The US will be judged by Clio, the muse of history

“If we re-elect Bush, it would be a judgment on all of us,” said historian Fritz Stern days before the US November 2, 2004 general election. Stern’s observation has an eerie ring in its evocation of Roy Medvedev’s Let History Judge, one of many historical verdicts on the Stalinist period of Russia’s past. From coast to coast Democrats hoped, despite unspoken misgivings and dread of the unthinkable, that John Kerry just might pull off a victory, but it was not to be. The unthinkable happened. The American people spoke and “Dubya” won re-election. May the judgment begin.

It is this seemingly unstoppable march towards, and need for, judgment that made a Bush victory inevitable. Those subscribing to historic inevitability would have foreseen Bush’s re-anointment. After all, Pax Americana is in decline; most Americans are simply too complacent to heed the handwriting on the wall. Sadly, the country has to undergo four more years of this rot, to continue on the downward path that it is on, and awaken to its folly. As the saying goes, things have to get worse before they can get better (if at all). Four more years of Bush were thus already on the cards. It is simply the “cunning of history,” as Hegel put it.

The most predictable thing about empires is that they rise and fall. Incidentally, they also tend to bring about their own downfall. In his highly acclaimed 1987 publication The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, Paul Kennedy attributed the fall of empires to their over-extension. Besides over-extension, however, there is the thing known as hubris that comes naturally with power and empire building, along with the moral bankruptcy that underpins it.

Bush’s invasion of Iraq broke the long-cherished American tradition of never being the party that launches an unprovoked attack. In undertaking this “pre-emptive” war, he also violated and pushed aside centuries-old, just war traditions. That he received the backing of 70 per cent of the country in doing so is telling: that he thought fit to insult the intelligence of the rest of the world even more so. Bush created the fiction of Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) to justify his act of aggression against a country already reeling from 12 years of economic sanctions. In other words, Bush launched an illegal war on the basis of a willful lie - quite an irony for a leader and a party that claim to be the unsullied champions of Christian virtue and good “values” at home. If no one else, the God whose name Bush often invokes should have taken notice.

The invasion of Iraq also saw American arrogance at some of its most crass and deserving of judgment. Apart from the WMD fabrication which has now been exposed as a lie, Bush disingenuously linked Hussein with al-Qaeda and the “war on terror,” another lie which at least half the American population continues to believe. Attached to the invasion was also the “If you’re not for us, you’re against us” tag, a cheap form of “thuggery” more in the style of Tony Soprano than a statesman of the “free” world.

Once the war and occupation began, the killing of innocent Iraqi civilians by US forces was justified on the ground of “pre-emptive self-defence,” where soldiers are allowed to shoot and kill indiscriminately not because the victims were determined to be a genuine threat but simply because they might be one. The mainstream US media shamelessly played along by reporting the murder of Iraqi civilians euphemistically as “accidental deaths”.

The Iraqi invasion, though, only reflects a deeper rot inside this state of Denmark - and despite voting Bush back into office, the American people seem to have a foreboding of it. Shortly before the election, 55 per cent of Americans polled believed the country was on the wrong track. Even after the election US consumer confidence continues to tumble, as borne out by the Consumer Confidence Index, having fallen now for four consecutive months. The rot is getting worse - and it stems from the fact that this nation has lost its moral compass and authority.

Sixty-two years ago, the United States could rightly claim to be the “good guy” when it entered the Second World War. There was no such thing as “pre-emption” then. We went to war only after Pearl Harbor was attacked by Japan in an act of unprovoked aggression. FDR did not concoct cock-and-bull in order to invade Chile and call it part of the war against Germany.

For years the United States had credibility when it condemned the Nazi concentration camps and posed as the champions of “human rights” in decrying the Soviet gulags and imprisonment of people without due process. But no more. Today the United States presides over a concentration camp of its own in Guantanamo Bay. It too locks people up indefinitely without trial and access to counsel. “Guilty until proven innocent” seems to be the new mantra. Actually, it is more like “Guilty and no proof required, while the beatings and sodomy last”.

