McCain came to town.
I didn’t have an invite.
But reading the leftymedia’s contortions on the subject is probably almost as much fun anyway. It ranged, as usual, from the sublime to the ridiculous.
Or at least from the groaningly obvious and cliche-driven to the moderately interesting.
For the former, we turn to former City Pages writer GR Anderson at the MNPost – who uncovered a real scoop:
Shocker! McCain’s visit to bring out the wealthy, protestors
GOP presidential candidate John McCain’s visit to the Hilton in downtown Minneapolis for a fundraiser this afternoon promises to be a moneyed affair: To qualify to be on the host committee, McCain’s web site says, “individuals or couples must raise or contribute $20,000.” For the less fortunate, “tickets for the Photo Opportunity & Dinner are $2,300 per person. Tickets for the Main Reception and Dinner are $1,000 per person.”
Right. As opposed to those Democrat fundraiser$, where $your $pocket $change will get you in?
Who says the economy is bad?
(I don’t have an exhaustive list, but I do know that the MNPost and the Minnesoros Independent will be calling it “Bad” until 18 months after the recovery is generally accepted as undeniable, or Barack Obama’s inauguration, whichever comes first. But I digress).
Seriously – does GR Anderson think that big-buck fundraisers are a Republican franchise?
Eric Black’s article was more interesting – or at least a little less predictable:
Senator McCain. Welcome to Minnesota. Thank you for your service. My question is about the occupation of Iraq.
I agree that some Democrats have tried to have a little too much fun with your “100 years in Iraq” quote a while back. I take you at your word that you didn’t mean 100 more years resembling the last five — 100 years of steady U.S. casualties. In explaining what you really meant, you have said that it would be fine with you if U.S. troops had a long-term presence in Iraq, like the troops have had in Germany, Japan and Korea.
Well, we’re off to a good start. That’s more honest than most of Black’s colleagues have been with that question.
Many Americans may think that sounds fine. I’m not so sure. No other country has huge military installations around the world.
But that’s a fairly recent development – not so long ago, plenty of other countries maintained genuine empires; Britain, France, Spain, Portugal and even Belgium had or have imperial possessions within my lifetime and, incidentally, Eric Black’s.
It’s not only expensive, but it smacks of imperialism.
Let’s touch on both of those assertions.
It “smacks” of imperialism, because it is – sort of – and always has been. And yet unlike every single other imperial power in history, our “imperialism” has left behind largely functional, largely democratic countries; Germany, Japan and South Korea are world leaders and, at least by their previous standards, incredibly liberal in that small-“l” way that even I approve of.
And the “expense” has to be based on costs and benefits – indeed, Black touches on that concept later, so we’ll come back to it. The “expense” of any “imperial” entanglement has to be judged against the benefits; the Cold War, for example, has to be gauged against the general good of having contained the Soviets until they collapsed.
Ask yourself how the U.S. — specifically the McCain administration — would view it if another powerful country — let’s say China for the sake of illustration — toppled the government of our neighbors — let’s say Mexico, and said that one of its goals was to leave behind a Mexican government that would be an ally of China. Let’s say China did install a Mexican government friendly to China and then reached a deal with its puppet government for a permanent military base close to our borders in order to protect what China declared to be its “vital interests” in the Americas. And then let’s say China announced that it would be fine if the bases were there for 100 years. My hunch is, the McCain administration wouldn’t like it, wouldn’t tolerate it, would view it as a threat and an act of aggression against the United States and a statement of China’s intent to dominate our hemisphere. Please correct me if I’m wrong about that.
Black is right – sort of. The Monroe Doctrine has pretty much been established policy, one we’ve enforced for almost 200 years.
Of course, the analogy makes Iran – a murderous dictatorship that has been in a de facto state of war with us for my entire adult lifetime – the moral equal of the United States. Is that a dock you wanna walk down, Eric Black?
There is, of course, another difference; China has not secured UN resolutions condemning our human rights abuses, our acts of war against China and their allies, our pursuit of Weapons of Mass Destruction and our defiance of previous agreements caused by our previous aggression. We don’t pose a threat to China and the rest of the world.
The parallel, Mr. Black, really isn’t there.
And I know – your analogy doesn’t depend on the parallel, necessarily. But let’s just say that some of Mr. Black’s audience doesn’t know this.
Of course, the USA is not just any country. We are the world’s only superpower. How we use that position is essential to how the rest of the world views us as we try to repair some of the damage that President Bush — and the Iraq misadventure — have done to the our image in the world.
Actually, Mr. Black, Iraq has very little to do with the world’s “elites'” views of us. There’s another entire post brewing on that subject – but suffice to say that Europe’s opinion-class have never much cared for us (except when we’ve saved them from, say, Hitler or post-war starvation) and they never really will. The left’s conceit that Europeans will generally love the US once this “misadventure” is over are, at best, wishful thinking and utterly ahistorical.
