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In today’s world we need to be vigilant and prepared for sudden changes in our environment which may be brought on by Mother Nature or Political Activities. We all want to protect our family from harm, and preparedness for disaster emergencies should be one of our top priorities. I’m not advocating that you pack up your family and move to some isolated location to hide from the world, but I am offering simple preparations for ice storms, floods, hurricanes, or terrorist activities will make your existence much more palatable during the disaster.

1. Be prepared – Yes, the first thing on the list is to use the list to be prepared. It is one thing to take a glance at the list, but unless you actually put this list into a workable plan for your family, then reading this is just wasted time on your part. Just making the preparations will give you a sense of calm when faced with the disaster.

This sense of calm will work in your favor because you will be less likely to be one of the hordes of people acting in a reactionary, fear driven, panic when the reality of the disaster is recognized (usually when the news anchors start saying things like “This is going to be bad.”… or… “We can’t stress enough the dangerous nature of this storm.”… or… “Here is video of people fighting over the last of the bread at this grocery store.”… or… “The police have lost control of this area of town.” While the crowds are rushing to the grocery store and emptying the aisles of bread and milk, you will be safely at home making last minute preparations to keep yourself and your family safe.

Because I realize that there is a definite cost factor in making these preparations, I will try to prioritize the items on the list as to which are absolutely necessary and which ones can be added as funds are available. Any item with an * next to it is a priority item and needs to be included from the beginning. To my Prepper Friends, I do realize that this list will not satisfy your need to prepare for any and all situations and it is only a short term duration solution, so don’t pounce on me with a long list of items that you think I have left off. It is intentionally a short, condensed list which is meant to help an average family through a short term disaster situation, not a nuclear holocaust. I also have not addressed any need for firearms or ammunition.

A big part of the preparation is being organized. There will be enough things to be concerned with when the situation presents itself, trying to remember where all of your supplies might be stored should not be one of them. Buy one of the following. We will be storing everything possible in them, so your preparedness items will be readily available to you when you need them.

a. Storage Locker* – Find a well built, heavy plastic storage locker that is large enough to hold a lot of gear, but still small enough to fit in the trunk of your car or the bed of your truck. This is not one of those plastic storage bins that people use to store winter clothes in during the summer, this thing needs to be a bit more durable than that. Find one with handles to make it easier to move into and out of your vehicle. Most stores like Academy will have them starting at about $20.

b. Backpack* – This is not a child’s school backpack. Go to the camping section and find one that is well made, durable, and large enough to hold lots of stuff. Don’t worry about it being too big, we are not going to have to backpack across the Grand Canyon with it, and my experience is that you ALWAYS need more space to store stuff. The starting price for a good one will be around $39, but if you can only afford a back-to-school type backpack, go ahead and get it, we can always upgrade later.

2. Shelter from the weather – Unexpected disasters will likely subject you to the elements. This could be due to a fast developing situation where you are caught away from home when the disaster strikes, or it could result from a storm that has caused widespread power outages, broken windows in your home, or taken off a portion of your roof. Exposure to the weather is not just annoying, it can be dangerous. The combination of being wet and cold is deadly.

a. Polyethylene tarp – These come in a variety of sizes and are quite inexpensive. (a 6×8 tarp is only about $5 if you check some camping supply stores). These are great for keeping out the weather if windows are broken during a storm. They can also be used for a makeshift tent if you happen to be caught out of your home when the disaster strikes. They will be great for keeping you dry and holding off the wind. Get 3-4 of them. Put them in your storage locker.

b. Plastic rain poncho* – One for every member of your family, plus a few extra (they are cheap (as little as $1) and will get torn when being worn for any length of time). Get the kind that fold up into a small pouch. Put into your backpack.

c. Quart – ½ Gallon sized plastic zip-lock bags* – These will be used to store some of the items on this list as well as storage of food and medicines. These are important, but cheap. Put in the storage locker.

d. Wool, Cotton, Fleece pullover or Hoodie – One for every member of the family. My preference would be wool, but anything is better than nothing. They are about $12 each for Haynes brand at most stores. If the power goes out, or if you are caught away from home, the cooler temps at night are deceptively dangerous. One main goal is to stay dry and warm. Roll up and place into a zip-lock bag and then put in your backpack.

