Tuesday, December 13, 2005
Imperial History
From the fuzzy gray realm of “everybody is equally wrong” comes Michael Madigan, writing for the Chicago Tribune.
I find it ironic that a man can criticize both George Bush and Ted Kennedy for not standing for anything. That’s quite a feat. That pretty much covers it.
Mr. Madigan is one of those cranky independents who sees all sins as being equal. He also has a short memory. Ted Kennedy was advocating universal health care back in the days of Jimmy Carter, but because Carter was such a centrist he refused to go along with Kennedy’s initiatives and ended up angering Kennedy so much he ran against Carter in the democratic primaries in 1980 and split the Democrats. Kennedy has been an advocate of workers’ rights, a robust Education Department, and minorities’ rights for decades. He has been the lion the left wing of the Democrats for over a generation, which is why conservatives hate him so much. They bring up Chappaquiddick every other time they mention his name. As per usual conservative debating standards, they usually insult him personally in some way instead of arguing his ideas. BTW, if you’re looking for people with a bad driving history, look no further than the White House. Our sitting president and vice president both have drunk driving convictions on their record, and the first lady ran a stop sign when she was in high school and killed a classmate, a crime that went, strangely, unprosecuted. Kennedy’s “crime” was not calling the police after the accident, as he first tried to rescue his passenger and then called his lawyer. He pled guilty to leaving the scene of an accident.
Madigan also notes that conservatives haven’t been big proponents of small government lately. That’s an understatement. Nixon’s federal spending, probably because of a war he sought to prolong instead of withdraw from, was huge. Reagan presided over a congress that doubled the national debt in eight years, largely because of his administration’s direction to slash taxes and maintain massive defense spending: Reagan actually asked congress for a little more money they even they were willing to spend.
The elder Bush was more of a fiscal conservative, but his son and the Republicans in congress have spent money like Paris Hilton on a shopping spree, angering both liberals and fiscal conservatives.
I question how much of the Republican Party is actually devoted to conservatism anymore. Fundy Christian conservatism, maybe, but fiscal conservatism? I think not. They haven’t been real advocates of that in over a generation.
One thing conservatives have been is a strong supporter of is imperial hegemony. Eisenhower and Nixon used the CIA like their own personal assassination squad. Ike tossed the democratically-elected governments of Iran in 1953 and Guatemala in 1954 when those governments became hostile to U.S. business interests. Nixon did the same in Chile in 1973. Nixon also used the CIA to torture, capture, and assassinate Viet Cong and then intimidate the FBI, which eventually cost him his job. Reagan used the CIA to finance militia groups in every Central American country in the eighties, with the goal of installing friendly regimes. Financing and training rebel groups like the contras operating in and against a foreign power is an act of war, as the UN ruled, but the Reagan Administration dismissed the ruling. Financing and training death squads that deliberately executed civilians and erased entire villages, like in Guatemala and El Salvador, is a war crime, as the UN ruled, but America again ignored the findings, with the possible exception of a few newspapers like the L.A. Times.
Look at the dark history of any Central or South American nation and you will find the same, sad pattern stretching back for generations: anti-U.S. government toppled by U.S.-financed rebellion. Pro-U.S. brutal dictatorship financed by the U.S., as well as World Bank loans. Famous example: Manuel Noreiga was on the CIA payroll in the eighties, even though he stole his elections and was a drug-runner for decades. Saddam Hussein’s trial is eerily reminiscent of Noreiga’s trial: the dictator we once financed became unnecessary, so we removed him from power and had him prosecuted.
Don’t get me wrong: America does occasionally punish dictators for human rights violations and send troops to foreign countries for noble reasons. The U.S. has intervened, on a small scale, several times in Haiti and Liberia to safeguard civilians in a chaotic, war-torn environment. Clinton sent bombers to stop Slobadon Milosevic in Serbia in the late nineties and he sent 15,000 marines to safeguard UN food shipments from predatory warlords in starving Somalia. The Grenadan government was killing dissenters, which (somewhat) justified the U.S. invasion under Reagan.
My point is that these human rights invasions are small efforts in countries where there is no real U.S. interest. 10,000 marines here. 20,000 marines there. Never has the U.S. mounted a full-bore invasion to liberate a country from an oppressive leader. Not once. Never in our history. Not when Wilson saw the imperialist axis powers start WWI for naked territorial gain. Not when FDR saw Germany start WWII and begin to slaughter civilians. Only when we were attacked and our allies began to weaken did we jump in a world war.
We did nothing when Pol Pot quietly locked the doors to his country, turned around, and slaughtered millions of his own people; nothing when Indonesia exterminated East Timor; nothing when Papa Doc Duvalier went berserk in our own backyard; nothing when Pinochet (our own Frankenstinian experiment) crushed his country into submission; nothing when Idi Amin destroyed the opposition in Uganda in the 1970s; nothing when Robert Mugabe degenerated into a brutal murderer a decade later.
