have long refused to see where the militarists now in almost total control of the machinery of our government have been taking us over the last sixty years. Once upon a time, we could rationalize our government's anti-democratic acts and blatent militarism by citing the very real danger posed by cruel and well armed dictatorships in the former USSR and China. No longer do we have that excuse. But today, as Johnson makes very clear with an extensively documented tome, the most reactionary and dangerous administration this country has ever been cursed with is in almost complete control of our economy, the media, both houses of congress, and a majority of the Supreme Court. These now captive institutions - acting in concert with an evermore out-of-control military and armaments industry - present the greatest danger to our freedoms, and to the founding American values responsible for what has been the most remarkable experiment in self-government the world has ever seen. Johnson illuminates the almost unbelievable extent that the professional military and its incestuous relationship with the American armaments industry are now under the control of an evermore powerful and repressive far right wing political reality. Once Rome was a republic blessed with an alert and politically active citizenry. Rome never achieved the degree of freedom for all its populace that we have enjoyed for so long because the title of "citizen" was not bestowed on all its inhabitants. But when the Roman citizens relinquished to the Cesears and their Praetorian Guard the right to control almost all of Roman life, Rome's citizens became slaves to an evermore dominating dictatorship and its evermore powerful war machine. Johnson explores just how far down this road we have traveled, reading the sign posts along the way. Perhaps we've not yet reached the awful sign that says "You have passed the point of no return", but Johnson clearly indicates, and I firmly believe, we must be getting very close. Don't read this book unless you intend to vote to take your country back by electing to high national office men and women who will honor our nation's history and its values.
  This will be a very disturbing book for many of you who have had your heads in the proverbial sand for the past 50 years. I would give it six stars had I them available. wfh

• 19) Rips the Curtain Hiding America's Tenuous Future

  by Robert S. Clark on March 02 2004
    30+ helpful votes

  I have read THE SORROWS OF EMPIRE cover to cover twice now, and will probably do so again. It is an excellent scholarly work of vast analytical proportion and has expanded my own world view considerably. I am very grateful for the opportunity to have read this work. Until I retired, I was an insider and mid-level executive in a variety of American institutions: the Air Force, money center banking, law, securities, financial consulting to municipalities, etc. I, too, have had the blinders pulled from my eyes a number of times by events around me in which I played minor, but knowledgeable parts. Never was I able to arrange the patchwork of pieces into the rigorous, intellectual framework this book accords. I recommend it very highly.

• 20) Handwriting on the wall....

  by S. A Troutt on October 14 2004
    30+ helpful votes

  This book, in many ways, was an unwelcome but eye opening slap in the face. Just weigh these facts for a minute, the second largest military budget in the world, Russia's, is 14 % ...FOURTEEN PERCENT.. of the U.S military budget. The U S military budget is equal to the next 28 ...TWENTY EIGHT countries. And those figures do no include Intelligence budgets or in fact the ongoing cost of Iraqi wars at all.
  U S bases abroad, it easier to list the countries that do not have a U S 'Military Presence' than the ever lengthening list that are strong armed into providing them. Think Japan, Okinawa, South Korea, Germany etc., they simply don't want us there. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, the bases there are virtual fortresses to protect the U S soldiers from the population they are theoretically there to "protect".
  This book pulls no punches, the U S is generally perceived abroad now as an economic and military bully, an Imperialistic Power that no longer obeys any rules of international or national law in the pursuit of its own agendas. To quote Pogo, "We have met the enemy and he is us."
  There is a conscious parallel drawn to the decline of the Roman Republic and the founding of the Roman Empire. History does have a way of repeating itself.
  It is very disquieting what a slippery slope we now find ourselves on, the irony of the subjugation of the basic civil liberties at home - the Patriot Act makes a travesty of the Bill of Rights, to bring "Democracy" to the people of Iraq and Afghanistan.
  While the still ongoing 'hunt' for Osama Bin Laden has managed to create a network of bases that also just happens to encircle most of the world's proven oil supplies seems almost cynical beyond comprehension.
  Chalmers Johnson clearly fears the power of the Military Industrial complex that, in his opinion, permeates the very fabric of the American government. Both this book and his earlier one 'Blowback' takes a harsh view of the unholy partnership (revolving door, basically) between the military and the industries that support and supply them - Dick Cheney is just the most notable (or the most flagrant).
  So the fact that this book is a bitter pill to swallow for most readers is not surprising. That we have seemingly sown the seeds of our own distruction leaves a sour tang when the book is finished. Hubris is not pretty.
  
