The Meaning of U.S. Imperialism, Genocide and Militarism

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Mon Sep-29-08 11:02 PM
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The Meaning of U.S. Imperialism, Genocide and Militarism

Because I�ve written many articles that are highly critical of my country, some of my fellow Americans no doubt would call me ungrateful, �unpatriotic� or even treasonous if they read them. Yet I don�t recall that every happening on DU, or if it did, the person who insulted me probably didn�t last here very long.

The fact of the matter is that I don�t feel �patriotism� in the traditional sense � the sense in which I believe that many or most Americans feel it. What I mean by that is that I don�t believe Americans are better or more deserving than other people, nor do I feel that we have the right to rule the world or dictate, as �The Project for a New American Century (PNAC)� demands, that other nations conduct themselves in accordance with our interests. I don�t believe in �Manifest Destiny�.

I am not �proud� to be an American, nor am I proud to have been born Jewish, white, male, heterosexual, or middle class. I had no control whatsoever over any of those things � so how could I be either proud or ashamed of them? I�m proud of some of the things that I do, but certainly not of any of the conditions under which I was born.

I believe that pride in those kind of things is at the root of some of the world�s greatest problems � especially war and genocide. I feel very strongly about that. I was fortunate to have had two liberal parents who loved me, provided me very good opportunities in life, and encouraged me to think independently. But I was terribly upset with my father when he one day casually told me that he hoped I would some day marry a Jewish woman. I couldn�t understand how someone who was active in the Civil Rights movement could exhibit such an attitude, which seemed racist to me. In retrospect, I recognize that it probably had something to do with the fact that my dad had experienced anti-Semitism in ways that I never had. But at the time it was terribly troubling to me.

I believe that our country and our world are now on an unsustainable course. Jared Diamond, a professor of geography, evolutionary biologist, and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, writes the following in his book, �The Third Chimpanzee � The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal�:

A nuclear holocaust is certain to prove disastrous, but it isn�t happening now� An environmental holocaust is equally certain to prove disastrous, but it is� already well underway� accelerating, and will climax within about a century if unchecked. The only uncertainties are whether the resulting disaster would strike our children or our grandchildren, and whether we choose to adopt now the many obvious countermeasures.

I don�t intend in this post to discuss those specific countermeasures, which I�ve done in some detail in another post, based largely on another book written by Diamond. But what is patently obvious to me is that the right wing brand of �patriotism�, which asserts that �my country is always right�, will be a terrible barrier to any efforts to save our country, our planet and our civilization. If what I write in this post causes anyone to reassess that attitude it will have been worth the effort.

Thoughts on our founding

I revere the document that founded our nation � our Declaration of Independence � as one of the greatest documents ever written. In fact, I think it�s almost fair to say that all of my moral values relate directly to that document. If all people really believed that all other people deserve �life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness�, we would live in a much better world than we do. Therefore, I believe that our Founding Fathers deserve great credit for writing that document.

Some have argued that our Declaration was hypocritical, since the ideals expressed in it were not fully incorporated into the initial version of our Constitution, which infamously allowed the continuation of slavery. But that argument at least partially misses the larger point. There is no question that the United States of America has failed to live up to the ideals expressed in its Declaration of Independence. So have all nations failed to live up to their ideals. And so have almost all individuals failed to live up to their ideals.

But our Declaration of Independence at least set a goal for us, which many have striven to attain. Consider for example how voting rights have progressed during our history: From 1812 to 1856, property qualifications for voting were abandoned; passage of the 15th Amendment to our Constitution in 1870 prohibited the restriction of a person�s right to vote on the basis of race; passage of our 19th Amendment in 1920 prohibited the restriction of the right to vote on the basis of sex; passage of the 23rd Amendment in 1961 gave residents of the District of Columbia the right to vote for President; our 24th amendment in 1964 prohibited the use of poll taxes to restrict a person�s right to vote; and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 went a long way towards facilitating enforcement of our 15th Amendment.

SLAVERY, IMPERIALISM, GENOCIDE, AND MILITARISM

It is of great importance that Americans be reasonably familiar with the worst of what their country has done, as well as the best. I say that NOT because I hate my country, as right wing �patriots� would accuse me of. I say it because transgressions that are unacknowledged are transgressions that will be repeated. And they have been repeated. Many times.

