Global Reach

Forget the will-America-become-an-empire debate, Chalmers Johnson advises: America already has an empire, and its essential unit is the armed enclave. "Once upon a time, you could trace the spread of imperialism by counting up colonies," he writes. "America's version of the colony is the military base, and the impact and reach of our colonial empire has become reduced to a single word: Footprint."

Elsewhere in the imperium: a report in Southern Exposure claims that reconstruction contractors in Iraq are raking in the dough for frequently shoddy work.

Comments

[GoonFood]

Well, when you get a no-bid contract and have just about 0% chance of being fired you tend to do just enough work to get by. Begin replacing the bozos doing shotty work and watch how fast the remaining contractors start finishing before schedule and with solid results.

[dhex]

which will probably happen right after pig airlines starts operating.

regardless of one's opinion on the war, did anyone really think people weren't going to get paid over this?

[Shultz]

While reading Johnson's piece, I was trying to make myself feel appropriately indignant, but I just couldn't get there.

I kept thinking about Space 1999. You know, the Sci-Fi series from the '70's. Does anyone else remember Space 1999?

The premise, as I remember, was that the president had put a military base on the moon, there was a nuclear war and everything went haywire...and there were really Mod, Bond girls.

So, I'm trying to get upset along with Johnson about marines on the moon, and I keep seeing the equvilent of Star Trek...I mean the original series...where everybody is going ultra-Mod...Star Trek.

It's hard to get indignant about something so ridiculous.

That's the problem with Bush's moon base proposal; it's too ridiculous to take seriously. A piece like this, with some real points to make about the undesirable growth of our military commitments, hurts itself with talk of moon bases.

Let's not lend Bush's moon base idea any more crediblity by talking about the ultimate effects of Moon Base; Let's just make fun of the whole proposal. Otherwise, we'll soon be talking about a Mars base.

Oh god!

P.S. I know some guy with a tin foil hat is going to say, "Yeah, you're right, but what about Bush's MOON BASE!?"

[Brian Carnell]

That article was amusing. He says that the suicide rate among soldiers is up but then links to an article that notes the suicide rate of soldiers is right in line with the normal suicide rate for that demographic group. LOL.

[Steve in CO]

Brian, there are several deaths that are still under investigation, so the number may very well be higher.

[SM]

Is there an equivalent of Godwin's law where opponents of US foreign policy & influence get to redefine the word "empire" to mean whatever they believe the USA is at that point in time ? If not i'd like to inaugurate one right here, right now.

[Dan]

Well, when you get a no-bid contract and have just about 0% chance of being fired you tend to do just enough work to get by.

The only actual accusations of shoddy work in this article are against subcontractors, whose contracts aren't "no-bid".

This article isn't worth taking seriously. A good rule of thumb -- if the reporter acts horrified that companies are actually turning a profit, ignore everything he says.

[greg sperla]

I can't help but think that if we had let the UN deal with Iraq that we would be lossing more money net in the end.

[Surprised]

You mean to tell me that a government contractor is overcharging and doing shoddy work? No freaking way!

[dj of raleigh]

> the impact and reach of our colonial empire has > become reduced to a single word: Footprint."

[Andrew]

In the end, it may be that the decision of the administration will be to assume only a very modest position in post-war Iraq, if that would make democratic emergence there more likely. That would be a rational decision, if anyone in Iraq actually seemed to care about it.
I don't think our country should decide this at the behest of Arab Opinion, World Opinion, or Respectable Opinion here in America. I don't care what they think in Cairo, Paris, or at the Kennedy School of Government.

[Ron Hardin]

Empire and imperialism do go together, etymologically anyway. There's also potestas, auctoritas, officium, as well as imperium, that all get merged under `power,' a reification like phlogiston: what causes fire. Empire is a reification, you could say. It's what causes what the US ``has.'' Now we have to look for it.

[?]

Has it occured to any of you that - given the rampant identity theft happening herein - this site is less a forum of ideas than a lab experiment by Reason editors who are having some fun at your expense?

[Unreal]

You...you mean...the signatories are not...real?

[Unreal]

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Yes, my son. It's true. You are me. And I am you.
Don't believe me? I'll prove it. Look below...
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But, Unreal...I mean "?", if you are me and I am Joe or Thoreau or mac nas or Jean Bart or Warren or Jennifer...who is who? And who am I to trust?
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[dj of raleigh]

> You...you mean...the signatories are not...real?
Posted by Unreal at January 23, 2004 09:28 PM

==========

Why not require a paid account to post on here?

[Unreal]

Indeed! Click below to check merit.

[Jean Bart]

OK, fun is fun. Now stop it.

[Jean Bart]

No, YOU stop it!

[Mr. Reason]

Cheese it! They're on to us!

[Nick]

You're all busted. Assume the position!

