On ghosts, hostages and foreign policy
As Vietnam unravelled in the 1960s, active duty 'Old Sweats', veterans of World War II and Korea would grumble that "when civilians fup, soldiers pay with their lives".
Afghanistan will be charged to the Obama administration, regardless of its outcome or its origins. Despite that fact, one is compelled to empathise with President Obama as he sits in a solitary place and contemplates a rationale for US foreign policy and its application. The fact is that significant power is oftentimes exercised from solitary places as President Johnson found out in Vietnam and George W. Bush in Iraq. Johnson might have made decisions about Vietnam surrounded by the brightest and the best from Camelot; Bush with the members of the Vulcan's Club, i.e. Cheney, Rumsfeld, Armitage, Perle, Wolfowitz, Snowcroft and Rice. The advisers to Johnson and the members of the Vulcan's Club have faded into obscurity but the respective wars have been charged to the respective presidents.
product of a rebellion
The fact is, whatever the administration, whatever its foreign policy, whatever the war, presidents are hostage to the 'Wilson Doctrine'. Basically, we tend to forget that the United States is a product of a rebellion. Rebellions by their very nature are limited in scope. A fact best described by one writer: "In every act of rebellion, the man concerned experiences not only a feeling of revulsion at the infringement of his rights, but also a complete and spontaneous loyalty to certain aspects of himself. Thus, he implicitly brings into play a standard of values so far from being false that he is willing to preserve them at all costs." The founders of the United States recognise the limitations of rebellion and successfully transformed a rebellion into a revolution of ideas and ideals.
The fact is, the United States after its Revolutionary War had espoused a foreign policy based on its Revolutionary Idealism. It vowed never to become embroiled in European geopolitics. All that would change by the mid-19th century as a kind of messianic fervour began creeping into how Americans viewed their place in the world. This is Melville (circa 19th century): "We Americans are peculiar chosen people - the Israel of our time - we bear the arc of the liberties of the world. God has given us for future inheritance, the broad dominions of the political pagans; they should come and lie down under the shade of our arc". Basically, that is about as imperial as one can get.
By the early 20th century that kind of sentiment would become full blown. The two major political parties in the United States would subscribe to the Wilsonian Doctrine of making the 'world safe for democracy'. The fact is both political parties might disagree about the timing and implementation but they fundamentally support the export of the ideals of the American Declaration of Independence.
President Wilson was very clear on that matter: "The world turns to America for those moral imperatives which be at the base of freedom - all should know that she puts human rights above all other rights and that her flag is the flag not only of America but humanity." That is very 'heady' stuff for any people; because in all circumstances one should be tempered by Isaiah Berlin's observation that "any ideal taken to its very end brings not redemption but pain and horror".
There have been brief interludes in which some retrospection has taken place. President John Kennedy after staring into the abyss of nuclear war over Cuba and Berlin would momentarily dream of other possibilities. He would argue for making 'a world that was safe for diversity'. The Herald Tribune has contended: "The speech broke with the USA's Cold War judgementalism that always blamed the attitude of the other side, proposing instead that we most examine our attitude as individuals and as a nation, for our attitude is as essential as theirs in causing conflict."
That moment of retrospection by John Kennedy on the Wilson Doctrine would swiftly pass under the stress of Vietnam and Cold War tensions. The fact is that all presidents since that momentary lapse have reverted to the Wilson Doctrine. Obama continued that process in his West Point speech.
cycle repeated
It is common sense that as Obama and his advisers contemplated what to do in Afghanistan, the ghost of Wilson stalked the corridors of the White House. The war will be charged to Obama, his advisers will fade into obscurity and the 'Old Sweats' will again be proven right. The cycle will repeat itself; because there is a certain tempo to these things, a certain seasonality and a narrow range of rationalities to choose from. Among those rationalities are freedom and human rights. But then, what the hell? Que sera sera.
I oftentimes wonder about Rowden, Ray, Emerson and their observations about civilians, politicians, power, life and death. It was a different war but it sounds the same. In the final analysis, the ghost of cherished ideals hold us all hostage one way or another.
Lloyd Goodleigh is general secretary of the Jamaica Confederation of Trade Unions. Feedback may be sent to columns@gleanerjm.com