Source: Xinchao meditation (ID: xincaochensi)
Author: Liu Menglong
The US military has recently made a small fire in Syria. According to Syrian media reports, in recent years, the United States has increasingly stolen oil in Syria, at least eight times in August. There’s another related news report today.
Can imperialism be called stealing?
Two weeks ago, a live video “I steal oil for the United States” appeared on station B, which aroused a warm response from netizens and was adapted into an English version. “I steal oil for the United States” is really a magic song, which should be played more for everyone to wash their brains. But there’s a word in this song that you’d better change. How can this work be called stealing. To steal is to steal while the master is away. The United States military is open and aboveboard, driving a large convoy, harvesting regularly, which is more appropriate.
When Americans rob, they rob. The word “steal” is to help others and insult imperialism. We must make it clear that it is not surprising that imperialists rob things from third world countries. In the colonial era, imperialism plundered directly through military superiority. Before deindustrialization, imperialism carried out commercial plunder through technological advantages. After deindustrialization, imperialism plundered the economy through financial advantage. In other people’s dictionaries, what you have is mine, so it’s not called robbing, but taking.
The above three methods are also used in a mixed way. It is impossible to make a clear distinction between them. Whichever is easy to use will be used. In particular, most of the time, the latter two are not considered as grabbing by the world, but the normal and mainstream mode of business and capital exchange in the contemporary era, which most people in the world are accustomed to and even take for granted. Now, it’s just a return to the old tradition.
The incident itself does not hurt the American himself much. If you sing “I steal oil for the motherland” in his presence, people may laugh at it and maybe retweet it. According to Pompeo, who also wants to run for president, that is, “we lie, we cheat, we steal, and we have a course to teach these. This is the glory of America’s continuous exploration and progress.” This has happened in many countries, but it is also American to say it openly and get warm applause from the audience. The morality of the first world is actually different from that of the third world, which is similar to that of carnivores and herbivores. What kind of moral pressure can there be on predators.
However, this matter should be publicized again, or different signals and viewpoints should be conveyed to different people. Of course, it is of great educational significance to our domestic people. Yesterday, the queen of England passed away. There was a phenomenon that a group of Europeans were living on the Internet, and then many people in the Chinese speaking community and on the domestic Internet were grieving. In these days, it is precisely the third world countries that still harbor illusions about imperialism. This is an important symbol of the full cultural hegemony of the western world after the cold war. While dumping cultural products, hegemony is pushed into people’s minds, which is called invisible ideological domination.
From this point of view, it is necessary to constantly expose and liquidate the ideological infiltration, especially for a latecomer country like China, and to fully dispel the illusion of beautifying imperialism among ordinary people. You don’t know his true appearance, his intentions, habitual tricks, and the dangers you face. How can you unite as one, communicate with him on an equal footing, and even confront him?
When imperialism becomes more and more disgraceful
Of course, everyone knows that imperialism has never been arrogant and unreasonable, and Americans have done a lot of bad things in Syria, the Arab world and the vast Asian, African and Latin American countries. The problem is that in the past, lions were majestic and could fight tigers and easily prey on buffalo and wild boars. Now they can only eat pheasants and marmots to supplement nutrition. Imperialism, which used to be so strong and which we thought was heavenly, is no longer respectable and fastidious. This is the key point. It should be known and fully reminded by the general public in the third world, the second world, and even the first world.
For the third world countries, especially the Middle East, there must be different perspectives. On the one hand, they are the direct victims of their imperialist plundering of resources, but on the other hand, we should not forget that their upper social stratum is the collaborator and even the beneficiary of imperialist plundering. From this point of view, it is not a problem for the United States to rob things, but it is indeed a problem to rob things without being dignified.
For example, it was originally taken through agents, allowing them to earn a handling fee, and even allowing them to buy some industries. Now the imperialist masters don’t mind being dirty. They rob themselves and empty out some of the money saved by others. This must be a breach of the rules. In fact, from the Arab spring, the protracted Syrian issue, to the failure of the Iraq war, which caused widespread erosion, the United States’ widespread violation of rules in the Middle East has indeed shaken its prestige in the Middle East world and directly damaged the only little prospect of progress in the Middle East world.
The existence of hegemony is a long-term fact, but to obey hegemony, at least you must maintain peace under Rome. This is a problem that can not be avoided when the United States swings in strategic objectives and does not land on both sides after its strength declines. The organized oil grab by the US military in Syria is of course of educational significance to the vast number of Asian, African and Latin American countries. In fact, this is also a common thing in the Middle East in recent years.
If we stand in the perspective of the second world, mainly old Europe, this will not be the same. Of course, old Europe does not care about the moral level of Americans, but more about the strength level of Americans. However, Europe and the United States have long been both cooperative and antagonistic. Without Europe as an ally and strategic springboard, it is impossible for the United States to dominate Eurasia. Even with the support of the global base group and without the coordination of the vast number of allies, if the logistics cost of the US troops stationed in the world is the same as that of Afghanistan at the beginning, isolated points and food for thousands of miles, Biden will not be enough.
However, the United States does not want European integration, and there will be any challenges to it. Therefore, from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to the Arab spring to today’s Ukraine, the strategic balance of the United States often knocks Europe in passing, or even directly makes Europe bear the cost. The cost of the United States is Europe.
The current situation in Europe is certainly chaotic. The overall strength of the United States has declined, but Europe itself has collapsed faster. Coupled with the long-term Ideological Penetration of the United States, it is difficult for Europe to confront the United States as a whole, and it can only be at the cost of the United States. European social elites, especially big countries like Germany and France, are not unaware of this. Compared with countries with incomplete sovereignty such as Japan and South Korea, in the past, Europe undoubtedly had a higher status towards the United States and had a certain degree of autonomy. However, they must now rely more on the United States and be controlled more and more deeply by the United States. The second world represented by old Europe is not only the accomplice of the United States in plundering the world, but also the victim in fact.