The continental expansion of our nation involved more than a century of wars against the then current inhabitants of our continent, leading to their near extermination and a war of aggression against Mexico (1846-8). To bolster our economy, hundreds of thousands of former Africans were born or sold into slavery, stripped of all rights whatsoever, and often had to endure a lifetime of brutality at the hands of their white masters. Those facts are fairly well known. But too many Americans think of all that simply as �past history�.

The beginnings of U.S. overseas imperialism

In 1893, in subservience to wealthy white American landowners, we used our military to threaten the sovereign nation of Hawaii. The Hawaiian Queen, Liliuokalani, recognizing the futility of challenging American military power, wrote and signed the following:

Now, to avoid any collision of armed forces and perhaps the loss of life, I do under this protest, and impelled by said force, yield my authority until such time as the Government of the United States shall, upon the facts being presented to it, undo the action of its representatives and reinstate me in the authority which I claim as the constitutional sovereign of the Hawaiian Islands.

In 1898 we declared war on Spain to �liberate� Cuban insurgents in their fight for independence from Spain. The �Treaty of Paris� between the United States and Spain, signed on December 10th, 1998, ceded Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines to the U.S.

On May 22, 1903, the United States and Cuba finalized the Platt Amendment, the treaty that formalized our hegemony over Cuba until 1934. In the interim we supported a series of repressive Cuban dictators whom we felt would represent our interests in Cuba.

On July 25, 1998, two weeks after a sovereign Puerto Rican government began operating, the U.S. marines landed in Puerto Rico and raised the American flag. Puerto Rico remained under tight U.S. influence for more than half a century. U.S. sponsored corporations took over most of the country�s best lands, at the expense of the native population, and Puerto Rico remained an impoverished country with a life expectancy in the 40s. At about mid-century, perhaps embarrassed by its imperialistic relationship to Puerto Rico, the U.S. began to relax its control, and life in Puerto Rico subsequently began to improve.

The Filipinos wanted American rule over their country no more than they had wanted Spanish rule. So twelve days after proclaiming their new Republic, they declared war against the United States. A vicious guerilla war ensued, lasting three and a half years, from February 1899 until the middle of 1902. It was characterized by widespread torture, rape, pillage, and the frequent refusal of the American military to make a distinction between civilians and the Filipino military. By the time that the U.S. had �pacified� the Philippines, the dead included 4,374 American soldiers, 16 thousand Filipino guerillas, and 20 thousand Filipino civilians.

In 1909, on behalf of wealthy U.S. businessmen, the U.S. Marines overthrew the government of Nicaragua, setting the stage for decades of intermittent turmoil between the U.S. and Nicaragua, involving U.S. Marine squelching of rebellions in 1912 and 1926, before the Marines were withdrawn in 1933.

In 1912, on behalf of banana tycoon Sam Zemurray, the U.S. replaced the government of Honduras with its own puppet, Manuel Bonilla. Following that, for several decades, U.S. protected banana companies imposed governments on Honduras that crushed every attempt at national development.

U.S. Imperialism, genocide and militarism during the Cold War

During the Cold War (1945-91) The United States repeatedly used its CIA or military against countries that posed no threat to us whatsoever, based solely on the fact that they were Communist, socialist or simply a leftist regime and therefore (so the reasoning went) susceptible to Communist takeover.

This practice actually began long before the onset of the Cold War. We first intervened against the Communists in Russia as early as 1918, by sending troops to Russia to unsuccessfully fight in the Russian Civil War to oust the Communists from power. Some other examples include the following:

Iran 1953
In 1953 our CIA intervened in Iran to overthrow a popular prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh, who had done much to improve the lot of the Iranian people. Here is how Stephen Kinzer describes Mossadegh in his book, �All the Shah�s Men � An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror�:

His achievements were profound and even earth-shattering. He set his people off on what would be a long and difficult voyage toward democracy and self-sufficiency� He dealt a devastating blow to the imperial system and hastened its final collapse. He inspired people around the world who believe that nations can and must struggle for the right to govern themselves in freedom.

