NOTE: this blog is no longer active as of 12/07. New one: http://blog.kirchhof.com
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
Thu, 24 Jun 2004
Those who don't know history are condemned to repeat it...
Today's reading comes from John B. Judis in Foreign Policy Magazine.
It's a preprint excerpt
from his forthcoming book "Folly of Empire: What George W. Bush Could Learn from Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson."
A couple of selections from the front of the article:
The United States invaded a distant country to share the blessings of democracy. But after being
welcomed as liberators, U.S. troops encountered a bloody insurrection. Sound familiar? Don’t think
Iraq—think the Philippines and Mexico decades ago. U.S. President George W. Bush and his advisors
have embarked on a historic mission to change the world. Too bad they ignored the lessons of history.
On October 18, 2003, U.S. President George W. Bush landed in Manila as part of a six-nation
Asian tour. The presidential airplane, Air Force One, was shepherded into Philippine airspace by
F-15 fighter jets due to security concerns over a possible terrorist attack. Bush's speech to the
Philippine Congress was delayed by what one reporter described as “undulating throngs of protestors
that lined his motorcade route past shantytowns and rows of shacks.” Outside the Philippine House of
Representatives, several thousand more demonstrators greeted Bush, and several Philippine legislators
staged a walkout during his 20-minute address.
and
As many Philippine commentators remarked afterward, Bush's rendition of Philippine-American history
bore little relation to fact. True, the U.S. Navy ousted Spain from the Philippines in the Spanish-American
War of 1898. But instead of creating a Philippine democracy, the McKinley administration, its confidence
inflated by victory in that "splendid little war," annexed the country and installed a colonial administrator.
The United States then waged a brutal war against the same Philippine independence movement it encouraged to
fight against Spain. The war dragged on for 14 years. Before it ended, about 20,000 U.S. troops were deployed,
more than 4,000 were killed, and more than 200,000 Filipino civilians and soldiers were killed. Resentment
lingered a century later during Bush's visit.
As for the Philippines' democracy, the United States can take little credit for what exists and some
blame for what doesn't. The electoral machinery the United States designed in 1946 provided a democratic
veneer beneath which a handful of families, allied to U.S. investors—and addicted to kickbacks—controlled
the Philippine land, economy, and society. The tenuous system broke down in 1973 when Philippine politician
Ferdinand Marcos had himself declared president for life. Marcos was finally overthrown in 1986, but even
today Philippine democracy remains more dream than reality. Three months before Bush's visit, a group of
soldiers staged a mutiny that raised fears of a military coup. With Islamic radicals and communists
roaming the countryside, the Philippines is perhaps the least stable of Asian nations. If the analogy
between the United States' "liberation" of the Philippines and of Iraq holds true, it will not be to
the credit of the Bush administration, but to the skeptics who charged that the White House undertook
the invasion of Baghdad with its eyes wide shut.
I wonder what it would be like in this world if our government would represent the best interests of the average
American? It seems to me that virtually every military adventure that we've undertaken (excepting WWs I and II)
have been driven, ultimately, by the profit motives of big business. And these same people are screeching the
shrillest of songs about high taxes.
Well, too bad. Pay me back for underwriting your market expansions.
Posted at 11:36 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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