Posted on 09/17/2003 8:43:40 AM PDT by u-89
Excerpt: many Americans take pleasure in "kicking ass," and they do not much care whose ass is being kicked or why. So long as Americans are dishing out death and destruction to a plausible foreign enemy, the red-white-and-blue jingos are happy. Visit a barbershop, stand in line at the post office or have a drink at your neighborhood tavern and listen to the conversations going on around you. The sheer bellicosity of many ordinary people is as undeniable as it is shocking...
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further excerpts:
...In view of the evident futility, and worse, of nearly every war the United States has fought during the past century, how does the War Party manage to propel this nation into one catastrophe after another, each of them clearly foreseen by at least a substantial minority who failed to dissuade their fellow citizens from still another march into calamity?
An adequate answer might fill a volume, but some elements of that answer can be sketched briefly. The essential components are autocratic government, favorably disposed mass culture, public ignorance and misplaced trust, compliant mass media and political exploitation for personal and institutional advantage.
By "autocratic government" I refer to the reality of how foreign policy is made in the United States. Notwithstanding the trappings of our political system's democratic procedures, the making of foreign policy involves only a handful of people acting decisively.
When the president and his coterie of top advisers decide to go to war, they just go, and nobody can stop them. The "intelligence" agencies, the diplomatic corps and the armed forces do as they are told. Members of Congress cower and speak in mealy-mouthed phrases framed to ensure that no matter how the war turns out, they can share any credit and deny any blame. No one has effective capacity to block the president, and few officials care to do so in any event, even if they object. Rarely does anyone display the minimal decency of resigning his military commission or his appointment in the bureaucracy.
In short, in our system the president has come to hold the power of war and peace exclusively in his hands, notwithstanding anything to the contrary written in the Constitution or the laws. He might as well be Caesar.
In the late 1930s, Congress considered the Ludlow Resolution, which would have amended the Constitution to require approval in a national referendum before Congress could declare war, unless U.S. territory had been invaded. Franklin D. Roosevelt vigorously opposed such an amendment, writing to the speaker of the House on Jan. 6, 1938, that its adoption "would cripple any President in his conduct of our foreign relations." The resolution was voted down 209-188 in the House.
Of course, eventually the president who propels the country into war may have to stand for re-election, and he, or at least his party, may be repudiated. That occurred in 1920, 1952, 1968 and, perhaps, in 1992. Although on such occasions some observers always conclude that "the system worked," nothing could be further from the truth, because by the time the voters repudiate the leader responsible for plunging the nation into a senseless war, the damage has been done.
Wilson gained re-election in 1916 as the candidate who had "kept us out of war," then immediately reversed himself. Four years later, his party was turned out of the presidency. Too late.
President Lyndon Johnson campaigned against sending "American boys to do the job that Asian boys should do," then immediately reversed himself. Four years later his party was turned out of the presidency. Too late again.
Presidents decide to go to war in the context of a favorably disposed mass culture. Painful as it is for members of the Peace Party to admit, many Americans take pleasure in "kicking ass," and they do not much care whose ass is being kicked or why. So long as Americans are dishing out death and destruction to a plausible foreign enemy, the red-white-and-blue jingos are happy.
Visit a barbershop, stand in line at the post office or have a drink at your neighborhood tavern and listen to the conversations going on around you. The sheer bellicosity of many ordinary people is as undeniable as it is shocking. Something in their diet seems to be causing a remarkable volume of murderous, barely suppressed rage.
An eagerness to spill blood and guts extends, however, well beyond the rednecks. Highly literate, albeit sophistic, expressions of this proclivity appear nearly every day on the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal, a Likud Party megaphone whose motto might well be "all wars all the time." Establishment think tanks, most notably the American Enterprise Institute, trot out well-spoken intellectuals in squads to trumpet the necessity of wreaking global death and destruction.
Public ignorance compounds the inclinations fostered by the mass culture. Study after study and poll after poll confirm that most Americans know next to nothing about public affairs. The intricacies of foreign policy are as alien to them as the dark side of the moon, but their ignorance runs much deeper.
They can't explain the simplest elements of the political system, they don't know what the Constitution says or means and they can't identify their political representatives or what those persons ostensibly stand for. They know scarcely anything about history, and what they think they know is usually incorrect. People so densely ignorant that they have no inkling of how their forebears were bamboozled and sacrificed on the altar of Mars the last time around are easily bamboozled and readily sacrificed the next time around.
Forming a snowcap on this mountain of ignorance is a widespread willingness to trust governing authorities, especially the president. Thus, if President Bush tells the people that Iraq poses a serious threat to the United States, many believe him. Presidents and their lieutenants exploit this misplaced trust to gain popular approval for bellicose foreign policies, knowing that even if every somewhat educated or skeptical person in the country opposes the policy, it nevertheless will receive substantial support in the polls.
So long as war is something that happens "out there" somewhere, most likely in a place that few Americans have ever visited and most can't even locate on a map, and not too many body bags are delivered with sons and husbands inside, then the masses tend to find sufficient bliss in their ignorance and childlike trust in their rulers. Flag-waving and other symbolic displays bring them a cheap identification with the great nation-state, but few have any immediate contact with events in the empire. As an issue, war remains foreign to them in the literal sense -- always somebody else's problem.
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I agree that the holy places should be preserved. And I see Israel as the only stable democratic nation in that area. I beleive that they know who's in the drivers' seat. Otherwise, Arafat would be history by now (and should be anyway, IMHO).
PS- Noam Chomsky and Howard Zin do not rate as historians. That they are "superstars" among the left actually makes me feel good as both are jokes.
But you do keep posting screeds from America (and free-liberal civilization) hating, pro-totalitarian leftists (who do focus their invective on "one particular adminstration"). Why's that?
