Kind of a drag
When your baby don't love you
Kind of a drag
When you know she's been untrue
Oh oh, listen to what I've gotta to say
Girl, I still love you
I'll always love you
Anyway, anyway, anyway
Kind of a drag
When your baby says goodbye
Kind of a drag
When you feel like you want to cry
Girl, even though you make me feel blue
I still love you
I'll always love you
Anyway, Anyway, Anyway
Oh, listen to what I've gotta say
Girl, I still love you
I'll always love you
Anyway, anyway, anyway
The following is a short essay I completed not more than two months ago as part of a History Final prior to my graduation from Franklin Pierce College. I submit this essay to this post as a means of breaking the ice upon the commencement of this blog. I do not consider this essay to be a profound piece of writing. Its dry, callow and unpretentious prose is deliberate on my part, aimed at fitting into the academic setting. Now that I am no longer burdoned by the constraints of such a setting I am hereby free to post future screeds from a more passionate and stylized perspective. As such, please bear in mind that this essay does not reflect the overall quality of my work.
Joe Lehman
U.S. Foreign Relations to 1914
Professor Ley
15 December 2006
History and U.S. Foreign Policy: a Vicious Circle
When searching for direct quotes that most aptly define the importance of studying history, often the most memorable quote is, "those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it," by George Santayana. If anything, when Santayana said this he may have been considerate enough to imply that human beings do have the capacity to learn from the past and prevent the same mistakes from being made in the future. Sadly, when it comes to United States foreign policy over the past two centuries, one is inclined to be more pessimistic. A more appropriate quote may have come from George Bernard Shaw when he paraphrased Hegel, saying "we learn from history that man can never learn anything from history." This quote applies to U.S. foreign policy given the fact that in its case, history has not only had the ability to repeat itself, it has done so on numerous occasions. The consistent failure of the United States government to learn from the way of history to change its policies underscore the grave importance of history’s continued study.
Should the American people have a full awareness of America’s history in foreign relations, there is a strong likelihood that they would disallow the policy-makers at the top of the government to continue the imperial course that has defined American foreign policy for so long. Moreover, those in a better position to be keenly aware of the way of history are the foreign policy actors themselves. The fact that history has shown that they do not change their ways in spite of their awareness reinforces the point that Shaw was trying to make. The state of the nation today sees an intellectually challenged president and the hawkish cabal of advisers surrounding him, having for the past three-and-a-half years, waged a calamitous war in Iraq with seemingly no end in sight and no point to its cost in human misery. Despite the clear imperialist motives behind the waging of this war, this president has continued to justify it before the American people on lofty, humanitarian grounds. The following quotes are an illustration of these justifications. First:
"The war…was undertaken not so that the United States should increase its territory, but that oppression at our very doors should be stopped. Duty determines destiny. Destiny…results from duty performed.…Almighty God has his plans and methods for human progress…"[1]
Second:
"In view of the facts and of these considerations, I ask the Congress to authorize and empower the president to take measures to secure a full and final termination of hostilities…and to secure…the establishment of a stable government, insuring peace and tranquility and the security of its citizens as well as our own, and to use the military and naval forces of the United States as may be necessary for these purposes.…If this measure attains a successful result, then our aspirations as a Christian, peace-loving people will be realized."[2]
America is not an imperialist power, its mission is to liberate the foreign peoples of the rest of the world from the yoke of oppression and to civilize them, educating them in the Christian values of democracy and freedom. That is the message according to these quotes. George W. Bush did, not make these quotes in actuality, in 2005-2006, regarding war in Iraq and the Iraqi people; they were made my President William McKinley in 1898, regarding War against Spain over Cuba and the Cuban people. The message that McKinley attempted to convey in 1898 is virtually identical to that of Bush today. These are actual lines spoken by Bush at his second inauguration:
"We are led, by events and common sense, to one conclusion: The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world… America's vital interests and our deepest beliefs are now one.…So it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.…This is not primarily the task of arms, though we will defend ourselves and our friends by force of arms when necessary."[3]
He followed this up in a later address:
"Because we have witnessed how the violence in that region can easily reach across borders and oceans, the entire world has an urgent interest in the progress and hope and freedom in the broader Middle East."[4]
One can substitute "Middle East" with "the Caribbean" or Iraq with Cuba and there would be no other way of telling the speeches of these two presidents apart.
As history would have it, the ideals that McKinley spoke of amounted to nothing as the aftermath of the Spanish-American War descended into a brutal colonial occupation, in Cuba, and as a bonus, in the Philippines. For all McKinley’s denunciations of Spanish oppression, Americans ruled these colonies with equally dictatorial administration. For all his professed belief in the liberty of the Cuban people, the U.S. never had an interest in their self-determination, as they effectively restricted and then crushed the independence movement. Bush and his advisors obviously did not learn from this past disgrace to human rights, as they have perpetuated the same actions in Iraq. Like Cuba and the Philippines, the U.S. is faced with a bloody counter-insurgency campaign. As with a century ago, for all the talk of respect for "democratic movements" the U.S. continues to restrict and interfere with the politics of the Iraqi people. The U.S. is content to grant contracts to multinational corporations while systematically denying the benefit of Iraq’s natural resources to the people. History has repeated itself, only it is not farcical this time, it is just as tragic.
The lesson is that, yes history is relevant to understanding the present complex world, and U.S. foreign relations of yesterday are relevant to those of today. It is simply a matter of whether people actually learn the lessons of history. Bush and his cadre have either not learned from history, or they have and they are just willfully ignorant. If the country’s leaders cannot be trusted to act on the lessons of history in future foreign relations, then it is up to the American people to do so. Only the people can hold the leaders accountable.
Endnotes
1. Louis Perez, The War of 1898: The United States & Cuba in History & Historiography (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1998), 111.
2. William McKinley, "McKinley Asks Congress to Authorize War on Spain, 1898," in Major Problems in American Foreign Relations, eds. Dennis Merrill and Thomas G. Paterson (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006), 171-172.
3. "Bush: ‘No Justice Without Freedom," CNN January 20, 2005, http://www.cnn.com/2005/ALLPOLITICS/01/20/bush.transcript/index.html
4. "Transcript of Bush Speech on Terrorism," CNN March 8, 2005, http://www.cnn.com/2005/ALLPOLITICS/03/08/bush.transcript/index.html
Bibliography
"Bush: ‘No Justice Without Freedom," CNN January 20, 2005
http://www.cnn.com/2005/ALLPOLITICS/01/20/bush.transcript/index.html
"Transcript of Bush Speech on Terrorism," CNN March 8, 2005. http://www.cnn.com/2005/ALLPOLITICS/03/08/bush.transcript/index.html
McKinley, William. "McKinley Asks Congress to Authorize War on Spain, 1898," in Major Problems in American Foreign Relations, eds. Dennis Merrill and Thomas G. Paterson. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006.
Perez, Louis A Jr. The War of 1898: The United States & Cuba in History & Historiography. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1998.
