State lying is not an accident of politics: it is its mother tongue.

Brutal dictatorship attacks the body, but insidious tyranny targets the mind and the means of survival. One can escape the blows; one does not always recover from a lifetime spent pretending to believe in them. 

 

The Empire of Lies: A Success Story

 

by Azzedine Kaamil Aït-Ameur

 

[GUSNOTE: THIS ARTICLE EXPLAINS IN MORE DETAILS WHAT WE "PHILOSOPHICALLY" EXPOSED IN 2006: "The Age of Deceit"]

This is why so many people choose voluntary blindness and deafness: to see and understand would be to suffer without end. The lie then perpetuates itself, not only through fear, but through the perverse relief it provides to those who take refuge in it—like an anesthetic that numbs the pain at the cost of poisoning.

They say the truth sets us free. But it costs dearly. Lies, on the other hand, reassure, soothe, and lull us to sleep—to the point of becoming a virtue. It is this paradox that we must confront, otherwise we will only be free to delude ourselves.

Chapter I – The Birth of the “Empire of Lies”Introduction

Often presented as guarantors of freedom and human rights, the United States has risen to the rank of democratic symbol.

Yet their trajectory, like that of other powers, reveals a recurring use of lies, not as an accident, but as an instrument of governance.

This study traces the historical evolution of this state lie, from the expression popularized by Alexander Solzhenitsyn to the most recent American examples, crossing history, literature and political philosophy.

1.1 Origin and meaning of the expression

«When Alexander Solzhenitsyn published his call to «not to live in a lie», it does not only designate the USSR, but a universal condition of modern power».

«But there is no winter in the country, but there is no winter in the world.". "We do not live in the truth, but in an empire of lies.».

For him, lying is not an accident but a structural condition of totalitarian regimes. The expression can be extended to any system where falsification becomes institutionalized – whether it is authoritarian or claims to be democratic.

1.2 Totalitarian regimes: “visible” lies

USSR

• Trotsky removed from official photos.
• Fake economic statistics.
• Moscow Trials (1936-1938) with fabricated "confessions".
• Cult of Stalin, presented as “father of the people”.

Nazi Germany attributed to Joseph Goebbels, summarizes the method:

«Eine Lüge, die man zehnmal wiederholt, bleibt eine Lüge; wenn man sie zehntausendmal wiederholt, wird sie zur Wahrheit».

«A lie repeated ten times remains a lie; repeated ten thousand times, it becomes a truth.».

Lies relayed by mass propaganda (radio, cinema, rallies), supported by terror.

Maoist China

• Great Leap Forward (1958-1962): famines hidden by falsified figures, causing between 15 and 45 million deadaccording to estimates.
• Cultural Revolution (1966-1976): widespread suspicion, self-censorship, rewriting of history according to political campaigns.

Intermediate conclusion

In these totalitarian regimes, the lie is massive, centralized, brutal. It does not seek to convince but to submitEveryone knows it is a lie, but no one can safely challenge it.

This "crude" and visible lie sets the contrast with another type of lie, more refined and effective: that of modern democracies, and particularly of the United States.

Chapter II – The Foundations of the American LieIntroduction

In 1938, Halford E. Luccock warned:

“When and if fascism comes to America, it will not be labeled “Made in Germany”; he will not bear a swastika. It will be called, of course, “Americanism”.”

"When—and if—fascism comes to America, it will not bear the label 'Made in Germany,' nor the swastika. It will, of course, be called 'Americanism.'"

2.1 The discovery of lying by Native Americans

Native Americans were the first to perceive in white men an unknown and dishonorable practice: lying and deception. A given word bound the mind as much as the body, and breaking an oath was tantamount to losing one's humanity. Trampled treaties, betrayed alliances, and dissolved promises quickly revealed a mechanism of expansion masked under rhetoric of peace.

It was the first laboratory of American state lies. The Indian genocide, disguised as "conquest" and "manifest destiny," forged a political culture in which deception is justified by finality.

This precedent highlights the lack of empathy in the face of contemporary massacres, particularly in Gaza: yesterday the tepees, today the refugee camps – always the same logic of negation, under the guise of civilization or security.

