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Present at the Destruction
Everybody has a different role to play at a funeral, I guess.
There's the sobby, hysterical, "He's not really dead, everything's just like it used to be!", kinda guy. Think of Reagan or Lil' Bush, desperately trying to resurrect the America of 1955.
There's the chummy, cavalier, "Hey, no worries - I bet they'll be serving some great booze at the wake!", sorta dude. Think of Wild Bill Clinton, with his shades and sax, playing Arsenio.
There's the little kid, more or less completely baffled by the whole life and death thing. Think every Republican voter in America.
And then there's the undertaker. All he's worried about is making sure that the corpse gets removed from the building before it stinks up the joint so bad somebody shuts him down and he loses his job. Think of Barack Obama.
I certainly was the other night, as he gave his Afghanistan speech.
So this is what it feels like to watch an empire fall, eh? This is what it looks like when Goliath goes boom? Ouch. I guess if there's a silver lining, at least we can all say we saw it first hand. We were present at the destruction.
It shows up in economic policy, where a country that was once a dynamo is now an ossified feeding trough, unable to dislodge the gorging pigs from the table, even as they've been gnawing like termites on the wood itself for two or three decades now, and the whole thing is getting ready to splinter into rubble.
It shows up in environmental policy, where the superpower that once pioneered big ideas like democracy, human rights and civil liberties now leads the way toward planetary suicide - lest, alternatively, anyone should lose a nickel or two off their standard of living in the short term.
It shows up in everything from education to prisons to the military to mortgages, where we've become expert at producing nothing, while commodifying and exploiting everything.
It shows up in the national spirit, where no one will sacrifice anything for anyone, where politics has become war for personal spoils, and where we socialize our children to aspire to no higher value than raw aggrandizement and reality TV (an oxymoron if ever there was).
And it was all over Obama's speech on Afghanistan this week, the central theme of which was marketing as a plan for victory what was really a superpower withdrawal in the face of defeat.
Or so it would seem. To be fair, I must admit that I find the Afghanistan question vexing.
I loathe the Taliban, for instance, and they will pretty clearly rule the country again once the US is gone, as they substantially do already. And yet there are many governments in this world I loathe (including, all too often, my own), and it is neither appropriate nor possible for the United States military to be running around replacing those. Nor would I likely be enamored of the replacements, anyhow, which is exactly what the Karzai government is in Afghanistan.
I also don't think it's wise to return al Qaeda to having a free run in Afghanistan. But then I recognize that they essentially have that in Pakistan, and that they're also located in dozens of other countries.
I think more soldiers are necessary to have a chance at establishing non-Taliban security in Afghanistan. But I also suspect that, in another way, every added pair of boots on the ground makes it harder, not easier, to achieve that same goal.
And so on. I could go on, but the short version is that finding the right course for US policy on Afghanistan is a lot harder than for, say, healthcare policy or Wall Street regulation or stem cell research.
If we take Obama at face value (a level of trust which may no longer be at all appropriate given the ugly first year of his presidency), he is adopting a strategy for Afghanistan which rejects three highly unpalatable alternatives. He does not want to maintain the rapidly deteriorating status quo. He does not want to go all-in for a multi-decade, narrowly-focused, military commitment that would further wreck America's national security condition in exchange for also further wrecking our fiscal condition. And he does not want to simply walk away from Afghanistan tomorrow, giving the keys to the country to the Taliban and al Qaeda.
I find it hard to disagree with any of those positions. And I even find his alternative solution - an attempt to hand over the Afghan war to the Afghans - to be an almost compelling choice, but only as the least worst option of all that are on the table, and only potentially so. If this choice actually has no hope of working, and if it only means postponing the inevitable, then of course it would be better to withdraw now. That may well be the case.
Obama is essentially trying to replicate in Afghanistan the Iraqi model, which is essentially trying to replicate in Iraq the model of Vietnamization of the Vietnam War. Let's give credit where credit is due: His West Point speech was the most honest (which is not the same as saying fully honest) and mature rendering of American foreign policy history and challenges uttered in the United States in a very long time. But what he didn't mention is that Vietnamization never worked, and that the essential step of the equivalent program in Iraq has yet to be implemented and yet to be tested.
