The document provides a detailed summary of the book "Imperial Overstretch" which argues that George W. Bush fundamentally changed America's place in the world for the worse during his presidency. It discusses how the book claims Bush used 9/11 as an opportunity to extend American imperialism globally rather than a tragedy. The summary also examines how the book argues the US government and media have historically manipulated information and education to promote imperialism and war. It concludes by noting the book was written in 2004 and so does not cover recent changes to the war on terrorism, suggesting a more updated text may be more relevant now.

1. Natalie Dyer (2873692)
Journalism and Visual Media III
Literature Review of Imperial Overstretch
for Maurice Coakley’s Modern Society Module
Word Count: 2,432
(Does not include headings, subheadings, or in text citations)
Imperial Overstretch, written by Roger Burbach and Jim Tarbell in 2004,
argues the theory that George W. Bush fundamentally changed America’s
place in the world for the worse, during his time as president of the United
States.
Using September 11 not as a tragedy, but as a political opportunity, they
argue that Bush started his ‘war against terrorism’ as a cover for extending
the tentacles of the [American empire] into the far corners of the globe,
(2004, prologue). The book details how the Neo Conservatives, Christian
right and the petro military complex hijacked US foreign policy, (2004,
about this book) and at the heart of the publication, the facets of ‘imperial
overstretch’ explain the doctrine of pre-emptive war, and the history of US
intervention in countries such as Iraq. The earlier chapters also recall the
history of the US imperium, and its relation to other empires which lead it to
the America it became in 2004 (2004, p.29).
Creating The US Empire: Imperialism and Denial
Explained in Chapter One, The United States had forged an ‘informal empire’ by the end of
the Second World War which was based not on territorial conquest, but on the conquest of
foreign markets so as to guarantee the prosperity and growth of US agriculture and its
burgeoning manufacturing sector (2004, p.36). Authors Burbach and Tarbell further reveal that
the collection of loans, along with the protection of US investments and trade, became the basis
for expansion and repeated US interventions in other countries (2004, p.37).

2. Yet, inconsistent with this, the book also observes that because the United States of America
became the first modern nation in the world to declare independence from an empire, the
American people, by and large, believe that the United states is inherently anti-colonial and
anti-imperialist (2004, p.30).
In order to comprehend the reasoning behind this contradiction, Chapter Two then explicitly
uses the brutal conquest of The North American Indians and the Philippine war to show how a
genocidal approach to warfare had become ingrained in the American psyche. Burbach and
Tarbell remark that it was only by denying reality and characterizing Filipinos as ‘niggers,
barbarians, and savages’, could the Americans rationalize the horror of the Philippines. This
denial had made it hard for Americans to make the link between racism and imperialism
expansionism. In the meantime, the government knew they could take advantage of this so they
could sell wars. And they did - in Asia, Latin America, and in the Gulf (2004, p.41).
US Domination: Education
“History is Written by The Winners” (Orwell, 1943)
The authors’ case in point of how denial first emerged comes from an ancestral generation’s
viewpoint. In this current age, the ignorance and indifference towards American Indian
problems and concerns is found to be the most important strain on the relationship between the
USA and the Native Americans (Wikibooks, 2016).
In such manner, it is not communicated, but the book does steer the argument toward a
conclusion that this unwavering denial has continued up to today because American history
education has since been preached from biased high school textbooks with an overly patriotic,
‘one sided’ account of history. This practice, inevitably spawning an ignorance towards the
plight of other cultures’ backgrounds.
However, the leading modern day cause behind desensitized attitudes in the American psyche
has more than likely come from the genesis of popular Hollywood war movies such as “Pearl
Harbour” and the trivializing persuasion of videogames such as “Call of Duty: Infinite
Warfare”.

3. Not so different in nature, the authors’ earlier mention of how the government have prevailed
with their ‘pro-war’ propaganda can still be seen today too. The provocative 2003 edition of
one of the most popular American history textbooks aimed at eleventh grade students, The
American Vision, served to arouse vengeful attitudes right after 9/11 with its “War on
Terrorism” Chapter, (Friedersdorf, 2012) despite a 2003 international poll releasing findings
that only 13 percent of American students (18 to 24 years old) could find Iraq on a map
(Abdelazim, 2003).
Likewise, just as American school-goers were brainwashed, in the twilight of the Cold War,
the United States also spent millions of dollars to supply Afghan schoolchildren with textbooks
filled with violent images and militant Islamic teachings, as part of covert attempts to spur
resistance to the Soviet occupation (Stephens & Ottaway, 2002).
The United States reformed the Iraqi’s education system too, after the US lead war. They
purged school texts of all Husain and Baath party references, and brought education experts
from US school systems to serve as advisers in Iraq (Wang, 2005).
This abundance of exemplars solely illustrates how the US government has repeatedly played
a role in dictating and censoring education, not only nationally, but intercontinentally.
US Domination: Media
There is little doubt that the concepts of empire and global domination were still in the forefront
of the minds of the foreign policy strategists of the Bush administration. In Chapter Two, Wall
Street Journal writer and Bush supporter, Max Boot, backs up the statement by believing
‘America’s destiny is to police the world’ (2004, p.28).
Author of ‘The Invisible Hand of the American Empire’, Robert Hunter Wade, asserts that as
an aspiring hegemon you need world economy arrangements that will yield you high economic
growth, low inflation, low interest rates, high investment, high consumption, a high value of
your currency (the dollar), and high prices of your equities. He adds that out of this prosperity
you can then finance a military many times bigger than anyone else's (Wade, 2003).