2.2 Founding myths and contradictions of the Republic

The young republic likes to tell its story like a poem of freedom. Behind the anthem, silences:

• Declaration of Independence: "all men are created equal" while slavery remains.
• Mythified frontier: erasure of indigenous nations behind the idea of ​​“virgin land”.
• Manifest Destiny: “American exceptionalism» serving as a moral justification for expansion.
• Ambiguities of the Founding Fathers: Washington, Jefferson, Madison own slaves while advocating freedom.
• National myth: heroic school story obscuring slavery, loyalists and indigenous alliances.

2.3 The role of gangs and informal power

Behind the emerging institutions, a harsher reality:

• Smuggling networks (tobacco, rum, slaves).
• Local militias protecting roads and property in the absence of central authority.
• Cities structured by “wards” (New York, Boston, Philadelphia).
• Tammany Hall and political patronage. (the naturalization of Irish immigrants in exchange for votes.)

This gray area, neither entirely criminal nor entirely legal, provides a lasting cultural matrix: pragmatism, efficiency, and a justificatory narrative. America is built less through neutral institutions than through negotiation with de facto powers.

2.4 War propaganda as a laboratory

The Spanish-American War (1898)

• Explosion of the USS Maine attributed without proof to Spain.
• Le New York Journal of William Randolph Hearst galvanizing public opinion: "You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war». «You provide the images, and I'll provide the war.».
• Real targets: Cuba, Puerto Rico, Philippines.

World War I: The Committee on Public Information (CPI)

Founded in 1917 and headed by George Creel, the CPI became a modern persuasion laboratory.

• features : Four-Minute Men, iconic posters, patriotic films, official communiqués, stigmatization of pacifists.
• Results : shift in opinion, support for conscription and war loans.
• Inheritance : Edward Bernays (Propaganda, 1928), birth of the “manufacture of consent”.

Creel stated: “It was not a question of deception, but of presenting the facts in a way that would galvanize the American soul.».

2.5 A free press under invisible constraints

In authoritarian regimes, propaganda is visible: ministry, censorship, official newspaper. The USSR had its Pravda, Nazi Germany its Folk observer, Maoist China its People's dailyThe control is frontal: approved printing houses, single language, criminalized dissent.

In the United States, the machinery operates without uniforms or decrees. The Constitution guarantees freedom of publication, but the media system is structured around three realities:

• Concentration of ownership Today, a few conglomerates—Comcast/NBC, Disney/ABC, Paramount/CBS, News Corp/Fox—own most of the networks, newspapers, and platforms. This concentration reduces the real diversity of editorial voices.
• Economic dependence The press lives off advertising and financial markets. Harshly criticizing major advertisers or economic orthodoxy directly threatens revenues.
• Conditional access to sources : "Onboard" editorial staff are looking for exclusive briefings, invitations to the White House, and "off-the-record" leaks. Whoever disturbs loses his information channels.

Walter Lippman public opinion (1922), and Herman & Chomsky Manufacturing Consent (1988) theorize this system: no frontal censorship, but a magnetic field which directs media production.

Examples:

• USS Maine (1898)
• ICC (1917).
• Vietnam until Pentagon Papers (1971).
• Weapons of mass destruction in Iraq (2002-2003).

Abroad, America boasts the prestige of a free press; at home, this freedom is exercised in a magnetic field shaped by economics, patriotism and geopolitics. No uniformed censor, but a self-discipline which makes the Ministry of Truth unnecessary. Consent is not imposed; it is manufactured, integrated as evidence.

John Swinton (1829 – 1901), New York journalist, former editor of the New York Sun.

He is said to have stated on April 12, 1883 (Twilight Club banquet, New York).

«We are intellectual prostitutes.

"We are intellectual prostitutes."

2.6 Slavery, segregation and identity fracture

The Republic proclaims itself democratic while:

• maintaining slavery until 1865,
• extending legal segregation for nearly a century (Jim Crow laws),
• only granting equal citizenship in 1964-1965.

Irony: At war with Nazism, the United States maintains an entire population in a situation of legal inferiority.

Even within the military, African Americans served in segregated units, often commanded by white officers, and were not immune to segregation even at the front lines.

This is how a country emerges which, for more than two centuries, proclaimed values ​​that it did not embody.

The gap between ideology and practice gives the impression of dissociative identity disorder: displayed grandeur, hidden fractures, a messianic discourse superimposed on a reality of racial hierarchy and social domination.

Intermediate conclusion

This journey reveals a constant: the American narrative is less a description than a justification.