Here's what he said about Iraq: "Today, after extraordinary costs, we are bringing the Iraq war to a responsible end. We will remove our combat brigades from Iraq by the end of next summer, and all of our troops by the end of 2011. That we are doing so is a testament to the character of our men and women in uniform. Thanks to their courage, grit and perseverance, we have given Iraqis a chance to shape their future, and we are successfully leaving Iraq to its people."
Notice the emphasis on extraordinary costs. Notice the emphasis on ending the war ‘responsibly', but also clearly on ending it. Notice the de rigeur political cover taken by a president wrapping himself in the bravery of the military. And notice, especially, the redefinition of success in Iraq down to a mere giving of a chance to Iraqis to shape their future (leaving aside the enormous costs the Iraqis have had to pay for that chance, and the many ways in which American actions have actually diminished the probability of succeeding as we go forward). We may be "successfully leaving Iraq", but that isn't necessarily the same as leaving Iraq successfully.
We should also notice, as well, that the probability for success in Iraq is a lot higher - which is not to say high - than in Afghanistan, an impoverished tribal landscape (‘country' is probably too strong a word) right out of the thirteenth century, if not the third, and now ruled by an incompetent, corrupt, much loathed and much distrusted dictator (for what other word is there to describe a ruler who steals power through rigged elections?).
The fundamental two problems with the Obama strategy for Afghanistan may well show themselves earlier in Iraq, perhaps even next year. First, imagine you are a nationalist fighter whose goal is to seize power from the occupying power. Why fight today to eject the Americans, when they've already announced they're leaving tomorrow? And you can bet they won't be coming back, either, no matter what happens.
And second, imagine instead you're the leader of a faction bent on crushing another faction within your country. Again, why engage in fighting today when the Americans will get in your way, if you can simply wait another year or two for them to leave?
The first scenario presumes a fairly unified national resistance to an occupying power. That's likely to be Afghanistan, with the Taliban seizing control of the country again. The second scenario envisions a deeply divided country kept from civil war only by the power of a dictator or an occupying army. That may well be Iraq.
Either way, the operative principle is that an America that cannot afford to stay forever in these places merely postpones the denouement of the conflict by its continued presence in the short term.
Addressing critics of his policy in his West Point speech, the president noted that, "there are those who oppose identifying a time-frame for our transition to Afghan responsibility. Indeed, some call for a more dramatic and open-ended escalation of our war effort - one that would commit us to a nation building-project of up to a decade. I reject this course because it sets goals that are beyond what we can achieve at a reasonable cost, and what we need to achieve to secure our interests."
But, of course, the scenario unmentioned in his speech, and yet probably the most likely, is the one where his arguments about necessity and affordability clash. What happens when we can no longer afford, per Obama, the necessity to guarantee American security from a (potentially even nuclear) attack, also per Obama?
My guess is the very tangible affordability imperative defeats the potential danger consideration, and the US simply leaves. That's when we join other former hegemons on the sad road headed south, including those who died in that "graveyard of empires", Afghanistan.
I'd be pretty surprised if that's not America's destiny. It's still possible that we can pull it out, but all the trend lines are going the wrong way. Our fiscal health is hemorrhaging badly. Our relations with others are violently adolescent. Our environmental condition is suicidal. Worst of all, our political sophistication is rapidly moving from diminished to deprived to deluded. We can no longer identify the worst of our enemies. Indeed, we've gotten in the habit of electing them president. And the only sense in which our so-called opposition party to the nastiest predators in our midst remotely justifies the moniker is in its complete opposition to anything that smacks of boldness.
And there we go. Maybe someone's been messing with all my clocks, but the American Century sure did seem short, as centuries go. It was more like a third-of-a-century, and American influence wasn't even uncontested during that time. Not only was America's much vaunted power during this era a lot more vaunted than it was much, it is now headed toward being neither.
Pity. It didn't have to be this way. This was suicide by stupidity. Death by a thousand nuts.
Or maybe it isn't such a pity. The American empire truly made some contributions to the world, but it's also truly a legitimate question as to whether those outweigh the destruction wrought.
It's fair to say that ours was a more benevolent empire than those of the past, but that is not necessarily to say that it was benevolent.
It may even be the case that we've been better at it that the Chinese will be.
But something tells me that we still won't be missed a lot.
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35 Comments so far
Show AllI'm glad that Prof. Green's piece mentions Vietnamization. That handy example from recent history is very much to the point.
The set of outcomes to which he refers could have been foreseen from the very beginning of our invasion. Of course we're left with figuring out the "least worst" alternative. What's outrageous about Obama's oratory on the subject, though, is the little bipartisan dance that forms its context. That is: Obama's management of empire is supposely liberal, with the wacky dance partners screaming bloody murder about it on behalf of the Republican dancers.
The very same voices that were right about this obscenity all along continue to be excluded. What we don't hear is also a crucial part of the oratory.
"The very same voices that were right about this obscenity all along continue to be excluded"
Hear hear. No verbal shortcuts. You meant to say the voices that were right all along continue to be excluded by that cabal of thug elites known as "dear leaders". Like it or not, we're all Dr. Pavlovs, and we need to help every dog associate the thug elite with dinner. Think of it as like invasive species eradication.
Sheesh, i hate to be the first one to comment because it means the article was just THAT BAD. I liked how it started, and read into it, until I read the words, "I loath the taliban" then I switched off. I'm not saying that I love the taliban, just saying, "gee, no sh*t eh?" Then I read the rest of the article. Hrmmm, do you really need to waste that much time pontificating over Obama's presidency? No offense David Michael Green, but it's okay to pull your head out of your arse now. I'm sure it'd be more interesting to hear you speak when you're not pontificating about the "prez" that has no say in the Military Industrial Complex.
I often marvel at the nastiness that some of the "left" can muster when someone of proven progressive credentials deviates ten degrees from their own particular position. If that is the opposition, there is no opposition.
Tony Vodvarka
Obama has "proven credentials", too - community organizer, Ivy League education, Constitutional professor, etc. - but since we see little or no connection to or interest in communities now, we see an understanding of history that's no better than our own, and we see little respect for the Constitution, we would have to conclude that actions speak louder than credentials. Saying, "I loathe the Taliban" is unprofessional and un-professorial.
As to the author-professor's statement: "[Obama's] West Point speech was the most honest (which is not the same as saying fully honest) and mature rendering of American foreign policy history and challenges uttered in the United States in a very long time."
Obama cited al Quaeda and 9/11 again and again even though no Afghani is known to have been involved in 9/11 nor do many al Qaeda currently reside in Afghanistan. He said it's nothing like Viet Nam, but many credible observers have convincingly drawn the parallel. He said continued presence in Afghanistan is necessary for our national security which is totally untrue. He did not mention the current or proposed number or cost of contract non-military forces in Afghanistan. And so on - i.e. it was not a very honest speech nor was it historically informative.
I found no difference with Bush Jr.'s lies, which were repeated almost verbatim. Obama can lie with a straight face with no goofy smirk. That is change we can believe in.
I agree, I found the article contributes nothing to informed discourse. Pepe Escobar, Tariq Ali, Robert Fisk, Adam Curtis, John Pilger, Chris Hedges, Noam Chomsky and others have written much more informative and accurate articles.
I never in my wildest dreams thought that when I was learning about the decline and fall of the Roman Empire in junior high
school back in the sixties that I would get to witness it firsthand in my own country - but I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I am. Present at the destruction, indeed.
Concerning the decline of the Roman Empire, Peter Dale Scott wrote, in the epilogue of "Deep Politics and the Death of JFK" (Univ of California Press, 1993), "The institutions of the city were preserved... it was becoming an empire for which civic institutions were ill-adapted. Its armies cut wider and wider swaths around the Mediterranean; their conquests impressed more and more men and resources into the armies, which became the real source of power. Eventually the generals (imperatores) became accostomed to occupying Rome as well as foreign cities."
Tony Vodvarka
The United States is not going to have time to go the way of Rome, Spain, France, or Britain and China will never get to be an Empire.
Long before the U.S. is officially dead the entire planet will have turned into an almost unlivable habitat and the few starving survivors will be too busy trying to stay alive to remember that there once was a place called America.
China is an Empire already, and has been one for most of its 5,000+ years of history.
"America," the place, is the WHOLE of the Western Hemisphere.
That's exactly why I used the term "America" rather than United States. What I had in mind was the fact that if any people survive it will be in such a parlous state that they will not be able to take the time to educate their children in anything but immediate survival techniques. Within one or at most two generations no one will be talking about America or anything but "this is where something edible can be found" or "this is where you can sometimes hunt what few animals are left".
