Posted on 08/13/2003 8:00:07 AM PDT by Theodore R.
Imperial wars, then & now
Posted: August 13, 2003 1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2003 Creators Syndicate, Inc.
Having found neither weapons of mass destruction nor a link to 9-11, the White House has retreated into its fallback position. It now defends Operation Iraqi Freedom as a necessary war to rid the Middle East of a brutal dictatorship and replace it with a democracy.
That is, this was a war of democratic imperialism, as some of us said all along. The neocons exploited America's rage after 9-11 and steered the president into invading Iraq, in order to reshape its political system and redirect its foreign policy. Imperialism, pure and simple.
Ahmed Chalabi was the puppet preselected to run the colony.
Now, we are mired in a guerrilla war, with daily dead and wounded, costing $1 billion a week, with no exit strategy and no end in sight.
Yet, it is not the first time a U.S. president, elected on an anti-interventionist platform, was steered into an imperial war, after absorbing a stunning, shocking blow to the nation.
On Feb. 15, 1898, the battleship Maine blew up in Havana harbor, killing 268 sailors. This perceived Spanish atrocity, almost surely an accident, was seized upon by Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge and Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt to bully President McKinley into calling for a war with Spain for which they had long planned.
In "First Great Triumph: How Five Americans Made Their Country a World Power," ex-ambassador Warren Zimmerman tells the compelling story of how America first became an empire.
Anticipating war, T.R., on the navy secretary's day off, wired Commodore Dewey, commander of the Pacific squadron, to prepare to attack the Spanish fleet. As soon as war was declared, Dewey sailed for Manila Bay, caught the Spanish ships in the harbor and sank or burned all seven, losing but a single man.
The U.S. North Atlantic Squadron did the same to the Spanish fleet sent to protect Cuba. The Spanish warships were bottled up in Santiago harbor by U.S. battleships with superior firepower. In a heroic but doomed breakout on July 3, 1898, every Spanish ship was scuttled or sunk. Madrid surrendered.
After our "splendid little war," a ferocious debate erupted. It was between T.R.-Lodge imperialists – who believed that for America to be secure in a world of empires, she must become an empire and annex the Philippines – and anti-imperialists, or "goo-goos," who wanted to give the Filipinos their independence.
Arguments for and against annexation were both strategic and racist. Said industrialist Andrew Carnegie, "As long as we remain free from distant possessions, we are impregnable against serious attack."
Added progressive Carl Schurz, "Show me a single instance of the successful establishment and peaceable maintenance for a respectable period of republican institutions, based upon popular self-government, under a tropical sun."
McKinley had promised Schurz, "You may be sure there will be no jingo nonsense in my administration." But he was won over by the imperialists. He ordered the Army to occupy Manila and crush Filipino rebels, who were stunned to discover their liberators had decided to replace their former colonial masters.
For three years, U.S. soldiers and Marines fought, with 4,000 dying in combat, several times as many as had been lost in Cuba. Filipino combat losses were 20,000 with 200,000 civilian dead, many of disease. Yet, a recent New York Times Almanac does not even list the Filipino insurrection as a major U.S. conflict.
Was it worth it – annexing the Philippines?
In the war to secure the islands, atrocities were committed on both sides, and as a result of that war, we became ensnared in the great power politics of Asia, out of which came Pearl Harbor, World War II, Korea and Vietnam. By annexing the islands, writes Zimmermann, America "took on a security commitment in Asia that it found difficult to defend. In the Philippine case, the founders of American imperialism may have made a costly mistake."
One year after the war to avenge the sinking of the Maine in Havana, we were in an imperial war 10,000 miles away. Now, two years after Sept. 11, we are fighting a guerrilla war in a nation 6,000 miles away, that had nothing to do with 9-11.
President Bush was misled about what to expect when Baghdad fell. And those who misled him now reassure him that our occupation is going well and we are mopping up the resistance.
Perhaps. But, like William McKinley, George Bush may prove to be a well-intentioned president who embroiled us in decades of wars in a part of the world that was never vital to America.
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Do you think the Germans or the Japanese WOULDN'T HAVE?