• To the Native Americans, he promised peace to mask expansion.
• To the colonists, he offered myths to cover up slavery and contraband.
• To citizens, he offered a "free" press that discreetly influenced their opinion.

Even before becoming a superpower, America was forged in this tension between virtuous rhetoric and brutal reality. This logic is not limited to the continent: it is also part of the Atlantic economy, starting with the slave trade and its abolition.

Chapter III – From the abolition to the invention of debtIntroduction

England's abolition of the slave trade cannot be explained solely by humanitarian motives. Behind the moral facade, London pursued a strategy of economic and imperial repositioning, anticipating the emergence of a liberal capitalism dominated by finance.

Eric Williams, Capitalism and Slavery (1944)

3.1 British Abolition: Economic Strategy

Far from being a purely humanist gesture, the abolition of slavery is part of an imperial and economic logic in a triple logic:

• Disrupting competitors : to indirectly promote the emancipation of the Spanish and Portuguese colonies in order to integrate them as dependent markets.
• Transforming the workforce : to move from the slave, expensive to maintain, to the salaried worker, subject to forced labor at will and dismissable without charge.
• Reduce the risks : accidents or death are no longer financial losses, but simple statistical variables.

Irony of history: Today, we readily describe it as "slave labor" any arduous and poorly paid job. However, from a strictly profit point of view, this low-cost employment turns out to be more advantageous than the old servitude. Thus, the easement is not abolished, but redefined in a more economically profitable form.

3.2 From producer to consumer

The system invents a new role: that of consumer.

• The worker produces,
• his salary fuels demand,
• demand justifies production,
• production enriches the investor.

It is a true silent revolution: the individual is no longer defined by his or her citizenship, but by his or her capacity to consume. Economic dependence replaces legal enslavement.

3.3 Credit as a new channel

Capitalism shapes desire through advertising, then invents credit. Buying before earning becomes possible, at the cost of indebtedness. Debt transforms the "free" man into a captive worker, trapped in a cycle where the illusion of choice masks real dependence.

the first forms of mass credit mostly appear after 1920 in the United States (installment sale, General Motors Acceptance Corporation).

The iron chains of yesterday are replaced by credit cards: a symbol of a new equality – one in the face of debt.

3.4 Economic propaganda and transatlantic relays

After the 1929 crisis and especially after the Second World War, consuming becomes a patriotic act: to buy is to support the Nation. The citizen becomes a consumer-soldier, enlisted in a peaceful war where the credit card replaces the rifle. The same channels that sell consumer goods also convey the founding narratives: “freedom,” “American dream,” “opportunity for all”Criticism of the model is disqualified: to question consumption is to question democracy itself.

In this building, the WASP aristocracy remained for a long time the social and political relay for the flows from across the Atlantic: capital, investment banks, insurance companies from the City of London. After Bretton Woods (1944), Wall Street took over without breaking the imperial continuity: the dollar became the central instrument of global domination.

Over time, WASP hegemony cracks under the pressure of identity claims, cancel culture and wokeism. But this surface mutation does not abolish the imperial logic: it dresses it in progressive symbols without changing its purpose. The market remains the alpha and omega.

3.5 The permanence of the enemy in the East

One structural trait remains: distrust of the East. Since Halford Mackinder's thesis – "Who controls Eastern Europe controls the Heartland; who controls the Heartland rules the world."- Russia is designated as the natural enemy of the Anglo-Saxon maritime empire : too vast, too sovereign, too credit-averse to be absorbed. This pattern persists into the 21st century: it doesn't matter whether America flies the rainbow flag or builds walls, Russia and more broadly the East remain the “Other” to be contained, sanctioned and delegitimized.

Intermediate conclusion

The abolition of slavery did not mark a moral leap, but the metamorphosis of a system of exploitation. From forced labor to precarious employment, from the producer reduced to his labor force to the consumer defined by his purchasing power, from legal servitude to the invisible chains of debt, the forms change but the logic remains: maximize the profitability of capital.

This new ideological edifice prepares the imperial narratives to come: democracy confused with the market, freedom reduced to consumption, debt presented as the engine of progress. Exploitation has not disappeared: it has simply changed its instrument. After the chain and the whip, came wage labor; after wage labor, came debt.

