The moment one dares to criticize Muslim misbehavior, the knee-jerk Left and many intellectuals go haywire: One gets labeled a McCarthyist, a racist, a xenophobe, a bigot, a trigger-happy John Wayne (all things which I have been called - in print, no less). Then, they proceed to list all the crimes committed by US imperialists over the centuries. Finally, they engage in erudite “explanations” of WHY Middle Easterners and Muslims misbehave, explanations which usually ebb over into JUSTIFICATIONS. Examples of this abound among the comments made to my two recent posts, “The Time for Pacifism has not yet Arrived,” and “For no Rhyme or Reason.” At the same time, the Right also goes haywire:
Two examples are Charles Krauthammer’s September 21 syndicated column and Dick Cheney’s September 20 speech in Sacramento (see Sacramento Bee for both sources). These nutty people blame President Obama and Hillary Clinton for all the Middle-Eastern violence and anti-Americanism. They cry for “flexing our muscles” again and for returning to a more bellicose stance.
Neither
side can get it into its head that the US will never be able to control the
Middle East, whether it lavishes it with
economic aid or bombs it into smithereens. Neither side understands that the US
has tried BOTH, and that both approaches have harmed not just the Middle East,
but also ruined the US ITSELF. Neither
side is able to see that the only intelligent course of action for America is to walk away, as soon as reasonably
feasible. Neither side comprehends the limits of US power and the limits of its
responsibility for conditions in the world.
Europeans learned after World War Two that the sooner
they jettison their burdensome colonies, the more they will thrive. For example, only after
France let Indochina and Algeria go, did it join the ranks of harmonious and
prosperous countries.
But
Americans persist on the ruinous path of trying to police/help (take your pick) the world. The only thing to which this
leads is America’s own decline. For example, we learn on September 21 that
American life expectancy among poor whites has declined by FOUR YEARS since
1990! We now rank 41st in the world in that regard. If there is a
clear indication that this country is in steep decline, surely this is one!
As
Yale historian Paul Kennedy wrote in The Rise and Fall of Great Powers,
America is guilty of Imperial Overstretch. Its bloated
military budget is ruining the country, not benefitting it. It is on a trajectory similar to
that of Spain in the 17th century: attempting to control the world,
it declines into poverty and weakness.
In
order to play a positive role in the world, America must be a strong and healthy country itself. In order to achieve
that, it must learn to cultivate its own
garden. And in order to do that, it must scale back its involvement and its
responsibility for the problems of the Middle East.
13 comments:
The point about imperial overstretch is too true. As a Brit, we know that firsthand.
Thank you for your agreement.
Coming from an ex-colonial power, it is meaningful.
I like this post a lot....My opinion is based on my life experience of nearly 100 years, during which I have lived through two World Wars, two revolutions, being a refugee, lived through bombings (while giving birth to babies), through famine together with my children, etc.
Everyone should realize that people - young people, some “intellectuals” - suffer from a psychological illness caused by history, by wars. Their brains become miopic, narrow-minded. They have lost reason. One should call this illness stupidity caused by catastrophe. If one really believes that the Holocaust did not happen, or that Bush caused 9/11, one cannot have a sane mind. Anyway, it is understandable that human babies, born innocent, become mentally ill when they have to learn about such things as the Holocaust, and they prefer to believe that it did not happen.
I so agree with you. Why can't the US take care of their own?
I am conflicted here. Indeed, there is something called overstretch and I think America has often gotten sucked into situations where they did not have a clear self interest. Beginning in Vietnam we went into a conflict without a clear sense of mission or the end game. That has cost the country both resources and the lives of soldiers.
On the other hand I believe that Cheney and Krauthammer's fundamental analysis of the role of Obama's policies in making a complex situation worse is almost undeniable. It is odd that the Administration did not think that 9/11 has significance among the Muslim militants and did not take any extraordinary precautions around embassies. Obama's Cairo speech was a mixture of cliches and nonsense that has proven to be encouraging to the militants. His direct rejection of a meeting with the elected leader of Israel is inexcusable.
Funny. It's nice you have been able to find a middle ground, between the left and right. Weird folks out there.
Thank you all.
Apparently, SOME degree of neo-isolationism (which is what I propose) is acceptable to many of you.
I disagree with Johnathan, when he assigns much blame to Obama.
But I also find it odd that our President turned down a meeting with Israeli prime minister Netanyahu.
And then, Egyptian President Morsi turned down a meeting with president Obama during his visit to the UN, claiming that he is too busy. Pretty insulting.
I suppose these behaviors are dictated by one's constituencies...
I agree with some of your comments. I am dissapointed in Europe regarding world events. I believe the USA could do many things with economic and moral pressure but Euopean countries are so interested in SELLING to every renegade country that they do not support our efforts. They want to sell to Iran so we are forced into exerting pressure in other ways.