  

• 21) Excellent counter-point to Friedman

  by Aaron Ping on April 24 2006
    30+ helpful votes

  Johnson's work is a necessary and counter-balancing discussion of globalization. Before reading this book, I read "The Lexus and Olive tree" by Thomas Friedman. Anyone who's read Friedman will be familiar with his argument that globalization is good, all the time, for everyone, and that anyone who does not embrace this inevitable trend is a moron and doomed to poverty and irrelevence.
  
  Johnson points out the fallacies in this argument and shows how the concept of globalization is really just a cover for continued economic dominance by Western powers. He then makes a strong case for how the US has reverted back from a temporary focus on economic dominance, after the end of the cold war, to a militaristic one.
  
  The only downside to this book is the Johnson overdoes it a bit in bouts of overzealousness. These rants tend to weaken his case rather than strengthen it.
  
  In fairness, Friedman's rants are based on far, far less evidence (although they are far more entertaining too!). This is probably because Friedman is a journalist, and a better writer while Johnson is a scientist, and a much better analyst.

• 22) Amazing..

  by MADC on February 04 2005
    30+ helpful votes

  As a third world citizen, sometimes I don't know what to think when I read a book like this. We have a saying in spanish when somebody mentions or makes a statement about something that has been widely known for a long time...we say that this person making the statement had just "discovered how to make hot water"... It is hard to believe that all this is unknown for the general american public. It is really amazing. For us, Mr. Johnson had just discovered how to "make hot water", but for the american people it seems not...it seems that a great proportion of the american people( almost always misinformed) are getting to know about these issues for the first time. And I do believe it is so, because people in general are good. Not only americans , but people of the world are good and want to live in a decent and honest way . No matter that we third world citizens are almost always presented in your films ( also part of the propaganda war) as drug dealers, terrorists, prostitutes or subhumans with no family values.
  I think that what Mr. Johnson describes in his book is nothing new ( with minor variations) from a historical perspective. This path for empire building has been traveled before a lot of times by a lot of countries with known final results. It is also a feature of the human soul to try to dominate and rule and most of all,to feel superior to others. That is the way of the world.
  The sad point now is that the amount of resources being employed in this empire building effort, could be employed in other kind of projects. Projects that would bring prosperity to a lot of people worldwide and as a by-product make the USA the leader of the world that it should be...a leader for justice and equality. This would make the world a better place for all. But ..this is just wishful thinking.
  Anyway, books like this are important as they contribute to the general knowledge of what is happening and why.
  
  
  
  

• 23) Nemesis looming

  by Andrew S. Rogers on February 27 2004
    30+ helpful votes

  I'm worried about my ability to do this important book justice. It's at various time enraging, astonishing, and depressing ... and always enlightening. It makes connections and draws together pieces I had never seen as a whole before. It's probably one of the most significant books I've read in several years.
  
  Chalmers Johnson is relentless in describing the rise of characteristic aspects of militarism in the United States and showing how the rise of an American Empire is undermining what remains of our Constitutional republic. And while many writers are employing the word "empire" these days, Johnson builds a solid case, with historical parallels, for the precise application of the term to the situation we face today.
  