[Jean Bart]

As a Frenchman, I am appalled by this behaviour!

[?]

"Behaviour"!
Ha ha, you spell like a Brit!

[Jean Bart]

I resent that remark!

[Jean Bart]

I second that e-motion!
Frog!

[Jean Bart]

Stop it! I am the real Jean Bart!

[Jean Bart]

Mon Dieu! It is I, the genuine article! Cease and desist!

[Walter Wallis]

I am amused to read discussions about no-bid contracts by people who have no idea what a bid or a contract are, and very likely not the slightest idea of what is required to build a building, put out an oilwell fire or deliver gasoline through war conditions.

Haliburton's contract was an add-on to an existing competitively bid contract to provide troop support in other areas. This is a time honored way of accomodating changing conditions. Only an idiot demands a bid for poorly definable work, because those jobs are underbid by sharpshooters who then demand and receive extravagantly extra payment for any condition or requirement not explicitely specified. For reconstruction, look at the Frisco reconstruction of earthquake damage, still not complete a dozen years later.

As for the bitching Iraqi, I remember the standard response to any bitching during WWII - Don't you know there's a war on? They are citizens of a defeated nation, magnanimously being put back together not as a duty but as an act of kindness, paid for by U.S. taxpayers with little expectation of reward more than a reduction in threat.

[Skippy]

anon, if you think after 9/11 that committing our army and spending hundreds of billions in Iraq was "all about oil," I pity you. Please explain why we haven't taken over their oilfields, but will be allowing Iraqis to sell their oil (meanwhile getting many billions in Iraqi debt excused)? Or why we didn't make a sweetheart deal with Saddam as France and other opponents of the war did?

You know, as long as so many fools go around saying it's all about oil and we're an empire, I say let's actual act that way--let's conquer the Middle East (won't be too hard if we don't care about civilian casualties, like any good empire)and get all the oil for free. Outside of improving everyone's lives there, who'll notice?

[Walter Wallis]

Well said, Skippy.

[Jesse Walker]

anon, if you think after 9/11 that committing our army and spending hundreds of billions in Iraq was "all about oil," I pity you.

Interesting use of quotation marks, given that the phrase "all about oil" appears nowhere in Anon's post. Are you arguing with him or with your abstract idea of what the other side is saying?

I went through and analyzed this article from top to bottom here

I'll be the first to admit that Johnson gets carried away with his rhetoric at times, and you do make some reasonable points in your response. Unfortunately, you haven't really analyzed the essay from top to bottom so much as you've heckled it from top to bottom; you may have addressed every sentence, but you haven't tried to summarize -- and thus comprehend, and thus refute -- the man's thesis. At times you treat points of data like they're points of argument, as though the fact that Johnson is complaining means that every statement he makes is supposed to be a complaint.

I blame the "fisking" style, which frequently gets in the way of useful debate.

[Andrew]

Reading through Johnson's article, I concluded that far more bases are going to be closed than opened in the next several years-- Iraq may be the ONLY place where large new overseas bases will be created...and mostly at the expense of bases formerly situated in other parts of the Gulf, and more recently in Central Asia.

The bases in South Korea WILL be eliminated, and the German ones more gradually. Given financial contraints generally in Bush's second term, if Rumsfeld wants to close a third of bases in North America, he will probably get his way.

Johnson wrote an OK article...which de-bunks his own case.

[skippy]

I was taking to task the general argument that reduces America's actions in the Middle East as being all about oil (the kind of arguments that say why don't we attack other dictatorships, etc.), or even centrally about oil. No one denies oil is a factor in Middle East politics, and, by the way, it should be and there's nothing embarrassing in admitting it. But please note 1) the ONLY reason anon gave for our actions was oil (and seemed to downplay alternate reasons), 2) I think I pointed why that anon's vaunted reason doesn't hold up to scrutiny and 3) considering the situation as a whole, and taking into account 9/11, I'd say the oil issue is less significant than it's been at least 30 years, and made almost no difference in Iraq, but that doesn't stop the people who insist a superpower like us must be imperialistic as long as we--like every nation ever on this planet--use our power in what seems to us our national interest (and not remotely, seems to me, like past imperialist powers).

The people who spread this accusation against the US, and insist that we invaded Iraq so we could get its oil, aren't just horribly mistaken. They help contribute to an atmosphere that gets real people killed.

[Jean Bart?]

"They are citizens of a defeated nation, magnanimously being put back together not as a duty but as an act of kindness, paid for by U.S. taxpayers with little expectation of reward more than a reduction in threat."

Well put, Walter, if indeed you ARE Walter.

[?]

So what you are saying, Unreal, is that the inherent validity of the argument is all that counts? I agree. Still, that does not prevent someone here from stealing that poster's identity and using it later to undermine his argument in an inconsistent or foolish way. Or for a poster to both ask and answer his own question using different names, a kind of Socratic dialogue of one.

