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

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.