Along with postcards of cowboys riding jackalopes and giant berries on flatcars, there's a brand new entry in the American gigantism sweepstakes: an embassy complex to be built in Islamabad, Pakistan, for -- if you assume the normal cost overruns on such projects -- what's likely to be close to a billion dollars. If that doesn't make the U.S. number one in the imperial hubris footrace for all eternity, what will? The question is: with its projected "large military and intelligence contingent," and its "surge" of diplomats, will that embassy also issue the largest visas on the planet?

Here's the strange thing: The embassy story was broken at the end of May by the superb journalists at McClatchy News (in this case, Warren P. Stroebel and Saeed Shah). As part of what Shah, in the Christian Science Monitor, estimates as a staggering "$2-billion-plus price tag on a revamped diplomatic presence for the United States in Afghanistan and Pakistan," they reported that an appropriation of $736 million for embassy construction had quietly made its way through both houses of Congress without a peep from anyone. This news, however, seemed to plunge off a steep cliff into a deep well of silence. Indicative as the Obama administration's decision to build such an imperial monstrosity may be of a longer-term commitment to a wider war in the Af-Pak (as in Afghanistan-Pakistan) theater of operations, it evidently proved of no interest to anyone here.

The story was not widely picked up or played up significantly. Despite the fact that major news operations have been bolstering their staffs in Pakistan, there has been no further reporting on the appropriation, the plans for the embassy, or what it all might mean. As far as I can tell, nowhere in the United States did a mainstream editorial page decry, challenge, or even discuss the development. Charlie Rose didn't gather experts to consider it, nor did the Newshour with Jim Lehrer seem to think it worth exploring. Letters of outrage at the thought of those desperately needed funds heading Islamabad-wards didn't pour into local newspapers (perhaps because few knew it was happening and those who did saw it as just another humdrum story about making the U.S. safer in a dangerous world). I've seen no obvious congressional attempts to oppose the passage of the money. The general attitude is evidently: Been there, done that (in Iraq, as a matter of fact, in the Bush years).

Maybe in a world where near-trillion-dollar bailouts are the norm, a mere three-quarters of a billion for a fortress of an embassy seems like so much chump change, the sort of news that only Democracy Now! would even consider significant. Fortunately, Chalmers Johnson, author of The Blowback Trilogy, and an expert on U.S. military bases abroad, did notice, understood its significance, and has now put it in his gun sights. (Catch my TomDispatch audio interview with Johnson about our Empire of Bases by clicking here). Tom

How to Deal with America's Empire of Bases

A Modest Proposal for Garrisoned Lands
By Chalmers Johnson

The U.S. Empire of Bases -- at $102 billion a year already the world's costliest military enterprise -- just got a good deal more expensive. As a start, on May 27th, we learned that the State Department will build a new "embassy" in Islamabad, Pakistan, which at $736 million will be the second priciest ever constructed, only $4 million less, if cost overruns don't occur, than the Vatican-City-sized one the Bush administration put up in Baghdad. The State Department was also reportedly planning to buy the five-star Pearl Continental Hotel (complete with pool) in Peshawar, near the border with Afghanistan, to use as a consulate and living quarters for its staff there.

Unfortunately for such plans, on June 9th Pakistani militants rammed a truck filled with explosives into the hotel, killing 18 occupants, wounding at least 55, and collapsing one entire wing of the structure. There has been no news since about whether the State Department is still going ahead with the purchase.

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The All-Volunteer Force (AVF) exists for a reason captured in a study by Colonel Robert D. Heinl, Jr., author of the "definitive history of the Marine Corps," published in Armed Forces Journal in 1971. The U.S. military in Vietnam was at that moment at the edge of chaos. As Colonel Heinl put it, it was experiencing "widespread conditions... that have only been exceeded in this century by the French Army's Nivelle mutinies of 1917 and the collapse of the Tsarist armies [of Russia] in 1916 and 1917."

In fact, statistics flowing back to Washington about the American war machine in Vietnam then pointed toward an unimaginable nightmare. Drug use was rampant; desertions stood at 70 per thousand, a modern high; small-scale mutinies or "combat refusals" were at critical, if untabulated, levels; incidents of racial conflict had soared; and strife between "lifers" and draftees was at unprecedented levels. Reported "fraggings" -- assassination attempts -- against unpopular officers or NCOs had risen from 126 in 1969 to 333 in 1971, despite declining troop strength in Vietnam. According to Colonel Heinl's figures, as many as 144 antiwar underground newspapers were being published by, or for, soldiers. And most threatening of all, active duty soldiers in relatively small numbers (as well as a swelling number of Vietnam veterans) were beginning to actively organize against the war.

