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November 21, 2006

The Case Against Breaching the Levee

 

 

Remember when I said that the wishful thinking of Henry Kissinger and his followers would be the (only) thing to set us up for defeat in Iraq just as it was in Vietnam, thereafter enabling them to declare to the world the fight was un-winnable? Well, well, well. How timely my post on Kissinger was, wasn’t it?

 

LONDON -- Military victory is no longer possible in Iraq, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said in a television interview broadcast Sunday.

 

Kissinger presented a bleak vision of Iraq, saying the U.S. government must enter into dialogue with Iraq's regional neighbors – including Iran – if progress is to be made in the region. (AP/Washington Post)

 

And in case you wondered if he had changed or learned a thing since Vietnam: "I think we have to redefine the course, but I don't think that the alternative is between military victory, as defined previously, or total withdrawal." No, we prefer mire much better.

 

As I said in my previous post, it’s no doubt largely because among Rockefeller/Nixon Republicans “no mediocre deed goes unrewarded.”  But I imagine it’s tough staking out any good territory after liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans have taken all the good ones; you’re sort of stuck with being in the middle of the road with only the long yellow stripe and some road kill to keep you company.

 

A rather cheeky piece today in Newsday by James Pinkerton titled “Henry the Cold Warrior: ‘I’m Still a Player’” I think explains Kissinger’s rationale best (hint: it isn’t any real concern for world affairs – so nothing’s changed). Speaking in an imaginary Kissinger voice, Pinkerton explains:

 

Some observers might note I am changing my tone - and they would be correct. In September, Bob Woodward's big book, "State of Denial," revealed that I was a "powerful, largely invisible influence on Bush's Iraq policy." What was I telling the White House? My line then was, "Victory is the only meaningful exit strategy."

Did I believe what I was saying then? Not really. But it's what George W. Bush and my old pal Dick Cheney wanted to hear. My words made them happy, getting me back in the White House, where I am happy - a win-win! And my influence was "invisible," of course, until it became visible in Woodward's book. Gee, I wonder how that happened? Chalk up more billings for Kissinger-McLarty Associates: Big clients want to be assured that I'm still wired into Washington power. […]

 

Thirty-five years ago, when [James] Baker was a tennis-playing lawyer in Houston, I traveled to Moscow and Beijing to work out a public "peace with honor" for the Vietnam conflict - although privately, to be sure, I called it a "decent interval" until we lost. And I had the same idea when I told the BBC that we had to "redefine the course" in Iraq, short of victory.

Now Baker has the same kind of decent interval in mind - I guess he wants a Nobel, too. Can't blame him for that.

But first, I have to get myself back in the middle of the Iraq debate. Which I have now done, thank you very much.

 

 

Dr. Kissinger’s ideas of course were so successful in Vietnam, he fully believes we should ply them again here.

 

And what’s next for this band of Judases? Dr. Kissinger, President Bush, Secretary Baker, Senator McCain and some others are stepping up to move aggressively forward on this Union of North America idea, regardless of how many eggs it breaks. But even the most ardent internationalist who also cares about democracy and the plight of the people would want to openly debate and evaluate the merits each step along the way. No bother for this team however. Mit volldampfen voran!

 

They champion among themselves the notion that by stepping out to simplify North America we are breaking new ground and moving into the future; that the American people will like it once they get used to it. But shouldn’t a free society be free to debate something which will so radically alter its future? Or are we only free to debate such things when the outcome is assumed to be the one desired among some? Again one has to wonder what more moderate internationalists have to say, to say nothing of Americanists.

 

To be fair to Bush, Kissinger, Willie, and the Boys however, probably none of them are pushing this hard-court press because they mean harm, they just aren’t too stellar in understanding the complexities of governmental and international affairs. And the populist pulse can be difficult to detect living behind the ivory curtain. They are hopelessly flat-footed, but even more to the point, flat-earthed. And their great idea of internationalism will, as Samuel P. Huntington¹ put it, run headlong into insurmountable differences between vastly entrenched civilizations, namely Western, East Asian, Muslim, but others as well. Since the Kissinger Republican and internationalist is uninterested in religion or ideology – and obviously not democracy, the single thing which could unify such cultures, as Aung San Suu Kyi has pointed out, is no longer in play. Nature abhors a vacuum, does it not? Believing that economics will fill it is hollow in the greatest sense, and worse only plays to the strangely similar hollow ideology of communism; materialism to materialism. Their misguided belief that nationalism causes all wars and misery and that internationalism will cure all, and a belief in change with no popular and deeply meaningful raison d’etat, illustrates a sad ignorance or disregard for history. At least if they want things to last beyond their generation.