Of course, in combination with current events, the Americans’ scramble for oil is really sensitive at a special time when Europe is facing energy shortage. This is the price Europe has paid for the United States. The Russian Ukrainian war was a multi pronged war for the United States. It not only contained Russia, but also weakened Europe and interrupted the progress of Russian European collusion. In the next step, if we want to make further efforts, the United States will certainly interrupt the progress bar of China EU collusion.
In fact, the amount of oil that the United States robbed in the Middle East certainly does not matter, and it also makes some pocket money for the local US military. The problem is that the United States is indeed a major oil and gas exporter. You can say that it has made a lot of goods and made a lot of profits when the oil price was high, whether it is supporting, stabilizing the oil price or even robbing. Europe has temporarily maintained its energy stability and has realized the natural gas reserve for civil winter this year, but this is based on affecting or even stopping industrial production, which is unsustainable. Under such circumstances, will Americans label Middle East oil and increase its price to Europeans? Even if it is not accurate, it is enough to annoy Europeans.
When the empire goes crazy
As far as the American people are concerned, they are not opposed to the US military’s oil grab. Although there are huge contradictions among racial and class groups in the United States, on the whole, they are all beneficiaries of the US grabbing global resources. However, they are opposed to the US military’s sinking into a quagmire in the Middle East, its efforts have failed, the powerful capitalists have taken all the advantages, and the ordinary people have to bear all the costs. They use high taxes to fill the bottomless pit.
The US military’s oil grab gives people the most intuitive feeling that the US military has developed into a state of living on the ground and supporting the war with war. Of course, this may be a political statement, but this way of taking a little for a little certainly also shows that the US military is no longer so rich and powerful.
However, this predicament of the US military is not entirely caused by the decline of national strength or economic difficulties. The US military expenditure is still huge, second to none in the world and comparable to the sum of other major countries. However, at the same time, such as the US Air Force’s $1280 high-end coffee cup, the superb research team employs sexual service providers with research funds, which is still a small matter. The United States has invested trillions of dollars in Afghanistan, and has invested 88 billion dollars in the Afghan government army alone. It is claimed that it has trained 300000 national troops. In the end, it was proved that almost all of them were empty airs and could not withstand a single attack. If it is said that the US military stationed abroad did not know about this kind of thing and did not participate in it, no one would believe it.
Since the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the US military, which has a huge amount of funds, has been plagued by various malpractice cases, unreasonable purchase prices of weapons, and frequent failures in the development of new weapons, so that the United States no longer leads in many key fields. All these are bound to arouse the discontent of the American people. The super huge military industrial complex in the United States has been seriously rotten, making the use of US military spending increasingly inefficient. Such worries are echoed by the US military’s scramble for oil in the Middle East. I’m afraid even ordinary Americans, no matter how simple, will inevitably have some ideas.
Not to mention this, are the accounts of oil grabbing clear? Who owns the money? Over time, the US troops stationed abroad who eat at both ends are still disobedient. Will they develop their own sources of revenue and listen to the mediation instead of the propaganda. In this regard, the Chinese people have rich experience, and we should give a good analysis to the American people so that they can be sober.
Of course, the US military’s formation to seize oil is an excellent propaganda topic, which should be used well. Even the Russians don’t forget to forward the English version of “I steal oil for my motherland”, which is really a good job. But in the end, we may as well look from the matter itself to a longer-term place. As we have analyzed, the attitude of the whole world towards the contemporary United States is the same, so-called love and fear. On the one hand, the United States maintains the old world system, including the existence of profiteers and parasites. On the other hand, the United States is increasingly frantically sucking blood from the whole system, which is endangering the interests of all people.
It’s typically like the Middle East issue. Under the repeated plundering, poisoning, infiltration and destruction of the United States over a long period of time, the Middle East is not only suffering from poverty and serious social crisis, but also lacking in progressive power. But equally, such a serious crisis will surely breed opportunities and hopes. In fact, many Third World countries are not unaware that Americans are looting, but feel powerless. It is natural and normal to be robbed. In such a complex and deformed middle east society, we can hardly expect revolutionary changes. And history has also proved that in the process of withdrawal, imperialism often deliberately made a mess of the local area, as was the case in Britain in the past and the United States now. As we have said before, the United States is widely implementing the poison pill policy in the process of strategic contraction.
As a late developing country and a representative of the third world countries, while mocking and prying the old system of the United States, in the final analysis, we want to develop our own new system. It is easy to destroy the old system. What is important is to build a new world. To break away from this kind of imperialist order, which is natural and habitual, we must rely on solid construction instead of simple propaganda.
The industrial system of modern China is fundamentally based on the world market. Whether it is based on its own positioning or on the morality of the third world, China must also shoulder the task of leading the development of third world countries. Then, in the process of striving for extensive cooperation with third world countries, especially those regions that have been disturbed by the West for a long time, what should China bring? Is it pure investment or technology, or is it providing further security, or is it capable of establishing a new system of mutual benefit and mutual assistance outside the United States? In a word, it is definitely not feasible to follow the old road of the West. With the strength of the United States, it is only a short time since the peak in the 1990s. This requires us to be extremely alert.
In the final analysis, let the Americans steal and rob. What the Chinese people want to do is to really prove that they are capable of building a fair new system together with all late developing countries. This is the biggest and most powerful criticism and weapon against all imperialists who are in decline and unwilling to withdraw from the historical stage.