Chalmers Johnson - Nemesis - The Last Days of the American Republic

Praise for Nemesis

“Nemesis, the final volume in the remarkable Blowback trilogy, completes a true patriot’s anguished and devastating critique of the militarism that threatens to destroy the United States from within. In detail and with unflinching candor, Chalmers Johnson decries the discrepancies between what America professes to be and what it has actually become—a global empire of military bases and operations; a secret government increasingly characterized by covert activities, enormous ’black’ budgets, and near dictatorial executive power; a misguided republic that has betrayed its noblest ideals and most basic founding principles in pursuit of disastrously conceived notions of security, stability, and progress.”

—John Dower, author of

Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II

“Chalmers Johnson, a patriot who pulls no punches, has emerged as our most prescient critic of American empire and its pretensions. Nemesis is his fiercest book—and his best.”

—Andrew J. Bacevich, author of The New American Militarism

“Johnson s book is a sober reminder that the U.S. has become an empire.... His most searing commentary to date on the current state of U.S. politics.”

—Financial Times

“Nemesis is a stimulating, sweeping study in which Johnson asks a most profound strategic question: Can we maintain the global dominance we now regard as our natural right? His answer is chilling. You do not have to agree with everything Johnson says—I don’t—but if you agree with even half of his policy critiques, you will still slam the book down on the table, swearing, ‘We have to change this!’”

—Joseph Cirincione, senior vice president for national security

and international policy, Center for American Progress

“Each of Johnson’s erudite chapters both enlightens and disturbs.... His writing is often described as ‘epolemic,’ but that doesn’t capture the heartfelt concern that underlies his distress about our country.”

—In These Times

“The three volumes (Blowback, The Sorrows of Empire, Nemesis) constitute a well-written, detailed, and stimulating display of the radical anti-imperialist critique of American foreign policy. Nemesis is particularly good in sounding the alarm. Countervailing reactions are now clearly under way once again, and Johnson’s book is a primer on much that needs to be done.”

—The San Diego Union-Tribune

“Nemesis is a five-alarm warning about flaming militarism, burning imperial attitudes, secret armies, and executive arrogance that has torched and consumed the Constitution and brought the American Republic to death’s door. Johnson shares a simple, liberating, and healing path back to worthy republicanism. But the frightening and heartbreaking details contained in Nemesis suggest that the goddess of retribution will not be so easily satisfied before ‘the right order of things’ is restored.”

—Karen Kwiatkowski, retired U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel

“Last fall a treasonous Congress gave the president license to kidnap, torture—you name it—on an imperial scale. All of us, citizens and noncitizens alike, are fair game. Kudos for not being silent, Chalmers, and for completing your revealing trilogy with undaunted courage.”

—Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst;

cofounder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)

“Before 9/11, when Chalmers Johnson warned us of Blowback, too few listened. When Johnson then urged us to rethink America’s imperial course in The Sorrows of Empire, he went deeper, exploring the wages of global American militarism. Now comes Nemesis, the third in the trilogy, an urgent warning for a country that, in the words of Dwight Eisenhower, risks ’destroying from within that which it is trying to protect from without.’ Johnson is a national treasure. Let’s hope we listen this time.”

—Eugene Jarecki, director of Why We Fight,

Grand Jury Prize Winner, Sundance Film Festival

“Chalmers Johnson’s voice has never been more urgently needed, and in Nemesis it rings with eloquence, clarity, and truth.”

—James Carroll, author of House of War

NEMESIS

NEMESIS

ALSO BY CHALMERS JOHNSON

The Sorrows of Empire:

Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic

Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire

Peasant Nationalism and Communist Power: The Emergence of Revolutionary

China, 1937–1945

Revolution and the Social System

An Instance of Treason: Ozaki Hotsumi and the Sorge Spy Ring

Revolutionary Change

Change in Communist Systems

(editor and contributor)

Conspiracy at Matsukawa

Ideology and Politics in Contemporary China

(editor)

Autopsy on Peoples War

Japans Public Policy Companies

MITI and the Japanese Miracle:

The Growth of Industrial Policy, 1925-1975

The Industrial Policy Debate

(editor and contributor)

Politics and Productivity: How Japan’s Development Strategy Works

(with Laura D’Andrea Tyson and John Zysman)

Japan: Who Governs? The Rise of the Developmental State

Okinawa: Cold War Island

(editor and contributor)

NEMESIS

THE LAST DAYS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC

CHALMERS JOHNSON

Holt Paperbacks

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A Holt Paperback® and ® are registered trademarks of

Henry Holt and Company, LLC.

Copyright © 2006 by Chalmers Johnson

All rights reserved.

Distributed in Canada by H. B. Fenn and Company Ltd.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Johnson, Chalmers.

Nemesis: the last days of the American Republic / Chalmers Johnson. p. cm.

Includes index.

ISBN-13: 978-0-8050-8728-4

ISBN-10: 0-8050-8728-1

1. United States—Foreign relations—1989– 2. United States—Military policy. 3. United States—Politics and government—1989– I. Title.

E840.J633 2007

973.931—dc22 2006047200

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premiums. For details contact: Director, Special Markets.

Originally published in hardcover in 2006 by Metropolitan Books

First Holt Paperbacks Edition 2008

Printed in the United States of America

13579 10 8642

NEMESIS

In Greek mythology,

the goddess of retribution,

who punishes human

transgression of the natural,

right order of things and

the arrogance that causes it.

Contents

Prologue: The Blowback Trilogy

1. Militarism and the Breakdown of Constitutional Government

2. Comparative Imperial Pathologies: Rome, Britain, and America

3. Central Intelligence Agency: The President’s Private Army

4. U.S. Military Bases in Other People’s Countries

5. How American Imperialism Actually Works: The SOFA in Japan

6. Space: The Ultimate Imperialist Project