I could go on, but you get the idea. Only when U.S. interests are at stake does the U.S. decide to selectively enforce U.N. standards and bring up human rights issues as justification for action. The U.S. did nothing when nations bordering the Congo invaded that country and tried to topple the government, even after the peace accord signed in South Africa in 2002. The U.S. did nothing when Somalia attacked Ethiopia in the Ogaden War of 1977. The U.S. response when Eritrea was invaded by Ethiopia in 1998? Zzzzzzzzz…
When Iraq invaded Kuwait, however, there was no delay in the U.S. and European response. We wouldn’t let half the Middle East’s oil reserves fall into the hands of man who admired Joseph Stalin. Oh, and, by the way, we had a sudden concern for international law and the poor, helpless civilians of a far-away nation.
Not really. We just wanted a friendly government in control of that sweet, sweet crude. The supply must not stop. The U.S. needs oil like a heroin junky needs a hit. If the prices of oil even just go up it puts a massive inflationary pressure on the economy. It makes us noticeably poorer.
This has been the case for generations, and it has made U.S. foreign policy a drug slave to the whims of oily, Middle-Eastern sheiks, shahs, emirs, and other dusty tribal despots. It has poured trillions of dollars into the coffers of Islamic fundamentalists, dissolute dictators, and violent Arab sectarians. It has cost us two wars and endless military financing to keep Israel safe. It has earned us the revulsion of every terrorist cell on Earth, as we use Israel as a military base and political colony and we go to bed with every brutal king who promises us access to the foundation of our economy: sweet, sweet crude.
It is long past the time when we should have an Apollo-like program to find alternative energy sources. It will save us trillions of dollars over the next few generations. It will get us the fuck out of the Middle East.
If we had simply spent, in the eighties, the hundreds of billions of dollars that we’ve spent in two wars in Iraq in the last fifteen years on research into alternative energy, we would now all be driving cars that run on starlight and dreams.
Instead we get pilot programs like the ones that Bush provides: a pittance into alternative fuels. A program to use hydrogen-powered cars whose hydrogen fuel is made by oil-fired power plants. Drilling harder, deeper, and longer. Drill ANWR. Drill the coasts. Don’t raise fuel-efficiency standards on cars.
As long as there is money in politics this will be the United States of Exxon. But money in politics is another issue. An issue that will be coming more and more plain as Abramoff and Scanlon cuts deals and squeal on every government official they’ve ever bribed.
I find it ironic that a man can criticize both George Bush and Ted Kennedy for not standing for anything. That’s quite a feat. That pretty much covers it.
Mr. Madigan is one of those cranky independents who sees all sins as being equal. He also has a short memory. Ted Kennedy was advocating universal health care back in the days of Jimmy Carter, but because Carter was such a centrist he refused to go along with Kennedy’s initiatives and ended up angering Kennedy so much he ran against Carter in the democratic primaries in 1980 and split the Democrats. Kennedy has been an advocate of workers’ rights, a robust Education Department, and minorities’ rights for decades. He has been the lion the left wing of the Democrats for over a generation, which is why conservatives hate him so much. They bring up Chappaquiddick every other time they mention his name. As per usual conservative debating standards, they usually insult him personally in some way instead of arguing his ideas. BTW, if you’re looking for people with a bad driving history, look no further than the White House. Our sitting president and vice president both have drunk driving convictions on their record, and the first lady ran a stop sign when she was in high school and killed a classmate, a crime that went, strangely, unprosecuted. Kennedy’s “crime” was not calling the police after the accident, as he first tried to rescue his passenger and then called his lawyer. He pled guilty to leaving the scene of an accident.
Madigan also notes that conservatives haven’t been big proponents of small government lately. That’s an understatement. Nixon’s federal spending, probably because of a war he sought to prolong instead of withdraw from, was huge. Reagan presided over a congress that doubled the national debt in eight years, largely because of his administration’s direction to slash taxes and maintain massive defense spending: Reagan actually asked congress for a little more money they even they were willing to spend.
The elder Bush was more of a fiscal conservative, but his son and the Republicans in congress have spent money like Paris Hilton on a shopping spree, angering both liberals and fiscal conservatives.
I question how much of the Republican Party is actually devoted to conservatism anymore. Fundy Christian conservatism, maybe, but fiscal conservatism? I think not. They haven’t been real advocates of that in over a generation.
