Long Live U.S. Imperialism

To Mr. Caryl, I thought your article was very good, very simple and straight forward and logical, I have
been saying the same thing for years since the Balkens War, At that time there was an excellent cartoon
where four houses were standing in a row, one British, one French, one German and one Balken which was
burning, the owners of the British, French and German homes were screaming "will someone the Americans to out this fire !!!! Yes you are absolutely correct, these nations states do not trust each other.
I am sure our next administration will do a better job with trust and its policeing powers. Keeeo up the good
work Mr. Caryl

My suspicion is sometime early next year, the US will send troops to Dafur, a little late but oh well.

Then we will send some troops and ships to fight pirates off of Somalia.

Some troopt to Ivory Coast to help keep the peace there.

Then the big question will be what to do about the civil war in the Congo and what side to support.

Also, the World Health Org. has put out a nice report about the need for redistibuting some world wealth to the medical needs of poor African nations where life expectancy is appalingly short.

The next four years could be the best thing that has happened to Africa in the last 500 years.

Following the fall of the Roman Empire - and by empire I mean entire countries, people, assets, all placed under the direct control of Rome - the world was plunged into the Dark Ages. America has - far from it - gotten everything right, but then again, what would those highly critical of it yearn for, that Russia held this role, China? In the end, given all our blemishes and warts, the world can let out a collective sigh of relief in knowing that, given the alternatives, Americans took the initiative, paid the bill, took the criticism, as surely anyone in this role would, and kept the world "checked" while one by one nations around the world revert from communism, totalitarianism and all the other misguided "isms". It's easy game to find America wanting until your consider the alternatives.

The genocide in Darfur first broke out in 2004. What was Congress doing? They were trying to create a Constitutional amendment against gay marriage. This whole idea of the US as a tough cop is nonsense. Our military is in shambles because of our ill-advised foray into Iraq. Yes, Saddam Hussein was a mad-man but we have committed a genocide there presumably to prevent a genocide. Does that make sense? We did intervene to try to prevent a genocide in Bosnia - although I have real problems with the decisions to bomb Beograd which was carpet bombed by the Nazis in 1941. (The Nazis conducted a genocide against the Serbs, with help from the Croats.) However, from my own trips into Croatia and Montenegro credit should go to Clinton's peace keeping team , including Ron Brown. (Dubrovnik even has a little museum in Ron Brown's honor.)
Truth told, if we want to be a"cop.", then we'd better find a way of paying for it. That;s the reason that Obama's tax plan makes more sense than McCain's. Secondly, we need to stop starting wars - or siding with one group of political or religious fanatics - something we've constantly done in the past. We also need to empahsize mediation over military interventions. Finally, as Clinton stated, "we need to provide the power of your example over an example of our power." In other words, we need to set a good role model.
For the last few weeks, McCain and Palin have engaged in a shamless display of racial hatred. They have attacked Muslims, Arabs, African-americans, people with funny names. Their rallies resemble cross between a KKK cross burning and an anti-Semitic rally in Central in the 1930's.
A few weeks ago, according to a report by David Niewart in the Huffington Post, a group of Palin's fans conducted a group interview for a press crew. They not only used the shameful n-g word to describe Obama but they also attacked Muslims, African-Americans and Arabs. The press crew recording this display of bigotry was from al-Jazeera. How does this display of intolerance resound in the rest of the world? Just recently on Newsweek.com. I've read reports of attacks on Christians in both India and Iraq. Already the hatred and intolerance generated by the McCain and Palin campaign is spreading elsewhere. What will happen once Palin and McCain are elected?
Truth told: if we want to be the world's cop and prevent genocides, we'd better elect Obama and his Democratic allies. If we want to banish hatred and intolerance in the rest of the world, we must begin at home

"The United States was short on cash long before this latest crisis hit, but that didn't stop it from continuing to build up the world's most formidable military".

Yes. Perhaps the author doesn't recognize this as part of the huge economic problems we are facing now. Even so, my argument may be less with the author's thesis than with his headline. Serving, or trying to serve as "the world's cop" isn't imperialism, if the author's suggestions of that service... deterring piracy, putting a stop to a genocide in progress... are the model. Imperialism is the building and maintenance of empires, which is to say, projecting force to compel other nations to submit to your will. Imperialism is inherently aggressive, and implies territorial expansion and/or projection of force for the purpose of seizing resources and enlarging ones military power, while the activities the author described are inherently defensive, meant to deter aggression or to stop it.

The apparent point of Caryl's essay, as opposed to its title, seems somewhat more reasonable, if he means only that there are sound reasons to maintain a competent military... but if Caryl contends that the United States would be wise to continue devoting as MUCH of our wealth and energy into military force as we have done the last few years, I'd have to disagree again. We could accomplish more with far less waste if we followed Eisenhower's advice (at long last) and put a rein on the military industrial complex that has so distorted...even corrupted...our government.

We're broke. Unless a militaristic regime takes over the US, and Mr.Obama looks like the quintessential milquetoast so not much chance of that happening, then when given the choice of guns or butter, people will choose butter and let the rest of the world police themselves. The British tried that world policemen thing and look where it got them - broke - same as us.

We're broke. Unless a militaristic regime takes over the US, and Mr.Obama looks like the quintessential milquetoast so not much chance of that happening, then when given the choice of guns or butter, people will choose butter and let the rest of the world police themselves. The British tried that world policemen thing and look where it got them - broke - same as us.