John McCain understands Colonialism

From an interview with Matt Bai (via Matt Yglesias):

as we talked, I tried to draw out of him some template for knowing when military intervention made sense — an answer, essentially, to the question that has plagued policy makers confronting international crises for the last 20 years. McCain has said that the invasion of Iraq was justified, even absent the weapons of mass destruction he believed were there, because of Hussein’s affront to basic human values. Why then, I asked McCain, shouldn’t we go into Zimbabwe, where, according to that morning’s paper, allies of the despotic president, Robert Mugabe, were rounding up his political opponents and preparing to subvert the results of the country’s recent national election? How about sending soldiers into Myanmar, formerly Burma, where Aung San Suu Kyi remained under house arrest by a military junta?

“I think in the case of Zimbabwe, it’s because of our history in Africa,” McCain said thoughtfully. “Not so much the United States but the Europeans, the colonialist history in Africa. The government of South Africa has obviously not been effective, to say the least, in trying to affect the situation in Zimbabwe, and one reason is that they don’t want to be tarred with the brush of modern colonialism. So that’s a problem I think we will continue to have on the continent of Africa. If you send in Western military forces, then you risk the backlash from the people, from the legacy that was left in Africa because of the era of colonialism.”

There's quite a few insane things about that statement. First off, does McCain not know that Iraq WAS in fact colonized, in addition to quite a few places other than Africa:

Second, and really strangely, it seems like he gets it for second with the "tarring with the brush of modern colonialism" line, but be can't seem to wrap his mind around how that completetly conflicts with his views on Iraq or his hawkish outlook on the rest of the world. Yglesias points out:

Actually, though, I think McCain's not alone here. Very few Americans (even American elites) seem to recognize that most of the "pro-American" regimes in the region -- all the monarchies, basically -- just are colonial regimes set up by the British imperial authorities. Eventually, the United States took over from Britain as the foreign underwriter of those regimes. But to understand U.S. policy in the region and how the U.S. is viewed, you need to understand that Jordan and the G.C.C. aren't just autocracies, they're autocratic creations of the British Empire and CENTCOM is seen as the successor to the Colonial Office. Meanwhile, the "anti-American" or "radical" regimes in Syria, Iran, and (formerly) Iraq all have their origins in rebellions against colonial regimes.

I definitely see Matt's point that the majority of Americans don't understand what our role was/is in the middle east, just because the discourse on our history as well as Europe's is completely sugar coated (to put it mildly). But then again, most Americans don't run campaigns claiming to be experts in foreign affairs. Ladies and Gentlemen, John McCain! Your 2008 Republican nominee for president of the United States!

Different era, same shit.

Vietnam, 1880:

Following the colonial conquest, the French symbolically took over the Hà Nội Citadel, destroying what few buildings were left and replacing them with military barracks and depots. It has remained an army base ever since, though at the time of going to press some of its outer sections are being opened up to the public.

In order to make the colonists feel more at home and at the same time to reflect its vision of imperial grandeur, the French colonial government set about systematically rebuilding the major Vietnamese cities according to European specifications. Central to French urbanist plans was the segregation of these cities into quartiers, based primarily on the ethnicity of residents. In marked contrast to the relative squalor of their neighbours in the quartiers indigènes, the inhabitants of the European quarters of Hà Nội and Sài Gòn were given wide boulevards lined with spacious residential villas.

Prior to 1920 many important public buildings were constructed in Parisian neo-classical style; the latter is best illustrated in Hà Nội by the architecture of St Joseph's Cathedral (1891), the Governor General's Palace (1906), the Palace and Office of the French Resident (1906), the High Court (1906), the Opera House (1911) and the Directorate des archives et bibliothèques (1917, now the National Library of Việt Nam); and in Sài Gòn by the Town Hall (1873, now the People's Committee Building), Notre Dame Cathedral (1880), the High Court (1885), the Vice-Governor's Palace (1890), the Central Post Office (1891) and the Opera House (1900).