I know I’m making more assertions than posing questions here, but the question is: If, as you hope, U.S. troops will be in Iraq for 100 years, what will that do to the perception that the U.S. seeks to dominate Middle East?
A “perception” that the left and media (pardon the redundancy) are trying to reinforce in every reference to the subject?
Your reference to the long-term U.S. troop presence in Germany, Japan and Korea is designed to illustrate that U.S. troops can be present in foreign bases without facing daily combat or casualties. My question is: How soon and at what cost in blood and treasure do you believe that the situation in Iraq — specifically the situation regarding the safety and normalcy of U.S. troops in Iraq — will resemble the situations in Germany, Japan and Korea?
I can answer that for Sen. McCain; “when the sentient terrorists realize that their chances of achieving their goals aren’t worth their lives”.
And Germany, Japan and Korea are bad examples (although to a nation of people who are largely ignorant of history, they may be the best we can do). The Philippines and El Salvador are better ones; insurgencies that died off (literally and metaphorically) as the result of an extended, judicious combination of military and civil action. It took six years for the Philippines’ insurgency to tail off a century ago; El Salvador is fairly recent history. Neither accomplishment was achieved without pain; both had the good luck to be either too early or too obscure for the attentions of the modern-day American media.
It’s wonderful that the level of violence in Iraq has fallen over recent months. But more than 200 U.S. troops, and a much larger number of Iraqis, have been killed in the less than half-year of 2008 so far.
Context counts, though. The number has been falling for a year, is at its lowest level of the war so far, and seems for the moment to be continuing to fall. Everyone from Petraeus to Michael Yon says to expect a counterattack to try to influence the election, and that’s reasonable. But if the violence continues to drop, the Iraqi government continues to improve (I notice you haven’t written, Mr. Black, about the fact that the Maliki government has quietly achieved most of the 18 criteria for recognizing Iraq as a legitimate government that the Dems were howling about last year), as Al Quaeda continues to be killed off (again, the MNPost is silent), it seems reasonable to believe things will tail off over the course of years rather than decades.
I hope, as you do, that the number continues to drop and soon gets close to zero. I assume we agree that the reasons for the decline in violence are several and complex and, as Gen. Petraeus said, “fragile” and “reversible.” Do you agree, “fragile” and “reversible?”
I agree with the General that it’s best not to be overconfident – but that while the fragility is a function of a difficult Iraqi situation, the progress will “reverse” only because of decisions made in Washington DC.
I suspect we may disagree, but I believe that there is no likely benefit to ordinary Americans of the invasion and occupation of Iraq that will outweigh the costs already incurred.
Those costs are already incurred and we can’t get them back. But decisions about war, including the future policy in Iraq, cannot and should not be shielded from the logic of cost/benefit analysis.
OK. Let’s look those costs and benefits over:
Costs: 4,000-odd dead American troops, hundreds of billions of dollars. (I’m not going to count “international goodwill”, becuase for the most part that is mercurial and cultural and if it hadn’t tanked over the Iraq war, it would have over soccer rules or trade balance or Susan Lucci’s Daytime Emmy or whatever they Euros are always whinging about whenever we’re not disposing of their genocidal dictators for them).
Benefits: Iran is firmly counterbalanced. In a few years, the countries of the Middle East will very likely have a safe, stable neighbor against whom the people can find their own dictatorships and medieval baronies sorely wanting. We have a base to contest Iran’s control of – I stress this – two thirds of the world’s currently-working oil reserves, which may be of much more importance to the third world and developing nations like China and India than to us. Absent a serious US presence and counterbalance on the ground, Iran could close the Straits of Hormuz more or less at will (indeed, has been building for a decade and a half a force capable to doing that, with North Korean and Chinese anti-ship missiles and Russian submarines), with terrible effects on the US economy and potentially cataclysmic effects on the developing world.
You can, of course, easily reply that there are never any guarantees in war except that it will be bloody and awful. I agree. It’s one reason we should not get into unnecessary wars. But seriously, given the entire regional and historical context in which Iraq sits, what is your level of confidence — and how can you convince skeptical listeners to share your confidence — that the situation of U.S. troops in Iraq will resemble the situation in Germany within 20 years? Or, I don’t know, why not make it 100?
That’s easy. There’s a zero percent chance that Iraq will ever resemble any of those countries. Unlike Germany, its two primary religious factions are still in a low-level war (as opposed to “500 years ago”). Unlike Japan and Korea, Iraq is ethically as well as religiously heterodox. Unlike Germany and Japan, there was no clean, legal end to a conventional war, after which the people of both countries pretty much toed the occupier’s line.