In Mossadegh�s place we installed the dictatorship of Mohammad Reza Shah. The stated reason for our overthrow of Mossadegh was that we were concerned that he would open his country to Communist influence (his nationalization of the Iranian oil industry was also undoubtedly part of the reason). This is how Kinzer sums up the effect of that intervention:

In Iran, almost everyone has for decades known that the United States was responsible for putting an end to democratic rule in 1953 and installing what became the long dictatorship of Mohammad Reza Shah. His dictatorship produced the Islamic Revolution of 1979, which brought to power a passionately anti-American theocracy that embraced terrorism as a tool of statecraft. Its radicalism inspired anti-Western fanatics in many countries�

The violent anti-Americanism that emerged from Iran after 1979 shocked most people in the United States. Americans had no idea of what might have set off such bitter hatred in a country where they had always imagined themselves more or less well liked. That was because almost no one in the United States knew what the CIA did there in 1953.

Indonesia 1965
A power struggle in Indonesia in 1965 that resulted in the overthrow of Achmad Sukarno and the installment of a military dictatorship resulted in the massacre of up to a million people, mostly civilians, including a substantial portion of women and children � which the New York Times called �one of the most savage mass slayings of modern political history.� With respect to this episode it was later reported by Kathy Kadane that:

The U.S. government played a significant role in one of the worst massacres of the century by supplying the names of thousands of Communist Party leaders to the Indonesian army, which hunted down the leftists and killed them� Nobody cared about the butchery and mass arrests because the victims were Communists, one Washington official told me.

Vietnam 1954-73
The Geneva Conference Agreements, which officially ended the war between France and Vietnam in 1954, provided for general elections which were to bring about the unification of Vietnam. However, the United States, fearing a Communist victory in those elections, intervened to prevent the elections from taking place � and so began our long involvement culminating in an eventual Communist victory, but not until two million Vietnamese and 58 thousand Americans were dead.

South and Central America
As described by William Blum in his article, �A Concise History of US Global Interventions, 1945 to the Present�, the United States intervened in eleven different South and Central American countries during the Cold War, including Guatemala, Costa Rica, British Guyana, Ecuador, Brazil, Peru, Chile, Bolivia, Honduras, Nicaragua, and El Salvador. The main purpose of these interventions was to facilitate changes to regimes that were friendlier to the United States (and in almost all cases less friendly to the indigenous populations of those countries.) For this purpose, we developed the School of the Americas, which was used to train native personnel in the techniques and ideology of insurgency and counter-insurgency.

An article on reasons to shut down the School of the Americas (SOA) provides a good description of what was involved, and can be summarized as follows:

It describes numerous atrocities committed by graduates of SOA, which are consistent with the SOA curriculum. While SOA torture manuals have been withdrawn, their content has not been repudiated by SOA, and some of the worst abusers continue to be honored as guest instructors for SOA courses.

School of the Americas training is oriented to support the military and political status quo in each country, which places the U.S. in opposition to any who seek free speech to discuss problems, alternative means to solve problems, or democratic means to change governments. More specifically, the enemy is identified as the poor, those who assist the poor, such as church workers, educators, and unions, and certain ideologies such as �socialism� or �liberation theology�. All of this just to make sure that Communists or �leftists� don�t get a foothold in any of these countries.

Some other acts of imperialism and/or genocide during the Cold War
A book by David Model, �State of Darkness�, describes in detail U.S. involvement in several genocides. Cold War related genocides included in that book, in addition to those in Vietnam and Indonesia (noted above), are those against Guatemala (1954), Cambodia (1970-75), Laos (1969-74), and East Timor (1975). Other egregious Cold War related U.S. interventions include (but are not limited to): our invasion of Cuba in 1961; U.S. Marine invasion of the Dominican Republic in 1965 to put down a rebellion against their repressive right wing government; and U.S. military support of Haitian tyrant and mass murderer, Francois Duvalier.

What the acts described here have in common is our protection of right wing repressive governments or overthrow of legitimate governments and their replacement by right wing governments that were far worse for the people they represented than the governments that they replaced. We did these things with the excuse that we were trying to help those countries throw off the yolk of Communism.

