The Three Who Made War

The Three Who Made War Paul Craig Roberts Infowars.com March 24, 2014

The Spanish-American War was caused by three people: Teddy Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge, and William Randolph Hearst. The war, which killed a number of Spaniards and Americans, including some prominent Harvard “Swells,” was based entirely on lies and machinations of these three men and served no purpose other than their personal needs. Princeton University historian Evan Thomas calls these three monsters The War Lovers.

Hearst needed a war to build his newspaper circulation. Roosevelt needed a war to sate his blood-lust and desire for military glory. Lodge needed a war to reinvigorate American manhood and to enlist American manhood in his “Large Policy” of American Empire. Between them, thanks to the ignorance and stupidity of the American people, they pulled it off.

Their adversary was Speaker of the House, Thomas Brackett Reed, “the Czar,” the most powerful politician in Washington. Reed, an honest and incorruptible politician, saw Lodge’s policy of “American exceptionalism” as naked imperialism that stood in total opposition and in great danger to American purposes. Reed saw Roosevelt’s war lust as a diversion of national purpose from the reconstruction of an economy that increasingly served a shrinking minority at the expense of the American people. But Hearst, Roosevelt, and Lodge made “peace” an epithet. The American people, whose gullibility is never-ending, were captivated by war-lust. Reed lost confidence in the American people whom he so well served. Reed could find no moral purpose in pushing the country toward war over nothing but fake news reports by “yellow journalism.”

Only a few years previously, Reed had had to halt the Cleveland administration from going to war with Great Britain over a British boundary dispute with Venezuela concerning mineral-rich land claimed by British Guyana. Somehow this boundary dispute, which had no more to do with US security than Honduras, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, Georgia, Ukraine, and the South China Sea have today, was seen as a “threat to US national security.”

Roosevelt and Lodge were ecstatic over the possibility of War with Great Britain. War was its own goal. Roosevelt wrote to Lodge: “I don’t care whether our sea coast cities are bombarded or not; we would take Canada.” Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, hard facts prevailed over American war lust. The American navy had 3 battleships. The British had 50. If only Washington had gone to war with Great Britain over a British boundary dispute with Venezuela. The total destruction of the American navy and coastal cities might have taught Americans a lesson and made the population less lustful for war and more suspicious of Washington’s war lies: the Gulf of Tonkin, Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, Iranian nukes, Assad’s use of chemical weapons, Russian invasion of Crimea, etc.

Roosevelt and Lodge searched for a weaker adversary than the British navy and settled on Spain.

But how to bring about a war with a declining and tired 400-year old empire far removed from American interests?

Hearst, desperate to sell newspapers, knew what to do. He hired the artist, Frederic Remington, a painter and sculptor much worshipped by American conservatives today. Remington provided a drawing, filling half of the front page of Hearst’s New York Journal, of a comely nude young woman surrounded by sinister Spaniards. Hearst alleged that three lady passengers on the US mail steamer Olivette were strip-searched in the Harbor of Havana, Cuba, by leering Spanish males.

America had a rare moment of rational thought and philosophical reflection during the brief period of its Founding Fathers. Ever since America has been a country of pulp romances and court histories written as “chivalric derring-do.” Hearst asked where were the knightly American males who would rescue womankind from these indignities at the hands of cruel, wanton, Spaniards.

Hearst repeated the story with Evangelina Cisneros, “a beautiful young woman from the gentlest of families.” In Hearst’s story Evangelina went to the Island of Pines to beg for her elderly father’s release from the cruel Spaniards. As she resisted the sexual advances of the leering Spanish prison commander, she was thrown into a squalid prison for prostitutes.

Having created his heroine, Hearst rushed to rescue her. Hearst hired the son of a Confederate cavalry colonel, Karl Decker, to rescue the fair lady. Thousands of words were printed to describe Decker’s daring rescue, but what really happened is that Hearst bribed the Spanish guards to let her go from her comfortable hotel room. Having freed “one Cuban girl,” Hearst wanted to know “when shall we free Cuba.”

