Posted on 05/02/2004 9:02:01 AM PDT by fourfivesix
Fallujah: High Tide of Empire?
by Pat Buchanan
At Versailles, 1919, Lloyd George, having seized oil-rich Iraq for the empire, offered Woodrow Wilson mandates over Armenia and Constantinople. “When you cease to be President we will make you Grand Turk,” laughed Clemenceau.
As there were “no oil fields there,” writes historian Thomas Bailey, “it was assumed that rich Uncle Sam would play the role of Good Samaritan.” Though unamused, Wilson accepted the mandates.
Fortunately, Harding won in 1920 and reneged on the deal. Lloyd George and Churchill were left to face the Turks all by their imperial selves. Had we accepted Constantinople, Americans would have ended up fighting Ataturk’s armies to hold today’s Istanbul.
After 9/11, however, our neoconservatives, who had been prattling on about “global hegemony” and a “crusade for democracy” since the end of the Cold War, sold President Bush on their imperial scheme: a MacArthur Regency in Baghdad.
And so it is that we have arrived at this crossroads.
What Fallujah and the Shi’ite uprisings are telling us is this: if we mean to make Iraq a pro-Western democracy, the price in blood and treasure has gone up. Shall we pay it is the question of the hour. For there are signs Americans today are no more willing to sacrifice for empire than was Harding to send his nation’s sons off to police and run provinces carved out of the Ottoman Empire.
In bringing Bush’s “world democratic revolution” to Iraq, we suffer today from four deficiencies: men, money, will, and stamina.
First, we do not have the troops in country to pacify Iraq. Some 70 percent of our combat units are committed in Afghanistan, Iraq, and South Korea already. If we are going to put more men into Iraq, U.S. military forces must expand.
Those who speak of democratizing Iraq as we did Germany tend to forget: in 1945, we had 12 million men under arms and four million soldiers in Europe. German resistance disappeared in 1945 with the death of Hitler. There was no guerrilla war against us. Today, our army is only 480,000 strong and scattered across 100 countries. And we have 129,000 troops in an Iraq that is as large as California and an escalating war against urban guerrillas.
Second, we are running out of money. The U.S. deficit is $500 billion and rising. The merchandise trade deficit is headed toward $600 billion, putting downward pressure on a dollar that has been falling for three years. Nations with declining currencies do not create empires, they give them up.
Then there is the deficit in imperial will. President Bush sold the war on Iraq on the grounds that Saddam was a man of unique evil who could not be trusted with a weapon of mass destruction. Today, whatever threat Saddam posed is gone.
While America supported the president in going to war, we have not bought into the idea that we must democratize the Islamic world or we are unsafe in our own country. Polls show that nearly half the nation believes we should start coming home.
Which brings us to our fourth deficiency, stamina. Empire requires an unshakeable belief in the superiority of one’s own race, religion, and civilization and an iron resolve to fight to impose that faith and civilization upon other peoples.
We are not that kind of people. Never have been. Americans, who preach the equality of all races, creeds, and cultures, are, de facto, poor imperialists. When we attempt an imperial role as in the Philippines or Iraq, we invariably fall into squabbling over whether a republic should be imposing its ideology on another nation. A crusade for democracy is a contradiction in terms.
While it would be nice if Brazil, Bangladesh, and Burundi all embraced democracy, why should we fight them if they don’t, and why should our soldiers die to restore democracy should they lose it? Why is that our problem, if they are not threatening us?
What Iraq demonstrates is that once the cost in blood starts to rise, Americans tend to tell their government that enough is enough, put the Wilsonian idealism back on the shelf, and let’s get out.
If attacked, Americans fight ferociously. Unwise nations discover that. Threatened, as in the Cold War, we will persevere. But if our vital interests are not threatened, or our honor is not impugned, most of us are for staying out of wars.
That is our history and oldest tradition. It may be ridiculed as selfish old American isolationism, but that is who we are and that is how we came to be the last world power left standing on the bloodstained world stage after the horrific 20th century.
Americans will cheer globaloney. They just won’t fight and die for it. Nor should they.
May 10, 2004 issue Copyright © 2004 The American Conservative
The current set of politicos have left our borders wide open....Has not Buchanan been one of the most outspoken people in D.C. that for years has been calling for secure borders and real immigration reform?
Since our current leaders refuse to fight this like a real war, and have no desire to kill the millions of islamos that hate us, I'd say we should have listened to Buchanan years ago and secured our borders, if not for the millions that are crashing our borders routinely at will, but for the terrorist that want to kill us without provocation.
The British Empire in the 1800s controlled India, far far larger, with far more people, and did it as a colonial possession with far less people - running it at a profit.
What kind of people were the Indians? Same kind of 'religious freaks' with a completely different culture from their British overlords.
The secret is this: You dont control the people. You control the people who control the people.
Quite frankly, if we had a reliable Iraqi security forces, the US presence could rapidly fall to under 50,000.
That btw is what we are trying in fallujah. Repeat fallujah 100 times and you have the British colonial solution. Whether it works in this situation remains to be seen, but our goals are far more modest: We dont need a long-term possession, we only need enough security and stability to guarantee the emergence of democratic institutions strong enough to fend for themselves. This is an 18-months or so process.
And if Iraqi forces dont work, yeah, bring on the Ghurkas!
Our generals and boots on the field have to fight this war with one or both hands tied behind their backs so as to not offend the "Arab street". The terrorists in FALLUJA have proclaimed their "VICTORY" and Aljazera is broadcasting it all over the world. Putting a Bathist "general" in charge of rounding up Bathist terrorists is the height of STUPIDITY. Don't tell me there is a "plan", there ain't no "plan" they are trying to make this up as they go along and it STINKS!
As a Vietnam Vet, I am ASHAMED, it is like we have learned NOTHING from the lessons of Korea, Vietnam and the half-won Gulf War I. I believe we have about 2 weeks to straighten this mess out before it is genuinely FUBAR. If we lose in FALLUJA, we lose. America will be proven a "paper tiger" easily tamed and restrained by the threats of "The Arab street" and offending the world and the UN.
What has happened to the resolve the President once possessed and proclaimed when he stood before Congress and proclaimed his determination to do whatever it took to win the war on terrorism?
I concur.
Yes, I Can!
You can say yes, but no, it didn't happen.
The British Empire in the 1800s controlled India, far far larger, with far more people,
This aint the 1800s any more.
Quite frankly, if we had a reliable Iraqi security forces, the US presence could rapidly fall to under 50,000.
Quite frankly, we don't have a reliable Iraqi security, and it does not appear likely anytime this decade.
And if Iraqi forces dont work, yeah, bring on the Ghurkas!
Uh, sure.
That was fine back then.
And worked for a while until the limeys gave up and allowed their entire country to be taken over by millions of Muslims, Pakistanies and Turks..The UK looks more like the UN now.
He is in almost every case.
They call Pat fascist as our nation creeps in that direction with every passing day.
They are zombie-like neocons who ironically ask regularly "what is a neocon?".
Yes, they are good a playing stupid, and ask that question repeatedly. LOL!
Wouldn't make much difference ... they seem quite comfortable in their present abode with our new best friend, Pakistan.
How much of the neocons' writings have you actually read?
Start with Wolfowitz. Its all there in black and white, all you have to do is stop reading administration slogans long enough to acquaint yourself with the underlying philosophy that drives this madness.
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