Interludes � some U.S. Presidents who stood up against the tide of U.S. imperialism, genocide and militarism

Thus it is that much of U.S. history has been characterized by imperialism, genocide and militarism. Nevertheless, some U.S. Presidents, to greater or lesser degrees, have striven to stand up against whatever pressures have led to these crimes against humanity. It is worth studying those examples in order to obtain an understanding of how we can better live up to the ideals that many of us see as worthwhile and necessary goals. Here are what I see as some of the best recent examples of U.S. Presidents standing up against the tide of imperialism, genocide and militarism that has shaped so much of our history:

Franklin D. Roosevelt
I noted above, in the section on �The beginnings of U.S. overseas imperialism, that our hegemony over Cuba and Nicaragua was temporarily ended in the early 1930s. That was in accordance with FDR�s �Good Neighbor Policy� towards Latin America.

Following the Nazi Holocaust and World War II the recognition of the need for enforcement of human rights in the world became more acute and widespread. The United Nations was conceived by President Roosevelt and led to fruition by his successor, President Truman, in an effort to make this a reality. This excerpt from the preamble of the United Nations Charter indicates its focus on human rights:

We the Peoples of the United Nations determined:

To save succeeding generations from the scourge of war�

To reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and

To establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and

To promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom�

Since its inception, the United Nations has furthered the cause of human rights by adopting numerous conventions, such as Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Geneva Conventions, the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, the International Criminal Court, the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, and the Kyoto Protocol on climate change.

Harry Truman
Some would reasonably object to my use of Harry Truman as an example of standing up against imperialism, militarism and genocide. Truman is the only person in world history to have ordered the use of the atomic bomb against a civilian population, and there are many who believe that that action constitutes genocide (and I agree). Truman also oversaw the entry of our country into the Cold War, and in so doing, his use of previously unprecedented Presidential powers set what many consider to be a very bad precedent (and I agree with that too).

Nevertheless, Truman exhibited a striking ability to learn from his mistakes. Here is an assessment of Truman by James Carroll (who was highly critical of Truman�s use of the atomic bomb) in �House of War: The Pentagon and the Disastrous Rise of American Power�:

The point is that, just as Truman changed the course of history by deciding to use the bomb in 1945, he changed the course of history again by deciding not to use it in 1950� Truman�s decision here put in place three pillars on which the rest of U.S. policy in the Cold War stood. Two of those pillars still thankfully undergird the fragile world. First, in a century defined by total war, Truman established the precedent of limited war. Some things are not worth the cost of victory. Second, Truman, having first loosed the atomic bomb, now established a taboo against its use ever again. American leaders, including Truman himself later in the war, might threaten nuclear use, but they would again and again stop short of ordering it. If Truman had allowed his commanders any use of atomic weapons whatsoever, even if as an act of successful prevention �. there is no doubt that subsequent presidents and other leaders of nuclear powers would have followed suit�

The third pillar of U.S. policy put in place here stood until the administration of George W. Bush. In vetoing an expansion of the Korean conflict into a preemption of the Soviet Union, Truman rejected the then much touted idea of preventive war � the idea that, as one of his advisers put it, America should become an �aggressor for peace��

John F. Kennedy
Like Truman (and also like his brother Bobby), Kennedy started off his political career and his Presidency fairly far to the right on questions of U.S. militarism � as were most Americans during the Cold War. He escalated our involvement in Vietnam (which he inherited from Eisenhower), and he began his presidency by invading Cuba. But also like Truman, Kennedy exhibited an extraordinary ability to learn from his mistakes.

A few months before he was assassinated, he gave a great and radical speech on behalf of peace that probably seemed terribly threatening to the military industrial complex. Here are some excerpts:

Some say that it is useless to speak of world peace or world law or world disarmament -- and that it will be useless until the leaders of the Soviet Union adopt a more enlightened attitude. I hope they do. I believe we can help them do it. But I also believe that we must re-examine our own attitude -- as individuals and as a Nation -- for our attitude is as essential as theirs. And every� thoughtful citizen who despairs of war and wishes to bring peace, should begin by looking inward -- by examining his own attitude toward the possibilities of peace, toward the Soviet Union, toward the course of the Cold War and toward freedom and peace here at home.

