Hegemony Everywhere but at Home

What explains the fantastic amount of resources that Americans have thrown into combating a nonexistent Muslim threat to the United States, while acquiescing to decades-long encroachment by illegal aliens?

According to economic and budgetary experts, the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq will cost Americans in excess of $3 trillion. And that might only be the beginning. Currently, the U.S. military is violating Pakistan's sovereignty by conducting military strikes within Pakistan's borders, and the political regime in Washington, pushed by its Israeli overlord, has been preparing the American people for an attack on Iran.

Meanwhile, Southern California has been lost to Mexico, and Texas, Arizona and New Mexico are not far behind. Indeed, there are now large Mexican communities almost everywhere in the United States.

How in the face of the facts did the American political mind get focused on a fabricated threat half a world away while being blinded to the cultural loss of vast chunks of U.S. territory? Is the "war on terror" a distraction from the silent invasion that is transforming the United States?

In Los Angeles County, 5.1 million people speak English; 3.9 million speak Spanish. Forty percent of all workers in Los Angeles County are illegals working for cash. Two-thirds of births in Los Angeles County are to illegal Mexicans.

Some people accept what they regard as the inevitable return of the Southwest to the peoples from whom white immigrants stole it. But what this argument leaves unexplained is why the U.S. government is so much more determined to impose its hegemony abroad than within its own borders.

In the United States, internal security is focused entirely on the airports. It is American citizens who are accosted, strip-searched and abused. The airport security Gestapo is proud that there have been "only" 110,000 complaints from mistreated airline passengers.

Airport security claims to have "screened" 2 billion airline passengers, but the U.S.

government cannot keep 1 million to 2 million illegals from crossing illegally into the United States each year.

Neoconservative propagandists and their dupes exclaim, "We have to fight them over there before they come over here." But between the U.S. and Muslim countries there are many national borders and wide oceans.

Moreover, no Muslim organizations exist that lay claim to territory within the 50 U.S. states.

There are organizations of Mexicans that claim the U.S. Southwest. Shall we invade Mexico to keep them from coming here?

The mindlessness of those who say "we have to fight them over there" is apparent. The American invasion of Iraq has displaced millions of Iraqis, many of whom will find their way "over here." Without the invasion of Iraq, hardly any would have found their way "over here."

I sometimes wonder if Americans have enough sense to justify their continued existence as an independent country.

Americans have proven themselves to be incapable of dealing with any threat unless it can be hyped as a terrorist one.

If the loss during the Bush regime of 3 million U.S. manufacturing jobs were attributed to terrorism, Americans would get riled up.

If the inability of American college graduates to find jobs in the technical and scientific areas in which they are educated were the consequence of a terrorist plot, outraged Americans would demand action.

If the erosion of U.S. civil liberties were due to an Osama bin Laden plot, something would be done about it.

As it is, no real American problem can be faced, because the neoconservatives and the interest groups that they serve have Americans bamboozled about the "terrorist threat" from people in distant lands, who had rather fight one another, and who have no way of reaching Americans except through the troops that we place on their territory or as displaced persons on U.S. immigrant visas.

While the Empire seeks hegemony over distant lands, it is losing its hegemony within its own borders. But before we get all worked up over it, does anyone think the Mexicans would produce worse political leadership than what we have now?

To find out more about Paul Craig Roberts, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.

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