4. Comparably, Chapter Three asserts that the threat of military force was an integral part of the
globalisation project, though, when George Bush assumed power in the 1990s, the
globalisation project was in serious trouble (2004, p.75).
Following this, the authors of Imperial Overstretch comment that the cohort of leaders around
Bush joined the drive to build a corporate right counter movement in America. Nixon and
Ford’s treasury secretary wrote that he wanted to “cease the mindless subsidizing of colleges
and universities whose departments of economy are hostile to capitalism”, and to “stop funding
the media which serve as megaphones for anti capitalist opinion” (2004, p.79).
In correspondence, it is interesting to note how in later Chapter Six, the Bush administration
had transformed the press from questioning adversary to submissive stooge during the War in
Afghanistan. At this time, established media outlets had largely become an appendage of the
US government, with Fox Network owner, Rupert Murdoch, proclaiming that they would “do
whatever is [their] patriotic duty” (2004, p.137).
With the US media being owned and controlled by a handful of huge corporate conglomerates
in collusion with the government, further research shows that rather than risking “the loss of
support by the population”, they opted to create bogus reports in order to generate critical
public support for the invasion of Iraq. For instance, they forged reports alleging that Saddam
Hussein had been secretly buying large quantities of yellow uranium from Africa in order to
fashion an atomic bomb in retaliation (Royce, 2014).
Afterwards, some in the media quietly admitted that they'd been manipulated to produce
sanitized coverage which almost entirely ignored the war's human cost, (an estimate of over
109,000 civilian deaths), (TCMDPRW, 2016) and deeper enquiry found that journalists who
decided to go freelance came under attack by the US military. Two popular Arab television
offices were directly bombed by the US air force, as a result (GPF, 2016).
All of above, yet again, showcases the American government’s penchant for broadcasting an
imbalanced perspective on warfare, but this time in the form of media dictatorship and
censorship.

5. The Manipulation of Think Tanks
In Chapter Four, Burbach and Tarbell assert that conservative public policy institutions and
their philanthropic supporters had a tremendous impact on Congress’s and the administration’s
proclivity for waging war, curtailing civil liberties, and slashing taxes and social spending
(2004, p.80). They point out that these think tanks manipulated capitalist tenets into more
democracy friendly terms, and in place of greed they promoted entrepreneurialism. In addition,
the control of politics and the economy were renamed ‘the free market’, which negated the
reality that in any market situation money is power (2004, p.79).
At the end of the Chapter, the authors also recall when The American Enterprise Institutebegan
a project it called NGOWATCH.ORG, which monitored the re-emergence of civil society
movements they thought were aimed at disempowering the globalized empire of the new
millennium. The AEI’s guise was that “the extraordinary growth of advocacy NGOs in liberal
democracies had the potential to undermine the sovereign powers of countries”, (2004, p.93)
but co-incidentally, none of their right wing connections were on their list of NGOs to keep a
watch on (2004, p.94).
We can see similarities today with the so-called “regulatory cooperation” of the recently
dissolved Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. This proposed agreement allowed
representatives of big businesses and bureaucrats from both sides of the Atlantic to influence
draft laws in expert groups, even before these were discussed in elected parliaments (IFUT,
2016). This also happened while trade unions, consumer groups, and other NGOs were
sidelined.
As history repeats itself, these instances go to show how much influence think tanks and
corporate lobbyists have had on the government, and how the government has always listened
to them, over NGOs and citizens. (Hardisty & Furden, 2004)