What we can hope for, and have worked for, is that Iraq will turn into the best Iraq it can be.
So I called this “Question for Eric Black”, didn’t I? Here’s the question, then: Given continued improvement on the ground, and assuming that over the course of the next year or two the insurgency dies off to a fairly background-level problem, and that the US involvement starts to draw down (as Gen. Petraeus has said) to a small garrison of mostly civil affairs and special forces troops over the course of the next 2-5 years, what do you think Iraq is most likely to turn into. What do you think, given the above (and the above seems not all that unreasonable these days), are the best, worst and most likely cases for Iraqi civil society over the next decade or two?
Take it away.
Just ask the Germans and English if they really want us to pull our bases out of Europe. Maybe now some might, but the only reason they’ve been able to splurge on their quasi-socialist programs is because they haven’t been either arming for war or actually at war as they were before we built bases there to protect them from each other.
Personally, I’d love to see us pull out of Germany and Japan just to save a few bucks. But if we pulled out of Japan the Japanese and Chinese would go nuts.
We also pump a lot of yen and marks into local economies.
Imperialism has too bad a name. The United States is the product of imperialism. We exist because half a millenium ago European powers began to settle the western hemisphere for economic reasons. Native peoples were slaughtered or displaced and the colonists settled on the land like a plague of locusts.
I live in a state that is the product of late 19th century imperialism. Local sugar planters, residents & citizens of the Hawaiian Kingdom but culturally Western rather than Polynesian, overthrew the legally recognized, indiginous monarchy and proclaimed Hawaii a republic. Annexation by the United States followed in 1898.
Sound terrible, doesn’t it? In context (which I cannot go into without writing a peev-length comment) it is not quite the story of Western Imperialists invading and despoiling paradise that Hawaiian Sovereignty activists would have us believe.
Context is essential when considering the long History of western colonisation throughout the world. The British Empire virtually eliminated slavery in the parts of the world it controlled. In the New World the American Civil War can be seen as an aggresive, imperial war by the North, launched with the goal of economically and politically subjugating the Confederate states to the rule of Northern capitalists. If you care about he issue of human bondage it is difficult to condemn the British Imperialists while celebrating the victory of the Union over the South.
Look at former British colonies vs those of other nations. Notice how US, India, Australia, etc do so much better then those ruled that had been ruled by the rest of old Europe.
England gave us capitalism, a basic democratic structure, that sort of thing.
While I agree with the general premise, I would like to caution against putting England on a pedestal. After all, they are one of the largest contributors reponsible for the mess that is Middle East today.
JPA,
You have to separate Britain’s overall colonial policy – which among European colonial powers was considerably less cruel and more englightened than the other major alternatives, like France, Portugal, Belgium, Italy, the Dutch, etc – from some bad border-drawing and allegiance-making decisions after WWI. The mechanism of British colonial rule was the least bad (by far), even if at a policy level it did bungle the occasional play.
Yeah, not to say that everything England did was perfect, but there seems to be so much less classism in former British land then other old colonies. Part of it could be that England colonized it’s colonies….meaning brought people in to live permnently. Other nations were more interested in forts and trading, but not settling.
I work with many Indians. One said that a reason so many people from India move here and prosper is because Great Britian set up a good education system in India. Something they are still benefiting from.
Like I said – I agree with the general premise that British Imperialism was the least bad. However, when England had to go, she did not go quitely, it made sure she left strife behind. British Mandate and India/Pakistan division are more than just a bungle of the occasional play
OT – Had to stop typing and grab binoculars. A wild turkey family was parading across the window, about 10ft away. Those turkey poults are much cuter than skyrat chicks.
Justplainangry-
Why ‘the least bad’? In comparison to what?
“You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.”
-Charles William Napier, Governor Of Bombay
Um, the Brits didn’t “leave strife behind” in India. They held it at abeyance for about 150 years. The India/Pakistan split was the result of Independence, not “bungling”.
You do know that the Muslim Mughals (a minority) ruled most of the sub-continent for several hundred years, right JPA?
Mitch, this is not so much to disagree with your sweeping analysis as to temper your triumphalism.
1. It is arrogant in the extreme for Americans, regardless of our contributions and sacrifices, to overlook the effects of waging war on one’s own soil and to throw in the faces of the survivors how we “saved them.” That’s no way to build alliances in a time when America’s global influence is declining.
2. Nor is this:
—Mr. Maliki said there were four areas in which proposed versions of the agreement failed to give sufficient deference to Iraqi sovereignty.
“Iraq rejects Washington’s insistence on granting their forces immunity from Iraqi laws and courts,” he said. “We reject Washington’s demand to have a free hand in undertaking military operations without cooperation with the Iraqi government.”
