tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6615681104594334002024-02-18T23:07:58.142-05:00America without EmpireThe website of the American Exceptionalism Media ProjectAEMPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08702613583241664046noreply@blogger.comBlogger32125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-661568110459433400.post-874612135488185232023-03-09T11:35:00.006-05:002023-03-13T18:11:00.555-04:00The Symptoms, the Disease and the Cause of America's Endless Wars<p>At any one time, the United States takes part in many wars, both directly, through combat operations by our armed forces and the CIA, and indirectly, by providing battlefield intelligence from our global satellite and electronic surveillance network, and by arming, training, and advising foreign armies. </p><p>For example, under President Obama on one single day U.S. forces bombed six countries: Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Yemen, Libya, and Syria. And on the day I write this, in March 2023, we have our own forces fighting in Somalia and are assisting in wars in Ukraine, Syria, Niger, Mali, Yemen, Iraq, and Libya. </p><p>We also arm and train military and covert forces in over 100 countries in return for their government's cooperation with our military and covert forces. </p><p>These countries, of course, provide the pool from which the next wars will come: When asked in 1961 about Viet Nam, when it was just another post-colonial country where the United States was arming, training, funding, and advising a friendly regime, President Kennedy's top foreign policy confidant, his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, replied: "We've got 20 Viet Name a day to handle."</p><p>America's endless wars don't spring out of nowhere. They are merely the symptoms of a disease: American empire. </p><p>Our empire is the latest in a succession, from the ancient Greek, Persian, and Roman leagues right through the 19th and 20th century European conquest of Africa and Asia and then the Nazi Reich and the Japanese "greater co-prosperity sphere" that tried to displace the European powers. When the European empires collapsed after failing to re-establish their colonial rule after World War II, America inherited their role of domination and protection of Western interests. We also inherited the essence of imperial logic, as stated in Thucydides' Melian Dialogue of 2,500 years ago: empires must meet every challenge with terrifying force, or lose their credibility.</p><p>And the disease of American empire just doesn't spring out of nowhere either. It too has to have a cause, a power that sustains it in a democratic country. And that power, that cause of empire, is American exceptionalism. Without a strong popular belief in, or at least acceptance of, America's right, indeed altruistic duty, to dominate other countries in the name of their and our "freedom," there would be no trillion dollar military and covert budget, no network of cooperative regimes, none of the hundreds of foreign bases, no global surveillance, and no military dominance -- "primacy," as the Pentagon calls it -- of the land, air, and sea battle spaces.</p><p>So when you ask why are we at war, the answer won't be found just in the historical details of one particular situation, but rather in the need of empires to respond to challenges, and in the general belief in American exceptionalism that sustains the American empire. </p><p>If there is one thing I've learned in working to end U.S. wars for over 50 years -- from Viet Nam to Central America to the Long War for control of the Middle East and its Iraqi, Afghani, Libyan, Malian, and dozens of other component wars, it's that until America rejects exceptionalism and empire, voluntarily or more likely as a result of a disastrous reckoning, there will always be another war just around the corner. </p>Caleb S Rossiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03805425862708227105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-661568110459433400.post-53043569538216754832022-05-13T13:33:00.001-04:002022-05-13T13:33:34.819-04:00Stating the Obvious on Ukraine: America's Imperial Drive Made War Inevitable<p>Since the demise of the Soviet Union, Ted Galen Carpenter of the Cato Institute has been warning that expanding NATO to Russia's borders would harm American and European security. President George W. Bush's belligerent decision in 2008 to push NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia brought a clear Russian statement that this would be an unacceptable threat. And here we are in 2022, with Russia illegally invading and devastating a sovereign country based on phony intelligence claims, just like Bush did in Iraq in 2003. As the Kikuyu proverb goes, when the elephants (the American and Russian empires) fight, it is the grass (Ukraine) that suffers. </p><p>Carpenter's piece explaining the background to Russia's invasion is brief and compelling. Read it <a href="https://www.cato.org/commentary/us-nato-helped-trigger-ukraine-war-its-not-siding-putin-admit-it">here.</a> </p><p> </p>Caleb S Rossiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03805425862708227105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-661568110459433400.post-18798683734334131222021-04-16T14:09:00.002-04:002021-04-16T14:15:16.113-04:00The Climate Lie and Energy Imperialism<p> <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt; text-align: center;">The Climate Lie and Energy Imperialism</span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">How to save the planet – and its people: Quick, send a copy of Marc Morano’s new book to a friend, before the illiberals ban it!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">(A brief and laudatory review by AMEP director Caleb Stewart Rossiter of <i>Green Fraud: Why the Green New Deal is Even Worse Than You Think</i>, by </span><a href="https://www.climatedepot.com/" style="color: #954f72;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Climate Depot</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> impresario Marc Morano)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned “climate change” before on this anti-imperialist website. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">In large part that’s because we have bigger fish to fry. You know, like the pro-democracy demonstrators who are shot down, imprisoned, and tortured in the former colonial countries that make up America’s imperial network. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">From Uganda and Mali in Africa to Bahrain and Saudi Arabia in the Middle East, we give our friendly dictators -- our bastards, as FDR called them – <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/661568110459433400/8967955639638234797?hl=en" style="color: #954f72;">the weapons and covert help</a> they need to stay in power. In return, these thugs provide the bases and cooperation our troops and spies need in what the Pentagon calls “the long war” for global domination. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Environmental issues seem like small potatoes for Americans who believe that we should not be oppressing people who want to enjoy the very freedoms we demand for ourselves. Shouldn’t we be focusing on saving people, rather than trees?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Another reason why I haven’t discussed “climate change” on this website is that it’s just silly. The quasi-religious dogma that there is a fossil-fueled environmental crisis is a lie that is so brazen, so bald-faced, so illogical, and so easily disprovable that is hardly worth the words it takes to explain why. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Throughout the 40 years that the Democratic Party and its Pravda press have been promoting this eco-religious narrative, the actual data (as opposed to the cooked computer models) have continued to show no statistically significant increases in dangerous weather variables like the rate of sea-level rise -- despite soaring emissions of the mild warming gas (and powerful tree and crop fertilizer) carbon dioxide, a non-toxic by-product of fossil fuels. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">As a statistics professor, I’ve taught students for decades how to assess studies that make wild predictions that never seem to come true. After the first dozen studies, it’s pretty boring and predictable stuff.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">However, as Marc Morano makes clear in his readable and humorous -- but scientifically solidly-founded -- <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Green-Fraud-Deal-Worse-Think/dp/1684510856" style="color: #954f72;">Green Fraud</a>, it is clear now that the failure of the predicted climate crisis to emerge hasn’t stopped the Democratic Party from promoting the same solution in search of a problem that eco-fanatics were pushing long before they latched onto climate change: ban the fossil fuels that provide the affordable, reliable energy that has helped people in the developed countries become wealthy, healthy, and long-lived. Energy prices are going up and reliability is going down in America, for no good reason but obeisance to the narrative.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Morano also explains how the United States and the former colonial powers are successfully blocking poor countries from providing their people with what they need and want in the energy field. To be specific, the rich developed countries have written international trade and finance rules that keep Africa and Latin America from getting loans for energy infrastructure, and also impose “carbon taxes” on their exports. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Then they blackmail the poor countries into compliance with the Green New Deal, which the World Health Organization estimates leads to hundreds of thousands of annual deaths from indoor air pollution, since the poor have to keep heating and cooking in their homes with wood and animal dung. And in Africa <a href="https://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2020/11/17/african_lives_matter_and_clean_coal_will_extend_them_649899.html" style="color: #954f72;">even more die</a>, especially children, because of the demand for minerals to feed the subsidized electric cars and solar panels and batteries of the West. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Sure sounds like imperialism to me. The Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), the organization that sponsors Morano’s climate and energy website, <a href="https://www.climatedepot.com/" style="color: #954f72;">Climate Depot</a>, recently published a review of the ways that <a href="https://www.cfact.org/2021/04/16/africans-deflect-bidens-demand-to-end-fossil-fuel-use/" style="color: #954f72;">Africa is resisting</a> such energy and climate madness.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> So what can we do? I suggest we start by each sending a copy of Morano’s new takedown of the Green New Deal to one of our friends. It doesn’t matter if they are illiberal, liberal, conservative, or politically at-large. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">What good would that do? It’ll make them laugh, no matter what their politics. And humor, Morano’s stock in trade, is so much more effective in engaging the average reader than citing ponderous studies. Morano has done the distilling of facts into humor for us, relying on the two decades he has spent in voracious reading and friendly debating. Like he says, he’s not a scientist, but he sure plays one on TV…extremely well! He’s a thoughtful, witty popularizer, with an elephant’s long memory for all the ridiculous claims (CO2-driven climate change causes wars, floods, wife-beating, crop failures, schizophrenia, etc.) that didn’t come true. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">* * *<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">For 30 years in and around Congress as a staffer and then a lobbyist, I mostly worked with Democrats, and even ran for Congress once, for that party. So why am I so enamored of an arch-Republican, who staffed both Senator James Inhofe and Rush Limbaugh and made his bones as the man who Swift-boated my anti-war hero, John Kerry?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Well, politics makes strange bedfellows, and anti-imperialist politics are like any other. In his encyclopedic work debunking climate alarm and energy madness, Marc Morano has discovered and highlighted a new form of imperialism that is every bit as damaging to the freedom, opportunity, health, and life expectancy of the formerly colonized countries as our backing of their friendly dictators. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> Friend and foe alike acknowledge that Morano is the most potent force standing like Horatius on the bridge, protecting our future. Behind him are our sources of cheap energy, which drive our health, wealth, longevity, and personal freedom. Before him is the woke, elite mob baying for a Green New Deal. Every day, for nearly two decades now, Morano has played checkers and chess against the mob. By checkers I mean his short-term work of going on conservative media daily to affirm with brief quips, jokes, and facts to the audience in fly-over America that their skeptical instincts about experts and politicians who call our energy sources a threat to the planet’s survival are fundamentally on target. By chess I mean his long-term projects, like movies and books, that make the case in more detail but with no less humor and pith.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">* * *<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Very few Americans actually try, let alone succeed, in learning the main concepts involved in the “climate change” debate. (I put that phrase in quotation marks to indicate that it has taken on a specific meaning of late. It refers not to natural changes in our global system of long-term weather, but rather to the summation of unverified, often unverifiable, and even disproven claims from a very, very large set of scientific and economic fields into a single narrative: the large-scale emissions of carbon dioxide that result of modern economic activity are destroying life on our planet.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">I should stress that anyone – me, Morano, even polymaths like physicist William Happer and former Greenpeace leader and ecologist Patrick Moore, or the anti-Moranos like Bill McKibben, Al Gore, and physicist Jim Hansen -- who brings some intelligence and logic to the debate is, of necessity, an amateur of some degree. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">That’s because climate change is really the science of everything, so nobody can claim an overall expertise in “climate science.” Atmospheric physics, ocean physics, agronomy, biology, mathematical modelling, geology, statistics, oceanographer, economist, engineer -- the list of specialties involved in each of hundreds of subfields of these fields, each requiring a lifetime of study, is literally endless. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Morano not only masters the outlines of the various debates not only on the science, but also on the equally important economics and engineering issues relating to “renewables” – which he points out are anything but.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Enjoy this book! I did.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">* * *<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>Caleb S Rossiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03805425862708227105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-661568110459433400.post-4821940051977034232020-10-06T09:58:00.003-04:002023-02-26T11:00:54.238-05:00The UnDemocratic Party?<p> </p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE; text-align: center;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">The UnDemocratic Party?</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE; text-align: center;"><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">An Anti-Imperialist Considers this Bizarre
Presidential Election, and the American Compact</span></i><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">In 2016, for the first time in my life, I
didn’t vote for president. Oh, I did go to the polls like a good democrat and
Democrat, just as I have every four years since I pulled the lever for George
McGovern in 1972, to vote on the other offices. But I just couldn’t support
either candidate for president. Right now, I’m one of the few remaining
undecideds during this election campaign in a time of troubles that defies fiction
– pandemic, mass protest, revolutionary violence with little state resistance, the
capture of both major parties by their extremes, and even a president with
coronavirus.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">Voting is in my blood. Despite always
living where the electoral votes are a foregone conclusion, from my parents’
example and exhortations I’ve always accepted the privilege, duty, and agonizing
of voting as if the decision rested with me. My father, Clinton Rossiter, was a
cheerleading historian of the American founding and an optimistic political
scientist of the American present. My mother, Mary Ellen Rossiter, would spend the
entire four years for each cycle pondering her vote. She would read and
discuss, and then place her bets. In 2008 I had to treat her to a dream weekend
of concerts and dinners in New York when Barack Obama came out of nowhere to
knock off Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">(I confess my sin: even though I’ve held local
office myself, I’ve never been interested in races below the federal level. When
I show up at the polls, I’m usually clueless and disinterested about them. City
Council? Town Supervisor? School Board? Statehouse? It just feels like these
offices deal with First World problems that are constrained by federal
choices.) </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My
life and work have been devoted to ending the American empire that replaced the
European ones after World War II as the enforcer of Western interests in the
formerly-colonized world. Until this year I’ve always voted primarily on
foreign policy grounds. In 2016, Hillary Clinton was too proven and dangerous
an imperialist </span><span style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="http://www.aemp.us/2016/10/nil-for-hill-are-anti-imperialists.html"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">for
me to support</span></a></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">, and
Donald Trump was, well, Donald Trump of Wrestlemania. As it turned out, Trump
was actually </span><span style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="http://www.aemp.us/search?q=Hillary"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">far less warlike</span></a></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"> than Clinton. Although he never
questions the alliances with dictators that sustain the American empire, his
gut instinct against “endless wars” led him to turn down numerous misguided
proposals by his generals and national security advisers. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">Voting for Clinton, for me, would have
been like someone in the Viet Nam anti-war movement voting for any of the three
pro-war candidates in 1968, Humphrey, Nixon, or Wallace. Or like the (few) enfranchised
Negroes in Birmingham, Alabama, voting for the “moderate” segregationist Albert
Boutwell against the aggressive police commissioner Bull Connor in 1963. (Some
Negroes in Birmingham did back Boutwell, which he believed gave him the
victory. Called “just a dignified Bull Connor” by civil rights leader Fred
Shuttlesworth, he immediately tossed Martin Luther King Jr. into the jail where
he wrote his famed “Why We Can’t Wait” letter to whites like, well, Boutwell.) </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In my 12
elections, starting with George McGovern in 1972, 2016 was the fourth time I
didn’t vote for the Democrat. So I’m still batting .667: </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman"; line-height: normal;">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">In
1980 I voted for Independent John Anderson, because Jimmy Carter had resolved
his schizophrenic choices of moderate Cyrus Vance as Secretary of State and
Cold Warrior Zbigniew Brzezinski as National Security Advisor in favor of the
Zbig-boy. That led to a devastating war in the Ogaden in Ethiopia and a “Rapid
Deployment Force” base agreement with the Somali dictator that has brought 40
years of chaos and suffering. Anderson took seven percent of the popular vote,
but did not appear to affect the big Reagan victory.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman"; line-height: normal;">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">In
1996 I voted for Republican Bob Dole, because Bill Clinton had abandoned our party,
“triangulating” toward the Republicans after their 1994 capture of both House
and Senate. Scared to confront a Pentagon that was actually begging for his
leadership, Clinton became a full-time operative of the hawkish Democratic
Leadership Council. The DLC had pushed war upon war on the developing countries
as it tried to make up for our supposed global retreat after being beaten in
Viet Nam. Dole was his own man, a combat veteran like Eisenhower with the same
gimlet eye about both the military establishment and politicians who ignore the
cost and unpredictability of war. He was unlikely to have his dog wagged, in
the parlance of the day, into an excellent DLC lethal adventure.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman"; line-height: normal;">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">In
2000 I voted for the Green, Ralph Nader. Nader was a non-interventionist whose
platform called for ending U.S. support for dictators, which was the core of
the Arms Trade Code of Conduct I had spent the 1990’s promoting. Gore was even
worse than Clinton on neocolonial wars. He was a Dixiecrat in the Senate when I
worked in Congress in the 1980’s and he constantly undercut our efforts to end
Central American civil wars and block new Pentagon nuclear weapons programs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">I breathed a sigh of relief when Joe
Biden became the “presumptive nominee.” I’d donated to anti-imperialist Tulsi
Gabbard, and later voted for her in our primary, but Joe is no Hillary-style,
or even Barack-style, global warrior. In the parlance of a book I wrote on
foreign policy called </span><span style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://www.algora.com/328/book/details.html"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The Turkey and the
Eagle</span></a></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"> (the
stay-at-home Wild Turkey being Benjamin Franklin’s choice for our national
symbol, instead of the wide-ranging, thieving Eagle), Biden has been a Soft
Eagle, happy to have our empire but not willing to destroy countries in it to
save them, as was said and done about villages and a country in Viet Nam. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">I’d worked with Senator Biden in the
1990’s on the Code of Conduct legislation that would have banned arms sales to
dictators, and as a congressional staffer I met with him in Pakistan in the
2000’s as part of an effort to find a way out of Afghanistan. From both
temperament and experience, he was by far the most cautious of all the senior
officials in the Obama administration about interventions and alliances, and
their unintended consequences. My vote was pretty clear. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">But then, this spring and summer, the
craziness of the true Left that always bubbles on the fringe of the Democratic
Party took it over, and I had to reconsider my presidential choice. I know that
Left well, because it has been my home as an anti-imperialist for over 50 years.
While I’ve appreciated the Left for its foreign policy, I’ve always feared it
for its domestic policy, which is fundamentally Marxist and Leninist. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE; text-indent: 0.5in;"><b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">Marxist</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"> means, in this context, opposition to capitalism,
one of the two key tenets of the American experiment. You can dress it up and
call it Socialism, but the Left’s goal is still to control and make value
judgments about people’s economic activity – Marx’s state control of “the means
of production.” </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE; text-indent: 0.5in;"><b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">Leninist</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"> means opposition to the other key
American tenet, democracy. That’s a hard word to define, but what I mean by it
here is respect for others and their opinions, and acceptance of the choices made
in elections and then of the laws the chosen ones make within our
constitutional framework. The Left’s program is truly one man, one vote, one
time, as the European colonialists said to justify their opposition to African
liberation – Lenin’s “dictatorship of the proletariat.”</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">Since the day in 1969 when I came out of
an anti-war planning meeting at the University of Chicago and faced a group of
Weathermen and Women’s Liberation Movement activists screaming out Fidel
Castro’s “Up Against the Wall,” I’ve known that if the Left ever took power,
I’d be among the first they’d put there and execute. The irony was not lost on
me when the Weathermen avoided prison for their 1970’s terrorist bombing
campaign because the courts they would eliminate ruled that the government had
violated the constitutional rights they would eliminate. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">And the consensus at the staff meetings
at the leftist Institute for Policy Studies where I was a foreign policy fellow over
a period of 23 years was just as Marxist and Leninist as Chicago, 1969. In 1991
the staff justified riots and looting in the Mount Pleasant and Adams-Morgan –
“shopping” expeditions piggybacked onto protests over a black police officer
defending herself from a knife-wielding Hispanic man – as righteous acts of liberation.
In 2011 the offices reeked of the Occupy Wall Street crowd that had been free
tenants during various shower-free protests. By 2014 I’d been fired for writing
about the well-known reality that Africa needs fossil-fueled electricity to
raise life expectancy. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">The Democratic Party for whom I ran for
Congress in 1998 was the party of regulated capitalism, broad-based economic growth,
opportunity for the working man and woman, tolerance of diverse opinion, freedom
of speech, minority rights, voting rights, and the rule of law. But the party has
kowtowed rather than challenged its “progressive” Left wing for too long, and now
has been captured by it. As Scott Hibbard </span><span style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Religious-Politics-Secular-States-United/dp/1421405776"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">has
written</span></a></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">, the
Republican Party similarly flirted with, and then was captured by, the
religious Right in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Then it went even farther right to accommodate
the Tea Party, well before Donald Trump’s rise to power. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">The Democratic Party now promotes “Green”
economic stagnation, censors dissenting speech from the public forum, and lets
a mob decide policy with violence or threats. It practices identity politics that
undercut the education policies and social narrative that could uplift people in
high-poverty neighborhoods, and empowers the Marxist-Leninist leadership of Black
Lives Matter to demonize and defund the police who protect them. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">Putting Democrats in control of House, Senate,
and Presidency is a hell of gamble on Joe Biden’s inclination as president to ignore
the promises he has made to the Left as a candidate. Divided government feels a
lot safer than united rule by today’s Democratic leaders. The Supreme Court
will be conservative, of course, but it has shown itself recently to be more of
a constitutional barrier to dubious executive orders arising from divided
government than to laws emanating from a united one.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE; text-align: center;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">Just What Is on the Ballot?</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">Vice President Biden said in his
acceptance speech that this November, “</span><span style="color: #262626; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Character is on the ballot. Compassion is on
the ballot. Decency, science, democracy. They are all on the ballot.” He is
right</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">Being the “Voice of the People, the
leading formulator and expounder of public opinion,” my father wrote way back
in 1957 in </span><span style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/American-Presidency-Clinton-Rossiter/dp/0801835453"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The
American Presidency</span></a></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">,
is one of the “additional limbs grafted onto the original trunk” of
constitutionally-defined presidential duties. While the president “acts as
political leader for some, he serves as moral spokesman for all.” In this function,
he is “the American people’s one authentic trumpet.”</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">Every American should want their
president to display personally the values Biden says are on the ballot. They
do define, as he continued, “</span><span style="color: #262626; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Who we are as a nation. What we stand for. And, most importantly,
who we want to be.”</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"> But
when he says that, “</span><span style="color: #262626; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">the choice could not be clearer,” he runs up against the values now
being displayed by our party. For me, the choice is now murky: <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE;"><b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">Energy policy</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">:
To keep the Bernie Sanders wing happy, Biden agreed to ban 80 percent of
American energy, which would force reliance on expensive and unreliable wind
and solar power. This “Green New Deal,” which would </span><span style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="http://co2coalition.org/publications/analysis-of-deps-modeling-of-the-economic-health-and-environmental-impacts-of-the-regional-greenhouse-gas-initiative/"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">devastate
our economy and health</span></a></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">, is a kooky non-solution to a future problem that only exists in
computer models that are “tuned” to create it. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">Emissions of carbon dioxide from the
world’s fossil fueled-energy add between two and three parts per million to the
atmosphere every year. At this rate it would take about 200 years for levels of
this non-polluting plant and plankton food to double to eight percent of one
percent of the atmosphere, adding about a degree Celsius of warming to the
global average temperature. That’s the same amount that’s been added since 1900
(largely naturally, as the much-cited but rarely-read reports of the </span><span style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://co2coalition.org/publications/equal-warming-1900-to-1950-versus-1950-to-2018-why-the-un-knows-the-first-half-was-natural/"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">UN
climate body quietly admit</span></a></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">) with no statistically-significant increase in rates of extreme weather
or sea-level rise. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">Even worse, through its little-known
carbon colonialism, the Green New Deal will hamper efforts to reduce poverty
around the world. Only a third of Africans have access to electricity, and as a
result life expectancy is 15 years below the global average. For a variety of
technical reasons, coal will remain a crucial part of Africa’s electrification.
