[lit-ideas] Re: The Philippines and Iraq
- From: Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 4 Apr 2006 01:23:05 -0700 (PDT)
There is a bit too much history to chew all at once
here, so I'll just respond to some of your points.
Various imperialist powers - the Europeans, Russia,
the US, Japan - were grabbing for control of East and
South-East Asia in the late 19th and the early 20th
century. Each could have made the argument that, if
they don't colonize, someone else will. The casus beli
for the US war with Spain was the explosion of Maine,
which is now believed to have been either staged or
accidental. In any case, the fact that these lands
were coveted by other imperialist powers as well would
not exonerate the US from having been imperialistic.
The article I posted provides plenty of evidence that
these wars were essentially imperialistic and
conducted in an imperialist manner.
The Korean war might arguably have started as a war of
containment, but it turned into an imperialist war
when Mac Arthur crossed the 38th Parallel and tried to
occupy North Korea. I'll leave a discussion of the
Vietnam War for another occasion.
Afghanistan was indeed not so much an imperialist war,
i.e. the US were really interested in Iraq and Iran
rather than in Afghanistan (and indeed have refrained
from occupying the country completely, but left much
of it to the warlords), but rather a
tactical-political war. The US government had to do
something to make it appear before the domestic and
international public that it was responding to
Al-Queda attack, but allowing the Al-Queda leaders to
slip out has conveniently enabled it to take "the war
on terror" to other countries and continue it
indefinitely. Iraq has been sufficiently discussed, I
believe.
I am not sure why you think that the US expansion on
the North-American continent was not imperialistic
because it involved settlers looking for land. The
Romans, the Byzanthinians, the Turks, the Russians,
the French etc. were all using settlers in their
imperialistic campaigns. We might if you want
distinguish between "settler imperialism" and
"colonial imperialism" (f.e. the British in India) but
it wouldn't change much on the basic issue.
Finally, it might be a narrow use of the term
'imperialism' to limit it to cases of direct military
invasion of occupation. Chalmers Johnson was making an
interesting point that the US has about as many
military bases in the Middle East as the Roman Empire
did when it was ruling it. Threat of power, economic
control, establishing of 'client states' and puppet
rulers are all time-honoured tools of imperialism.
O.K.
--- Lawrence Helm <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Omar,
>
>
>
> Well, you don't have everything quite the way I
> would describe it. I would
> hardly call Cold War battles Imperialism. Our
> Communist adversaries did,
> but of course they would, wouldn't they. Also,
> there is a sense in which
> everything the 13 colonies did would parallel
> something an Empire might do,
> but the actions of the Colonies and later the
> fledgling nation hardly
> qualify as Empire. It cheapens the term "empire" to
> apply it to most of
> what America has done. Andrew Jackson took Florida
> from Spain and was then
> backed up by his government. Was that an imperial
> act? When we look at the
> circumstances we see that the British were using
> Florida to stir up trouble.
> The trouble stopped after Jackson's act.
>
>
>
> Someone could (and I believe that Niall Ferguson
> did) argue that the
> nation's movement across the continent was an act of
> Imperialism, but here
> again when we look at the settlers looking for land,
> Imperialism can hardly
> be applied to their efforts. Analysts used the term
> "Manifest Destiny" to
> describe what was happening. It was considered the
> nation's Manifest
> Destiny that it would stretch from sea to shining
> sea. Whatever it was
> (with apologies to Ferguson) it wasn't Empire.
>
>
>
> The Monroe Doctrine has been described as an
> Imperial act, but this strikes
> me as silly. At the time we issued the doctrine we
> didn't possess the power
> to back it up. It served the nation that did have
> the power, Britain's,
> interest to support the Monroe doctrine. It served
> Britain's interests to
> keep their competitors out of the Western Hemisphere
> as much as possible.
> Our motivation was one of timidity not Empire. We
> wanted the warlike
> Europeans to leave us alone.
>
>
>
> And in looking at your list, Cuba and the
> Philippines were acquired as a
> result of a war that Spain declared upon the U.S.
> We were opposing the
> Spanish Empire. And, as has been discussed, after
> considerable
> congressional debate we annexed the Philippines to
> prevent Japan from
> getting it. Was it an Empirical act? Yes, but as
> has been said, our heart
> wasn't in it. We did the act to prevent the
> Japanese Empire (and their
> heart was definitely in it) from acquiring the
> Philippines.