He added: “We cannot give permission to the American forces independent right to arrest Iraqis or execute operations against terrorism. We cannot allow them to use the Iraqi skies and waters at all times.”
The question of immunity for American contractors accused of killing a number of Iraqi civilians unprovoked is a particularly sensitive point with Iraqis who want to be able to bring the wrongdoers to trial in Iraqi courts. —
Terry, ‘the least bad’ is a quote from Mitch’s comment.
Kerm, The India/Pakistan split was the result of Independence, not “bungling”. is not quite correct. Pakistan became an independent country a day before Independance, and partition has been in the works by the British since 1945. You did know that, right Kerm? I also highly doubt Brits provided no help in drawing the border through Kashmir.
Chuck, re your point #1: if American blood is spilled to defend somebody’s freedom, you better freaking believe Americans have the right to remind the ingrates who saved their asses. History repeats itself precisely for that reason – ingrates forget who bailed them out last time. And re point #2 – ever conduct negotiations?
justplainangry-
Mitch did use the term first, but he qualified it with “by far”, which changes the sense of the phrase, at least for me. Personally I believe western colonisation, was, on the whole, a force for good in the world. The world outside of Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries was ruled by cruelty and the dread, bloodthirsty traditions of paganism.
Terry,
Western colonialism was widely variable. And in every case, it had good and bad points.
British colonialism was broadly small-“l” liberal, although the natives of many countries had their grievances. As noted, most former Brit possessions are doing modestly well today.
French and Belgian colonies were notoriously cruel and exploitive. Spanish colonies have a tradition of corruption and incompetence (see the Philippines, where 45 years of being an American pseudocolony added a veneer of democracy to 300 years of oligarchy).
Imperialist colonizing was and is about exploiting the territories so treated to enhance the wealth of the “mother” country. Period.
The Brits were in it up to their chins, as any of the American colonists would have been happy to affirm. They only left territories when it was becoming disadvantageous to stay, and (in my opinion as evidence of their displeasure) did their best to make the newly freed colonies wish they had stayed by placing boundaries where they new conflict would ensue. I will grant them this: their cultural and political history did make them squeamish about their rule in ways other countries did not share.
Today, our imperialism, if one would call it that, is motivated by the same national self interest. Not surprisingly, those dominated for the most part chafe under the yoke. but interestingly, we seem to see our self-interest best served by helping these places to stable independence, even at the cost of creating competitors for ourselves on the world stage. And, as the Marshall Plan illustrated, it seems to work!
John E Iacono:
Imperialist colonizing was and is about exploiting the territories so treated to enhance the wealth of the “mother” country. Period.
Really? What’s your authority on this? The people who ran the colonial governments at the time had several justifications. How do you know more than they what their motives were?
Today, our imperialism, if one would call it that, is motivated by the same national self interest.
That doesn’t make sense, considering the Iraq War will have cost the US a Trillion dollars before it’s over. Iraq has proven reserves of a little more than 100 billion barrels. Doesn’t seem like much of a money maker for the US, even with oil over $100/Bb. Besides, the American Left has been quite successfull in making it illegal to exploit oil in any territory the US controls.
Not surprisingly, those dominated for the most part chafe under the yoke.
The question is _who_ chafes? If it’s a bunch of wannabe jihadists, I don’t care if it’s 80% of the population of the nation in question. Tighten and make heavier the yoke.
The 19th century colonialists left us a big mess. They created nations that are incapable of ruling themselves in a peaceful, civilized manner. How much respect are you & I supposed to have for the sovereignty of a nation when that sovereignty was created 9 decades ago by bureaucrats in London? Nobody knew a) that there was oil there or b) that oil would become the life’s blood of the world economy.
And Besides, the ‘yoke of empire’ was put on the ME by the Turks, not the Brits. The brits wone the Turkish Empire in WWI and got rid of it as soon as they could. We’re not talking centuries of colonialism here, in the case of the Suez less than eight decades of British control and that ended half a century ago.
I think we are, in fact, a serious threat to China, and Iran, and quite a few other countries. Not via the troops stationed in Japan and Germany and Iraq, but the Cultural Weapons of Mass Destruction (Pournelle’s term). While I don’t see any reason to believe that, in the short run, they can stop the Iranians from going nuclear, say, if we can effectively deploy them, in the long run, they will doom the Maoist fascist state and the Iranian mullahcracy.
JPA,
India had a several hundred year history of Muslim minority domination over the Hindu majority before the British made India a colony. You did know that, right?
So as soon as the British Raj was withdrawn the inevitable conflict occurred. Kashmir? The Muslims think the entire sub-continent should be Islamic. Rather like the rest of the world.
Mitch-
I agree that there are bad colonial practices. I do think that, when taken overall, there can also be good colonial practices. Good colonial practice would be that which advances the national interest as well as the interests of the colonized nation.
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