I thought China was The Middle Kingdom but I may be wrong about that.
Problem with this article:
Green starts out okay, but then he muddles through Afghanistan repeating talking points without coming to a conclusion. Then he states that he finds it hard to disagree with of Obama's positions. Well if that is the case, he won't reach a conclusion just as Obama hasn't.
For example, he agrees that we can't "turn over the keys to the Taliban or Al Qaeda". First, if the Afghans won't fight the Taliban, is it so bad to Afghanistan? If it gets bad enough, a civil war will break out and the problem will resolve itself. It is simple, we should not be fighting their civil war. Second, Al Qaeda is a terrorist group, not a national movement, thus it will not take over the country. Once the Afghans develops its own government, it can deal with terrorist groups. As long as we support a puppet government (Karzai), we will have to deal the the terrorist groups). Nor does Green explain what we are doing in Afghanistan, only making the vague references that we need to be there for national security (when he agrees with Obama).
Mr. Green, the Afghanistan War is costing Americans $300 billion dollars in 2010 prior to the addition of 30,000 troops. $300 billion (9/28/09 Congressional Research Service report, http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL33110.pdf)
Mr. Green, if you want to reach a conclusion, fill in the blanks below:
1) Spending $300 billion for one year in Afghanistan is money well spent on national security because we will save ____ American lives (versus the 301 American military lives we have lost so far in 2009).
2) Spending $300 billion for one year in Afghanistan is money well spent on national security because we will save ____ American lives (versus if we spent the money on US healthcare, where the lack of healthcare is costing roughly 18,000 American lives a year).
3) In spending $300 billion for one year in Afghanistan, we will kill ________ Afghans and imprison _____ Afghans and in the end, we will make it a better place, Afghans will thank us, and we will be a safer country.
Now if the reason we are in Afghanistan is about oil or natural gas piplines, Obama should be honest, and we can have a national debate on that.
Excellent points, all. I didn't hear the speech, but didn't need to, knowing there would be no mention of the oil pipeline, the only reason we are there in the first place.
I agree, I was so dis-appointed with the false assumptions and omissions, I could not even finish reading it. Worthless pap.
Anyone who uses the word SUCCESS in referring to anything about what the United States of Global Domination has done (and will continue to do for many years) in Iraq, is participating in their own complicitous disintegration into depravity.
There will NEVER be a justification for what this corrupt, avaricious, deceitful, MURDEROUS country is doing to the people of Iraq.
Obama is lying when he says we will be leaving. If you think for a second that after spending HUNDREDS of BILLIONS of dollars to deliberately destroy Iraq, that the greedy assholes who run this country are simply going to walk away without a huge return in dollars on their "investment" (especially when there is all that oil for all of our gas-guzzling, carbon dioxde spewing, indifference), then you are fooling yourself. Do you really believe we have built fortresses around Iraq because we are leaving???
Give these assholes time, something will happen or they will make something happen, and we will be told that "Oh yeah, we meant to leave, but we can't leave things like THIS."
Then they will probably blame Iran.
Afganistan is the same sort of BULLSHIT. WAIT! I mean Pakistan. NO, WAIT! I mean Iran. NO, WAIT! I mean Uzbekistan. NO, WAIT! I mean ............
The core of all of this depravity is that the majority of people in the U.S.G.D. and much of the rest of the world value power more than anything else. We won't need to be bothered by education, healthcare, social security, silly notions about democracy or anything else after we destroy the planet to prove our domination over nature.
We can forget about partying at any wake, the funeral we are watching is our own.
Obama: 'veni, vidi, ego contructum an oil pipio'
Another Afghan article that refuses to ask the real question "Why the hell are we occupying that country.?"
It has nothing to do with saving their people from the Taliban, al Qaeda. It has to do with dominating another country for our own selfish purposes, be it oil (the pipeline; or simply another step in the US' plan to control the entire Mid East.
I just wish once that someone in the media had the balls to ask the President, point blank: "Just what are our VITAL INTERESTS that are at stake here?" And then pick his answers apart one by one.
I could not even finish reading the article. The assumptions included in the article have been proven false, thus making the article worthless in my opinion. There have been several high-quality, well-researched articles about the topic that my tolerance for fluff is very low. I consider this article fluff, what the Brits call "worthless pap". Sorry to sound harsh about the venerable DM Green, but my tolerance for BS is very low at this point. I expected a bit more in-depth analysis from an academic
Everybody has a different role to play at a funeral, I guess.