First let us examine our attitude toward peace itself. Too many of us think it is impossible. Too many of us think it is unreal. But that is dangerous, defeatist belief. It leads to the conclusion that war is inevitable -- that mankind is doomed -- that we are gripped by forces we cannot control�

Let us focus instead on a more practical, more attainable peace -- based not on a sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual evolution in human institutions -- on a series of concrete actions and effective agreements which are in the interest of all concerned�

Six weeks later, Kennedy announced to the American people the first nuclear test ban treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union. He then undertook secret negotiations with Fidel Castro in an attempt to come to an accommodation with him. And, he began talking with his close associates about pulling out of Vietnam.

Four months later, Kennedy was assassinated � and that was NOT the work of a lone gunman.

Jimmy Carter
On the campaign trail in 1976, Carter was an outspoken critic of U.S. imperialism:

We�re ashamed of what our government is as we deal with other nations around the world� What we seek is � a foreign policy that reflects the decency and generosity and common sense of our own people.

Morris Berman, in his book �Dark Ages America � The Final Phases of Empire�, discusses Carter�s commitment to human rights as President:

Carter never stopped talking about the subject� He cut out aid to Argentina, Ethiopia, Uruguay, Chile, Nicaragua, Rhodesia, and Uganda because of human rights abuses.

Berman discusses the hopes engendered by Carter�s 1976 election to the Presidency and how the American people turned out not to be ready for that kind of change:

For a brief moment in American postwar history, the position of sanity found an echo� We would work for a more humane world order in our international relations, not seek merely to defeat an adversary; military solution would not come first; efforts would be made to reduce the sale of arms to developing countries�

But� the Carter morality was, within two years, heavily out of step with the return to the usual public demand for a more muscular and military foreign policy� Out-of-office cold warriors closed ranks, forming organizations such as the Committee on the Present Danger� Their goal � to revive the Cold War � was ultimately successful; Ronald Reagan and CIA-assisted torture in Central America were the inevitable results. And in the course of all this, a picture was formed of Jimmy Carter as weak, bungling, inept� That Carter would be perceived as weak, and presidents such as Reagan and Bush Jr. as strong, says a lot about who we are as a people�

The George W. Bush/Dick Cheney era

Under the Presidency of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney our nation has hit new lows. With their utter disregard and even contempt for our Constitution, they have reversed decades of progressive progress in many areas.

Repeatedly using our CIA to overthrow the legitimate governments of sovereign nations was bad enough. Bush/Cheney have taken U.S. militarism to a totally new level by claiming the right to invade and occupy any country that might pose a future threat to us.

Even if we �win� the Iraq War, that will never erase the fact that we�ve killed approximately a million Iraqis, made refugees out of over four million, and ruined their infrastructure. Nor will it change the fact that most Iraqis hate us (polls consistently show that over 60% of ordinary Iraqis approve of violence against U.S. troops) and that our war has contributed to the expansion of al Qaeda by fueling Muslim hatred against us � the imperial occupiers of a Muslim country that never posed any danger to us. So if we �win� the war, what will we have �won�, other than the right for U.S. corporations to operate in Iraq, access to Iraqi oil, and the right to say that we �won�?

Just as Bush/Cheney have exhibited unparalleled contempt for our Constitution, so have they demonstrated the same contempt for international law, thus obliterating the effects of decades of U.S. leadership in developing the framework for international law. Of all the international laws objected to by the Bush administration, the International Criminal Court (ICC) tops the list. Though the Bush administration provides many excuses for its hostility to the ICC, the underlying issue appears to be that it cannot tolerate the possibility that an American could ever be tried before the Court. For example, Bush claims that the Court�s jurisdiction cannot extend to Americans because that will undermine �the independence and flexibility that America needs to defend our national interests around the world�. Phillip Sands, in his book �Lawless World � The Whistle-Blowing Account of How Bush and Blair Are Taking the Law into Their Own Hands�, poses the following pertinent rhetorical question to that excuse:

The flexibility to do what? The flexibility to commit war crimes? The flexibility to provide assistance to others in perpetrating crimes against humanity? The flexibility to turn a blind eye when your allies commit genocide?