When, in January 1973, before the war was even over, President Richard Nixon announced that an American draft army was at an end and an all-volunteer force would be created, this was why. The U.S. military was in the wilderness without a compass, having discovered one crucial thing: you couldn't fight an endless, unpopular counterinsurgency war with the kind of conscript army a democracy had to offer. What resulted, of course, was the AVF, a moniker that, as Andrew Bacevich has written in his book The New American Militarism, was but "a euphemism for what is, in fact, a professional army... [that] does not even remotely 'look like' democratic America." Citizenship and the obligation to serve were now officially severed and, from the 1980s on, most Americans would ever more vigorously cheer on the AVF from the sidelines, while it would be a force theoretically purged of possible Vietnam-style dissent and refusal.

In that sense, it could be considered a success. We've now been at war seven and a half years in Afghanistan and more than five in Iraq, two catastrophic counterinsurgency struggles, and yet a Vietnam-style movement has neither arisen in the military, nor for that matter in the streets of what's now called "the homeland." But as TomDispatch regular Dahr Jamail indicates below and in his new book, The Will To Resist: Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan, dissent has proved irrepressible. With the generous support of the Nation Institute's Investigative Fund, Jamail has produced a report on the seeds of refusal and dissent in the military that may -- in a quagmire future in Afghanistan and possibly Iraq -- grow into something far larger. Tom

Refusing to Comply

The Tactics of Resistance in an All-Volunteer Military
By Dahr Jamail

[Research support for this article was provided by the Investigative Fund at the Nation Institute.]

On May 1st at Fort Hood in central Texas, Specialist Victor Agosto wrote on a counseling statement, which is actually a punitive U.S. Army memo:

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The armed might of the state (and its auxiliary forces) remains in the hands of Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamanei, and its "reelected" President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who has, according to Neil MacFarquhar of the New York Times, solidified control over the Interior Ministry (which, in turn, controlled the count for the recent presidential election), as well as the Intelligence and Justice Ministries, and various other key security and propaganda outfits. It's not a pretty picture for unarmed demonstrators.

Whether what's happened in Iran is an attempt by the supreme leader to "abolish the people," a "fascist tendency," a "coup" by the Revolutionary Guards, "the final acts of a protracted war for the control of the Iranian economy," or something else entirely remain questions for the future. This is especially true as what New Yorker journalist Laura Secor has called a "burning silence," backed by the repression of reporting and reporters, has descended on Iran.

In the meantime, the discredited neocons from the salad days of George W. Bush's Global War on Terror are back thumping for stronger presidential denunciations and an American-led attempt to democratize Iran, as well as to strangle the country. (The last time they went at this, of course, they wanted to bomb Iran back to the stone age.) At the same time, some on the left still imagine that those millions in the streets are essentially a CIA plot to create a new "color-coded revolution." (Yes, American agents are undoubtedly in Iran. After all, a major project of the Bush administration was the covert undermining of the Iranian regime. Still, it's amazing, isn't it, the degree to which Americans regularly can't imagine that anything could happen in the world to which our actions or thoughts aren't central!)

In any case, it may be all over for now in Iran (all but the beatings, the arrests, the imprisonments, and possibly the dying). On the other hand, there are simply moments when you can feel the ground shifting, locally, regionally, globally. This, for Iran, seems to be one of those moments.

Last week, Iran's Islamic revolutionary regime, like so many rigidified revolutionary movements before it, has used brute force to postpone its date with destiny. Demonstrators can often be beaten and chased off the streets, but no one has yet discovered a baton that can beat a set of ideas about how life should be led out of the minds of large numbers of people. This is, in essence, the story that Dilip Hiro, TomDispatch regular and expert on Iran, has to tell -- with a look back at a history about which most of us know all too little. Tom

The Clash of Islam and Democracy in Iran

The Islamic Revolution Faces the Classic Dilemma of All Revolutions
By Dilip Hiro

By marshalling the regime's coercive instruments, Iran's 70-year-old supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamanei, has, for now, succeeded in curbing the popular, peaceful challenge to the authenticity of Iran's fateful June 12th presidential election. But he has paid a heavy political price.

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The American media in its 24/7 half-life tends to turn the surprises of history, large and small, into flood-tide events. They sweep over us, offering a kind of news satiation that leads quickly enough to forgetfulness -- as the media moves on. And then the subjects of the news are left to struggle, once again little attended to, with whatever everyday crisis may be at hand. Right now, Iran, of course, is that flood: both the news of a remarkable outpouring of dissatisfaction and dismay, youthful and otherwise, with the recent fraudulent election -- not the first time, by the way, that there have been fraud charges in an Iranian election, just not on such a grotesque scale -- as well as the bravery and determination of unarmed protestors in the face of angry, armed repression. And then, of course, there are all sorts of American fantasies about what's happening.

