The War Party's Enablers: all of us

SF Chroncile | 14 Spet. '03 | Robert Higgs

[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.

Follow the link to read the entire article

[Stultis]

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

Yes, in fact, it does do exactly that. One of the greatest things about the wider world in my lifetime has been the expansion of human liberty. Despite many false starts, setbacks and missed opportunities, literally hundreds of millions, in the past past quarter century, have passed from totalitarian or authoritarian goverance to free or at least broadly representative governance. America has played the leading role in this, and I most certainly am proud of that.

[Saundra Duffy]

Terrorism is the result of political problems. They can not be solved with the military.

LOL!

[Stultis]

So are you an America hater because you want to reduce the size and power of government? If you don't consider yourself (or this web site) as America hating then don't apply it to those who see our liberal/globalist foreign policy as a danger to our liberties and security.

I wasn't accusing any freepers of being America Hatering lefists, but simply noting the tiresome frequency with which some libertarians or paleocons post material written by America Haters (apparently because they agree, in at least some significant measure, with the analysis therein). In fact, apart possibly from the anti-semite crowd, I can't think of a single FR "clique" that approvingly posts leftist material more often than the anti-war conservatives. In fact I can't think of another that even comes close.

Now, I freely admit that if I constructed a charge or argument out of this phenomena it would be an ad hominem or genetic fallacy, but it's too frequent to go entirely without comment, make of it what one will.

[Stultis]

The Gulf War One we had no legitimate business initiating

We didn't initiate it. Saddam did. He invaded Kuwait. Furthermore he was given every opportunity to leave Kuwait and end the war he started.

[Polybius]

History shows how our interventions and meddling have not solve problems, rather they have been complicated. War begets more war.

History shows no such thing.

The serious student of History needs only to compare the Europe before the Pax Americana to the Europe after the Pax Americana to see 1500 years of almost continuous European warfare brought to a screetching halt by U.S. military "meddling".

Let's go back, like Jimmy Stewart in "It's a Wonderful Life", and see how the World would have turned out without the dreadful American military "meddling" in the 20th Century.

Up until Pearl Harbor, the U.S. was pretty lax in military predparedness. In World War One, Americans had to fly French and British aircraft because Americans were so unconcerned about war that no serious effort was made to keep up with military technology and no American plane could survive 30 seconds in combat with a European combat aircraft. Prior to World War II, American military maneuvers involved truks with signs painted on their sides that said "Tank".

After World War One, America acted as a junior partner and let the Europeans handle the post war peace. Twenty one years later, following a pattern of European history that had persisted since the Pax Romana, the Europeans were killing each other again and, this time, 40 million died.

After America "kicked ass" in World War II, guess what? The Pax Americana broke out. The Western Europeans stopped massacreing each other every 25 years whether they needed to or not and became effite, limp wristed and arrogant Peaceniks thanks to America imposing Peace by military force. The USSR, would have loved to get it's hands on Western Europe but could not risk the military might of America. The USSR eventually collapsed from the cost of competing militarily with America.

Without the American military intervention in World War II, all of Europe would now be under either Nazi rule or Soviet rule.

Admitedly, if the Nazis had prevailed without U.S. military aid to the USSR and a Western Front made possible by the U.S. military, we would not have a current Arab-Israeli conflict as the European and Palestinian Jews would have gone the way of the Final Solution and the Arabs would have followed the Jews into the Final Solution if they had given a victorious Nazi Germany any grief about German troops guarding Saudi Arabian oil fields.

No Gulf War One, no troops on Saudi land, no 9/11.

But, forget about American meddling in World Warr II, and lets have America allow Saddan Hussein to take over Kuwait. With no oppositon and the world's fourth largest army at the time, Saudi Arabia would have shortly been next.

The Persian Gulf/Middle East commands over two thirds of world oil reserves. Now, Saddam Hussein controls them and he has the American, European and Japanese economies by the short hairs.

That's sure going to put a big dent in some Democrat's welfare check.

At the time, even Hans Blix admits that Saddam had Weapons of Mass Destruction. With two thirds of the entire world's oil reserves and noboby with the military courage to stop him, it would not be long before German, French and Russian engineers would be getting filthy rich designing nuclear tipped ICBM's for him.

If, after the 20th Century, the World does not resemble a Mad Max movie, it is thanks to the Pax Americana imposed on the world after America pulled it's head out if it's rear on Sunday morning, December 7, 1941.

It seems that some people want to put America's head back in there.

Is the Pax Americana always smooth sailing? No. Nothing in life is.

Does the enemy sometimes fight back? Of course he does. What do you expect? A Fairy Tale where everyone lives happily everafter?

The Pax Romana was not a Fairy Tale either. The Pax Romana necessitated having the Roman Legions dealing with Parthian threats here and Germanic barbarian threats there for century after century. After the Roman military could no longer do so, the Dark Ages descended. We don't know too many of the historical details of the Dark Age period as it is rather difficult to sit down and write History with all the raping and pillaging that militarily unopposed barbarian hoards tend to bring to your fair city.

