by Eric Zuesse, The Duran:
This submission is of either an op-ed article against America’s empire, or else a news-article about the mainstream news-media’s ban of any such news-commentary.
Now two weeks after my waiting and receiving no reply from any of the 72 email-addresses to which I had exclusive-submitted the following op-ed against America’s empire, I am offering this article on a non-exclusive basis to any news-medium that wants to report it, either as being the op-ed article itself that was submitted as an exclusive and rejected by all 72, or else as a news-article about the news-media to which that op-ed was submitted as an exclusive (since none of the 72 made an offer on it — none of them wanted to publish, or even discuss possibly publishing, that op-ed):
TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/
Begin forwarded message:
From: ericzuesse@icloud.com
Subject: EXCLUSIVE SUBMISSION to the first to respond with an offer:
Date: Nov 28, 2022 at 12:30 PM
To: yoni@theatlantic.com, jlapidos@theatlantic.com, ideas@theatlantic.com, lbeyer3@bloomberg.net, jboxell@bloomberg.net, mnizza3@bloomberg.net, tobrien46@bloomberg.net, mbrooker1@bloomberg.net, brian.bergstein@globe.com, marjorie.pritchard@globe.com, bbryan@insider.com, dstrong@businessinsider.com, jeum@businessinsider.com, jane.carr@turner.com, richard.galant@turner.com, audrey.wilson@foreignpolicy.com, rafael.behr@theguardian.com, national@theguardian.com, opinion@theguardian.com, hettie.obrien@theguardian.com, opinion.editors@theguardian.com, amana.fontanella-khan@theguardian.com, cjordan@thehill.com, dallott@thehill.com, smalhi@thehill.com, stolliver@thehill.com, holly.baxter@independent.co.uk, clemence.michallon@independent.co.uk, c.stevenson@independent.co.uk, online@nypost.com, ktorrance@nypost.com, j.hammer@newsweek.com, abstoddard@realclearpolitics.com, robert.haddow@scmp.com, john.Simons@time.com, sue.grant@time.com, michael.zennie@time.com, lindsay.muscato@time.com, jrussell@washingtonexaminer.com, dfreddoso@washingtonexaminer.com, ccarroll@washingtonexaminer.com, english@mondediplo.com, secretariat@Monde-diplomatique.fr, abogues@usatoday.com, kdelguzzi@usatoday.com, newstips@usatoday.com, tswarens@usatoday.com, shackney@usatoday.com, sporter1@usatoday.com, forum@usatoday.com, aapolishchuk@rttv.ru, RT-US@rttv.ru, osardarova@rttv.ru, evg.moiseyeva@gmail.com, press@rttv.ru, producersgroup@rttv.ru, tony.fielding93@gmail.com, esukhareva@rttv.ru, think@nbcuni.com, john.roberts@foxnews.com, john.stossel@foxnews.com, chris.wallace@foxnews.com, sean.hannity@foxnews.com, tucker.carlson@foxnews.com, david_remnick@newyorker.com, daniel_zalewski@newyorker.com, rkearney@newrepublic.com, emily@tnr.com, jake.silverstein@nytimes.com, roomfordebate@nytimes.com, jeffrey_goldberg@theatlantic.com, 60m@cbsnews.com
End the U.S. empire!
Eric Zuesse (948 words — may be reduced if mutually agreed)
Currently, the U.S. has exactly 900 military bases in foreign countries, in addition to the 749 bases inside the U.S. itself. The U.S. Government minimizes and tries to hide this reality from the public. Furthermore, although the U.S. is officially estimated to spend around 36% of the entire world’s military expenditures, the actual figure is around 50% of the world’s military expenditures, and the added approximately 14% is being paid-out through federal U.S. Departments other than the ‘Defense’ Department, so as to make the total U.S. figure appear to be only 36% of the global total. Moreover: on November 15th, the U.S. Department of ‘Defense’ announced that “The results of the fifth annual DOD [Department Of Defense] wide financial audit will be a disclaimer of opinion for DOD” and used other such obtuse phraseology, so that the reality that — as one of the very few published news-reports that was based on it headlined optimistically — “Defense Department fails another audit, but makes progress”, and it opened:
The Defense Department has failed its fifth-ever audit, unable to account for more than half of its assets, but the effort is being viewed as a “teachable moment,” according to its chief financial officer.
After 1,600 auditors combed through DOD’s $3.5 trillion in assets and $3.7 trillion in liabilities, officials found that the department couldn’t account for about 61 percent of its assets, Pentagon Comptroller Mike McCord told reporters on Tuesday.
Neither the New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Reuters, nor AP, reported it, at all. Nor did anyone report that ONLY the U.S. Aggression (or ‘Defense’) Department fails — and repeatedly fails — its audit-attempts. All other Departments pass their audits. This attempt, which had hired 1,600 independent auditors, failed for the same reason as before: the audit-team refused to sign findings, because where or to whom most of the money is going can’t be traced. But the public don’t know how corrupt or otherwise bad the U.S. military actually is; so, at least ever since the year 2000, the most respected “institution” of all, by the American people, is “The military.” It’s a great PR success.
There is only a single empire remaining in the world: the U.S.-and-allied empire. It relies upon the U.S. military. U.S.-and-allied media have been serving it well.
On 1 December 2019, The Conversation dot com headlined “Why does the US pay so much for the defense of its allies? 5 questions answered”, and said:
1. What’s in it for the US?
