The Future of America's Empire
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2010-07-14/future-americas-empire
A look at how the U.S. chooses to use its power in the world and lessons to be learned the rise and fall of empires through the ages.
Guests
Bruce Fein
former associate deputy attorney general, Republican counsel during the Iran-contra hearings, and founding partner with the Lichfield Group
David Cole
professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center and author of "The Torture Memos: Rationalizing the Unthinkable". Previous books include "Less Safe, Less Free," and "Terrorism and the Constitution."
David Frum
editor, FrumForum.com, dedicated to the modernization and renewal of the Republican party and the conservative movement.
author of "Comeback: Conservatism That Can Win Again", and co-author of "An End to Evil: What's Next in the War on Terror;" former speechwriter and special assistant to President George W. Bush (2001-02).
Comments
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David Frum is wrong. The U.S. is an empire and considers itself so. Unfortunately if America continues on it's present path without a correction, it will also go the same way as all other empires have before it.
very good show. I've heard Bruce speak on the impeachment of Bush/Cheney (completely agree). The US has been an empire since it overthrew Hawaii, Cuba, the Phillipines in the 19th century. See Stephen Kinzer's, Overthrow (america's century of regime change from hawaii to iraq), Chalmers Johnson trilogy, Blowback, Sorrows of Empire, and Nemesis. Most of the "actions" were on behalf of one corporation or another, or the prevention of a sovereign nation attempting to nationalize one or more of THEIR natural resources (see Iran 1953).
We, like the Soviet empire are rotting from within at an accelerated rate. Journalists are killed or quashed, attendees at national political conventions are arrested without cause or shunted into cages, the mass media is owned by 5 multi- national corporations, and the legislature is owned by those same corporations. Kleptocracies do not endure for long.
Hey Diane, you're the best!
This is my first public opinion EVER and I want to say that I believe Americans should get out of the middle-east NOW. If one complains of illegal immigrants here, one should not do the same in other countries! Americans have no business meddling in other nation's problems, spending money that is desperately needed here at home and sending to death young people that should be AT HOME, working on defending American land! PEACE!
I'm left concerned when the intentions of the "founding fathers" are mentioned. It is distressing that the opinions of individuals who lived over 200 years ago are still considered relevant in a political and diplomatic climate which is, for all intents and purposes, almost entirely different than the one of the revolutionary era. It was suggested by George Washington that we, as a nation, not involve ourselves in ANY long-term alliances with other nations; today, we have NATO and the UN, organizations anathema to that belief. In any sense, it is not disputable that we are indeed fighting a war on a tactic. The "constitutionality" of such a war aside, the fact is that the military policy of modern times cannot be applied when combat is not against a defined enemy (a la, the USSR or North Vietnam), because a movement is not a target. A movement cannot be firebombed, it cannot have its civilians murdered to coerce it's leaders to come to peace on our terms, and although one CAN murder its supporters, it will have the reverse effect. The USA is applying an outdated philosophy with outdated tactics to the, if i may be so bold, first truly modern war.
All the guests ignore reality in order to further their own political agenda. The anti imperialists ignore the nature and logic of strategic nuclear weapons, gasoline powered armored divisions, and modern air forces. They do however have a better sense of balance when it comes to putting the effects of non WMD terrorism into perspective. Clearly spending more on the 'War On Terror' than we did keeping the Warsaw Pact at bay is out of any sense of reality. The pro imperialists ignore the nature of the security institutions they want to play with. They claim that because the presidency is elected, it is safe to endow that office with king like power. Some of them even openly say the presidency is a form of king. Like the anti-imperialists who ignore the impact of technology on military matters, the imperialists ignore the impact of technology on a society that chooses to live under the gaze of an internal intelligence agency.
How do we balance the capabilities of modern military forces against the force of decline that a military industrial complex impose on the society that forms it? How do you put into context and respond to global forces that use irregular force to engage your society when they cannot do so with the forces of a state? How do you prevent the security forces you raise yourself from destroying the nature of the society that formed them? There are no simple answers here except that the current population and government of the US lacks the education, attention span, and skills of analysis needed to deal with this set of problems.
Anti-Monopolist on July 14, 2010 @ 11:23 am wrote: “. . . it will likely break up in to smaller and more manageable nation-states based along ethnic/racial and cultural lines. This is just as the Founding Fathers intended: states' rights vs. overwhelming federal power.”