Those who wring their hands about the consequences of American military actions should sometimes give a little more serious thought to the consequenes of a lack of American military action.

Europe Before the Pax Americana

Europe Today During The Pax Americana....(Not that they, except for maybe the Brits, appreciate it in the least.)

[u-89]

Right, Saddam invaded Kuwait - which last time I checked was not sovereign US territory - therefore it was not our business. Furthermore all during the saber rattling Saddam was public engaging in over Kuwait's breach of contract on oil production and their drilling sideways into Iraqi fields we told him explicitly through our ambassador to Iraq April Glasby (who speaks for the president) that the dispute did not concern us. As soon as Saddam moved we cried foul. Liberating Kuwait was an excuse for us to move into the region in force. Leaving Saddam in power justified our staying there. The current war gives us the dual opportunity of expanding our presense and relocating to a better strategic postion.

[Polybius]

Right, Saddam invaded Kuwait - which last time I checked was not sovereign US territory - therefore it was not our business.

If you believe that an armed invasion that would allow Saddam Hussein to eventually control 2/3 of the entire World's know oil reserves is "none of our business", it just proves how utterly out of touch with reality you are.

[massadvj]

In view of the evident futility, and worse, of nearly every war the United States has fought during the past century...

Given the defeat of Communism and Nazism I find the above statement extremely ludicrous. OK, we've succumed to socialism ourselves, and we have occasionally overreached militarily, but that doesn't put us on a par with Hitler and Stalin.

I am a small l libertarian myself and I have my reservations about the war on terror (on balance, the balance being 9/11, I decided it was just to pursue it). I did oppose Vietnam, Bosnia and Kosovo.

Libertarianism is not the same as pacifism. Libertarianism holds that national defense is a necessary and appropriate function of the federal government, and its only legitimate function beyond the guarantee of fundamental rights.

[Stultis]

Saddam was public engaging in over Kuwait's breach of contract on oil production and their drilling sideways into Iraqi fields we told him explicitly through our ambassador to Iraq April Glasby (who speaks for the president) that the dispute did not concern us.

Uh, huh. Saying that disputes over slant drilling (as usual Saddam, taking a que from Stalin and Hitler, accuses other of doing what he was doing) doesn't concern us, equals, "go ahead and invade Kuwait."

This is what I'm talking about. You may not be, in your own mind or heart, an America Hater, but you reeeeaaaach every bit as far as they most rabid leftist in blaming America first (even for what Saddam does!).

[u-89]

> If you believe that an armed invasion that would allow Saddam Hussein to eventually control 2/3 of the entire World's know oil reserves is "none of our business", it just proves how utterly out of touch with reality you are.

And what was Saddam going to do with all that oil? If you think we would not have done business with him or he with us then you are utterly out of touch. It would have meant that the who's who of the GOP would have their business connections in Kuwait disrupted.

[roses of sharon]

Fine, you state my case perfectly.

Go ahead and vote for a candidate who believes that we should pullout, disengage, and remove ourselves from any foreign policy decisions that concern Arabs, Muslims, Islam, Palestinians, or Israel.

Vote for someone who will obstain from any UN vote that remotely concerns the middle east or anything Arab, Muslim or Islamic.

Vote for someone who will never meet with any Arab, Muslim, Israeli or Islamic leader. Cut all ties, close all embassies.

Vote for someone who will by no more oil from the middle east, cut off all trade from any country or company that is Arab, Muslim, Israeli or Islamic.

Then you will have what you seek.

And so will Bin Laden.

Because if we ever make a decision, have an opinion, vote the wrong way, or give help to anyone the Cult of Islam disagrees with, our innocents will be punished.

Its called, "Foreign Policy the Islamic way", do what we say, or die.

[Polybius]

Right, Saddam invaded Kuwait - which last time I checked was not sovereign US territory - therefore it was not our business..........u-89

If you believe that an armed invasion that would allow Saddam Hussein to eventually control 2/3 of the entire World's know oil reserves is "none of our business", it just proves how utterly out of touch with reality you are.........Polybius

And what was Saddam going to do with all that oil? If you think we would not have done business with him or he with us then you are utterly out of touch. It would have meant that the who's who of the GOP would have their business connections in Kuwait disrupted.........u-89

Are you actually so utterly naive about economics, history and Realpolitik or are you just putting on an act in order to see what reactions you can get?

As I noted before, control of the Persian Gulf would have given Saddam control of 2/3 of the entire World's known oil reserves.

Are you totally clueless about what control of 2/3 of the entire World's known oil reserves would mean economically, politically and in terms of Realpolitik?

