N O R T H C O A S T T IM E S E A G L E , JUL Y 2005
Adolf A. Berle candidly admitted at the end of the 1930s that
the New Deal had failed to restore the health of the political
economy. There were still ten to twelve million unemployed,
and the recession of 1937 was the most devastating in the
history of the country.
And so to war. But not a war to defend a functioning
equitable society — not even a new vision of such a society.
And so into the dissembling and the lying; and into the stretching
of the letter as well as the spirit of the Constitution — and the
related weakening of the principles and practiced of represent
ative government. I say these things with great anguish because
I thought then and I think now that we should have stood with
England against Hitler.
But we should have done it at the end of an open,
honest debate. And if the decision had been to wait and see,
or go to war only with a clear commitment to basic structural
reforms, or to fight Germany but not Japan (or vice versa) —
then so be it. What nags my soul on the Oregon beach is not
that I was shot at and hit but that my leaders lied to me and
never faced the real issue inherent in the imperial way of life.
Instead, as historians John Morton Blum and Stephen
E. Ambrose have made apparent, Roosevelt and his associates
crab-walked into two wars. They then determined to win them as
fast and as thoroughly and as cheaply as possible — all with the
least possible disruption of domestic society. We are back with
Lincoln and the annihilation of the Confederacy, hoping that the
casualties won t be too high. There were three major consequen
ces of that decision and approach:
(1) We would help the Russians do most of the dying.
That involved grave dissembling in our negotiations with them
about a second front.
(2) We would rely on machines, especially airplanes,
rather than men. We were doing that long before Hiroshima and
Nagasaki. Someone with a fancy for black humor might conclude
that since we failed to invent a precision bomb-sight, or develop
the long-range bomber necessary for its use, we settled for the
atom bomb. But the real point is that we abandoned precision
bombing very early in the game. One of the early fire-storm raids
killed 42,000 in Hamburg. Then Dresden, where 2,372 bombers
managed to kill fifty people apiece. And then Tokyo, where one
night some 83,000 people sizzled, suffocated and fried.
(3) The domestic American political economy was sus
tained by war rather than by reform. Perhaps the most revealing
episode of that part of the story occurred in January 1941, nearly
a year before Pearl Harbor but after it was apparent armaments
had become the prescription for recovery. The most militant and
impressive black leader of the day, A. Philip Randolph of the
Pullman Sleeping Car Porters Union, began to organize a
massive march on Washington, D.C. to force the New Deal to
honor its rhetoric and promises to the poor and the blacks and
other minorities.
Roosevelt wanted nothing of that nature to confuse the
issues and so, after six months of shilly-shallying, he finessed
crisis by issuing an executive order ostensibly ending discrim
ination in war-related industries, the military and the civilian
federal bureaucracy. There were no penalties for failure to
comply. But it was enough to abort the demonstration.
Thus were American leaders confirmed in their faith in
their imperial outlook. And they thereby misled themselves.They
concluded that other radicals and militants would compromise
on American terms. But the Russians were not American blacks.
Nor were the Chinese, or various others. Those people were
deeply patriotic, just as were American blacks. But not to the
American imperial way of life.
Given all that, let us do a bit of routine cost accounting
on the consequences of winning a war as quickly, thoroughly
and cheaply as possible, and with the least possible disruption
of American society. The first line is very nice: only 405,399
deaths. Far better than Lincoln. The second line looks even
better, the war created 17 million new jobs safe from bombs
or bullets. But the bottom line is not so good: the Russians
knew they had been lied to: they lost at least 20 million. And
they quickly became a rival empire, occupying central Europe
with huge communist armies: a half century worldwide Cold War
and nuclear arms race between the United States and the Union
of Soviet Socialist Republics was the deplorable result.
At that point a disinterested observer from another
galaxy might reasonably have expected Americans to face up
to the price of their imperial way of life, perhaps even to consider
an alternative. Winston Spencer Churchill was hardly impartial
but did his best to educate Americans about the elementary
facts of imperial life. The fascinating and revealing part of our
response to Sir Winston’s tutoring is how we accepted his
recommendation to stand firm while ignoring his advice_
indeed his pleas — to negotiate a clear, explicit and rational
imperial settlement with our rival superpower.
PAUL LACHINE (2002)
There are two primary explanations for that response
On the one hand, we simply could not confront the truth that
we were an empire and so act responsibly as an empire. On the
other hand, we could not imagine any alternative to empire as
a way of life. Hence we revived Lincoln's policy of containment,
extended Theodore Roosevelt’s corollary to the Monroe Doctrine
and set out once again to save the world for democracy — qet
hold of History and make it conform.
Nothing documents that as clearly as National Security
Council Document Number 68, approved by President Harry S
Truman in April 1950 Notice first two things about that date: it
is two months before the eruption of the Korean War and more
than two years after Churchill beseeched us to come to terms
with reality of the Iron Curtain, a term he concocted. Furthermore
NSC-68 is a reaffirmation and extension of NSC-20/4 of Novem
ber 1948, which also came after Churchill’s efforts to save us
from ourselves.
NSC-68 begins with a disturbed review of how all the
old empires have collapsed. It summarizes that overview with
this revealing conclusion: “Even if there were no Soviet Union
we would face the great problem. . . (that) the absence of order
among nations is becoming less and less tolerable." Then,
defining the United States as the only nation capable of imposing
such order, it makes the Soviet Union the focus of the effort. It
candidly admits Churchill's main point: the United States and its
allies possess greater power— enough to deter any direct attack.
