http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030428&s=scialabba
<quote>
How did the United States come by this good conscience? According to
Berman, it results from an existential choice we made in our defining
national moment, the Civil War. The North might have chosen the path
of virtuous isolationism, letting the South secede and becoming an
egalitarian social democracy. Instead the North chose, at a great cost
in blood and treasure, to repair the Founders' mistake and render "the
whole concept [of liberal society] a little sturdier." In so doing, it
took on a "universal mission": "the defense of democratic
self-rule...for the entire planet."
This is a dubious interpretation of the Civil War, which was fought as
much to make the Western territories safe for capitalism as for any
"concept of liberal society." If the South had been defeated quickly,
the slaves might not have been freed for a very long time. Putting
that aside, did the United States really take on the "universal
mission" of "defending democratic self-rule" wherever possible? Did it
(as Berman recently wrote in a special March 3 issue of the New
Republic) become "more revolutionary, not less; by offering, in some
form or another, liberty and solidarity to the entire world"?
Though this notion virtually defines the conventional wisdom in
contemporary American political culture, I find it preposterous. In
the nineteenth century, as Henry Cabot Lodge acknowledged, the United
States compiled "a record of conquest, colonization, and expansion
unequalled by any people." Its record in the twentieth century was no
less execrable. The idealistic Woodrow Wilson made war on both Haiti
and the Dominican Republic, killing thousands, in order to block
constitutional rule and fortify the position of international
investors and domestic elites. In the 1920s and '30s the US military
occupied Nicaragua and Honduras for the same purpose. In 1954 the
United States organized the ouster of a moderate democratic regime in
Guatemala, and in 1965 invaded the Dominican Republic to prevent the
return of one, resulting, both times, in horrendous violence and
retarded development. In Brazil in 1964, Chile in 1973 and Argentina
in 1976 the United States instigated or welcomed the overthrow of
democratic governments by murderously repressive (but
investor-friendly) military juntas. In the 1980s the United States
orchestrated fanatically bloody insurgencies and counterinsurgencies
throughout Central America, invariably against movements or
governments with more popular support than the US client. And the
United States casually disregarded international law in order to
invade Panama and Grenada, again with (in the former case) thousands
of civilian deaths resulting. I have already alluded to US terrorism
against Cuba.
This is a very partial list, restricted to US sins and crimes in the
Western Hemisphere. A global reckoning would obviously be much more
extensive. Not one of these episodes is mentioned in Terror and
Liberalism. I cannot imagine why Berman judged all of them irrelevant
to the question of whether the United States is truly dedicated to the
"universal mission" of "defending democratic self-rule...for the
entire planet."
Perhaps because Berman dislikes being reminded forcefully of the
enormous factual record that demonstrates the absurdity of this claim,
Terror and Liberalism includes a lengthy attack on Noam Chomsky.
<end quote>
Michael