The end result of Bush/Cheney foreign policy is that the United States has become the greatest purveyor of terror in the world. As noted by Michael Schwartz:

The architects of American policy in the Middle East tend to keep escalating the level of brutality in search of a way to convince the Iraqis (and now the Iranians) that the only path that avoids indiscriminate slaughter is submission to a Pax Americana. Put another way, American policy in the Middle East has devolved into unadorned state terrorism.

LOOKING TO THE FUTURE � AN OBAMA PRESIDENCY

Clearly, Barack Obama is tremendously less militaristic and imperialistic than is John McCain. He is far more likely than McCain to give us a foreign policy along the lines of most of his Democratic predecessors since FDR. But will that be good enough? Obama is under the same pressure to appear highly militaristic as his Democratic (and Republican) predecessors have been. That pressure has been reflected, among other ways, in his frequent rhetoric regarding our need to beef up our military presence in Afghanistan. But what good would that do?

To answer that question we need to consider the real lessons of Vietnam and Iraq. If we invade and occupy a country in order to �save� it, we ought to have at least some idea of what that country wants from us. We should recognize that if we kill and torture a fifth of its inhabitants and leave its land and infrastructure in ruins, there is likely to be intensive resistance to our occupation. It is the height of arrogance or ignorance or both to refer to those who resist such an occupation as �terrorists�. What we encountered in both countries was immense hostility to an insensitive and brutal occupying power. This is what the editors of The Nation have to say about escalating our war in Afghanistan:

The United States and its NATO allies are losing the war in Afghanistan not because we have had too few military forces but because our military presence, along with the corruption of the Hamid Karzai government, has gradually turned the Afghan population against us, swelling the ranks of Taliban recruits. American airstrikes have repeatedly killed innocent civilians. Sending thousands of additional troops will not secure a democratic and stable Afghanistan, because the country is not only deeply divided but also fiercely resistant to outside forces. Indeed, more troops may only engender more anti-American resistance and cause groups in neighboring Pakistan to step up their support for the Taliban in order to stop what they see as a US effort to advance US and Indian interests in the region�

Second, securing Afghanistan is not necessary to US security and may actually undermine our goal of defeating Al Qaeda�. American safety thus depends not on eliminating faraway safe havens for Al Qaeda but on common-sense counterterrorist and national security measures � extensive intelligence cooperation, expert police work, effective border control and the occasional surgical use of special forces.

George McGovern succinctly summed up the lesson that we should have learned from Vietnam (and Iraq) when he said �We seem bent on saving the Vietnamese from Ho Chi Minh even if we have to kill them and demolish their country to do it�.

Conclusion � the meaning of U.S. imperialism, genocide and militarism

The long history of imperialism, genocide and militarism in the United States has caused untold tragedy and suffering to peoples throughout the world. That means, to be blunt about it, that too many Americans have not taken seriously their own Declaration of Independence as it applies to other peoples. There are too many Americans who, while believing that Americans or people of their own race are �created equal� and have an �unalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness�, fail to see how that applies to other peoples.

I don�t say these things because I hate my country. I recognize that many or most other nations have been guilty of the same crimes that our own country has been. But I strongly believe that a large part of our problem has been an arrogance that too many Americans interpret as �patriotism�. We have for so long been told how good and great our country is that we refuse to open our eyes to any evidence to the contrary. We feel that to do so is �unpatriotic�.

When the National Council for History Standards released a document titled National Standards for United States History, which among other things recommended more critical thinking and honest discussion of the misdeeds of our nation, they were met with outrage. Lynn Cheney, for example, aggressively criticized it as containing �multicultural excess�, a �grim and gloomy portrayal of American history�, �a politicized history�, and a disparaging of the West. In 1995 the U.S. Senate rejected the document by a vote of 99-1.

Well, yes, it is �grim and gloomy� to contemplate one�s own faults or the faults of one�s own country. But if we don�t to do that we will never come to respect other nations and other peoples, as demanded by our own founding document. And as long as we fail to do that we will not have the capacity to collaborate with the other nations of the world in the effort to give us a sustainable planet and a sustainable civilization.