This morning Betty C put up a post about Senator Paul’s asking good foreign policy questions at last night’s debate. At the time it went up I was already thinking about this. As I’ve written several times in posts and in comments: the US does have specific, articulated policies for what is currently going on in the Levant. These include: 1) Reduce the Islamic State’s (IS) ability to expand its physical/territorial holdings in Syria and Iraq through a strategy of attrition via coalition air strikes; 2) Removal of Bashar Assad from power and the replacement of his government with something that is more acceptable to and representative of the Syrian population; 3) Support for the Government of Iraq, but seeking to make that government more representative and inclusive of the non-Shi’a majority in order to maintain the political integrity of Iraq (i. e. Iraq with its current boundaries and borders and composed of its current ethnic and sectarian elements). There are additional US policies in the region, such as pursuing a negotiated solution to the Israeli-Palestinian situation; and support for various allies and partners – such as supporting the Hashemite Monarchy in Jordan.
While each of these policies may be feasible, acceptable, and suitable in isolation, several of them seem to be in conflict. Specifically the reduction of the Islamic State while pursuing the end of the Assad government. Parts of the other policies may also be in conflict, and when they are not, the strategic components to achieve them mays still be. This presents the US with a serious conundrum: how to achieve our objectives and secure our interests, as well safeguard those of our allies and partners with competing policy objectives. Moreover, we are, as always, caught in a trap of our own making: espousing a set of national ideals and values that are not necessarily honored in the breach as we attempt to respond to ongoing and/or emerging crises.
What the US is facing, and what no candidate is discussing, is that the US is lacking an overarching and integrated strategic narrative of what its policies in the Middle East are seeking to achieve and how best to achieve them. This is not a new problem. The US has lurched from one set of outcomes to another as administrations have changed. Moreover, because of domestic politics, the way our news media works (or doesn’t work), and because of think tank and special interest access, these outcomes are always far narrower and more constrained than they should be. Our policy and strategy towards dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is, perhaps, the most artificially constrained because of these dynamics and it clearly shows in our inability to actually make progress in dealing with the problem set.*
This lack of a strategic narrative not only leaves the US hostage to current events, but it also often requires that we ignore the national ideals and values that we promote to the rest of the world. The Bush 43 Administration had its Freedom Agenda, which didn’t really work out, despite being couched within the language of our national ideals of liberty and self government. The Obama Administration currently has an overarching policy of not getting drawn further in (sometimes articulated as “don’t do stupid shit”) while trying to manage and mitigate several problem sets in the Middle East. What the US really needs, or, perhaps, US civilian and military leadership really needs to do, is to articulate what it thinks a stable, functional, and responsive to its population/citizenry Middle East looks like. Once that is done it then becomes possible to discuss the actual strategies – the ways and means – to achieve those potential ends.
But, and its a sizable one, this has to be a holistic approach. Rather than a policy for IS and one for Syria/Assad and another for Iran or what to do with Turkey as a NATO ally or how to move the Egyptians back towards democracy and representative government. Instead the narrative has to look at the whole region and from there be linked to an overarching global policy narrative. Moreover, it needs to look at it in terms of our national ideals and values. While it would be naive to think, let alone say, that we always promote the ideals of self determination, self government, representative government, and liberty, in our foreign policy**, or live up to them, they should be front and center in developing the strategy narrative, as well as the specific policies and strategies to achieve our objectives. One of bin Laden’s most pointed and effective arguments to Muslims was that the US says one thing and does the opposite. The Islamic State is also making this argument. And all to often it has unfortunately been true.
We were perfectly happy with Mubarak or Saddam Hussein until we weren’t. This is the “Our Bastard” problem. These guys, and several others – in Yemen, the Shah, Ghadafi for a bit, and many others – were all our bastards. We decided we needed them and their absolutist approach to government in order to first hold back the threat of Communism and then the threat of a variety of Islamic extremist movements than we needed to actually promote liberty, self determination, and representative government. The way out of this policy and strategy trap is to articulate a strategic narrative that explains not only our objectives, but that the best way to stabilize the region is to do the long, hard, slow work of partnering with the people of the region so that they can develop more representative and stable forms of government that make sense within their context. To be successful we cannot simply impose our way of doing things because it won’t work in an Iraqi or Syrian or Yemeni or Egyptian context. But we can work to ensure that contextually acceptable equivalents are given the time, space, and support necessary to develop.