3.6 Under the story, the debt

Behind the ideological and cultural facade, a more discreet spring supports the entire edifice: debt. In this system where money is born ex nihilo, each banknote, each figure entered in an account already bears the shadow of the interest that will have to be paid. To keep the machine running, growth must be permanent—not to enrich society as a whole, but to cover the cost of credit. The debt is never extinguished: it is managed, prolonged, transmitted like a poisoned heritage.

The iron chains of yesterday have melted into the invisible : enslavement now involves debt, passed down from generation to generation. Behind the illusion of freedom, man remains cactive in a system that monetizes its present and mortgages its future.

This mechanism leads to speculative financialization: instead of fueling productive capital – slow but generating jobs – flows rush towards betting, leverage, instant profit. London, Paris or New York cease to be marketplaces: they become giant casinos where money no longer seeks to produce, but only to multiply.

Economies that refuse to comply—whether labeled "closed," "undemocratic," or "dirigiste"—are hit with blockades, sanctions, or delegitimization campaigns. Their real crime is not ideological, but structural: wanting to escape exploitation through debt, refusing to open up like mere banana republics at the service of global credit.

This logic sheds light on recurring tensions with alternative modelsChina, once forced to "open up" through unequal treaties, remains suspect today as soon as it asserts financial sovereignty. As for Russia, England – since Mackinder – already designated it as a space to be contained, even divided, in order to secure its trade routes.

Behind the banner of universal rights, the liberal world pursues one objective above all: the opening of markets and alignment with the logic of credit. Morality is only a flag; the real issue remains integration into the debt-growth cycle, the backbone of a capitalism fueled by promises rather than real goods.

In the 21st century, some Western powers continue to act as if they were still living in the comforts of the 19th century. Their prestige is based on accumulated historical capital – financial rents, technological advantages or colonial legacies – which allows them to adopt a posture of “prolonged adolescence”: relative carelessness, refusal to break away, confidence in the sustainability of their achievements. Conversely, many countries in the Global South see themselves as "adults" in history: forced to exist through productive effort, industrialization and the daily management of resources, they claim a maturity born of constraint and direct experience of real work.

This shift paved the way for the great ideological dramatizations of the Cold War, Vietnam, and even the Watergate scandal. The "nativist" attitude is no longer expressed solely by a distrust of immigrants: it now extends to the entire world, perceived as a bearer of foreign or "barbaric" values". This defensive reflex, fueled by structural debt and the desire to preserve financial hegemony, establishes a relationship with reality where narrative takes precedence over fact. Debt becomes a deferred promise, propaganda a guarantee of stability, and legitimacy rests less on the consistency of principles than on the ability to maintain growth and justify the continued expansion of power.

Fueled by structural debt and the desire to preserve its hegemony, the American system is anchored in a relationship with reality shaped by narrative rather than fact. Debt becomes a deferred promise, propaganda a guarantee of stability, and legitimacy no longer rests on principles but on growth and expansion. One question remains: how could a Republic born under the aegis of a demanding and disciplined elite have slipped into this dependence on credit and narrative? The answer lies in examining the historical markers that mark its trajectory.

3.7 Historical landmarks

Before becoming a financial empire and a media machine, America first thought of itself as a fragile political construction, which required solid intellectual foundations.

At the time of independence, its elite was not yet a rentier elite, but an elite of builders. George Washington, an austere and disciplined figure, was not an academic theorist, but he had forged a veritable intellectual career, nourished by his reading, his military experience and a keen sense of organization. Around him, men like Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and Thomas Jefferson defended divergent but always demanding visions: constitutional debates, the concept of public debt, the clash between a strong federal model and state autonomy. This first generation believed itself invested with a historical responsibility: to transform a collection of disparate colonies into a stable federal republic capable of standing up to the European monarchies.

It must be remembered that this elite did not brandish the word "democracy" like a banner. The project was explicitly that of a Constitutional Republic, with a balance of power designed to protect property and prevent mob tyranny. At the time, calling oneself a "democrat" was an insult : the term evoked popular disorder, instability and revolutionary excesses. The Founding Fathers feared the uncontrolled passions of the masses as much as the arbitrariness of a monarch. It was only in the 19th century, with the expansion of suffrage and the rise of political parties, that the word "democracy" was rehabilitated and gradually erected into a positive value, until it became the rhetorical emblem of the American system.

This spirit of defiance, sometimes caustic, is reflected even in the diplomatic exchanges of the time.

At a dinner in London during the independence negotiations, an American envoy identified as Benjamin Franklin asked to go to the bathroom. Upon his return, his English hosts asked him:

- Was everything to your liking?