e. Extra wool or cotton socks* – Two or three pair for every member of the family. Style is not important here, regular white tube socks are just fine (about $8 for a pack of 3). Cheap, but a fresh change of socks can do wonders, and will help keep your feet more healthy and comfortable during the disaster situation and can act as emergency mittens if needed. I can’t say enough about taking care of your feet. I know it sounds trivial, but it is not. Put unopened packs into zip-lock bags and then into your backpack (keeping them dry is key).

f. Change of clothes* – A complete change of clothes for each member of the family. This is not time for a fashion statement, we are after durability and function here. Long pants (blue jeans) and a long sleeve shirt. Don’t forget a change of underwear. Also include a pair of shoes that you would be comfortable wearing for long periods of time. An old pair of tennis shoes might be the answer. Really no costs here, we are going to use clothes we already have in the closet, but probably don’t wear because it has a stain on it, or it is not a color we wear often. Put in the storage locker.

g. Sleeping Bag – One for each member of the family. In this case, I am recommending a specific product, SOL Emergency Bivvy Bag* (do a Google search for stores selling it). Sells for about $17 each but packs up very small and will save your life. Much smaller than a standard sleeping bag (starting price, around $20). If you have the room for a sleeping bag for each person, by all means get them. Store the SOL Emergency Bivvy Bag in your backpack, and the Sleeping bags in a single location near where you will store the backpack and storage locker.

3. Safety and Security – There are several items that you will need to make sure that you and your family remain healthy and safe.

a. Medical Kit – You should get two kits.

I. The first is a small, compact first aid kit* that can easily be stored in a zip-lock bag and placed in your backpack and are designed to take care of minor medial issues like blisters, splinters, sprains, etc. They sell for less than $20.

ii. The next is a more complete kit, sometimes called a trauma kit. It contains more supplies and tools and is usually marketed as a Sportsman’s First Aid Kit, or an Outdoors Adventure Medical Kit (starting price is about $49). Store this in your storage locker.

b. CPR Training* – At least one person in your family needs to be CPR certified. The Red Cross and American Heart Association offer classes on a regular basis, but usually charge for the certification class ($70-$110). Most fire departments also offer classes but these classes do not provide a certification needed to fulfill any job requirements (usually free).

c. Know your evacuation routes* – Think about where you could go if you had to quickly leave your home due to the disaster. Keep in mind the destinations that would be appropriate for the situation (going to stay with your Uncle on the coast may work well if your home is threatened by a fire, but is not a good idea if you are fleeing a hurricane). Get an old fashioned paper map ($5-$10) and learn how to read it, don’t rely on your navigation app to get you anywhere, the system could be down due to the disaster. Have more than one route mapped out for each destination, roads may be impassable and you may need to find a secondary route. Keep the map in your vehicle.

d. Make a list of contacts* – Everyone in the family should have a list of important contacts they carry with them. Make sure you include numbers for your office, your partner’s office, your children’s schools, day care, doctors, and close family members. Include the numbers of your health and home owner’s insurance companies, as well as your policy numbers. On this list include information of any medical condition and medications needed for all family members (for young children, also include the date of birth). Also designate a family member or friend that will serve as the point-of-contact if your family is separated. Choosing someone out of town is a good idea because they may be less likely to be experiencing the same issues in their area as you are experiencing in yours. Put this list inside of a zip-lock bag and place in your backpack (and an emergency contact list in your child’s school backpack).

e. Money – In disaster situations, ATM’s, credit cards and debit cards may not work or may not be accepted by merchants. Have a stash of emergency funds available in cash. It doesn’t need to be lots of money, but make sure that you have both small bills and some change (probably quarters) already packed in your backpack. The amount that you choose is up to you, but I suggest that it is enough to get a tank of gas, a few meals for the family while on the road, or buy some last minute item needed for the situation at hand.

4. Food and Water – It is a good idea to have a minimum of three days’ emergency supply of food* on hand at all times. My preference would be two weeks. Keep in mind that this does not mean regular full blown meals, these are meals during emergency situations. If you are remaining at home and the power is gone, here are some guidelines to follow:

a. First, use perishable goods from the pantry (apples, bananas, oranges, potatoes, hard packaged salamis, sausages, pepperoni, etc.) and food items in the refrigerator. Do not open the freezer!

b. Second, use the items stored in your freezer. Limit the number of times the freezer door is opened. Foods stored in a well-stocked freezer will still have ice crystals in the center even after two days of no power and will be safe to eat. Place zip-lock bags ¾ filled with water into the freezer so that you will have ice bags already in the freezer if the power goes off. These bags will fit into the spaces between items and will help keep them frozen and safe for longer periods of time after the power is out.

c. Third, use non-perishable items from the pantry. If you don’t already have them on hand, these are also the things you want to stock up on if you have a warning that a storm is headed your way. Don’t worry about bread and milk. The following items should be a part of your emergency supply because will last a long time and will be a perfect supplement for your family’s nutrition: Peanut butter, nuts, canned meats, canned vegetable soups, canned fruits and vegetables, dried fruits, instant cereals that only require water, white rice, hard candy and canned nuts, crackers, trail mix, granola bars, power bars, sports drinks.

d. Water is essential for life. It is also needed for cleaning utensils, cooking, bathing, and brushing teeth. Maintaining personal hygiene is a top priority in a disaster situation. Not only does it keep you physically healthy, but it gives you a morale boost as well. Store your water near the storage locker so that you know exactly where it is when the disaster strikes.

I. A minimum of one gallon of water per family member per day. This will supply the needs of each person for personal hygiene. This water can be stored in plastic containers and filled when making last minute preparations for the disaster (time permitting). I suggest getting several 5-gallon collapsible containers* from the camping supply store (about $7). When not in use, they take up very little space. While water supplies are usually not totally disrupted during storms, the water supply may become contaminated. If these containers are filled at the beginning of the storm or disaster preparation, the water will be good for personal hygiene or for drinking (if needed) for several months.

ii. Bottled water for drinking packaged in small containers is great for almost any situation. They can be included in a backpack, carried in your pocket, or loose in the vehicle for use at any time. A case of bottled water can be as little as $2 at the grocery store and has a relatively long shelf life.

5. Tools – There are certain things that you need to have on hand to be prepared for a disaster situation. Place these in the storage locker.

a. Flashlight – Having working flashlights is a must. Do not make the mistake of buying flashlights for your disaster kit and then using them around the house. If you do, then you will inevitably find them with dead batteries when they are needed most. Get several LED flashlights with a minimum brightness of 15-20 lumens*. If you have children, get a multi-pack of LED flashlights. This will give them something to keep them from being scared of the dark and a light that they can play with and will keep them from playing with your flashlights. Both single flashlights and small multi-pack flashlights can be found for as little as $5 each.

b. Extra Batteries – In many flashlights, the batteries are good for about 12-16 hours of use. Get enough spare batteries to replace the batteries in your flashlights 5 times.

c. Manual Can Opener – If the power goes out, you need to have a way to open the cans in your pantry.

d. Moist Towelettes – These are useful for all kinds of personal hygiene and cleaning household surfaces.

e. Garbage Bags* – Tall kitchen bags are probably the best size to use. You do not want any garbage to build up in your home.

f. Dust Masks – In the aftermath of a disaster gas explosion, earthquake, hurricane, volcano, tornado, tsunami, winter storm, terrorist attack, flood, fire, accident or other emergency, contaminants may be released into the air. It is important to have an air filtration mechanism such as a dust mask or particulate air filter.

g. Pry Bar – In an emergency situation, the basic reason for having a pry-bar is to open a door or window. If water, or heat from a fire, causes wood to swell, or an earthquake causes a door to jam, or a file cabinet or book case keeps the door closed, and we must get through it, having a pry-bar is the only way to go. The flat bar type, 18″ – 24″ in length is just fine and should cost $10-$15 for a quality one.

h. Fire Extinguisher* – Get a small to medium sized ABC extinguisher, available for $15 – $20.

I. Channel Lock Style Pliers – A quality channel lock pliers of at least 10″ length is a must for your disaster tool box. Do not buy a cheap one, it will not work properly and will slip when you need it most. They are available for as little as $15 at most hardware supply stores (Home Depot, Lowes, etc).

j. Adjustable Wrench – You need to have a quality adjustable wrench in your disaster tool box, and it needs to be at least 10″ in length to be able to have the leverage that you might need. They are available from the hardware supply stores for about $12 each.

k. Screwdriver Set – Get a basic screw driver set that has various sizes and both flat and Philips style tips. Again, a quality set is important, because a cheap set will not hold up at all. A basic 10 piece set will cost approximately $20 at any hardware supply store.

l. Claw Hammer – This tool is one of those multi-purpose tools that you will find quite useful. Available from $10 everywhere.

m. Camping Style Cookware – If the power goes out you may find the need to cook on a camp fire or in your fireplace. You will not be able to use your everyday cookware for this, and something as simple as a hot cup of coffee in the morning can make a huge difference in your day.

