An empire, by any other name would still smell...
Hey Cold Warriors, check out today's NY Time article:
http://select.nytimes.com/preview/2006/10/15/books/1154649075029.html?8tpw&emc=tpw
Well... let’s see what else to talk about...
Reading. Again, looking at Gaddis, I find trouble - mountains out of mole hills perhaps, but certain phrases are said so much as fact, when I believe they are entirely debatable points.
One aspect of my current reading in We Now Know that I find without merit is this notion of "Empire by Invitation" (American) compared to "Empire by Imposition" (Soviet). First I will say that I agree with the first half of his statement, "an American Empire would accomodate far greater diversity than would one run by the Soviet Union; as a consequence, most Europeans accepted and even invited American hegemony..." It is that portion after the semicolon that I have trouble with... I find it amazing the Gaddis tells the story of post WWII as though US bases overseas did not exist even prior to WWI! To correct this oversight, let me point out some highlights of Empire building. The US - in effort to involve itself in foreign markets and elsewhere for business - had acquired its world wide position. As far as I know, Howard Island & Baker Island in the Pacific were aquired in 1857. In 1867, the US claimed Midway Island. In 1871, we sought other areas in the Pacific for coaling stations, such as Samoa (where there was empire-clashing intrigue with Germany - and that was in the 1870's!) In 1893, Hawaii, at the behest of Sanford Dole was nefariously occupied by US Marines, and the Queen was deposed. The appearance of Japanese war vessels off Hawaii gave impetus to finally annex Hawaii in 1898. And thanks to the Spanish American War, the US came away with the prizes of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines in 1898. We engaged in the putting down of the Boxer Rebellion in China in 1900.
With the annexation of Hawaii, to say the US was not well on its way toward empire 47 years before the end of the second world war is simply not credible. But wait, there is more: How did Panama become an independent country? US involvement. The US seized Panama from Columbia in 1903. It then made Panama a protectorate so that we could build the Canal. To think America was not an aggressive expansionist state one needs to be a mental contortionist. One needs to forget that the US had invaded Mexico, occupying Vera Cruz in 1914, as well as the Pershing Expedition in 1916-1917 and other escapades in Mexico in search of helping establish a government that would not nationalize their oil and other resources.
Elsewhere under the aegis of the Monroe Doctrine, the US occupied Honduras in 1912-1919 and again from 1924-1924. The US also occupied Nicaragua in 1912-1925 and again from 1926-1933. The US occupied Haiti from 1915-1934. The US occupied Cuba in 1998-1902 and again from 1906-1909, and again in 1912, 1917, and 1922 and kept it as a protectorate until 1934. The US via the Platt Amendment gave itself the right to determine the Constitution for Cuba. Notice that some of these occupations were during a presidency that had "self-determination" as part of its high minded rhetoric.
Yet on the ground in these regions it was more about American business interests with no connection to the democracy we hail. But let's go back again to 1900. In the Philippines at this same time, the US waged a war against the "insurgents" who felt the US had betrayed the interests in independence from Spain by occupying areas of that island nation. No Monroe Doctrine to fall back on here. The US simply could not give up the Philippines as it was such an ideal springboard into the China market.
For the US, becoming imperial was not a passive activity - The Taft-Katsura Act speaks to this point, a secret agreement where Teddy Roosevelt had his Vice President recognize Japan's dominance of Korea, and in turn the Japan would keep out of the Philippines (Spheres of Influence... a habit that would be hard to break.) It is not the case that America and the empire it had fostered were "INVITED" all around the globe. I can think of no time in history when sovereign states invited a foreign power to come and occupy or otherwise exercise control as benignly as Gaddis would have us believe was the case for the US in europe post WWII. So when Gaddis says, “Washington’s wartime vision of a postwar international order had been premised on the concepts of political self-determination and economic integration” he neglects that for many human beings, the best predictor of future practice is past practice… and American past practice had NOT let the light of self-determination shine in many places around the globe - let alone allow them economic integration - unless it was through the auspice of an American owned company... all of this we will get to in more detail when we address the third world.
posted by Mr. Dillon @ 4:35 PM
2 Comments:
Hi Rex,
Thanks for that.
Gaddis ( What we kn…, pg 39) wrote ‘ [The ] constitutional structure that forced even imperially minded leaders like Wilson end the two Roosevelts to accommodate domestic attitudes that discouraged imperial behavior long after national capabilities had made it possible.’
His idea is that it is inherently impossible for the US to follow an aggressive policy because the checks and balances are so well organised that any wrong-doing president would fail. Please add to your list what is called Polk’s War (The forgotten war). This was the most clear cut imperialist aggression of a US administration ever. It is interesting to note that a historian like Gaddis tends to omit those facts that do not support his point. Polk’s War against Mexico was accompanied by a wide spread anti-war movement in the US that included even members of parliament. A large proportion of the press was furious. It did not matter: although it was an open secret that the President had used wrong accusations to justify his war, he continued anyway. There is plenty of literature on that, which makes it unlikely that Gaddis had never come across it. ‘Early popularity at home, the war was marked by the growth of a loud anti-war movement which included such noted Americans as Ralph Waldo Emerson, former president John Quincy Adams and Henry David Thoreau. The center of anti-war sentiment gravitated around New England, and was directly connected to the movement to abolish slavery. Texas became a slave state upon entry into the Union.’ http://www.historyguy.com/Mexican-American_War.html
The constitutional structure did nothing to prevent aggressive policies.
But there is another point. To Gaddis the anti-colonial heritage of the founding fathers is the foundation of USA policies. Now, I would really like to know how to explain George Washington’s war against the Iroquois Nations during the War of Independence. The soldier Washington, who had christened New York state the ‘Empire State’ had initiated the largest single military campaign of the American Revolution, not directed against the British but against the Indians. Those people lived in the area, which he had visited when he was surveyor for some of the wealthy New England land speculators. The result was a campaign of ethnic cleansing, liberating upstate New York for settlements. http://www.sullivanclinton.com/
Gaddis does not even hide his agenda: there are the ‘Good, the Bad, and the Ugly’ in this world. I’m only missing the music of Sergio Leone.
OB,
I completely agree, the US was well on its way to empire with the Monroe Doctrine, but even prior to that, the Jackson-JQAdams nexus. See LaFeber’s John Quincy Adams and the American Continental Empire (1965). Here is a quote – and just to be clear, the “her” to which Adams speaks is the United States:
Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher of the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own… 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…. She might become the dictatress of the world. She would no longer be the ruler of her own spirit.
Polk’s Mexican war was an egregious act of aggression, yet it fulfilled Manifest Destiny - sea to shining sea. Sadly, the Texans who had been allowed to settle Mexico sought independence from Mexico so they could keep their slaves. Something the Mexican Constitution did not allow… they were a bit ahead of the Americans on that note. So Texas by my reckoning fought two wars to keep its slaves. A dubious distinction, to be sure. This bellicosity is why Americans should ban Texans for president. They simply want to fight the wrong war.
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