While this will be a prolonged, generational effort it is a far better investment than a prolonged, generational effort of repeated deployments of American military forces to fight over and over again in the same places. While the us of military power may sometimes be needed, it can no longer be our first/best/only policy option. It was often said in Iraq that we were fighting the war one year at a time and every year was a new year one. In order to escape this one year at a time trap in our dealings in the Middle East we have to develop an overarching strategic narrative that is comprehensive and in line with the ideals and vales that we espouse and rooted within the local contexts that we are engaged with. This would truly be feasible, acceptable, and suitable. We can either spend our resources wisely doing the long, slow, hard work of listening and communicating to establish understanding and rapport with our allies and partners in the Middle East to or we can spend them as we have been: recklessly spilling blood and treasure far from home with little to show for it.
* While its outside the scope of this post, the official US policy in regards to the Israelis and the Palestinians is to negotiate a two state solution. The official Israeli position articulated in 2014 and repeated during PM Netanyahu’s reelection campaign earlier this year, that had first emerged unofficially over several years on the Israeli right, is that there will only be a one state solution: Israel. What the Israelis haven’t worked out, or at leas the Israelis that are running things in the current right of center/right wing coalition government, is how to achieve this and over what time frame.
** And this would also be unfortunately true for our domestic affairs as well.
SiubhanDuinne
Sorry for an O/T right off the bat, but the judge has declared a mistrial in the Freddie Gray cop case.
? Martin
I’m not sure this is possible – at least politically. How can you declare your ideals of self-determination, etc. and then strive for an agreement with Iran? Either Iran is going to accuse you of angling for regime change, or domestically you’ll be attacked for looking the other way on human rights, etc.
The problem is that our ideals will take centuries to achieve, our policies decades to achieve, our strategies years to achieve, and our politics days or weeks to destroy. As a nation we do not operate on a timeframe longer than 4 years. Our ideals or even our policies will never be achievable within a timeframe that the US public recognizes and as a result they are both impossible to implement and become a liability to anyone that would propose them as either being unrealistic or incompatible with what can be achieved within that timeframe. There is constant criticism that the US overlooks China’s human rights abuses, yet isolating them would do nothing to advance that cause. You have to hold in tension this long term goal with what is achievable in the short term – and the US public is completely unable to do that even on the left (see ‘kill the bill’).
So the first step to any of this would seem to be to develop a cultural mechanism that allows us to focus on any point farther on the horizon. Until that happens, we’re hostage to a collection of seemingly short-term contradictions that may align to a larger long-term goal, but one that must be held in secret.
goblue72
You make the same a priori error that almost everyone who is professionally involved in the national security state makes – namely, presupposing that we have to “do something” about the Middle East. And that there is something special about the Middle East that demands that we go there, meddle about and “change things.” Whether its GOP-affiliated national security professionals obsessing about regime change and terrorism and oil, or Democratic-affiliated national security professionals obsessing about supporting democratic movements, terrorism and oil – its just two slightly different spins on the same perspective. You guys are just totally in love with grand narratives and moving your pieces around on the chess board. (And not that much different than the two slightly different spins on the same perspective that Republican and centrist Democrats have on issues of income inequality, economic justice, and the interests of the working class)
In this neat little rhetorical trick that attempts to appear be pragmatic but when fully analyzed is actually an argument in favor of a high-minded idealism that is as naive as you suggest it isn’t, you state:
You make no case as to why we should be doing that. Or why it is of any interest to Americans to be running around the globe, spending blood and gold, on promoting our national ideals onto other nation-states.
If there is anyone that has the right idea in all this, it is President Obama. His “don’t do stupid stuff” is a politically expedient frame to get to “don’t meddle about in the Middle East” as much as he can possibly do without saying it out loud and doing so within the confines of the existing political environment he has to work within, where he is assailed by neocon warmongers on one side, and idealistic “nation building” warmongers on the other.