Sir, one doesn’t have to agree with Mr. Frum’s nonsense in order to disagree with yours. The Founders intended no such thing. Read The Federalist Papers, considered one of the best sources of the “original intent” of the Founders. Page after page is devoted to the dangers inherent in the kind of breakup you applaud. This is exactly the same kind of uninformed, romantic, folly the Tea Baggers have swallowed whole.
schaz on July 14, 2010 @ 11:42 am wrote: “We need to return the power to the states which our founders originally gave them. The federal govn needs to be limited to international relations, defense of the country as a whole and mediation of disputes between individual states. The federal govn has no business in education, health, welfare, or any other areas of control belonging to the states.”
Like Anti-Monopolist, you don’t know what you’re talking about. How much have you studied the Constitution? (As a retired attorney, I’ve studied and used it all my life.) The power of the Federal government to be involved in health, welfare, and a host of other areas is well established.
Perhaps you want to do away with Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Unemployment Insurance, Workers Compensation, the FBI, the U.S. Air Force, NASA, Hoover Dam, the TVA, the SEC,? These are just a few of the things that aren’t expressly mentioned in the Constitution, but are derived from the grants of power over Interstate Commerce, General Welfare, and the Common Defense (to name a few of the relevant constitutional clauses). They also don’t fit within your simplistic view of the Constitution.
David Frum made the outlandish statement that the US assists Colombia with "nonlethal" foreign aid and does not have any troops there (among many fantastic claims).
He is either ignorant or a liar...
"Plan Colombia", initiated by Clinton and kept in place by Bush 2 and Obama has sent BILLIONS in lethal military aid for over a decade.
The US has had special forces in Colombia for years, ostensibly guarding oil pipelines and doing "drug interdiction". US military contractor have been captured by the FARC. We have been involved militarily in Columbia for years, taking sides in their civil war.
The US has been "invited" to build and man 7 military bases in Colombia, again for "drug interdiction" to replace those lost in Bolivia and Ecuador.
More to the point, the US has over 700 active military bases in over 120 countries. We have special forces operating in something like 75 countries. We spend a TRILLION dollars a year on "all things military" (its not just DoD).
When the only tool you know how to use is a hammer, suddenly the world looks like nothing but nails.
Obama, promising change, has given US "Bush 3" foreign policy.
The empire is dying. We are broke. The only way the game works is if China and petro states continue lending us money. The only question is how quickly and how hard will the fall become.
Finally, when you have a show entitled "The future of America's empire", why invite an arch-neocon like Frum in the first place? The guy simply polluted the show with ignorance and/or lies. There is no reason to legitimize such nonsense by giving equal time to ignorance or lies. If you feel compelled to give neocons air time, let them have their own special show, without any contrary views. That way people that want to actually learn something can simply not bother listing to ignoramuses or liars.
schaz on July 14, 2010 @ 11:48 am wrote: “The many of the problems today are a direct result of Congress taking power from the Executive. Until Nixon, presidents were much more powerful. Jackson defied the Supreme Court, Lincoln suspended habeus corpus, Roosevelt imprisoned Japanese Americans. What we have now is a weak Executive that has to go to Congress with hat-in-hand to beg for any powers it wants. We were attacked on 9/11 because of our weak Executive.”
Boy, you’re knowledge of history is as poor as your knowledge of the Constitution. We were attacked on 9/11 because our own “George The Third” (Bush) ignored all the warning signs, not because of anything Congress did.
However, he certainly tried (like would-be tyrants throughout history) to use the fear 9/11 generated to aggregate as much power as he could. He trashed the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments. Tossed Habeas Corpus into the trash bin. He claimed the power to seize anyone, anywhere (including American citizens) and throw them in a legal black hole to rot, based solely on his own suspicion (much like the “sun King”, Louis XIV would throw people into a prison aptly named the “oubliette”, because once there they were forgotten). Oh, and he eliminated the Constitution’s “checks and balances” both by openly declaring he could ignore any law he wished, and by acting in secret so that no one could challenge his conduct!
What’s hysterically funny is listening to Republi-Cons (and their “useful idiots” the Tea Baggers) scream about what a tyrant Obama is supposed to be, when all he did was employ the legislative process to change the law. That’s how democracies and republics are supposed to work. But for eight years Bush engaged in a concerted effort to evade and undermine the law, and folks like you kept silent, when you weren’t cheering him on!
To steveemge, writing on July 14, 2010 @ 11:54 am:
Huh? First you say it’s a “canard” to claim the executive has taken great power in the last 50 years. Then you state that the military actions of “nearly every president since WW2” have been unconstitutional. Which is it? That sure sounds like a seizure of power by the executive branch to me.
I agree we should hold the Congress (not just the Senate) responsible for acquiescing in this process, and so did Mr. Fein and Professor Cole.
To Bort, writing on July 14, 2010 @ 12:01 pm:
No, sir, Al-Qaeda's goal is domination. They intend to create a Caliphate (a form of monarchy) throughout the Arab and Islamic world. In the process they would overthrow the governments of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran, etc., etc. (to name just a few).