  Far more than the old Eisenhower definition of "the military-industrial complex," the American Empire is a web of military power, industrial and trade dominance, media influence, domestic pork-barrel politics, international arm-twisting, and more. And while the Bush Administration has made the military unilateralism more evident than before, Johnson shows how its roots thread solidly through the Clinton years as well, and back several generations. His chronicle of America's increasing military presence in bases across the globe, and the arrogance with which we built this imperial archipelago, is itself very disturbing.
  
  Some may criticize Johnson for his book's gloomy outlook and its substantive lack of a "what can we do about it?" element. But at the risk of sounding self-righteous, there are still so very many people who need to wake up and see the picture Johnson is painting. So long as Americans remain kirbywildered (to coin a term perhaps understandable by Seattle talk-radio listeners) by avowals of American exceptionalism and military triumphalism, it's enough to do all we can to help Johnson's message, and that of others like him, be heard and understood.
  
  Read this book. You may not like it. You may not agree with it. But you need to see how he's put the pieces together and decide how you're going to respond.

• 24) Only a Few Dare Call It Empire

  by R. Hutchinson on March 08 2004
    20+ helpful votes

  Chalmers Johnson is one of the few willing to call the Empire an Empire. The U.S. Empire is nothing new -- after the initial period of imperialism which involved defeating Spain and seizing her colonies (opposed by Mark Twain and the Anti-Imperialist League), the decisive moment was victory in WWII and the establishment of a planetary network of military bases. Since then "the sun has never set on the American Empire."

  Noam Chomsky has been pointing this out for years, of course. What is quite important and was obscured during the so-called "Cold War" is that opposition to Empire comes not only from the Left but also the Right. Johnson is a nationalist, and a reflection of this most interesting phenomenon. It is big business, multinational corporate capital, that benefits from the Empire, while the sons and daughters of working people do the soldiering for the Legions (the Oil Police). So all of us, regardless of ideology, who are not wealthy or Thomas Friedman have reason to oppose Empire.

  The point is, what to do about it? For now, the obvious goal is to remove Bush and the neoconservatives. The Democrats will basically get us back to "a kinder Empire" and/or "a smarter Empire," but realistically that's all we can hope to accomplish for the moment. Don't let the opportunity pass -- real lives hang in the balance! For a solid argument that supporting Nader or other third party presidential candidates is not the way to go, see "Changing the Powers That Be" by G. William Domhoff (see my review).

• 25) Interesting book, and disturbing

  by J. A Schmidt-Davis on August 09 2004
    20+ helpful votes

  A 'must-read' for people who want to think about where we are and where we may be headed as a nation in the next decade or so. As much as there is a lot of Bush-bashing in this book, I'd like to point out that Clinton does not get a free-ride either. Lots of food for thought.
  
  Johnson compared the US to Rome, but missed another ancient democracy/empire with even more disturbing similarities - Athens.

• 26) America's Preeminence

  by Jim Wilder on December 29 2006
    20+ helpful votes

  
  
  Sorrows of Empire a thought provoking book and a counterpoint to the Friedman's The World is Flat, and Barnett's The Pentagon's New Map (both excellent books also).
  
  Johnson suggests that US militarism and imperialism (e.g. military bases
  throughout the world) will lead to 4 sorrows:
  
  1) perpetual war - leading to more terrorism against Americans wherever
  they may be an a growing reliance on WMD among smaller nations as they try
  to object to US imperialism
  2) Loss of democracy and constitutional rights as the presidency
  skirts Congress and as both are influenced by the Pentagon
  3) Truthfulness will increasingly be replaced by a system of propaganda,
  disinformation, and glorification of war, power, and the military.
  4) Bankruptcy, as we pour our economic resources into every more grandiose
  military projects and divert capital from the free market, and shortchange
  education, health and safety.
  