You haven’t actually made anything close to a persuasive case as to why we should be involved. You presuppose agreement on a host of first principles that you haven’t even persuasively established. And you engage in rhetorical slights of hand that appear to say one thing, but actually argue the other. And instead of hashing out first principles, you glide over that and jump straight to HOW we should be involved.
Doug R
The nuclear deal with Iran will do a lot to get the Israeli electorate to stop panicking and elect a liberal government. Elections have consequences everywhere, just look at dirty Canada now leading with the 1.5C target for climate change and 25,000 Syrian refugees.
schrodinger's cat
Although Unites States is an extremely important global player it is not omnipotent and the world does not revolve around it. Our media seems to be unaware of this fact.
Betty Cracker
This will never happen, but I wish we could apologize for meddling in Middle Eastern affairs in the past and pledge to never do so again as long as the various factions leave us alone. It shouldn’t be our role to impose our vision on the Middle East. We should provide humanitarian aid but otherwise keep our noses out, IMO.
schrodinger's cat
@Betty Cracker: Hard cider was awesome. BTW how do you store it?
goblue72
@schrodinger’s cat: I realize your comment is in connection with some prior thread, but the non sequitur is kinda hilarious.
Betty: “Stay out of the Middle East!”
The Cat: “Hard cider rules”
Germy
The abandoned house cats of Aleppo
ThresherK (GPad)
@schrodinger’s cat: Store it? How much did you make?
I have,to hit six dozen cookies before “how do I store it?” is a problem. Theoretically they can be frozen but they never make it to the freezer.
geg6
@goblue72:
I was going to post a comment about is it wrong of me to not give one single shit about Daesh? Or Syria? Or Saudi Arabia or Iraq or anything else that really is not our business? I’m just so exhausted from trying to give a shit and I just can’t.
And you have articulated exactly why. Thank you.
Betty Cracker
@schrodinger’s cat: I just refrigerate it after fermentation is done and drink it at my leisure. It never lasts very long around here!
liberal
Agreed, but talk about understatement. I think the policies, viewed together, are best described as “incoherent”.
liberal
@? Martin:
Better yet, how do you make those declarations and then keep paying Israel billions of dollars a year, not to mention oodles of diplomatic cover, while they continue to embark on out-and-out colonialism?
RP
I don’t think we should an overarching strategy or narrative precisely because the region is so complex. I think we have to be flexible and pragmatic. First do no harm or don’t f*ck sh*t up is a good place to start.
liberal
Huh? This crap goes all the way back to the 1948 war, through Golda Meir, and hardly includes only the Israeli right.
Alain the site fixer
Mobile site users , use Reply link on the right. I will hide the one on the left soon.
liberal
@Doug R:
LOL. Sure.
liberal
@goblue72:
Agreed, but with
at least he’s ahead of people who comment here who are stupid enough to think there’s a viable alternative to Assad that doesn’t involve ISIS or other extreme jihadists.
Germy
MSNBC: How Hillary Clinton pre-butted the GOP debate
The former secretary of state laid out what her campaign later touted as “serious” and “sophisticated” policy proposals, while suggesting that her potential Republican rivals have nothing more to offer on national security than schoolyard taunts and chicken-hawk chest thumping. “Shallow slogans don’t add up to a strategy,” she said. “Bluster and bigotry are not credentials for becoming commander-in-chief.”
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
You make some good points, Adam, but simultaneously argue for something that is so unrealistic as to be impossible. The US can’t even articulate a universally (or even overwhelmingly majority) agreed purpose of our national government. The Teabaggers said last night, multiple times, that the first job of the President was to “keep us safe”. It isn’t, of course:
The middle east isn’t in turmoil because we haven’t articulated a grand strategy. Things would probably be worse if we did articulate some grand strategy and tied it up with laws and policies that prevented actions outside it.
Human relations are complicated. Obama’s policy of “don’t do stupid shit” is probably the best we can hope for when there are so many groups guided by their incompatible interpretations of religion, history, culture, and grievances against their neighbors. In a world where everyone who wants one can get an AK47 and make explosives from simple materials and people feel that they have nothing to lose by dying if they take a few others with them, we cannot impose a solution to the various problems. We can help guide an outcome, but the people there are going to have to do the heavy lifting in determining their futures.
