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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The stated reasons for 9/11 were the presence of US troops on holy muslim ground, the continuing war against the Iraqi people and lastly the Israeli treatment of the Palestinians. Pretty much sounds like they had some policy differences which they felt they could only get addressed by use of force. Historically small groups resort to terrorism against a large unresponsive state. That would mean policy = political problem. Also it emphasizes that war begets more war. No Gulf War One, no troops on Saudi land, no 9/11.
Damn right! We should have never meddled in Germany & Japan!
In the last 60 years? Are you kidding? Also you seem to count only official war as war. Our military has been directly active in so many islands, Central American countries and in regions of Aisa in the last century that I couldn't name them all off the top of my head and that does not count the sponsored coups, funded revolutions and civil wars.
Boy,this one filled up quick. Even got in my $.02(.0128 Cdn)
Wrong. Poor enforcement of peace treaties plus appeasement empowered Hitler. And please deomnstrate how Stalin came to be because of WW1?
W.W.II enable communism to grow strong in the USSR and spread, ensuring the cold war.
Stalin again. Also, please cite all casualties of the "cold war"? Just because it is a popular term to use, doesn't make it a "war".
WWII's policy of unconditional surrender meant we had to conquer and occupy a land rather than merely defeating an army. Thus we had to rebuild and defend the conquered lands. BTW we are still there and even expanding our jurisdiction - recipes for more wars.
Incorrect again. Our peace policy of the time, born from our noble purpose, motivated us to rebuild our conquered foes. I would argue that Japan and Germany, whose history is amazingly agressive and violent, have learned their lesson concerning the U.S. As far as expanding our jurisdiction, I have no idea what you mean.
You have every right to be a pacifist u-89, but I am quite glad you are not in charge of our foreign policy. When people like you are in office, Americans always wind up dead in large numbers.
Spoken like a true blame America firster, Just in case you've forgotten, We were invited by the Saudi's to their land so we could protect them form Saddam and liberate Kuwait.
But what would we do with that great big empty building (AKA) The State Department ?
From the looks of it, he's followed a well-worn path to lunacy:
... the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal, a Likud Party megaphone whose motto might well be "all wars all the time."
I mean, in just one line in a whole screed, the author gets down to what REALLY bugs him, without even meaning to do so.
The rest of the wasted ink is simply packaging.
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