And Obama is the corpse who will bury himself. Like Captain Ahab at the end of "Moby Dick", he beckons us to join him.
I remember being nine years old and watching the Berlin Wall coming down on the 9 inch B&W telle that sat on top of our refrigerator...suffice to say, I was a very politically aware nine year old.
What I hear no one mention is this: the sequence of events that led to the end of the Cold War or, more appropriately, the fall of the USSR, thunderously resonate in the present moment.
"Mutually Assured Destruction" (MAD) was less a successful political détente than a fiduciary weapons system: rubles for butter or rubles for bullets, but in the end, not enough for both. The Soviets became mired in Afghanistan, a process which we abetted with our support of the Mujahideen, Taliban and OBL himself. In the end, they spent themselves out of existence, leaving the US as the last great power standing.
But, the issue as I see it is that we, in practice, never ended the Cold War. The allocation of funds to military expenditures continues and increases unabated. We cling to outmoded weapons systems. We remain in an existential battle of duality, "good v. evil," in what has become a multi-polar world. Why do we expect a different outcome when we cheered this very sequence of events as the downfall of the Communist threat?
I cannot understand why this parallel is not made glaringly obvious when discussing our current state of affairs.
History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.
~Mark Twain
I don't know what 'news' this guy's watching, but my TV says the Great Recession has been over for 5 months, unemployment is all but solved, the stock market is kicking ass, health care has been totally reformed, manufacturing is on a surprising upswing, and both Rs and Ds swear that all they care about is the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness of all We The People.
Oh, and, also, my TV keeps repeating over and over again that America never was, and is not now, an 'empire,' so all this talk about 'empire collapse' is silly.
Yes, the TV guy said silly. And TV guy only reports facts. He said so himself.
It's alright. The Empire had to die, it had to die quickly, and this is the quickest way to do that, mass insanity. First, give the country to the top 1/4 of 1% by letting them own the entire political class (cheaply). Then, using that political class, bloat that Oligarchy with the bodies, blood, and marrow of millions of working class jobs and humans so the jobs could be shipped to "organized" slave pits around the globe - gut the infrastructure - gut the homeowners and their pensions - all the while spending 2x the total world budget for the MIC, the final wealth funnel to the Oligarchy - Iraq/Af-Pak and the Trillionaire Bailout is just the cherry on the cheesecake.
Truth is the biosphere, let alone the species can't survive another 20 years of SUVs and a throwaway Empire. Think of how much living death is out there all around us right now. Humans; males, females, boys, girls, never allowed to live, never allowed to step off the hamster wheel of the life that's been imposed on them and just breathe - and that's in Akron, and Boise, Queens. It's a big planet out there, it's worth saving and if it means the death of the US and the global nation/state system and that's the price, pay it.
You can't rebuild a civilization, even in a degraded biosphere, if you can't breathe, nothing will grow, and there's no water. That's a long way from making a Mars Planetary Lander or putting a space telescope on the edge of our solar system or expanding our core knowledge with a Super Colliding Super Conductor - but that's what we lost when the White Majority 40 years ago demanded a society based on Exclusion (again) and war. No we don't love war, we love Victory. Yeah, they chose Exclusion then, and they haven't changed. "I'm not going to pay for some poor (black/brown) person's health care." That's what they say - in 1968-72 it was the integration of schools and busing. I was there then and today our schools are more segregated than they were in '54. Exclusion, always Exclusion.
Still not so different from our cousins around the planet. No doubt the Han Chinese, the Hindu, and the Pashtun want Everything, For Themselves, Forever too...they certainly share the same model of male supremacy, gender slavery, and feral blood drinking elites. Like I said, time for the ugly baby to die. Maybe we do something better next time. Besides, White America hated, feared, and despised the Freedoms brought about by the economic abundance of the Roosevelt Legacy. Too many real choices and all of them scared the shit out of the flat-earth peasant population (their kids came home from University and told the parents that the world wasn't flat--the parents freaked)- and the remaining Oligarchy of the time fanned those fears into a conflagration that will now destroy the Empire.