Under Biden, African governments will be denied U.S. and World Bank funding for
even modern, pollution-eliminating coal-fired electricity plants, and have to pay
punishing penalties on their exports to America when China builds them anyway,
without pollution controls. Under Trump, they’ll have a fighting chance. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE;"><b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">Freedom of Speech and the Cancel Culture</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">: About 20 years ago, the Left stopped
promoting debates and started pushing political correctness – essentially, censorship.
This was a watershed in American history. Previously, the Left believed it
could win an open debate, and so always invited opponents to, for example, Viet
Nam War “teach-ins.” The duel narrative of climate catastrophe and easy “renewable”
energy solutions provided the test case for this new approach. After a ten-year,
well-organized campaign led to the acquiescence of the left-leaning media, skeptics
of this fanciful narrative were transformed into “deniers” of realities as
certain as the Holocaust. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">Scientists, engineers, and economists who
are skeptical about even the wildest of claims in this complex set of topics are
now banned from the public forum because of threats to boycott advertisers in scholarly,
general, and social media, and to block grants to universities and non-profit scientific
and advocacy groups. Democrats in Congress have turned “climate” hearings into
spectacles in which witnesses are harassed with slanderous speeches that never
turn into a question they are allowed to answer. And they pressure social media
and tech firms to ban dissenting views on climate science and energy economics
from their platforms and the conferences they sponsor. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">The success of the great climate
shout-down encouraged campus-disrupting protests on other trendy issues.
Students pushed universities to promote identity policies and unbalanced codes
on hate speech and sexual allegations that effectively criminalized differences
of opinion and manners. Now, the cancel culture has seeped into society as a
whole. Anybody outside the progressive consensus on any issue knows they can
become a target, not just professionally and financially, but physically –
whether at home, at a restaurant, or on the street in a MAGA cap.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">For all of Trump’s tenure, the Democratic
Party has adhered to the philosophy emblazoned on leftists’ lawn signs: RESIST.
As a member of the last real American resistance, the draft resistance during
the invasion of Viet Nam, and a veteran of necessary congressional compromises
on other fundamental foreign policy disputes, I disagree wholeheartedly.
Resistance, rather than compromise, is appropriate only when you reject the
governing compact, when you are a rebel, like in an occupied or criminal country.
As my father wrote in <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Parties-Politics-America-Clinton-Rossiter/dp/0801490219">Parties
and Politics in America</a> in 1960: </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE; margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">No America without democracy, no
democracy without politics, no politics without parties, no parties without compromise
and moderation…All but the first of these are assumptions with which many Americans
find it hard to live.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE;"><b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">Mob Rule</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">: Even
more troubling is the Democratic Party’s acceptance of policy-making by mob.
There have been violent assaults on property and police in many Democratic-run cities,
and in only a few cases have there been arrests, bail to make them stick, and
trials to force plea deals with actual punishment. So, the mob rages on, taking
away power from elected officials and just tearing statues down themselves. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">It’s one thing to be so ignorant of
American history that you use your elected authority, as DC mayor Muriel Bowser
recently proposed, to retitle a school named after Andrew Jackson. It’s quite
another to take it upon yourself to throw ropes around his statue and try to
tear it down, as the mob in Lafayette Park did in a Black Lives Matter protest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">Yes, as was typical for presidents until
the Civil War, Jackson was a slave-owner and an implementer of federal
legislation to move Indian tribes west of the Mississippi as a flood of Americans
poured onto Indian land, and their farming needs proved irreconcilable with
Indian hunting needs. But he was a brilliant general in the Creek wars in
Alabama in 1813 and 1814, and against the British in New Orleans in 1815. Even
more heroically, in the 1832 “nullification” crisis he made secession-minded
South Carolina back down, stating that “disunion, by armed force, is treason. Are
you ready to incur the guilt?”</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">Knowing Jackson’s reputation as a duelist
and his military preparations for the day secession was to take effect, South
Carolina’s legislature chose discretion over valor. About the president’s threat
to hang the first secessionist he could lay his hands on from the first tree he
could find, one senator cautioned that, “When Jackson starts talking about hanging,
they can begin to look out for ropes.” A Union-preserving president needs to be
studied, not erased.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Another troubling,
if initially non-violent, form of mob rule over the rule of law is the
Democrats’ National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. Bills have passed in 16
states that commit their electoral votes to the winner not of the state vote
but of the national vote – but only after states with a majority of electoral
votes have signed on. This threat to amend the Constitution without meeting an
amendment’s high bar of two-thirds of both Houses and three-fourths of state
legislatures is likely to be found unconstitutional if ever tested, and certain
to cause chaos if ever used. More importantly, it shows contempt for the rule
of law like another cute Democratic Party evasion, the DC statehood bill that
would gut the constitutional role of the federal district. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE;"><b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">Identity politics and black youth</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">: Affirmative action after intense group-based
discrimination is an important short-term, but dangerous long-term, solution. For
55 years the United States has provided reparations to help African-Americans
catch up from slavery and segregation. The reparations come in separate tranches
for the higher and lower economic classes. The higher-income group gets preferential
admission to colleges and professional jobs, and financing and contracts for
businesses. The lower-income group gets the fruits of Lyndon Johnson’s War on
Poverty: Visiting Nurses in and after pregnancy, Head Start for early childhood
support, federal funding for K-12 and college, food assistance, Medicaid,
Medicare, and cash support. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">More importantly, the federal and then
state governments promoted a societal recognition of the justice of equal
treatment and equal opportunity, and a societal stigma against overt
discrimination. These are now the norm in American society. However, there
continues to be a difference of opinion about the very dispute that split the
civil rights movement in the 1960’s. Martin Luther King’s goal of American
integration, which held that people should be seen primarily as individuals, is
still facing off with his black critics’ goal of Black Power separatism, which
held that people should be seen primarily as members of ethnic groups. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">The eventual resolution of this dispute
is central to the progress of Americans whose lineage goes back to slavery. And
it is mostly a dispute arising from slavery, not blackness. For all the
challenges they may face, black immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean are already
among the highest-achieving groups in America. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
repairing of our social order has brought some progress, particularly in
strengthening the middle class, and some regression, particularly in crime and
schools. The cause of the nihilistic, work and success-averse “post-traumatic
slave syndrome” that I observed among my students when I taught in segregated
high-poverty high schools recently was identified by sociologist and NACCP
founder W. E. B. DuBois over 100 years ago, and affirmed by African-American
writers and leaders ever since. PTSS arises from the historical burden of the
alienation and resistance that came from three centuries of brutal, degrading
violence, the great betrayal of America’s founding principles that was meted
out or accepted by every white person in America. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">For every action there is an equal and
opposite reaction, Newton posited, and it is just as true in oppression as in physics.
We are seeing that reality today, in the Black Lives Matter movement. “</span><span style="background-color: white; background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">To be a Negro in this country and to be
relatively conscious is to be in a state of rage almost all of the time,” said James
Baldwin in 1961. Whether it’s rage or outrage, despair or sadness, the
outpouring of broad-based black protest to recent police killings is a reminder
that the pendulum is still swinging back. Each of the killings is a complex
stew of circumstances and justifications, but the imagery is instinctively unmistakable
to black America. President Lincoln hoped that the “mystic chords of memory”
would bind white Americans together to eschew civil war, but in this case they
will necessarily, for generations, drive us apart.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">A black fragility to any insult to person
or life that is conceivably based on race is not just commendable, unavoidable historical
loyalty, but also a barrier to group progress. I come to this conclusion not
from theory, but from being exposed to its reality as a teacher. Identity
politics reinforces victimhood, the belief that your legal troubles or your lack
of success in various situations and endeavors are pre-ordained, and due to the
actions of others rather than yourself. Focusing on identity rather than
opportunity can be self-defeating. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">This point was made by Booker T.
Washington in his 1900’s debates with DuBois on whether Negro advancement would
come more from economics or politics. More recently it was made by Coleman
Hughes in his </span><span style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/dubois-washington-black-lives-matter"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">duel
of testimonies</span></a></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"> in 2019
with Ta-Nehesi Coates on reparations to black Americans for slavery.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">When he and his party swept the first
democratic election in South Africa in 1994, Nelson Mandela cautioned his
jubilant African countrymen, who had suffered an equally brutal heritage
but had their strong national (tribal) identity to see them through: “You are
not free. You are free to be free.” Opportunity was theirs, he was saying, not
guaranteed success. This is the opposite of the message that the Left has been
delivering to black youth for years, in anti-bias and anti-racism broadsides. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">Mandela, by the way, immediately dumped
the Marxist platform of the African National Congress. He preserved capitalism
and the wealth it had generated for whites under apartheid, and was at pains to
keep white South Africans in the country, with their capital and their modern
work and investment ethics. He advocated, unpopularly with many African and Coloured
citizens, for whites to be accepted whole-heartedly as South Africans, and not be
seen as criminals because of past political evils. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">As Martin Luther King said, “hate is too great
a burden to bear,” particularly for a people who would have to bear it on their
way to freedom. The initiator of King’s Montgomery bus boycott, Alabama State English
professor Jo Ann Robinson, said it well: “Hate does more harm to the hater than
to the hated.” And she lived that belief, in her firm but patient dignity and religiously-rooted
activism. Shakespeare warns us that: “To mourn a mischief that is past and gone
is the next way to draw new mischief on.” And he offers a remedy: “The robbed
that smiles steals something from the thief. He robs himself that spends a bootless
grief.”</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">The health “black tax” of PTSS is real, showing
up in anxiety-induced heart disease and infant mortality rates that far exceed those
expected from economic differences. But it is currently a self-imposed tax. The
success of black immigrants proves that. Coming from all-black cultures, with
the usual mix of achievers and sloths, they haven’t grown up thinking of
themselves as “black” versus the normative, historically-oppressive white. They
seize America’s incredible opportunities, compared to those in their lands of
origin, without reservation. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">Focusing on parentage rather than
personal achievement is a racialist throwback. It cries out for someone to do
something for you. The focus should be on what you can control: your efforts. Telling
young black Americans that the solution does not lie in their own actions has
tragic consequences. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">In the schools where I taught there was a
constant undertone of blaming every disappointment on racism rather than one’s
own work ethic. Humorously, one girl shouted down a boy who got his paper back
with a poor grade and accused me of picking on him because he was black: “Fool,
we all black, and we didn’t get an F! You just never come to class.” The entire
class, including the boy, cracked up.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">Consider this recent claim by track star
Keturah Orji, which is foundational to the narrative that every decision made
about a black person by a person in authority is based on race, and not the
general rules for all. In an interview in Track and Field News (“The Bible of the
Sport”), she said: “The first time I actually felt systemic racism was when I
was suspended my senior year (for refusing to leave her coach’s office when
another teacher told her she couldn’t stay there unsupervised)….I realized this
is actually that people didn’t hear us because of our skin…She claimed (their
interaction) was intimidation, harassment, bullying, and I’m 5’ 5”, there’s
nothing scary about me.”’ Being black and short, in this approach, means a free
pass from the rules and any truculence in following them.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">Of course race is always present in America.
In retrospective interviews about the integrated Stax record label in 1960’s
Memphis, all the white staff and musicians say literally the same line: “We
never saw color.” All the blacks wince when they hear this, and say, no, you
had to see color in that time. Even integrationists should see color, and appreciate
the different challenges people face. However, color shouldn’t determine
decisions. When running non-governmental groups I followed pro football’s “Rooney
Rule” of diverse hiring pools, not necessarily diverse outcomes. The Democratic
Party, in contrast, is backing a referendum in November to reverse California’s
ban on affirmative action, and again allow ethnicity to play a role in admission
to elite state universities. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">The public school establishment,
essentially a Democratic Party apparatus, has replaced a national narrative of
opportunity with a national narrative of victimhood. If the system is rigged
against you, and everybody in it is a white supremacist, there’s little point
in trying -- especially when they keep passing you anyway. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">A training flyer over the Xerox machine
in the teachers’ lounge at one of my schools identified teachers’ racist lack
of belief in our black students as the reason they don’t succeed. Segregating
the poorest, most challenged families into their own schools? Passing students
from first grade up who don’t attend or do the work? Nah – it’s the racist teachers
who don’t believe in them that keep them from gaining the skills and knowledge
they need to succeed in college. A conservative is a liberal who had to sit
through anti-bias training. At least you don’t have to any more in the federal
government. “I ended it because it’s racist,” explained President Trump. He’s
right.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">The New York Times’ ahistorical “1619” project,
which dates America’s founding not in 1776, but in the year the first slaves
arrived in Virginia, is a logical consequence of the Democratic Party’s
surrender to racialism. Like Howard Zinn’s <i>A People’s History of the United
States</i>, 1619 criticizes American history for being celebratory and exaggerated
and loose with the facts. True enough, but then it doubles down on these faults.
As in most of its political reporting these days, the Times has become a tendentious
propaganda arm of the Democratic Party. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">Historical fact contradicts 1619’s whoppers,
like the claim that the Revolution was caused by British attempts to end slavery:
“</span><span style="background-color: white; background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Conveniently left out of our founding mythology
is the fact that one of the primary reasons the colonists decided to declare
their independence from Britain was because they wanted to protect the
institution of slavery.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">” No,
British moves to free slaves of rebels, not Tories, for military purposes only
came after the revolt, which had been brewing for years because of British
control of taxes and Appalachian lands. Other claims are discussed here <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/20/magazine/we-respond-to-the-historians-who-critiqued-the-1619-project.html">by
a group of historians</a>.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">The entire 1619 project is framed under this
banner: “Our democracy’s ideals were false when they were written. Black
Americans have fought to make them true.” This takes a complex historical issue
and twists it into a simple rhetorical fact. You could just as well say that
the ideals were true, and in need of perfecting in practice, something that Americans
of many ethnicities have promoted. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">The project director, Nikole Hannah-Jones,
who felt degraded by her father flying the American flag and believes that, “No
matter how hard he worked, he never got ahead,” has now admitted that 1619 “never
intended to be a history.” Rather, she says, it is an “argument…to control the
national narrative…the nation’s shared memory of itself.” The New York Times even
took down from its project website its original claim that 1619, and not 1776,
was the true founding date of America, and edited its founding statement to be
less categorical, without noting these corrections. I hope all this keeps 1619 from
being presented without countervailing perspectives in schools.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">Historical memory is a crucial part of life.
I run a website focused on how America presents its empire to itself, and I wrote
a book on the Viet Nam war largely to counter our thundering silence about its
meaning. I applaud Langston Hughes’ explanation that “America never was America
for me,” and Obama preacher James Wright’s exhortation, “Not God bless, America;
God damn America…for treating her citizens as less than human.” These explain
the reality of black life, the reality of PTSS, that we all need to understand.
</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">I believe that school children should
know George Washington’s slave-owning record before they cut out shapes of
cherry trees on his birthday, and that Veterans’ Day celebrations should
include a discussion of the wars they fought, and whether they were fought for
freedom and protection of our citizens, as incessantly claimed, or for imperial
expansion. But the facts have to be accurate. So far, my party hasn’t shown the
temerity to make that the case.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The Revolutionary Agenda of Black Lives
Matter</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">: There are two parts to the narrative promoted by the
trio of self-described “trained Marxists” who created and lead Black Lives
Matter. Eric Mann, an unrepentant survivor of the 1970’s terrorist group, the
Weathermen, who also fixated on “the pigs” and even tried to murder them, was BLM
leader Patrisse Cullors’ “mentor.” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The first part of the BLM
narrative is that a fundamentally racist country is the key barrier to black
progress. The second part is that black people suffer more than other ethnic
groups from wanton police violence and prejudiced legal punishment. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The first claim, as
discussed above, is an arguable conclusion, and is based on a politicized and
sometimes dubious chain of assumptions. The second claim is a blatant falsehood
that is promoted as part of the BLM leadership’s revolutionary agenda. BLM has not
formally announced, as the Weathermen did, that they are seeking to overthrow
our method of government in favor of a communist dictatorship, but once the
police are “defunded” and the prisons are emptied, it will obviously be a lot easier
to seize power. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">A higher share of blacks than whites are
killed by police. While African-Americans are 12 percent of the country, they account
for a quarter of the 1,000 annual police killings. However, detailed analysis
of police shootings show “no racial differences” in the </span><span style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/fryer/files/empirical_analysis_tables_figures.pdf"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">use
of deadly force</span></a></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">
against suspects. How can this be? Of course, the key is, how does one become such a suspect? Mostly by threatening police with a weapon.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As
has probably been the case since DuBois worried about this “vast problem” in
1899, blacks commit far more crimes per-capita than other ethnic groups, and so
find themselves in armed confrontations with police more often, per-capita. But
once in an armed confrontation with police, they are no more at risk of being
shot. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">Black parents famously have “the talk”
with their children about not resisting arrest, but anybody who has spent time
with poor black youth knows the “attitude” that displaces “the talk,” and leads
to dangerous escalation in interactions with police. After centuries of having
to accept violent degradation, African-Americans are now programmed not to back
down when told what to do by a cop. They are as culturally incapable of backing
down as the Polish poet Zbigniew Herbert was when he wrote about the communists
who collaborated with the Soviet Union: “Do not forgive – truly it is not in
your power to forgive in the name of those betrayed at dawn.” And police simply
don’t back down, to anybody, of any color. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Breonna Taylor was killed
in Louisville by police as they returned fire at her boyfriend. When the grand
jury declined to charge them for her death, her lawyer said that the decision
endorsed the “genocide of persons of color by white police officers.” LeBron
James, the star of the trendily politically-correct National Basketball
Association, Tweeted: “The most DISRESPECTED person on earth is THE BLACK WOMAN!”
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">About 7,500 black Americans are killed
each year, </span><span style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/251877/murder-victims-in-the-us-by-race-ethnicity-and-gender/"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">half
of all homicides</span></a></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">.