I. Dutch Oven – a Dutch oven will provide you with a great meal that you can cook right on an open flame, such as your fireplace.

ii. Coffee Pot – Get an enamel coffee pot, you will be glad you did. You will be able to make coffee, tea, or even just boil water for use in cooking.

n. Multi-tool – A Leatherman style Multi-tool will be the solution for a multitude of situations and is available for around $15 at most camping or hardware supply stores.

o. Folding Knife – There is no need to buy a giant knife like the one Crocodile Dundee used in the movies. A folding knife with a blade length of 4 inches is just fine. Make sure that the blade locks open so that you can use it more safely. Starting at $15 at most camping supply stores.

This is a good starting point for your family disaster preparedness. It is only a starting point, there is so much more that you can do to be prepared. However, if you do nothing more than the things on this list, you will be far ahead of many others who will be floundering around when the time for action comes.

This article was originally published on Ultimate-Survival.

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It refuses to end. Synoding, that is. That clever term is George Weigel’s and captures the whimsical inanity of the Bergoglian invention of synodality. In a recent essay of Mr. Weigel’s in that estimable journal First Things, he was rather irenic about the past aims of synodality. To me, he was straining a bit too far for my theological tastes. But bending over backward seems to have become a signature métier for Mr. Weigel. But a man of his intellectual stature should know that the problem with bending over backward is that you soon find yourself unable to stand straight again.

O yes, synoding. Restrain your laughter (or fear) as I present an enticing morsel from the official Pathways for the Implementation of the Present Phase of the Synod 2025-2028:

We recall that the purpose of the Synod is not to produce documents, but to plant dreams, draw forth prophecies and visions, allow hope to flourish, inspire trust, bind up wounds, weave together relationships, awaken a dawn of hope, learn from one another and create a bright resourcefulness that will enlighten minds, warm hearts, give strength to our hands.

This bears as much resemblance to Catholicism as a seven-year-old’s birthday party. More woefully, it has as much to do with religion as astrology has to do with astronomy.

But synodality is the most recent in a long line of embarrassing experiments of the past half century. It seems as though the Church’s leaders have one rule: if an experiment has failed because of its absurdity, the next one must be made more absurd.

An older generation of Catholics can bear this out. They must admit an embarrassing familiarity with such lovelies as: Call to Action, Nuns on the Bus, The Archdiocese of Los Angeles Religious Education Congress (still enduring with all the risibility of an octogenarian wheelchair race), Confessional Rooms, Lenten Rice Bowls, The St. Louis Jesuits, Liberation Theology, Seamless Garment and multi-colored clerical shirts. But that is only a sampling. Others have mercifully been forgotten or should be.

The net effect of these experiments is empty pews, shuttered churches, desolate seminaries, and the almost entire collapse of religious orders. A more dramatic case in point is the decades-old détente the European bishops conducted with Islam. It has resulted in wrenching violence, the burning of churches, and the near disappearance of any Catholic presence.

Only yesterday the once papabile Cardinal Parolin warned Catholics to not tip over into intolerance due to the murder of Charlie Kirk. Imagine him preaching that about blacks garroted by the Ku Klux Klan, or homosexuals thrown from the tops of buildings by Muslim jihadists. In reality’s piercing light, the benighted cardinal’s words are shown for the oratorical litter they are.

To this failed cardinal we have the words of venerable Fulton Sheen:

America, it is said, is suffering from intolerance—it is not. It is suffering from tolerance. Tolerance of right and wrong, truth and error, virtue and evil, Christ and chaos. Our country is not nearly so overrun with the bigoted as it is overrun with the broad minded.

Imagine, most Catholic priests spoke with that kind of crystalline Catholic logic 70 years ago. Now they babble in the accommodating Parolin patois.

All this endless assembly line of synodal novelties betrays nothing less than a tiring of God. He is a consuming fire, and this crowd has turned Him into an afterglow of fading embers. The Church’s mission is entirely supernatural, and the language of the supernatural is uttered with the crackling tongues of fire given to her at Pentecost. She also wields the supernatural tools in her sacred traditions as she has for millennia. These tried-and-true weapons have been successful in bringing the liberating Gospel of Our Lord to every continent.

Now, she trades that divine proclamation for the junk language of synodality.