I share your thoughts. Buckminister Fuller (the geodisic dome guy) rejected this white world view. He once said that he was raised to believe that, in order for a few to be well off, many must not be. That's exclusion in a nut shell. He understood it was a convenient lie. The truth is that all the spin by flag waivers and exclusionists can't change the unsustainability of our modus vivendi. We aren't being rejected by the rest of humanity; we are rejecting the human race by our routine and greedy acts of inhumanity.
I once read that Campbell's soup company got it's start during the Great Depression. Now here's a corporation that is as American as apple pie. It probably helped a lot of people avoid hunger pangs for decades. Now it comes out that the high salt content and cancer and degenerative disease causing additives like MSG that were indispensable ingredients to these cheap soups have probably caused an untold amount of cancer and dementia, among other problems. But, hey, these folks didn't go hungry, right? Will Campbell's soup chip in for health care? Nope. Did I consume a lot of Campbell's soups in my life time. Yep.
We reap what we sow. The only path to sustainability is a wholistic weighing of all factors in any enterprise. Unfortunately, the guy with the best line or the biggest bat always seems to get his way. And so, we all get shortchanged and we perish. All because people want to blindly trust authority and don't want to think for themselves.
"..return al Qaeda to having a free run"
They never had a free run in Afghanistan. The Taliban offered to transfer OBL over to a 3rd party - remember? Besides, are we such cowards now that we're worried about 100 lice-infested dudes (per the CIA) jumping over monkey bars in the mountains of a broken country? The creation, planning, recruiting, and training for 9-11 all occurred outside of Afghanistan - remember?
"..they essentially have that in Pakistan"
They are being harrased by the ISI and others. In no way do they have a 'free run'. Their story is not winning many fans these days.
"..and that they're also located in dozens of other countries"
No they are not. They have a few people in a few countries. Maybe. You're sounding like BushCo: 'sleeper cells' all over the US and everywhere! There never were and are not any 'sleeper cells'. It was a lie. They are a law-enforcement concern and should have been treated as such.
"..giving the keys to the country "
? It's not our country! What are we doing with the 'keys' anyway?
"..speech was the most honest"
No! It was certainly not. See, for example, just this comment on commondreams regarding the Vietnam comparison - totally false!
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/12/05-5
Compared to some of the great speeches by JFK, MLK and others in history, this speech was childish. It's dumbing down.
"..the probability for success in Iraq is a lot higher"
There is NO probability 'for success' it was an abject failure from the start. 1.2 million innocents (60% women and children) dead. Millions have fled the country, esp. the educated. The nation is is tatters, fundamentalist religion now in more control of a secular country. What are you talking about?
Look, here is what we do in Afghanistan. It's very simple: Get the military, the CIA, and the mercenaries the hell out. Period. Civil war will erupt, but we cannot and should not stop it. We should never have armed the Moujahadeen. Then go back in with 30,000 peace corp volunteers. Empower the women. Do what we can, but keep the forces out. And get serious with everyone to start eliminating nukes everywhere, including Pakistan, India, and US stockpiles. WTF, it just wish we had real leadership in America, and informed voters and academics, and etc, etc..
"It's fair to say that ours was a more benevolent empire than those of the past, but that is not necessarily to say that it was benevolent."
Actually, no. Consider what the U.S. did to: Mexico, 1845; Hawaii, 1893; the Philippines, 1898-present; Central and South America, 1900-2009 (and continuing); Russia, 1918-1920; Iran, 1953; the Dominican Republic, 1956; Haiti, repeatedly; Puerto Rico, 1898-present; Cuba, 1898-present; Germany, Japan and Italy, 1943-1945 (strategic bombing of civilians, culminating in Hiroshima and Nagasaki); Western Europe (Operation Gladio) after 1945; the Middle East since at least FDR's cozy arrangement with the Saudis; Pacific Islands used as H-bomb targets; Vietnam, 1954-1973; Laos & Cambodia 1960-1973; Indonesia and East Timor, 1965-1999; Diego Garcia; Africa (Egypt south through Congo, Nigeria, Sudan; Somalia; Angola, and South Africa); Iraq since at least 1965; Afghanistan since 1979; and Central Asia since 1979, just to name some of the U.S. Empire's many victims.
