The war in Ukraine is well into its second year, and the United States is insistent on pumping billions more into the quagmire that has already seen thousands of lives lost and millions displaced.

The U.S. has already approved more than $113 billion in aid to Ukraine, most of which is weaponry. This year, President Biden has earmarked a record-breaking $842 billion on the military. Yet much of this is not even directed towards Europe but at China. Seemingly not content with turning Europe into a war zone, Washington now has its sights set on Asia.

Joining MintCast hosts Mnar Adley and Alan MacLeod to discuss Washington’s permanent drive to war is author and Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Chris Hedges.

“[War with China] is a serious threat given the mindset of the warmongers who dominate the Washington establishment,” Hedges says before naming and shaming many of the most callous hawks in the nation. “They never go away; it doesn’t matter how wrong they are. They were, of course, all cheerleaders for the war in Iraq. But they represent those interests, and they are creations of the Washington establishment. They don’t actually know war or geopolitics,” he added.

Hedges spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent across the world, including in Central America, Eastern Europe and the Middle East. In 2002, he was part of a New York Times team that won a Pulitzer Prize for their coverage of the global war on terror. After publicly denouncing the Iraq War, however, he was forced out of his job. Since then, he has worked in independent media. A prolific and best-selling author, his latest book, “The Greatest Evil is War” was published last year. You can find his work at ChrisHedges.substack.com/.

America is “clearly on the decline,” Hedges told Adley and MacLeod, suggesting that:

Anyone who drives through large swathes of the United States will tell you, it is one decayed city after another. All the mechanisms of repression that were tested largely on people of color (the way the Israelis do on Gaza) have migrated back to the homeland. Militarized drones, wholesale surveillance, militarized police, we have the largest prison system in the world; [the U.S. has almost] 25% of the world’s prisoners even though we are less than 5% of the world’s population. So we are dying the same way any empire dies.”

Why the United States has turned its eye towards China, MacLeod states is that it considers itself a world empire. Few remember now that the U.S. invaded and occupied China for four years in the 1940s and has never forgiven China for freeing itself from a century of humiliating Western rule. Much of the panic over Beijing’s rise is being bankrolled by the Taiwanese government. MacLeod’s investigation for MintPress showed how the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the United States funneled millions to warmongering think tanks who put out reports demanding Washington step in to save the island – all of which contributes to a sense of heightened tensions with Beijing.

However, if war really does break out between China and the U.S., the results will be catastrophic, not only for Taiwan but for the rest of humanity, too.

Listen or watch now to hear one of America’s most astute and knowledgeable intellectuals share his thoughts.

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Mnar Adley is founder and director of MintPress News and Behind The Headlines and is also a producer and host for both platforms.

Alan MacLeod is Senior Staff Writer for MintPress News. After completing his PhD in 2017 he published two books: Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting and Propaganda in the Information Age: Still Manufacturing Consent, as well as a number of academic articles. He has also contributed to FAIR.org, The Guardian, Salon, The Grayzone, Jacobin Magazine, and Common Dreams.

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