Look how Afghanistan was run by their allies, the Taliban. They dominated the lives of everyone in that nation, creating a theocracy (a religiously based dictatorship - the oldest form of totalitarianism).
And their writings and statements indicate they have no objection to spreading their control world-wide.
One doesn’t have to endorse Bush’s ‘Crusade’ to recognize the danger Al-Qaeda represents. Neither does one have to pretend they’re a bunch of harmless bunnies, in order to oppose “pre-emptive war”. Try seeing life completely and whole, instead of jumping from one extreme to the other!
While I don't agree with everything Mr. Fein or Professor Cole said (and I don’t have to), I do agree with their concern over the lawlessness that the prior Administration indulged in, and which still infects this nation.
I especially liked Fein’s comparison of Bush to King George of Great Britain. Long ago I started calling the man “our own George The Third”, both because of the historical coincidence that he literally is the third President named “George”, but also because he resembled his namesake: arrogant, ignorant, determined to do things his way, and mindlessly followed a course of action that lead to disaster. Hopefully we still have time to undo the damage, but I fear we will be living with the consequences of his folly, and paying the price for it, throughout this century!
Of course there is "tremendous antipathy towards the US in Britain" and, I'll submit, around the world. WE'RE ACTING LIKE AN EMPIRE !
Time and again we've shown little understanding and less respect for the institutions and traditions of other peoples: (in no particular order) Vietnam, Mexico, Iraq, "Palestine", Pakistan, etc. etc. etc.
Freedom and democracy is the best form of government on the face of the planet, but when others are not ready for it, they aren't ready for it. You can't avoid that basic truth.
It's time to return to our original principles.
Come one Etaoin Shrdlu, to blame everything on Bush is as intellectually bankrupt as current attempts to blame everything on Obama.
The origins of everything that happens can be traced back years, if not decades, and partisan attacks do nothing to advance the discussion.
Right on! Americans have degraded into rich English gentry from before the Victorian age. We think hard work is below us, nobody wants to put the intellectual effort into understanding how systems really work. We have mistaken gambling for investment acumen, paranoia for being alert, and brute force for diplomacy. We're indebeted beyond our means and our expectations of the future are totally out of whack with what can be done with what's at hand. Here in Az we have politicians praising themselves at how knee jerk reactionary they are to issues. And I'm not just talking about the political right in this country. It's obvious the WWII generation built this nation to what it was at it's peak in the 90's. The baby boomers were that generations biggest failure.
Ignoring the rights of others for short term gain solves nothing in the end. Stupid leaders lead to impoverished futures because the payoff is always in the long term.
Yesterday’s program questioning whether America is an Empire is a fascinating program idea but unfortunately I thought the program was a bit lean. I would encourage any interested listener on this topic to read the trilogy of books by professor Chamber’s Johnson the first being “Sorrows of Empire”. I thought Mr. Finn did not clearly explain why America is an empire, nor did he put the American empire within a historical context. The other guests failed to answer some very basic questions such as: “why do we need over 750 military bases spread all over world”? “Why is up the 40 per cent of military and CIA budgets black meaning that the America people through its representatives have no knowledge as to how this money is being spent”? And finally, none of the quests talked about the role of the CIA, NSA and secrecy in a democracy. I hope this topic comes up again for conversation. The bottom line America is an Empire, we are coming to the end of our time, the question, which confronts this country, is whether we give up our misplaced fixation on America hegemony with dignity or going thrashing and kicking into the blackness of insolvency.
It struck me as extremely hypocritical for Thomas Jefferson, who worked hard to get French assistance during the Revolutionary War to turn around and say "no foreign entanglements."
The truth is that we have swung like a pendulum from one extreme to another with isolationism on the one hand and involvement in others' wars for very tenuous "national" interests on the other.
I ordered the book: American Empire before the fall, after listening to your show. The book came and it took me a week to read it...and every day I spent with the book open while trying to get around the "Georgetown speak"
I felt like I had "just come in at 2:30 in the morning to be set down by my mother for a "rebuke" about my behavior... Whew. However, I completely agree with the premise that the American people and Congress have not taken the time to educate themselves about the Constitution and both have ABDICATED (excuse the G-town speak) their responsibility to be involved and engaged in what is happening in our country. I am not happy in my disengagement...and neither is the "average" American. We just do not know what to do...it certainly appears that any Congressional action is not "in the offing". I voted for Presidental Candidate Obama because I looked at the other "tired and landlocked" candidates and "FELT" he would wake up in the Whitehouse and say"...wow, I'm here and have nowhere to go after this office...I guess I'll have to do what I "PROMISED"...not so.