But, unlike Churchill, American leaders concluded that
such power must be further increased and deployed to “foster a
fundamental change in the nature of the Soviet system"; “foster
the seeds of destruction within the Soviet system,” and foment
and support “unrest and revolt in selected strategic satellite
countries.” As for means: “any means, covert or overt, violent
or nonviolent.” Then pointing to the experience of World War 2
policy makers confidently predicted that the increase in military
spending would prevent the possibility of any socially and
politically explosive “real decrease in the standard of living.”
‘WE’RE AN EMPIRE NOW’
BY JEROME ARNOLD
George W. Bush is a visionary. He apparently had the
foresight to anticipate that something like the Downing Street
Memo (of July 23, 2002) would leak, exposing his early decision
and preparations for the Iraq invasion. There was insufficient
legal reason to invade so he exaggerated Iraq's WMDs: accord
ing to the memo, "The intelligence and facts were being fixed
around the policy.” Bush also took measures to protect himself
because aggressive invasion of another country is a war crime
in the International Criminal Court (ICC) code.
His action was simple. He unsigned the documents that
committed the U S. as a member of ICC. Also, he required all
nations that received aid from the U.S. to sign a bilateral agree
ment to not turn over Americans accused of war crimes to the
ICC for prosecution.
In November 2002, Bush’s appointee Undersecretary
of State John Bolton confessed that the primary reason for the
opposition to the creation of the ICC was fear that the court
might prosecute Bush himself. Aware of how his Party had
harassed President Clinton, Bolton said: “That history argues
overwhelmingly against international repetition. Simply launching
massive criminal investigations has enormous political impact
Although subsequent indictments and convictions are unquest
ionably more serious, a zealous independent prosecutor can
make dramatic news just by calling witnesses and gathering
documents, without ever bring formal charges."
Well before the July 23, 2002 Downing Street meeting,
Bush was trying to exempt Americans from ICC rulings.
The June 23, 2001 edition of The New York Times
reported that “Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said after a
P A G E 13
meeting with Kofi Annan (Sec.Gen. of the UN) earlier this year
that the Bush administration would never support the (Internat
ional Criminal) court. UN officials say the administration has
quietly asked the United Nations whether it can rescind Wash
ington s signature." The “Washington’s signature” referred to
President Clinton’s signature on the ICC membership document.
In Bush’s vision, John Bolton is the ideal person for the
job of UN Ambassador. In his work in every Republican admin
istration since 1980, according to Tom Barry, who wrote Bolton
The Armageddon Man, “...Bolton has become known as the
right's most effective and strident opponent of the United Nations
and all forms of global governance and international law not
controlled by the U S. government."
In mid 2002 a senior administration advisor said to
journalist Ron Suskind, “...guys like me were 'in what we call
the reality-based community,’ which he defined as people who
believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of
discernible reality’. That's not the way the world really works
anymore,’ he continued W ere an empire now, and when we
act, we create our own reality And while you're studying that
reality — judiciously as you will — we’ll act again, creating other
new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will
sort out Were history's actors and you, all of you, will be left to
just study what we do ’"
The rest of the world's nightmare — Bush’s vision — is
that the United States not be answerable to any higher authority
than God: a global empire
Ina rare moment of candor, Secretary of State Dean
Acheson admitted in 1953 that he and Truman might not have
been able to sustain their grandiose imperial policy if the North
Koreans had not "come along and saved us."
On balance, however, it was simply one of those wars
hat anybody could have counted on to erupt sometime. Both
halves of that divided country were dying to go to war to unite
them. That old devil nationalism had been raised to fever pitch
by 'T Y s,rong shots of mutually exclusive theology. In any event
the debate about who bears ultimate responsibility obscures the
fundamental issue of the response by Truman and Acheson.
„
Clearly, when the Secretary acknowledged that Korea
saved us,” he did not mean in the sense of preventing defeat
or destruction of the United States. He meant only that it allowed
the government to implement the apocalyptic imperial strategy
of NSC-68. Primed and ready, armed (or driven) psychologically
as well as with the heady rhetoric of that document, they simply
went to war They bypassed Congress and the public and
confronted both with an accomplished fact. A few phone calls,
and it was done. Go to bed at peace and wake up at war.
It was even more dramatic thanrthe subsequent inter
vention in Vietnam as a demonstration of the centralization of
power inherent in empire as a way of life. The State had literally
been compressed or consolidated into the President and his
like-minded appointees. In a marvelously revealing description
underscoring Truman’s earlier lecture to the Cabinet, the
war without a declaration of war was called a “police action."
Ironically, the most succinct commentary applicable to Truman’s
remark was provided by an early editor of The New York Times.
“\Ne are the most ambitious people the world has ever seen "
noted Henry J. Raymond on May 30, 1864, “- & I greatly fear
we shall sacrifice our liberties to our imperial dreams.”
The military containment and subsequent rout of the
North Korean forces (by the end of September 1950) created
a moment of imperial euphoria. American leaders were high on
NSC-68. The United States undertook to liberate North Korea
by conquest and integrate it into the American empire It was
assumed in Washington that such action would accelerate the
process of disintegration within and between Russia and China
(which became communist in 1949) and so finally create an
open-door world. Then came the moment of truth and the
empire suddenly found itself at bay. The Chinese entered the
CONTINUED ON PAGE 14
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