Only three percent are killed by police, while 90 percent are killed by other
black Americans. Because armed victims account for between 92 to 99 percent of
police shootings (depending on the definition of armed, such as toy guns that
the police believed were real), between 99.7 and 99.9 percent of blacks killed
are NOT killed by police facing unarmed people. If there is a genocide, if
there is a world-leading disrespect, it’s coming from someone other than the
police.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">In their push to defund police and
release prisoners, the BLM leaders are abetted by Democrats, including,
ironically, the son and adopted son of four murderous Weathermen, the
newly-elected district attorney of San Francisco. An agent of the “progressive”
movement in judicial reform, Chesa Boudin <a href="http://www.davisvanguard.org/2020/01/sf-da-boudin-ends-cash-bail/">ended
cash bail</a> and promises to <a href="https://spectator.org/da-candidate-chesa-boudin-and-his-four-parents-terrorist-legacy/">arrest</a>
ICE agents rather than let them seize criminals who are in the country
illegally. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">Claims of a “new Jim Crow” regime that puts
black people in prison for political reasons are false. For a variety of
complex and still unproven reasons, rates of violent crime <a href="https://spectator.org/da-candidate-chesa-boudin-and-his-four-parents-terrorist-legacy/">tripled</a>
from 1960 to 1980. As a result, prison populations doubled, and then crime
rates returned to their former level. African-Americans committed crimes at a
higher rate than other ethnic groups, and so were imprisoned at higher rates. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE; text-align: center;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">The Election and the Future of America</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">I agreed with Ronald Reagan on only one
thing when I worked in Congress in the 1980’s: in this country’s politics, we must
be opponents, and not enemies. It’s getting harder to hold onto that belief. The
recent craziness has revealed that a broad swath of the Left considers the
rules of democracy passé, and supports censorship and cancelling the opinions, and
indeed the livelihoods, of others. They’ve made it clear that they think opponents
are enemies. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #fefefe; background: #FEFEFE; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">Seeing other Americans as aliens,
representing an alien loyalty, is a recipe for civil war and totalitarianism. Democratic
presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg wisely said: “You can’t love a country if
you hate half of the people in it.” Well, I don’t hate my compatriots who want
to silence rather than debate me, but it’s becoming increasingly hard not to
see them as enemies of our form of government, in both letter and spirit. However,
I still believe in accepting and respecting the results of elections, and the
laws that those elected then pass. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I wanted this election to
be about the end to endless wars versus the beginnings of new ones. But it’s
about something even more fundamental now: our approach to each other. I don’t
know which party’s candidate I’ll support in November -- actually October, when,
COVID-fearful as I am, I'll send my mail-in ballot. But I do know that the election
won’t resolve anything. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">As in Africa, to reverse
Clausewitz, politics has become an extension of war by other means. The Left
will become a harder Left, the Right will become a harder Right, and the
concentration of like-minded voters by choice and design will mean that
Congress will have far less moderates in the middle than our share of the
population deserves. But, <i>pace </i>Yeats, the centre can still hold in our
widening gyre. We have to.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">*
* *<o:p></o:p></span></p>Caleb S Rossiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03805425862708227105noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-661568110459433400.post-89679556396382347972020-07-09T10:21:00.000-04:002020-07-10T17:47:53.135-04:00Arms Sales to Dictators: The Strategic Glue of U.S. Domination<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Arms
Sales to Dictators: The Strategic Glue of U.S. Domination<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">New
York Times story touches parts of the Trump elephant, but misses the empire in the
room<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Do you recall the parable from India of the six blind
men and the elephant? Each man touched a different part of an elephant, and so each
concluded something different about its nature (it’s a wall, a snake, a rope, a
spear...). The lesson is that one has to put together all the parts before
knowing the whole. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The <i>New York Times</i>
recently published a wonderful “touching the elephant” </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/16/us/arms-deals-raytheon-yemen.html?searchResultPosition=2"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">news
story</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> on arms sales to the formerly colonized countries
under presidents Obama and Trump. The article gives us a rare glimpse into the “how”
of this multi-billion dollar business, but this focus on the commercial side of
things ignores the all-important “why.” Using another elephant metaphor, you
might say the Times, like most mainstream commentators on U.S. foreign policy,
misses the empire in the room. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Explaining arms sales
without an understanding of the imperial necessity that drives them calls to
mind a dismissive reaction in 1961 by Attorney General Robert Kennedy. He’d
been asked about U.S. policy in South Viet Nam, which was then just another
post-colonial country in our global network of friendly regimes propped up with
arms, cash, “military advisers,” and spies. RFK replied: “We’ve got 20 Viet
Nams a day to handle!” He could never have guessed that we would shortly kill
two million people to preserve what the Pentagon Papers called the “credibility”
of our implied threat to “handle” the rest of them the same way if need be. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">So, the Times has
published a fascinating article, but one that places undue emphasis on
distinctions that are fundamentally without a difference in the context of the
U.S. strategy of domination of the global battle space through alliances with
cooperative regimes. These distinctions include civilian versus military
casualties, offensive versus defensive weapons, Trump versus Obama, and the
State Department’s interests versus those of the rest of the national security
bureaucracy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Titled <i>Why Bombs Made
in America Have Been Killing Civilians in Yemen</i>, the Times story shows us, from
the perspectives of a few of the corporate and government players, the ins and
outs of the approval of sales of bombs to Saudi Arabia for use in Yemen’s civil
war. It reads like a true-life version of a </span><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1658567625/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i1%20That%E2%80%99s%20a"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">novel
I recently published</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">, <i>Arms Deals: A Mar’Shae McGurk Thriller
about “Shopping to Get Yours</i>.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Here's the timeline: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Despite
Saudi Arabia invading Yemen in March 2015 and causing substantial civilian
casualties with air attacks from the very first day, the Obama administration,
under a policy of “defensive” support for Saudi Arabia, approved a Raytheon sale
to the Kingdom of 120,000 bombs for $3 billion. Deliveries of the bombs
continued for a year and a half until Obama suspended them in December 2016,
his last month in office, in response to a particularly deadly and
well-reported attack on civilians in the capital city of Sana’a in October. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 1.25in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Soon
after his inauguration in January 2017, Trump lifted the suspension of bomb deliveries.
However, in June 2017, Republican Senator Bob Corker, the chair of the Foreign
Relations committee, put a “hold” on future ‘pre-notifications” of proposed
sales of “lethal military equipment” to Saudi Arabia and a number of other Gulf
countries. The hold included a $2 billion contract for more Raytheon bombs, but
it was not related to the war in Yemen. It was intended to end the Gulf states’
pressure campaign against Qatar because of stories published by Qatari-based al-Jazeera
and alleged Qatari support for terrorism. While the campaign against Qatar continues
today, that hold was lifted in February 2018. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">However,
Corker’s top Democratic counterpart on the Foreign Relations committee, Senator
Bob Menendez, quickly placed a new hold on future sales of bombs to Saudi
Arabia because of civilian casualties in Yemen. These sales also included the
$2 billion Raytheon follow-on contract. Menendez’s hold was strengthened by congressional
reaction to the Saudi government’s murder of journalist and regime critic Jamal
Khashoggi in October 2018. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Menendez’s
hold was finally overturned by the rare decision in May 2019 by Secretary of
State Mike Pompeo to approve the Saudi sale and other delayed Gulf sales under
an emergency provision of the arms export act. This provision gives Congress 30
days to enact a law blocking the sale, and Congress did pass such a law.
However, the Senate failed to overturn President Trump’s veto. Neither chamber addressed
the issue in a must-have appropriation bill to set up a more credible confrontation
with the president, so the arms continued to flow. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Of course, this being the
Times, much of its story is opinion masquerading as news. In “these troubled
times,” which apparently started November 9, 2016, the left-leaning traditional
and social media are part of “the resistance” to President Trump and his
policies. Their news stories present harsh opinions on Trump’s escapades as
fact and “fact-checking.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Opinion as news at the
Times goes back at least as far as the 2002 buildup to the invasion of Iraq, with
reporter Judith Miller’s phony case for “weapons of mass destruction” being just
the </span><a href="https://nymag.com/nymetro/news/media/features/9226/"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">tip
of the iceberg</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> that killed hundreds of times more people
than were lost on the Titanic. And it’s long been egregious in the Times’ elimination
of critiques in its flood of articles supporting the speculative narrative of
dangerous, human-caused “climate change.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">But lately the Times has
gone way off the rails to promote all manner of politically-correct narratives
as fact. The enforced closing of the climate change debate -- first on campuses
dominated by activist professors who were, as Joseph Ellis argues, “not merely unscholarly,
but anti-scholarly,” and then in the Times and other left-leaning media -- was in
many ways the dry run for today’s pervasive “cancel culture.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Consider the Times’ tendentious,
race-focused <i>1619 Project</i>, which </span><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/12/historians-clash-1619-project/604093/"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">started</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">
with a novel, false, and actually really loopy claim, given the well-documented
political thought of the American Revolution, that “<span style="color: black;">one
of the primary reasons the colonists decided to declare their independence from
Britain was because they wanted to protect the institution of slavery</span>.” Slavery
was indeed the price of union, in 1776, 1787, and even 1860, in Abraham
Lincoln’s campaign platform. However, there was no threat to American slavery
from Britain until well after the Revolutionary consensus had been adopted and
open combat had begun.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">So, it’s not unexpected that
the Times would create a narrative about Saudi sales to please its rebellious
staff and regular readers, which is that Trump pushes arms sales for their
economic benefits “with little regard for how the weapons are used,” and not
for reasons of “diplomacy” and with concern for human rights, as President Obama
did. But that narrative is deeply misleading. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Starting with the demise
of President Carter’s policies of reducing sales to human right abusers and telling
State Department officials in a “leprosy” memo not to assist or even interact
with American companies trying to sell weapons, all presidents have pushed arms
sales for the jobs and profits they deliver to military contractors -- and hence
the votes they deliver to both parties. It’s telling that the demise </span><a href="https://www.americanforeignrelations.com/A-D/Arms-Transfers-and-Trade-Carter-and-reagan.html"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">actually
occurred</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> during Carter’s presidency, well before President
Reagan’s Secretary of State Alexander Haig formally revoked the policies.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I know this all too well
from my 20 years of trying and failing, in Congress as a staffer and around
Congress as a lobbyist, to ban arms transfers to dictators. In 1992, for
example, candidate Bill Clinton and President Bush competed to be the first to
override the opposition of both the State and Defense Departments and sell
advanced fighter aircraft to Saudi Arabia. Since then, every president has
talked about limiting the economic waste, human rights abuses, and regional
tensions that come with arms sales to repressive regimes in the Middle East,
but then has gone ahead and set records in real dollar terms for arms sales
there, and globally. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">President Obama made a
visit to Saudi Arabia early in his presidency, just like Trump, and made the
same hard push for the Saudis to waste their money on American weapons, not
Britain’s or Russia’s. All that’s really different about Trump on arms sales is
that he dispenses with the sweet talk. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It’s important to note
that arms sales actually add little to overall American employment and profit, but
add a lot to the particular jobs and profits of the union and the owners at the
particular exporting corporation. How can that be? Why wouldn’t an arms sale
help the American economy as a whole? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">First, the sales are
effectively subsidized by the taxpayer, who could have spent the subsidy elsewhere
or just let it hum through the domestic economy. This is true even when the
sale is not funded by U.S. foreign aid, because the Pentagon paid to create the
arms-makers’ production lines for its own purchases, so it is solely the
companies who profit from the additional foreign sales. In addition, the sales
stimulate demand by regional competitors who use U.S. foreign aid to try to
keep up. For example, Israel’s aid-funded purchases counter the military
challenges from Saudi and Emirati cash sales. Even the Pentagon gets in on this
scam, asking for a next generation of weapons to be able to defeat those we
just exported. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Arms sales also provide a
rationale for more U.S. military deployments in a region, because the threat
level and instability have increased. By aiding dictators, the sales often lead
to civil war and economic disaster, reducing American export opportunities. Finally,
and most fundamentally, by the reality of “additionality,” our economy would
have received export demand as an indirect result of any purchase by the country
that instead bought our weapons. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">As economist Bill Hartung
explained in </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/19/opinion/letters/yemen-arms-trump.html"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">a
letter</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> to the Times about its article and Trump’s 25-times exaggerated
claim of half a million jobs from Saudi sales, the arms jobs from a sale simply
displace other jobs in other categories of our economy in which the Saudis
would have spent their money. And even if the Saudis had spent the money on
arms from France, water treatment plants from Australia, or movies from Bollywood,
a good share of the increased purchasing power in the global economy would have
led to follow-on purchases in the world’s biggest economy – ours. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">That’s the beauty of
additionality when your economy is central to the world economy, and your
currency is held as a reserve and used as an instrument throughout the world!
You don’t have to worry about particular sales – unless you have something else
on your mind than overall employment and profit. And U.S. policy does have
something else on its mind: holding together the empire. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Arms sales are the glue
for our system of domination of the former colonial countries. These countries had
hoped they were done with foreign control after their independence movements
succeeded in the decades after World War II. Looking at the map of U.S. military
deployments today, you can tell that their hopes were dashed. We are the new
empire, and we use arms sales to bind our friendly dictators to it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">*
* *<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Perhaps it’s not really
the Times’ fault that the article misses the elephant in the room here, our empire.
By telling an inside story, and telling it well, the Times pretty much has to
stick to the issues that the insiders tackle. Still, it would have been nice if
there had been an attempt to get commentary from analysts who could place the
tale in the context of our foreign policy. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Of course, that sounds
like I wish the Times had called me to comment on behalf of my anti-imperial
American Exceptionalism Media Project, which of course I would have loved. But
there are any number of thinkers and think-tanks out there who could have done
the job. There’s Ted Galen Carpenter at the libertarian, anti-interventionist
Cato Institute, John Feffer and Phyllis Bennis at the left-leaning,
anti-interventionist Institute for Policy Studies, and Andrew Bacevich and
Steven Wertheim at the Soros-Koch funded anti-imperial Quincy Institute for
Responsible Statecraft. And academia is surprisingly replete with scholars
whose anti-imperial analysis is a historical conclusion, rather than an advocacy
of change. Any of them could have helped the Times see that the primary reason for
U.S. arms sales differs from the largely commercial reasons of our badly
outdistanced competitors, Russia, France, China, and Britain.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">That reason is empire,
for which perhaps the Times intended “diplomacy” to be polite shorthand. Only
France, and only in its formerly formal but still effective West African colonial
empire, acts like us in this regard. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">When a country uses U.S.
arms it is bound logistically to our network of air, land, sea, space, and
covert forces, and to our intelligence and communications agencies. U.S. military
strategy has achieved domination in all battle spaces, in all corners of the
world. For that, it needs forward basing, logistical and intelligence support,
and cooperation that is both rapid and sustained. It takes a village of allies
to allow us to bestride the globe in our “fly every day, fight by tonight”
state of readiness. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Intelligence pours in and
individual relationships are cemented as our forces and agents interact
constantly with other countries’ personnel on training, equipping, spying, and
joint exercises. Purchasers come to be regarded, and regard themselves, as our
allies, despite the lack of treaties approved by the Senate or formal Status of
Forces agreements reported to Congress. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">By missing the context of
empire, the Times goes down four blind alleys. First, it cites many officials
bemoaning civilian casualties from Saudi air raids. Second, it makes
distinctions between types of weapons. Third, it focuses on differences between
the Obama and Trump administrations in motivation and in operation. Fourth, it
complains that the State Department and its human rights concerns have been
marginalized under Trump. Let’s take these in order. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<u><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<u><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Civilian casualties</span></u><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">:
The bombing of civilians in Yemen, whether caused by insouciance, purpose, or
collateral reality, is not at the core of the humanitarian crisis there. The war
itself is the crisis. Attacks by air and ground forces always extract a direct
cost in lives and property. However, it is the indirect impact of war on the
economy and hence family income and public infrastructure that is the real
killer. Especially in developing countries where services and survival are already
close to the edge, lives are lost in the millions every decade to war’s
inevitable disease, malnutrition, and medical meltdown. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Senator Menendez’s 2018
“hold” on Saudi sales wasn’t, as the Times claims, an “attempt to stop the arms
feeding the Yemen war.” It was only a reaction to bad targeting: “I don’t have
an ideological problem” with arms sales to Saudi, he says in the article, but
only with uses that “violate international norms” and hit civilians.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<u><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<u><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Differentiating between types
of weapons</span></u><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">: The Saudis asked President Obama to approve the
invasion of Yemen a few hours before it began in March 2015. He did, but the
Times reports that he decided to offer “primarily defensive support,” based on
the need to help Saudi </span><a href="https://therealnews.com/stories/amid-calls-to-end-us-role-in-yemen-ex-obama-official-rob-malley-on-how-it-began"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">fend
off</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">
missile attacks from Yemen. Of course, in war such an offensive-defensive
distinction is impossible. Sales of U.S. arms and training and even bomb sales
continued until civilian casualties in Sana’a in October led to the December
2016 suspension of bomb deliveries. U.S. military and intelligence cooperation
in targeting, battlefield information, and aerial refueling continued
throughout Obama’s term. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Considering some weapons
as “offensive” as opposed to “defensive” is reminiscent of the Reagan
administration’s efforts, often successful, to encourage war-weary Members of
Congress to provide the Nicaraguan <i>contras</i> “humanitarian” aid like food
and uniforms and “non-lethal” aid like medical supplies and communications
gear. There is no such thing as humanitarian and non-lethal aid to a killing
machine. An army fights on its stomach and sends in attack orders on field
telephones. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Non-governmental backers of
the UN Arms Trade Treaty, which came into force in 2014, made the same sort of mistake
by agreeing to limit it to blocking only particular weapons that had been
misused. The proposed Nobel Peace Laureates Arms Trade Code of Conduct from the
1990’s had the right idea: to support democracy and stop human rights abuses
you need to cut off ALL weapons and military support to dictators and
repressive regimes, not just the bombs they drop or the bullets they fire. They
can get those anywhere if you’ve already sold them the infrastructure to use
it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">If the civilian toll in
Sana’a was so horrific, why did Obama feel the need to maintain overall aid and
support for Saudi Arabia’s military forces? Because the United States and the
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia have had an alliance since 1945, when it was </span><a href="https://www.history.com/news/fdr-saudi-arabia-king-oil"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">cemented</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">
with a DC-3 aircraft given to founding King Abdul Aziz ibn Saud, complete with
pilots and crew, and a </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/01/27/the-first-time-a-u-s-president-met-a-saudi-king/"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">flock
of sheep</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> given to President Roosevelt. They give us and the
West access to oil and provide military, diplomatic, and intelligence
cooperation. We provide their military infrastructure and sustain their continued
rule. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Delaying deliveries of a
few new bombs was a symbolic rather than concrete effort to reduce the civilian
toll. It was not even a policy decision to push for an end to the war itself,
let alone a threat to undo the underlying imperial bargain. The continuation of
the U.S.-Saudi bargain, repeated daily in the scores of developing countries
that make up our imperial support system, was a given. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<u><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<u><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Obama vs. Trump</span></u><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">:
The Times ardently looks for differences between the Obama and Trump administrations,
particularly in their working relations with arms exporters. It should have
looked for similarities instead, particularly the similar imperative they
inherited to preserve the empire. </span><a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/11/19/obama-officials-incomplete-reckoning-failure-yemen"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Obama
backed the war</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> to maintain our strategic relationship
with the Saudi monarchy and to keep it actively supporting negotiations for the
Iran nuclear deal. Trump kept on backing Saudi Arabia for the first reason alone.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The Times argues, without
evidence, that Trump’s reversal of Obama’s suspension of bomb deliveries and
support for more sales helped “prolong” the war. But the Obama suspension was
not even intended to end the war, but rather to make sure it was conducted properly,
against military targets. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Then the Times makes much
of what it calls a “statement of regret” by 30 former Obama officials,
including UN ambassador Samantha Power and National Security Advisor Susan
Rice, who now call for a suspension of U.S. support for the war. Note that this
is not the same as what would really be required to move Saudi Arabia to
settlement, a threat to end U.S. military relations. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">First of all, there is not
one word of regret in </span><a href="https://nationalsecurityaction.org/newsroom/yemen-open-statement"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">the
statement</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">. Instead, it is a flat-out justification for the
Obama decision, which it calls a policy of “conditional support” designed to
“gain leverage” with the Saudis to reduce civilian casualties and spur a
diplomatic settlement. The statement contrasts this noble policy – which is nonsensical
to its core – with a “blank check” Trump policy of “unconditional support” for
a Saudi victory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">One of the signers, NSC
staffer Andrew Miller, told the Times that “the war had gone in a direction we
had not anticipated.” Oh, really? Like in Libya, Afghanistan, Somalia, Iraq, and
Syria, all of which Obama once bombed or drone-attacked, along with Yemen, in a
single day? What direction should you expect when you back a party to a civil
war? After a career at the State Department sending weapons to Middle East
dictators, Miller now “promotes Middle East democracy” at the Carnegie
Institute.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Another signer is Steve
Pomper, who wants us to know that he and his fellow NSC staffers were “serious,
humane people.” He told the Times that: “People make miscalculations all the
time. <span style="background: white; color: #333333;">But it was striking to me as
I reflected on my time in the Obama administration that it wasn’t just that we
embarked on this escapade -- it’s that we didn’t pull ourselves out of it.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">This notion that helping an ally when it goes to war is a
“miscalculation” recalls the claim by many officials that the Viet Nam war was
a “mistake.” But Obama backing and then continuing to back our ally Saudi Arabia
at war, like President Johnson backing and continuing to back our ally South
Viet Nam, was no miscalculation or mistake – it was an inevitable result of the
network of imperial bargains that constitute our foreign policy in developing
countries.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Pomper now writes about Obama’s “atrocity prevention” program at the
Holocuast Museum and chairs the International Crisis Group. He made a few other
telling comments to the Times. The Saudi arms sales, he says, were </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“like
flypaper in trapping the U.S. in Yemen.” But flypaper glues both ways. Arms sales
also glue our allies to our empire’s need for bases and support. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">At the NSC Pomper worked
on what appear to be unsuccessful attempts to train Saudi pilots into not
hitting civilians, but he admits that there was a larger issue at play here: “We
were in Yemen. We shouldn’t have been there.” Really? Having an empire means
you have to back your imperial allies. To paraphrase Bobby Kennedy, we’ve got
20 Yemens a day to handle. They come with the territory for an empire. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Pomper’s work on training
is part of a decades-old imperial sleight of hand, under all administrations, in
which bureaucrats try to convince human rights activists, despite massacre
after massacre and coup after coup, that U.S. military training improves not just
military performance but attitudes and behaviors about human rights and
democracy. But this entire debate is a dodge. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The strategic purpose of
the program is not found in performance or behavior, but in the creation of a
network to gather intelligence and increase cooperation in future crises. The Pentagon’s
Defense Intelligence Agency keeps careful track of where the trainees and their
U.S. military contacts and their postings, so that they can connect with each
other quickly when U.S. forces need inside information, access to intelligence,
and help with operations. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Another signer was Susan
Rice’s top deputy at the NSC. Ben Rhodes told the Times that the Saudi invasion
“happened so quickly” with no time for Obama’s usual “very rigorous process.” But
the decision to back Saudi Arabia could have been changed any time during the year
and a half between the invasion and the suspension of a tiny component of
assistance. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Rhodes said that backing
the Saudi invasion was like “getting in a car with a drunk driver.” Solipsistically,
Rhodes seems not to have considered that perhaps the entire framework of our
arms sales to developing countries makes us, and not the recipients, the drunk
driver, unable to stop doing what she knows is dangerous to human health and
well-being.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rhodes is an English major who became a speechwriter,
first for the 9/11 commission and later for candidate Obama. Incredibly he rose
to became the number two White House official for national security and be named
by Foreign Policy magazine as one of the top 100 global thinkers. Only in America,
land of opportunity. Among Rhodes’ finest global thoughts is surely this mystifying
one in the Times, about policy in Yemen: “L<span style="background: white; color: #202122;">ooking back, I wonder what we might have done differently,
particularly if we’d somehow known that Obama was going to be succeeded by a
President Trump.” </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">On the commercial side, the
Times is particularly shocked, shocked that Raytheon has great access to
executive branch officials under Trump. But like all of us on all sides of
policy, Raytheon should be able to exercise its First Amendment right to
“petition the government for a redress of grievances.” Access doesn’t guarantee
anything more than a hearing, and government officials benefit from hearing divergent,
even admittedly self-interested views. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">And officials do hear
such views, all the time, not just from lobbyists, the media, and angry
citizens, but from their allies in Congress. And not just on every sale with
local jobs at stake but on every issue in every permutation under the sun. I’ve
met with staff at State, Defense, Treasury, AID, the NSC, and the White House
under many administrations to advocate such things as a ban on arms to
dictators, an end to U.S. support for military forces and wars from Central America
to Africa and the Middle East, a ban on anti-personnel landmines, a requirement
for self-destructing fuses on cluster bombs, an end to World Bank loans to
governments whose armies won’t let civilian authorities audit their budgets,
and more recently, some sanity on blocking electricity projects in Africa over an
always projected but never occurring climate crisis. Sometimes it made no
immediate difference, sometimes it did, but it’s how DC works. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The Times acknowledges
that Raytheon’s CEO was able to have a conversation with Susan Rice to ask her
to reverse the suspension of bomb deliveries. She just said no – although that
was easy, since the decision was only Obama’s for a month. Trump just said yes,
as would eventually have happened with any president when an American company
has produced an item, on promise of payment, with the approval of the U.S.
government, and now can’t get paid. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The Times reveals that Raytheon
hired former State Department officials as lobbyists, which the Project on Government
Oversight told the Times is “legalized corruption” because the lobbyists are “being
hired for who they know.” But why is hiring experts with the ability to talk knowledgeably
and credibly to staff and Members of Congress corrupt? We all, human rights
groups and arms sellers, hire people with connections to push our proposals.
