June 10, 2026
Joe Lauria
Once you get that, what you’ve been taught all your life starts to lose its hold on you.
Establishment education and media try to confuse you. Independent media like Consortium News try to clarify.
Establishment education and media portray the aggressor as the defender, and the victim as the threat. Consortium News endeavors to show you the “threat” is really an obstacle. An obstacle to aggression and occupation. An obstacle to expansion. Locally and globally.
Few would agree with aggression, paid for with your taxes in a so-called democracy. So obstacles to aggression become threats that you’re supposed to be afraid of. Offensive action is taken as “defense” to protect you from the “threat.”
There’s nothing new in this. The Romans dressed up their imperial aggression as self-defense against fake threats. Rome provoked tribes, first in Italy and then Gaul and Germania, into forming alliances to protect the tribes’ sovereignty, and then Rome presented these alliances as “threats” that had to be destroyed, justifying war against them.
Rome would also provoke an adversary into invading or launching an attack to obtain the casus belli needed to start a pre-planned war. For instance, Roman ally Masinissa of Numidia repeatedly raided Carthage to provoke it into finally responding militarily in violation of a treaty it had with Rome. The empire used this as a pretext for total destruction and annexation — even though Carthage posed no realistic, existential threat.
In the earlier U.S. imperium, Mark Twain explained it this way:
Joe Lauria
That is the most
important question today that we strive everyday to answer.
If you understand who
the aggressor is, you are on your way to understanding the mad and perilous
times we live in.
Once you get that, what you’ve been taught all your life starts to lose its hold on you.
Establishment education and media try to confuse you. Independent media like Consortium News try to clarify.
Establishment education and media portray the aggressor as the defender, and the victim as the threat. Consortium News endeavors to show you the “threat” is really an obstacle. An obstacle to aggression and occupation. An obstacle to expansion. Locally and globally.
Few would agree with aggression, paid for with your taxes in a so-called democracy. So obstacles to aggression become threats that you’re supposed to be afraid of. Offensive action is taken as “defense” to protect you from the “threat.”
There’s nothing new in this. The Romans dressed up their imperial aggression as self-defense against fake threats. Rome provoked tribes, first in Italy and then Gaul and Germania, into forming alliances to protect the tribes’ sovereignty, and then Rome presented these alliances as “threats” that had to be destroyed, justifying war against them.
Rome would also provoke an adversary into invading or launching an attack to obtain the casus belli needed to start a pre-planned war. For instance, Roman ally Masinissa of Numidia repeatedly raided Carthage to provoke it into finally responding militarily in violation of a treaty it had with Rome. The empire used this as a pretext for total destruction and annexation — even though Carthage posed no realistic, existential threat.
In the earlier U.S. imperium, Mark Twain explained it this way:
“The statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception.”
Today the obstacles
to the aggressors’ expansion and occupation in the Middle East are Iran plus
the legal, armed resistance to Greater Israel: Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis
and Shia militia in Iraq. They are presented as “threats”rather than defenders
of their dignity, sovereignty and land.
In Asia the “threat” is China. Beijing protecting its sovereignty in its own region is somehow a threat to U.S. warships near China’s waters and to Taiwan, which the U.S. agrees is part of China.
In Europe years of NATO expansion, refusal to negotiate a mutual security treaty, rehabilitation of fascism, a coup, and civil war in Ukraine against ethnic Russian coup-resistors provoked Russia to intervene, much as the Romans provoked Carthage. Getting Russia to invade Ukraine allows the portrayal of Moscow as a “threat” to all of Europe and not as an obstacle to the U.S. and Wall Street return to their 1990s dominance of Russia. (Now there is constant talk of direct NATO war with Russia. The fear is another provocation to get Russia to start it.)
All of these obstacles to U.S. global hegemony are presented to you as existential threats that only the mighty United States, NATO and Israel can protect you from. There’s nothing in it for them, of course, except saving your life, we’re expected to believe. Except you don’t have to believe it. You have alternative media like Consortium News to expose the deceptions on a daily basis.
That’s why pro-establishment social media companies and so-called anti-disinformation services have tried to hurt us. And that’s why we need your help.
