America’s Place in the World

As some of you may have noticed, (I fear that most did not even notice) I discontinued my blog postings following my post of "The Silence is Deafening" when that post did not end that silence.

I have no desire or intention to discontinue that self-imposed exile, since my efforts continue to be unrewarding.

However, when I have an exchange on a topic of interest with a friend and the work of writing is already largely done, I intent to post for whatever readership may still remain. And so my exchange follows.

Eric Offner of Manhasset Hills, NY sent me two e-mails that I quote below:

Sorry about your blog when you could analyze Obama's Tuesday speech and the horror of chemical warfare in Syria and US greatness. You could have explained ten million gallons of Agent Orange, which are killing people to this day. We can include napalm on list of chemicals; depleted uranium munitions can also be included. You know well that one needs clean hands to obtain equitable relief.

And then in a separate e-mail:

Common Dreams: "Halliburton Pleads Guilty to Destroying Evidence in Gulf Disaster." 

  

Another item for your blurb. 

$200,000 fine. 

I hope this encourages you to resume.

My response to Offner, who is a Holocaust survivor like me, but first fled to England and then to Brazil before coming to the United States, was:

Your comment makes no sense at all. To savage the country that gave you and me refuge is a travesty. You particularly had many choices. You could have made England your home, or Brazil. But you chose the U.S. There must have been a reason.

Ditto for my relatives who came to the United States after World War I and whose presence here saved my family and me. They chose the U.S. over all other countries, despite the fact that it always had a lot of warts, not the least of which was its racism and its anti-Semitism. After all this country was born in slavery and has never completely shed its past.

But like what Winston Churchill said about Democracy, i.e. "It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried." can also be applied to nations, i.e. the U.S. is the worst country in the world until we look at the others, most particularly in foreign policy. 

You talk about this country’s sins in Vietnam! Have you looked at the atrocities committed by the French? I have been to Vietnam, they are bitterer about the French then about the Americans.

Btu whatever sins we committed more than a half century ago are rather irrelevant on the question of our role in preventing atrocities in todays world.

But if you want to go back in history, the most relevant period occurred almost four score years ago. As Hitler besieged Britain, threatened the whole world and slaughtered Jews, Gypsies, and countless others, FDR's desire to assist Britain with arms shipments were opposed by these same isolationist voices, who wanted us to turn inwards, who proclaimed that our racist policies at home gave us no warrant to criticize others and besides with unemployment at record highs we should worry about the home front. Roosevelt had to employ subterfuge in what he chose to call "lend/lease" to hide the fact that there was no loan and no lease. He was aiding Britain in its hour of need. It wasn't enough! Without our entry into the war before it was too late Hitler would still have prevailed, Russia's heroic defense notwithstanding. But American isolationism tied Roosevelt's hands, until Japan foolishly solved the problem for Roosevelt by attacking, followed shortly by a declaration of War by Germany and Italy. Even then there was little desire to aid the Jews. It was not our problem.

After the war we declared: "NEVER AGAIN". It was meant not just to apply to Jews, but to all atrocities against mankind. But the voices of nationalism, the voices that spoke of "National Interest" domino theories, and exit strategies, caused us to engage in all the wrong conflicts, including Vietnam. But even before Vietnam we foolishly arranged for the CIA to overthrow the Democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran, Mohammed Mosaddegh and installed the hated Shah; we overthrew the duly elected government of Chile in 1973 and since Vietnam, we foolishly intervened in Lebanon in 1982, invaded Grenada in 1983, and invaded Panama in 1989. 

But when the Rwandan genocide occurred, much to our shame, we sat on our hands while Tutsi's were slaughtered, but there was no national interest, just as there was no national interest in preventing the slaughter of Jews and Gypsies. Much to our credit, we intervened when the breakup of Yugoslavia led to slaughter in Bosnia and Kosovo. When Clinton with NATO decided on a bombing campaign that eventually led to a breakup of the country and the end of the slaughter, we heard "where is the exit strategy", where is the "National Interest." But it was our finest hour! No boots on the ground, no American casualties, but mission accomplished!! Not the phony "Mission Accomplished" of Bush after the fall of Saddam Hussein. Libya too, despite its warts, stopped the slaughter and belongs in the success column.

Obama is up in arms about the use of chemical weapons in Syria. He is right to be up in arms, because better late than never. But where were we when Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons against the Kurds in his own country. Where were we when Saddam used chemical weapons in his war against Iran? Where were we when Hafez al-Assad, the father of Bashar al-Assad, massacred 20,000 of his own people in Hama in 1982? To quote from The Guardian, "The 1982 massacre is regarded as the single bloodiest assault by an Arab ruler against his own people in modern times and remains a pivotal event in Syrian history."

We are told that Syria is a civil war that we should not get caught up in. But so was Spain a Civil War in the 1930's. Had we taken sides there or when Mussolini invaded Abyssinia, or when Hitler occupied the Rhineland, the whole history of the Holocaust and WWII might never have happened.

But is it a Civil War? Have we forgotten its beginnings? How people peacefully demonstrated, and Bashar al Assad mowed them down just like his father did 30 years ago. We fight the wrong wars and then use that as an excuse not to fight the right ones. Bush I was right to fight Iraq for invading a peaceful neighboring country. Clinton was right to enforce a no-fly zone over Iraq and sanction them for their treatment of the Kurds. Bush II and the Congress were even right when they decided that unless Saddam gave up weapons of mass destruction we would do it for him. And the build up of weapons was successful in forcing Saddam to let the inspectors in. But when the UN inspectors found that there were no such weapons the raison d'être was gone, but Bush didn't care. He wanted the war, and all else was pretense.

And so because we fought a wrong war, nobody wants to help a people being slaughtered. When the Left and the Right agree something is wrong. Syria is not a civil war. It is a revolution. Our failure to arm the secular revolutionaries has empowered and strengthened the fanatics. Arming the rebels and enforcing a no fly zone was and is the right thing to do.

It is late, but not too late.

Why should the U.S. be the policeman of the world? Because we can and no one else can. The world desperately needs a policeman.

As for your comment about laches, you well know that laches applies to a party seeking relief. The U.S. is not seeking any relief from any judicial body or from anyone.

Even though I have discontinued my commentaries, Comments, questions, or corrections, are welcome and will be responded to and distributed with attribution, unless the writer requests that he/she not be identified.