Who got corrupted? As I show in my arms novel, corruption occurs when lobbyists
arrange contingent donations, and there is no evidence of that in the Times
story. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Trump approved a new arms
sales policy guidance that has the purpose of “economic security” in it, which
the Times says is a first. It may be a first in print, but it certainly is not
the first time that administrations considered economics as part of arms sales decisions.
Raytheon merged with United Technologies. These are huge corporations surviving
on Pentagon spending. Congress and the administration have tremendous political
and economic incentives to keep them bustling. Arms sales have long helped bring
unit prices down for the Pentagon, and let the Pentagon off the hook to keep
the production lines open itself when its own buy slows or ends. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Trump trade adviser Peter
Navarro, the <i>bȇte noire</i> of the story for his work “to bring to heel a
bunch of career bureaucrats” who were slow-walking sales that the president had
approved, told the Times: “I don’t advocate for companies. I advocate for the
president and workers and for our men and women in uniform.” That is all well
and good, but he, like all the Obama staff, are also advocating for the
imperial network that supports our men and women in uniform as they implement our
strategy of dominating the global battle space.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Of course, the Times
story delightfully proves that arms corporations like Raytheon strain credulity
when they say they don’t try to make policy, but only follow it. I haven’t
heard that one since a memorial policy event in 2006 for Cornell professor Arch
Dotson, from one his arms-dealing former students. I reminded him that Bruce
Jackson, the vice president of Lockheed-Martin, which wanted to and did then
sell fighter planes to Poland, served as the co-chair of the Committee to
Expand NATO in the 1990s, alongside Democratic power lawyer Greg Craig. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<u><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<u><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Weakening the State
Department</span></u><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">: Finally, the Times presents aggrieved officials arguing
that both the State Department as a whole and its bureau that monitors countries’
records on democracy and human rights were not as closely consulted on arms
sales as in previous administrations. This is a strange complaint, coming from the
cabinet department that must rule on all arms sales. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In this case, Secretary Rex
Tillerson worked with Senator Corker to hold up new Saudi sales for seven months
</span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/26/world/middleeast/arms-sales-persian-gulf-bob-corker-qatar.html"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">in
an attempt</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> to force the Kingdom to end its pressure on Qatar. Trump
backed Saudi Arabia in the dispute, and Tillerson finally accepted the president’s
repeated, explicit order to move on. Only then did he meet with Corker to ask
him to <a href="https://www.defensenews.com/breaking-news/2018/02/14/corker-lifts-hold-on-arms-sales-to-gulf-nations-over-qatar-row/">lift
the hold</a>. The Times reports that Raytheon devoted itself to overturning the
hold, but it sure took a long time against the powerful State Department bureaucracy.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">State Department officials
“worried that a White House trade advisor with no foreign policy role was expediting
arms sales with profound diplomatic consequences.” Navarro’s response was that
he just “accelerated” the pace of approval. The Times said that this prodding “diminished”
the stature of the State Department, as did White House son-in-law Jared Kushner’s
failure to invite a State Department official to a planning session on potential
sales to discuss during Trump’s trip to Saudi Arabia. But in every administration,
every arms deal has multiple players with differing agendas. Companies don’t just
sit back and hope for the best when a billion-dollar deal enters the approval
pipeline. They look for staff in various departments and agencies who agree
with sales, and then ask them to check in to see what is taking so long at the
State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Some in the State
Department’s monitoring bureau for human rights felt that “the administration
did not seem concerned about human rights issues.” But what is the “concern”
that was demonstrated in previous administrations? As I learned in 1983 when
writing <i>Human Rights: The Carter Record, the Reagan Reaction</i> with Anne-Marie
Smith for the Center for International Policy, at the end of the day of internal
debate and public posturing, arms sales are almost always approved. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The monitoring bureau was
called Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs when it was founded because of post-Watergate
concerns about our links to despots and because of a reform law that barred arming
human rights abusers…except when it didn’t. Despite being led by stellar human
rights advocates, the bureau has never, under either Democratic or Republican
administrations, been a player when it comes to arms and training for big
buyers. From the start, everybody understood the bromide that “human rights is
for little countries that don’t matter, not big countries that do.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">President Carter’s
appointee, civil rights icon Patt Derian, was marginalized along with Roberta
Cohen and her other deputies by imperial hawks like Richard Holbrooke at State’s
East Asia bureau and Zbigniew Brzezinski at the National Security Council. Under
President Clinton the bureau was renamed Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, and
was led by international human rights experts John Shattuck and then Harold Koh.
They and NSC democracy czar Mort Halperin made powerful arguments that were brushed
aside every crunch-time. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">President Obama went a
step further, and actually appointed two leaders of human rights groups, Michael
Posner of the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights and Tom Malinowski of Human Rights
Watch. They played what long-time human rights activist Holly Burkhalter calls “the
common scold” as well as any of their predecessors, but to no avail. Despite their
lovely speeches, Obama, like all previous administrations, set records for arms
sales to dictators. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Malinowski, now in the
House, criticized Trump’s arms sales in the Times story, saying that “people
look to us” to stand for more than “our naked self-interest.” He is clearly not
listening to the people I know in the developing world, who tend to see us an
obvious empire pursuing our obvious military self-interests as we, for example,
kept arming and training the Bahraini police after they shot down pro-democracy
demonstrators in 2011. We read that Trump’s policies were “met with alarm” in
the bureau, but I hope that such policies of previous presidents were as well.
The imperial bargain requires arms sales, and there is almost always a military
necessity, a will that finds a way to frustrate the promotion of democracy and
human rights. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">As an example of reduced
concern for human rights, the Times reported that the bureau was not in on Secretary
of State Mike Pompeo’s emergency decision to provide arms to Saudi Arabia. This
makes sense, though. The U.S. government has had 45 years to bar sales to Saudi
Arabia on human rights grounds, and has always chosen not to. What role would
the bureau play in the decision? There is no longer a Christopher committee,
which deputy secretary Warren Christopher used under Carter to force the various
national security bureaucracies to at least listen to the case for human rights
conditionality. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In addition, it is hard
to compare the bureau’s exclusion to what previous administrations did, since those
emergency authorities had only been used <a href="https://www.everycrsreport.com/files/20190531_IN11127_297d460d051add1042e0334c5d670940a5e2d527.pdf">three
times before.</a> Assuming that Pompeo kept his circle small because he wanted
to control leaks that could have derailed the decision as it was being planned,
this Times story full of unnamed bureau sources shows he made the right call.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A pairing of incidents
during Steven Pomper’s tenure at the NSC reveals the necessary contradictions
of prompting human rights under an empire. To defeat the Lord’s Resistance Army,
liberal Democrats in Congress in 2010 pushed for aid to train and equip the Ugandan
Army that maintains the corrupt and repressive Museveni regime. In 2014 Pomper approved
helicopter lift for the Ugandan troops, but at the same time also <a href="http://2007-2017-blogs.state.gov/stories/2014/03/25/promoting-regional-security-and-protecting-human-rights-uganda.html">moved</a>
a Pentagon regional Air Chiefs meeting out of Uganda because of the passage of an
anti-gay criminal code. This mixed message was received as, well, mixed up: six
years later in Uganda Museveni still rules as a dictator backed by his Army, the
LRA is still abducting children, and it’s still a life sentence for “serial”
gayness. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">While presenting Trump as
egregious in his commercial focus, the Times allows that human rights were also
trumped because other presidents “sometimes show a willingness to achieve
narrow goals by arming rough regimes.” Please! There is nothing narrow about
empire. It's as big as the globe, and it dominates, indeed guarantees, all the
inevitably positive decisions about arms sales to dictators. By missing the
reality of our empire, the Times of necessity misses the core reason for the
Saudi arms sales. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In this the Times is like
the protesters who today are pressing elected governments to take down historical
statues – and the vandals trying just to do it undemocratically. They think of
evil systems as occurring in the mists of time, but we’ve got one going on right
here, right now. I’d rather we were tearing down not statues of the past, but statutes
of the present that permit arms sales to dictators. <u><span style="color: blue;"><o:p></o:p></span></u></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Empires always portray
themselves as humanitarian, and they easily find court historians who agree.
John Bolton’s new book about the Trump White House reveals more about his myopia
than about Trump’s. Bolton explaining how the world benefits from America’s global
military dominance sounds just like a British minister in 1890 (and historian
Niall Ferguson in 2002) explaining why British rule in Africa and India was not
a brutal grab of resources, but rather a mutually beneficial mission of Livingstone’s
three C’s -- commerce, Christianity, and civilization. Empire is evil, make no
mistake. Just ask those who live under it, and under Trump, like under Obama,
like under any president back to FDR, face a U.S.-armed and trained military
force when they push for democracy and human rights. <u><span style="color: blue;"><o:p></o:p></span></u></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">*
* *</span></div>
Caleb S Rossiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03805425862708227105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-661568110459433400.post-13769139467998612112020-06-15T12:41:00.000-04:002020-06-15T12:41:05.950-04:00Collection of Propaganda for EmpireJust another frustrating day in the life of an anti-imperialist....<br />
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<br />Caleb S Rossiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03805425862708227105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-661568110459433400.post-15733002692628799012020-04-23T11:55:00.002-04:002020-04-23T12:00:41.183-04:00Classic anti-imperialist histories, and a new anti-imperialist novel!<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Locked down at home
recently I read two of the great histories of the assault on Africa in the
later 19th century by the European imperial powers. I also had the pleasure of
seeing the publication of my new novel about today's assault on Africa by the
empire that took over for the Europeans as guardian of western interests after
independence in the 1960's. That would be our very own United States, which
dominates today through a continent-wide deployment of CIA and AFRICOM forces.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">The two great histories
are <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Scramble-Africa-White-Conquest-Continent/dp/0380719991"><span style="color: blue;">The Scramble for Africa</span></a> by British historian
Thomas Pakenham (Random House, 1991) and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/King-Leopolds-Ghost-Heroism-Colonial/dp/0618001905"><span style="color: blue;">King Leopold's Ghost</span></a> by American journalist
Adam Hochschild (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1998). Pakenham lays out the
imperialists' cynical use of humanitarianism and exceptionalism as they
convinced their citizens that imperial rule would help Africans benefit from
"Commerce, Christianity, and Civilization" and the suppression of the
"Arab slave trade." Hochschild focuses in on just one of the horrific
results, slavery of another sort -- brutally forced labor for rubber and ivory
-- in the "Free State of the Congo," which killed millions of
Africans and destroyed the functioning states of Central Africa. The results of
the popular mania to "do good" for benighted Africans are still felt
in the Congo's chaos today.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">My new novel, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1658567625/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i1"><span style="color: blue;">Arms Deals</span></a>, brings the humanitarian and
exceptionalist fraud of empire in Africa up to date. It takes place in Niger,
the poorest of all African countries, where the Trump administration trades
advanced weaponry for drone bases and military cooperation -- as indeed, in
real life, in Niger and many other North African countries, it has continued
this policy of the Bush II and Obama administrations.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Proponents of the arms
deal promote it in Washington as a way to protect Africans, particularly women,
from Islamist terrorism, just as they would have sold it in the Cold War as
liberation from Soviet communism or in the Bush I and Clinton "rogue
states" era as a way to track the movement of weapons of mass
destruction....or "stability" or checking Chinese influence or
whatever is the most marketable imperial excuse of the day.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">The subtitle of the
novel, <i>A Mar'Shae McGurk Thriller about "Shopping to Get
Yours," </i>reveals my idea of reaching readers of crime fiction who
may not focus much on foreign policy. They may never have considered that we
are not, in fact, the good guys the imperialist establishment expends so much
effort to convince us we are. This is the second in my series of
anti-imperialist novels hiding inside crime thrillers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">My hero in both novels
is u</span><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">nlikely
FBI agent Mar’Shae McGurk, a high school dropout from “east of the river” in
the District of Columbia who was redeemed in the military police. In the
first thriller, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1628943696/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i4"><span style="color: blue;">The Weathermen on Trial</span></a>, a tweet by President
Trump starts her on a "cold case" mission to track down political
terrorists from the 1970's. They provide their critique of U.S. imperialism
during the trial that takes place. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;"><br />
In <i>Arms Deals</i> McGurk takes on two cases: corruption in a
U.S. arms sale to the impoverished West African country of Niger and the murder
of her young cousin in D.C.’s Simple City neighborhood. Both cases turn on
using violence to get what you want – “shopping to get yours,” in
African-American street dialect. As Mar’Shae, known as “Black” by her family
and friends, pushes hard on both cases they become dangerously
intertwined. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;"><br />
So stay safe, and take advantage of this downtime by reading these tomes!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">All
the best, Caleb </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Caleb S Rossiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03805425862708227105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-661568110459433400.post-50635387254137685412020-02-13T10:24:00.000-05:002020-02-13T10:26:05.974-05:00Endless Wars are the Symptom: Our Endless Empire is the DiseaseTwo recent articles opposing American military domination of developing countries call for the end of our endless wars. Interestingly their authors are associated with different wings of the political spectrum. And both make it clear that the endless wars are the perpetual and logical result of our endless empire.<br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16px; text-indent: 48px;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/14/opinion/sunday/endless-war-america.html" target="_blank">The Only Way to End Endless Wars: First, America Has to Give Up Its Pursuit of Global Dominance</a> </span>is by historian Stephen Wertheim of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. The Quincy Institute is the home of foreign policy "realists," and Wertheim typically writes in liberal media, such as the New Republic, the Washington Post, and the New York Times.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.globalresearch.ca/come-home-america-stop-policing-the-globe-and-put-an-end-to-wars-without-end/5699977" target="_blank">Come Home America: Stop Policing the Globe and Put and End to Wars-Without-End</a> is by lawyer John Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute. The Rutherford Institute is a conservative civil liberties center that represented President Clinton's accuser Paula Jones.<br />
<br />
A <a href="https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/short-history-american-empire-stephen-kinzer-true-flag-review" target="_blank">brilliant review </a>of Stephen Kinzer's history of the birth of our empire in 1898, by Jeff Faux of the Economic Policy Institute, makes the case more eloquently than I can. Here are some key excerpts:<br />
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<span class="s1" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none;">The story we tell ourselves, of course, is that we are the guardians of the peace, besieged by forces of evil that hate us because of our unique national virtues of freedom, tolerance, and democracy. The possibility that we are being attacked <i style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit; outline: none;">here</i>—in San Bernardino, Orlando, or Boston—because we are bombing<i style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit; outline: none;"> there—</i>in Afghanistan, Iraq, or Yemen—lies beyond the current intellectual capacity of our public discourse.</span></div>
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Yet, what word better than “empire” describes America’s role among nations? We have at least 800 acknowledged military installations around the world, the most extensive imperium in history. In 2016, U.S. Special Operations forces—commandos, Navy Seals, Green Berets—were deployed in 138 countries. In many foreign capitals, the most important figure is the U.S. ambassador. We are the globe’s biggest military spenders by far, and sell as many weapons of war as the rest of the world’s arms traffickers combined.....</div>
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Our foreign policy debates—hard power vs. soft power, realism vs. values, military vs. diplomacy, unilateralism vs. multilateralism—do not reflect opposing philosophical ideas on how Americans should relate to the world. They are disputes over the best way to reinforce our self-appointed role of policeman, jury, and judge of the global order. The Democratic cop may have a less belligerent personality than the Republican cop, but both will shoot to kill when their authority is threatened.</div>
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<br />Caleb S Rossiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03805425862708227105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-661568110459433400.post-3218857510538346112019-12-17T11:32:00.000-05:002019-12-17T11:33:48.413-05:00What Do You Say, Dear? (If Your Publisher Turns out to be Racist, Sexist, and Homophobic)<br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">by AEMP director Caleb Stewart Rossiter</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Last week the wonderful publisher of three of my books
insisted in an email that I remove a reference in the final page proofs of my new
novel to an FBI agent’s lesbian romance. Why? Because “</span><span style="border: 1pt none; color: #201f1e; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; padding: 0in;">we</span><span style="color: #201f1e; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> actually have a
policy of not supporting gay and lesbian issues, as we find that antithetical
to nature.”</span><span style="color: #201f1e; font-family: "segoe ui" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> The
demand was followed shortly by this:</span><span style="color: #1f497d; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">“(Y)ou surely are familiar with recent research on IQ
distribution, etc. While we have all known some relatively high-performing
Blacks, your own experience surely shows that the general trend does not
suggest that one could reasonably expect a Black woman (or even a White woman)
to be a hotshot analyst…(W)hy on earth would a serious, educated White man
support the demise of the White man?”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"> Oh, and this was from a publisher whose masthead reads “For
a Kinder, Gentler Society” and whose claimed “message is one of enlightenment, social
progress and intellectual curiosity."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"> After first checking to
see if the publisher’s email account had been hacked by Russians trying to sow
discord in America, my first thought was of one of my favorite books to read
with children when I was a Head Start teacher in the 1970’s, </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">What Do You
Say, Dear? </i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">Just how should you respond to a diatribe you might have heard
in 1958, when that charming book was published?</span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><i> </i>Written
by Sesyle Joslin and illustrated by Maurice Sendak of Max and his wild things
fame, <i>What Do You Say, Dear?</i> was subtitled, “A handbook of etiquette for
young ladies and gentlemen to be used as a guide for everyday social behavior.”
Its humor was in encouraging polite equanimity in distinctly non-everyday
situations, like your airplane crashing through the roof when the duchess
invites you to “drop in” for tea (“I’m sorry” was the correct thing to say). A
man introduces you to a baby elephant he is offering as a pet (How do you do?).
A knight chops off a dragon’s head to save your life (Thank you very much).
Your patient thanks you for saving his life after a dinosaur bit his finger
(You’re welcome). You bump into a crocodile while shopping downtown (Excuse me).
