Should the U.S. Offer Iraq Statehood?

Sierra Times ^ | May 5, 2003 | J. Neil Schulman

[J. Neil Schulman]

Should the U.S. Offer Iraq Statehood?

By J. Neil Schulman © 2003

Despite the endless repetition from campus Trotskyists and unreconciled supporters of Ohio Senator Robert Taft’s 1952 presidential bid, the United States of America is not now, nor has it ever been, an empire.

If the United States were an empire, the Stars and Stripes would today be flying over Ottawa, Mexico City, Havana, Panama City, Managua, San Salvador, Manila, Madrid, Paris, Berlin, Tokyo, Beijing, Seoul, Saigon, and Kuwait City. At least.

The United States does not have colonial ambitions, and that defines imperialism. We back friendly foreign regimes and sometimes aid even unfriendly ones, when we perceive it in our strategic interest. Too often the enemy of our enemy is a friend, even if the “friend” is as miserable as Stalin, Mao, Marcos, Somoza, or Saddam, and too often we’ve had to clean up the mess afterwards.

But there is nothing that I can find in the Federalist Papers, in the Constitution of the United States -- even in the writings of Old Rightists and New Leftists -- that says the maximum number of states allowed in the Union is 50, or that for a state to be added to the union its people have to be English speaking.

America is not a territory. It is a revolution. Its founding document declares,

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. - That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, -That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

The Declaration of Independence is not merely applicable to a particular time and place. The least important thing about it is the secession of colonies from its homeland. It is a statement of how human affairs should be organized, and is as applicable in Asia - or on Mars - as it was to Massachusetts and Virginia.

So the question needs to be asked. If the peoples of Iraq, just liberated from a brutal dictator, ever voted in a referendum that their future lay with the Americans who have spent their blood and treasure to free them, would it be imperialism, or merely American, to welcome them into the Union?

We say we believe in separation of church and state. Should we keep a state out of the union because the majority of its people are of a different religion than most of us? Utah doesn’t seem to have been much of a mismatch, has it?

English is not their first language. But if one added up the square mileage of all the neighborhoods in the United States where English isn’t spoken as a first language, might not it equal the square mileage of Iraq?

Iraq would not be physically connected to the United States. But neither is Hawaii. And just a few years before it became a state, the most common first language of Hawaii was Japanese.

I can hear the howls already: This proves American imperialism! It’s about the oil! He wants Iraq’s oil!

Not me. I want orbital solar-power satellites, interplanetary nuclear spaceships, and countertop cold fusion. If fifty years from now the United States is still burning petroleum, America will have failed the test of progressive capitalism.

Like most Americans, I’m a provincial isolationist at heart. It took hijacked American commercial passenger jetliners being crashed into American office buildings for me even to notice that there were foreigners who really hated us. Americans like me don’t even like foreigners enough to want to colonize them.

But we don’t define America by race, religion, or ethnicity. If our cultural strength has come by inviting diverse foreigners to immigrate to our shores, is it much different to invite twenty-four million of them to bring their country with them? I don’t recall reading anywhere that a necessary precondition for becoming an American was being homeless and penniless.

I know this is a long shot. The American Bill of Rights is a Harsh Mistress. Becoming an American – becoming a person who defines his or her identity not by the past but in possibilities for the future, and habituating easygoing tolerance rather than inbred xenophobia – is hard work.

But wasn’t that the point of America in the first place?

Copyright © 2003 by J. Neil Schulman. All rights reserved.

J. NEIL SCHULMAN is the author of two Prometheus award-winning novels, Alongside Night and The Rainbow Cadenza, short fiction, nonfiction, and screenwritings, including the CBS Twilight Zone episode "Profile in Silver." His latest novel, a finalist for this year's Prometheus Award, is the comic fantasy Escape from Heaven. His articles have appeared in publications ranging from National Review to the Los Angeles Times. His personal website is http://www.jneil.tv/.

[Paleo Conservative]

Hell No!

[Joe Hadenuf]

Oh please.......

[Psycho_Bunny]

Dude....hook me up with what you're smoking.

