By Andrew Gavin Marshall
The Hampton Institute | News Analysis - Tuesday, 08 October 2013
The first part of this essay series on 'Empire Under Obama' aims
to establish some fundamental premises of modern imperialism, or what is
often referred to as 'international relations,' 'geopolitics', or
'foreign policy.' The author draws upon Noam Chomsky's suggestion of
understanding international relations as the application of 'Mafia
Principles' to foreign policy. Future parts to this
series will
examinine the manifestation of empire in recent years.
On August 21, the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad was accused of
using chemical weapons on its own population, prompting Western
countries - led by the United States - to declare their intention to
bomb Syria to somehow save it from itself. The reasons for the declared
intention of launching air strikes on Syria was to punish the Syrian
government, to uphold international law, and to act on the
'humanitarian' values which the West presumably holds so dear.
George Orwell discussed this in his 1946 essay, Politics and the English Language, written two years prior to the publication of 1984.
In his essay, Orwell wrote that, "the English language is in a bad way"
and that language is ultimately "an instrument which we shape for our
own purposes." The decline of language, noted Orwell, "must ultimately
have political and economic causes... It becomes ugly and inaccurate
because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language
makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts." Still, Orwell
suggested, "the process is reversible."[1] To reverse the process, however, we must first understand its application and development.
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