The queen offers spaghetti for dessert after it was already appetizer and main
course (May I please be excused?). Your hostage on a pirate ship greets you
each morning with “How are you?” (Fine, thank you.).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> So,
with Joslin and Sendak as my guide, what should I say, dear, when faced with my
publisher’s antique racism, sexism, and homophobia?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><i> Being
gay is antithetical to nature.</i> What do you mean, dear? While I defend your
right to say this, I see gay people throughout my day living, dying, loving,
hating, succeeding, and failing, like everybody else. What’s unnatural about
that?</span></div>
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<i style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></i></div>
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<span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> <i>You surely are familiar
with recent research on IQ distribution, etc.</i></span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 0.5in;"> Yes I am, dear. I
taught statistics at American University for many years. IQ, like the related
SAT scores, is an experience, culture, and income-dependent measure with little
utility in predicting genetic potential. The concept of a difference in the
average intelligence of America’s ethnic groups is an artifact of fabricated
data on twins supposedly raised in different social classes (Sir Cyril Burt,
1940’s) and a misreading of correlation as causation in the groups’ average
test IQ or SAT score (Arthur Jensen, 1960’s). </span></div>
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<i style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></i></div>
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<span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> <i>Your own experience surely shows that the general trend does
not suggest that one could reasonably expect a Black woman (or even a White
woman), to be a hotshot analyst</i></span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 0.5in;">. I’m sorry, dear, but my experience surely shows the
opposite. I’ve worked for and with men and women of a variety of ethnic groups
in America and Africa who blew away my abilities – and I’m a hotshot analyst
myself.</span></div>
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<i style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></i></div>
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<span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> <i>Why on earth would a serious, educated White man support the
demise of the White man?</i></span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 0.5in;">
Kindly release me from my contract, dear (they did). For the reader’s
enjoyment, </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 0.5in;">I’ve posted the entire set of exchanges with the
publisher on my website, calebrossiter.com, <a href="http://www.calebrossiter.com/articles2.html" target="_blank">here.</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">*
* *<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Caleb S Rossiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03805425862708227105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-661568110459433400.post-72611423469775683352019-11-05T11:43:00.000-05:002019-11-08T10:49:13.788-05:00Isolationist Trump vs. Imperialist Clinton<div style="text-align: center;">
<h4>
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I said isolationist Trump would be less
war-like than imperialist Clinton</span></h4>
<h4>
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><i style="background-color: transparent;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></i></span></h4>
<h4>
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><i style="background-color: transparent;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">His lonely push to get us out of “endless wars”
confirms it</span></i></span></h4>
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">by Caleb
Stewart Rossiter</span><span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">(Director of the American Exceptionalism Media Project)</span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-top: 9.0pt; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Just before the 2016 election I wrote a piece for the website of the American Exceptionalism Media Project called: </span><a href="http://www.aemp.us/2016/10/nil-for-hill-are-anti-imperialists.html" style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; text-indent: 0.5in;" target="_blank">Nil to Hill: Are Anti-Imperialists Right to Risk a Trump Presidency?</a><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; text-indent: 0.5in;">I applauded opponents of slavery who abandoned the moderate Whig
Party, even though that helped the pro-slavery Democrats win the presidency in
1852 and 1856. Similarly, I applauded opponents of the Viet Nam War who called
for voters to “Dump the Hump,” Democratic nominee Hubert Humphrey, even though
that helped elect Richard Nixon in 1968.</span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-top: 9.0pt; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">These “Conscience” Whigs and anti-imperial Democrats wouldn’t back
a lesser evil and so indeed elected a greater one. By holding firm, however, they
built a new or reformed party that soon triumphed on their key issue. I argued
that Democrats in 2016 had to play this type of long game against the evil of American
empire by refusing to vote for Hillary Clinton, despite the risk of helping
elect Donald Trump. But even in the short-term, I predicted, an isolationist Trump
would wage war far less often than imperial Clinton.</span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 9.0pt;">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Here was the core of my argument:</span><i><span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 9.0pt;">
<i><span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">By refusing to back Clinton, anti-imperialists
will be responsible for electing Trump. On foreign policy, there is
probably little added danger of doing so, even in the short term. Trump
is an unknown, an unguided missile with little understanding, interest, or
theme in international affairs. Clinton, though, is a proven imperialist
with a dangerous, LBJ-style political bent for showing that her party can be as
tough as Republicans. She is a guarantee that the Long War will continue,
leaving us trapped in a cycle of military support for repressive regimes that
makes us the target for the terrorism of their radical Islamist opponents,
leading to even more war and additional reaction from the Caliphate and then
the United States. </span></i><i><span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 9.0pt;">
<i><span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Sometimes the big issue requires temporary
losses on the smaller ones, and the biggest issue of all is not what America
can do for its own people, but what it is doing to people in other countries as
the enforcer of a network of repression and war (pace, JFK’s
speechwriters). America’s major parties need to adjust at some point to
the reality that a sizeable share of the electorate simply won’t support
empire. 2016 may prove to be that time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></i></div>
<h3 style="background: white; margin-top: 9.0pt; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></span></h3>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">The past three years seem to confirm both predictions, and that’s good
news for people in the formerly colonized countries, and in America.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Prediction 1: Trump would be less likely than Clinton to start and
continue imperial wars.</span><span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Lyndon
Johnson ran as the responsible peace candidate in 1964 against the supposedly
rash Barry Goldwater, but then rashly invaded Viet Nam the next year with half
a million troops. In contrast, Donald Trump as president has pretty much done
exactly what he promised as a candidate: avoid new foreign wars (Venezuela,
Iran, North Korea) and try to remove American combat forces from some of the
endless old ones he inherited from President Obama (Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria,
Libya). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">To do so the president has had to fight the Pentagon, the State Department,
most of the Republican establishment, and at times most of the Democratic party
and its allied media. In all seven cases Hillary Clinton could well have
pushed or been pushed into the military option.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz sure seems to think so: “Had any other
of the major candidates won, on the Republican or Democrat (sic) side, I
believe that we’d be in two – or three – new wars: Venezuela, North Korea, and
Iran. And it is the leadership of the president that has prevailed.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">And so does Democratic Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, who has called
Hillary Clinton “the queen of the warmongers…(backed by) powerful allies in the
corporate media and war machine.” This was in response to Clinton’s claim that
Russia is “grooming” Gabbard, an anti-interventionist candidate for the
Democratic presidential nomination, for a third-party candidacy. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In 2002 Clinton voted to give President Bush permission to invade Iraq.
This was the “smart” vote for Democrats who wanted to be seen as tough enough
to the centrist voters they would need to become president. Her Senate
colleagues and future presidential candidates John Kerry and Joe Biden joined
her. But Clinton arguably lost the 2008 presidential nomination because of her
vote. She was displaced as the choice of many liberals by Barack Obama, an
openly imperial centrist Democrat himself, who said at an anti-war rally before
the Senate vote as an Illinois state legislator: “I’m not opposed to all wars.
I’m opposed to dumb wars.” For Obama, the intelligent wars were apparently Afghanistan,
Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, and the spin-off war from Libya in Mali.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">As the recent slur on Gabbard shows, former UN Ambassador Samantha
Powers got at least one thing right in her service to Obama. In an interview that
got her fired from Obama’s 2008 campaign, Powers called Hillary Clinton a “monster”
who is capable of “stooping to anything” and any “amount of deceit” to hold power.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Trump’s leadership against what he calls “endless wars” has been a solo
act, just like his decision to reject the wisdom of both the federal
bureaucracy and his political advisers on the Paris “climate” agreement. That
decision protects Americans and Africans alike from the dramatically increased
energy prices and power blackouts that would have resulted from this
non-solution to a non-problem, the narrative of a fossil-fueled climate crisis.
Similarly, Trump alone has driven long-needed trade corrections against unequal
restrictions by the European Union and China.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Trump “turned around” an air strike on Iran that his military and
foreign policy advisers had promoted as a response to Iran shooting down a U.S.
drone. This averted a possible “Gulf of Tonkin” moment in a fog of claims and
counter-claims, which was predicted to kill 150 people and could have started a
full-scale war. For this, many usually anti-war Democrats lambasted him in
concert with their allied media and much of the Republican establishment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Then, by getting out of Syria’s complex civil wars, Trump drove the liberal
media fully around the bend. Many outlets incited soldiers and officers to comment
on their disappointment in their commander-in-chief for abandoning our “allies”
in the PKK, the Kurdish independence movement. The PKK is labeled a terrorist
group by both the United States and the European Union. According to the
International Crisis Group, it has killed nearly 500 civilians and over 1,200
security personnel in Turkey since 2015. It is Turkey, the target of this terrorism,
that in its role as a member of NATO is our sworn and reliable ally.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The Left and the anti-Trump media has been fawning in recent years over
the “intelligence community’s” wisdom and unimpeachable credibility on Russia’s
Facebook campaign to add more polarizing drivel to our plentiful domestic
polarizing drivel. Similarly, the IC has been fȇted for its bloviating
attribution of every bit of extreme weather to undefined (but implicitly
fossil-fueled) “climate change.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">How soon they forget the IC’s brief that Secretary of State Colin Powell
delivered at the United Nations in 2003 as the <i>casus belli</i> for invading
Iraq! Literally every one of the dozens of the IC’s claims about “weapons of
mass destruction” and Iraq’s support for terrorism was known at the time, and
was admitted by the government after the fact, to be false. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">But at least the IC is tasked to provide its opinions on national
security issues. In contrast, the armed forces exist to apply violence and its
threat to promote American interests, as defined by the President, period. They
are warriors, not policy-makers. It is fundamental to our democracy that they
implement the policies that are decided by civilians, rather than insert themselves
into political decisions. Hence, their views on whether to fight for the PKK or
help Saudi Arabia bomb Yemen, let alone whether terrorist attacks on America
are more or less likely if we stay in the Middle East to choose winners and
losers, are not appropriate in the public forum. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">By injecting the armed forces into the Syria debate, the liberal media
are fomenting contempt for and even disloyalty to civilian control. That’s just
as wrong now as it was when the late Senator Jesse Helms did it in 1994, musing
that President Bill Clinton had “better watch out…he’d better have a bodyguard”
if he visited military bases in North Carolina.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I recall a Christmas party a few years back at which the mother of U.S.
soldiers in Iraq told me she wanted a war with Iran, because it was endangering
her children with its aid to Iraqi factions. I told her that soldiers are sent
overseas to protect America, not to have America make policies to protect them.
I haven’t been invited back to that party. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Prediction 2: Anti-interventionism will gain among Democrats</span><span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">. Benjamin Franklin proposed for our national
symbol the industrious, home-loving and defending wild turkey, as opposed to the
wide-ranging, rapacious bald eagle. In 2010 I published a history of the
tension between America’s non-interventionist and imperial impulses, <i>The
Turkey and the Eagle</i>.</span> <a href="https://www.algora.com/328/book/details.html">https://www.algora.com/328/book/details.html</a><span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The core of the Democratic party appears finally to be rejecting its “Hard
Eagle” policy of using our own military power and its “Soft Eagle” policy of allying
with repressive regimes to maintain control in the developing world. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">LBJ and his southern Democratic “Dixies” kept us in Viet Nam, where over
two million people were killed because they thought they needed to show their
toughness to win re-election. But most northern Democrats also backed the war
until Nixon took office in 1969. The latest book to remind us that there was no
other reason other than domestic politics for Kennedy and Johnson to fight the
nationalists in Viet Nam is <i>Our Man</i>, a biography of Richard Holbrooke by
Iraq war hawk George Packer. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Holbrooke was part of the first foreign service class to work on the war
effort in the field. These State Department officials quickly judged the war
unwinnable because of the fundamental appeal of the nationalists and the
fundamental alienation of the people from our corrupt, French-created South
Vietnamese ally. Yet they tempered their criticism of the war to retain their
“effectiveness” and their careers. The tragic coda of Holbrooke’s career came
when he begged Obama to let him handle the war in Afghanistan in 2009. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Shades of Viet Nam, Holbrooke again was in on a politically-driven presidential
“surge” on behalf of a hopelessly corrupt and alienating ally. The die for this
tragedy was cast the day in November 2001 that U.S.-backed forces drove the
Taliban from the capital. The choice then, as 18 years later, is to declare
victor and leave, or fight forever. In 2019 Trump almost pulled off a Viet
Nam-style withdrawal deal over the head of the Afghan government. His instinct
now seems to be to withdraw without a deal. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The successor to the Dixies was the Democratic Leadership Council of Al Gore,
Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama, which wanted Democrats to get political credit
for helping President Reagan “win” in Central America’s civil wars in the
1980’s. The depth of that disaster is still felt today, in the flood of
refugees from those devastated countries trying to get into the United States.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Since 2016 much of the party and, as a result, all of its top-tier
presidential candidates have moved away from Hillary Clinton’s imperial
approach. Anti-imperialists should be able vote for whichever candidate wins
the nomination. It is Clinton, not Gabbard, who is out of touch with the party’s
base.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">This is a remarkable development. Americans are besieged
daily with propaganda for our efforts to maintain military dominance, and so
political and economic dominance, around the globe. Televised sporting events
constantly honor current and former members of the military service. Troops and
veterans get discounts and special treatment at movies, in airport lines, and even
at the civil rights museum at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. That’s where the
great anti-imperialist Martin Luther King, who identified America’s three great
interrelated evils as “racism, economic exploitation, and militarism,” was
assassinated.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Canton, Pennsylvania, drapes images
of servicemen, past and present, over its lampposts as part of a “Hometown
Heroes” project. The Chincoteague, Virginia, waterfront park features
clamshells painted red white and blue, reading, “To all veterans, thanks!” My
DC gym has a table set up right now where we are invited to send thank you
notes to members of our armed forces for “protecting our freedom.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">What are you thanking the troops for if you think that occupying Middle
Eastern countries has nothing to do with our freedom and everything to do with
our domination? If you conclude that it spurs as much vengeance on us today from
ISIS as maintaining the House of Saud and Egypt’s dictator Mubarak did when
al-Qaeda was formed 25 years ago to fight the “far enemy” that kept these “American
friends” in power? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">So it’s a relief to hear Trump provide a contrary opinion
to the latest rationale for the American empire, the humanitarian “Responsibility
to Protect” (R2P), which was added to international duties by the UN at the behest
of liberal interventionists. It was first used in the disastrous Libyan civil
war that continues eight years on. R2P mimics the disarming humanitarian excuse
that the British relied on for so long, as their empire took over the Middle
East and East Africa in the 19</span><sup style="color: #666666; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">th</sup><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> century just so they could “fight
the Arab slave trade.” U.S. military expeditions in the Middle East and Africa were
already being shrouded in humanitarian guise in Pentagon PR, to which R2P provided
a welcome affirmation. </span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">R2P is the latest in a line of rationales for American empire that
started with Manifest Destiny, a quasi-religious concept that took us across
the country and then out to Hawaii and the Philippines and down through Central
America in the late 19<sup>th</sup> century. Then, of course, came the Cold War
competition with the Soviet Union, under whose cover we displaced the European
empires and extended our dominance to formerly colonized Africa, Asia, and the Middle
East. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">With the end of the Cold War Colin Powell, then the chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, joked to a Senate Committee that “I need enemies” to justify
the Pentagon budget. The H.W. Bush-Bill Clinton doctrine of combat with “rogue
states” gave him those. This doctrine was replaced after 9/11 by the W. Bush-Obama
“war on terrorism” and military enforcement of nuclear arms control that
provides the basis for the Pentagon’s “long war” for control of the Muslim world.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A sign of the Democratic party’s movement toward non-intervention was
the recent publication by the <i>New York Times</i> of an op-ed by Stephen
Wertheim, <i>The Only War to End “Endless Wars” -- First, America has to give
up its pursuit of global dominance. </i>Wertheim is a historian at the Quincy Institute
for Responsible Statecraft, named after President John Quincy Adams, who as the
Secretary of State in 1821 delivered a seminal foreign policy address celebrating
that America “does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Adams argued that </span><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">America’s
success in replacing monarchy’s arbitrary power with democratic self-rule and
individual rights would serve as “a light of admonition to the rulers of men; a
light of salvation and redemption to the oppressed.” In adapting Puritan John Winthrop’s
1630 citation of the Sermon on the Mount, Adams stressed that the light was not
a war-torch: America would abstain “from interference in the concerns of
others, even when the conflict has been for principles to which she clings.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Why? Adams said that: “She well knows that by once enlisting under other
banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she
would involve herself, beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of
interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume
the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her
policy would insensibly change from liberty to force. The frontlet upon her
brows would no longer beam with the ineffable splendor of freedom and
independence; but in its stead would soon be substituted an imperial diadem,
flashing in false and tarnished lustre the murky radiance of dominion and
power. She might become the dictatress of the world: she would be no longer the
ruler of her own spirit.” </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">Adams ended his speech not with the threat of intervention, but by
invoking the example of the Declaration of Independence, saying to other countries:
“Go thou and do likewise!”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Adams was clearly concerned that a permanent military state supporting
global dominance would abridge America’s personal freedoms and intellectual
vigor. His argument resembles Franklin’s in his plea for the Turkey rather than
the Eagle. Similarly, Washington’s farewell address warns against “permanent
alliances with any portion of the foreign world” because they produce ”a
variety of evils” such as “overgrown military establishments which….are inauspicious
to liberty…impostures of pretended patriotism…(and) mischiefs of foreign intrigue…(that)
is one of the most baneful foes of republican government.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Better, for America and other countries, Washington said, just to “give
to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example” of a nation based on justice,
and assume a “respectable defensive posture.” Eisenhower struck the same chords
in his own farewell address, warning about the impact on American liberty of the
Cold War military-industrial and government science complex that was the result
of a permanent war footing. It would be ironic if Donald Trump, whose nativist
and nationalistic sentiments horrify American anti-imperialists, were to be the
president who helped bring their vision to fruition. He certainly has started to
free the Democratic party, if not yet his own, from the trap of empire.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">* * *</span></div>
Caleb S Rossiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03805425862708227105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-661568110459433400.post-57115783972766407312019-10-04T09:29:00.000-04:002019-10-04T09:30:58.883-04:00Who Broke Trump's "Totally Broken Countries?"<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">President Trump sparked an uproar about race and nationalism
in July when he tweeted about unnamed Members of Congress: “Why don’t they go
back and fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they
came.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then come back and show us how it
is done.” Missing from the debate over this nativism – so alien to our creed
yet disturbingly familiar in our history – was a discussion of the U.S. role in
breaking these countries. After a couple months of cooling off, perhaps now we
can have that discussion. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">As the first African-born Member of Congress and a
prominent critic of U.S. policy in the Middle East and Latin America, Representative
Ilhan Omar of Minnesota is clearly someone Trump had in mind.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Omar was born in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, and
her family fled to Kenya in 1991. They then emigrated to America under the U.S.
refugee resettlement program. So why would Omar’s family be fleeing Somalia in
1991, and why would they have been in the program?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In a hearing in February of this year Rep. Omar was questioning the
State Department’s Elliott Abrams, who manages policy on Venezuela. Omar attacked
his credibility because he had been convicted in 1991 of lying to Congress about
his and Oliver North’s solicitation of aid from foreign governments to the
Nicaraguan “contra” rebels. She noted that in 1982 Abrams, despite his role as the
Reagan administration’s top human rights official, had publicly denied the My
Lai-style El Mozote massacre of 900 Salvadoran civilians by U.S.-backed forces. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Then she asked him: “Would you support an armed faction within Venezuela which
engages in war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide if you believed they
were serving U.S. interests as you did in Guatemala, El Salvador, and
Nicaragua?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Abrams angrily refused to answer the question, but as
Omar then said, “whether under your watch a genocide will take place and you
will look the other way because American interests were being upheld is a fair
question.” She knows in her bones that it’s a fair question, because it wasn’t
only El Salvador that was devastated by U.S. policy in the 1980’s and remains a
dysfunctional source of chaos and refugees today. Her native Somalia was too. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">U.S. intervention in Somalia did not start with
President Bush’s humanitarian decision in 1992 to save Somali civilians by
enforcing a cease-fire and distributing relief supplies. It actually started in
1980, when under strategic and electoral pressure President Carter made the
fateful decision to send military and economic aid to a number of East African
and Persian Gulf dictators in return for military bases for the U.S. Rapid
Deployment Force. Renamed the Central Command, it later led the two invasions
of Iraq and the nearly 20-year war in Afghanistan.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Somali president Siad Barre was a Marxist general who came
to power in a 1969 coup. He used Carter’s and then President Reagan’s massive aid
packages to carry out a brutal ten-year civil war that ended with his overthrow
by tribal clans in 1991. Omar’s family fled because it had held government positions
under Barre, and so was on the losing, U.S.-backed side of a war in which 100,000
Somalis were killed. The resulting chaos and lack of central authority in
Somalia has now prevailed for another 28 years. About a million Somalis still live
in refugee camps in Kenya and elsewhere in the region, and two million are
displaced within Somalia. U.S. forces are still fighting there in 2019, with
drone strikes, bombing, and Special Forces raids.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Carter’s motivation came from Iran seizing American hostages
and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Reagan’s came from Somalia delivering
on its promise to provide military bases and support covert operations. Their decisions
took place in the context of a U.S. policy of choosing and sustaining
cooperative regimes in the former colonial countries. That policy dates back to
Franklin Roosevelt and the House of Saud after the discovery of oil in the
1930’s. Then came the Cold War, during which we took on a neo-colonial role as
the guarantor of Western interests after Britain, France, the Netherlands, and
Portugal were forced out of their colonial one. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Arms for friendly dictators remains our policy today, now under the guise of a war to safeguard us from terrorism, something the policy ironically
stimulates itself, by making the United States a logical target. It’s high time
we ended that policy, and allied ourselves with the aspirations of the people
of the Middle East and North Africa. Let’s not break any more countries.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">*
* *<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Caleb S Rossiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03805425862708227105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-661568110459433400.post-75331224226319025212019-09-23T11:29:00.000-04:002019-09-23T11:30:35.151-04:00Update: Greg Craig Acquitted in Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) TrialReaders may recall that on May 30, 2019, AEMP published Caleb Rossiter's piece titled "When Foreign Policy Meets the Law: Greg Craig and the Ukraine." <a href="http://www.aemp.us/2019/05/when-foreign-policy-meets-law-greg.html">http://www.aemp.us/2019/05/when-foreign-policy-meets-law-greg.html</a><br />
<br />
In the piece, Rossiter called Craig's prosecution for lying to Justice Department investigators misguided.<br />
<br />
The Department had argued that Craig was acting as an agent of the government of Ukraine when he provided the media with a report he had prepared for the government on the fairness of the trial of a former president. The Department argued that this act should have triggered his registration under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).<br />
<br />
Craig argued that his contract with the Ukrainian government was for an independent report, and that he contacted the media because the government was misrepresenting its findings. Craig's findings included numerous judgments that the trial had violated Western judicial standards.<br />
<br />
Rossiter's piece reviewed the trial, the contract, and the report, and concluded that Craig was hired precisely because his foreign policy reputation as a key backer of expanding NATO and an advocate of the rule of law in the former Soviet bloc would make his independent report more credible than one controlled by the government of Ukraine.<br />
<br />
Rossiter had been a colleague of Craig's on the congressional staff, working to end wars in Central America. He disagreed with Craig on the decision to expand NATO, but believed that Craig's work on the Ukraine contract was consistent with his long-held position that promoting the rule of law in Eastern Europe was in the interests of the United States.<br />
<br />
On September 4, 2019, after a three-week trial, Craig was acquitted. Here is an article describing the trial and its outcome.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.law.com/nationallawjournal/2019/09/04/greg-craig-found-not-guilty-of-deceiving-doj-about-ukraine-work/?slreturn=20190823103621">https://www.law.com/nationallawjournal/2019/09/04/greg-craig-found-not-guilty-of-deceiving-doj-about-ukraine-work/?slreturn=20190823103621</a>Caleb S Rossiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03805425862708227105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-661568110459433400.post-91551806824863457682019-07-21T13:41:00.000-04:002019-07-22T10:22:32.844-04:00The Weathermen's World View Lives On<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">DA
Candidate Chesa Boudin and his Four Parents’ Terrorist Legacy<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">(July 20, 2019, in the American Spectator)</span><br />
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">by Caleb Stewart Rossiter</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We shouldn’t visit the sins
of parents on their children. In the Hebrew Bible God does it, to the “third
and fourth generation,” but our Constitution rightly forbids “corruption of
blood.” When children want to impose their parents’ dangerous views on us, though,
the connection becomes relevant.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">On November 5 assistant
public defender Chesa Boudin hopes to be voted in as San Francisco’s district attorney.