  
  Johnson states that American triumphalists, including Robert Gates, convinced the US public that the demise of the USSR was a great American victory, but the actual collapse of the USSR into the CIS was due to economics (Freidman and Barnett make that same point). The Pentagon, rather than restructuring and demobilizing after their major Cold War enemy folded, has looked for other areas to justify its budgets (e.g. B2 bomber, the Joint Strike Fighter, and nuclear programs). The Pentagon is now involved in the war on drugs, the war on terror, and overt and covert preventive interventions throughout the world. In a change that has nearly been unnoticed, US foreign policy has shifted from civilian control to military policy control, and now the US is acting as a law unto itself, withdrawing from treaties and disparaging international cooperation.
  
  This book was published in 2004, well before the current situation due to the Iraqi war venture could have been predicted, and Johnson's predictions are prescient: he describes the worst case for Iraq as sectarian violence and civil strife.
  
  Johnson makes the case that a revolution in US relations with the 'rest of the world' occurred between 1989 (the fall of the Berlin wall) and 2002. Foreign policy gave way to military expansionism: permanent bases and airfields, espionage listening posts, and strategic enclaves on every continent. This is militarism - because US national security does not depend on this expansion. He states the armed services have put their institutional preservation ahead of national security, and in the first chapter he draws historical parallels with the Roman empire, which fell to barbarians because it couldn't afford to sustain its far-flung outposts.
  
  Johnson states the 4th Amendment should protect the US citizens' right to privacy and prevent unreasonable searches, but that is not the case. He argues the government has systematically been violating our privacy - and this was before the controversy of the Foreign Intel Surveillance Court broke in 2005, before Gen Hayden was appointed to the NSA.
  
  Johnson quotes Jefferson, "that when the government fears the people, there is liberty; when the people fear the government, there is tyranny."
  
  The SoE describes that militarism, going beyond what is needed for national security, damages globalism and international relationships by taking capital resources from the free market forces, reallocating money, talent, and resources to the military which is not responsive to real forces of supply and demand, and which is responsive to crony capitalism and false claims of effectiveness.
  
  Some of Johnson's assertions bear further explanation: e.g. on pg. 287, he cites Immanuel Wallerstein's `world systems theory', but this concept is not described. On pg. 70, he asserts that "Most neocons have their roots on the left, not on the right." I would have liked further explanation of this. Johnson, like Chomsky, is very critical of both Democrats and Republicans - he is describing the systemic forces, larger than politics, that are shaping the future of the US. Certainly many of his assessments are opinions which are quite controversial, but these opinions deserve consideration.
  

• 27) Crucial reading for everyone

  by Joseph Cheverie on August 09 2004
    20+ helpful votes

  In the wake of the second Iraq war, there has been a slew of books both in support and arguing against the run-up to the March 2003 invasion. In Sorrows of Empire, Chalmers Johnson takes a look at a buildup of the military-industrial complex that has grown in the US over the past few decades, leading to the militarism and imperialism of the George W. Bush administration.
  
  However, Johnson's book is not limited to criticism of the Bush administration. He also explores the ravaging effects of globalization in the mid-90's during the Clinton administration(which is covered in much more detail in Blowback), and the slow buildup of American bases around the world.
  
  Johnson also argues is that the idea of pre-emptive "preventive war" did not suddenly materialize in the wake of 9/11. This was the result of decades of American bases built up around the world, special interest groups supplanting the voice of the people in Washington, and the rise of the Pentagon as a unilateral institution answerable to no one.
  
  Regardless of where you stand on the Iraq war, I urge everyone to read this book. At the very least, it will inform you of critical informational sources that have rarely-if ever-been reported in the U.S. media on our military activities overseas. Ultimately, it may let us see what our men and women are fighting for, and if it is truly worth it. Our troops deserve our support-so if there is any question about the reasons we go to war, we owe it to the troops to truly look into it to see if the purported reasons of any US administration to send them into war is really worth dying for. Johnson's book is a good place to start looking into the current US imperialism, and hopefully lead to corrective action.