I suppose the Europeans are more opportunistic.
They are also less confrontational, hoping that conflict can somehow be avoided. Europe's greater aversion to conflict and war is understandable, as it has experienced far more devastating war(s) than the US has.
Powerful regimes and previous empires tried to control the World, and many have made themselves rich from the process- but inevitably the power struggle ends. The will to command and conquer slowly fades away to nothing, leaving broken lives & broken economies. Maybe what America is doing now will soon end- but it's obvious that history never teaches those in power to stop their conquest plans- because the temptation of making a lot of money from wars and occupying countries always re-emerges.
Millions of lives end through war, and somehow the few power-mungers make their money from the horrors and then disappear into the horizon, never to be seen again.
There are many nations who have never been part of the command and conquer strategy- mostly the African nations and Islamic nations, South American countries and many others. The European/Caucasian countries Britain, Germany,America , Spain have historically been the main culprits who have killed the vast majority of people in their command and conquer warfare- and each time it was done to try to make their own nations richer and more powerful- a superiority complex that leads to the poorest nations being preyed upon.
Today the U.S is losing ground, but picking on Iran, who have lost more than 80 percent value of their currency this year alone from American economic sanctions. America's new war is to economically destroy oil rich nations if possible- and Iran doesn't deserve that. No country does.
If only our country was run by "We The People..." and not run by big financial interests, things might have been different. At the very least, governance by the people would have bestowed a moral compass and reigned in corporate greed. Morality simply cannot co-exist with greed. The latter appeals to our baser instincts, where the means fully justify the ends. Morality on the other hand invokes higher humanitarian principles where human life (even for the "Other") remains sacred. The relentless savagery we have visited on weak nations might then have been avoided. No such luck.
Lots of things in this article, and I generally agree with it.
However...
To believe that European countries willfully jettisoned their colonies is wishful thinking.
France did not let Indochina and Algeria go. The war in Indochina lasted nine years (1945 to 1954 and the battle of Dien Bien Phu) and although the open war in Algeria was much shorter it had been brewing since the Oran massacre in 1945 and the scars in both cultures (Algerian and French) remain to this day.
Admittedly had General Leclerc not died in a mysterious plane crash and been replaced by Admiral Dargenlieu in Vietnam, maybe the transition would have been smoother and France would enjoy more of a Common Wealth with its former colonies.
But that was not the case.
As for being a harmonious and prosperous country, another historical event accounts for a lot of the previous period: France had been invaded and occupied by Nazi Germany. Thanks, by the way, for your two landings in Provence and Normandy and the ensuing liberation.
The result was a free but devastated and starving France.
Making points is nice. But the point is as solid as the arguments brought to bear.
Please try and be credible.
To Youtube-GlobalPrison and Kwelinyingi:
Yes war and colonialism are a curse.
However, you are biased.
It is true that the North Atlantic world has been the greatest imperialist in recent centuries. However, if we take the long-term historical perspective, clearly no part of the world has a monopoly on imperialism, which is something that most other civilizations have engaged in as well - from the Romans to the Persians, the Incas, the Mayans, the Turks (the Ottomans), the Arabs and other Muslims, Timur, Genghis Khan, Attila, you name it. Power and greed are universal, alas.
As far as modern Western imperialism is concerned, the greatest and most successful imperialist of the past 500 years has been Britain, while the most heinous ones were the Nazis, the Japanese and the Soviets.
Today, the US is arguably the greatest imperial power, an that is precisely what I hope will soon come to end.
To Granny Weatherwax
Okay, I’ll try TO be more credible:
I didn’t write that the Europeans jettisoned their colonies wilfully. I meant that they did so with different degrees of reluctance. They all fought in order to hold on to their colonies after World War Two. The Brits in India, Malaysia and elsewhere, the Belgians in the Congo, the Dutch in Indonesia and New Guinea, etc. The French were the most stubborn, especially in Algeria, because of a million pieds-noirs. But in the end they, too, saw the light, under de Gaulle’s leadership. Today, France’s relationship with its former colonies isn’t bad. France is repeatedly invited by various Francophone African countries to intervene (as it just did in Mali), and their economic relationship is also strong.
I lived in Paris when Dien Bien Phu fell, and when the “plastiqueurs” were blowing up restaurants and subway stations. I am a European Jew who grew up during the war in Hungary, spent the next decade as a refugee in France and the following ten years in Holland. I cannot speak for “our” D Day landings. I only remember the sacrifices and the generosity of our American liberators, who not only lost half a million men to defeat the Axis, but also spent the equivalent of $300 billion under the Marshall Plan to raise the continent from the ashes.
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