The synodalist eschews those weapons given to us by a triumphant conquering Christ, in exchange for the shiny new baubles of the zeitgeist.

The cringeworthy march of synodality epitomizes a parlous weariness with God. The incongruities could not be more conspicuous.

How does “planting dreams” accord with, “But God forbid that I should glory save in the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ; by whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world” (Galatians 6:14). Or can anyone explain how “planting dreams, and drawing forth prophecies and visions” is consonant with, “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself” (John 12:32).

How will the hyper-psychologized purring of “inspire trust, bind up wounds, weave together relationships, awaken a dawn of hope” possibly accord with the summoning words of Christ: “All power is given me unto heaven and on earth.  Go ye therefore and teach all nations…. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:18-20). How does the synodolist reconcile himself to Christ’s jolting words, “Think not that I am come to bring peace on earth; I came not to send peace, but a sword” (Matthew 10:34).

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The renaming of the Defense Department should have surprised no one. Donald Trump is an incipient fascist doing what such figures do. Surrounded by a coterie of illiberal ideologues and careerist sycophants, he and his top aides have dispensed with pretense and precedent, moving at breakneck speed to demolish what remains of the battered façade of American democracy.

In eight months, his second administration has unleashed a shock-and-awe assault on norms and institutions, civil liberties, human rights, and history itself. But fascism never respects borders. Fascists don’t recognize the rule of law. They consider themselves the law. Expansion and the glorification of war are their lifeblood. Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini put it all too bluntly: the fascist “believes neither in the possibility nor the utility of perpetual peace… war alone brings up to its highest tension all human energy and puts the stamp of nobility upon the peoples who have courage to meet it.”

Pete Hegseth is now equally blunt. From the Pentagon, he’s boasting of restoring a “warrior ethos” to the armed forces, while forging an offensive military that prizes “maximum lethality, not tepid legality. Violent effect, not politically correct.” The message couldn’t be clearer: when the U.S. loses wars, as it has done consistently despite commanding the most powerful military in history, it’s not due to imperial overreach, political arrogance, or popular resistance. Rather, defeat stems from that military having gone “woke,” a euphemism for failing to kill enough people.

The recent rechristening of the Department of Defense as the Department of War was certainly a culture-war stunt like Trump’s demand that the Gulf of Mexico be renamed the Gulf of America. But it also signaled something more insidious: a blunt escalation of the criminal logic that has long underwritten U.S. militarism. That logic sustained both the Cold War of the last century and the War on Terror of this one, destroying millions of lives.

When Hegseth defended the recent summary executions of 11 alleged Venezuelan drug smugglers on a boat in the Caribbean, he boasted that Washington possesses “absolute and complete authority” to kill anywhere without Congressional approval or evidence of a wrong and in open defiance of international law. The next day, in responding on X to a user who called what had been done a war crime, Vance wrote, “I don’t give a shit what you call it.” It was the starkest admission since the Iraq War that Washington no longer pretends to operate internationally under the rule of law but under the rule of force, where might quite simply makes right.

While such an escalation of verbiage — the brazen confession of an imperial power that believes itself immune from accountability — should alarm us, it’s neither unprecedented nor unexpected. Peace, after all, has never been the profession of the U.S. military. The Department of Defense has always been the Department of War.

American Imperialism and “Star-Spangled Fascism”

The U.S. has long denied being an empire. From its founding, imperialism was cast as the antithesis of American values. This nation, after all, was born in revolt against the tyranny of foreign rule. Yet for a country so insistent on not being an empire, Washington has followed a trajectory nearly indistinguishable from its imperial predecessors. Its history was defined by settler conquest, the violent elimination of Indigenous peoples, and a long record of covert and overt interventions to topple governments unwilling to yield to American political or economic domination.

The record is unmistakable. As Noam Chomsky once put it, “Talking about American imperialism is like talking about triangular triangles.” And he was hardly the first to suggest such a thing. In the 1930s, General Smedley Butler, reflecting with searing candor on his years of military service in Latin America, described himself as “a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism… I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests… I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street.”

Historically, imperialism and fascism went hand in hand. As Aimé Césaire argued in his 1950 Discourse on Colonialism, fascism is imperialism turned inward. The violence inherent in colonial domination can, in the end, never be confined to the colonies, which means that what we’re now witnessing in the Trumpian era is a reckoning. The chickens are indeed coming home to roost or, as Noura Erakat recently observed, “The boomerang comes back.”