Many people come here to argue or to see their "names" in "print." Some are genuinely interested in intelligent conversation. A few are de facto crackpots. The best strategy is probably to post once with a brief, well-constructed argument using a random name, then leave the bickering to the pros.

[Walter Wallis]

In one sense, we are ALL Walter.

[Ron Hardin]

Socratic dialogue was of one. Plato.

[jb]

I went through and analyzed this article from top to bottom here

(http://www.freespeech.com/archives/001832.html)

If anyone is interested in reading it.

[anon]

Walter Wallis:

"They are citizens of a defeated nation, magnanimously being put back together not as a duty but as an act of kindness, paid for by U.S. taxpayers with little expectation of reward ..."

true, only if you can call the world's second largest oil reserve "a little expectation of reward".

BTW David Kay just resigned, but the Bushies are still adamant about the existence of the phantom WMD.

[Jean Bart]

The U.S. "owns" most the Pacific Ocean as a colony.

[dj of raleigh]

The U.S. "owns" most the Pacific Ocean as a colony. -------Jean Bart
============
That's more than a fourth of the surface of the planet.
What is the land area of an ocean? Zip!

Of the tens of thousands of Islands in the Pacific,
the US has the unincorporated territories
of American Samoa & Guam.
There is the Commonwealth of Northern Marianas.
What else could Jean be referring to as "owning" the Pacific Ocean as a colony?

Besides uninhabited tiny islands climed by the US,
none jump to mind as 'colonies.'
Since WWII, when the US took over many islands while fighting the Japanese,
there has been a consistent withdrawal of control.
In fact, the flow of permanent residents has been to the USA,
not to the islands of the Pacfic Ocean.

Perhaps Jean seeks to re-fuel some self-hatred in the USA?
If you want to feel BAD about being American,
just think about the radioative legacy left behind,
and that will last your lifetime, and generations more.
It isn't about "owning colonies."

[dj of raleigh]

> What a maroon.

[[e-mail]]

"Due to government secrecy, our citizens are often ignorant of the fact that our garrisons encircle the planet."

What a complete idiot this person is.

Why of course, the U.S. Government is hiding secret military bases from the American people.

Has this moron ever *seen* an actual live production military base?

That does not seem possible.

You *cannot* hide a military base.

What a maroon.

[DFH]

And then he soft shoes over Diane Feinstein's political opposition to closing unnecessary bases in the United States -- which is wasting tax dollar and putting the lives of American military personnel needlessly at risk because those dollars are no longer available for militarily relevant expenditures.

What a complete piece of partisan hogwash.

[Jean Bart]

dj of raleigh,

"That's more than a fourth of the surface of the planet. What is the land area of an ocean? Zip!"

So what?

"Of the tens of thousands of Islands in the Pacific, the US has the unincorporated territories of American Samoa & Guam.
There is the Commonwealth of Northern Marianas.
What else could Jean be referring to as "owning" the Pacific Ocean as a colony?"

Wake Island, Pamlyra, Howland Island, Baker Island, Midway Island, Marshall Islands (whose foreign policy is run by the U.S., though they control their domestic affairs - however, given their dependence on the U.S. regarding welfare handouts, their domestic independence is not much in reality), Palau is in the same position as the Marshall islands, etc.

"Perhaps Jean seeks to re-fuel some self-hatred in the USA?"

When you can't make an argument, you revert to psycho-babble. I am not trying to re-fuel hatred of anything, I am stating that the U.S. has colonies in the Pacific ocean. They are referred to as "territories" and "protectorates," just as France and Britain referred to some of their colonies as "territories" and "protectorates" (and of course still do).

"If you want to feel BAD about being American,
just think about the radioative legacy left behind, and that will last your lifetime, and generations more."

I'm not an American. Pay attention.

[Jean Bart]

dj of raleigh,

My country, France, has a lot of territory (new Caledonia, Wallis & Futuna, the Marquesas islands, etc.) in the Pacific; these territories are have voting representatives in the French parliament and local governments.

BTW, this notion of creating a empire via overseas military bases is not particularly novel or unusual. France and Britain have maintained far flung military bases in former colonies for example; indeed, this has been Britain's policy towards its former colonies since the 1950s.

[dj of raleigh]

> Wake Island, Pamlyra, Howland Island, Baker Island, Midway Island, Marshall Islands (whose foreign policy is run by the U.S., though they control their domestic affairs - however, given their dependence on the U.S. regarding welfare handouts, their domestic independence is not much in reality), Palau is in the same position as the Marshall islands, etc.

[dj of raleigh]

> "Perhaps Jean seeks to re-fuel some self-hatred in the USA?"....I'm not an American. Pay attention.

[Walter Wallis]

Calilfornia's women came to power on anti-war kicks.
Vallejo lost a perfectly functional nuclear submarine service facility at Mare Island that had to be constructed new at Widby Island because of antipathy to all things military.