6. George Bush and Pre-emptive War
Bush was seen as a ‘gun slinging cowboy knocking over international treaties and bent on
controlling the world’s oil, if not the entire world’ (2004, p.21).
In the same way, Chapter Nine divulges that the polarization of wealth and power between
countries of the North and the South eventually caused the revolt of the South. The book
stresses that this manifested itself in a number of ways, with its most portentous form being the
rise of radical movements such as al-Queda who claimed to be fundamentalist.
The authors reveal that in reality they were not strictly following the original prophets. Rather
they were just using texts such as the Koran to justify their reactionary attacks on the evils of
modernity (2004, p.210).
Back in Chapter Six, it is expressed that these “evils of modernity” were in fact, not a global
clash between the Islamic and Western worlds, but between international corporate capital and
the innumerable cultures, societies and civilisations that were undermined, uprooted and
shattered as corporate capital expanded its hold on the globe’s peoples and resources (2004,
p.131).
These are clashes that we can still see in 2016. Since Imperial Overstretch was written, while
Al Qaeda and ISIS are now two separate organizations, ISIS recruiters seem to follow many of
the same basic guidelines for luring people into their group and indoctrinating them (Engel,
2015). Except now, a new type of terrorist has emerged; the computer-savvy individuals who
know how to exploit rapid technological advances and the ubiquity of the internet (Meyer,
2015).
In Chapter Seven, it is reputed that Bush, as well as the neo-conservatives and militarists in his
administration, saw 9/11 as the moment to stamp their ideological imprimatur on the world
(2004, p.163). In the aftermath of September 11, Bush asked the rhetorical question as to why
the attackers of the world trade centre hated the United States. His answer was: “they hate us
for our freedoms.” The authors claim that this was the first big lie that Bush foisted on the
American people to create a climate of fear (2004, p.130).

7. The end of the Chapter reports that almost all of the world’s major religions opposed his pre-
emptive war. In fact, the book affirms that fundamentalist Christian churches in the US proved
to be about the only holy sanctuaries to preach war (2004, p.169).
Faith Based Intelligence
At the end of Chapter Seven, Greg Thielman, a former director at the military affairs office,
reports that the twisted use of intelligence started as soon as the push for war began in August
2002. He called it ‘faith based’ intelligence, adding that “instead of our leadership forming
conclusions based on a careful reading of the intelligence provided to them, they already had
their conclusion to start out with, and they were cherry picking the information that was
provided, to use whatever pieces of it that fit their overall interpretation” (2004, p.160). He
finishes by saying that instead of selectively using just the intelligence data they liked, the
administration also created pressures for intelligence agencies to produce intelligence that
would support the rush to war (2004, p.161). On top of this, facing such opposition, the US
also pressurized members of the UN security council to join their cause. Tactics included
bugging phones and threatening economic consequences (2004, p.170).
Post Iraq Consequences
Chapter Eight details that in post war Iraq, the Bremer and Bush administration floundered
about in an effort to devise a government for Iraq that would be properly subservient to US
interests. They thought they could transform Iraq society in a few years into a western style
democracy under US tutelage. But within a couple of months the growing violence and
resistance made it apparent that the Iraqis would not tolerate direct imperial rule for a lengthy
period (2004, p.186).
Similarly, the last Chapter illuminates how in the Caribbean and Central America in the first
quarter of the twentieth century, the US empire failed in its efforts to ‘civilize’ the societies
and politics of the countries it invaded in the age of gunboat diplomacy.
The authors dispute that ‘if The United States could not alter relatively simple societies in its
back yard almost a century ago, how could it possibly transform the political structures of
diverse Islamic societies halfway around the world?’ They deduce that United States
occupation forces left an imprint, but the impact was not positive, nor did it facilitate the spread
of democracy. (2004, p.202, 203) They also reckon that in a globalised and media orientated

8. age, the US imperium’s loss of both international and domestic public legitimacy is another
clear sign of imperial overstretch (2004, p.21).
To add to their thorough speculations, it was found that two out of three Americans perceive
that over the decade since 9/11, U.S power and influence in the world had declined. The view
was highly correlated with the belief that the United States overspent in its post 9/11 response
efforts – the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. (Kull & Shilbey, 2011)
In agreement with Chapter One, it is said that one oft repeated reason for this failure in the war
on terrorism is the reality that undirected, Wanton American violence in the middle East creates
a breeding ground for future generations of terrorists (2004, p.23). As the world becomes more
globalized, interconnected, and automated in the coming years, everyone living in it will be at
greater risk.
Imperial Overstretch is diligent in explaining how the Bush administration and his predecessors
used manipulation tactics and lies in order to sell their pre-emptive war on Iraq. The book also
meticulously explains how the US empire came to the forefront of global politics. Yet, as the
book was written in 2004 and focuses largely on the history of American politics prior to 9/11,
the war on terrorism has vastly changed since. Perhaps a book which focuses on the
consequences of future technology in terms of war, such as, Cybersecurity and Cyberwar:
What Everyone Needs to Know, would be best served to reel in a millennial reader wanting to
know more about the war on Terrorism.