Me on War (Part 1)

In going over the immediately preceding post ("Shock and Awe"), I can visualize four basic kinds of reaction to the ideas presented. The first, which I will call the "Nationalistic/Patriotic" view, would include some or all of the following notions, either explicity or implicitly: (1) It's America's duty to police the rest of the world, because "we're the best". (2) They'll thank us in the long run -- the way Germany and Japan thank us for the Marshall Plan, etc. (3) The answer to the world's problems is American-style democracy combined with American-style free enterprise. Just because not everyone gets with the program right away doesn't make it a bad idea. (4) As for Halliburton et al., they have a right to make money too, and if they can provide the best service for the price, who cares whether the contract was "competitive" and who their friends are? (5) And besides, you can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs. (6) The alternative is to relegate America to a second-rate power, and we can't have that, especially after having won the Cold War. (7) And as for the soldiers, they volunteered for this duty, and the pay and benefits probably beat whatever it was they were doing before, which makes it worth the risk in their book. (8) Our politicians may not be perfect, but they were, after all, elected by the American people, and it's wrong to sit around second-guessing and taking potshots, especially because (9) we don't know all the facts. The failure to find WMDs or an Al Qaeda connection was probably an honest mistake or based on insufficient intelligence. And -- (if the person is an Evangelical) -- (10) Israel is the key to "salvation history" -- it says so right in the Bible. And if we don't provide them all the support they need, woe be unto us.

OK -- so what's behind this point of view, other than the fact that it reflects a touching naivete and blind faith in the government, democracy (so-called), and free enterprise (so-called)? It's basically the old, public-school social studies class view of American history, and a concept of American destiny taken from political speeches and marble monuments. As such, one might find a grain of validity to it at some time in the past. The question is, is there anything significant left of this image of America in terms of the actual facts, or should it all be relegated to wherever fairy tales, myths, and legends wind up? In other words, has America outlived whatever "specialness" -- whatever mission (divine or secular, take your pick) -- whatever "duty" it may have had at one time? And, by continuing to pursue these tattered ideals, are we, in fact, making total fools of ourselves on the world stage? Now, as to that last point, it would not do to put _too_ much trust in the "feedback" we get from other countries, because all you have to do is look at how they run their own affairs, and you see that their judgment is highly suspect. I mean, don't go looking for wise pronouncements about human rights from the Central African Republic, for example -- or about economics from Zimbabwe. On the other hand, when the feedback is as loud, and persistent, and consistent, as that which we have been getting regarding the Iraq debacle, we might want to pay a bit more attention. The bottom line, basically, is: Do we have something significantly more to offer than anyone else does -- to the extent that we have the right to force it on other countries, if need be through invasion and military occupation? Can we claim to be bringing peace and light to otherwise-benighted places? I would say, based on recent experience -- say, since World War II -- that the answer is no, and that it's time for this grandiose and presumptuous sort of thinking to end. We had the postwar "Ugly American", who was perceived as an agent for the U.S. economic dominance of much of the third world. The political counterpart to this was the CIA agent, who worked tirelessly to subvert the government of a given country and install our lackeys instead -- ostensibly as a means of more effectively holding off Communism, which _we_, of course, knew was no good for any other country, even if they didn't. After the Cold War wound down, the economic vector assumed prime importance again -- with not so much a colonial model this time as with the government, and military, doing the heavy lifting for the multinational corporations, and countries being pressured into entering into various trade agreements and socialistic organizations like the EU.

But where, in all this, were our "ideals"? Well, they tended to kind of flex based on other priorities. If we liked a given dictator, we helped him fight off the forces of democracy (or, at least, what was styled as such by its proponents). If we didn't like a given dictator, we aided the insurgents. We might replace one dictator with another, or one group of "democrats" with a _new_ group of "democrats". The theme of our efforts had much less to do with the form of government than with how hospitable it was toward American interests - economic, military, and political. So we would bolster the worst dirt-bag sheik on earth as long as he was willing to award us with oil rights -- or support some Latin American clown dressed in a military uniform straight out of Gilbert and Sullivan, if he would sell us all the cheap bananas we wanted. Principles, in short, really had very little to do with it. Now, it just so happened that, in most cases, we got along better with regimes that were not self-identified as communist. But they might have been every bit as socialistic, or collectivist, as the average communist regime -- so real economic freedom was not a high priority either. And as far as human rights are concerned -- well! Leave that the U.N., we know they can be trusted implicitly on that issue. So an empire by any other name is still an empire -- we don't always need a garrison -- although, heaven knows, we have plenty of those. We don't always need to have the head man firmly in our pocket either -- a little bit of token independence is a find thing; it gives a better impression -- as long as they remember where all that "foreign aid" (AKA bribes) is coming from. "Say, President Whoever, how would you like it if we send your 'foreign aid' money directly to your Swiss bank account, in exchange for exclusive rights to your manganese deposits (or whatever)? Would that be satisfactory? Saves having to answer a lot of awkward questions, don'tcha know."

And of course, our efforts in this regard over many decades also defined -- in case there was any doubt -- the mission of the Communist world, namely to oppose our interests and our allies wherever and whenever possible, just as we made a similar resolution with regard to them. In many cases, when a third-world government changed hands, they waited to see whose side we would take so they could take the other. We did the same thing, more than once. So the Cold War was fought, in a not-always-cold way, through hundreds of surrogates, and no blood ever had to be shed on our soil (or that of Russia or China -- at least not for that reason). The other thing that was defined thanks to our efforts was the flavor and character of popular insurgencies during the same period. They all had to be against America, which means against "capitalism" and against our particular form of democracy -- and of course the Communists aided and abetted this process as well. "America" became synonymous, throughout the Third World, with dictators, neo-colonialism (mostly of the economic sort), elaborate military uniforms, limousines with blue-tinted windows, absurd infrastructure projects (like eight-lane highways between the capital and the only airport, when all the other roads in the country were dirt tracks), embassy employees who doted on underage native girls -- and pressure to buy American products -- and use American pharmaceuticals -- and to give up the old, organic, "primitive" ways of life and move into urban centers, where one could enjoy the foetor of open sewers and the charms of shoddily-build high-rises with water and electricity available "maybe" an hour or two a day. This is the fate we imposed -- or tried to -- on vast sections of Africa, and good chunks of Latin America and East Asia. The only culture that dug in its heels and resisted, with any consistency or effect, was -- guess what -- Islam. But hey, when you have the sheik in your back pocket, who needs the camel drivers? Ah yes, but! The _sons_ of those camel drivers wound up in Al Qaeda, and a few of them learned to fly jetliners, and we know what happened next. When Ron Paul said, concerning 9-11, that "they're over here because we're over there", Rudy Giuliani erupted with indignation -- how _dare_ anyone imply that any portion of 9-11 -- even the tiniest particle -- was "deserved"? Well, guess what, Ron Paul is still in the race and Giuliani got swept up by some janitor after the Florida primary and hasn't been seen or heard from since. So maybe a few people decided that Ron Paul had a point -- or that Giuliani is an ass -- or both.

[End of Part 1]