The U.S. government acts like the cop of the world. It claims that when it wages war, it is protecting people. Politicians do their best to mask U.S. military violence in the language of humanitarian intervention and the promotion of democracy. But just like cops, the real role of the U.S. military in the world is to protect the wealth of the banks and corporations. There is no limit to the extent of the violence that the U.S. military uses to do this. Shock and awe bombing of entire cities, bridges, roads, napalm in villages, torture, killing millions of innocent civilians – the U.S. military is the cop of the world, using violence to protect a system of domination and exploitation.
Policing the entire planet requires a lot of money and resources. Today the U.S. spends about 50 percent of the entire federal budget on the military, about $1.3 trillion dollars per year – more than the military spending of all other countries in the world combined. This puts the sheer force of the U.S. military, in terms of aircrafts and armaments, vastly ahead of the rest of the world. The U.S. government has 900 military bases in 150 countries around the world. In addition it maintains a massive spy network, as has been revealed by Wikileaks, Chelsea Manning, and Edward Snowden.
In the last decade, in addition to the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. government has carried out military strikes in Pakistan, Yemen, Mali, Sudan, Somalia, Libya and other countries, all under the banner of the so-called “war on terror.” The Obama administration has openly admitted it has created “kill lists,” assassinating individuals all over the world, including at least four U.S. citizens, one of whom was a 16-year old boy murdered by a drone strike in Yemen. Drone strikes have been used in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Pakistan, Libya and other countries. The majority of people killed in these strikes are innocent bystanders, often children. This is the cop of the world saying openly – “we have the right to assassinate whoever we deem a threat to our interests – and we are doing it.”
And now the U.S. has begun dropping bombs once again on the people of Iraq and now Syria. The military spokespeople exaggerate the accuracy of their so-called smart bombs. Already Human Rights Watch has reported civilian deaths in most of the airstrikes – sometimes killing only civilians.
The fundamental task of the U.S. military is to defend the political and economic interests of a class – the capitalist class of the United States, who own and control the vast wealth and resources of the world. This requires brutal force. It is not done to help or defend people, or for any of the other excuses which the politicians make. This policing of the world is just an extension of a system of imperial domination which ensures the profits of banks and corporations. This system is responsible for terrorizing and killing millions of people all over the world – and the U.S. military stands at the head of this violence and terror.
