February 05, 2003

Course of Empire

Matthew Parris is not antiwar because he thinks we will fail -- he is antiwar because he thinks we will win, and that that will be a bad thing. He states it thusly in a single sentence surrounded by white space for effect, just like my teacher taught us last week in my Non-Fiction Writing class:

I am not afraid that this war will fail. I am afraid that it will succeed.
And he goes on to explain the badness of the US winning in Iraq:
I am afraid that it will prove to be the first in an indefinite series of American interventions. I am afraid that it is the beginning of a new empire: an empire that I am afraid Britain may have little choice but to join.
In other words, 1) we won't get that chastening humbling that apparently we as a nation need for some reason -- three-thousand murdered people wasn't enough, I guess, and the Columbia disaster has not made a dent in anyone except tired professional pundits; and 2) we will build an empire, and everyone will have to join Or Else, and that would be Just Awful. I am not sure why Mr. Parris thinks that would be a horrible state of affairs -- Empire = Bad, that is just the given, I guess. (Even though being an empire actually seemed to do Britain good back in the day, at least for a while.) But I can tell you why I think an American Empire directly responsible for the rest of the world would be a bad thing, and incidentally, why it means there will be no "American Empire" ever. This is why:

Jebus forbid we should have to rule over these grousing, whiny other countries and listen one iota more to the din of their complaints than we have to now. We have enough land. We don't need any more. And as much as I support the ideal of encouraging every country in the world to form democratic governments and implement the rule of rational law instead of mindless custom, it is ultimately not our responsibility to force people to a better way of life if they are too benighted and addicted to their own dysfunctional culture to do so. We are certainly not responsible for the self-inflicted miseries of others, and that includes preferring, because they are used to it, the rule of a "strongman" who will "take care of his people" instead of learning to run their own lives. The manuals are freely available, we are not keeping the workings of stable government under lock and key.

We will do the best we can to fix whatever problems in the world we may have caused, within reason. (Meaningless, impossible-to-implement gestures such as signing the Kyoto Treaty are not "within reason.") We will try not to break too many things while we take out as many of the obstacles to ROTW happiness as possible. (And if you think that Saddam Hussein and his thug posse aren't obstacles to the happiness of a lot of the ROTW, then you need to do some catching up.) We will pay attention, of course, to those who have or can hurt us the worst first, and tough titty if you don't like that. But we aren't going to adopt the whole freaking world. We aren't everyody's daddy.

Posted by Andrea Harris at February 5, 2003 12:30 AM
Comments

Wowza! Twenty (20!) posts today. Did you call in sick or something?

Posted by: Scott at February 5, 2003 at 02:03 AM

Today's my day off, kinda.

Posted by: Andrea Harris at February 5, 2003 at 02:17 AM

Funny how folks who think we're obsessed by the idea of empire tend to be from countries who USED to have them.

Posted by: Tracey at February 5, 2003 at 08:05 AM

Tracey,

It's called "projection." People tend to impute their own motives to others, despite all evidence to the contrary.

Posted by: David Jaroslav at February 5, 2003 at 09:44 AM

"We aren't everybody's daddy." I'd say you've summed it up nicely.

Posted by: Joe Katzman at February 5, 2003 at 10:04 AM

I read this article with a link from another site, but I have been thinking that the author may have inadvertantly stumbled onto a point. I think that we are all of a mind about the justification of disarming Iraq, helping Iran chuck the mullahs and accelerating the implosion that will happen in North Korea. But what happens later, when the obvious bad guys are dealt with and the problems are more annoying than threatening. Say in Columbia, in 5 or 6 years with God only knows as President. Would you trust Hilary to do the right thing?

Posted by: Tassled Loafered Leech at February 5, 2003 at 07:25 PM

Well you know, there comes a point where you just can't sit quaking in fear about what the future might bring. Even if it does contain a future President It-Takes-A-Village-To-Run-Your-Life. And who knows, she might have actually learned some sense by then, or be out of office, or maybe the Vogons will have destroyed the earth for an intergalactic superhighway by then.

Posted by: Andrea Harris at February 6, 2003 at 12:18 AM

What would I care, since I carry a towel?

Oh, darn, that whole Earth thing. I guess I do care a lot about much of it.

Posted by: Gary Farber at February 6, 2003 at 04:31 PM

It's okay. The mice will build a replica. They've been studying us for millions of years, you know. Kind of puts the whole Disney thing in a whole new light, doesn't it?

Posted by: Andrea Harris at February 7, 2003 at 01:32 AM