| April 2003 | ||||||
| Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | ||
| 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
| 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 |
| 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 |
| 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | |||
| Mar May | ||||||
Thursday, April 03, 2003An American Empire
My friend Jonthan Seybold sent me an interesting link to a column from last September by JAY BOOKMAN, who is the deputy editorial page editor of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, who was one of the first to argue that the president's real goal in Iraq is to build an American Empire to enforce a Pax Americana throughout the world. As I revealed previously in this blog, this ideology is the product of a think tank of neoconservatives who are now in power in the Bush Administration. As Bookman argued in the close of his column:
The lure of empire is ancient and powerful, and over the millennia it has driven men to commit terrible crimes on its behalf. But with the end of the Cold War and the disappearance of the Soviet Union, a global empire was essentially laid at the feet of the United States. To the chagrin of some, we did not seize it at the time, in large part because the American people have never been comfortable with themselves as a New Rome.
Now, more than a decade later, the events of Sept. 11 have given those advocates of empire a new opportunity to press their case with a new president. So in debating whether to invade Iraq, we are really debating the role that the United States will play in the years and decades to come.
Are peace and security best achieved by seeking strong alliances and international consensus, led by the United States? Or is it necessary to take a more unilateral approach, accepting and enhancing the global dominance that, according to some, history has thrust upon us?
If we do decide to seize empire, we should make that decision knowingly, as a democracy. The price of maintaining an empire is always high. Kagan and others argue that the price of rejecting it would be higher still.
That's what this is about.
In a sidenote on the column in his email, Jonathan commented:
Clearly, as Bookman's column shows, this is something which was obvious from the very beginning of this whole affair. And -- even more important -- it is something which has been obvious to the rest of the world. This is a major part of the reason why France, Germany, Russia, China and others have been opposed. Every foreign ministry in the world has read these policy papers. Almost none of them want a Pax Americana.
It has also been obvious on a more intuitive level to people on the street -- and especially people on the street in the Islamic world. To them, this policy looks exactly like the kind of "Infidels against Muslim" war which Bin Laden was trying to provoke. I do not agree with this policy. I think that it is both wrong and stupid. It is clear that many other people support it -- on either a rational level or a "gut" level. This will affect the world, and our role in it, for decades to come. We should be openly discussing and debating it.
I completely agree with Jonathan's comments. I do not understand why Americans as a whole don't wholeheartedly reject this philosophy as being contrary to American ideals - reject it as being un-American.
Goverments throughout history have used external threats as a means of getting their population to agree to a stripping away of their freedoms and support of an expansionist, imperialist foreign policy. Hitler was the most obvious exmaple from the past century, but Sharon is doing much the same in Israel (now there's an irony.....). 9/11 gave Bush and his henchman a green light to pursue their imperialist ambitions. You can almost argue that the increased level of terroism that is likely to emerge from the invasion of Iraq is a necessary and welcomed component of Bush's strategy to keep Americans cowed, compliant, willing to give up their liberties and countenance perpetual warmongering, and willing to keep the Republican party in power indefinitely.....
9:22:53 AM
This Page was last update: 6/3/2005; 7:20:17 PM
Copyright 2005 craig cline
Theme Design by Bryan Bell