Whether we like it or not, until an alternative is found, oil is the life blood of modern economies. If you shut off the supply of oil, modern economies come to a grinding halt. Having control of 2/3 of it means that the World is frantically bidding up the price of the remaining available oil and even then, there is not enough to go around.

Once in control of that much oil, Saddam Hussein has complete control of the health of the American economy and the other Western economies.

He can double, quadruple or raise by ten-fold the price of the World's oil if he so chooses at any time he chooses for whatever reason he chooses.

He can make ultimatums that either the U.S. cuts all ties and aid to Israel or he orders an Oil Embargo on the U.S. and Western Europe.

He can make an ultimatum on France and Germany that they either provide him with nuclear and missile technology or he orders an Oil Embargo on the European Union.

If you lived in a town in the Old West where Uncle Sam's Cavalry was not around to take care of Law and Order, if a gang of 15 year-old toughs took over the town's Railroad Station and General Store and could raise prices of food and supplies astronomically or cut you off completely at their whim, would you advise your neighbors that, since the Railroad Station and the General Store were not your property that you and your neighbors had no right to deal with those punks?

Are you so utterly spineless that you would feel the need and obligation to "do business" with those punks?

"Look, here, U-89, the other boys and I have had an eye on your daughter so, unless you don't want your food supply cut off for the next year, you had better send her over to spend next month with us. By the way,u-89, my boots are dirty. If you want this month's food supply, we want you to clean 'em right here in the middle of Main Street. We want you to clean 'em by lickin' them clean!"

"Go on u-89! Lick 'em!! Lick those boots clean if you want your food suplly for this month!! I said lick 'em!!!"

Appeasers like yourself, u-89, who see no reason to stand up to anybody or fight fight for anything, not even the life blood of your economy, can only survive, either individually or collectively, in a society where there are others made of sterner stuff who will do the fighting for you.

[u-89]

Contrary to your assertions I am not utterly naive about economics, history and Realpolitik. Actually I understand all that well enough, in fact I could have and would have written about the economic/ political situation exactly as you did if this were a dozen years ago. The difference between now and then is that back in the day there were certain inconvenient facts that I either avoided or whitewashed. Only after I honestly confronted those and rigorously applied my guiding principles did I change my take on our foreign policy.

First off by claiming that our economic concerns override property rights of other nations i.e. we should control the oil supply we are in practice justifying theft and murder. If I don't like the way one of the suppliers to my business operates I have no right to take him out and take over. Sponsoring a coup and putting in a puppet ruler may give plausible deniability to my hostile take over but it does not alter the deed (overt military action is the same thing only different). If such activity is immoral for me as an individual how can it be moral for the state?

If Saddam has oil of his own plus Kuwait's he would then no doubt control a lot of quality oil. But that is not the only oil in the world and he is only in power as long as sales finance his military. By cutting off the supply to the world he would cause economic hurt to the rest of us in the short term but before long would only cripple himself. If supply is short and prices too high it becomes economical for other world supplies to be tapped that currently are too expenses to profitably operate. Therefore by raising prices he opens a wider competition which could put himself out of business. He and the world's leaders all understand that.

If the function of the government is to protect the lives, liberties and property of its citizens how is it correct for them to rob its citizens of their money (taxes) and even their lives (military casualties) for anything other than the literal defense of the nation? How is it moral to coerce one's fellow citizen into supporting one's pet causes even if they are noble in themselves. Engaging the country in war because another country half way around the world is threatened can not be justified, individual passions and attachments do not override the evil of confiscating one's neighbors wealth and even his life. Economic excuses like you mention may sound like legitimate national defense but as I illustrated they are not. Military engagement in such cases actually only ensure US influence and control of the region and lucrative contracts for well connected corporations but it is not wise, productive, good for the general welfare or moral.

[Burkeman1]

University types still harbor love for Lenin privately so it doesn't surprise they would love Zinn. As for Deutscher- that question is murky. Trotsky was a great polemicist and political speaker. But he lacked the patience for the daily grind of pratical politics that Stalin had mastered. But supposing Stalin dropped dead of a "heart attack" in 1926 and Trotsky assumed the reigns of power (again unlikely he would have held them for long but let's suspend that for the sake of argument). Trotsky was even further to the "left" than Stalin. I actually think Trotsky would have been even more of a blood thirsty killer of peasants than Stalin (but easier on the rank and file party members). A Trotsky run Soviet Union would have been even more of a disaster than a Stalinist one and with a bigger body count. Deutscher might have seen this and recognized it when writing his history. Deutscher was critical of Stalin from the perspective of an "if only" fantasy. If only Trotsky had run things it would have worked out great was his thinking and it runs throughout his writing. It is a fantasy but it did lead him to write some good stuff. Would he have held onto to this fantasy if Trotsky ran things in Russia and it failed even worse? Most likely not - but he would have found another fantasy excuse on the left on which to hang his critiques from.

I hope that rather long paragraph makes some sense.