[Mind-numbed Robot]

Hey, let Iraq in and Texas out. That will keep it at fifty.

[Cultural Jihad]

Even so, we ought to consider inviting Mexico into the Union. Each of their estados can become counties.

[ChemistCat]

Pleased to see you again. I met you in GEnie days. You probably don't remember CATSMEOW.

Read the RAINBOW CADENZA and it made a vivid impression on me. Taught me that some men and some women hate me just because I'm female...just as some foreigners hate Americans just because we're Americans. Funny how these things come around.

Interesting to see people reacting the way they are to this proposal of yours. Conservatives can be slow to appreciate possibilities outside the box. ;-)

[gcruse]

Good God, no.

[Mr. Mojo]

Could U.S. Senators from Iraq be any worse than the ones from California, Massachusetts, Washington, and New York? Could their congresscritters be any worse than our own "Baghdad" Jim McDermott, Barbara Lee, Maxine Waters, Henry Waxman, or Charlie Rangel (to name but a few)?

Well, yes they could.

Let's just steal their oil and turn their country into one giant American military base. ....And perhaps turn Saddam's palaces - the ones still in decent shape - into giant resorts / golf courses.

[piasa]

They would have to ask for it before we could consider it.

And then jump through all of the hoops, set up their own "territorial" government, etc.

I doubt that's going to happen... there's not much incentive for it. If they ever joined, the Senator from New York and Dickie Invisibrows Gebhardt would rape them blind to get money for their socialist health care plan.

[Mind-numbed Robot]

Yeah, well, then Canada would want in and their goes the neighborhood. :-)

[nopardons]

That's utterly ridiculous and then some ! Get a grip.

[nomad]

And what about all those islamo-terrorist sympathizers, not to mention the islamo-terrorists? As American citizens they would have every RIGHT to come here and go where they please within our nation, is that a comforting thought?

[Frohickey]

Sure. Why not? The Iraqis would have to have a state government, they would have to apply for statehood, and the 50 states would have to ratify it.

I would say the same for every country that we give foreign aid to. That would mean that Israel should be a state, or at least a territory, like Puerto Rico or the US Virgin Islands.

Make ALL offers of foreign aid, be foreign purchases, where land is purchases, or leased for 99 years at a time. No more foreign aid!

[Arkinsaw]

YES. ABSOLUTELY. When they become a State they will be under the complete control of the Federal government. They will be unable to get free and cause trouble again. They will of course then be subject to income tax and withholding and so will not have any money to transfer around to terrorists or others. A large number of them will then live off of the Federal government and be beholden to it and have no urge to cause it problems. Within a few years none of them will care about politics or religion as long as the beer is cheap and the NFL playoff game is not interrupted. Sounds like a great plan.

[ChemistCat]

That's different from the status quo how? Tim McVeigh being a citizen free to travel anywhere helped us how? Mohammed Atta not being a citizen restricted him? Not!

Our borders are no tighter than they were 9/10/01.

Terrorism is a fact of life now, and the cover of the passport doesn't matter. Expanding our system to more of the world may only be re-arranging the deck chairs, but how else are we going to keep Iraq free of Binladen/Saddamalikes?

[rmlew]

If you were trying to show the lunacy of neoconservative principles, I salute your piece of satire.

[MissAmericanPie]

I'm all for that.

[nomad]

Then instead of working to bring more terrorists into America perhaps we should be working to close down our porous borders and make entry into this country thru legal means a bit more scrutinized? And as long as you are quoting the same tired speeches about "the evil rightwing McVeigh", lets not forget the radical lefties of the past, as well as now, however the real question we need to ask is do we really need to import any more terrorists? As you`ve pointed out we have our own to deal with, don`t we have more than enough already? Maybe you should try asking some citizens of Israel for their thoughts on that one, they seem to have lots of experience.

[SoDak]

A couple of years of force-feeding them Hollyweird, MTV and Jerry Springer and their kids would be too fat, lazy, and disconnected to be islamo-crazies. (slight sarcasm alert)