सिर्च्लिंग थे Wagons

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सिर्च्लिंग थे Wagons

War and More War

The origin of the US's addiction to economic and military intervention is very long indeed. Remember James Polk's ridiculous rationalization for attacking Mexico in 1846 (See Lincoln's angry denunciation, which I believe is rivalled by Sen. Robert Byrd's remarkable speech on the floor of the Senate excoriating the mad scheme to invade and occupy Iraq).

David Silbey's thoughtful new book "A War of Frontier and Empire: The Philippine-American War, 1899-1902) traces how the invasion of the Philppines led to the emergence of the US as a world power. Polk, a president thankfully long forgotten, and Manifest Destiny aside, most Americans were traditionally opposed to expansion abroad. Even after Hawaii was seized by a union of business interests and missionaries, there were few at home publicly supporting imperial adventures abroad. Then public opinion suddenly veered in "the quickest and most profound reversal of public opinion in the the history of American foreign policy," wrote Stephen Kinzer in his perceptive and recent "Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq."

At the turn of the century, other than the ineffectual Anti-Imperialist League (which included Mark Twain, Andrew Carnegie, William James, Booker T. Washington and William Graham Sumner) the NY Post-like popular press of the time were hot for war. War cries were heard everywhere, from Theodore Roosevelt who loved war, that is, until his son was killed years later on the Western Front during WWI. A liitle more than 30 years after the Civil War's huge list of dead and crippled casualties, and only a few years after the devastaing depression of 1893 and domestic battles between exploited workingpeople and the powerful array of corporations and their government allies and their armed cadres (see, for example, the Haymarket tragedy and subsequent executions of strikers, not to mention the destruction of Indian tribes) the public now celebrated victory in Cuba and promptly ignored the Platt Amendment in 1903, which turned that island into an American protectorate and an ultimate haven for corporate exploiters and mobsters.

The invasion of the Philippines was a harbinger of things to come. Wilson's entry into WWI in support of imperial nations fighting other imperial nations led to US marines occupying Caribbean and Central American banana republics in the 20s and 30s and then on to the big show in Vietnam and Iraq -- and if you heed the neocon extremists, a follow-up attack on Iran, consequences be damned.

So why, then, did the US turn to overseas adventurism in 1898-1902? To be sure there always were dreams of vast economic benefits ahead. But there was more, even though the Philippine War led to some 250,000 dead Filipinos and perhaps 2500 dead US volunteers, their bodies shipped home in flag-bedecked coffins and then forgoten by all save their families. Sound familiar?

The war party and its sycophants easily carried the day. The Philippines were ripe for picking. Senator Albert J. Beveridge, the Dick Cheney of this time, believed fervently in America's right to use its military might whenever and wherever it wished. Beveridge added, "He [meaning his God, I presume] has marked the American people as His chosen nation to finally lead in the regeneration of the world."

Could any of our contemporary neocons and Vice-President put it any better?

A Passion for War & Expansion

Walter Karp's post-Vietnam judgment in The Politics of War, pointed out that overseas expansion at the turn of century "altered forever the political life of the American Republic." David Silbey's thoughtful account of the US invasion of the Philippines in 1899 (A War of Frontier & Empoire: The Philippine-American Wart, 1899-1902) picks up this sadly unfamiliar picce of our past when Filipinos, initially as rebels against Spanish rule, then as an army, and finally as a guerilla force, fought the American invaders. When the war finally ended, some 250,000 Filipinos were dead and 2500 American volunteers came home in flag-draped caskets, there to be forgotten by all save their families. Not even a war memorial for the dead in Washington!

Manifest Destiny aside, expanding abroad was then rather novel. After Hawaii was grabbed in 1893 by a union of commercial interests and missionaries, most American still opposed imperial adventures. But then they suddenly changed., "This was the quickest and most profound reversal of public opinion in bthe history of American foreign policy," wrote Stephen Kinzer in his worthwhile study, Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq.

Much like LBJ's misbegotten invasion of the Dominican Republic in 1965 to Reagan's nasty proxy war against Nicaragua and El Savador and then on to the inexorable bloody failures in Vietnam and Iraq, our recent wars and military interventions all began with the pretense that humanitarian concerns demanded US ground troops. Both major political parties backed every war since 1898, and the subsequent war cries and triumphalist propapaganda in the press then (and especially after 9/ll found in far too many other media) and since had a largely uninformed and super-nationalistic population demanding that the "world's only superpower" conquer and "save" this or that country. Naturally, very few of the hawks in 1898-1902 and thereafter ever went to war themselves and some, like our frightened President and Vice-President, famously ducked out of a war in Southeast Asia they say they supported.

Like the incompetent , well-funded and thus still influential neocons today, hawkish backers of the Spanish-American War and the Philippine invasion then said, as did Senator Albert J. Beveridge on the Senate floor in 1902, that there were pressing and excellent reasons for the US to flex its muscles overseas, especially in non-white lands."It is racial," he said to the cheers of the mass circulation press, the war-loving Theodore Roosevelt --oh how he loved WWI until his own son was killed on the Western Front-- and even the once-pseudo pacifist William Jennings Bryant. "God," Beveridge went on,"has made us [English-speaking and Teutonic peoples] the master organizers of the world...He has marked the American people as His chosen nation to finally lead in the regeneration of the world."

Could any of our bellicose neocons plus the secretive Cheney have put it any better?

Next: Spanish American War and 2007 and after

Rediscovering the Past

Consider this entry as vol.1, no.1. We will try to reclaim our American tradition by returning to past positive and negative policies, all of which may help explain why we behave as we do and why this nation is addicted to war and myths which help create the climate for new wars.
America's misbegotten policy in Iraq and (we hope not) Iran and elsewhere all have history of past blunders, which we intend to explore.

One recommendation: Check out www.historynewsnetwork.com/books, especially Jeremy Kuzmarov's review of "Foreign Follies."

See ya!