Iraq, 2008:

Picture, if you will, a tree-lined plaza in Baghdad's International Village, flanked by fashion boutiques, swanky cafes, and shiny glass office towers. Nearby a golf course nestles agreeably, where a chip over the water to the final green is but a prelude to cocktails in the club house and a soothing massage in a luxury hotel, which would not look out of place in Sydney harbour. Then, as twilight falls, a pre-prandial stroll, perhaps, amid the cool of the Tigris Riverfront Park, where the peace is broken only by the soulful cries of egrets fishing.

Improbable though it all may seem, this is how some imaginative types in the US military are envisaging the future of Baghdad's Green Zone, the much-pummelled redoubt of the Iraqi capital where a bunker shot has until now had very different connotations.A $5bn (£2.5bn) tourism and development scheme for the Green Zone being hatched by the Pentagon and an international investment consortium would give the heavily fortified area on the banks of the Tigris a "dream" makeover that will become a magnet for Iraqis, tourists, business people and investors. About half of the area is now occupied by coalition forces, the US state department or private foreign companies

....

One Los Angeles-based firm, C3, has said it wants to build an amusement park on the Green Zone's outskirts. As part of the first phase, a skateboard park is due to open this summer.

American officials stress that final decisions about reconstruction and development rest with the Iraqi government. Karnowski added that as well as the benefits of renovating and demilitarizing an important area of Baghdad, the blueprint would help to create a "zone of influence" around the massive new US Embassy compound being built on the eastern tip of the Green Zone. The $1bn project to move the embassy from Saddam's old presidential palace is planned for completion later this year."When you have $1bn hanging out there and 1,000 employees lying around, you kind of want to know who your neighbours are. You want to influence what happens in your neighbourhood over time," Karnowski told Associated Press.

For many Baghdad residents, the Green Zone has been a no-go area for years, first under Saddam and now under the occupation. "What do I care?" shrugged one, Ahmed Hussein. "I don't have electricity, I don't have fresh water and I don't have a job."

Call me a dork, but few things piss me off more than people using words like fascism, socialism, empire etc. without having any idea about what they actually mean.

We are an imperial power, and as we have shown in Iraq, we are an imperial nation where the colonial mentality is still very much alive in our words and actions. It's not a pleasant truth to look at ourselves in that light, but M.O.P. would say: "DEAL WITH IT MOTHER FUCKER!!!"

And while this isn't a new idea (Most recently the best case was made by Chalmers Johnson), it is important to keep in mind in order to not lose perspective of our actions in the world, and equally important, how we are seen by the rest of the world.

Nelson Mandela and the Reagan Legacy

Yesterday:

Nobel Peace Prize winner and international symbol of freedom Nelson Mandela is flagged on U.S. terrorist watch lists and needs special permission to visit the USA.

The idea that Nelson Mandela is on a US terrorist watch list may seem like just another story reminding us that this type of institutional incompetence knows no bounds, but it also serves as a reminder of Ronald Reagan's despicable legacy as president.

Nelson Mandela's name didn't end up on that list because of some bureaucratic mistake. His name was included, as well as anyone else associated with the African National Congress, which still listed as a terrorist organization by England, the US at the request of the apartheid south African Government.

We have an amazing ability to re-write history and conceal unpleasant truths about our past, and Reagan's legacy just happens the most over-the-top example of this trend. South Africa during the 1980s as told by ANC member Father Michael Lapsley:

Father Lapsley: Yes. I think it’s good to think about what South Africa was like inside the country as well as what was happening in the front line states at that time. During those years, there were two states of emergency. Vast numbers of people were imprisoned. It was during those years, and this is a salient point for people this country this time that torture became normative. It became a principle weapon used by the Apartheid regime against people, particularly against black children during that period. It was also a period where there were a vast number of people on death row in South Africa. Every Thursday, up to seven people at a time were executed, but it was also a time when the Apartheid regime was in the rampage in the Front Line States attacking Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique and Zimbabwe. There were a number of massacres of refugees that took place. It was also a time of civil war in Angola. And it was the Reagan administration that was supporting the Unita bandits in Angola and fomenting war. And it was clear to the people of South Africa during those years, that whilst there were a vast number of ordinary people in the United States, particularly African-Americans who stood with us, the Reagan administration was on the side of Apartheid. It was both Reagan and Thatcher who were giving succor to the Apartheid regime and in a sense prolonging our struggle. More people had to die in South Africa because of the support that came from western governments, particularly from Washington and London at that period.

