Last week, I saw this post Leading America Into the Wildnerness, at Kos:
Whether it’s finance or science, health care or education, America isn’t leading the way — it’s not even pointing the direction. Â Instead, we’re on the sidelines, trying to squeeze the grip of our still considerable military leadership ever tighter, only to have more and more of our influence slip away.
There are directional changes that could have been made to make America a moral and intellectual leader in this new structure, but instead we’ve been running on bluster and bombs. Â Now, for the most part, America is simply being ignored.
It coincides with some other things I’ve read lately that, in essence, say under Bush the US has pursued exactly the opposite policies we should have pursued for the world’s emerging balance of powers and influences. I find myself pondering the rather mournful idea that the history of George W. Bush’s presidency won’t be the history of the wars he started or the things he did – it will be a history of the things he didn’t do. It will be a history of missed opportunities.
The US today is the Europe in 1919 – militarily and economically exhausted power watching its imperial glory fade inexorably before its, attempting to use yesterday’s solutions to today’s problems. When faced with a crisis that required innovative leadership and new ideas, we had Bush and the neo-cons who had only one solution to every problem – use the military. With these leaders who had no ideas beyond more weapons, more guns, more invasions, we missed a hugely crucial opportunity.
The US, back in 2001, was uniquely poised to exercise its power indirectly – through influence and diplomacy, to cast a vision for a world at peace threatened by the enemies of diversity. Instead, Bush and his advisors cast a vision of war – sure they cloaked it in peace, but it was a vision of a world at war and glory flowing from the barrel of a gun. At a time when we needed indirect, even diffused power, the neo-cons were preaching war. And frightened, far too many Americans believed it was the solution. A leader less entranced by visions of his own greatness could have rejected war and controlled the neo-cons, but George W. Bush was and is far too in love with the vision of himself as a great war-time president.
Having missed that historical opportunity the US rushed headlong into the dead end of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The swampland of empire bogged us down and left us trapped while more more nimble nations maneuvered around us. We missed the opportunity to lead and now must play catch up. The chaos of Iraq is infectious – in Iraq it is bombs, in the US, however it is exhausted resources, broken lives and families. Americans will pay the price of Iraq for generations.
The neo-con project was based in the idea that America’s military might was unbeatable – that no nation or force could stand against our military. It assumed that we could use the military to enforce our will wherever we saw fit. This analysis misread America’s greatness – our greatness has never been our military. America’s greatness has always rested in our ideals. We may not have lived out our ideals as well as we should and we have at times made horrific mistakes. We offered a dream of a new way of being a society – a multi-cultural, multi-faith, multi-ethnic society living in peace – people with vast differences between them nevertheless agreeing on living in domestic harmony.
The adventure in Iraq has convinced the world that we are nothing more than another imperialist conqueror bent on using our force to bend the world to our will. My fear is partly the accuracy of that impression and partly that even though I believe it is false, it will be much harder living it down and being the nation we Americans want to be.
#1 by Richard Warnick on May 12, 2008 - 11:28 am
The neocons who seem to be running national policy have many failings, but the most serious is that almost all of them never served in the military. To inexperienced politicians who lust for empire, the American military machine seems like it can do anything. They take VIP tours and listen to upbeat briefings by senior officers, and never learn about the limits of military power.
In short, our military is great at killing people and destroying stuff. When it comes to other missions, they will try but it’s on-the-job training. The results might not be good for U.S. foreign relations.
#2 by Leo Brown on May 12, 2008 - 11:43 am
Post WWII Germany decided, after two losing wars that brought unprecedented ruin, that its foreign policy would be its economic policy. Instead of growing power out of the barrel of a gun, they wisely decided to grow power out of civilian factories. Even today German cares about the strength of its industrial base and its export position in a way that the U.S. does not. Had Germany taken that path a hundred years ago, they would have avoided untold sorrow.
Peace and prosperity is a better platform than war and recession or war and inflation.
#3 by glenn on May 12, 2008 - 2:40 pm
Post WW2 Germany made no choices like that Leo.
The “choices” were forced on them in defeat, and made part of their Constitution, which we helped enact. As a matter of constitutional law, Germany cannot field offensive troops anywhere outside its own borders.
Certainly never stopped it from becoming a major arms supplier. The 88mm cannon so feared in WW2, built by RheinMetall, is the forbear of the main battle tank 120 mm cannon. This Rheinmetall weapon is currently the main gun on the all of the Leopards, the M1-A1 Abrams, and I believe the Israeli Merkava. The industrial economy of Germany provides a great many weapons of Empire, and in that way has proxyed itself to the leaders of the Western Empire.
#4 by Ken Bingham on May 14, 2008 - 9:13 pm
Mark May 14, 2008 on your calendars because it is a day that will live in infamy. It was the day that the Bush Administration and the Interior Department handed the Sierra Club and other extreme environmentalists the ultimate weapon. They are now in possession of a weapon that will rain fire on the US economy more devastating than any WMD ever devised by man.
This statement by Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne has to be the most naive, misguided statement ever uttered by a government official. He says his decision would not “open the door for activists to force the adoption of limits on greenhouse gas emissions linked to global warming”? He has to be absolutely brain dead if he thinks his action today isn’t going to be used by activists to ram through everything their heart’s desires. He has effectively given them, and activist judges, God like powers to regulate every single aspect of human behavior. What he has done is tied a “threatened” species to global warming, and has said that global warming is a direct threat to the Polar Bear. What this means is that anything that is even thought to contribute to global warming will be a violation of the Endangered Species Act.
This has the potential of stopping all economic activity in its bear tracks. Dirk Kempthorne also said
Oh sir, this is second most naive statement ever uttered by a government official. This decision not only can shut down every carbon emitting factory but it has killed any possibility of drilling in ANWAR and has the potential to stop oil drilling or even oil refining anywhere in the United States or its territories. Don’t just stop at oil, he has declared global warming a threat to an endangered species which means All human activity that is thought to contribute to global warming is now a violation of the Endangered Species Act. The very act of starting your car could be ruled a violation.
This is a big day for environmentalist because they have been given the ultimate weapon. Starting today it doesn’t matter if global warming is real or a hoax, that argument is completely irrelevant now because extreme environmentalists will move forward boldly in the courts and will only be limited by their own imaginations. The Sierra Club can now hold aloft a huge banner saying “Mission Accomplished” Because the Bush administration has granted them absolute power.
reposted from Oblogatory Anecdotes
#5 by Larry Bergan on May 14, 2008 - 10:38 pm
Settle down Ken! It will end up in the Supreme Court and the Endangered Species Act will be dismantled. Another Bush victory.
USA, USA, USA!
#6 by Ken on May 14, 2008 - 10:50 pm
I hope your right Larry. Long live the Roberts Court!
#7 by Cliff on May 15, 2008 - 8:58 am
May 14, will live in infamy as the day Bush announced he would not play golf in honor of the fallen soldiers.
Now THATS what I call compassionate.