- Yes, perfectly, he replied. We insisted:

- Have you noticed anything strange?

- No, everything was in its place. So we say to him:

- But haven't you seen the portrait of George Washington hanging on the toilet? And Franklin replied, deadpan:

- Yes, I saw it. And I have to say, nothing beats a portrait of Washington in the toilet... to really piss off an Englishman!

3.8 From the British Empire to the American Empire

The transmission of lies

This witty line attributed to Benjamin Franklin illustrates the rivalry between imperial England and its emancipated colony. But behind the humor, the story is more serious: America not only inherited the English language and parliamentary institutions, it also adopted one of the defining features of its mother country – the art of imperial lying.

The British Empire excelled at transform colonial predation into a “civilizing mission” : the slave trade became the "triangular trade", the domination of the seas was presented as "protection of the routes", and the Opium Wars in China were justified as defense of "freedom of trade"The narrative masked the exploitation, and propaganda accompanied each conquest.

But England emerged drained from the two world wars, gradually ceding its position as the leading power. The United States then took up the torch, not only economically and militarily, but also narratively.

Heirs to the City of London, its financial networks and its art of "soft power" before its time, they perfected imperial mystification.

From the British civilizing mission to the American democratic mission, the continuity is striking. One legitimized the empire by invoking God and progress; the other invokes freedom and human rights. But in both cases, the gap between rhetoric and reality remains abysmal: plunder, wars of aggression, financial domination.

Thus, the "Empire of Lies" did not disappear with British decolonization: it simply changed address. Its American offshoot, supported by Hollywood, Wall Street, and the Pentagon, produced a hypertrophied version—right up to its current decadence.

3.9 From Kennedy Symbol to Presidential Farce

The last truly great American president was undoubtedly John F. Kennedy. His assassination, in broad daylight, in a convertible car, dealt an irreversible symbolic blow: The fatal bullet in his head also, in a way, exploded the political brain of the United States.

Kennedy's scattered brain became the image of a shattered national intelligence, a lost vision that no successor could ever recover.

With him, an independent project collapsed, betrayed and decapitated. As Laurent Guyénot has shown, the shadow of James Jesus Angleton—head of CIA counterintelligence—embodied the rise of a true "state within a state," directing the security apparatus toward foreign interests, particularly Israeli ones. From then on, a question haunts American history: Who's still in charge?

Does America hold its own destiny, or has it ceded it to a darker power? This was the tipping point, the moment the White House lost its autonomy.

Lyndon B. Johnson, Kennedy's successor, represented this disastrous continuity. Under his presidency, America became mired in the Vietnam War, a total and hopeless conflict. Johnson wanted to demonstrate the empire's strength and determination; he only revealed its impotence in the face of a determined people. The figures piled up—massive bombings, colossal losses—but victory never came. The lie took on its full dimension here: every official speech announced "progress," every report promised light at the end of the tunnel, even as the abyss widened. This war was not only a military disaster, but also a moral disaster: it destroyed citizens' trust in their government, paving the way for the mass protests and climate of suspicion of the 1970s.

Ronald Reagan embodied a paradoxical transition: a poor actor in Hollywood, he was perhaps the only one to play a credible role once in the White House. With his smile and his one-liners, he gave the illusion of a triumphant America, notably by bluffing the Soviet Union with the "Star Wars." But behind this backdrop, the era of political marketing and permanent staging was already taking hold: politics was becoming a spectacle.

Then came the downfall. Bill Clinton returned the White House to a media lightness where scandal served as a platform.

George W. Bush, a caricature of the impromptu president, was propelled by his name and manipulated by his advisors. Under his presidency, the United States engaged in the most costly and disastrous wars in its recent history: Iraq and Afghanistan.

Barack Obama embodied for many a breath of hope, almost messianic. But very quickly, he revealed himself to be a master of the empty rhetoric: his brilliant eloquence masked an absolute continuity of the Empire of Lies. Behind his words, he was in reality one of the most belligerent presidents in recent history, multiplying military interventions and drone campaigns, while maintaining Guantánamo and so-called "humanitarian" wars. Supreme irony: This warrior president received the Nobel Peace Prize. But this sick world can always do better: Netanyahu, himself being prosecuted for crimes against humanity, proposed that this distinction be awarded to Donald Trump.