 

For what the Kissinger team sees as a new idea is actually so old, history records it numerous times, and on that point Kissinger must surely be forgetting one or two of them. In point of fact, internationalism has been tried ad nauseum and it collapsed precisely because it disconnected government with the needs and will of the people. Today’s EU, after which the Kissinger internationalists wish to model North America, is already suffering a de-popularization of the notion of union because the EU government as yet has still not put in place any democratic mechanism for the European people. As such, the more tightly integrated Europe becomes and the more each state cedes its sovereignty, the less the European people find they have a say in the affairs which affect them. It is a fact that such a cycle of history however has ebbed and flowed down through the ages in some form or another consistent with the technology and knowledge of political theory. We tend to emphasize the nuances and give each period a different title, but in reality there’s much more of a pattern which deserves understanding.

 

The last great example of great Western internationalism was the Holy Roman Empire under Charlemagne, under which local governments ceded their sovereignty in the hope the new Empire would bring peace and stability to the region. But time revealed that the expansive, centralized government could not address the needs of the people. Instead, it served to merely fatten its elite. It soon fell to what Westerners consider today the nationalist era. Before the Holy Roman Empire of course there was a form of nationalism – localized provinces in Europe run by local authorities, who fought over territory, enjoyed localized dialects, customs, and even religions. And there were great wars between various alliances, as there are today. Before those times were the times of the original Roman Empire, and before that another fracturing of localized control which followed Alexander’s Empire from Greece. Indeed, as Solomon once said, there is nothing new under the sun. All that has been done will be done again, and what will be has been. The only truly innovative thing to come along was the founding of the United States and the ideas and ideals built into it. Ideas that President Bush apparently wants to see return to just those: disembodied ideas. Intangible in the backward momentum and therefore unthreatening to the mediocre, the fence-sitter, the principally directionless.

 

 Internationalism, in fairness, had and has with it some good ideas, but as power often does without democratic constraints, it corrupts and goes too far. In that context we should remember that it is no accident that democracy and nationalism began sweeping the West at the same time, nor was it that the great thinkers Locke, Hobbs, Paine and others came forward to articulate that need. The people were rising up, declaring themselves to be the state. And, if a similar large-scale North America Union were a spontaneous movement of the people – particularly the middle class, educated in what it meant for them, we would be dealing with a different set of circumstances. But unfortunately, this is a top-down movement foisted by elites against the people, without regard for who gets crushed in the process, to which no person whether a reasonable internationalist or a nationalist can be expected to stand by without a word.

 

When Americans called and wrote to Washington by the millions because they wanted to block illegal immigration, Bush essentially told them to “eat cake” by sending unarmed National Guard to the border, whom the border patrol then needed to guard, leaving more segments of the border unwatched. But to stave anything, even electorally, like the French Revolution, Bush and his cohorts will soon count on the votes of millions of newly legalized illegal aliens to dilute the water enough to shut the American people out of any say in their own destiny - or simply rely on another election in which the Hobson's choice of dumb and dumber exists. It also through different means is being sought in Canada and possibly in Mexico (though heavy Nationalist elements in Mexico may be only using a weakened U.S. for some good old-fashioned expansionism).

 

The simple fact that there are people in Washington who really believe any worthwhile internationalist world government is just around the corner have some learning to do. They must understand that the vast divergence of cultures, will, ironically, only grow greater the more denationalized and further regionalized they become, if history is our guide. In the process however, we will only get more bureaucracy and less responsiveness to the people than we have today. For the moderate internationalist in the very least, a great deal of work is necessary, both in terms of the slow, natural evolution internationalists believe exists (and which to some extent does, at least on a cyclical basis) and how to carry on democratically regardless. But whether you’re an internationalist or not, we certainly do not need the inept, self-serving leadership coming from the likes of Dr. Kissinger, President Bush, et al. This is a matter of millions of lives, not a summer yachting with a few of your closest friends.

 

  

¹ Samuel P. Huntington’s article “The Clash of Civilizations” appeared in the Summer 1993 issue of Foreign Affairs. It is considered the bible among many internationalists. It is not without error however, as Huntington refers to the French Revolution for example, as the first instance of nationalism. Even if one agrees nationalism began in that time period, Huntington shouldn't have ignored that other little-known revolution in the Americas waged a few short years earlier. Huntington however rightly points out that ideology and belief systems among ordinary people can cause ordinary people to coalesce and can then lead to nationalism, even democracy. While we approve of such populist mechanisms on Wall Street, apparently it is no longer an acceptable way to get the business of state done.

 

 

MORE here at Right Truth on Bush and "America as an idea" - like dear old grandpa after they pulled the plug: remembered by many, missed by some.

 

 

Posted by Martin at November 21, 2006 01:54 PM

Comments

Posted by: Debbie at November 21, 2006 02:11 PM

Posted by: Martin at November 21, 2006 02:50 PM

Posted by: Angel at November 21, 2006 09:12 PM