In their insatiable projection of power and pursuit of profit, Washington and Wall Street ignored what European empires had long revealed: that colonization “works to decivilize the colonizer, to brutalize him… to degrade him.” English novelist Joseph Conrad recognized this in his classic nineteenth-century work of fiction, Heart of Darkness, concluding that it wasn’t the Congo River but the Thames River in Great Britain that “led into the heart of an immense darkness.”

Imperialism incubates fascism, a dynamic evident in the carnage of World War I, rooted, as W.E.B. DuBois observed at the time, in colonial competition that laid the foundations for World War II. In that conflict, Césaire argued, the Nazis applied to Europe the methods and attitudes that until then were reserved for colonized peoples, unleashing them on Europeans with similarly genocidal effect.

War is Peace

In the postwar years, the United States emerged from the ruins of Europe as the unrivaled global hegemon. With some six percent of the world’s population, it commanded nearly half of the global gross domestic product. Anchored by up to 2,000 military bases across the globe (still at 800 today), it became the new imperial power on which the sun never set. Yet Washington ignored the fundamental lesson inherent in Europe’s self-cannibalization. Rather than dismantle the machinery of empire, it embraced renewed militarism. Rather than demobilize, it placed itself on a permanent global war footing, both anticipating and accelerating the Cold War with that other great power of the period, the Soviet Union.

The United States was, however, a superpower defined as much by paranoia and insecurity as by military and economic strength. It was in such a climate that American officials moved to abandon the title of the Department of War in 1947, rebranding it as the Department of Defense two years later. The renaming sought to reassure the world that, despite every sign the U.S. had assumed the mantle of European colonialism, its intentions were benign and defensive in nature.

That rhetorical shift would prove inseparable from a broader ideological transformation as the Cold War froze geopolitics into rigid Manichean camps. President Harry Truman’s March 1947 address to Congress marked the start of a new global confrontation. In that speech, the president proclaimed the United States the guardian of freedom and democracy everywhere. Leftist movements were cast as Soviet proxies and struggles for national liberation in the former colonial world were framed not in the language of decolonization and self-determination but as nefarious threats to American interests and international peace and security.

In Europe at the time, a civil war raged in Greece, while decisive elections loomed in Italy. Determined not to “lose” such countries to communism, Washington moved to undermine democracy under the guise of saving it. In Greece, it would channel $300 million to right-wing forces, many staffed by former fascists and Nazi collaborators, in the name of defending freedom. In Western Europe, Washington used its position as the world’s banker to manipulate electoral outcomes. In the wake of the 1947 National Security Act that created the Central Intelligence Agency, or CIA (the same bill that renamed the War Department), the agency launched its first large-scale covert operation. In 1948, the U.S. would funnel millions of dollars into Italy and unleashed a torrent of propaganda to ensure that leftist parties would not prevail.

Across the Third World, the CIA perfected that template for covert interventions aimed at toppling democratic governments and installing pliant authoritarians. The overthrow of Iran’s Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953 and Guatemala’s Jacobo Árbenz in 1954 marked the beginning of a series of regime-change operations. More assassinations and coups followed, including of Patrice Lumumba in the Congo in 1961, Sukarno in Indonesia in 1965, and Salvador Allende in Chile in 1973. The utter contempt for democracy inherent in such actions was embodied in National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger’s remark: “I don’t see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people.”

In the aftermath of each intervention, Washington installed anticommunist dictators who had one thing in common: they murdered their own citizens, and often those of other countries as well, dismantled democratic institutions, and siphoned national wealth into personal fortunes and the coffers of multinational corporations.

By the 1980s, the CIA was bankrolling proxy wars spanning the globe. Billions of dollars were being funneled to the Afghan mujahideen and Nicaraguan Contras. In both Afghanistan and Nicaragua, those U.S.-backed “freedom fighters” (or, as President Ronald Reagan termed the Contras, the “moral equals of our founding fathers”) deployed tactics that amounted to scaled-up terrorism. The mask occasionally slipped. As historian Greg Grandin has noted, one adviser to the Joint Chiefs of Staff described the Contras as “the strangest national liberation organization in the world.” In truth, he conceded, they were “just a bunch of killers.”

