America, the seemingly invincible superpower, has several Achilles heels, which may one day cause its downfall.
American Achilles Heels –
1 – The ‘Hate Bank’
2 – Double Standards
3 – Unemployment
4 – Deficit Spending
5 – Overconfidence
6 – ‘America-centric’ Mindset
Achilles Heel No. 1 – The ‘Hate Bank’
The ‘Hate Bank is a deposit of hatred against America, which is growing rapidly into an uncontrollable monster. All its ‘victories’ in the wars it has waged in the Middle East are churning a lot of hatred, which is the infrastructure to the rapid growth of anti-American terrorism. For every innocent civilian America killed in Afghanistan-Pakistan with its drones, ten terrorists will rise, more resilient, more hateful, more creative, more resolute than the past ones America has killed. Irony of ironies – they killed Bin Laden alright, but created a dozen more Bin Ladens. It was a great PR victory for the jihadists when they made a martyr out of Bin Laden.
America gloated in conquering Iraq in just 12 days. But the longer they stayed there, the more they began to see it was not a victory at all. In their myopia, they did not know that they would create a power vacuum in Iraq with the fall of Saddam, which triggered a protracted civil war, which is still ongoing to this day. America indeed mutilated Iraq society in order to confiscate Weapons of Mass Destruction that did not exist. The world perceived the superpower as an unthinking monster, all brawn, no brains, all high-tech, no soul. That act alone isolated America from the rest of the world. The Hate Bank grows, and one day, it will blow up in its face.
With Iran’s oil in mind, America propped up the Shah, armed him to the teeth, not knowing that his authoritarian pro-American regime would give birth to an anti-American Hate Bank, a powerful Islamic revolutionary force that would topple America’s puppet Shah in the end. America indeed created the Iranian Islamic Revolution.
Iran became more powerful because of American actions to weaken her. America, in retaliation against and fear of a powerful Iran, would arm its enemy Iraq to the teeth and foment the Iran Iraq War. It allowed the Iraqis to use deadly chemical weapons, the true Weapon of Mass Destruction, against Iran. That 8-year war, which killed a million Iranians, ironically consolidated its power, quintupled its strength, and triggered more growth for the Hate Bank. America had been arming its future enemies consistently in the Middle East – Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan. The wars America has waged in the Middle East, which cost trillions of dollars charged to its economy sagging from deficit spending, has made the Hate Bank even bigger. America has been moving from blunder to blunder in foreign relations, spending good money to create more and better terrorists.
Achilles Heel No. 2 – Double Standards
Double standards is causing a loss of American credibility in the international community. No one respects America anymore because it accuses China of human rights violations, when it was doing the same, even worse, in Guantanamo. It talks of freedom and democracy when it resorted to torture, and forgot the rule of law at Guantanamo. America said it was installing democracy in Iraq when it just wanted the oil.
America hypocritically curtails alleged WMDs everywhere, when in fact it has used such WMDs, such as the secret saturation bombing by the CIA in Laos killing 140,000 people. America used more bombs in Laos than what was used in the entire World War II. That secret bombing and mass annihilation had the approval of Nixon and Kissinger. These guys should be tried in The Hague for war crimes. And for what? In the end, the CIA left and the Communists took over anyway. The massacre strengthened the resolve of the enemy.
Achilles Heel No. 3 – Unemployment
There are a staggering 14 million jobless in the US today, which is at the heart of its worsening recession. They are getting angrier everyday. The Wall Street rallies are growing in other cities. It is a seething volcano ready to erupt. These unemployed know they rescued the billionaires in Wall Street with their hard earned money, which is making them poorer and hungrier.
Achilles Heel No. 4 – Deficit Spending
Americans have been printing and printing more money just to cover the high bill for waging wars, new sophisticated weapons, and for rescuing Wall Street. The $14 trillion deficit will one day reach a point of no return and the bubble will one day burst and cause a global depression never before seen.
Achilles Heel No. 5 – Overconfidence
The Americans are so aware that they are the lone superpower that it has developed a ‘kick ass’ culture. They feel they can do anything, and step on anyone. They dip their fingers as a matter of routine in all political crises, manipulating and threatening to turn things into their favor. They casually assassinate anti-American leaders and prop pro-American ones. It was the same overconfidence of the Germans for its 3-week conquest of France with a Blitzkrieg, and the Japanese 3-month conquest of the entire Asia Pacific. Overconfidence blinded them and caused their eventual defeat. Hitler knowingly repeated the blunder of Napoleon in the war on two fronts. Japan resorted to kamikaze to turn the tide of the war in vain. Overconfidence makes one lower one’s guard.
Achilles Heel No. 6 – ‘America-centric’ Mindset
This refers to the American prevailing attitude that everything revolves around America. This ‘America-centric’ mindset sees the world with warped eyes of bias and numbness. It talks of the Iranian problem (nukes) when it is really an American problem. It fears Iran will have nukes, yet they are forcing them to one day really get nukes.
America lacks true wisdom. It is the pioneer in everything high-tech, but its technological power is dwarfed by its lack of social skills to deal with a world that is slowly turning against it. If only America was a benevolent rather than malevolent world leader, there would be peace on Earth. But no, America is in fact fomenting future wars, such as giving nukes to Israel secretly so that its Arab enemies will also seek nukes to achieve balance of power.
Americans were the heroes of World War II for helping defeat the Germans and Japanese. Today, they are the anti-heroes everyone is beginning to hate.
Perhaps there is a glimmer of hope for American. America perhaps needs an ‘anti-American American’ as a leader who would go counter-stream to the present mindset, a rebel who would have the guts and the heart to cut across the prevailing winds and achieve a spiritual transformation, make a radical change in foreign policy perhaps, to begin with.
By Bernie Lopez
eastwind journals, Opinyon Magazine, Oct 31 2011
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