It's becoming more and more evident that the sun is setting on the American empire. America has ruled the world for many decades by the overwhelming power of its military but change is in the air. The people of America are war-weary, the people of the world have had enough of U.S. domination and change is on the way.

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statue of liberty sinking by michael payne
It's becoming more and more evident that the sun is setting on the American empire. America has ruled the world for many decades by the overwhelming power of its military but change is in the air. The people of America are war-weary, the people of the world have had enough of U.S. domination.

The latest sign that this domination over the world is rapidly waning can be found in the almost universal rejection of the Obama administration's plans to attack Syria. While this crisis is far from over, President Obama and his Secretary of State John Kerry, when they tried to rally the people of America, the world community of nations, and the Congress to support their cause, clearly found out that their message fell on deaf ears.

Not only that, but when these two U.S. leaders had, because of their bumbling and inept handling of this situation, virtually painted themselves into a corner with no apparent escape route, all of a sudden out of nowhere Russia's president Vladimir Putin came riding to their rescue. Mr. Putin, certainly no great friend of America or this president, gave them a quick lesson in the use of diplomacy rather than threats of force to arrive at a potential solution to the crisis. He, in effect, bailed the president and Mr. Kerry out of an extremely embarrassing turn of events.

Yes, Mr. Putin stole center stage and came up with a potential way out of this crisis; he apparently convinced the Assad regime that it was time to avoid an attack by making an agreement to allow a designated international body to take control of Syria's supply of chemical weapons and to join the Chemical Weapons Convention, the CWC; this is an arms control agreement which outlaws the production, stockpiling, and use of chemical weapons. That was a master stroke by Mr. Putin that came out of the blue and could not be more welcome in the eyes of the world.

But, during this president's speech to America did he give any credit to Putin for what he had accomplished? Absolutely not, as expected. What he did was to take the credit for himself by indicating that the U.S. show of force was the reason why Assad had finally agreed to give up the chemical weapons and, offhandedly, mentioned that perhaps, a conversation between Putin and himself had helped formulate this outcome.

Now let's talk about the height of hypocrisy this president has shown as he has made his case for an attack. Without supplying any concrete proof of any kind he said that he knew that the Assad regime launched rockets to deliver poisonous gas on civilian neighborhoods, he knew the locations from which they were fired and when they were launched. He knows everything but refuses to show supportive evidence to the American people.

Here's the hypocrisy involved with what he purposely didn't say. He said that chemical weapons had been used in World War I (actually by France, Britain and Germany) and that Nazi Germany had used them in World War II. And then, instead of admitting that the U.S. has used these kinds of weapons in the past, he abruptly stopped. What he conveniently failed to admit was that the U.S. had used chemical weapons, napalm, white phosphorous and Agent Orange that killed massive numbers of innocent civilians in the Vietnam War.

He failed to mention that in the 1980's the U.S. government supplied tactical information to Iraq's Saddam Hussein that this dictator then used to unleash poisonous gasses against Iranian troops in the Iraq/Iran war; and finally, he was completely silent on the fact that this same U.S. military had used depleted uranium in attacks across Iraq and white phosphorous in the virtual destruction of the city of Fallujah.

And this president dared not say a word about the widely held belief, including that of U.S. intelligence agencies, that Israel, America's closest ally, still possesses chemical weapons that it acquired back in the 1960's and 1970's.

That's hypocrisy of the highest degree, pointing out the grievous sins of others and forgiving those you committed.

This crisis with Syria is only the latest sign of the winding down of American influence and domination in the world. The more that the U.S. allows itself to be bullied into military confrontations by Israel the more respect it loses in the world. The world sees the U.S. military, the so-called mightiest in world history, as great at initiating invasions and occupations but quite inept at ending them in some positive way, as evidenced by what happened to it in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.

And the world also sees an America that continues on the road leading to eventual insolvency as it wastes its wealth on the maintenance of a world network of military bases that it cannot sustain. As has been documented many times, there are two massive financial tsunamis looming on America's horizon.

The first is that the probability of the U.S. dollar remaining as the world's reserve currency looks to be in great danger heading into the not too distant future. China is actively working with nations in Asia, the Middle East and other regions of the world to bring dramatic changes to the way world commerce is conducted and money is exchanged. China has been pursuing bilateral trades with Russia and Malaysia using the Yuan, the ruble and the ringgit, respectively.

The nations comprising the BRICS group (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) not long ago agreed to establish mutual lines of credit in local currencies. This, again, is a very significant development since this group of nations represents a very powerful economic bloc going into the future.

It seems like everyone is jumping on the bandwagon to do away with the dollar as the reserve currency. This could be termed as "payback time" as many countries that either have lost respect for America, or who fear its military outreach, have found a way to combat physical force with economic power. That may well be the case when we consider that this movement is being strongly promoted by China, Russia, and Iran.

The second danger on America's horizon is directly tied to its massive world debt. This looming danger is well-documented in this article entitled, "Who Is Going To Buy Our Debt if This War Causes China, Russia And The Rest Of The World To Turn On Us?" The most dangerous situation portrayed by the article is found by these troubling statistics; "According to the U.S. Treasury, foreigners now hold approximately 5.6 trillion dollars of our debt.  Over the past couple of decades, the proportion of our debt owned by foreigners has grown tremendously, and today we very heavily depend on nations such as China to buy our debt."

The article further states, "At this point, China owns approximately 1.275 trillion dollars of our debt, and Russia owns approximately 138 billion. So what would happen if China, Russia and other foreign buyers of our debt all of a sudden quit purchasing our debt and instead started dumping the debt that they already own back on to the market? In a word, it would be disastrous."

So here is the message to this president and this government who seem to have their blinders on and are incapable of seeing the disaster looming before them. The sun is beginning to set on the American empire, its wealth is being wasted in foolhardy disastrous wars that accomplish nothing and bring misery and destruction on the world. The people of the world who have been passive and submissive and have been dominated by America for many decades have had enough and want no more of it.

No, these nations can't begin to stand up to American military might but they can and will, if necessary, use their collective economic power to cripple America financially. Those in the White House and the Congress better wake up real soon and see the financial tsunami that is heading directly for this country if this government doesn't drastically change the objectives and direction this country is taking.

Right now this government in Washington resembles a runaway train whose braking system has become non-functional and is speeding down the tracks heading for an open switch.

Michael Payne