Currently a public defender, Boudin has certainly been impressively schooled:
Yale undergraduate, Rhodes scholar at Oxford, and Yale Law School. But he seems
to have been bizarrely educated on the American legal system. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">That’s because Boudin affirms
his parents’ and adoptive parents’ self-serving narrative about their
participation in two 1970’s terrorist movements, the Weathermen and the Black
Liberation Army. That narrative justifies political violence and violence
against wealthy people. It seeks to minimize accountability for the impact of
crime on victims. And it is driven by white guilt that excuses crimes committed
by people of color – even against other people of color.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I became familiar with
this narrative while doing research for a novel, published this year, <a href="https://www.algora.com/568/book/details.html" target="_blank">The Weathermen on Trial</a>. Chesa Boudin's background is a dubious foundation
for an office that protects public safety. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 0.5in;">READ ON AT: </span><br />
<br />
<a href="https://spectator.org/da-candidate-chesa-boudin-and-his-four-parents-terrorist-legacy/" style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;">https://spectator.org/da-candidate-chesa-boudin-and-his-four-parents-terrorist-legacy/</a><br />
<br /></div>
Caleb S Rossiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03805425862708227105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-661568110459433400.post-70353294732584999002019-05-30T08:19:00.000-04:002019-09-23T10:49:29.222-04:00When Foreign Policy Meets the Law: Greg Craig and the Ukraine<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">by Caleb S. Rossiter</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Director, American Exceptionalism Media Project</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><b>(UPDATE: On September 4, 2019, after a three-week trial, Greg Craig was acquitted. Here is a link to an article about the trial <a href="https://www.law.com/nationallawjournal/2019/09/04/greg-craig-found-not-guilty-of-deceiving-doj-about-ukraine-work/?slreturn=20190823103621" target="_blank">and its outcome.</a>)</b></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Greg Craig, a prominent Washington lawyer, was recently
indicted for misleading and lying to Justice Department regulators of the
Foreign Agents Registration Act. The indictment argues that Craig should have
registered under this Act for his actions in carrying out a 2012 contract,
brokered by lobbyist Paul Manafort, to conduct a study for the government of
Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovych.</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">The study was on the
fairness, under European and American legal norms, of the 2011 trial of the
person Yanukovych narrowly defeated in 2010, former prime minister Yulia
Tymoshenko. She had been convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison for exceeding
her authority and deceiving other officials while negotiating gas prices with
Russia after it cut off Ukraine’s supply in the winter of 2009.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">The
report found a number of violations of due process. When the Ukrainian
government claimed that the report vindicated the trial, Craig countered the
claim by giving the report to and discussing it with two journalists. According
to the indictment, that made him a lobbyist subject to registration as a
foreign agent.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">The key to understanding
this case, and why it could well be dismissed or fail at trial in August, is
that Craig was recommended by Manafort and hired by Ukraine precisely because
everybody who follows foreign policy in Washington would doubt that Craig, the
former chairman of the International Human Rights Law Group, would act as an
apologist for the Yanukovych government. As a result, his report, by contract a
completely independent inquiry with guaranteed private interviews with the
judge, prosecutors, and investigators, would be taken seriously.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">The Ukrainian government
must have thought that Tymoshenko’s constant disruption and delay of her trial
would convince Craig that its conduct was restrained and fair. Her actions were
similar to those of the Chicago 8 defendants in 1969, tried for conspiring to
disrupt the Democratic convention of 1968, who also refused to recognize the
court’s authority in what they considered a politically-motivated case. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">Tymoshenko
wasn’t bound and gagged, like Black Panther leader Bobby Seale was when he too kept
demanding a different lawyer, but the judge ordered her detained for the
remainder of the trial and sentencing to control her disruptions and guarantee
her attendance and cooperation.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">Craig delivered a
completely independent report, as per his contract. Unfortunately for Yanukovych’s
government the report found significant faults in the judge’s decisions on Tymoshenko’s
detention, right to counsel, and ability to call and question witnesses.
Craig’s judgment that an appeal in an American court would result in reversal,
as it did with the Chicago 8, was obvious:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">“Tymoshenko’s continued
detention during this period, without adequate explanation or justification, calls
into question whether Tymoshenko was inappropriately deprived of liberty prior
to the conviction…(A)ppellate review…would have been provided under American
law and is not provided for under Ukrainian law.” For the Court not to adjourn so
Tymoshenko could choose a new lawyer with time to prepare “likely constituted a
denial of due process rights.” Questioning of witnesses without her lawyers
present “would almost certainly be viewed as a violation of the right” to
counsel. “Under Western standard of fairness” the court’s decision not to call the
witnesses she requested “compromised Tymoshenko’s ability to present a defense”
and “likely constituted a denial of due process rights."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">Craig insisted from the
start that he would analyze only the conduct of the trial, and not “opine” on
questions of guilt or innocence or the political motivations for the trial. The
allegations of “exceeding authority” by negotiating the gas deal without
cabinet approval and deceptively using a directive with a cabinet seal to convince
the necessary Ukrainian official to sign it were certainly presented in detail
by the prosecution and contested by the defense. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">Such trials of political
figures for exceeding authority in office were not uncommon at the time, both
in the Ukraine and in Western legal systems. Yanukovych himself, who was removed
from office by parliament and fled the country in 2014, was recently convicted </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">in absentia</i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"> of treason. In 2014 the
parliament also voted to free Tymoshenko by decriminalizing the “exceeding
authority” statute. She returned to parliament as leader of her party and ran
unsuccessfully for president in 2014 and 2019.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">*
* *<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">The shocked reaction of
most people in Washington foreign policy, legal, and media circles when Craig’s
work for the Ukraine became public was probably: “What was this Democratic
stalwart and human rights activist thinking, getting involved with people like
that?” But those of us who know Greg Craig and his work of decades -- and I
have been his friend since we were part of what he called “we happy few, we
band of brothers and sisters” on the congressional staff working to end U.S.
funding for civil wars in Central America -- knew exactly what he was thinking. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">It’s what he always thinks when his legal work intersects with foreign policy:
I’ll get involved with “people like that” if it can help promote U.S. interests
by expanding the global rule of law.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">Americans have seen Greg
as President Clinton’s lawyer, addressing the Senate during the impeachment
trial, and as President Obama’s counsel, trying unsuccessfully to close
Guantanamo prison and successfully to have Sonya Sotomayor confirmed to the
Supreme Court. What they probably don’t know is that in private practice Greg
often took on controversial foreign policy issues. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">In 1996 he was the
co-founder of the U.S. Committee to Expand NATO, an organization dominated by
neo-conservatives like Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle. And in 2000 he
represented the father of Elián González, the Cuban child whose mother died
bringing him to the United States and whose return was a propaganda coup for
the Castro government.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">I’m no fan of the Cuban
dictatorship, and as the director of Demilitarization for Democracy, which
opposed destabilizing arms exports, I argued that NATO expansion was a
senseless provocation to Russia that would only benefit American arms-dealers.
Exhibit A was Lockheed Martin, whose vice-president was the other co-founder of
the Committee to Expand NATO. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">But it never crossed my mind that Greg’s
motivation in these cases was anything other than protecting and expanding the
rule of law, which he sees as fundamental to U.S. global interests. When the
Ukraine contract came his way, I’m sure he saw it as an opportunity to continue
work he had done, both during the NATO debate and then as the director of the
State Department’s office of policy planning in 1997 and 1998, to integrate
Ukraine into Europe and its legal values.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">I recall a brunch at
Greg’s house a few years ago where we talked about the conditions under which
he’d represent a foreign dictator. I mentioned Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi, whose
government was being sued by American families of the victims of the 1986
bombing of a Berlin nightclub, an apparent retaliation for the sinking of
Libyan naval vessels that attacked U.S. forces when they crossed Qaddafi’s
“line of death” in international waters in the Gulf of Sidra. “Oh, I'd take that case in a
heartbeat,” he said.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 0.5in;">Greg answered my shocked
expression by explaining that a settlement would be good for the families and
good for U.S. interests. Ironically, a few years later I found myself agreeing with him when </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16px; text-indent: 0.5in;">as counselor to Congressman Bill Delahunt</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16px; text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">I became involved in the final settlement talks
in 2008, meeting with Qaddafi’s son Saif, whose foundation was the face-saving
way for Libya to compensate its victims and their families. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">Greg’s motivation
for saying he’d take on that difficult case was to promote America’s interests.
I believe it was the same for his work on the Ukraine. He wasn’t Ukraine's foreign
agent. He was an advocate for America's professed values. I look forward to his vindication.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">*
* *</span></div>
Caleb S Rossiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03805425862708227105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-661568110459433400.post-68835842215798767482019-04-11T10:42:00.000-04:002019-04-11T11:57:23.905-04:00Lessons from the anti-imperialist "Weathermen" and their turn to terrorism<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "what times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">What I Learned Writing a Novel About
the “Weathermen”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "what times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "what times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It Was More a Cult Than a Political
Movement<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "what times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "what times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Caleb Stewart Rossiter, April 2019<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "what times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "what times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Much to my surprise, I recently found out that writing fiction
may get you closer to the truth than writing non-fiction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The truth I was seeking by writing my first
novel, published in January by Algora as <a href="https://www.algora.com/568/book/details.html" target="_blank">The Weathermen on Trial: A Bombshell Story About Bringing the War Home</a>, was the
same truth I had sought in writing a non-fiction book that was published in
1996 by TCA, <a href="http://www.calebrossiter.com/book.html" target="_blank">The Chimes of Freedom Flashing: A Personal History of the Vietnam Anti-War Movement and 1960's</a>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "what times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "what times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Why on earth did a group of maybe fifty wealthy, white, and
well-schooled members of the Students for a Democratic Society split off from
the rest of the millions-strong anti-Viet Nam war movement in 1969, declare war
on the United States, and start bombing people they considered their enemies?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "what times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "what times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I also wanted to know how the Weathermen’s moral decision to
use violence for what they believed was a greater good -- stopping the U.S.
empire from carrying out its own bombings -- compared to the similar decision
by Americans who supported our system of global military intervention and
backing for friendly dictators.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After
all, these people also supported using violence for a greater good: victory over
communism in the Cold War struggle for control of the former colonized countries
of Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "what times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "what times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">These Americans, to the Weathermen, were state-sanctioned
killers and their defenders, protected by law and culture: cops and judges,
soldiers and officers, and most importantly, the elites of empire, what prosecutors
call the “intellectual authors” of a crime.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They included pro-war academics and politicians, corporate capitalists,
and even the “Good Germans,” citizens who either voted for pro-imperial politicians
or were complicit in the empire by working for it, or even by not doing enough
to resist it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "what times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "what times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">This really meant that just about everybody in America could
be the Weathermen’s enemy -- even the Weathermen’s own parents and especially
people like me who agreed with their analysis of imperialism, voted and marched
against the war, and resisted the draft, but opposed using violence as a means
of changing things. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "what times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "what times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">* * *<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "what times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "what times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In my 1996 history I had academically categorized anti-war
protestors on a continuum of activity from Voters to Marchers to Sitters to Trashers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Voters backed candidates who were committed
to ending the war.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Marchers helped spread
their opinions by participating in increasingly large legal demonstrations. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sitters is shorthand for people willing to
“sit-in” illegally at rallies and draft boards, so it also refers to anybody
who broke<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>laws or otherwise non-violently
disrupted the normalized business of war.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "what times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "what times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The Sitters were creative.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They resisted the draft, blocked induction centers and troop trains,
refused to load equipment for the war on commercial ships, and entered draft
boards to seize files and pour blood on them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>My favorite effort was undertaken by my friend Joe Volk, a politically-aware
private who went to military prison for refusing to go to Viet Nam and later
became head of the Quaker lobbying office in Washington.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Joe and some pals rowed boats out in front of
an aircraft carrier trying to leave a Virginia base for duty in Asia. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The common element in all these illegal
actions of the Sitters is that they were non-violent, a sort of political
theater to attract attention and discussion. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "what times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "what times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In contrast, the Weathermen were the leaders of the
Trashers, in the parlance of the day, because they believed in “trashing”
windows in cars and storefronts on the fringes of legal demonstrations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Having crossed the threshold to violence,
they then saw both intended and unintended casualties of their bombings as the acceptable
collateral damage of fighting the greater violence of war and empire.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For them, as for all warriors and
intellectual authors of both revolutions and interventionist governments, the
happy ends justified the brutal means.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "what times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "what times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">* * *<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "what times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "what times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Writing fiction showed me how shallow my scholarly approach had
been.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only as a novelist did I discover
the depth and the inexorable logic of the Weathermen’s racial and ideological
beliefs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As my characters took over
their own dialogue and action they developed plots I had not anticipated and
revealed motivations I had missed. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
was a strange experience to sit at the computer keyboard and watch my fingers
type out emotions, words, and actions that I had not considered.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "what times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "what times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">This was especially true for the characters who were real
Weathermen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I first watched their interviews
and read their voluminous communiqu</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">é</span><span style="font-family: "what times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">s from the years they were underground
and evading the FBI. Then I studied their later-year interviews and
memoirs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the case of the few who
continued politically-motivated violence after the Weathermen ended their
terror in 1975, such as the 1981 robbery of a Brinks armored car in which two police
officers and a guard were murdered, I also read their revealing statements in
court and before parole boards.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was
swimming in the Weathermen’s own words, and I think that primed my brain to let
them take over the writing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "what times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "what times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The Weathermen on Trial</span></i><span style="font-family: "what times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> revolves around a real “Cold Case” of
a sergeant killed and an officer blinded during a bombing of the Golden Gate
Park police station in San Francisco in 1970.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The Weathermen have never admitted to or been charged with that bombing,
although they have admitted to a similar one in Berkeley the same month.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the Berkeley station, officers only
avoided injury and death because their scheduled shift change was delayed by
chance until after the bombs in their cars in the police lot had exploded.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As with all their few dozen bombings, the
Weathermen were not prosecuted when they came up from their years living
Underground.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The FBI had broken the law
in their surveillance while chasing the Weathermen, a crime for which the “Deep
Throat” of the Watergate story, associate director Mark Felt, was convicted.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "what times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "what times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In the novel the Park Station investigation is restarted by
a Trump tweet, and we eventually get to courtroom scenes in which the dominant
Weatherman, Bernardine Dohrn, explains their beliefs, then and now, about
empire and how to fight it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Those
beliefs, by the way, have been virtually unchanged by the intervening 50
years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And in my opinion, that’s
understandable: the names of the wars and dictatorial allies have changed, but
America’s global role as successor to the colonial powers after World War II
remains the same.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "what times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "what times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It turns out that what really distinguished the Weathermen
from the rest of the movement was not, as I had thought as an academic, that
they saw the use of violence to stop the war as a tactical and not a moral
issue.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was that they had adopted an
ideology of communist revolution and rule.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>When Dohrn made her unexpected statement in 1968, “I consider myself a
revolutionary communist,” the rest of the anti-war movement dismissed it as an
oddity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact, it was the start of the
construction of a complex ideology that every Weathermen eventually had to
adopt or be expelled. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "what times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "what times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The ideology stated that youthful black and white
revolutionaries, fighting separately as urban guerrilla bands, could overthrow
the United States as quickly as Castro had overthrown Batista in Cuba.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They would then ally to rule the country as
dictators on behalf of the People, putting in place a communist system of
economics and politics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Based on a
tortured reading of Karl Marx’s tomes on economic and politics, the Weathermen convinced
themselves that rapid revolution, spurred especially by a black revolt that
white youth would rally to, was inevitable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>To maintain their credibility with the often-hostile Black Panthers in
this struggle, the Weathermen directed many of their bombings at police
officers and judges who were involved in Panther arrests and trials. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "what times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "what times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The Weathermen’s interviews in the 1976 documentary <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Underground</i> show them clinging to their dream
of Cuban-style revolution even as it turns into an objective nightmare of
irrelevance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The withdrawal from Viet
Nam (and hence the end of the draft) that was forced on President Nixon by the
anti-war movement and North Vietnam’s military perseverance ended street
protests.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The nation quickly turned away
from debating foreign policy. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Still, in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Underground</i>, the handful of remaining
Weathermen kept on claiming, in pathetic, subdued rote, that a general uprising
was just a few “armed propaganda” bombings away.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "what times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "what times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">* * *<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "what times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "what times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">How did Bernardine Dohrn transform the Students for a
Democratic Society from tens of thousands of non-violent partisans of American
democracy to, by the end, a band of less than ten communists willing to kill
for the receding revolution?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As I wrote in
the voices of the characters in this descent, the answer became clearer and
clearer: they had become a cult.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dohrn created
an obedient cohort using classic techniques, such as mantra-like repetition of
ideology, ostracism, intense group sessions of criticism and especially self-criticism,
isolation, rapid shifts of ideology to enforce loyalty to the leader’s whims, group
sex with all genders, the end of monogamous relationships, and threats of
killing dissenters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "what times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "what times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In this the Weathermen mirrored other murderous cults of the
same era: Charles Manson and his Family, Jim Jones and the Jonestown
congregation, Donald DeFreeze (a.k.a Field Marshall Cinque Mtume) and the
Symbionese Liberation<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Army, and the cop-hunting
Black Liberation Army of Joanne Chesimard (a.k.a Assata Shakur), now in exile
in Cuba after a conviction for police murder and a 1979 jail-break, and Jarel
Williams (a.k.a Mutulu Shakur), who was convicted for the jail-break and is still
in prison for murder during the Brinks robbery.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "what times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "what times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Why the Weathermen went off the rails is more complicated
than what one said in a 2001 interview: “If you think you have the moral high
ground, you can do some really<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>dreadful
things.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No, it takes more than a belief
in your cause to start bombing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It takes
a cult-like atmosphere to sustain and prod you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And only people psychologically susceptible to cult-like behavior, for
their own particular and peculiar reasons and genetics, are going to go the
distance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are self-selected, and
they are few and far between when the behavior is rejected by the mainstream
culture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s why so few made the
transition from SDS marches to terror, because so few dissidents are willing to
be, as the Weathermen styled themselves, Outlaws of Amerika.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "what times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "what times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">However, cult-like behavior has a lower barrier when it is
constantly promoted and respected by the majority culture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It even has a more respectable name:
“group-think.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just as it was more comfortable for the
average citizen or author or policy-maker to support the Viet Nam war than to
oppose it, social pressure made it easier for a police officer or a soldier
than an anti-war activist to “pick up the gun” and be ready to use it for the
greater good.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s why there were so
many FBI agents chasing so few Weathermen. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "what times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "what times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">There will always be people in America’s social movements
who are drawn to violent protest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s
in our blood as an historically violent nation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Consider the Boston Tea Party against the British rulers and the Whiskey
Rebellion against the new American rulers, the slave revolts in the South and the
mob actions against enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act in the North, the labor
revolts of the late 19<sup>th</sup> and early 20<sup>th</sup> centuries and the
urban revolts of the 1960’s, and opponents of apartheid and benighted believers
in fossil-fueled climate catastrophe storming university board meetings to
demand divestment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "what times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "what times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Sometimes violence spurs political change, although always
with the risk of weakening the process and dialogue we need for the next
challenge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But with the Weathermen, as the
Rolling Stones sang in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">No Expectation</i>,
violence was “like the water that splashes on a stone…it’s here, and then it’s
gone.” Nobody on the Left turned them in, the old Weathermen love to brag, seeing
in that some sort of validation, but nobody on the Left turned to them for the
way forward, either. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "what times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">* * *<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Caleb S Rossiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03805425862708227105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-661568110459433400.post-18482308664022592002019-01-21T10:59:00.003-05:002019-01-21T10:59:59.669-05:00No, Our War in Somalia Didn’t Start in 1992<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The
Historical Context of Our Many Wars: Global Dominance is a Full-time Job</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Unlike most news stories on America’s military
interventions, Michael Phillips’ recent description of the U.S. role in Somalia’s
foreign-fueled civil war (Wall Street Journal, January 18, 2019: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Other Endless War: Battling Somali Militants</i>)
provides crucial historical context. Unfortunately, even this effort stops short.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">U.S. intervention in Somalia, in fact, did not start with
President Bush’s humanitarian decision in 1992 to save Somali civilians by
enforcing a cease-fire and distributing relief supplies. It actually started in
1980, when under strategic and electoral pressure President Jimmy Carter made a
fateful decision to give military and economic aid to a number of East African and
Persian Gulf dictators in return for military bases and cooperation for the
U.S. “Rapid Deployment Force.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In Somalia Siad Barre, a Marxist general who had come
to power in a coup, used Carter’s and then President Ronald Reagan’s bases aid to
prosecute a brutal civil war that ended with his overthrow by uncoordinated tribal
clans in 1991. The resulting chaos and lack of central authority has prevailed now
for nearly 30 years. The civil war under Barre resulted in the death of some
100,000 Somalis. The civil war since his overthrow has been even more deadly.
About a million Somalis live in refugee camps in Kenya and elsewhere in the
region, and two million are displaced within Somalia.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Carter’s short-term motivation was the need to react to
Iran’s seizing of American hostages and the Soviet Union’s invasion of
Afghanistan. His decision, though, took place in the context of an American policy
of selecting and sustaining cooperative regimes in the former colonial
countries. The policy dates back to Franklin Roosevelt and the House of Saud after
the discovery of oil in the 1930’s, and then to the Cold War competition for
allies. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Today it remains our policy, under the guise of a war to safeguard the
United States from terrorism – something which it ironically stimulates itself,
by making the United States a logical target. It’s high time we ended that
policy and allied ourselves with the aspirations of the people of the Middle
East, rather than continue to seek the military cooperation of their medieval rulers.
