Conghaileach
24th April 2003, 12:56
Emperor George's war
This war is un-American. That's an unlikely word to use, I know: it
has an unhappy provenance, associated forever with the McCarthyite
hunt for reds under the beds, purging anyone suspected of "un-American
activities". Besides, for many outside the US, the problem with this
war is not that it's un-American - but all too American.But that does
an injustice to the US and its history. It assumes that the Bush
administration represents all America, at all times, when in fact the
opposite is true. For this administration, and this war, are not
typical of the US. On the contrary, on almost every measure, they are
exceptions to the American rule.
The US was, after all, a country founded in a rebellion
against imperialism. Born in a war against a hated colonial oppressor,
in the form of George III, it still sees itself as the instinctive
friend of all who struggle to kick out a foreignoccupier - and the
last nation on earth to play the role of outside ruler.
Not for it the Greek, Roman or British path. For most of the last
century the US steered well clear of the institutions of formal empire
(the Philippines was a lamentable exception). Responsibility was
thrust upon it after 1945 in Germany and Japan. But as a matter of
deliberate intent, America sought neither viceroys ruling over faraway
lands nor a world map coloured with the Stars and Stripes. Influence,
even intervention, yes; puppets and proxies, yes. But formal imperial
rule, never.
Until now. George Bush has cast off the restraint that held back
America's 42 previous presidents - including his father. Now he is
seeking, as an unashamed objective, to get into the empire business,
aiming to rule a post-Saddam Iraq directly through an American
governor-general, the retired soldier Jay Garner. This is a form of
foreign rule so direct we have not seen its like since the last days
of the British empire. It represents a break with everything America
has long believed in. This is not to pretend that there is a single
American ideal, still less a single US foreign policy, maintained
unbroken since 1776.
There are, instead, competing traditions, each able to trace its
lineage to the founding of the republic. But what's striking is that
Bush's war on Iraq is at odds with every single one of them. Perhaps
best known is Thomas Jefferson's call for an America that would not
only refuse to rule over other nations, it would avoid meddling in
their affairs altogether. He wanted no "entangling alliances". If
America wished to export its brand of liberty, it should do it not
through force but by the simple power of its own example. John Quincy
Adams put it best when he declared that America "goes not abroad in
search of monsters to destroy". Could there be a better description of
Washington's pre-emptive pursuit of Saddam Hussein?
The Jeffersonian tradition is not the only one to be broken by
Operation Iraqi Freedom. Last year the historian Walter Russell Mead
identified three other schools of US foreign policy. Looking at them
now, it's clear that all are equally incompatible with this war.
Those Mead calls Hamiltonians are keen on maintaining an
international system and preserving a balance of power - that means
acknowledging equals in the world, rather than seeking solo, hegemonic
domination. So Bush, whose national security strategy last year
explicitly forbade the emergence of an equal to the US, is no follower
of Alexander Hamilton. Jacksonians, meanwhile, have always defined
America's interests narrowly: they would see no logic in travelling
halfway across the world to invade a country that poses no immediate,
direct threat to the US. So Bush has defied Andrew Jackson. Woodrow
Wilson liked the idea of the US spreading democracy and rights across
the globe; banishing Saddam and freeing the people of Iraq might have
appealed to him. But he was the father of the League of Nations and
would have been distressed by Washington's disregard for the UN and
its lack of international backing for this war.
Which brings us to a key un-American activity by this Bush
administration. Today's Washington has not only broken from the
different strands of wisdom that guided the US since its birth, but
also from the model that shaped American foreign policy since
1945. It's easy to forget this now, as US politicians and
commentators queue up to denounce international institutions as
French-dominated, limp-wristed, euro-faggot bodies barely worth the
candle, but those bodies were almost all American inventions. Whether
it was Nato, the global financial architecture designed at Bretton
Woods or the UN itself, multilateralism was, at least in part,
America's gift to the world. Every president from Roosevelt to Bush
Senior honoured those creations. Seeking to change them in order to
adapt to the 21st century is wholly legitimate; but drowning them in
derision is to trash an American idea.
The very notion of unprovoked, uninvited, long-term and country-
wide invasion is pretty un-American, too. When it thinks of itself,
the US is a firm believer in state sovereignty, refusing any
innovation that might curb its jurisdiction over its own affairs.
Hence its opposition to the new international criminal court or indeed
any international treaties that might clip its wings. Yet the
sovereignty of the state of Iraq has been cheerfully violated by the
US invasion.
The result is a sight that can look bizarre for those who have spent
much time in the US. Americans who, back home, resent even the most
trivial state meddling in their own affairs are determined to run the
lives of a people on the other side of the planet. Yet Americans -
whose passion for liberty is so great they talk seriously about
keeping guns in case they ever need to fight their own government -
assume Iraqis will welcome military rule by a foreign power.
Talk like this is not that comfortable in America just now; you'd
be denounced fairly swiftly as a Saddam apologist or a traitor. The
limits of acceptable discussion have narrowed sharply, just as civil
liberties have taken a hammering as part of the post-9/11 war on
terror. You might fall foul of the Patriot Act, or be denounced for
insufficient love of country.
There is something McCarthyite about the atmosphere that has spawned
this war, making Democrats too fearful to be an opposition worthy of
the name and closing down national debate. And things don't get much
more un-American than that.
