Letters to the Editor

• Bush's Amazing Achievement by Jonathon Freedland

  [Read the article: The risks of staying]
  [Read more letters about this article: Here]

  In his article in the NY Review of Books @ http://www.nybooks.com/articles/20251, Jonathon Freedland notes that Bush has united those with worldviews stretching from those of Noam Chomsky to Brent Scowcroft, and as disparate as the three whose recent books are the subject of his piece - Dennis Ross, Middle East envoy for both the first Bush and Clinton; conservative, hawkish Democrat Zbigniew Brzezinski; and Chalmers Johnson, author of a trilogy of books, Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire, The Sorrows of Empire, and the current Nemisis: The Last Days of the American Republic, examining the changes in America’s strategy, particularly under Bush, and their consequences here and abroad who Freedland notes frequently converges with Chomsky on the same point - that:

  … the 2003 invasion of Iraq was a calamity, that the presidency of George W. Bush has reduced America’s standing in the world and made the United States less, not more, secure, leaving its enemies emboldened and its friends alienated.

  Johnson’s book draws many parallels between America today and the Roman and British Empires, which Freeland notes are “striking” and gives many examples including relative military strength fostered by technological prowess, rule by proxy whether or not the proxy has been already conquered, establishment of colonies abroad (where Johnson argues that the 750-1,000 permanent U.S. military bases – most of which contain at least the same living amenities as any medium-sized American town - rival any Roman outpost, and furthermore notes that the new 104-acre compound in Baghdad that the administration is calling an embassy is, in actuality, also the newest military base), and eventual financial and moral drain, to include disguising aggression as a mission to benefit the conquered:

  All imperial adventures have disguised themselves as civilizing missions; even the Spanish conquistadors of the sixteenth century claimed to be freeing from superstition and backwardness the Aztec, Mayan, and Inca peoples they crushed.

  
  

  What complicates the picture is the sincerity, naïve as it may be, of so many of these neoconservative dreamers, perhaps extending to the President himself. Clearly they, no less than their British predecessors, believe, or believed, that they are engaged in the work of liberation rather than conquest. Are they themselves deceived by shadowy forces who use the veneer of spreading democracy to conceal a more base purpose? Or is it instead that imperialism, once in motion, exerts a momentum of its own?

  I have serious doubts about the degree of naiveté, especially considering the dreamers and drivers of these extremist policies are generally those of social and economic privilege, as Glenn has noted in the past, who have nary a day of public service (much less military service), whose policies tend to leave the dirty work, risks and sacrifices to others, and who (or their social, political and financial allies) tend to gain the most from these policies. I’ll leave the answer to Johnson’s questions to the more historically and politically savvy in here, but let’s let Brzenzinski have his say:

  Because of Bush’s self-righteously unilateral conduct of U.S. foreign policy after 9/11, the evocative symbol of America in the eyes of much of the world ceased to be the Statute of Liberty and instead became the Guantanamo prison camp.

  Glenn’s fine post is the first I've seen to clearly state how the Iraq discussion should be framed - that the risks (and benefits) of each of the alternatives should be publicly discussed and analyzed with similar vigor - and the right needs to be openly confronted as to whether or not they are sincere in their concerns for the troops and Iraq’s citizens or are just looking for a way to obscure their true goal of dominion over the area or make it more palatable.

  If our flaccid MSM is not willing to do so, then the Democrats have to, and soon. Glenn and Freedland's three authors clearly recognize the risks of having an administration that has already damaged the security of our country and the world, by making decisions steeped in an extremist ideology with absolute disregard for domestic or world opinion, to simply continue to be in charge of a force of 150,000 (more than likely double or more than that including “off balance sheet” contractors such as Blackwater and about which they have also been less than frank) in the middle of a hotbed of religious and political tension.

  As Freedland put it:

  It’s hard to read Ross and Brzezinski without coming to share their nostalgia for the steady, realistic, and grounded statecraft of George H. W. Bush in contrast with the faith-based pursuit of neoconservative fantasy that has passed for international affairs under his son.

  Permalink Monday, May 28, 2007 04:42 PM