It used to be we could stand tall in the world and reproach countries that tortured people. No longer. That, too, is a thing of the past. The shame of Abu Ghraib comes on top of the torture that continues in Guantanamo Bay and the “questionable deaths” (code language for “excessive use of force” and “murder”) that keep surfacing in Afghanistan. Lately, evidence has further surfaced of Navy SEALs abusing Iraqis, as if to prove the point that trampling on Iraqis’ rights and dignity in their homeland is not the exclusive province of the US Army. Then, there is the disturbing footage of the Marine executing a downed Iraqi point blank inside a Fallujah mosque. Now if we ever deign to lecture other nations on “war crimes,” we can only expect derision, if not worse, in our faces. That is what hypocrites get - and deserve.

These developments, however, are only the tip of this iceberg. There is still the matter of trumpeting morality and “values” in the face of lost moral credibility. Among the Western industrialised countries, the United States is by far the most religious of all but despite its avowed piety: It still champions excessive consumption and trumps the interests of the rich and powerful. The fact that Bush and the Republicans could coin “compassionate conservatism,” with its implication that the Bible-fed conservatism of the heartland was inherently lacking in “compassion” to begin with, says just about enough. Apparently, American religiosity is not beyond engaging in gerrymandering scams such as the one engineered by Tom DeLay, the Texan fundamentalist Christian, which guaranteed a Republican gain of at least five Congressional seats in this election. If the God that DeLay prays to is good and is indeed God, then He should have taken notice.

There is also the matter of the economy - with soaring energy, food and healthcare costs, anaemic growth, falling real wages, not to mention a housing bubble that is just waiting to burst. These days Americans are working more for less, spending more time and traversing greater distances in their daily commutes, and are increasingly squeezed out of insanely priced homes. “Squeeze” seems to be the prevailing ethos of this “recovery,” the wealthiest 10 per cent aside. It used to be US$70,000 a year was more than a decent salary; in today’s America it barely pays the bills.

Then, there is the issue of “globalisation” and outsourcing, one equally deserving of judgment. It is not simply about the loss of American jobs. The evil in outsourcing is that it is driven by the unfettered greed of corporate America, the prime beneficiaries being the 20 per cent of the country known as shareholders and companies like Wal-Mart. Buying made-in-China goods and selling them at US retail prices, doling out hefty dividends and bonuses, and employing workers at $10.00 per hour - that seems to be the creed of “compassionate capitalism,” Wal-Mart-style. The price of this avaricious short-sightedness is the further decline of US manufacturing, and the rise of the Chinese economic (and military) powerhouse which will give this country its well-deserved come-uppance in due course. By the way, has everyone forgotten that Hu Jintao has WMDs - and they are less fictional than Saddam Hussein’s?

With the current account deficit ballooning the way it is, China need not bother launching ICBMs or downing another one of our reconnaissance planes to bring us to heel. As the holder of at least $600 billion of US Treasury bonds, the means by which our massive budget deficits are financed, Beijing only needs to threaten to stop buying our low-yield securities or to unload them - and the world’s so-called “superpower” would be the one kow-towing.

No doubt there is more to come in the next four years. With Bush’s newly acquired mandate, it should be hardly surprising if ExxonMobil were to suddenly begin drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge come February 2005. For the next four years, one could only expect to see “market-oriented” environmental policies take shape, where endangered species, forests and pollution controls take a back seat to oil, logging, mining - and the protection of endangered corporate profits.

If the trends of the past four years persist, real wages and purchasing power will continue to decline, an additional 6 million Americans will be without health insurance, and a further 800,000 jobs will have been erased from the US economy by November 2008. By that time, gasoline will be up to a staggering US$4.50 per gallon in some parts of the country and an average 15-minute doctor’s visit will run an alarming US$180. Is this really what our country wants? Apparently so, as the November 2 results suggest. It could well be this land of the free has suddenly become the home for suckers for punishment.