It’s fine for Paul to say that “regime change has been a failure”. As Charlie Pierce says, he can make sense for about 5 minutes, then he wanders off into crazy-land. I’m not willing to say that the US supporting Europe and NATO in helping to depose Khadaffi was a mistake. W’s invasion of Iraq, on the other hand, certainly was, and one of huge consequence.
So put me in the camp that says that we shouldn’t expect to reduce our national policy in relations in the middle east to a sound-bite. It’s complicated. Sure, we should have a consistent policy, but it can’t be a straight-jacket. Keeping the Teabaggers out of office is probably the best thing we can do as a country to ensure a sensible ME policy.
Finally, if, in some alternate universe, bin Laden couldn’t point to “says one thing and does another”, he would have pointed to something else. From 1998:
He was trying to use actions 50+ years ago as an excuse to kill Americans, years before 9/11…
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
PurpleGirl
@Germy: Oh my. That story hurts my heart so.
People here know I’m a supporter of a cat only shelter/rescue in CT. Cassie’s Kitten Kastle recently took in 16 kittens from northern Alabama. Cassie can find homes for them in her tri-state area (CT, RI and MA) but in Alabama they were all destined to be killed. This was the second (third?) group of cats/kittens that Cassie has taken from Alabama this year.
Elie
@geg6:
I agree though I would put it differently. I care about the ME in that I want them to enjoy peace and safety. I believe that they own primary responsibility for how their nations/tribes treat each other and the impact they have on the world. Sure, I acknowledge that the US (along with other western powers), has interfered and caused immense damage there. That said, staying and further interfering won’t undo that — in fact will continue to pile bad upon an already effed up situation. Our strategy should be to sharply circumscribe out commitments there and police any spillover. They have a good deal to work out, and I can see offering economic support — but no more military stuff from us… they should fight their own battles.
Elie
@goblue72:
Very well said. Very!
Adam L Silverman
@goblue72: Yes and sort of yes. Aside from you correctly assessing that we are all trapped by the systems within which we operate/exist/work/live, there are legitimate reasons for the US being involved in the Middle East, as well as the rest of the world. And a lot of them are the same reasons. These include that US companies do business there directly or do business with businesses from the region. US citizens travel there. And in both of these cases we want a safe, stable, environment. We also do not want to see anything disrupt ground and sea lines of commerce and communication. We also have treaty and statutory allies in the region, as well as partners. So for all of these reasons we should expect that the US will take an interest and be involved.
While I’m fully willing to engage with a good, solid argument for withdrawal and just saying: “nothing we can really do”, I’m not sure that’s what you’re suggesting – so I don’t want to build a straw man out of your comment. And I’m a big fan of the current Administration’s “don’t do stupid shit” concept. So what I’m suggesting is that since it is unlikely that we are going to stop being involved, then we can either take a long term, strategic view and use what power we do have to affect change in a coherent manner that works within the context of the states and societies of the region or we can continue to do what we’ve been doing for decades: bounce of the different borders of the conventional policy and strategic wisdom, developing reactive policies and strategies to events as they unfold, and then go to our default: the use of military force. This is not just unwise conceptually, strategically, and in terms of policy, it is unwise in terms of using national power. We wind up spending a lot of resources and never seeing positive results. That’s where I’m going here.
Adam L Silverman
@? Martin: Your last paragraph sums up my point and makes it for me. As for Iran, eventually we need to accede to reality (pshaw you say!!!): the Iranians have, for the time being and the foreseeable future determined that the form of government they currently have is the one they want. What people failed to understand about the Green Revolution is that both the candidates were chosen by the Supreme Religious Authority’s religious agents to be on the ballot. And the choice was between a hyperbolic, obnoxious, in your face reactionary and a telegenic, mild mannered, soft spoken, and seemingly thoughtful reactionary…
That said we can take steps to build confidence between Iran and ourselves, our allies, and our partners to bring them in from out of the diplomatic cold. As was the case with Cuba: diplomatic isolation and economic sanctions has done little to change the Iranian government or how it does business. Perhaps it is time to try something else.
Adam L Silverman
@Betty Cracker: And that’s a perfectly valid one. Unfortunately, as I replied to GoBlue, I don’t see us stopping our involvement. So the question then becomes: how can we be involved in a way that is better for both us and the people of the region, so that we don’t just repeat the same costly actions over and over and over again.