From there, it was a descent into hell. Donald Trump, President 1.0, initially appeared cautious and calculating, before giving way to a freewheeling Trump 2.0, carried by an entourage that amplified his madness more than it contained it.

Joe Biden, for his part, embodies degeneration itself: a hesitant president, marked by slips of the tongue and confused gestures, a symbol of an empire that can no longer even keep its mask on.

The trajectory is clear: from a visionary Kennedy to a Biden devoid of meaning and a Trump given over to his delusions, American presidential history tells the story of the decomposition of a power that was intellectual before becoming purely theatrical.

3.10 From propaganda to political spectacle

This shift is sometimes summed up in a joke that circulates even in certain chancelleries: “After Biden and his rainbow flags on every lectern, Washington has discovered the Barnum tent: Trump sets up his spotlights there, tweets serve as confetti, and the agenda resembles a circus program more than a government plan." Behind the humor, the image reveals a shift in style: from inclusive symbolism to spectacle-like governance, America no longer appears as the guarantor of a stable order, but as the actor in a show in search of permanent attention. This exaggeration is amusing, but it above all reflects the perception of a power more concerned with occupying media space than building a lasting order.

3.11 Cabinet composition: an indicator of decadence

Another symptom of this shift can be seen in the composition of the presidential entourage. The 2016-2017 administration still retained some figures from the traditional Republican Party and technocratic profiles intended to reassure the state apparatus. The 2.0 configuration, however, favors advisors and media outlets whose function is no longer to govern, but to support the leader's combative stance.

Theoretically, a president's intelligence is measured by his ability to surround himself with strong personalities. However, the current team is nothing short of a caricature:

• Ted Cruz calls for attacking Iran without knowing anything about the country or even its demographics.
• Pete Hegseth proclaims that he is "no longer Minister of Defense, but Minister of War."
• JD Vance, who could have embodied a measured voice, is content to obey the slogans of his boss.
• Only Tulsi Gabbard retains the stature of a true advisor; but Trump has already publicly stated that he does not care about his advice, preferring to follow Netanyahu's lies.

In two centuries, this is not just a drop in level: it is a historic decline.

3.12 Strikes on Iran: The Criminal Leap

In the past, imperial perfidy took the form of intrigue, media campaigns, or a few covert coups. Today, Team Trump 2.0 is no longer content to maneuver in the shadows: it is establishing itself as a brutal and unscrupulous hegemon, imposing its law in broad daylight.

The US strikes on Iranian nuclear sites in June 2025 illustrate this: three enrichment centers – Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan – were directly targeted.

The UN spoke of a "perilous turning point" for global stability, the IAEA noted "significant" damage to infrastructure, and Several experts recalled that the attack violated both the United Nations Charter and the Non-Proliferation Treaty.1

Behind these condemnations, it is above all millions of lives that were placed in danger by the risk of chemical and radioactive contamination. To this extent, it is no longer just a question of lies or propaganda: This is a criminal and irresponsible act.

These strikes illustrate the level of recklessness reached: the government is no longer content to maneuver; it is jeopardizing the global balance to fuel its narrative. Because, ultimately, the most important thing is no longer military strategy, but image: that of a permanent presidential candidate.

3.13 A permanent candidate-president

The "new president" no longer appears as the architect of an administration, but as a perpetual candidate: not only turned towards the national electorate, but projecting his narrative towards a "world to conquer" in the Trump imagination, where every provocation becomes a symbolic victory.

In this sequence, nativism no longer targets only the immigrant: it encompasses the entire outside world, perceived as the bearer of foreign, even "barbaric" values, which should be kept at a distance or reshaped.

Intermediate conclusion

At the end of this journey, the presidential image no longer appears as a stabilizing function but as a narrative device in constant search of legitimacy. Power has shifted from political construction to media staging. 

What was once a refined art of lying has become a degraded spectacle, where the lightness of tweets rubs shoulders with the gravity of military strikes.

This game of illusions doesn't stop at American borders. It extends beyond the country, where the Empire of Lies poses as a universal arbiter while fueling the conflicts it claims to resolve.

From the most burning issues – Ukraine, Gaza, Iran, Qatar – the same paradox emerges: Washington proclaims itself a guarantor, but acts as a forger.