Teddy Roosevelt wanted to be the star of the event. Senator Lodge and the American newsman Richard Harding Davis made it so. Teddy charging up the hill, leading the Rough Riders, not urging from behind, defeated the Spanish all by himself and won the war.

What did it mean for the Cubans, a mixed and varied peoples, who had been fighting the Spanish for independence for years before self-righteous, self-serving Americans saw the opportunity to advance their interests and careers?

For Cubans, it meant swapping one master for another.

General William Shafter, the American in charge of the invasion force, declared: “Why these people [Cubans] are no more fit for self-government than gunpowder is for hell!” Calixto Garcia, who had been fighting for thirty years for Cuba’s liberation from Spain, was not allowed to be present when Spain surrendered Cuba. It was purely an American show devoid of the revolutionaries in whose name the war had been fought.

Roosevelt wrote home that the Cubans had fought badly and were not responsible for their liberation from Spain. It was Teddy and his Rough Riders who brought freedom to Cuba. The Teller Amendment passed by Congress in 1898 guaranteeing independence to Cuba was superseded by the Platt Amendment of 1901. The Platt Amendment gave Washington the right to intervene in Cuba whenever Washington pleased.

It finally dawned on Cubans that “civilization,” a word used by Americans, meant “denying the darker races the power to govern.” In 1908 Cubans who had fought against Spain formed an independent political party. They were massacred by the thousands by the Cuban government now more sensitive to pleasing Washington than to the voice of its own people.

The story of American intervention is the same everywhere. American intervention has never benefited any peoples except those allied with Washington and American corporations.

Hearst’s rival in yellow journalism was Joseph Pulitzer, whose name ended up on a prestigious journalism award. Today the entire US print and TV media engage in the yellow journalism of the Hearst/Pulitzer era. Yellow journalism has helped to keep America in wars as nonsensical as the Spanish-American war ever since the 21st century began. The neoconservatives have resurrected Lodge’s “Large Policy” of American imperialism justified by the doctrine of American exceptionalism.

If Americans were to read three history books, they could free themselves from their self-righteous delusions that endanger all life on earth. Those books are: A People’s History of The United States by Howard Zinn, The Untold History of the United States by Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick, and The War Lovers by Evan Thomas.

No one who reads one of these books will ever again believe that the US government in Washington is the “light unto the world,” the “exceptional and indispensable” government that brings “freedom and democracy” to the conquered provinces of the American Empire.

Washington is the home of warmongering self-interested parties that have no concept of compassion or justice and serve only their own power and enrichment. Americans are as indifferent to the populations that their government bombs as Teddy Roosevelt was to the prospect of his own country’s coastal cities being bombarded. As Russia’s President Putin reminded the world on March 18, 2014, the US prefers the rule of the gun to international law.

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. His latest book, The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West is now available.

War Is Becoming A Tough Sell

by Bob Livingston March 24, 2014 Like two bulls preparing to square off over their love interests in the herd, the U.S. government war crowd (and other G8 members) and the Russian government are increasingly stomping the ground and braying with more bellicosity.

After making threats that Russia and Vladimir Putin would suffer “costs” and there would be a “huge price to pay” if Russia annexed Crimea, Putin scoffed. He then proceeded to move toward drawing Crimea further into Russia’s sphere, a move backed by more than 90 percent of all Crimeans.

The first “costs” turned out to be sanctions against a list of Russian lawmakers and oligarchs who are in fact likely Putin rivals rather than Putin allies, as I wrote last week.

One of those “sanctioned” was Yelena Mizulina, who had little to do with Crimea but authored legislation banning homosexual propaganda to Russian minors. Who knew the President Barack Obama homosexual-pushing agenda would extend to Russia?

Putin responded by first falling out of his chair laughing. Then he returned the favor and sanctioned a few U.S. lawmakers and bureaucrats. The sanctions gave psychopaths like Weeper John Boehner and Sen(ile) John McCain — both on the list for Russian sanctions — an opportunity to thump their chests as if they’ve done something to advance the American cause.

Obama promised more sanctions and “economic isolation” for Russia. Putin promised to just exchange the U.S. for other trading partners. This move would be disastrous for the U.S. economy. And it would be equally disastrous for Eastern Europe if Russia cuts off the natural gas it supplies.