• 28) A Chilling Indictment of Imperial Excess

  by Gianmarco Manzione on February 27 2006
    20+ helpful votes

  Anyone interested in seeing through the smokescreen of newspeak Washington feeds us through our anesthetized mainstream media would be wise to pick up this book, where it is learned, among other things, that Saddam Hussein was one among many CIA-funded hit men who participated in several U.S.-backed coup attempts on the government of Abdel-Karim Kassem, who legalized the communist party in Iraq when he took power there in the 1950s--provoking the disdain of the insidious and powerful Allen Dulles at the CIA. Mr. Johnson's inquiry into the underhanded history of U.S. relations with Iraq and Saudi Arabia is as chilling as it is revealing. A uniquely disturbing vibe pervades Johnson's book that never once allows the reader to indulge the kind of willfully ignorant denial in which so many find comfort.
  
  Mr. Johnson's consistent indifference to partisan platitudes lends a refreshing credibility to his book. Indicting Democratic and Republican administrations alike, Johnson digs deep into the rapacious efficiency of the military industrial complex. As we know from the book "Devil's Game"-- Richard Dreyfuss's excellent investigation into the history of U.S. collusion with fundamental Islam--President Kennedy eventually became complicit in Washington's disdain for Nasser's nationalist movement in Egypt during the 1950s, an ideology not entirely compliant with Western corporate interests and over which Hussein and his CIA-backed army triumphed in Iraq. Similarly, we learn that Lyndon Banes Johnson's entire political career was funded in no small part by Kellog, Brown & Root, a major provider of logistical support to the U.S. military that was eventually headed by Dick Cheney years after Halliburton acquired the company in 1962. Suddenly, LBJ's virulent insistence on continued escalation in Vietnam makes a lot more sense.
  
  Under Cheney's direction after he left the Defense Dept. in 1992, Johnson writes that "Brown & Root took in $2.3 billion in government contracts" and that "as late as 1998 and 1999, when Dick Cheney was still president of the Halliburton company . . . it sold Saddam some $23.8 million of oil-field equipment." Johnson goes on to speculate that "perhaps Bush Junior's obsession with Iraq, according to this line of thought, was his desire to seize its oil." This is the same Cheney that worked tirelessly to pressure top CIA officials to reverse their finding that Iraq had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks. When it comes to the profits of war and the establishment of political environments around the world that ensure those profits, partisan affiliations take a back seat to business, and suddenly the Kennedys, Johnsons, Cheneys and Bushes all melt into the same stewing pot. It is a pot that Robert Higgs, senior fellow in political economy at the Independent Institute, describes as " a vast cesspool of mismanagement, waste, and transgressions . . . often entering deeply into criminal conduct."
  
  None of this has anything to do with politics--politics is merely the pawn--this game is only about installing governments around the world that are willing to import Western free-market imperialism. Johnson focuses predominantly on one major aspect of this strategy: the establishment and maintenance of bases whose utility died with wars long over. Especially frightening is Johnson's discussion of "a new, highly secret air base" currently under construction in Oman that will "accomodate the most advanced American bombers, fighters, and cargo aircraft." The base is situated in a region and location perfectly suitable to impending conflict with Iran, and Johnson concludes that "this American buildup in Oman would be a sign of hostile intent toward Iran." Unfortunately, such a conflict is not as unthinkable as many may like to think, as "Iran is now the only serious obstacle to our military domination of the whole region."
  
  Johnson's broad and informed historical perspective sheds light on the way in which U.S. military profits and power are manipulated to serve corporate avarice, often under the guise of humanitarian intervention (sound familiar?). Johnson's scholarship allows him to lend facts and clarity to wide-spread suspicions about the truth behind official rhetoric. In short: it really IS about oil, and Johnson's refusal to assign this reality to any political party in particular makes for an impeccably balanced and therefore all-the-more disturbing argument. Linking Bush Senior's oil interests to drilling programs just off the shores of Kuwait by Pennzoil, the oil company from which Bush senior began to gather his vast fortune in the early 1960s, Johnson recasts the first Gulf War under a sobering light in which we realize that we had a president who used our military to protect his private business interests while feeding the masses bubble gum stories about freedom and democracy.
  