>
>
>
> Korea wasn't an Empirical act. South Korea was an
> ally and we went to its
> defense after North Korea invaded it. This was done
> as a United Nations
> war. I was there and am entitled (if I should ever
> have occasion to get
> back into uniform) to wear a U.N. ribbon.
>
>
>
> Vietnam was messier than Korea. France (De Gaul)
> wanted to reacquire the
> French Colonies and while we weren't supportive of
> that idea, we didn't want
> Vietnam to fall into the hands of the Communists.
> The "domino theory" was
> widely believed at the time. While I wouldn't want
> to be described as
> anti-war, I did study Vietnam enough to doubt the
> domino theory. The
> Vietnamese had a history of trouble with China; so I
> couldn't see Vietnam as
> enduring "puppet status" for very long.
> Nevertheless the war was conducted
> in accordance with the Kennan principle of
> containment (though Kennan
> opposed going into Vietnam as I recall. He like
> Fukuyama didn't approve of
> the way his thesis was carried out).
>
>
>
> The Afghanistan and Iraq wars were fought in an
> attempt to take the war to
> Militant Islam. We can not at this point prove to
> everyone's satisfaction
> that there is such an entity - any more than we
> could prove in 1899 that
> Japan was a potential enemy and needed to be
> opposed. After their defeat of
> the Russians in 1905 they were taken a bit more
> seriously but not enough so.
> One can now plausibly argue that there is no such
> thing as militant Islam,
> just a few blustering petty warlords who can be
> sufficiently cowed to keep
> them from causing too much trouble. And of course
> there are the "Jihadists"
> who are causing considerable trouble, but there
> aren't that many of them -
> so goes the arguments of Roy, Kepel and Fukuyama. I
> don't agree with this
> argument, but I think it a serious and interesting
> one. So about this war
> we are conducting we can say it is prudent (if the
> U.S. administration is
> correct in its assessment as I believe it is) or a
> mistake (if Fukuyama, Roy
> & Kepel are correct), but we cannot with
> plausibility (in my opinion) argue
> that we are engaged in war of empire.
>
>
>
> Lawrence
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
> On Behalf Of Omar Kusturica
> Sent: Monday, April 03, 2006 9:18 PM
> To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: The Philippines and Iraq
>
>
>
> I was in a bit of hurry, had to get to class. I
> guess
>
> that the point should be that the American public
>
> tends to be lead into imperial wars in Asia or Latin
>
> America or the MIddle East (Cuba, Phillipines,
> Korea,
>
> Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq and others) rather
> easily,
>
> but typically lacks the determination to "stay the
>
> course," stomach the causalties etc. This is in
>
> contrast with the two World Wars in Europe where the
>
> US were slow to get involved, but stayed the course
>
> once they did. (Okay, they entered both WWs when the
>
> Europeans were already exhausted, but let's not
>
> quibble there.) Perhaps this might have to do with
> the
>
> fact that the Americans feel closer to the Western
>
> Europeans, and maybe understand them better.
>
>
>
> And yes, I agree with you that the US public is
>
> generally poorly informed (though it's getting
> better
>
> informed now) about international affairs and about
>
> their own government's policies abroad, which makes
> it
>
> ill-equipped to make judgements. The Kosovo war
> might
>
> arguably have been a just war but it seemed that
> most
>
> of the American public didn't know where, or against
>
> whom, or why it was being fought. This is one of the
>
> things that are frighening to non-Americans. Since
> as
>
> it is we can hardly trust the US government to do
> what
>
> is best, it seems the safest thing is to say that
> the
>
> US should mind its own business, even if
> occasionally
>
> we have to tolerate massacres in some place like
>
> Sudan.
>
>
>
> O.K.
>
>
>
>
>
> --- Lawrence Helm <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>
>
> > Omar, did you read your reference before you
> posted
>
> > it? The author makes
>
> > none of my points, but instead implies 1) we don't
>
> > plan to leave Iraq and 2)
>
> > We are suppressing Iraqi self-determination. This
>
> > note was Bush-Bashing
>
> > fare back when it was written on 5-03-04. Modern
>
> > Bush-Bashers have honed
>
> > their attacks quite a bit since then. Fie.
>
> >
>
> >
>
> >
>
> > Lawrence
>
> >
>
> >
>
>
>
>
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