Assassinations, torture, starvation, intentional deprivation of necessary medical supplies, rape, chemical & biological contamination (Agent Orange, depleted uranium and white phosphate), overthrowing elected democratic leaders, supporting brutal dictators, military polluting of the planet, and 1,000 unwanted (by the populations) military bases in more than 130 countries is not "more benevolent" than any other empire.
The end of this depraved, brutal U.S. Empire cannot come too soon for the people of the earth or the planet itself.
Given the millions we've killed in Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East, I doubt we'll be remembered as benevolent. In the end, America, like Rome, will rot from the inside out. Greed, corruption, and a fanatical sense of exceptionalism are the culprits. It can be stated very simply, in terms long denied by Americans of all stripes: class conflict. As the American middle class continues to disappear, the stark opposition of poor and rich will be finally visible. The role of the state will be clear for everyone to see--even now we see how corporations own our politicians and control every aspect of our lives. Unless Americans begin to see "class," fight for their rights, and bring about a true democracy, America will be just another totalitarian state that will bite the dust because of its own excesses. Marx may have the last laugh yet.
Green's reference to imperial decline is helpful, but otherwise he gives a prolix rehash of some common unprincipled arguments pro and con the US invasion/occupation of Afghanistan. Ironically, he unconsciously exemplifies the decadence that he laments when he lets it be known that he "find[s]it hard to disagree with" Obama's refusal "to simply walk away from Afghanistan tomorrow, giving the keys to the country to the Taliban and al Qaeda." This naturally leads Green to inform us that "finding the right course for US policy in Afghanistan . . . is a lot harder than" finding the right course for healthcare reform or Wall St. regulation. --No, Prof. Green, you are quite mistaken: The principled, non-imperialist position is indeed simply to walk away from the invasion and other such war crimes. And while you're walking, try to leave behind your presumption that it is up to Uncle Sham to determine the course of any nation or people. (If you knew your history, you'd know that the imperialist compulsion is precisely the origin of a full spectrum of resistance to same; which resistance at its extremes attains to the barbarity of such as al Qaeda--which, by the way, you should not lump with the Taliban.)
RE: We may be "successfully leaving Iraq", but that isn't necessarily the same as leaving Iraq successfully. - David Michael Green
MY COMMENT: Good one!
A thought occurred to me this afternoon. After what Bush did,the lies, the reason for the lies, etc, it's made us really, just pitiful. I mean, Obama is actually scrambling to fix things. That does not look good. But Obama's problem is that, I think, he really did dream of being a uniter. That whole idea of Lincoln uniting the country, keeping it together, Obama thinks of himself in these terms. He is a middle of the roader. I did thing at first that this was a good tactic. I mean, I am really pissed at how things have gone over the last few years, but with the way he came across, I wasn't quite ready to give up on the possibility of keeping it all together. I thought it could be done, using the "progressive" path, stopping wars, passing true healthcare reform etc. and he would bring over the other side. But, well this is one of the days in which I'm sitting in the dark, but I feel like I can see everything, very clearly. It's not a pretty picture.
I do also understand that the whole concept of "keeping the country together is a very, might I say, practicle, matter. there are those that would really loose, if things fell apart. So.... it's not somuch that I think Obam is trying out of the ture believer heart or any thing, he may or he may not. It's not going to matter. the middle is a path of death. We've already gone too far down it.
You cannot please all the people all the time. I've said before, real leaders, lead.
Oh, how the Gods must be laughing!
What we can't believe either as a Nation or as it is expresssed in our leadership is that with all the withering firepower and destructive force of our military, we can't have our way with a rag tag guerilla insurgency in Afghanistan. Greatness means military ictory. After victory there will be peace-- on our terms. It's the core belief of every empire. We don't believe that our ideals, our conduct, our system of law or our sense of justice could be an actual source of power. That too is true of empire. I look forward to the day when we give up empire. How dark does it have to get, how humiliated by failure do we have to be before we get there. Ask the Germans. I guess we still have a long way to fall because we are still acting so proudly, telling the rest of the world what we will or will not allow.
David Michael Green,
As much as I like the writings of Thom Hartmann, Ralph Nader and a few others who are similar, you are perhaps the best Liberal political writer.
To be one of my heroes, one has to be a true Liberal.
David Michael Green, you are quickly becoming one of my heroes.
Two comments: Professor Green please let us know your thoughts on Professor Norman Finklestein. Second: Carthage must be destroyed.