  These revelations are merely the tip of the iceberg. "The Sorrows of Empire" is a devastating book that distinguishes itself from other, similar tracts by haunting the reader with an unshakable fear and fury. It is a book that every American should read, one that allows us to look at the facts while distancing ourselves from the emotional, ill-informed and knee-jerk inanity that passes for political debate in this country.
  
  Visit my blog at http://culturespill.com/
  

• 29) DEMOCRACY AS WE KNOW IT

  by G. L. Rowsey on March 05 2004
    20+ helpful votes

  Chalmers Johnson's The Sorrows of Empire is a title of the American Empire Project, whose authors in addition to Johnson include Noam Chomsky and Michael Klare. The Project's website homepage asks simply, "How did we get to this point? And what lies down the road?" Dating the American Empire's birth as 1898, Johnson provides highly discomforting answers to those questions, from the viewpoint of a leftist military-analyst academic. I would date the birth on July 16, 1945, but Johnson's views are eminently justified, and Sorrows is an excellent and much-needed book. It is written in clear and lively declarative sentences, which will make it a fast read even for non-intellectual readers. In sum, Johnson's outlook and information may literally change minds about the subjects he discusses. So I give his book five stars. Nonetheless, I see no basis for Johnson's optimism when he writes that Congress could still turn the country around. It's already too late. The American Empire, aka Democracy As We Know It, will be stuffed down the planet's throat like it or not until the Empire goes bankrupt, which could be quite a while.
  
  Sorrows is a gold mine of interesting historical and sociological information, and readers with open minds will find their own most absorbing sections. Chapter 8 - Iraq Wars -- recalled for me that the "no-fly zones" over Iraq were creations of the U.S. government and never sanctioned by the United Nations. Oh, well. What's a United Nations? Chapter 8 also occasioned a connection in my mind which the book's author did not make. Many have wondered why Bush-1 did not push on to Baghdad and capture Saddam Hussein or have him murdered in 1991. Well sure, for more than one reason, Bush-1 wanted to set up all those American bases in the Persian Gulf outside Saudi Arabia. Having a live and still "threatening" Saddam Hussein made accomplishing that objective much easier.
  
  Johnson says the American Empire is notable for being based on military bases instead of the occupation of territory. And he identifies five sorrows of empire, the first being "racism" on p28. Rightly, the author says racism is inherent in the attitudes required to dominate other cultures militarily. The other four sorrows Johnson lists almost 260 pages later. They are a state of perpetual war, the loss of domestic democracy, destruction of public truthfulness, and finally financial bankruptcy. ....'tis true 'tis pity; And pity 'tis 'tis true....So expect now endlessly continuing and unabashed military-expenditure-based crony (for family and friends) capitalism and whatever mutant forms of domestic governance are required to sustain it. Chickens a-la-Marcos coming home to roost, as it were. Evidently, apart from successfully deluding themselves into believing our military is a relatively invulnerable twenty-first century electronically-controlled exercise, the Empire's leaders' greatest feat to date is their amazing impersonations of the caudillo crooks they propped up around the globe - with arms and clandestine state-terrorism programs for repressing communists and their sympathizers - throughout the cold war. Regrettably for the rest of the world and regrettably for America, Democracy As We Know It is unlikely to fade away in our lifetimes like the Soviets' control of much of the Asian land mass did.

• 30) A must-read for all Americans

  by Che Junior on October 19 2004
    20+ helpful votes

  When I finished this book, I felt a combination of fear and anger. Fear becauase of growing anti-Americanism--which is well-dserved--thoughout the world. Anger beause of the ideology and exploitation (of other coutries) that has driven several administrations, climaxing in the Bush Adminstration. I love the way Johnson organized this book. The chapters are not only pertinent to today's events, but they progress in a fashion that makes previous chapters that much more meaningful. A great read!