“The Greatest Purveyor of Violence”

As with the CIA, the not-so-aptly-renamed “Defense Department” would oversee a succession of catastrophic wars that did nothing to make Americans safer and had little to do with the protection of democratic values. Within a year of its renaming, the U.S. was at war in Korea. When the North invaded the South in 1950, seeking to reunify a peninsula divided by foreign powers, Washington rushed to intervene, branding it a “police action,” the first of many Orwellian linguistic maneuvers to sidestep the constitutional authority of Congress to declare war.

The official narrative that the communists launched the war to topple a democratically elected government in the South obscured its deeper origins. After World War II, Washington installed Syngman Rhee, an exile who had spent decades in the United States, as South Korea’s leader. He commanded little popular legitimacy but proved a staunch ally for American officials determined to secure an anticommunist foothold on the peninsula. Far from embodying liberal democracy, his regime presided over a repressive police state.

In 1948, two years before the war, an uprising against Rhee’s corrupt rule broke out on Jeju Island. With Washington’s blessing, his security forces launched a brutal counterinsurgency that left as many as 80,000 dead. Far from an aberration, Jeju epitomized Washington’s emerging Cold War policy: not the cultivation of democracies responsive to their citizenry (with the uncertainty that entailed), but the defense of authoritarian regimes as reliable bulwarks against communism.

The Korean War also marked a growing reliance on air power. Carpet bombing and the widespread use of napalm would reduce the North to rubble, destroying some 85% of its infrastructure and killing two million civilians. As future Secretary of State Dean Rusk would later admit, the U.S. bombed “everything that moved in North Korea.” The only “restraint” exercised was the decision not to deploy atomic bombs, despite the insistence of Air Force General Curtis LeMay who would reflect unapologetically, “Over a period of three years or so, we killed off… 20 percent of the population.”

A remarkably similar pattern unfolded in Vietnam. As revealed in the Pentagon Papers, the United States initially backed France in its attempt after World War II to reimpose colonial rule over Indochina. After the French forces were defeated in 1954, the partition of the country ensued. Elections to reunify Vietnam were scheduled for 1956, but U.S. intelligence concluded that the North’s communist leader, Ho Chi Minh, would win in a landslide, so the elections were cancelled. Once again, Washington placed its support behind the unpopular, repressive South Vietnamese regime of Ngo Dinh Diem, chosen not for his legitimacy but for his reliability in the eyes of American policymakers.

The result was a futile slaughter. The U.S. would kill well over three million people in Southeast Asia and drop more than three and a half times the tonnage of bombs on Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos as were used in all of World War II. That orgy of violence would lead Martin Luther King Jr., in 1967, to denounce the United States as “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.” The same has held true for nearly the entire span of the past 80 years.

Empire or Democracy

The human toll of the Cold War exceeded 20 million lives. As historian Paul Chamberlin calculated, that amounted to some 1,200 deaths every day for 45 years. To call such an era “cold” was not only misleading but obscene. It was, in truth, a period of relentless and bloody global conflict, much of it instigated, enabled, or prolonged by the United States. And its wars also produced the blowback that would later be rebranded as the “War on Terror.”

The names of America’s adversaries may have changed over the years from Hitler to Stalin, Kim Il-Sung to Ho Chi Minh, Saddam Hussein to Xi Jinping, but the principle has remained constant. Washington reserves for itself the unilateral right to intervene, violently and antidemocratically, in the affairs of other nations to secure what it considers its interests. The reversion of the Defense Department to the War Department should be seen less as a rupture than a revelation. It strips away a euphemism to make far plainer what has long been the reality of our world.

We now face a choice. As historian Christian Appy has reminded us, “The institutions that sustain empire destroy democracy.” That truth is unfolding before our eyes. As the Pentagon budget tops one trillion dollars and the machinery of war only expands in Donald Trump’s America, the country also seems to be turning further inward. Only recently, President Trump threatened to use Chicago to demonstrate “why it is called the Department of War.” Meanwhile, U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement, or ICE, is set to become among the most well-funded domestic “military” forces on the planet and potentially the private paramilitary of an aspiring autocrat.

If there is any hope of salvaging this country’s (not to speak of this planet’s) future, then this history has to be faced, and we must recover — or perhaps discover — our moral bearings. That will require not prolonging the death throes of American hegemony, but dismantling imperial America before it collapses on itself and takes us all with it.

This article was originally published on TomDispatch.com.

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Some two decades ago, I was invited to be the keynote speaker at a major Islamic conference.  Instead of uttering the usual platitudes about Muslim unity, I rebuked the Muslim World for doing nothing to prevent the massacre of Bosnians by Serb forces and the mass rape of Bosnian Muslim women.

