I think we now must begin imagining an American version of a global imperial “frontier” — the Khyber Pass(es) of an American empire — and note that at home a mentality that would go with such a frontier is growing. The very word “empire” has lost its sting when applied to the United States. Note, for instance, on the liberal side of things, a cover essay in today’s New York Times Magazine by Michael Ignatieff, on “the American Empire (Get Used to It),” titled inside “The Burden.” Ignatieff makes a complex, not to say deeply confused (and, I think, shameful) argument, filled with fog and qualifiers, that in the end it adds up to a call to “democratize” the Middle East by force of arms and a significant apologia for shouldering the “burden of empire.” That phrase, in the context of imperial history, can have only one reference point — Kipling’s “White Man’s Burden,” which, one might have thought, had long ago been interred for good. To read Ignatieff click here
In the same paper’s “Week in Review” section, columnist Tom Friedman becomes one of the first mainstream columnists to declare that an Iraqi war would indeed be, at least in part, “a war for oil,” something of a breakthrough in itself. “To deny that is laughable,” he claims, though it’s been denied everywhere else including in his own paper. But like Ignatieff, he picks up a theme long put forward by right-wingers like Richard Perle in or near the administration, urging us to take up that burden and make it a good oil war “to fuel the first progressive Arab regime, and not just our S.U.V.’s…” Why anyone would expect this administration to democratize anyplace is beyond me, given its basic inclinations, not to speak of how it came to power.
To read Friedman click here
From the 38th parallel in Korea to the Southern Philippines, from the Afghan border to the former Russian SSR of Georgia, from the Kurdish areas of Northern Iraq to Djibouti, there is now a militarized frontier constantly to be patrolled, filled with shape-shifting dangers — and, as at all militarized imperial frontiers, the shifting, never-ending dangers begin call out for shifting never-endingly bent and then broken rules. Torture, assassination, covert action, military “justice,” these are the coin of the realm on imperial frontiers. Some of the news of this never makes it back, or barely dribbles back, from the frontier, but the changed rules sooner or later (and in our case it seems to be sooner) begin to migrate back to the “homeland.”
The other day, for instance, after a Pakistani border guard shot a US soldier on Afghan patrol in the neck, and air support was called in to bomb that single guard, the US raised reality to the level of principle and declared a right of hot pursuit across the Pakistani border (where pro-Taliban forces control local governments). Sooner or later, the principle of any border, or of sovereignty, naturally gives way before the imperial right to active “self-defense.” As Marc Kaufman reported yesterday in the Washington Post (“U.S. Asserts Right to Enter Pakistan”):
“With U.S. forces coming under increasing fire along the Afghan-Pakistani border, a military spokesman said today that the United States reserves the right to pursue Taliban and al Qaeda guerrillas into Pakistan. ‘U.S. forces acknowledge the internationally recognized boundaries of Afghanistan but may pursue attackers who attempt to escape into Pakistan to evade capture or retaliation,’ Maj. Stephen Clutter said here at the military base that serves as headquarters for U.S. and allied troops in Afghanistan.
“His comment… articulated a policy that had not been publicly described before and sometimes has been vigorously denied. Clutter said the U.S. military has had the right to cross into Pakistan for some time and that “this is done with the express consent of the Pakistani government.” But Pakistani leaders said today that there was no agreement for so-called hot pursuit and that they would object to uniformed American soldiers crossing into Pakistan.”
“His comment… articulated a policy that had not been publicly described before and sometimes has been vigorously denied. Clutter said the U.S. military has had the right to cross into Pakistan for some time and that “this is done with the express consent of the Pakistani government.” But Pakistani leaders said today that there was no agreement for so-called hot pursuit and that they would object to uniformed American soldiers crossing into Pakistan.”
To read more of the Washington Post piece click here
At the same time, in Algeria, at another edge of what is now a planetary frontier, the Bush administration is developing ties with a regime that, for pure atrocity, certainly might challenge Saddam Hussein. I include below a chilling piece by Robert Fisk, reporter for the British newspaper The Independent, filled with information — about Algeria among other matters — that has yet to dribble back here (including, by the way, the meaning of the acronym PATRIOT in the USA Patriot Act, which is hardly what you imagine).
Finally, a recent piece from the Sydney Morning Herald (off the Globalsecurity.org website, offers an overall impression of the size and level of militarization of the American military presence out there on the global frontier. Tom
The Double Standards, Dubious Morality and Duplicity of the Fight Against Terror
by Robert Fisk
The Independent
Jan 4, 2003I think I’m getting the picture. North Korea breaks all its nuclear agreements with the United States, throws out UN inspectors and sets off to make a bomb a year, and President Bush says it’s “a diplomatic issue”. Iraq hands over a 12,000-page account of its weapons production and allows UN inspectors to roam all over the country, and–after they’ve found not a jam-jar of dangerous chemicals in 230 raids–President Bush announces that Iraq is a threat to America, has not disarmed and may have to be invaded. So that’s it, then.
How, readers keep asking me in the most eloquent of letters, does he get away with it? Indeed, how does Tony Blair get away with it?
The Sydney Morning Herald
For the US military, the world is a training ground
By Gerard Wright
The Sydney Morning Herald
Jan. 4, 2003Just before 8am on New Year’s Day, a gigantic black shadow approached Pasadena, north-east of Los Angeles. Its arrival from the west was announced with the faintest of whirrs, deepening in pitch and rising in volume in a matter of seconds.
Then the B2 stealth bomber passed overheard, its bat-like silhouette unmistakable as it followed the path of the 114th Rose Parade, a New Year’s Day institution in the United States, down the four-lane road that was once the western end of Route 66.
Its passing was announced with an earth-shaking roar. As the rumble faded, the 900,000 people gathered along the nine-kilometre parade route down Colorado Boulevard screamed in awe and delight. That’s entertainment.