That was the same argument used back in 1898 only different. After we defeated Spain people argued that we should give the Philippines their independence. The imperialists said they were too weak, one of the European powers would move in so we might as well have it for ourselves. Face it, Spain was there, we picked a fight and stole their possessions. That's like robbing a beggar and saying "if I didn't somebody else would have." True perhaps but not moral. On an individual basis the law calls it murder and theft. Why is it anything else when nations do it?
You answer your own question. Also, our presence in Iraq is felt in the whole Middle East, not just in Iraq.
You would think after the war gas would be down to 75. cents a gallon. FOX just reported gas is going up again......
What an amazing canard! Gas prices depend on a whole host of factors. Not the least of which is refining capacity and all the special formulations required by a number of states. We in the U.S. haven't built a new refinery in 30 years or so, and actually are importing finished products to keep up with demand. Also, Iraq just started pumping oil recently, so I wouldn't expect increased supply to reduce prices just yet.
This is probably the most unkown of all US foreign conflicts in our history. In many on-line lists of US conflicts and battle casualties this conflict doesn't even make it while far more insignificant conflicts like the "barbary wars" do. More men died in combat in the Filipino war than died in the Spanish America War which brought us there!
On another note- at least TR put his money where his mouth was about the Spanish American War and put his life on the line.
Your account of pre-WW2 events is a bit selective. Imperial Japan was on a collision course with the US regardless of our Pacific possessions. She had invaded much of East Asia (including Korea, Manchuria & the Malay Peninsula) prior to Pearl Harbor & the Philippines.
It was going to happen anyway.
By the way Japan was a hermit nation minding its own business till we "enlightened" them to the benefits of dealing with the west by sending in our gunboats to Tokyo harbor. Realizing their own weakness they started a catch up game with the Western powers and finally decided that they, not the west was the rightful lords of Asia. I do not excuse their attitude but objectively see where they were coming from.
In summation overseas possessions and meddling in other's affairs costs heavily in blood and treasure. A process which is ongoing to this day.
I understand your point & disagree with it.
Ever since the Meiji Restoration, Japan was heading toward an inevitable conflict with the US. Even if we hadn't owned a single rock in the Pacific, Japan's relentless expansion would have eventually brought them into direct conflict with our shipping & commercial interests. So it never would have reached the point where we were fighting them off the coast of California. The war in the Pacific was going to happen.
In any case, my original point was that Pat Buchanan continues to distort history with ridiculous, unsupportable statements. He's getting sillier all the time.
I do not see where it had to be. If Japan had become the dominant power in Asia without interference from the US (and assuming my scenario where we had no territories in their sphere) it does not mean that they would then interfere with our shipping and commerce and a war would be inevitable.
Why? Because it's bad business. The US was a major power with a large navy and a war would be costly for one. But more important the US was the major marketplace in the world and a manufacturing power at that time. The Japanese would want to, indeed need to engage us in peaceful commerce. It would be mutually beneficial.
If one looks at the world view of the foreign policy experts of the past 60 years they envisioned a world divided into blocks or spheres of influence among a few major powers and indeed there were only two for 50 years. Now China is on the rise meaning there will be two again. Does it truly matter if The Soviet Union or Imperial Japan is a super power half way around the world? Our experts seemed to be able to live with it. And I base that conclusion on a CFR lecture on alliances and world position going back to FDR. I only speculated about Japan. In summation I can see where tensions might occur on occasion - they always do in international relations but war would not have been inevitable just like war is not inevitable with China today.
But this was never going to happen. Remember Japan's fanatical ideology of the time (Hirohito, Tojo, the kamakazis, etc.)& how it drove it's military to one merciless conquest after another. The fanaticism was beyond what most people can imagine. Their war machine....one of mankind's most brutal ever....was ultimately only going to be stopped by force.
Believing that Tojo & Co. wanted to ultimately engage us in peaceful commerce reminds me of Neville Chamberlain's hopeful view of Hitler. He may have been sincere, but we now know how mistaken he was. Evil cannot be reasoned with; it must be defeated.
As for China, I agree with you that war is not inevitable, mainly because Communism will continue to slowly collapse of its own weight. What it will be replaced with remains to be seen.
I've enjoyed our discussion.
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