Zach Gibson/AFP via Getty Images
Third-party presidential candidate Cornel West told CNN this week that if elected president, he would “dismantle” the American Global Empire.
“I want to head the Empire in order to dismantle it. We don’t need 800 military bases around the world. We don’t need U.S. troops, in over 100 countries. We need to be a nation among nations. We don’t need to be the Grand Empire that every nation has to bow down to,” West said.
“Can we conceive of such a world? Can we pursue such a world? I think we have to. What’s at stake? The destruction of the species, the destruction of the planet, the destruction of democracies, as we know it” West said.
West has been a strong critic of the US involvement in Ukraine.
West mentioned that the United States promised Gorbachev that we would not move an inch towards Russia, and yet we are right on their border.
West continued “And we know how empires behave, sister Kaitlan (Collins). If Russia had missiles, in Mexico, and Canada? United States government would probably blow them to smithereens because that’s how empires behave.”
West went on to refer to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a “provoked” invasion due to the expansion of NATO and claimed that NATO is “an instrument of U.S. global power”.
When asked about what he would do to fix the situation in Ukraine, West told Collins that he would “bring in the Chinese, the Turks, the African rulers. I would sit down with the Ukrainian leaders, and say, “We must stop this war. Stop these war crimes, the cluster bombs,” on variety of different parties, and make sure that we begin a diplomatic process, for a just peace.”
West noted that his statement isn’t in defense of Putin.
“And it’s in no way a pro-Putin. People say, “Oh, you must be siding with Putin.” No, please. No, not at all. I’m trying to be morally consistent. I want to be a person that has some integrity, and honesty, and critique, self-critique, and critique of others, in the spirit of fallibility.”