3.14 From Ukraine to Gaza, from Iran to Qatar: America, the counterfeit guarantor

Trump trumpeted during his campaign: «With me, the war would never have started». An effective slogan, a testament to his supposed diplomatic genius. But the reality is clear: with him, the war continues. Ukraine, which was supposed to see its conflict "resolved in 48 hours," has become the scene of an interminable quagmire. The illusion of an all-powerful America capable of dictating peace has shattered against the resistance of reality: neither military force, nor economic pressure, nor media proclamations have changed the course of history.

3.15 Gaza: the dream Riviera, the real charnel house 

Gaza was promised a future as a "Mediterranean Dubai," a showcase of Western-sponsored development. But the tourist dream has turned into a nightmare. Behind the rhetoric of reconstruction and humanitarian ceasefires, Washington is covering up and arming Israeli bombings. The promised Riviera has turned into a field of ruins. America poses as a peace mediator even as it finances and protects the main belligerent.

3.16 Iran: Poisoned Guarantees 

In Tehran, the United States posed as guarantor of the nuclear negotiations. But this guarantee was merely a Trojan horse: to lower the enemy's guard, to open up a space of artificial trust, to better prepare the Israeli stab. Then, feigning ignorance, Washington hides behind a mask of neutrality. This is no longer diplomacy; it is a mafia method: reach out to better disarm, promise security to better betray.

3.17 Qatar: The referee trapped

Doha, in turn, is becoming the site of a dangerous game. Washington presents itself as the essential arbiter, guarantor of regional balances and strategic partner. But behind the veneer, its interventions sow more suspicion than trust. The allies themselves now know that every American promise can turn into a trap, every agreement into a fool's bargain. (Israeli television channel) Channel 12 revealed that American and British intelligence planes were flying over Qatari airspace before the Israeli offensive.)

Some observers, including your servant, recently warned that the silence—and sometimes complicity—of the Gulf monarchies would eventually backfire. The Qatari episode provides a brutal illustration: a strategic ally of Washington and host to the largest American base in the region, Doha was nevertheless only warned of the Israeli strikes about ten minutes after they were launched. Loyalty, in this configuration, no longer protects; it exposes.

3.18 Trump, India, and the Russo-Chinese Axis: Geopolitical Blindness

Tragic absurdity: as a candidate, Trump denounced Biden for having "given Russia to China," forging a formidable axis. But as president 2.0, he did even worse. With an absurd customs decision, he pushed India—until then faithful to its tradition of balancing between Washington and the Global South—to fully shift into the Russo-Chinese camp. The scene was sealed at the last summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in China: India, not only aligned, but parading alongside Moscow and Beijing in a military parade celebrating the 80th anniversary of the victory over Nazism. Quite a symbol. Thus, instead of containing Asia, Washington unified it against itself.

3.19 The worst is yet to come

From bogged down Ukraine to destroyed Gaza, from betrayed Iran to manipulated Qatar, and even to India, now tied to the Russo-Chinese axis, a clear trajectory is emerging:

America is no longer a guarantor, but a forger. Its diplomacy no longer relies on law or even on classic power relations, but on mafia logic: extort, promise, betray. The world is taking note, and each new episode widens the gap between the role the United States claims to play and the one it actually embodies.

So the worst is yet to come, because the Empire of Lies has reached the stage where it no longer lies only to others, but to itself.

This lie, rooted in foreign policy, naturally extended into the domestic sphere. For as America projected its fictions onto the world, it installed within itself the infrastructure of a permanent narrative—especially in the digital age.

3.20 The digital age

After September 11, America entered a permanent state of exception; the narrative of fear intertwined with that of justice. Lying was no longer an accident: it became a security infrastructure.

Today, the bigger it is, the more it passes. Since the turn of the millennium, America seems to be freeing itself not only from the international rules it helped to forge, but also from its own legal safeguards. The law gives way to shifting “rules”, rewritten according to proclaimed emergencies: Patriot Act, gray areas at Guantánamo, interventions without a declaration of war, mass surveillance justified by "security." This normative plasticity reflects less an incapacity than a strategic choice: to replace the constraints of law with the advantage of flexible rules, revisable in each new context. In this shift, legitimacy no longer rests on the permanence of principles but on the assertion of power, and the official narrative transforms the exception into the new normal.

The speed of circulation and fragmentation of opinion have almost abolished any requirement for plausibility. Unverifiable assertions thrive, driven by algorithms that prioritize emotion over proof. Cognitive dissonance has become a mode of psychological survival: we believe what strengthens our side, and we discard the rest.