Meanwhile in Iraq, if the current rate continues, 5,000 more US troops will have been killed and 25,000 more injured in Iraq by November 2008, not to mention 260,000 more dead Iraqis. Yes, that would be 260,000 dead in four years - and we lament the loss of 58,000 US troops in Vietnam between 1964 and 1976. Currently, an average 30 explosive devices go off each day in Iraq. At this rate, by November 2008, 60,000 bombs and explosions will have blown up all over Iraq since March 2003, an obscene price for a country to pay to be the honorary recipient of “democracy”. One should always be careful whom one votes for. But then, the Iraqis did not exactly vote for the US military invasion and occupation, or for everything else going on in their country today, did they?

The thing about judgment is that it is often easier to condemn others than oneself, and it is usually the victors who stand in judgment of the vanquished. For the past 60 years, no nation has been seemingly as roundly judged as Germany for the sins of its grandfathers. During my days of teaching European history, I found an overwhelming majority of my students all too ready to blame the German people for Hitler and the Second World War. The prevalent view was, “The Germans have only themselves to blame. They put Hitler in power and they got what they deserved.” “They did nothing while the Nazis exterminated 6 million Jews,” was another common verdict. It is easy to judge and easy to overlook the fact that the Nazis obtained only 37 per cent of the vote in the last free election in Weimar Germany. It is easier still to ignore the fact that Hitler was not elected by a popular majority but was, in fact, put in power through a backroom deal orchestrated by the right-wing elite which Hans Average had no say over. These colluding conservatives included the equivalent of the Ken Lays, Michael Bloombergs, Tom DeLays, Dick Cheneys, Antonin Scalias and Norman Schwarzkopfs of present-day America. Sound eerie?

Now, consider the judgment the American nation is liable to. Unlike the Germans with Hitler, we re-elected Bush with a majority (51 per cent), and did so without duress. Hardly a day goes by today without CNN reports about abuse and torture in Iraq. The American nation has certainly known about the goings-on in Guantanamo. The FBI, military, Red Cross and ACLU have raised concerns about our mistreatment of prisoners and the wrongful imprisonment of innocent people, all of it reported in the news. We have read about US citizens being incarcerated in undisclosed locations. We know about Abu Ghraib and saw the murder of the Iraqi in the Fallujah mosque. But what have Americans done? With the exception of civil liberties groups, concerned lawyers and editorialists, pretty much nothing - which makes us essentially no different from the German nation of 1933-45, the one we so righteously judge. This nation has dutifully tuned out and looked the other way in arrogant bliss on the excuse that “we are at war”. But then, judging by how American waistlines continue to grow, SUVs continue to be flaunted, and the incomes of the top 10 per cent continue to rise, this “war” must be the most “sacrifice-light” in US history.

It is easy to understand the reason for this “business as usual” nonchalance. The ones being locked up without trial and tortured, and those being killed by the thousands overseas under American watch, are Arab (or Afghan), Muslim and dark-skinned, not exactly your L.L. Bean poster boys. In the American psyche, the inhumane treatment of “foreigners” and the killing of faceless people in faraway lands are palatable in a way that the abuse of “true blue” Americans is not. If John Ashcroft were to set up extermination camps for Arab-Americans, Muslims and “terrorist suspects” tomorrow, it is debatable how many Americans would even pay attention, let alone protest - especially those in the “red states”. Bets, anyone?

At least the Germans under Hitler had the Gestapo and Nazi oppression to deal with. We do not - which makes us even more complicit and guilty in “allowing” this nation to turn into what it has become. When offered an opportunity, a majority of Americans in November knowingly chose for more of the same. For that we shall be judged. History will note we did not a have gun held to our heads. One day the verdict of nations and the gods will be, “You Americans put Bush in office - twice. You got what you wished for and you deserve it.” And that day may come sooner than we think.

Clio, the muse of history, has an uncanny knack for having the last word, if not the last laugh, in human folly. There is another work of history besides Medvedev’s Let History Judge that is very fitting for our time. It is a book by Barbara Tuchman. Its title: The March of Folly.