Amy Goodman: What about this quote of former president Reagan, talking about the Apartheid regime as, quote, a country that stood by us in every war we have ever fought, a country that strategically is essential to the free world in its production of minerals.

Father Lapsley: I think the interesting thing about that comment is that it focuses on profit. It doesn’t focus on what happens to people. And of course, remembering that that regime that Reagan was supporting was a regime in which the majority of the people were voteless. The majority of the people had no legitimate way of removing an illegitimate regime.

Amy Goodman: This was a time in the United States and its policy towards South Africa of the term coined, “constructive engagement.”

Father Lapsley: Sure. And it was constructive for death. That’s the real point. It was not constructive with the people of South Africa, who were living and dying for basic fundamental human rights, rights that people all over the world take for granted, that we had to die in great numbers to achieve simply the right to go to the polls to choose a government for ourselves.

Amy Goodman: What difference did it make what role the U.S. played within South Africa or in the Front Line States?

Father Lapsley: Well, the African National Congress of South Africa leading the struggle in South Africa was saying to the world, we will free South Africa; we ask the world to be in solidarity with us. So the role the international community had to play was to shorten that struggle, to mean that we would die less. So in a way, the support, the economic support to Apartheid meant the struggle lasted longer. It took us longer to achieve those fundamental rights, to achieve democratic freedoms.

Although South Africa is just one example, understanding our past actions and their consequences is an absolutely critical step for our country to take in order to move forward. When we refuse to acknowledge the disastrous effects of Reagan's policies and instead remember him as an action figure who singlehandedly defeated communism, it seriously hampers our ability to create a sane foreign policy in the present.

The Joe Buck Disgusting Act of the Week: Rahm Emmanuel and Bill Clinton

The Joe Buck Disgusting Act of the Week is awarded to whatever event/person best deserves Joe Buck's unnecessary and over the top outrage after a 2004 Randy Moss' touchdown celebration.

Rahm Emmanuel:

"We've put about $45 billion into Iraq's reconstruction . . . and they have not spent their own resources...They have got to have some skin in the game."

"Skin" in the game? SKIN? How about several hundred thousand dead you prick! Is that enough "skin" for you? And just when you think you've heard the worst... enter former president Bill Clinton:

He boils down complex international affairs to the most digestible basics—Iraq is a neighbor still crashing on your couch five years after his house burned down. “It’s not about the fire anymore,” he says.

There is so much nonsense in that statement I really don't know where to begin. First things first, if you're gonna use such a ridiculous analogy, lets at least get the main thrust of it right. Bill, I'm not sure if you were paying attention in 2003 or not, but unlike Billy Joel, we DID start the fire! So, I guess that makes it a lot less like a fire in this guys house, and more like arson committed by us. But even with that out of the way, it's still idiotic, so I figure we might as well just rewrite his quote in order to make it closer to reality:

He boils down complex international affairs to the most digestible basics—He tells the crowd that Iraq is like that time when you had a bad day at work and decided to torch your neighbor's house. "After you torched his house, you figured it's only right to invite him to crash on your couch till he gets a new house. Wait, did I say crash on your couch? Sorry, I meant to say that after the fire you went to the burnt rubble where he now lives and beat the crap out of him every day for the next couple of years until his family has had enough and decides it's safer to be homeless than live in the rubble with him. After a while, other people start joining you when you beat the guy up, and pretty soon every psychopath in the neighborhood is walking a few blocks over to kick his ass, or just start another fire where his house used to be. As you can imagine, this starts to get out of hand, and thats when you have might have to stop beating up him up everyday, give him the tough love he needs by telling him: 'Hey buddy, it's not about the fire anymore'"

Even though my fake quote may have gone on far too long, the funny part is that it still makes a hell of a lot more sense then the actual quote from our former president.

