Empire's always right Phillip Adams
The Australian October 12, 2002
A COLUMN I wrote in the aftermath of September 11 had me attacked by the froth-mouthed phalanx of right-wing pundits, the sound of whose fingers hitting the keyboard recalls the thud of approaching jackboots.
Then I was frogmarched to the Press Council and dragged in chains to the Human Rights Commission. The accusations against me? They ranged from un-American activities (to which I proudly plead guilty) to treason.
You see, I'd tried to remind Australia that rushing to America's colours was, as demonstrated in Vietnam, a health hazard. Before we signed up for the war against terror, wherever that might lead us, I thought it important to remember that the US has been the most trigger-happy of nations. With a long history of bellicosity and a culture of violence.
It is now my sad duty to say... I told you so. As expected, Washington is spiralling out of control - and Australia has as much to fear from its powerful friend as it does from its putative enemies.
In evidence, let me introduce you to the wonderfully christened Charles Krauthammer. It's a name worthy of Evelyn Waugh or Dickens. And it fits its owner like a glove. An iron glove containing, yes, an iron fist. For Krauthammer simultaneously evokes notions of a master race and massive blows to the anvil.
A winner of the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished commentary, he's been writing a column in The Washington Post for the past 17 years and is influential in conservative political circles. I spoke to him in his Washington, DC, office just a few blocks from where his friends rule the roost _ and the world.
To describe Krauthammer as an apologist for the present regime does him a disservice. For Krauthammer never apologises. He is the most hawkish of the Bush chickenhawks.
We chatted a few days before Bush unveiled his new policy of global dominance: "The US is now the only superpower. The most powerful nation in history. No country, no empire, has been in the same league. Not since the Romans."
The British Empire? No comparison. Through its era, there were always other nations who challenged its dominance. Ditto for Germany in its prime, for France in all its glories, for Spain in its conquistadorial ambitions. Each nation was countered by the others. Whereas the US is not just powerful but all-powerful.
In words as percussive as shell bursts, Krauthammer said the US is dominant not only militarily, economically and politically, but culturally. As well as the hard power of the Pentagon, there is the soft power of its film and television industries, which had softened audiences around the world.
Multilateralism? A nonsense. "The whole idea that the Afghan war is being fought by a coalition is comical ... the Afghan war is unilateralism dressed up as multilateralism ... a unilateralist doesn't object to people joining our fight, he only objects when the multilateralists, like Clinton in Kosovo, give 18 countries veto power over bombing targets."
So if countries allow themselves to be dragged along by the US coat-tails, if they want to sign up for (or surrender to) America's military campaigns, they're welcome. Provided they obey orders and don't interfere.
(At this point, Krauthammer informed me that his wife is Australian, as though this would prove a comforting notion. My response was to wonder whether Mrs Krauthammer had much of a say in family matters. If it echoes the relationship between our respective nations, we should call in the marriage guidance counsellors.)
The UN? Irrelevant. The Europeans? Vacillators, nervous nellies, spent forces. "The Europeans sit and pout. What else can they do? We do not force on them military obsolescence. They chose social spending over defence spending."
Thus, in the future the US will make its own decisions without worrying what Europe, or anyone, thinks. The US feels entitled to ignore international rules and regulations, to conduct its affairs absolutely and utterly in its own interests.
I suggested that if the US made a habit of kicking doors down and rushing inside without wiping its feet, it would create new and unprecedented alliances against it. That a policy devoid of subtlety and careful calibration, with consensus replaced by capitulation, would antagonise even its most obliging allies. Krauthammer was unconcerned, sure that economic and strategic self-interest would force lesser nations to line up and salute the flag. Theirs.
If Krauthammer seemed excessive, preposterous, self-parodic, the presidential statement that followed showed a power elite in deadly earnest. The nation that refuses to dismantle its 7000 nuclear warheads, that, instead, is fast-tracking new tactical nuclear weapons for use in the field, a country that now warns the world that it will attack nations and organisations not in retaliation but pre-emptively, has no precedent in human history.
Here is arrogance, triumphalism, hubris on an awesome scale. Bush announced in his intransigent, kick-ass, like-it-or-lump-it approach to ... to what? Diplomacy? You can hardly call it that. This judge-jury-executioner approach to power is not to be seen as just a short-term response to September 11. It is to be permanent. Bush stated that no nation will be allowed to challenge US supremacy. Its unipolar position will be sacrosanct.
As with Krauthammer's machinegun delivery, Bush's speech was as memorable for its bad manners as for its message. As it echoes around the world, the response to this combination of theatricality and threat will be predictable. On the one hand, governments - such as ours - will tug the forelock and bend the knee. At the same time, the US will pay a heavy price for a hubris rendered redundant by its vulnerability. The events of September 11 were carried out by people armed not with weapons of mass destruction, but with blades you can buy at a newsagent.
Conspiracy theorists argue that September 11 was a self-inflicted wound - the US version of the burning of the Reichstag. Others accept that al-Qai'da did it, but it was allowed to do it - an echo of the old argument that president Franklin Roosevelt permitted the attack on Pearl Harbor. The truth is simpler. Bush's brand of US triumphalism has been ticking away like a time bomb for years and the administration was opportunistic in its response to the terrorist attacks. Suddenly everything and anything could be justified.
Come back, Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger. All is forgiven. The future of the world is now in the hands of some very dumb people. Republican fundamentalists.