RE: [Futurework] RE: US not an Empire

[Karen Watters Cole]

Okay, Arthur, you’ve got me there.  And Iraq will soon be the new Middle East staging ground for US forces worldwide, reducing our presence in central Europe. Or so the blueprints say. And we certainly contributed to many infrastructure and institutional programs in each of those countries you named.   However, I realize it makes Ann Coulter mad that critics of US policy in Iraq are too impatient, but there is no apparent cohesive long range plan to help rebuild Iraq, other than get the utilities running and allow the engineers to start rebuilding so that the oil would flow.  To date, the US is not talking about creating universities and institutions to train in self-governance.  You can’t do that until you’ve secured the country and made it safe for investment (and missionaries and academics), much less the gods of American capitalism, Nike, MTV and Microsoft. Bremer may turn out to be as successful as MacArthur was in Japan, but MacArthur didn’t have Tojo on the loose or insurgents aiming to sabotage everything.  It’s not like experts in their fields didn’t predict this was going to happen.  And certainly, our achievements in Japan, Germany and S. Korea involved more cooperation and support from our allies than we are having now.  The US has not finished it’s job in Afghanistan and just begun in Iraq.  Since Bush rushed to declare victory and appear in his flight suit, maybe the operative word here is “pre-emptive”, or premature. I suspect the intention was not to completely invalidate the UN, as hardcore neocons might dream of doing, but they may have planned to severely weaken it by pursuing the unilateral course, and then turn the keys to the lease over to the UN for renovation after they had accomplished the real mission – regime change for oil security.  Some will call that brilliant, and some will say that isn’t playing by the rules, which inevitably leaves one with the reputation of a poor sport, if not worse.  But if you believe you are ordained by God and have all the cards in the deck, what do you care? But if they don’t succeed in securing the country soon, we are going to hear more talk about bad troop morale and/or reviving the draft, which would not please the most powerful man in the White House, Karl Rove. So, what do you think, is NAFTA a template for American foreign policy in Iraq?  - KWC   US has been in Korea 50+ years.  In Germany as long.  In Japan as well.  Sometimes the relationships have soured.  But the US continues.  arthur I think the point was made recently that the British Empire had a longer view, business plan or attention span, and tended to stick around a long time in the areas it colonized.  At the moment, most supporters and detractors of Bush2 foreign policy have a difficult time believing that there is a real long term commitment based on mutual economic growth and governance.  By their own words they were promising to be in and out as quickly as possible.  Again, they seem to be their own worst enemy in conducting foreign policy and building confidence.  To wit, didn't some one also note that US and UK firms are not as eager as supposed to get involved in Iraq because of the volatile situation?  I think it would be worthwhile to watch who and what actually lines up with Halliburton and Bechtel.   Coincidentally, I was reviewing something forwarded to me this morning about NAFTA, which mentioned that it was and is being used as the template for US foreign policy in Iraq.  Maybe we are just having a linguistic discrepancy?  Would anyone care to comment on this?  Article attached and linked below.  - KWC   How NAFTA Failed Mexico Immigration is not a development policy. Jeff Faux, The American Prospect, Sept. 01, 2003 @ http://www.prospect.org/print/V14/7/faux-j.html Excerpt: "NAFTA proponents, on the other hand, claimed that merely opening Mexico to free trade and unregulated foreign investment would produce the job growth and rising incomes needed to create a stay-at-home middle class. It was the capstone on an effort begun in the early 1980s by a group of U.S.-educated economists and businesspeople who took over the ruling Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) in order to build a privatized, deregulated and globalized Mexican economy. Among their chief objectives was tearing up the old corporatist social contract in which the benefits of growth were shared with workers, farmers and small-business people through an elaborate set of institutions connected to the PRI. NAFTA provided no social contract. It offered neither aid for Mexico nor labor, health or environmental standards. The agreement protected corporate investors; everyone else was on his or her own. Indeed, NAFTA is the nation-building template imposed on developing countries by recent corporate-dominated U.S. administrations and their client international finance agencies. It is the model for the proposed Free Trade Agreement of the Americas, as well as for the Bush administration's development plans for Iraq."   Keith said, I think he's dead wrong about America being an Imperial Power. In the Middle East, America is just trying to look after itself and its future oil supplies. arthur And what was Britain doing all those years as an Imperial Power.  Looking after others??? Ed, At 16:11 30/08/2003 -0400, you wrote: >Lawry, I don't think that the US has the luxury of admitting that it made a >mistake.  Whether it did so or not, it would remain in the very >uncomfortable position of being the prime terrorist target.  We mustn't >forget that Sept. 11, 2001 happened before the US wars on Afghanistan and >Iraq.  A great many people were already very angry at the US before those >wars and are far angrier now.  What the US has to do is sit on both >countries until they are pacified and fixed up, and especially Iraq.  It has >to demonstrate that it meant and business and continues to mean it.  It may >take a long time and it may cost a lot of money, but that is what it has to >do.  No matter what spin it puts on things, It can't just walk out saying >"Ooops, sorry, we didn't mean that". > >Niall Ferguson is a British historian who has recently published a book >called "Empire".  I haven't read the book, but I saw him interviewed on TV. >His main argument there was that the US is now an empire much like Britain >was in the 19th Century.  The difference is that Britain behaved like an >empire and stayed in places like India long enough to bring about a genuine >transition toward a more democratic and egalatarian system.  He doubted that >the US has the staying power to do so. Niall Ferguson is, in my opinion, a brilliant historian and a Prof at both Oxord and somewhere in America. I have three of his books on my shelves. He also produced a brilliant BBC series recently on the British Empire. However, I think he's dead wrong about America being an Imperial Power. In the Middle East, America is just trying to look after itself and its future oil supplies. However, this is a far stronger motivation than any amount of empire building and can lead to far greater follies. KSH   _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework