The emperor has no clothes

How would you like to live under someone’s boot?

That’s not a reference to a brute for a husband or a bitch for a bride. It’s a question motivated by the behaviour of the mindless louts who enjoy holding sacrificial lambs as hostages and killing those who complain.

Who would be so inhuman? Many. Too many! Scan the histories of imperial criminals and their thieving empires:

European colonies, American settlers, Russian Gulags, African slaves, Japanese internment camps, Jewish holocaust, Palestinians, Darfur refugees, Guantanamo prisoners, South African and Israeli apartheid, Armenian genocide, the prison camps of endless wars.

Where people are privileged enough to have basic comfort, the emperors keep the privileged entertained with sports, television, films, concerts, bars and pubs.

According to journalist Chris Hedges “There are hundreds of millions of people who have a tragic intimacy with the twisted and brutal soul of American imperialism:

“Okinawans, Guatemalans, Cubans, Congolese, Brazilians, Argentines, Indonesians, Iranians, Palestinians, Panamanians, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Filipinos, South Koreans, Taiwanese, Nicaraguans, Salvadorans, Afghans, Iraqis, Yemenis, Somalis.

“There are now some 60,000 Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) operatives, whom the president can dispatch to kill without seeking congressional approval or informing the public.”

No one, apart from the rulers, can really know how many military bases the US has around the world. The estimates range from 700 to more than 1,000 in about 130 countries.

The Department of Defence has been called a charade—like the emperor who has no clothes—as there’s nothing to defend against and no threat of invasion.

There’s always a slogan, however, to keep the population under control. For instance, “The earth should be peopled, governed, and developed, as far as possible, by the races which can do this work best, i.e., by the races of highest ‘social efficiency’.”

Other justifications include the concept of terra nullius (Latin expression which stems from Roman law meaning ‘empty land’) used by both the British and Israeli Zionists.

The favourite American justifying slogans have included “making the world safe for democracy.” During the cold war it was “to make the US unsafe for communism,”

After 9/11, the clarion call has been to win “the war on terrorism.” A few with less than emperor’s circle status have spoken out against the US imperial courts.

The latest have included author John Mortimer’s “A ‘war against terrorism’ is an impracticable conception if it means fighting terrorism with terrorism.”

And Noam Chomsky’s appropriate and timely “Wanton killing of innocent civilians is terrorism, not a war against terrorism.”

Meanwhile, the US is going broke, and there’s nothing the Imperial heads can do about it.

The empire cannot afford to cut back on its major source of homeland revenue—one that cannot be outsourced. If America cuts back on military expenses, the military-industrial complex will go out of business and bankrupt the country.

There’s no connection between the wars waged by the US and the security of America.

The exception: the danger to servicemen in places where they have no business being.

“The Emperor’s New Clothes” is a short tale by Hans Christian Andersen about two weavers who promise an emperor a new suit of clothes that is invisible to those unfit for their positions, stupid, or incompetent.

When the emperor parades before his subjects in his new clothes, a child cries out, “But he isn’t wearing anything at all!”

Choose your weaver wisely, Mr. President.

Paul Balles is a retired American university professor and freelance writer who has lived in the Middle East for many years. He’s a weekly Op-Ed columnist for the GULF DAILY NEWS . Dr. Balles is also Editorial Consultant for Red House Marketing and a regular contributor to Bahrain This Month.