It's a wonderful, even a thrilling thing, when we're reminded that history surprises, that we human beings are less than predictable and sometimes act in concert and so much better, so much more movingly, than we have any right to expect. One can only hope for further surprises against the force of a well-armed state. While we're at it, however, we Americans should remind ourselves that we are not the good guys in this story, that it was American meddling that set in motion the whole grim train of events leading to this moment more than half a century ago.

In the meantime, in news terms, the rest of the world is largely obliterated. Israelis, Palestinians? Gone. That was another moment, another flood of news. Been there, done that. You know, Obama's speech in Cairo and all that (on which, by the way, David Bromwich has an interesting and optimistic take over at the New York Review of Books). And yet in that region, the everyday worst of things simply goes on being terrible. Gaza strangles. The West Bank settlements slowly expand. The Israeli government moves further to the right. And Hamas digs in.

On the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, I undoubtedly qualify as a pessimist. I see little in the direction Israel has taken -- and Israel is the strong one in the "peace process," the party with at least the theoretical capacity to give something -- that might lead somewhere close to something resembling peace. Yet, here, too, I'm ready for the surprises of history. I welcome them whether in Iran, Israel, or the Gaza Strip. And I like it when someone like that all-around canny guy and TomDispatch regular Ira Chernus sees glimmers of hope for something new in the otherwise horrific tangle of bitterness, retribution, and hopelessness that the Israelis and Palestinians now represent. Tom

Palestinian Violence Overstated, Jewish Violence Understated

Time to Change the Story
By Ira Chernus

The Israel Project hired pollster Stanley Greenberg to test American opinion on the Middle East conflict -- and got a big surprise. In September 2008, 69% of Americans called themselves pro-Israel. Now, it's only 49%. In September, the same 69% wanted the U.S. to side with Israel; now, only 44%.

How to explain this dramatic shift? Greenberg himself suggested the answer years ago when he pointed out that, in politics, "a narrative is the key to everything." Last year the old narrative about the Middle East conflict was still dominant: Israel is an innocent victim, doing only what it must do to defend itself against the Palestinians. Today, that narrative is beginning to lose its grip on Americans.

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In the 1920s, the sales slogan didn't kid around: "Ford, the universal car." In the 1940s, with an American golden age ahead, it was hopeful: "There's a Ford in your future." In the 1950s and 1960s, it was forward looking: "Ford has a better idea." In the 1970s, there was a slight pleading quality to it: "Ford wants to be your car company." In the 1980s, it had become a question: "Have you driven a Ford lately?" By 2004, it was simply a lie: "Ford, built for the road ahead." As we now know, it should have been something like, "Ford, built for the cliff ahead."

In retrospect, the rest of the Big Three once had that same imperial self-certainty about the product: Chevrolet, of course, was "the heartbeat of America." Cadillac was the "Standard of the World." Buick was "the spirit of American style." And Pontiac, "We are driving excitement." Well, no longer, pal.

I still have my old Ford Taurus, but the other day, the Wall Street Journal ran a piece on Detroit pointing out that, while it may still be hanging onto the tagline, the Motor City, like the lines above, that moniker now seems to tell the sorriest of tales. "You have to leave town," the Journal's Andrew Grossman pointed out, just to buy a new Chrysler or a Jeep, now that the dealers in town have closed up shop. The same is true if you want to get a new book, since the Borders bookstore chain, founded only 40 miles away, closed its Detroit store this June. Ditto just about everything else. There's no longer even a national chain grocery store anywhere in the city. Talk about the hollowing out of America!

The other day I offered some summer reading recommendations. Here's one addition: consider it your American history lesson, totally bizarre, thoroughly captivating, for the hot months of the American automotive collapse. I'm talking about Greg Grandin's Fordlandia, The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City. As TomDispatch regular Grandin makes startlingly clear below, the story he tells couldn't be more relevant to our difficult moment of economic and automotive meltdown -- or stranger. Check out the imperial relevance of the disintegration of the Big Three below, then go read at greater length about Henry Ford's jungle "utopia" (and while you're at it, listen to a TomDispatch audio interview with Grandin about Fordlandia by clicking here). Tom

Touring Empire's Ruins

From Detroit to the Amazon
By Greg Grandin

The empire ends with a pull out. Not, as many supposed a few years ago, from Iraq. There, as well as in Afghanistan, we are mulishly staying the course, come what may, trapped in the biggest of all the "too-big-to-fail" boondoggles. But from Detroit.

Of course, the real evacuation of the Motor City began decades ago, when Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler started to move more and more of their operations out of the downtown area to harder to unionize rural areas and suburbs, and, finally, overseas. Even as the economy boomed in the 1950s and 1960s, 50 Detroit residents were already packing up and leaving their city every day. By the time the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, Detroit could count tens of thousands of empty lots and over 15,000 abandoned homes. Stunning Beaux Arts and modernist buildings were left deserted to return to nature, their floors and roofs covered by switchgrass. They now serve as little more than ornate bird houses.

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