That is the key lesson from our troubled history in Somalia. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Caleb S Rossiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03805425862708227105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-661568110459433400.post-57282691797427727412018-10-11T10:34:00.003-04:002018-12-07T10:09:36.662-05:00Let's Talk About Not Talking<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<a href="https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/05/27/00/40D7045200000578-0-image-a-19_1495840916695.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Image result for image bret weinstein protest" border="0" height="240" src="https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/05/27/00/40D7045200000578-0-image-a-19_1495840916695.jpg" width="400" /></a><br />
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(A professor is harassed right out of his job because he came to work on a day when white people were told to stay off the campus.)</div>
</div>
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<img alt="Image result for the debate is over on climate change" height="400" src="https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/d5/de/41/d5de41afc27e0749a25e32b742f4f20d.jpg" width="400" /><br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
(Entire fields of inquiry are declared off limits.)</div>
</div>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The Left’s trend toward
limiting debate is a surprising and counter-productive development.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s especially damaging for those of us opposed
to America’s wars and the general imperialism from which they continue to
flow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">This is sadly
ironic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was liberals who in the
1950’s invented the general notion of challenging the “conventional wisdom.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The marches and demonstrations of the civil
rights movement were essentially symbolic debates about whites’
legally-sanctioned beliefs of black inferiority.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Viet Nam anti-war movement’s “teach-ins” were
designed to air and analyze competing views, not silence them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The expectation was that in a debate, experts
like former foreign aid official Bob Browne and Cornell Asianist George McT. Kahin
would show how weak the government’s case was.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Administration officials or their supporters were always invited.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If none came, a chair would be placed on the
stage with a sign on it reading “Reserved for the State Department.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In the 1960’s anti-imperialists
were the dissidents to the conventional wisdom that America’s global role is
benign, even heroic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We play the same
role today in reminding Americans that like the colonial empires, we use or
threaten dominant military force to impose order on our terms, and for our
benefit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Open debate is the only way
that our ideas can reach the broader audience that is bombarded daily with
propaganda about our noble soldiers sacrificing their lives for our freedom and
“to free the oppressed” (the motto of the Green Berets). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The very act of refusing to listen to or even
allow the expression of views we oppose weakens our credibility and
appeal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s also just plain rude,
stupid, and embarrassing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
See Caleb Rossiter's entire article <a href="http://www.calebrossiter.com/Talk%20about%20talking.html" target="_blank">here.</a> A short piece from December 2018 analyzing a yard sign full of slogans is <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/governing-isnt-simple-enough-to-fit-on-a-sign" target="_blank">here.</a>Caleb S Rossiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03805425862708227105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-661568110459433400.post-34918928820499129512018-09-21T10:16:00.000-04:002018-10-04T11:00:23.051-04:00Roiling our own Ethnic Debate, Trump and Carlson Miss the Mark on South Africa<br />
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" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<h3>
<span style="font-weight: normal;">
Who are these happy gentlemen? Well, the guy is the middle is one of the highest-ranking U.S. national security officials, National Security Advisor John Bolton. He is flanked by two officers of AfriForum, a South African "white rights" group that is allied with a fringe party that descends from the old apartheid regime.</span></h3>
<div>
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></div>
<h3>
<span style="font-weight: normal;">To Bolton's credit, he had no idea who these people were -- they asked him for a group photo when they happened to meet at a think-tank during their U.S. propaganda tour in the spring of 2018.</span></h3>
<div>
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></div>
<h3>
<span style="font-weight: normal;">But Tucker Carlson of Fox News knew darn well who they were. He invited one of them on to his program to spread their false claims about "white oppression" in South Africa -- which fit nicely with Carlson's narrative of white oppression here in America.</span></h3>
<div>
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQ5ANcA4LqO8a9UHVvzO8lO28aLIpJ_mh71zffx0G_GUqnKBdDg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Image result for image trump tweet on south africa" border="0" src="https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQ5ANcA4LqO8a9UHVvzO8lO28aLIpJ_mh71zffx0G_GUqnKBdDg" /></a></div>
<h3>
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></h3>
<h3>
<span style="font-weight: normal;">Carlson's program led to President Trump's first tweet on Africa. Virtually every word was false. Please read Caleb Rossiter's full analysis:</span> <a href="http://www.calebrossiter.com/Trump%20RSA.html" style="font-weight: normal;" target="_blank">Trump and Carlson miss the Mark on South Africa</a></h3>
<div>
<br /></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />Caleb S Rossiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03805425862708227105noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-661568110459433400.post-26169208057913917782018-08-23T10:57:00.000-04:002018-08-23T11:20:19.982-04:00One Cheer for the Google Rebellion Against Drone Assassination<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Yes,
enabling violence IS violence, but morality depends on purpose: in this case,
Empire</span></i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In April 2018 thousands of employees of the
tech giant Google placed their careers in jeopardy by signing a <a href="https://static01.nyt.com/files/2018/technology/googleletter.pdf" target="_blank">public protest letter</a> to their CEO.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Citing the company
motto, “Don’t Be Evil,” the letter argued that “Google should not be in the
business of war.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It demanded that
Google cancel a contract with the Pentagon to develop “Artificial Intelligence”
(AI) computer programs that teach themselves to identify targets from drone
footage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The employees further asked
that Google ban all future work on “warfare technology.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In June Google caved in,
announcing that while it would fulfill its Pentagon AI contract, it would not
seek to renew it. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It released a
<a href="https://blog.google/technology/ai/ai-principles/" target="_blank">statement of AI principles</a>, including seven “objectives” that are so broad and written
so incomprehensibly in modern corporate mealy-mouth that they provide the
dissidents no assurances.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is a
pledge in it that is a little easier to interpret, although it still contains
enough loopholes to justify the original contract: Google will not “design or
deploy AI” for weapons or other technologies that “cause injury,” and will not
provide AI to aid “surveillance violating internationally accepted norms.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The statement also made
it clear that Google would “continue to work with governments and the military
in many other areas.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It will <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/04/technology/google-letter-ceo-pentagon-project.html" target="_blank">compete</a> for multi-billion dollar Pentagon contracts in “Cloud” service for data storage,
which is at the core of effective military operations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">And lest we forget in
the flood of propaganda with which we are inundated -- about freedom, courage, sacrifice,
global stability, protecting other nations, free trade, and humanitarian relief
-- the primary goal of our trillion dollar military budget, as Defense Secretary
James Mattis has properly said, is to make our armed forces “more lethal.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One of my graduate assistants in a university
statistics course, a Green Beret, put it this way when asked during a presentation
on probability for artillery targeting why his charts showed overlapping circles:
“because we want to kill them all.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No
matter the specifics of their work, this is what contractors for the Pentagon support.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Let’s take a look at
the issues raised by this entire incident, and see why the letter deserves one
cheer now, and opens the way for another two cheers farther on down the road.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">*
* *<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The letter by the Google
dissidents calls out the disingenuous practice, so prevalent in American public
life and particularly in the maintenance of our empire, of making a moral
distinction between engaging in violent acts and participating in the
infrastructure that enables them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It recounts
how Google tried to placate initial complaints by calling its work “non-offensive”
and saying that it would not be used to “launch weapons.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The employees’ response?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That any product for the military “could
easily be used to assist in (its violent) tasks.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The AI improvements, they noted, would
“assist in surveillance – and potentially lethal outcomes…”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We see Google’s dodge,
the claim that providing the infrastructure for violence in not itself
violence, everywhere in our culture:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In
June 2018 reality TV star Kim Kardashian West talked reality TV president Donald
Trump into pardoning Alice Johnson, who for three years managed operations in
the Memphis area for the Cali drug cartel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Johnson had served 22 years of a life sentence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Media reports uniformly adopted the language
of Johnson’s supporters: she was a “first-time” offender convicted of the
“non-violent” crimes of laundering money and moving product.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The American Civil Liberties Union hailed the
decision because it could pave the way to ending the “senseless punishments” of
tens of thousands of prisoners serving time for “non-violent” drug offenses.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Also
in 2018 Harriet Clark, the daughter of the get-away driver on a Black
Liberation Army robbery team that murdered two police officers and a Brink’s guard
in 1981, argued that her mother should be paroled because she “did not kill
anyone.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In
2013 over a hundred governments signed an Arms Trade Treaty that committed them
not to export particular weapons to a regime if they have “knowledge at the
time” that those weapons “would be used” to attack civilians or commit other
war crimes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But they could export <u>other</u>
weapons to the regime that would enable it to stay in power and continue engaging
in these illegal acts.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">When
trying to win congressional approval of assistance to the rebel “contras” trying
to overthrow the Sandinista government of Nicaragua in the 1980’s, the Reagan
administration gained the necessary votes by agreeing to make the assistance
“non-lethal aid” such as boots, uniforms, and radios, or even “humanitarian
aid” such as food and medicine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Similarly,
the Reagan administration argued that cash and food assistance to the
Government of El Salvador was not war-related and so should not be subject to
human rights conditions that Congress had placed on military assistance. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>El Salvador was using the aid to cover its
entire non-military budget, freeing up its own funds to pay the salaries of its
rapidly-expanding armed forces.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It also
integrated the aid directly into its counter-insurgency campaigns in contested
villages.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In
1965 President Lyndon Johnson was perplexed and angered when the Government of
North Viet Nam rejected his offer to create a Mekong Valley Authority to provide
electricity and raise living standards, as the Tennessee Valley Authority had
in America during the Depression.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Johnson made the offer as the U.S. invasion of Viet Nam raged, and the
enemy was already routinely attacking economic aid projects that were part of
the U.S. counter-insurgency strategy. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In
2003 American University professors who opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq nonetheless
took a contract during the Pentagon’s armed occupation to help manage Iraq’s
schools.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In their perspective, refusing
to assist the occupation would mean that the Iraqi people would be “denied the
assistance they desperately require.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">*
* *<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">What these examples
have in common is that violence is presented as a separate action rather than
as the product of a system of actions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>U.S. law properly makes no distinction between the actions of the
members of a group carrying out a criminal act: they’re all implicated in the
crime.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Indeed, prosecutors often treat
the “intellectual authors” of a crime as being more culpable than the
worker-bees.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For example, they will
typically reduce a hit-man’s sentence in exchange for testimony implicating the
person who ordered the hit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nobody
questioned that approach when it was used to convict Charles Manson for the
murder of Sharon Tate and her friends.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In his <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Inferno</i>, Dante properly
punished crimes that required thought and deviousness in a lower, hence hotter
circle of hell than crimes of passion and pure violence.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Think
about the Cali Cartel, and how it murdered competitors and how its customers devastated
the Memphis area with robberies to finance their habits during the three years that
Alice Johnson ran marketing operations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>There was nothing non-violent about the gang she was helping, or indeed
about any drug-dealing operation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Similarly,
Judy Clark took part in the planning and carrying out of an armed robbery, and so
under felony murder laws of course was held responsible for the three
murders.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This was not her first
involvement with the BLA in armed robbery, and when she was arrested she had a
gun under her seat and an ammunition clip in her pocketbook.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In contrast to her daughter’s argument, after
many years Clark herself <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4114185-Judith-Clark-Transcripts-2017hearing.html" target="_blank">accepted responsibility</a> for the loss of life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ironically for someone who was part of the
Weatherman bombing campaign in the 1970’s, she has become a trainer for the “Puppies
Behind Bars” that teaches police dogs to detect explosives!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The
Arms Trade Treaty exempts from its ban weapons that keep dictators in power,
from aircraft and tanks down to machine guns and pistols, as long as their use against
civilians is simply threatened. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
pathetic prohibition only on specific items of weaponry that an exporter
somehow <u>knows in advance</u> will be fired at civilians was all that
survived of a robust initiative in the 1990’s, the Nobel Peace Laureates’ Arms
Trade Code of Conduct.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That Code called
for a ban on <u>all</u> arms exports to governments that had not been chosen by
their people in fair and free elections, and so survived on a system of
violence and threat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">And
as for the use of “non-lethal” means to back up a violent system of control, be
it in Nicaragua, El Savador, Vietnam, or Iraq, this is a distinction without a
difference.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The support system for
aggression is part of the aggression, as Nazi civilian bureaucrats, media
figures, and lawyers learned when they were condemned to hang after the
Nuremberg trials.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Mentioning Nuremberg
brings us to the motivation for the Google letter: the natural human, moral
need not to be complicit in something bad.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This is a laudable need, although it is inherently symbolic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Somebody will buy the product you boycott; a dissident
person or company will be replaced by another; divested stock -- be it in
corporations operating in apartheid South Africa (a campaign I vigorously
supported) or producing life-giving fossil fuels (a campaign I vigorously
oppose) -- will be bought by somebody else.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And Science is like Stormy Daniels, beautiful but amoral.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everything discovered about calculus, quantum
physics, nuclear energy, probability, AI, or computer processing ends up being
used in peace and war. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">But symbolic campaigns,
from Thoreau going to jail to protest the invasion of Mexico to draft resisters
during the Viet Nam war, have been spurs to policy changes by bringing issues
to a broader audience and putting pressure on leaders.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Without courageous people speaking out
against the errors they see around them, we’d never see change.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let’s hope that the Google employees are the first
swell in a coming wave of opposition to collaboration with imperialism. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">*
* *<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">By reminding us that
non-violent acts can support violent ones, the Google dissidents have done a public
service.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So one cheer for them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the other two cheers?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One more will come when they move past the
violence being done by the United States with drone attacks, and come to a judgment
about its purpose: winning what the Pentagon calls “the long war” for control
of the Middle East and North Africa.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The primary flaw in the
Google letter is that it too misunderstands the nature of violence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Violence is not necessarily bad.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sometimes it’s needed to achieve something
good.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sometimes John Lennon and
Beatles-killer Yoko Ono’s apolitical song “Give Peace a Chance” just doesn’t
get it done.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It took the U.S. Army,
bayonets drawn, to integrate Southern schools and colleges.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nelson Mandela had to turn to terrorism, as
leader of the ANC’s Spear of the Nation, to fight the totalitarian apartheid
government.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even the two most famous
American pacifists of the 20<sup>th</sup> century, Albert Einstein and Martin
Luther King Jr., supported the military effort to defeat Nazi Germany and
Imperial Japan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If we were facing those
enemies, most of the Google signers would surely want to make their AI work as
effective as possible in finding and bombing targets.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">After all, the nuclear
scientists who flocked to Los Alamos to build nuclear weapons to deter German
use didn’t give the morality of their work much thought until Germany
fell.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then the suicidal Japanese resistance
on the outer island of Okinawa, where U.S. casualties were about one in five,
made it obvious that the new weapons would be used to force Japanese surrender before
a similarly costly invasion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The horrific
bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were in any event a continuation of the
conventional bombing campaign that had killed far more Japanese civilians.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They may well have saved Japanese lives, let
alone American, when compared to an invasion. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">So the next step for
the Google dissidents, and for all of us opposed to the drone killings that
started in earnest under President Obama and have continued apace under
President Trump, is to make our opposition to the long war clear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If we want to be protected from terrorism, which
is the Pentagon’s justification for the long war, the best way is to leave the
Middle East alone, and let it pick its own governments and sort out its own
issues.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To do that, we have to renounce
our right to the oil of the region, which is what has been behind our
interference since the discovery of extractable oil there in the 1930’s.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The final cheer for the
Googlers will be when they see that the long war itself is just the latest in
the over-arching policy of empire that has been at the core of the American
experience:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">seizing
land from East Coast Indian nations in the 17<sup>th</sup> century, and buying 400,000
slaves seized from Africa to improve the land,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">shaking
off the British constraints that held settlers behind the Appalachian Mountains
in the late 18<sup>th</sup> century<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>(also known as the American Revolution), <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">seizing
land and power from Mexico and Indian nations across the continent in the
middle of the 19<sup>th</sup> century, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">moving
across the Pacific in the late 19<sup>th</sup> century to take Hawaii and the
Philippines, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">ruling
Central and South America in the first half of the 20<sup>th</sup> century
through “our bastards,” as President Franklin Roosevelt called the regimes we
placed and maintained in power,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">and
finally, replacing the exhausted colonial overlords after World War II as the guarantor
of Western military and economic domination by propping up a new set of
cooperative regimes across Africa, the Middle East, and Asia – a role that
continues today.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">*
* *<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Caleb S Rossiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03805425862708227105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-661568110459433400.post-15647877566120568192018-02-19T15:59:00.000-05:002018-08-07T08:46:57.952-04:00How Does It Feel? Election Interference Comes Home to Roost<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Russia has polluted our elections, trying to suppress or
increase the vote for particular candidates by planting false and inflammatory
information in our media. Another
government stole our sacred right to choose our own leaders. As Bob Dylan sang in <i>Like a Rolling Stone</i>, “how does it feel?” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">If it feels rotten, if you feel degraded, violated, and
outraged, then remember what Malcolm X said about the “chickens coming home to
roost” with the assassination of John Kennedy, whom he argued had accepted “a
climate of hate” at home and “twiddled his thumbs” during the American assassination
of our faltering ally, South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem, just three
weeks earlier. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">The chickens have similarly come home to roost with today’s
Russian interference. The disturbing
truth for Americans is that our government has made a career out of influencing
and indeed stealing elections using the Russians’ media tricks and more, like funding
candidates, stuffing ballot boxes, and then arming the phony electoral victors.
The crime of interfering in other
countries’ right to choose their own leaders has been at the core of U.S.
foreign policy for the past 100 years, and continues today. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">To extend Martin Luther King’s 1967 remarks
about the violence of urban riots versus the violence of the U.S. invasion of Viet
Nam, “the greatest purveyor of (election interference) in the world today is my
own government.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Throughout Latin America, U.S. money, fake news, and coups
kept the people Franklin Roosevelt called “our bastards” in power throughout
the 20<sup>th</sup> century. There is
probably not a single country in Latin America where the United States did not
covertly pollute an election. For
example, when a looming right-wing electoral victory threatened U.S. Congressional
support for the brutal but pro-U.S. military in the civil war in El Salvador in
1984, the United States stole the election for moderate figurehead Napoleon
Duarte. The brutal war, in which Duarte
had little control over the slaughter by the Army, continued another five years
and another 50,000 dead before Congress, disgusted with yet another massacre of
church leaders, cut off the Army. This
led rapidly to a peaceful resolution of the ten-year conflict. Guatemala 1954, Chile 1970, Nicaragua1990…CIA-planted
fake news and CIA-spurred demonstrations destabilized elected democracies. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">In Africa, the CIA spread fake news to legitimate outlets
when opponents of our favorite dictator Joseph Mobutu invaded Shaba province in
1978. Mobutu was a brutal, corrupt
dictator, but he gave the CIA free hand in staging military interventions in
other African countries. But who wouldn’t
support President Carter flying in U.S.-armed Moroccan paratroopers when the
rebels were forcing white women to dance naked on tables in Kolwezi bars before
raping and shooting them? Oh, sorry, that was fake news, planted in
respected European media and picked up in American media.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Even the war in Viet Nam, in which the U.S. insistence on
choosing the government of Viet Nam resulted in three million deaths over 30
years, came from our intervention in an election – in France! </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Few Americans know that we shipped French
troops back to Viet Nam in 1945 to seize the country back from the Vietnamese
liberation army after Japan withdrew, and even fewer know that we did it not
because of any concern about Viet Nam, but because of an election in
France. Our ally Charles De Gaulle feared losing the December
election to the Communist Party, which was pro-colonialism. He convinced Harry Truman that without the
resumption of colonial rule in Viet Nam, the Communists would win in France. Since the United States was fixing elections in
Italy to keep Communists out of power it was no great stretch to start a war in
Viet Nam to keep Communists out of power in France.</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">All this begs the question, how should we respond to this
attack on our country? How about making
a pledge not to back non-democratic “friends” who help us with our military,
covert, and economic projects, and thereby letting other countries have the
right we feel so keenly cheated of right now, the right to choose their own government. That would mean the end of military and
covert assistance to Saudi Arabia, Uganda, Afghanistan, Iraq, and scores of
other governments. In short, it means
the end of what the Pentagon calls the Long War for control of the Muslim
world, from West Africa to East Asia. How
does that feel?</span></div>
Caleb S Rossiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03805425862708227105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-661568110459433400.post-11752969919143877362016-10-08T07:58:00.001-04:002019-10-28T09:10:20.895-04:00Nil to Hill: Are Anti-Imperialists Right to Risk a Trump Presidency?<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<h3>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">by
Caleb S. Rossiter*</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-weight: normal;">There are certain, rare moments in the history of
American presidential elections when the paradigms of the traditional parties just
don’t adapt to a shift in public opinion on a key value fast enough. For example, in the 1850's and in 1968 the “lesser of
two evils” argument became unacceptable to a significant number of voters. </span></div>
</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">In the 1850's many voters abandoned
the vaguely anti-slavery Whigs, landing eventually in the new, fiercely anti-slavery Republican
party. This split the opposition to the pro-slavery Democrats, who won the presidency in 1852 and 1856. In 1968, anti-war activists decided to “Dump
the Hump” because Democrat Hubert Humphrey would not endorse withdrawal from
Viet Nam. The short-term result in both
cases was victory for the decidedly greater of two evils. The long-term result, though, was a new or
reformed party based on a principle that eventually brought progress to our
country, and even the world. </span></div>
</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">The election of 2016 appears
to be shaping up as such a moment for Americans who reject the neo-imperial
role we have played since taking on the mantle of the collapsing European powers
in the aftermath of World War II. That
is because more and more voters are seeing that what the Pentagon calls the
Long War -- America’s permanent war for control of the Muslim world -- has spiraled
out of control since it became the core of our foreign policy after the end of
the Cold War in 1991. </span></div>
</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Under the first George
Bush and Bill Clinton the Long War led us to continue our Cold War program of backing
dozens of what Franklin Roosevelt once called “our bastards” -- nasty Middle
Eastern and North African regimes who cooperate with our expeditionary military
forces, spies, and businesses. Then,
when Al-Qaeda brought the war home to us on 9/11, the second George Bush invaded
and occupied Afghanistan and Iraq.