• 31) Doomed to repeat it

  by Grilch on January 30 2005
    20+ helpful votes

  OK, Dr. Johnson is considered a bit of a lefty but Americans of all political stripes ignore this book at their peril. You may disagree with his conclusions but critics can't escape the fact of history that all empires fall and they fall hard. What? There's no American empire you say? Just because we have no actual "colonies"? Because we use our might to "liberate" people (especially those who have oil beneath their borders)? Wake up. This book taught me that the U.S. has a bigger military that the next 12 biggest militaries COMBINED and we have got bases in every corner of the globe where we stand ready to unilaterally impose our will on any nation that displeases us. If that doesn't fit your definition of a global empire, I'm dying to know what would.
  
  This book lays bare the extent to which the U.S. government (Republicans AND Democrats) have squandered our tax dollars on a vast global military network that has turned the U.S. into a hated playground bully (OK, maybe we'll help a tsunami victim or two every now and then). No wonder we are making enemies faster than we can kill them. What's most disturbing about the book is how pessimistic Johnson is about the prospects for us reversing course. Let's stop this nonsense and start building a great nation from the inside out. Read this book to discover just how difficult this task will be.

• 32) sorrows of empire

  by Pam Thyer on March 17 2006
    10+ helpful votes

  as an Australian with many American friends, I never-the-less recognise the arrogance of American imperialism and the seeming disinterest in other nations' culture. The Sorrows of Empire is not an anti American rant. Every American should read this book written by a distinguished US historian. Most US citizens consider their country to be benevolent and are shocked to know much of the world feels otherwise. Chalmers Johnson explains the costs of power and gives a warning to those who should take heed.

• 33) Dogs May Fight Amongst Themselves, But Against the Wolf...

  by Serene"Queen"Irene on August 21 2005
    10+ helpful votes

  ...They Must Fight as One. There is clearly something wrong with a country whose young people have nothing to look forward to but higher and higher taxes to pay for war after war after war. The difficulty in identifying the ROOT problem is that people with a liberal bent are inclined to see part of it, people who are more conservative see another part of it, and liberals and conservatives don't trust the information and insights each has for the other.
  
  I can't imagine that the Founders, so concerned that an ELECTED Congress would have such a significant share in the balance of US governmental power, would be fans of the United Nations. I was surprised and delighted however, to see someone from academia writing a relatively nonpartisan book: Republicans and Democrats alike are exposed as the scoundrels they've been.
  
  Chalmers Johnson has written a book (detailing the roots of imperialism going back to the Spanish American war and the post WWI provocation of Japan) that wouldn't have been accepted by most of the Great Generation. One of the deepest sorrows of empiricism is the fact that the simple, honest patriotism of our parents and grandparenst was so CYNICALLY taken advantage of by the military-industrial complex. The time is right though, to identify those who have been getting "war-rich" for the last 110 years, and to put their gravy train back in the roundhouse until CONGRESS properly uses its Constitutionally granted power to bring it out again. And it's not just the warmongers who are making the US citizens personae non grata around the world. The chapter on how third world countries were strong-armed to adopt economically self-destructive policies by the World Bank will be sure to rattle a few "humanitarian" cages as well.
  
  Chalmers didn't pay much attention to a key principle of ancient Roman empirical "success"---Divide and Conquer. I hope he will in a future book. Without U.S. citizens (and freedom-loving friends around the world) being wise to the way this scheme is being used domestically, there is no way this Empire can be turned into a Republic again.

• 34) An Outstanding book

  by Thomas Glynn on October 04 2004
    10+ helpful votes

  Chalmers Johnson writes a book that is revealing as well as foreboding about the future of America. The author explains how America became and is an empire, what the consequences of being an empire are, and the sad fate that all empires meet. This is an outstanding book that I highly recommend to read.