Putin’s belligerence and Obama’s response — perceived as weak by the neocon war crowd infesting the Washington, D.C., cesspool — is driving the war hawks insane. They seem to be itching to goad Putin into a shooting war.

Weekly Standard Columnist Bill Kristol — chief propagandist for the U.S. war machine — bemoaned that Americans are war-weary. He believes they just need to be challenged to awaken them from their stupor.

“A war-weary public can be awakened and rallied. Indeed, events are right now doing the awakening.

All that’s needed is the rallying. And the turnaround can be fast,” Kristol wrote. His neocon propaganda rag is doing its dead-level best to lead that turnaround.

But consider that the U.S. has been at war since 1990. There is a generation of young adults who have

never known their Nation at peace. Don’t the American people have a right to be weary of war — especially wars ginned up by Kristol and his neocon brothers on behalf of the banksters and globalists?

It seems Ron Paul may be winning after all. In the past two efforts to drag America into another conflict, the majority of Americans said “No!” Also consider that as the Cold War ended, the U.S. told Russia it would not move NATO into Eastern Europe if Russia would move its troops out. But by 1996, President Bill Clinton was urging NATO to extend full membership to former Warsaw Pact nations in 1999. Every President since then has used NATO to further surround Russia. It is just part of the neocon/globalist effort to encircle Russia and effect regime change throughout the Mideast and North Africa that has been ongoing since the early 1990s.

Consider as well what is behind the war. The U.S. and the EU were trying to drag Ukraine into the EU. Ukraine’s economy was/is faltering. The International Monetary Fund was unhappy with Russiafriendly elected Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, who was rejecting IMF demands to raise taxes and devalue the currency. Newly installed U.S. puppet Arseniy “Yats” Yatsenyuk is a central banker willing to do the IMF’s bidding. He was selected by the U.S., which invested $5 billion to throw Yanukovych from office.

Neocons and the war-loving U.S. media have demonized Putin, claiming he “took” Crimea and plans to take more Russian territory. The people of Crimea, who are mostly Russian, voted overwhelmingly to join Russia. Meanwhile, the U.S. was sacking Ukraine’s gold reserves.

Governments since the Roman Empire have created enemies to use to instill fear in the population so that the people are manipulated into giving more police power over to the government. Politicians always go along with this Machiavellian deception.

There is blatant oppression of the U.S. people now and the U.S. economic system is on the verge of unraveling, so more fear and more war is needed to manipulate the people against their own freedom.

Oh, you know this is true.

The Ukraine situation is a bankster-orchestrated crisis with the short game more money printing and the end game global governance. The U.S. is promising more money to prop up Ukraine’s economy, but

the U.S. can’t even afford to pay its own bills. This will further open the money printing spigots. We are seeing more war propaganda, but we aren’t told the fact that both the U.S. and Russia will use paper money to pay for the war. Paper money benefits the moneyed elites at the expense of the people.

There are two ways that government creates credit. The first is bank credit. This credit expands as long as people “borrow money.” When a debt overload develops, bank credit contracts as the people stop borrowing.

The second way is when the government “pays” credit into circulation through huge social programs or starts a war. When the public mood reverses from euphoria and optimism to despair and depression, bank credit collapses.

As long as the volume of credit is expanding, government and its political system reigns. But an involuntary contraction of credit brings people back to reality after bank credit strips them of their property through debt. The public becomes more hostile toward all government, politicians, authority and taxes.

This is why governments always try to extend the credit machine, even going so far as creating wars.

They really do succeed for a time as they create larger and larger imbalances that always end in a credit collapse, such is now brewing.

There would be no wars without government/banker credit; but even if there were, they would be over quickly. Nobody would pay for wars with gold and silver, not even the government.

Americans may not completely understand all this in their heads. But they know it in their hearts.

IF WE END THE FEDERAL RESERVE WE WOULD STOP THE WARS. THE FEDERAL RESERVE IS FUNDING THE WARS AND THIS WHOLE POLICE STATE END THE FED!

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