The only Muslim nations who had done anything to help Bosnia’s terrorized Muslims were Iran and Albania.  Then military-ruled Turkey, the second largest power in Europe, did almost nothing to help Bosnia.  If Jews were being raped or murdered, Israel’s armed forces would have gone into action to rescue them, I asserted.

Not surprisingly I was never invited back to address another Islamic gathering – except for one proud moment last year when I was made a member of Afghanistan’s Pashtun Bangash tribe.  A taxi driver refused to take money from me last week and said, ‘you are now an Afghan.’  For me, that is a badge of honor.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan signed a possibly important accord this week.  Possibly, I say, because recent history is replete with empty security agreements between the Saudis and Pakistan.

Israel’s recent air attacks on Doha have clearly jolted the Saudis into fearing they might face more Israeli attacks similar to the ones recently suffered by Iran.  Israel appears determined to crush the feeble Arab powers of the region and impose its pax Judaica there.  To many in the Mideast, the power-drunk Trump administration appears to have become an arm of Israel’s extreme right-wing government.

The immensely rich but militarily feeble Saudis are clearly taking shelter with the terribly poor but militarily powerful, nuclear armed Pakistan – which they should have done long ago. Looking back, we recall when the late President Zia ul-Haq (whom I wrote about last week) commanded a division of crack Pakistani troops tasked with protecting Saudi Arabia’s royal family.

This should happen again. There is a small force of Pakistani troops in Saudi Arabia, and more across the Arab World.  Pakistan’s military numbers over 600,000 men.

The question remains: will Pakistan’s nuclear umbrella be used to cover Saudi Arabia? That seems unlikely for now because Saudi Royal, with its seas of money and many airbases, remains a pillar of US government power.  US arms sales to Saudi are a keystone of US military production and directly influence the rich but powerless Gulf states.  Egypt, the only Arab power worthy of note, remains subservient to US demands.

But if Israel advances its interests in the Arab World, the Saudis might invoke support from Pakistan.  But Pakistan might develop its own appetite for Arabian oil, as will surely Israel.  So too could Turkey, which appears to have taken over much of Syria and deeply hungers for oil, of which it has none.  There is also the huge question of India-Pakistan nuclear rivalry.

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Intellectual Conservative

The post ICE is Allegedly ‘Racially Profiling,’ So Why is the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office Under Court Monitoring for the Same? appeared first on LewRockwell.

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John Leake

The post Who Bought the Put Options on Airline Stocks Shortly Before 9/11? appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, Johnny Kramer.

WLT Report

The post Candace Owens Releases New, Unseen Photo of Alleged Kirk Assassin At Dairy Queen After the Shooting appeared first on LewRockwell.

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The Reload

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The Reload

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Paul Craig Roberts

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Hoppe wrote:

Zero Hedge

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Writes Ginny Garner:

Lew,

Some good news for all the mothers with autistic children who persisted and persuaded RFK Jr. to start investigating the link between autism and vaccines. RFK, Jr. and President Trump held a press conference where they announced the HHS will be studying all possible causes of autism including vaccines. My favorite part was when they said the Amish don’t have autism because they don’t take vaccines. 

See here.

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John Leake

The post Pulling Back the Curtain on America’s Tawdry Wizards appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, Maureen McKerracher.

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Brandon Campbell

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Ginny Garner wrote:

Lew,

Roger Stone, an expert on assassinations, weighs in on suspect Tyler Robinson. Link.

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Tim McGraw wrote:

Hi Lew,

I read Tom Woods’ article on the drop in birth rates with interest. I’ve followed this demographic trend online for years. Some of my friends, like me, believe the human race will go extinct when a baby’s cry is never heard.

Kevin Dolan is an optimist. He has six kids. Like Tom Woods, who has five daughters, or is it six? These two men want the human race to reproduce so that their own children can have thriving lives.

That is understandable. But there are a lot of boomers like me. I have a son and daughter now in their late forties. They have never been married, no kids, no cars, no house. My daughter told me last month, “You’d have to be crazy to have a kid today.”

So, as the man said, “I have no skin in the game.” My children have no skin in the game. Whether the human race survives or not makes no difference to my gene pool. It’s a dead end. And yet, many of the “leaders” in Europe and the world have no children. Why would humans want them as leaders? They have no skin in the game of human survival. 

The human race is always only 40 years away from extinction. No kids. No humans.

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