In Asia the “threat” is China. Beijing protecting its sovereignty in its own region is somehow a threat to U.S. warships near China’s waters and to Taiwan, which the U.S. agrees is part of China.
In Europe years of NATO expansion, refusal to negotiate a mutual security treaty, rehabilitation of fascism, a coup, and civil war in Ukraine against ethnic Russian coup-resistors provoked Russia to intervene, much as the Romans provoked Carthage. Getting Russia to invade Ukraine allows the portrayal of Moscow as a “threat” to all of Europe and not as an obstacle to the U.S. and Wall Street return to their 1990s dominance of Russia. (Now there is constant talk of direct NATO war with Russia. The fear is another provocation to get Russia to start it.)
All of these obstacles to U.S. global hegemony are presented to you as existential threats that only the mighty United States, NATO and Israel can protect you from. There’s nothing in it for them, of course, except saving your life, we’re expected to believe. Except you don’t have to believe it. You have alternative media like Consortium News to expose the deceptions on a daily basis.
That’s why pro-establishment social media companies and so-called anti-disinformation services have tried to hurt us. And that’s why we need your help.
Caitlin Johnstone
No other military
power is segmented into areas of responsibility spanning every continent on
earth. This is because normal military forces are used to defend the actual,
official country they belong to, whereas the U.S. military is used to dominate
the entire planet.
The U.S. is bombing
Iran again after an American attack helicopter was downed over the Strait of
Hormuz amid renewed escalations in the conflict.CENTCOM said the following in a statement on the airstrikes:
“U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) forces began launching self-defense strikes against Iran at 5 p.m. ET today at the Commander in Chief’s direction, in response to yesterday’s downing of a U.S. Army Apache helicopter. The mission is a proportional response to unjustified Iranian aggression.”
It always amazes me
how the U.S. can start an unprovoked war of aggression on the other side of the
planet and then claim it is “launching self-defense strikes” there.
These military forces are nowhere near the United States. It’s absurd to claim “self-defense” against a country that has been defending itself in a war you started. There’s some debate about whether the helicopter was intentionally targeted by Iran and whether or not it was over international waters at the time it was struck, but honestly, who cares? It shouldn’t have been there in the first place.
These freaks really do operate from the premise that the entire planet is their property, and that any failure to respect their property rights shall therefore be viewed as an act of aggression.
I mean, just look at who’s making this statement. U.S. “Central Command” is the unified combatant command responsible for military operations in the middle east. The U.S. military has separate unified combatant commands for every part of the globe:
These military forces are nowhere near the United States. It’s absurd to claim “self-defense” against a country that has been defending itself in a war you started. There’s some debate about whether the helicopter was intentionally targeted by Iran and whether or not it was over international waters at the time it was struck, but honestly, who cares? It shouldn’t have been there in the first place.
These freaks really do operate from the premise that the entire planet is their property, and that any failure to respect their property rights shall therefore be viewed as an act of aggression.
I mean, just look at who’s making this statement. U.S. “Central Command” is the unified combatant command responsible for military operations in the middle east. The U.S. military has separate unified combatant commands for every part of the globe:
- Central Command (CENTCOM) for the middle east.
- Africa Command (AFRICOM) for Africa.
- Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM) for Asia, the Pacific islands, Australia and Antarctica.
- European Command (EUCOM) for Europe.
- Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) for South America.
- Northern Command (NORTHCOM) for North America.
No other country on
earth does this. No other military power is segmented into areas of
responsibility spanning every continent on earth. This is because normal
military forces are used to defend the actual, official country they belong to,
whereas the U.S. military is used to dominate the entire planet.
And in that sense it’s actually entirely reasonable that the U.S. “Department of Defense” changed its name to the Department of War. The U.S. military is never used to defend the actual, official country of the United States of America; it is only ever used to prop up the globe-spanning imperial power structure it commands.
This is not normal. It is a freakish aberration without historical precedent. The world cannot know peace until the U.S. empire is dismantled.
And in that sense it’s actually entirely reasonable that the U.S. “Department of Defense” changed its name to the Department of War. The U.S. military is never used to defend the actual, official country of the United States of America; it is only ever used to prop up the globe-spanning imperial power structure it commands.
This is not normal. It is a freakish aberration without historical precedent. The world cannot know peace until the U.S. empire is dismantled.
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