As Nutter saw it, we were in a war, and we had involved the South Vietnamese. Therefore, we had obligations to them. If we proved to be feckless, the consequence would be to undermine commitments we had made to other countries in our effort to contain the Soviet Empire. The Soviet Union, unlike the "terrorist threat" had the potential of being a real threat. People who have come of age after the collapse of the Soviet Union don't understand the cold war era.
In the course of the conversation I asked how Washington got so many other governments to do its bidding. He answered, "Money."
I asked, "You mean foreign aid?"
He said, "No, bags of money. We buy the leaders."
He didn't approve of it, but there was nothing he could do about it.
Purchasing the leadership of their enemies or of potential threats was the Roman way. Timothy H. Parsons in his book, The Rule of Empires, describes the Romans as "deft practitioners of soft power." Rome preferred to rule the conquered and the potentially hostile through "semi-autonomous client kings which the Senate euphemistically termed "friends of the Roman people." Romans helped cooperative monarchs remain in power with direct payments of coins and material goods. Acceptance of these subsidies signified that an ally deferred to imperial authority, and the Romans interpreted any defiance of their will as an overt revolt. They also intervened freely in local succession disputes to replace unsuitable clients."
This is the way Washington rules. Washington's way of ruling other countries is why there is no "Egyptian Spring," but a military dictatorship as a replacement for Washington's discarded puppet Hosni Mubarak, and why European puppet states are fighting Washington's wars of hegemony in the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia.
Washington's National Endowment for Democracy funds non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that interfere in the internal affairs of other countries. It is through the operations of NGOs that Washington added the former Soviet Republic of Georgia to Washington's empire, along with the Baltic States, and Eastern European countries.
Because of the hostility of many Russians to their Soviet past, Russia is vulnerable to Washington's machinations.
As long as the dollar rules, Washington's power will rule.
As Rome debased its silver denarius into lead, Rome's power to purchase compliance faded away. If "Helicopter Ben" Bernanke inflates away the purchasing power of the dollar, Washington's power will melt away also.
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