The Guardian Weekly
This war is un-American. That's an unlikely word to use, I know: it
has an unhappy provenance, associated forever with the McCarthyite
hunt for reds under the beds, purging anyone suspected of "un-American
activities". Besides, for many outside the US, the problem with this
war is not that it's un-American - but all too American.But that does
an injustice to the US and its history. It assumes that the Bush
administration represents all America, at all times, when in fact the
opposite is true. For this administration, and this war, are not
typical of the US. On the contrary, on almost every measure, they are
exceptions to the American rule.
The US was, after all, a country founded in a rebellion
against imperialism. Born in a war against a hated colonial oppressor,
in the form of George III, it still sees itself as the instinctive
friend of all who struggle to kick out a foreignoccupier - and the
last nation on earth to play the role of outside ruler.
Not for it the Greek, Roman or British path. For most of the last
century the US steered well clear of the institutions of formal empire
(the Philippines was a lamentable exception). Responsibility was
thrust upon it after 1945 in Germany and Japan. But as a matter of
deliberate intent, America sought neither viceroys ruling over faraway
lands nor a world map coloured with the Stars and Stripes. Influence,
even intervention, yes; puppets and proxies, yes. But formal imperial
rule, never.
Until now. George Bush has cast off the restraint that held back
America's 42 previous presidents - including his father. Now he is
seeking, as an unashamed objective, to get into the empire business,
aiming to rule a post-Saddam Iraq directly through an American
governor-general, the retired soldier Jay Garner. This is a form of
foreign rule so direct we have not seen its like since the last days
of the British empire. It represents a break with everything America
has long believed in. This is not to pretend that there is a single
American ideal, still less a single US foreign policy, maintained
unbroken since 1776.
There are, instead, competing traditions, each able to trace its
lineage to the founding of the republic. But what's striking is that
Bush's war on Iraq is at odds with every single one of them. Perhaps
best known is Thomas Jefferson's call for an America that would not
only refuse to rule over other nations, it would avoid meddling in
their affairs altogether. He wanted no "entangling alliances". If
America wished to export its brand of liberty, it should do it not
through force but by the simple power of its own example. John Quincy
Adams put it best when he declared that America "goes not abroad in
search of monsters to destroy". Could there be a better description of
Washington's pre-emptive pursuit of Saddam Hussein?
The Jeffersonian tradition is not the only one to be broken by
Operation Iraqi Freedom. Last year the historian Walter Russell Mead
identified three other schools of US foreign policy. Looking at them
now, it's clear that all are equally incompatible with this war.
Those Mead calls Hamiltonians are keen on maintaining an
international system and preserving a balance of power - that means
acknowledging equals in the world, rather than seeking solo, hegemonic
domination. So Bush, whose national security strategy last year
explicitly forbade the emergence of an equal to the US, is no follower
of Alexander Hamilton. Jacksonians, meanwhile, have always defined
America's interests narrowly: they would see no logic in travelling
halfway across the world to invade a country that poses no immediate,
direct threat to the US. So Bush has defied Andrew Jackson. Woodrow
Wilson liked the idea of the US spreading democracy and rights across
the globe; banishing Saddam and freeing the people of Iraq might have
appealed to him. But he was the father of the League of Nations and
would have been distressed by Washington's disregard for the UN and
its lack of international backing for this war.
Which brings us to a key un-American activity by this Bush
administration. Today's Washington has not only broken from the
different strands of wisdom that guided the US since its birth, but
also from the model that shaped American foreign policy since
1945. It's easy to forget this now, as US politicians and
commentators queue up to denounce international institutions as
French-dominated, limp-wristed, euro-faggot bodies barely worth the
candle, but those bodies were almost all American inventions. Whether
it was Nato, the global financial architecture designed at Bretton
Woods or the UN itself, multilateralism was, at least in part,
America's gift to the world. Every president from Roosevelt to Bush
Senior honoured those creations. Seeking to change them in order to
adapt to the 21st century is wholly legitimate; but drowning them in
derision is to trash an American idea.
The very notion of unprovoked, uninvited, long-term and country-
wide invasion is pretty un-American, too. When it thinks of itself,
the US is a firm believer in state sovereignty, refusing any
innovation that might curb its jurisdiction over its own affairs.
Hence its opposition to the new international criminal court or indeed
any international treaties that might clip its wings. Yet the
sovereignty of the state of Iraq has been cheerfully violated by the
US invasion.
The result is a sight that can look bizarre for those who have spent
much time in the US. Americans who, back home, resent even the most
trivial state meddling in their own affairs are determined to run the
lives of a people on the other side of the planet. Yet Americans -
whose passion for liberty is so great they talk seriously about
keeping guns in case they ever need to fight their own government -
assume Iraqis will welcome military rule by a foreign power.
Talk like this is not that comfortable in America just now; you'd
be denounced fairly swiftly as a Saddam apologist or a traitor. The
limits of acceptable discussion have narrowed sharply, just as civil
liberties have taken a hammering as part of the post-9/11 war on
terror. You might fall foul of the Patriot Act, or be denounced for
insufficient love of country.
There is something McCarthyite about the atmosphere that has spawned
this war, making Democrats too fearful to be an opposition worthy of
the name and closing down national debate. And things don't get much
more un-American than that.
The Guardian Weekly