Back in August I had an interesting talk with Richard Maybury, an economist of the Austrian school and editor of the financial newsletter Early Warning Report. He is the author of a big idea, actually a model with which to help predict long term trends in global politics and finance. It’s called Chaostan, and basically it means that enlighenment ideas of liberty and property never made it past Marx in Germany in their natural spread eastward, that the former Soviet Union is ready to break into many more pieces, and most importantly that the US government ought to leave those people the hell alone, as creating a global empire there will destroy the great limited constitutional republic Americans created back when they believed in enlightenment ideals of liberty and property.
The American War Party has decided not to follow his advice.
A few days back I saw on TV a cheesy re-creation of a firefight in Afghanistan interspersed with interviews of the men involved in the actual event. One of them made the comment, “This is Injun Country,” in reference to their firebase out in the middle of Afghanistan somewhere. Eh, so what?
Well, just now I went to take a look at A Tiny Revolution, where Jonathan Schwarz quotes George Bush from February 2003 as saying, “If we must use force, the United States and our coalition stand ready to help the citizens of a liberated Iraq,” and then brings up the record regarding American’s promises to “help people” in the past.
“It might have been useful if we’d remembered the first Great Seal of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. It was part of the charter granted to British settlers in 1629 by Charles I. This was where America began�with Pilgrims, Thanksgiving, etc.
Now, look closely. Can you tell what the American Indian on the seal is saying?
That’s right! He’s asking the settlers to “come over and help us.” The settlers, of course, did help the Indians…to be dead.This formula recurs over and over again throughout American history. We go somewhere because we HAVE TO HELP PEOPLE. Then they all somehow�perhaps because of a 400-year streak of bad luck on our part?�end up dead.”
He then cites Andrew Bacevich’s review of Robert Kaplan’s new book, Imperial Grunts, where it is explained,
“[A]s Kaplan sees it, 9/11 returned the US military to its nineteenth-century roots when advancing the boundaries of free society meant removing any obstacles impeding the westward march of the young Republic. Today’s war on terror is “really about taming the frontier,” with the frontier now literally without limits. According to Kaplan, the vast swath of Islam, stretching from Africa across the Middle East to Southeast Asia, now qualifies as “Injun Country.” The “entire planet” has now become “battle space for the American military.”
At least the always optimistic Bacevich ends his review on a happy note,
“Hard-pressed to hold on to the new provinces to which today’s architects of empire have laid claim, America’s armed forces are in no position to appropriate more. As for the Pentagon’s ability to flood additional obscure quarters of the earth, the troops required to do so simply do not exist.”
No wonder Zbigniew Brzezinski and them are so concerned about Iraq, the job was Asia – now the neocons have blown it.
Anybody ever looked at a map of Asia? Anybody believe that the way to spread liberty is by making up stupid racial slurs to dehumanize people and then kill them and steal their stuff?
Does anyone really believe that 6% of the world (us) can conquer the Old World from across the ocean or that we’ve got the right to even try?
Check out some Richard Maybury and get back to me.