This is a serious problem. Back in the fall I was worried that this trend would spread among democrats who don't feel like they can oppose the war without stooping to the racist rhetoric of the colonial powers. This type of talk is truly disgraceful, but if people think that racism works for short term political gain, (and clearly, some democrats do) you know someone's gonna take the bait.

Israel, The Global War on Terror... and Sri Lanka?

Daniel Levy at TPM has a somewhat strange essay on a meeting between the PMs of Israel and Sri Lanka last week:

In a meeting between Wickremanayake and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert the two discussed, what else, terrorism and the common threats they both face. Olmert had this unsurprising advice for his Sri Lankan guest: "Do not give in to terrorism because it will only bring destruction to your country. Terrorism must be fought; one must not capitulate to it." OK, no big deal – except that in these days of the dumbed-down war on terror, when the Republican Presidential nominee (intentionally or mistakenly) confuses Iran, their Iraqi Shia allies and Al-Qaeda, the Israeli and Sri Lankan examples can actually be rather informative and worth taking another look at.

The Israeli-Sri Lankan leaders’ tête-à-tête was probably not too illuminating, with lots of platitudes, mutual expressions of support and some kwetching and gewalts and whatever the Sri Lankan equivalents of those are. But the respective challenges posed to Israel and Sri Lanka, especially in the realm of suicide bombings can teach us a great deal— especially when it comes to the tendency here in the US to view terror through the prism of Islamo-fascism and peculiar and perverse shortcomings of Islam.

Since their formation in 1972, The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), better known as the Tamil Tigers, have waged a relentless insurgency against the Sri Lankan state in order to fulfill their ambitions of an independent state for the ethnic Tamils (the Eelam in the group’s name means homeland). Suicide attacks—which they have carried out over 200 of in the last 3 decades—have been a prominent tactic in their participation in a civil war which has claimed some 60,000 lives in the last two decades. In recent weeks, the situation in Sri Lanka has continued to deteriorate, seeing the assassination of two members of parliament by the Tigers and a concurrent abrogation—by the Sri Lankan government—of the official cease-fire that had lasted between the parties (however tenuously) since 2006.

So are the Tamil Tigers an aberration to the otherwise Muslim monopoly on suicide attacks – or do they perhaps hint at the underlying issues that need to be addressed in successfully confronting the phenomenon? That question really gets to the heart of the critique of the current Global War on Terror that is still insufficiently heard in the US and elsewhere too – that it can after all be about what we do, the policies we pursue (we America, we Israel, we Sri Lanka) rather than about who we are – freedom loving nations merrily going about our freedom-loving business. The GWOT policy cannot be effectively countered without challenging its basic assumptions and narrative, and US foreign policy cannot turn the corner without over-turning GWOT.

That last paragraph hits home and the key to understanding the major flaw in our "war on terror" as well as most of Israel's problems. The "what we do rather than who we are" argument is dead on needs to be heard more often in discussions of our foreign policy and Israel's as well(although our foreign policy is Israel's foreign policy since we give them their army... but we'll get to that later). My main issue with his statement is that I don't think that it applies to Sri Lanka the way it applies to the US and Israel.

The problem that I have is that Sri Lanka falls into a different type of conflict than the "war on terror". The conflict that is discussed as the "war on terror" is actually fairly easy to solve, because it involves immense aggression(through sanctions, wars such as Iraq, military bases where they are not wanted, and military support of a state that has aggressively encroached into the land of other countries half a century) on one side, with retaliation by unconventional means on the other side (Suicide bombings and other violence in Iraq, 9/11, the Barracks in Beirut).

