Context
I'm currently reading the December 1999 edition of the Dominican Republic and Haiti country studies published by the Library of Congress. You can read the Dominican Republic portion online here and the Haiti portion here. I'm reading them together in a book I checked out from my library.
The Dominican Republic one contains an analysis of how the role of the military changes according to who holds the presidency. For example, Jorge Blanco, the president from 1982 to 1986, forced massive numbers of officers that he perceived to be disloyal to him to retire, which apparently prompted this response: "the United States . . . complained that its military training funds were being wasted as careers were cut short." I laughed out loud when I read that part.
Commentary
I'm concerned that if you read my blog often enough, you'll think all I read are books on international affairs. I actually read quite a few less serious things (for example, I just polished off the softcover Bizarro World today), but I don't necessarily "see" anything in them.
I'm a religious pacifist. I feel a little vindicated any time the military is thwarted. And when nobody is really hurt, I can even laugh about it. On a deeper level though, I'm thinking about what causes the US to send military aid to a country rather than just invading it. When it comes to warfare, the United States sometimes seems to want to keep an arm's length away by using the folowing logic:
1) We don't want to fight them here, so we'll fight them there.
2) We don't particularly want to fight them ourselves, so we'll help them fight each other.
How many things can I find wrong with this strategy? Well, more than two.
1) It's violent. Now matter who's doing the fighting, someone's getting hurt.
2) It's callous. La, la, la, it doesn't take place on our turf or kill our family members, so it doesn't really matter.
3) It's cowardly. For crying out loud, if we really think a cause is worth fighting for, we should put our lives where our mouths are.
Perhaps most damning of all, it's ineffectual. The United States started using this strategy nearly a century ago, at the outbreak of World War I. Ever since then, events have followed roughly this chronology: first, the United States develops certain goals. Then we provide aid to another country, faction, or dictator, believing that entity will pursue our goals. Later, we find that the other entity has actually pursued different goals, sometimes goals that are directly contrary to American interests (anyone remember who armed the Taliban in the first place?). Finally, the United States is forced to either abandon its goals or invade with actual American troops. Because of some inherent national characteristic, we usually choose the "invading" option. Often our troops can't accomplish the original goals either, but we go through a lot of bodies on both sides before we figure that out.
In light of this history, I think we're getting off pretty easy when the only "waste" is Dominican military careers being cut short. So I laugh.
What did you see today?
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1 comment:
Lynn, I just finished a novel, "Sweetness in the Belly," set in (mainly)Ethiopia and England. I had a vague positive opinion of Haile Selassie - no more. I guess being a dictator and also a "good person" is impossible.
Was my positive opinion from U.S. propaganda? Probably.
From the novel, I also gained a strong sense of many differences in religious beliefs in the Muslim world.
from Martha
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