Adam L Silverman
@geg6: Its not wrong to not care about any of it. Unfortunately I’m not sure that at the state level US leadership can afford not to care. Nor do I think that we’ll suddenly just dust our hands off and leave everything up to the locals to sort out. Again, this leaves us with the question of how to then engage and be engaged with region, our allies and partners and the people in it in a smarter, more productive fashion.
Adam L Silverman
@liberal: I would not necessarily disagree that incoherence is the ultimate outcome of them being in conflict.
Adam L Silverman
@liberal: Yes, but… As the official policy position of Israel as publicly articulated in the post Camp David Accords period (1978 through to now) it is only the past couple of years that Israel’s right of center parties have come out and made it clear that they are not interested in negotiating a two state solution. Prior to this every Israeli government has at least paid lip service to the idea of a negotiated two state solution.
Adam L Silverman
@liberal: I am happy to claim the mantle as not quite as wrong as most people! More seriously, the Assad government/Syria policy is really incompatible with the anti-IS strategy. Even if we were going to try to resolve Syria all at once, putting massive personnel and firepower on the ground, they would still be incompatible.
Adam L Silverman
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Scott, you’re 2 cents is well spent. But just because we have trouble doing things doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t at least strive to do them. Or talk about what we should do even if we can’t.
Part of the problem with what we all keep hearing, and heard during the Bush 43 Administration, about what the President’s first or most important responsibility is, as you’ve noted, wrong. Moreover, the continued discussion in the US that government shouldn’t do things is the result of a concerted effort to change American attitudes and understandings about government that has been ongoing since the end of the Great Rebellion and the end of Reconstruction. It is the Confederate States’ constitution that does not include “promote the general welfare” as one of the duties and responsibilities of government and the elected and appointed officials within it. Unfortunately, much of the common/popular understanding of the US Constitution is now as if the Confederate one were in place and operative.
p.a.
@Adam L Silverman: Why was our ( NATO) intervention in the Balkans a success? (Assuming it was; for all we know it’s a shithole but the press isn’t covering it.) All cases are different, but was there something we did there that we can attempt in the Mideast and are not for some reason?
Even if we become energy independent I think the area will still require our attention (sigh) because of the oil needs of Europe and Japan.
Villago Delenda Est
IMHO the most severe problem with the deserting coward’s Iraq policy was “we’ll support the Shia as much as we can” inside Iraq, while opposing the Shia (in particular, Iran, the new boogeyman) outside Iraq.
They never comprehended the inherent contradiction in this stance.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Adam L Silverman: My best friend from high school is almost a Teabagger now. We had a friendly discussion last night over dinner. He said he thinks the biggest problem we have now is that the “two sides refuse to talk to each other”. There’s a lot of truth in that, though I would have expressed it differently. ;-) But we see that that same dynamic is playing out all over the world – especially in conflict zones. Breaking that dynamic is really, really hard. It’s too easy to only listen to people that you mostly agree with.
I always appreciate your thoughtful posts. Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
Adam L Silverman
@p.a.: It was for the most part. We still have military personnel rotating into the Balkans to support our diplomatic and development efforts and continue building on the work we’ve already done.
You’re right that each case is different. While we might be able to adapt some of our ways and means from the Balkans, the question is going to be whether our ends in the Middle East are the same as in Bosnia or Serbia. The humanitarian ones may be similar, but I’m not sure all the others would be.
Adam L Silverman
@Villago Delenda Est: Especially because the Shi’a we were supporting in Iraq had been set up, sponsored, funded, and for those that were in the Badr Corps trained by the Iranians. I always said we should have just cut out the middle men and offered to train the Iranian Army directly.
Anniecat45
I can remember when we had an overarching policy objective — during the Cold War the idea was to contain the Soviet Union and counter its influence in the rest of the world. And we did a lot of stuff to further that objective that has come back to bite us. Many of “our bastards” were installed or maintained because they were anti-Soviet.
The whole thing has made me very wary of overarching policy objectives anywhere. And even if we had one in the Middle East, could we achieve it? At what cost? What bastards would we have to install and what havoc would they wreak on their own populations?