While each of the actions that I listed above were given justifications when they were enacted, they usually weren't particularly good ones or they were trying to hide the real rational for those actions. The other actions were essentially responses to our (or Israel's) action with the means they had available to them. The Beirut bombing as a response to Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982, suicide bombs in Iraq as a response to the US invasion and occupation, and Bin Laden stated that his grievances against the US were our bases in Saudi Arabia, the sanctions on Iraq, and our support of Israel. Although some sort of back and forth of aggressor/retaliation happens in most conflicts, in Sri Lanka (as with most post colonial conflicts) the history with the original aggressor(Great Brittan) makes things much more complex.

The background in Sri Lanka is a pattern similar to many other former colonies. Under the colonial ruler there are often cycles of favor and repression to create and then fuel ethnic tensions, leading to a situation after independence where the once privileged minority often finds itself persecuted by the once persecuted majority. Sri Lanka continued in this pattern when the Sinhalese controlled government passed the discriminatory Sinhala only act, which caused immense anger and resentment in the Tamil community, leading to protests and some violence in the following years. It was only years after these tensions had been growing on both sides that the LTTE was formed, and that the true civil war began.

It's this distinction that is my main problem with the article. Levy is comparing these cases because they have all used suicide bombings, and since that is a military tactic that seems a bit nonsensical. People are more likely to use suicide bombings because they don't have any other means. When you've over powered militarily like the Tamils and the Palestinians (also not a fair comparison because the Tamils are much closer to the Sri Lankan army in strength than the Palestinians could ever be as long as we are supplying Israel), your only option is to fight back a-symmetrically. They are both over matched to varying degrees, and so at times they have each used suicide bombers. The comparisons end there.

One of the more frustrating things about comparing these conflicts in that way is that it seems to equate the degree of difficulty that it would take to solve each conflict, when they couldn't be further apart. Although you will never read this in the paper, or hear it from a senator, republican or democrat(thanks, AIPAC...) - but the truth of the matter is, we could solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict starting tomorrow if we wanted to. There are many conflicts in the world that truly keep me up at night, and it's a real struggle to think about how there can be an feasible solution in my lifetime. Sadly Sri Lanka is at the top of that list with so many complexities, horrific levels of violence, and peace structure that would be hard to rebuild when so much trust has been lost on either side. There are many other conflicts that aren't as complicated as Sri Lanka, but they are also problematic because there is virtually no way the US could be any way involved as an even-handed broker. There is plenty of conflicts like this, just not Israel - Palestine.

The ironic thing is that Israel - Palestine would be so much easier to solve simply because the US is such an extremely biased broker. In fact, we're so tilted to one side that we actually hold all of Israel cards... or I at least the only card that matters(the military). Unlike these other situations, we actually can control the negotiations, because for all intensive purposes, we are one of the parties. But this won't happen, because the people in charge are stupid enough to believe that keeping things the way they are is in our national interest, even when all conceivable logic tells us that couldn't be further from the truth.

So, that was kind of all over the place, the original point remains the same. Comparing Sri Lanka's Civil War to the Israel-Palestine conflict and the US "Global War on Terror" is fairly ridiculous, because other than suicide bombings, the situations have very little in common. Random note, there isn't enough room in this post to write more about the details Sri Lankan conflict, but if you wanted to learn more I wrote a pretty long paper on the conflict and possible solutions in college that I could send you're way if you'd like. With everything going on in the world today, I'm hardly expecting anyone to want to subject themselves to 20 more pages on this extremely depressing topic, but hey, I figured I'd throw it out there.

The Colonial Congress: The Berlin Biden plan

Why limit the colonialism of our Iraq policy to just empty rhetoric, its about time for someone to step up and put some walk behind that talk. Enter Joe Biden and Sam Brownback:

"The clunkly named Biden-Brownback Iraq Federalism Bipartisan Amendment is the latest in a series of calls for a "soft partition" of Iraq into three semiautonomous regions -- split up according to ethnicity and sect -- that appear to be gaining currency in Washington."