[dj of raleigh]

> Cultural literacy time:
"What a maroon, what an ignoranomous!"
That Oscar-winning rabbit, Bugs Bunny!

[mak_nas]

BTW David Kay just resigned, but the Bushies are still adamant about the existence of the phantom WMD.

and i would not expect this assertion to go away, ever. in the logic, it's impossible to prove the negative. in the reality, it gives an excellent pretext for intimidating syria at the moment, and any adjacent player that interferes in the americanization of iraq in the longer view.

johnson does go a bit far afield in rhetoric, but his core point remains: america has its empire and a government that is increasingly imperial (regardless of which party might be in executive power). i think you have to willfully ignore much to conclude otherwise.

[Daniel]

OK, I?ll take the advice of ?, post, then leave the bickering to the pros. IMO Iraq war was about oil, - oh, and as all wars are, about funneling taxpayer money to the proper people - and so was the Afghanistan war. One should read Zbignew Brzezinski?s 1997 book ?The Grand Chessboard? to understand our motives. Caspian Oil, Unocal pipeline, Peak oil also play a factor. BTW: Zbignew says, more than once, it will take a ?Pearl Harbor? to get the fractured American public to go to war. And, if I recall correctly, Z Big is quite the darling of the so called neo cons.

[kevrob]

Cultural literacy time:

"What a maroon, what an ignoranomous!"
That Oscar-winning rabbit, Bugs Bunny!

Soundfile on linked page.

Kevin

[Jean Bart]

dj of raleigh,

Again, if you can't make arguments you resort to psycho-babble; oh, and thick-headed essentialist and nationalist statements.

"Is that statement true? NO"

You of course left out my qualifying term "most." Thank you for your decided lack of honesty.

Whether the islands are inhabited or not is of little importance; the U.S. maintains a strong imperial presence in the Pacific.

"Do the French and former French islands have free imigration and exist by French finacial aid?"

France has had a policy of free immigration from its colonies and former colonies for well over a hundred years.

"Excuse me. I didn't notice you saying you were French. Change the "self-hatred" to "hatred" of the USA. That's the way it seems, or softer, fault finder."

One wonders what I have written that indicates a hatred of the USA; or is that the standard defense you use against anyone you disagree with, so as to defend yourself against the cognitive dissonance? What exactly does a statement concerning the level of U.S. presence in the South Pacific have to say about my love or hatred of the USA (indeed, I like the U.S. a great deal)? Please demonstrate your point, or stop trolling cretin.

[dj of raleigh]

> You of course left out my qualifying term "most." Thank you for your decided lack of honesty.

[dj of raleigh]

> Whether the islands are inhabited or not is of little importance; The U.S. "owns" most the Pacific Ocean as a colony.

[Jean Bart]

dj of raleigh,

You of course may disagree with it; I of course noticed that you completely backed off your "hate" the USA statement, etc.

[dj of raleigh]

to me, of me:
...your decided lack of honesty.
...you revert to psycho-babble.
...cretin

[Jean Bart]

dj of raleigh,

"Perhaps you waste your time reading my writing.
Why do you do it? You know what they say about a man that argues with a drunk or fool."

Well, I can't say anything about your drinking habits, and whether you are a fool I also cannot apprehend (too few data points); but even if you are such, I never give up on lost causes. 🙂

[dj of raleigh]

Jean,
I will first apologize to you,
for saying you hate the US.
That was based on my feelings,
not on any statement of yours.

I first assumed you to be an American,
for which you told me to "pay attention."
My second prejudice came when you said,
you were a Frenchman, which led me to
smart-ass from self-hating American,
to American-hating Frenchman,
which thought is a prejudice.

I wish I could take both those back.
You did not deserve either, and neither
contributed to the discussion.
I apologize to all readers for that,
and for this, directed to one person as it is.

You responded by saying that you like the US.
That was kind of you, considering all the
American Fries you may have had to swallow of late.

My first impression of you was prejudiced
by a high school teacher I had, who had that
"pay attention" line you like to use,
which led me to lay the 'fault finder' label on you.
I was not a good student.
He was not a good teacher.
You see the result of his lessons.

Since I have wronged you in this way,
I will try to not speak of you directly,
as I did, forcing you to defend yourself,
to endure the 'psycho-babble' of a 'cretin'
as you put it back to me.

I didn't come on this board to offend you,
or anyone else, nor to be offended, for that matter.
I came to join in, learn, hopefully contribute,
and enjoy myself, which this current dialog
hasn't achieved for anyone.

I will defend myself a bit.
I do not believe I was dishonest in my omission
of teh word "most" in my posting.
It wasn't meant to deceive.
The proof of that was that I first quoted
the entirety of your post, if you look prior.

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