One thing conservatives have been is a strong supporter of is imperial hegemony. Eisenhower and Nixon used the CIA like their own personal assassination squad. Ike tossed the democratically-elected governments of Iran in 1953 and Guatemala in 1954 when those governments became hostile to U.S. business interests. Nixon did the same in Chile in 1973. Nixon also used the CIA to torture, capture, and assassinate Viet Cong and then intimidate the FBI, which eventually cost him his job. Reagan used the CIA to finance militia groups in every Central American country in the eighties, with the goal of installing friendly regimes. Financing and training rebel groups like the contras operating in and against a foreign power is an act of war, as the UN ruled, but the Reagan Administration dismissed the ruling. Financing and training death squads that deliberately executed civilians and erased entire villages, like in Guatemala and El Salvador, is a war crime, as the UN ruled, but America again ignored the findings, with the possible exception of a few newspapers like the L.A. Times.
Look at the dark history of any Central or South American nation and you will find the same, sad pattern stretching back for generations: anti-U.S. government toppled by U.S.-financed rebellion. Pro-U.S. brutal dictatorship financed by the U.S., as well as World Bank loans. Famous example: Manuel Noreiga was on the CIA payroll in the eighties, even though he stole his elections and was a drug-runner for decades. Saddam Hussein’s trial is eerily reminiscent of Noreiga’s trial: the dictator we once financed became unnecessary, so we removed him from power and had him prosecuted.
Don’t get me wrong: America does occasionally punish dictators for human rights violations and send troops to foreign countries for noble reasons. The U.S. has intervened, on a small scale, several times in Haiti and Liberia to safeguard civilians in a chaotic, war-torn environment. Clinton sent bombers to stop Slobadon Milosevic in Serbia in the late nineties and he sent 15,000 marines to safeguard UN food shipments from predatory warlords in starving Somalia. The Grenadan government was killing dissenters, which (somewhat) justified the U.S. invasion under Reagan.
My point is that these human rights invasions are small efforts in countries where there is no real U.S. interest. 10,000 marines here. 20,000 marines there. Never has the U.S. mounted a full-bore invasion to liberate a country from an oppressive leader. Not once. Never in our history. Not when Wilson saw the imperialist axis powers start WWI for naked territorial gain. Not when FDR saw Germany start WWII and begin to slaughter civilians. Only when we were attacked and our allies began to weaken did we jump in a world war.
We did nothing when Pol Pot quietly locked the doors to his country, turned around, and slaughtered millions of his own people; nothing when Indonesia exterminated East Timor; nothing when Papa Doc Duvalier went berserk in our own backyard; nothing when Pinochet (our own Frankenstinian experiment) crushed his country into submission; nothing when Idi Amin destroyed the opposition in Uganda in the 1970s; nothing when Robert Mugabe degenerated into a brutal murderer a decade later.
I could go on, but you get the idea. Only when U.S. interests are at stake does the U.S. decide to selectively enforce U.N. standards and bring up human rights issues as justification for action. The U.S. did nothing when nations bordering the Congo invaded that country and tried to topple the government, even after the peace accord signed in South Africa in 2002. The U.S. did nothing when Somalia attacked Ethiopia in the Ogaden War of 1977. The U.S. response when Eritrea was invaded by Ethiopia in 1998? Zzzzzzzzz…
When Iraq invaded Kuwait, however, there was no delay in the U.S. and European response. We wouldn’t let half the Middle East’s oil reserves fall into the hands of man who admired Joseph Stalin. Oh, and, by the way, we had a sudden concern for international law and the poor, helpless civilians of a far-away nation.
Not really. We just wanted a friendly government in control of that sweet, sweet crude. The supply must not stop. The U.S. needs oil like a heroin junky needs a hit. If the prices of oil even just go up it puts a massive inflationary pressure on the economy. It makes us noticeably poorer.
This has been the case for generations, and it has made U.S. foreign policy a drug slave to the whims of oily, Middle-Eastern sheiks, shahs, emirs, and other dusty tribal despots. It has poured trillions of dollars into the coffers of Islamic fundamentalists, dissolute dictators, and violent Arab sectarians. It has cost us two wars and endless military financing to keep Israel safe. It has earned us the revulsion of every terrorist cell on Earth, as we use Israel as a military base and political colony and we go to bed with every brutal king who promises us access to the foundation of our economy: sweet, sweet crude.
It is long past the time when we should have an Apollo-like program to find alternative energy sources. It will save us trillions of dollars over the next few generations. It will get us the fuck out of the Middle East.
If we had simply spent, in the eighties, the hundreds of billions of dollars that we’ve spent in two wars in Iraq in the last fifteen years on research into alternative energy, we would now all be driving cars that run on starlight and dreams.
Instead we get pilot programs like the ones that Bush provides: a pittance into alternative fuels. A program to use hydrogen-powered cars whose hydrogen fuel is made by oil-fired power plants. Drilling harder, deeper, and longer. Drill ANWR. Drill the coasts. Don’t raise fuel-efficiency standards on cars.
As long as there is money in politics this will be the United States of Exxon. But money in politics is another issue. An issue that will be coming more and more plain as Abramoff and Scanlon cuts deals and squeal on every government official they’ve ever bribed.
# posted by BitterHarvest @ 3:40 PM 
