The Empire

"[T]he chancellor of the exchequer has insisted it is time Britain stopped apologising for empire," writes Andrew Murray. This is in reference to Britain's endless occupations in places like Iraq and Afghanistan.

But isn't Britain just a "junior partner" to the U.S. in these adventures? Why are they talking about empire?

There is so question in antiwar circles as to whether Israel controls American foreign policy, or America controls Israel. Maybe the same could be asked of the U.K. - is Britain the puppet, or the puppeteer, of American foreign policy?

It seems to me that the ideology is trans-national. Perhaps there's a conspiratorial cabal of bankers and Zionists in control, or perhaps there's just a feeling of kinship among the white English-speaking peoples that compels one to go to the aid of another. There does seem to be a clear US-UK-Israel axis, and the real "junior partners" are Australia and (sometimes) Canada.

While it is obvious that such projects like attacking Iraq and Lebanon were clearly not in the interests of the Israaeli, U.S., or U.K. governments, perhaps those governments weren't thinking of self-interest. Maybe they are just agents, wittingly or not, of an Empire of the heart and mind - of the desire White Anglo-Saxon Protestants to dominate other peoples, by force, for their own "good." Israel is supported by, and is a part of, this Empire as it establishes a beachhead from which to dominate the Middle East.