It is in this context that American societal ideology, marked by cancel culture, adds an additional layer of confusion. Initially a simple practice of denunciation, it has mutated into a mechanism for erasing and rewriting reality. What was once an assumed contradiction becomes organized denial. We no longer debate, we delete; we do not correct, we erase.

By claiming to “protect” sensitivities, cancel culture has generalized a new form of cognitive dissonance: the refusal to see what is disturbing, including in biological or historical evidence. The excesses of ideologized transgenderism, emblematic of this climate, reflect the shift of a society that creates its own substitute truths.

3.21 The lie on the menu

In the digital age, lies are no longer imposed vertically; they are consumed on demand. Everyone can construct a cognitive bubble where the truth is no longer shared but shattered into competing fragments. Social media not only disseminates information; they organize a marketplace of illusions where each "truth" becomes a personalized product. America no longer imposes a single narrative: it multiplies narratives, to the point of dissolving the very possibility of a common reality.

Thus, the mechanics of imperial lies and societal dynamics converge: America lies to the world as it lies to itself. Its wars are justified by empty slogans, its internal debates by fluid identities where coherence disappears.

Digital technology, an amplifier of stories, has transformed this dissonance into the norm: everyone lives in their own bubble, everyone chooses their own “truth.”

Thus, from the Patriot Act to social media algorithms, the same logic is deployed: the exception becomes the rule, the truth becomes variable, and lying ceases to be an accident and becomes a mode of government.

Intermediate conclusion

Du broken treaty ,  emergency law, American history unfolds a fil rouge : public speech is never completely innocent. Lies like balance strategy between proclaimed ideal and imperative of power; sophisticated storytelling ; truth become flow in the digital age. But to understand the depth of this mechanism, we must return to the cultural matrices that have shaped the American imagination – from the founding Bible to modern dystopias.

Chapter IV – Narrative Matrices and Philosophy4.0 – From the Ministry of Truth to the Manufacture of Consent

While dictatorships brandish an official newspaper, American democracy relies on a more subtle system: apparent plurality, but convergence around the State and capital.

4.1 – The Bible as a narrative base

For the Pilgrim Fathers in 1630, the New World is a Promised land. John Winthrop preaches:

«We shall be as a city upon a hill". "We will be like a city on the hill».

Indigenous nations are assimilated to Canaanites to hunt or to Amalekites to annihilate; expansion becomes obedience to God. Triple effect: moral legitimation, symbolic erasure, selective memory. This scriptural prism continues Lincoln à Reagan.

4.2 Orwell and Modernity: 1984 as an American Mirror

If the Bible gave the first settlers the conviction of a mission, Orwell, three centuries later, bequeaths us a decryption manual. 1984 is not just a novel about a totalitarian future; it is a reading matrix for any society that claims to guarantee freedom even as it reformulates, sanitizes, and distorts reality.

George Orwell wrote:

«Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind».

«Political language is designed to make lying respectable, murder acceptable, and to give the appearance of solidity to the wind.».

Contemporary euphemisms: "enhanced interrogation techniques," "collateral damage," "Patriot Act."

La Newspeak dissolves the raw truth. Final question: 1984 did he provide a self-fulfilling prophecy ? Does Orwell's warning become manual for the manufacture of consent?

Conclusion

From the erasure of Native Americans to the flasks brandished at the UN, from the biblical language of the Pilgrim Fathers to the algorithms of Silicon Valley, a common thread runs through American history: lying as political glue. America didn't invent the state lie, but it perfected it by transforming it into a national narrative, then into an exportable commodity.

Solzhenitsyn warned that "one cannot live in a lie without dissolving into it" Orwell showed that language can make lying respectable and murder acceptable. In the digital age, these two warnings converge: truth is no longer stifled by censorship or terror, but dissolved into the flow, to the point of becoming optional.

Everyone now chooses the truth that comforts their bubble, and the Empire thrives in this confusion.

The real question is therefore no longer: Is the United States lying? but: Can we still tell the truth in a world where everything becomes a competitive narrative? This is where the future is at stake: either consent to the liquid reign of the Empire of Lies, or seek the conditions for a fragile but faithful word to reality.

https://en.reseauinternational.net/lempire-du-mensonge-une-success-story/

 

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

 

SEE ALSO: https://yourdemocracy.net/drupal/node/11276