In an article that finally points some of the fatal flaws of this plan, the writer Joshua Holland makes my day by pointing out an obvious but often ignored comparison:

"Proponents of the plan deserve credit for understanding that there's no military solution to be found in Iraq -- that a political conflict requires a political fix. This already puts them miles ahead of the administration and defenders of the status quo, and they should be commended for seeking a practical way out of the mess created by the U.S. invasion.
But Iraqis do not live in neat enclaves; 4 million have already been forced to flee their homes by sectarian and separatist militias, and thousands more have been killed in the process. Whatever the intentions of the proponents of the plan might be, calling for more of the same is profoundly immoral, and doing so from the remote confines of Washington conference rooms is reminiscent of earlier eras in which Western powers carved up distant lands by drawing new lines on the map."

Holland's whole article is worth reading, simply because this plan has been given a lot of support from a lot of different places, and its fundamental problems are rarely discussed. Besides the fact that this plan would likely lead to more violence and ethnic cleansing in Iraq, the larger colonial point is the one that the media has ignored. When did this become our decision? What better way to show the world the power of democratic rule than dividing their country into pieces for them. The logic of "These savages clearly don't know what their doing, so we'll have to do it for them" is so eerily similar to the justifications of the 1800s that it's frightening.
Just for the record, how does Joe Biden respond to the Iraqis themselves criticizing his plan?

"Other Iraqi politicians have said we have no right to tell the Iraqis [what to do]," Biden told reporters. "Let me tell you, we have a right. Three thousand and eight hundred dead. Twenty seven thousand wounded. Billions of dollars. Let me tell you as President of the United States, they'd have to understand full well that if they don't keep their commitment to implement their constitution then they're on their own. And so, ladies and gentlemen, the idea that al Maliki questions whether or not we have a right to express our opinion, he'd better get it straight real quick."

Damn right he better! If we decide to send our military into a country for absolutely no reason, and then kill 3800 of our own people, several hundred thousand Iraqi civilians, and waste billions of our own dollars all while destroying all aspects of their society, then they better damn well let us decide how to run their country! I mean that's what democracy is all about, right? The nerve! We're trying to do these savages a favor and bring them out of the stone-age; then they have the nerve to question our right to do so.

Ahhh... the logic of colonialism, as disgusting and immoral today as it was 500 years ago.

The Colonial Congress

Long before I had a blog, I wanted to write something about the increasingly colonial rhetoric that many of the democrats had adopted during the Iraq war debate. One of the most frustrating aspects of this rhetoric was that it was being used by people who I otherwise liked. (Jim Webb and Jon Tester are some of the first names that come to mind)

However, the most striking example of this came when I attended the Take Back America conference and Hillary Clinton addressed the crowd about the Iraq war, and placed the blame of that smoldering mess on the Iraqi people and government. After that speech, my aunt Helen and I were completely stunned. It could have been one of the more offensive speeches I had ever head, or at least live. She was boo-ed, but not nearly as much as it deserved. Not only would she not begin to accept responsibility for her foolish vote and war cheer-leading for years that followed, but she actually blamed the mess on the Iraqis themselves.

In my mind this seemed quite similar to the rhetoric of the colonial era, where it was the noble Europeans with their high minded idealism taming savages throughout the world. At one point around the time of Clinton's speech, some focus group must have shown this to be effective, because it seemed to really take off and become more widespread. Now, it is almost commonplace among most politicians, and it is something to keep an eye on, and be very concerned about as the situation in Iraq gets worse, and the political pressure to withdraw heightens.

Sorry for the rambling nature of this post, but I just wanted to get some of this out there before I wrote about it further. And sadly, I believe there is a strong undercurrent of racism that exists just below the surface of our culture and discourse, which means that there is a market for this type of talk out there. And if there is a market for this nonsense, someone will be there to take the bait.