Fifteen years later, or three times the length of our victory in World
War II, Barack Obama is still bombing six countries, sometimes in a single day:
Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen. </span></div>
</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Not only has the
permanent war devastated the people of the Middle East and North Africa, but it
has also damaged, rather than strengthened, our security and personal freedom
and that of our European allies. Until
we accept that we must stop enforcing our choice of regimes on other countries,
our daily fare will continue to be terrorism at home, flows of refugees, global
instability and slower economic growth abroad, and the waste of our tax dollars
and the lives and skills of our young adults on unwinnable military missions. </span></div>
</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">The only solution to
the permanent war is to renounce American exceptionalism and stop backing repressive
regimes from Bahrain to Uganda, from Morocco to Saudi Arabia, in return for
their support for our military and covert operations and corporate interests. However, this policy of declaring victory and
bringing our troops and spies home and letting our businesses fend for
themselves on the world stage is one that Hillary Clinton, solidly fixed within
our imperial paradigm, cannot abide. As
a result, many anti-imperialists feel they must say “Nil to Hill,” even though
that risks putting Donald Trump in the White House. </span></div>
</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"><div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">*
* *</span></div>
</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"><div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Precedents:
1856 and 1968</span></div>
</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">The election of 1856
offers a dramatic example of a shift in opinion that overthrew an existing
major party. The refusal by Whig leaders
to reject slavery drove many in their party to leave in 1854 and form a new
party, the Republicans. The pro-slavery Democrats
won the presidency in 1856 because the old Whig vote was split between the American
Party, which ran former Whig president Millard Fillmore, and the Republicans,
who ran anti-slavery explorer John Fremont.
By 1860, though, the Republicans were able to vote in a liberator,
Abraham Lincoln. As a result, American
lurched in the needed direction of offering black Americans at least a chance
at achieving their human rights. </span></div>
</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">In 1968 anti-war
activists in the Democratic Party refused to support Vice President Hubert
Humphrey, because he endorsed President Lyndon Johnson’s policy of fighting on
in Viet Nam until the nationalists negotiated a settlement that would leave
part of the country under a Western-backed government. Johnson tried to sweeten the pot for Humphrey
by pausing the bombing of North Viet Nam, but that step was, of course, tied to
the failed policy of forcing the nationalists to negotiate something they could
not accept – a divided country.</span></div>
</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Anti-imperialist
activists outside the Democratic Party, such as the Mobilization Against the
War and the Students for a Democratic Society, had even more reason to “Dump
the Hump.” They opposed not just the
invasion and slaughter in Viet Nam, but also the neo-imperial role the United
States had played since President Truman made the fateful decision in 1945 --
perhaps one President Roosevelt might have opposed, had he lived -- to take up
the mantle of the epic crime of colonialism from the weakened Europeans. Truman sent the recently-freed French back to
re-enslave Indochina, the Dutch back to re-enslave Indonesia, and the British
back to re-enslave Burma and Malaya. </span></div>
</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">When these blatant bids
for re-colonization failed, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson funded throughout
Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America a neo-imperial network of
“friendly” dictators allied with the United States and helpful to its military
and commercial projects. They even
backed the last imperial power, Portugal, in its brutal war to retain its three
African colonies, in order to maintain access to Portugal’s NATO air
bases. The claimed reason for maintaining
the American network was to forestall advances by the Soviet Union, but when
that country dissolved in 1991, the network lived on, as it does today.</span></div>
</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Attorney General Robert
Kennedy said when asked by a colleague about a crisis in the U.S.-backed South
Vietnamese Army in 1961: “Viet Nam? We’ve
got 20 Viet Nams a day to handle.” Anti-Humphrey protestors chanted “the whole
world’s watching” on live television during the Democratic convention in 1968
as Chicago’s police attacked them, and what many of them wanted the whole world
to see was that the problem was not just one of Bobby’s many wars, but the neo-imperialist
paradigm that required them. To them, to
recall a famous distinction from that era, Viet Nam was not the “mistake” that
Cold War liberals called it, but rather an unavoidable consequence of the
neo-imperial paradigm. </span></div>
</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">The logic of the anti-Humphrey
effort was obvious: no self-respecting anti-war movement can vote for the
warrior. It may well have led to Nixon’s
election -- although that result was less clear than in 1856, since the 1968 election
was complicated by segregationist Democrat and self-appointed spokesman for the
little man George Wallace, who won the Confederacy’s electoral votes and 12
percent of the popular vote, and harmed both major candidates in different ways
in different states. </span></div>
</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">The pay-off to “Dump
the Hump” came four years later, when the Democratic Party became an anti-war
party and nominated George McGovern.
While McGovern lost, his affirmation of the Viet Nam Syndrome created a
norm that helped constrain direct military intervention by Ford, Carter, and
Reagan. Hundreds of thousands of civilians
died in Zaire, Somalia, Angola, Afghanistan, El Salvador, and Guatemala and a
dozen other U.S.-backed conflicts from 1975 to 1988, but the toll would have been
in the millions had our political calculus permitted the direct combat role we played
in Viet Nam.</span></div>
</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">There were hints of a
rejection of the imperial paradigm in 2000, when some progressive voters refused
to back Al Gore, despite agreeing that he was clearly the lesser of two evils. These voters objected to his foreign policy
record as a Democratic Leadership Council “Dixie” who had sabotaged efforts to
block the MX missile and end civil wars in Central America, and were part of
the six percent of voters who backed Green Party anti-interventionist Ralph
Nader, and may well have elected George W. Bush. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">The left-leaning Nation magazine recognized
Nader’s foreign policy appeal, but asked its readers not to respond to it if
they lived in swing states. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">The Nation’s
advice was practical, since many hundreds of thousands of Iraqis would still be
alive if it had been followed. Al Gore would
certainly have attacked Afghanistan but probably not prosecuted the illogical
war in Iraq.</span></div>
</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"><div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">*
* *</span></div>
</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"><div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Rodham
Clinton, the Unacceptable Imperialist</span></div>
</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Now in 2016 the
electorate faces a choice between Hillary Rodham Clinton and Donald Trump. There are two credible minor party
candidates, the Libertarians’ Gary Johnson, a fiscally conservative and
socially liberal former Republican governor of New Mexico, and the Greens’ Jill
Stein, a retired doctor with an admirable record of fighting toxic emissions (and
a dubious one of hysteria over a non-toxic one, carbon dioxide). </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Running mate William Weld, also a thoughtful former
Republican governor, will raise Johnson’s total vote. Stein’s running mate, Ajamu Baraka, is a lively
and trenchant critic of racial and class power , but he will probably reduce
her total vote with his bizarre conspiracy theories. No matter: neither minor party can win, or
even become power brokers for their policies, because they will not be able to
take electoral votes in any state and throw the election into the House of
Representatives.</span></div>
</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">By refusing to back
Clinton, anti-imperialists will be responsible for electing Trump. On foreign policy, there is probably little added
danger of doing so, even in the short term.
Trump is an unknown, an unguided missile with little understanding,
interest, or theme in international affairs.
Clinton, though, is a proven imperialist with a dangerous, LBJ-style
political bent for showing that her party can be as tough as Republicans. She is a guarantee that the Long War will
continue, leaving us trapped in a cycle of military support for repressive
regimes that makes us the target for the terrorism of their radical Islamist
opponents, leading to even more war and additional reaction from the Caliphate. </span></div>
</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">On a few important
domestic policies, such as judicial choices and affirmative action, the potential
domestic consequences of a Trump presidency to many Americans, particularly
poor people and people of color, horrify most anti-imperialists. That, though, may be the price of progress, as
it was in 1856 and 1968. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Sometimes the
big issue requires temporary losses on the smaller ones, and the biggest issue
of all is not what America can do for its own people, but what it is doing to
people in other countries as the enforcer of a network of repression and war (</span><i style="font-family: "times new roman", serif;">Pace</i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">, JFK’s speechwriters). America’s major parties need to adjust at
some point to the reality that a sizeable share of the electorate simply won’t support
empire. 2016 may prove to be that time.</span></div>
</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"><div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;">*</span>
* *</div>
</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">* Former congressional staffer Caleb S. Rossiter is
the director of the American Exceptionalism Media Project and the author of “The
Chimes of Freedom Flashing: A Personal History of the Viet Nam Anti-War
Movement and the 1960’s” (1996) and “The Turkey and the Eagle: The Struggle for
America’s Global Role” (2011).</span></div>
</span></span></h3>
</div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Caleb S Rossiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03805425862708227105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-661568110459433400.post-36942891103106343832015-06-18T14:01:00.000-04:002016-10-08T08:22:02.351-04:00Want to "Fight Terrorism?"<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: .25in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Want to “fight terrorism?” Then listen to historian Kai Bird and leave
the Middle East alone!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: .25in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">The
United States sustains dictators and kills with drones – of course
we’ve become a target. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "symbol"; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->One of Virginia’s most popular specialty license
plates reads <b><a href="http://www.dmv.virginia.gov/exec/#vehicle/splates/info.asp?idnm=TERRM" target="_blank">Fight Terrorism</a></b>, with
an outline of the Pentagon and the numbers 9/11/01 stamped above the phrase. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "symbol"; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->West Point has a <b><a href="https://www.ctc.usma.edu/" target="_blank">Combating Terrorism Center</a></b>.<b> </b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "symbol"; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->The State Department has a collection of offices
operating under the heading <b><a href="http://www.state.gov/m/ds/terrorism/" target="_blank">FightingTerrorism</a></b>. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "symbol"; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-stretch: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->And the Pentagon has a special medal for troops
taking part in the <b><a href="http://prhome.defense.gov/Portals/52/Documents/RFM/MPP/OEPM/docs/GWOT-E%20Medal%20-%20Approved%20Ops%20-%202015%2003%2011.pdf" target="_blank">Global War onTerrorism</a>. </b>Ominously,<b> </b>some of the eligible deployments for
the medal read “TBD” (to be determined) on the ending date, including the
current wars in Syria and Iraq against the Islamic State (Operation “Inherent
Resolve”) and in Afghanistan against the Taliban (Operations “Freedom’s
Sentinel”). </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;">As a matter of fact, our government claims that most of the
trillion dollars in taxes we pay each year to carry out U.S. foreign, military,
surveillance, police, and covert policies is used to protect American civilians
from attacks by Islamist militants. Clearly,
our politicians want to protect us from terrorism – and well they should. <b>The
only problem is that their war on terrorism is making things more dangerous for
us.</b> </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;">The way that “fighting terrorism” leads to more, not
less, terrorism against Americans is brilliantly explained in a recent guest editorial
in <i>The Nation</i> magazine by historian
Kai Bird, entitled “<a href="http://www.thenation.com/article/201145/revisiting-myths-about-middle-east-case-disengagement#" target="_blank">The Case for Disengagement in the Middle East</a>.” </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: large;">In the Arab world, we have historically aligned ourselves with generals
and kings and narrow-minded sectarian tribal leaders. In Israel, we have become the ultimate
enablers of Likudites devoted to colonization….Our most recent military
intervention—an aerial bombing campaign against this so-called caliphate—may
serve only to incite further Salafist terrorism against American targets. It also threatens to drag the Obama
administration—and the United States—into yet another interminable Middle
Eastern war.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Bird has earned the right to a serious consideration of
his analysis. For 30 years he was immersed
in the archives of the Cold War, publishing three biographies of major U.S.
policy figures. He won the Pulitzer
Prize for his book on Robert Oppenheimer, the physicist who led the atomic bomb
project during War II but was then denied a security clearance in the 1950’s
because he questioned the need for the more 100-times more powerful hydrogen
bomb. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Bird has written two books in recent years on U.S. policy
in the Middle East. The first, <u>Crossing
Mandelbaum Gate</u> (2010), used personal memories and policy reviews to
describe the deterioration in the already deadly Israeli-Palestinian relations
he saw as a young son of U.S. diplomat in the 1950’s. In 2014 he published <u><a href="http://www.kaibird.com/book" target="_blank">The Good Spy</a></u>, a
biography of Robert Ames, the CIA’s top Middle East analyst, who was killed in
the bombing of the U.S. embassy in Lebanon in 1983. Bird concluded that for all Ames’ creative wheeling
and dealing with Arab actors and all the CIA’s spying and spending, they added
nothing to American security or the stability of the Middle East. That is because the core of U.S. policy
remains a dangerous alliance with regimes that alienate not just the militants,
but the Arab “street” as a whole.</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">How
our Empire Spurs Terrorism<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Since 9/11 our elected officials seem to be willing to do
anything to keep us safe from more terrorist attacks. Anything, that is, except challenge the
policy that causes the attacks: U.S. domination of the Middle East through
military and covert aid to the “friendly” dictators who provide our
corporations with oil and investment opportunities. Spying on, invading, and occupying countries,
renting military and covert bases with cash and weapons that dictators then use
to put down popular dissent, drone-killings -- all of this makes us more, not
less, of a target for Islamist militants who oppose Western control of the
Middle East and North Africa. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;">As a result of their failure to acknowledge the
inconvenient roots of anti-American terrorism, our politicians have established
a vicious circle that virtually guarantees more attacks. The United States backs dictators because
they let us place our armed forces at air, ground, and naval bases so we can
attack the Islamists with jets, missiles, and drones, and place our covert
agents in their intelligence centers so we can track possible terror
attacks. But these acts strengthen the
very regimes the Islamists want to overthrow, so the Islamists then attack us
for backing the regimes. And the cycle
of violence starts again.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Americans rarely hear a discussion of the illogic of this
policy. In 2007 presidential candidate
Ron Paul explained during a Republican primary debate that Islamists attack us
not, as Presidents Bush and Obama like to claim, “because of our freedoms,” but
because of the freedom we take in dominating their countries by choosing and
backing dictators. When another
candidate, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, attacked Paul for his
scandalous views that denigrated our heroes, the major media briefly covered
this difference of opinion on the roots of 9/11. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Not since then has there been a mainstream discussion of
the relationship between empire and terrorism. Perhaps in some upcoming Republican primary
debates this year we will see Paul’s son Rand, the libertarian senator from
Kentucky, start the discussion again with Lindsay Graham, the senator from
South Carolina who pushes for deeper involvement in Middle Eastern conflicts. Bird clearly wants to jump-start the
discussion. His <i>Nation</i> piece offers a way out that is sure to spark controversy: just
leave the Middle East alone:</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><em>Disengagement</em> should now be our policy with both Israel and the
Arab world. We Americans should urge our government to end all arms sales to
any Arab nation ruled by a general, dictator or king. We need to isolate and
diplomatically contain any Arab regime that has demonstrably killed unarmed
protesters, as in Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. We should also close
our military installations in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar. Such a dramatic, categorical and evenhanded
withdrawal of American arms and treasure would deal a bracing shock to the
region’s ruling elites. But it would be a good and decent thing for all
concerned. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background: white; color: #333333;">Bird ends
his piece by noting that 33 years ago he published a similar plea in the same
magazine. In that piece he acknowledged
that the U.S. policy of dominating the Middle East was just a regional example
of a global policy. Now, as then, he
wants us to answer a question posed by historian William Appleman Williams: </span>“What
happens if we simply say no to empire as a way of life?”<span style="background: white; color: #333333;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: large;">*
* *</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
Caleb S Rossiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03805425862708227105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-661568110459433400.post-24611747119828634622015-03-30T18:02:00.002-04:002015-06-18T13:42:55.135-04:00Our Navy: Soft, Cuddly Humanitarian, or Global Predator?<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> March
16, 2015<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Letter to the Editor, New York Times:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Is the U.S. Navy large enough? Large enough for what? Gregg Easterbrook (Op-ed, March 9) and House
Seapower Subcommittee Chair Randy Forbes (Letter, March 12) may disagree on the
first question, but on the second they clearly agree with the Navy’s recent
multi-media campaign justifying itself as a “global force for good.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">(The
article is at <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/09/opinion/our-navy-is-big-enough.html" target="_blank">this link</a> and </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">the letter at <a href="http://forbes.house.gov/blog/?postid=398099" target="_blank">this one.</a>)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 0.5in;">“Global trade has
flowered,” Easterbrook asserts, because of the Navy’s “dominance” of the oceans,
bringing “nearly all nations, including developing nations, higher living
standards and less poverty.”</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 0.5in;">Not to be
outdone, Forbes cites the “international order that American naval predominance
has assured since 1945.”</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">As Max Paul Friedman argues
in his 2012 book, “Rethinking Anti-Americanism,” this sort of airy self-congratulation
has confounded our national debate almost from the founding of the Republic. He
cites Tocqueville noting that “the majority lives in perpetual adoration of
itself,” and Senator William Fulbright noting that “power tends to confuse
itself with virtue.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Imperial navies from
the Athenians to the British have spun a tale similar to that of Easterbrook
and Forbes: we are here to protect you all. But it wasn’t true then, and it isn’t true
now. Great power navies have always existed
to provide freedom of action to their armed forces and commercial interests. Our Navy’s current supremacy in the sea-battle
space was purchased to allow our government to threaten, and if necessary carry
out, military action to force other nations to submit to our will. There is nothing humanitarian about it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The Navy <span style="background: white; color: #333333;">controls the seas for the transport of troops
and supplies, controls the air with aircraft based on aircraft carriers, and
aids in land-battles with observation, guns, missile attacks, and bombing.</span> At the start of Easterbrook’s golden age the
Navy carried French troops back to re-conquer Indochina in 1945. For the next 30 years it bombed and bombarded
Viet Nam throughout its revolt against the French and the pro-American regimes they
left behind. More recently, the Navy has
been the hammer in every theater of the current “long war” to control the
Middle East and North Africa: Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Mali, and Somalia.<span style="background: white; color: #333333;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Unimpeded international
shipping would most likely have “flowered” after World War II with or without
the U.S. Navy, because it was in so many nations’ interest. Minor irritations would have been addressed
by the affected nations, as the Somali pirates were recently, with or without
U.S. intervention. By strengthening corrupt
or repressive regimes like Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi
Arabia, Egypt, the Emirates, and Angola through its exercises, equipment, and
training programs, the Navy makes their people poorer, not richer. With each bit of support to these governments
the Navy violates its own Sailor’s Creed: “to defend freedom and democracy
around the world.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Caleb Rossiter<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Director, American
Exceptionalism Media Project<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
Caleb S Rossiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03805425862708227105noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-661568110459433400.post-63164707123484974492014-12-18T11:48:00.004-05:002014-12-18T11:52:39.270-05:00Where are those pesky tyrants? Let's buy some glasses for the Marines!The December 15, 2014, Sports Illustrated features a full-page propaganda ad paid for by.....you! It shows a squad of U.S. Marines running out of the back of a troop carrier onto a sandy surface, and running full-tilt into a dust cloud. The caption? "Anyone can see tyrrany. Marines advance to stop it."<br />
<br />
Hmmm....now, which tyrant would the Marines be stopping? How about the King of sandy Bahrain, the dictator who rules the country that is the base for the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet? You know, the Sunni King who stays in power over the Shi'ite majority only because his troops used U.S. weapons recently to mow down pro-democracy protestors? After all, there are lots of Marines in Bahrain with the 5th Fleet.<br />
<br />
Oh, not that tyrant? Well, maybe the House of Saud, next door, whose U.S.-trained troops swooped across the causeway from the Saudi mainland in U.S. tanks to help the King and his family attack the protestors.<br />
<br />
Oh, not that tyrant? Well, maybe we can take up a collection to give the Marines better glasses for Christmas, so they can see the tyrants a bit better.<br />
<br />
Let's dispense with the fairy tale that is pushed not just by these sorts of ads but by the constant drone of presidential, congressional, military, and media statements about America's global role. At least in developing countries, our role is not to promote freedom, but to promote freedom of action for American military and covert forces and corporations. Tyrants and non-tryrants, they're all the same to the Marines, and the rest of our forces, as long as they cooperate with us.<br />
<br />
When you keep dictators in power, the people who live under them come after you, sooner or later. Since 9/11 it's been sooner. If you want to stop attacks on America, then stop propping Middle Eastern tyrants up with U.S. forces and arms sales.<br />
<br />
<br />AEMPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08702613583241664046noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-661568110459433400.post-85373457853735945742014-01-29T18:04:00.000-05:002014-04-29T10:08:48.200-04:00Global Reach Starts with Community Outreach -- Truer Words Were Never SpokenROTC stands for Reserve Officers Training Corps. The Pentagon funds ROTC programs in schools and colleges not just to train potential members of America's armed forces, but also to present the foreign missions of those forces to the community in a favorable light. Here is a picture of a poster outside the ROTC office in Barton Hall at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, that admits this purpose: <br />
<br />
<a href="http://cornellsun.com/blog/2014/01/20/guest-column-cornell-rotc-does-its-part-to-make-u-s-domination-seem-normal/" target="_blank"></a>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAKPYV1OwE7FDVAFmvN3NtQRSK7nZOeYELp5LKL697XanwXyKfWEFlyOPXLKy-A4EkjxBmZQlV6-fpQIu_oR6n0CrtNI5N455muLmkB0MXpN4WlzBs_G8juYW8MVb4VEpsV8hbThs7ogk/s1600/AEMP1+002.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAKPYV1OwE7FDVAFmvN3NtQRSK7nZOeYELp5LKL697XanwXyKfWEFlyOPXLKy-A4EkjxBmZQlV6-fpQIu_oR6n0CrtNI5N455muLmkB0MXpN4WlzBs_G8juYW8MVb4VEpsV8hbThs7ogk/s1600/AEMP1+002.jpg" height="320" width="239" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
Titled "Global Reach Starts with Community Outreach," the poster shows members of the Cornell ROTC contingent going out into the community in their uniforms. This makes U.S. military interventions abroad, like supporting dictators who provide the U.S. government with military bases and American corporations with investment opportunities, seem like normal activities for nice young men and women. This community outreach encourages Americans to support these interventions rather than question them.<br />
<br />
AEMP director Caleb Rossiter saw that poster while training in Barton Hall for a track meet. He wrote an article for the Cornell Daily Sun about the
truth of the poster's claim that "Global Reach Starts with Community
Outreach." Here is the <a href="http://cornellsun.com/blog/2014/01/20/guest-column-cornell-rotc-does-its-part-to-make-u-s-domination-seem-normal/" target="_blank">link to the article.</a><br />
<br />
I wonder if the Air Force ROTC chapter had a hand in the recent decision by the Cornell hockey team to appear in camouflage uniforms...read Caleb's article about that piece of propaganda <a href="http://www.calebrossiter.com/hockey.html" target="_blank">here.</a><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Caleb S Rossiterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03805425862708227105noreply@blogger.com0