Hmmm.
Iraq War II: Deposed a fascistic dictatorship, potentially to be replaced by a liberal democracy, or at least a broadly representative government.
Iraq War I: Liberated Kuwait, which is now the only Gulf State with an elected parliament. Although the executive (Emir) is unelected, he has scrupulously followed the constitution, which invests the parliament with real power (e.g. it must approve all decress from the executive, and often votes not to do so).
Afghanistan: Another fascistic, totalitarian system deposed. Also well along to be replaced by representative government. The world bank has estimated growth of 28 percent since the war in this impoverished country. The new military is multi-tribal, multi-ethnic. An important first in a country ravaged by decades of tribal warfare, warlordism and strife.
Panama: Broke up a network that channeled drug money into arms for terroristic regional insurgencies.
Grenada: Replaced a Marixist/Lennist/Militarist dictatorship with democracy.
That's just a few off the top of my head, but it would appear that, by "futility," the author means the expansion of human liberty and the security of free nations.
Kosovo has a "liberal democratic" government as well under NATO occupation though we still censor the press and only a tiny number of Serbs, Jews, and Gypsies remain in Kosovo as all the rest reside in squalid refugee camps in Serbia proper as they have been driven out in the last 5 years while our troops play ping pong in Camp Bondsteel. Meanwhile the rest of the Kosovo Albanians are at the mercy of crime and warlords and think "liberal democracy" is gangsterism.
In Afghanistan Opium poppy production is at an all time high and drug addicts from Tashkent, to Moscow, to Hamburg, to New York are very happy with the price of Heroin. The "government" in Afghanistan controls little more than the buildings it meets in.
Panama? LOL.
Grenada? I will give you that one as that Island's inhabitants still are grateful for Reagan's liberation. If you want to find some pro-American folks go to Grenada.
Then why don't women have the vote in Kuwait? After all, the Emir (on recommendation of his advisory council) decreed their enfranchisement way back in 1999. Again, the Kuwaiti parliament does in fact have real power. BTW, parliament did approve economic liberalization decrees from the executive, leading Kuwait to be identified by the Heritage Foundation as one of the freest economies on the globe.
I'm certainly not saying that Kuwait is perfect. Far from it. But to pretend that their liberation was "futile," and that Kuwait as it exists is not infinitely preferable (both in terms of Kuwaiti and American interests) to its brutal subjugation as an Iraqi province, is just absurd.
As for your list of countries we went to war with you sound like the opening lines of the old superman TV show "truth, justice and the American way." Makes one all teary eyed with pride that does but you obviously don't look very close to the actual events or consider the grand strategic and economic benefits behind the moves. The Gulf War One we had no legitimate business initiating and Afghanistan and Gulf War Two directly stem from it, as does the terrorist attacks on us that occurred since then.
Just a note on Panama. Did you know that Noriega was a CIA asset up till we decided to take him out? Do you think shangi- ing him back to the US to prosecute him, a foreigner, in US courts with US domestic laws which have no jurisdiction over Panama citizens activities in Panama was a just move? So why did we we take out "our" man? Because he became uncooperative and the canal was vital to our security? Then why did we allow it to be handed over the Chinese if it was so vital to us we went to war for it?
TOO easy!
The Dims USED to be "the War Party" but the neo-cons have stuggled mightily to rest that title from them and have earned it!
Not all critics of our foreign policy are leftist though. If you believe this then you are very uninformed.
No, far from it. I simply remove the blinders before I examine our foreign policy.
>How else would they have gotten away with murder, and suicide bombing blackmail, for the last 30 years?
They attack us because we interfere with their affairs and we are on their turf. They have "gotten away with it" as you say because we wish to remain involved in their affairs and on their turf. If things go as planned according to our "best and brightest" we will stay in the region till the end of time and since somethings never change - like human nature - we will continue to be the targets of terroists. Our intevention solves nothing and will only be the cause for more attacks.
No, because he f***ed us. Because he was lying to us, and working with Castro to undermine American (and democratic) interests in Central America. But we shoulda just let him dupe us, right? Maybe the CIA should've directed a memo to all foreign assests formally announcing that they were free to betray all obligations to the United States (even to persue objectives exactly opposite to those agreed, as Noriega did) while retaining all benefits of their association.
BTW, you seem to have forgotten that Noriega formally declared Panama to be at war with the United States on 15 December 1989, i.e. before our invasion. So all this gives a pretty good idea of the no-war-no-time party's foreign policy views: Hostile regimes should be permitted to participate in smuggling drugs into the United States, smuggling arms to communist/terrorist insurgencies against freindly democratic governments (Columbia), and we must treat the heads of such regimes as legitimate heads of state, and by no means confront them militarily, even if they've openly declared war on us.
I should grant, however, that the United States did not consider the Declaration of War by Noriega legal, since he was not recognized as head of state. This was also why it was possible to indict him. (Noriega was fired as head of the Panamanian Armed Forces by the Panamanian President, but simply ignored that and then conived in having the legislature remove the President. Noriega then stole an election for President, the rightful winner of which was recognized by the United States as Panama's legitimate leader.)
It should also be noted that war was by no means the first resort wrt to Panama. Economic sanctions were tried, as was negotiation. There was even a deal made in '88 for Noriega to step down, in exchange for dropping the '86 drug indictment, but Noriega reniged.
It's not "their turf". They are murderers, thugs and theives, who kill, brutalize and pillage Arabs, Persians, Asians, etc, just as much as, indeed more often than, they do Americans, Europeans or Israelis. The most fundamental principle of Western liberalism, but also a universal principle necessary to any durable institution of human freedom, is that soveriegnty ultimate derives from and inheres in the people. It betrays this princple to describe the Middle East as "the turf" of bands of thugs pushing Islamic Fascism.
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