I don’t have answers to these questions. But I think they should be included in the discussion.
Villago Delenda Est
@Betty Cracker: We need petrofix. Must have petrofix.
As long as we need a petrofix, this problem is not going to go away.
Adam L Silverman
@srv: Troll: do you realize how few personnel Putin has on the ground? How few fighters and bombers he has deployed there? He’s got less than two dozen planes there. That’s why he has squawked so hard about Turkey shooting one down.
As for what I write or say sounding like something that Ms. Nuland would say: you have very, very poor reading comprehension.
schrodinger's cat
@Betty Cracker: How do you keep it fizzy. Do you vacuum seal the bottles.
Adam L Silverman
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: I’m not so sure that no one is talking to each other, though there does seem to be a lot of talking past each other, as well as screaming and whining. I think, for US politics, the issue is one of using the same words, but speaking different languages. So even if you can get the conversation going, it goes nowhere because we wind up having (at least) two different conversations at the same time.
Villago Delenda Est
@schrodinger’s cat: Our media (see my nym) needs to be taken out onto a large field and set on fire.
They are navalgazing asstards. Wipe them out…all of them.
goblue72
@Adam L Silverman: It is a far cry from fulfilling existing treaty obligations to the leap you are arguing for in terms of level of involvement. I think you cut it too cute by half in soft-pedaling.
Citizens of the U.S. do business in various countries around the world. Sub-Saharan Africa is a mess. I don’t see anyone spending any time analyzing or arguing in favor of doing anything more regarding our involvement in black Africa aside from the State Department issuing travel advisories.
We have treaty obligations in Southeast Asia. But outside of some kabuki involving period military exercises, we aren’t going to do jack shit about China’s ambitions in that area. Except by more of electronic goods and plastic toys from them.
Shit, Mexico is LITERALLY next door and there are sections of that country that basically are run by drug cartels and paramilitary groups. Sections that overlap with areas that a LOT more Americans visit than those that visit Syria. Let alone the drug crime that spills over our border. And complicated immigration issues with them. Outside of Trump’s silly wall, I don’t see anyone arguing about bombing Mexico or sending in troops to engage in regime change in Mexico. Despite the fact that improvement of conditions WITHIN Mexico would have a much bigger positive benefit to the U.S. than moving some chess pieces around in the Middle East.
You wanna talk regime change and supporting democracy in the Middle East, how about we talk about Saudi Arabia?
Adam L Silverman
@Anniecat45: To quote Alice in Wonderland:
“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.
“I don’t much care where—” said Alice.
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.
“—so long as I get SOMEWHERE,” Alice added as an explanation.
“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”
Adam L Silverman
@Villago Delenda Est: I keep looking for the Bloom County strip where they’re doing a legal cull of the news media. I can’t find it and want it to use in a future post!
Villago Delenda Est
@goblue72: If we were going after the people most responsible for 9/11, we really fucked up and invaded the wrong country in 2003.
But then again, the clique that rules in the country where most of the hijackers came from are best buds with the clique that was in power here, so that was out of the question, obviously.
Villago Delenda Est
@Adam L Silverman: That is flawlessly logical, given the questions Alice was asking. Nothing wrong at all with it.
Adam L Silverman
@goblue72: Happy too. They’re a huge problem. I wasn’t sure how to explicitly tie them into the Our Bastard category because while they’re authoritarian, they’re a monarchy. They’re sort of like the Shah, but sort of like other stuff. But they’re definitely an issue that we’ve decided to go along to get along with for far too long.
As for Africa, including sub-Saharan: I’ve seen and heard a lot of interest and discussion on how to address the problems you’ve mentioned. The rub always is resources. The region needs far more attention than we give it and it needs that attention to be smart and well resourced.
schrodinger's cat
@Adam L Silverman: Did you see the Frontline on the Rise of ISIS last Sunday on PBS?
Adam L Silverman
@schrodinger’s cat: DVRed it. Haven’t had a chance to watch it yet.
Adam L Silverman
I have to head out for the evening, so if you’re responding to the post, or my response to your comment, I will read it and get back to you when I get back in. Most likely around 10 PM or so.
mclaren
But there is an overarching U.S. policy narrative, Adam.
And the overarching U.S. policy narrative is very clear.
The overarching U.S. policy narrative was enunciated with great clarity by Brigadier General Jacob Smith during the Philippine insurrection in 1901: “Transform the [place] into a howling wilderness…kill and burn to the greatest degree possible. The more you kill and burn, the more it will please me.”
Source: “The Water Cure,” The New Yorker, 25 February 2008.
This is U.S. foreign policy, and it has always been U.S. foreign policy, ever since George Washington became known as “burner of villages” in the Iroquois tongue.
U.S. foreign policy amounts to burning brown babies. That has always been U.S. foreign policy. It worked for us with the native American inhabitants of our own country, it worked for us in Mexico (half of is now called “New Mexico,” “Texas,” “Arizona,” Nevada,” and “California”), it worked for us in the Philippines and in Cuba, and it worked for us in WW I and WW II and in Vietnam.
Now we’ve extended U.S. policy to the rest of the world, and America currently has an annual brown-baby-burning budget in the neighborhood of one trillion dollars a year. America spends more on burning brown babies today than on social security payments to our elderly, or on medicare for our elderly and disabled people.
“The more you kill and burn, the better it will please me” should be the words to the song America the Beautiful. It what our nations stands for. It’s what we’re built on.
Why is anyone surprised when the Republican presidential candidates come right out and say it?
EthylEster
@Adam L Silverman:
I appreciate what you wrote but if ‘US’ is replaced with ‘Switzerland’ in the above blockquote, the statements are all still true. Yet Switzerland’s relations with the rest of the world (including the Middle East) are very different than ours. So I discount this as a valid explanation of why the US needs to be involved.
Sad_Dem
@mclaren: Truth.
J R in WV
@srv:
And who do you recommend we elect as opposed to Mrs Clinton????? Most of the R’s are completely unqualified and or totally crazy as well. Or too stupid to walk and chew gum, like ?JEB?
Bernie seems smart, but unqualified so far as international affairs and the middle east are concerned.
Mrs Clinton seems like not only the best choice, but the only rational choice in this election cycle.
We are so screwed if Paul or Cruz or Rubio or Trump gets elected. I’ll explore moving away from them.
Barry
“or how to move the Egyptians back towards democracy and representative government.”
Last I heard we supported the Egyptian mlitary as it ruthlessly crushed democracy.
The US government doesn’t really like democracies, and eagerly subverts them.
And I doubt that there are too many people in the Middle East who buy our ‘Peace and Freedom’ propaganda.
geg6
@goblue72:
I’m just going to outsource anything I’d say to you. You keep saying it befor and better than I could.
J R in WV
And there I go, talking to a troll as if it were a sentient being. Duh!
Cpl. Cam
Oh, right. Now remind me again, when Hillary and Bernie were both senators, which one voted for Bush’s disastrous war and which one voted against it? Oh, yeah Bernie voted against it. So kindly fuck off with this bullshit.
ETA: This was supposed to be a reply to a person talking about how qualified Hillary is compared to Bernie on FP in the ME but that doesn’t appear to have worked.
LanceThruster
@goblue72:
This.
LanceThruster
Palestine is the elephant in the room.
Jack Hughes
American interests do not include diplomatic and military support of Israel’s apartheid policy, the Saudi monarchy’s export of the most radically militant form of Islam and the increasingly Islamist NATO member Turkey.
These countries’ policies conflict with US interests. Continued unconditional American support makes American foreign policy incoherent.
Adam L Silverman
@mclaren: While this is, unfortunately, all too true. It is also not an official policy. Though George Carlin did once remark during one of his routines that the job of America’s military was to make war on small, brown people with funny accents. However, that does not mean that we shouldn’t be trying to push things in a better direction.
Adam L Silverman
@Barry: And this is what I’m arguing against. We profess one thing and do another. Because it is convenient, and sometimes effective, in the short term. Egypt, like Israel and Saudi Arabia, are unreliable clients. In the case of the first two we provide them with far too much support, aide, and assistance to receive so little responsiveness. In the case of the latter we provide too much protection to be consistently undermined.
Adam L Silverman
@Jack Hughes: I do not disagree with any of this.
goblue72
@EthylEster: Preach it.