Empire
Ever since I wrote my post, back on April 1, about being sent to Okinawa while in the military, I've been thinking about the question of an American empire.
That act by the Government already had consigned me to taking part -- a highly insignificant part but a role nevertheless -- in an activity that later caused me to have a lot of reservations, and that was the essential terrorism and savagery of bombing people from the air, especially with nuclear weapons. At exactly the same moment did I also become the tiniest of elements in the exercise of imperialism?
By vounteering for the Air Force, I did end up helping the pilots have reliable radios while they scooted around aloft, supposedly for the purpose of staying ready for possible Armageddon bomb runs, though in my mind it was all just for show, like gorillas roaring and pounding on their chests.. But I still have no sense of having served, while I was on Okinawa, in a farflung part of the American empire. Still, that empire's continued existence is accepted even by people as acute and perceptive as the writer of inanis and vacua.
Once there was an American empire, just as there were British, French, and Dutch ones. But the Japanese put an end to all those easily enough, in the opening days of the Second World War, in their attempt to confiscate as many of those colonies in Southeast Asia as possible while creating, if only for a moment, an empire of their own.. The Philippines, Singapore, Vietnam, and Indonesia all come to mind. The grips of the Western powers on those places, thus broken, turned out, after the War, to be impossible to reimpose, and the U.S. policy thereafter became one of military presence instead.
Some might not see the difference. They might have forgotten how the definition of empire was engraved in stone centuries ago by many groups, most memorably by the Romans. The difference is that an empire involves the presence of provinces ruled over by administrations headed by governors, who are in place to collect taxes and other goods mainly for the enrichment of the home country.
For a while the Bush Administration tried to impose a governor on Iraq, in the person of Paul Bremer, but soon gave that up as a bad idea, and they didn't even try in Afghanistan. Therefore I don't see any U.S. empire today, other than the truncated one that remained after WW 2. I just see a lot of bases maintained all over the world at great cost only to U.S. taxpayers, the most useful function of which is merely to give a sector of American young people an opportunity available to the youth of no other country to see the world in all its huge variety of tastes, sights, sounds, and other sensory experiences.
End Note: Just yesterday the present Secretary of Defence, Robert Gates, took a chop at his supposed subordinates, the men and women of today's U.S. Air Force, on the grounds that they haven't dropped enough bombs or done enough strafing or whatever in Iraq. If true, good for them.
That act by the Government already had consigned me to taking part -- a highly insignificant part but a role nevertheless -- in an activity that later caused me to have a lot of reservations, and that was the essential terrorism and savagery of bombing people from the air, especially with nuclear weapons. At exactly the same moment did I also become the tiniest of elements in the exercise of imperialism?
By vounteering for the Air Force, I did end up helping the pilots have reliable radios while they scooted around aloft, supposedly for the purpose of staying ready for possible Armageddon bomb runs, though in my mind it was all just for show, like gorillas roaring and pounding on their chests.. But I still have no sense of having served, while I was on Okinawa, in a farflung part of the American empire. Still, that empire's continued existence is accepted even by people as acute and perceptive as the writer of inanis and vacua.
Once there was an American empire, just as there were British, French, and Dutch ones. But the Japanese put an end to all those easily enough, in the opening days of the Second World War, in their attempt to confiscate as many of those colonies in Southeast Asia as possible while creating, if only for a moment, an empire of their own.. The Philippines, Singapore, Vietnam, and Indonesia all come to mind. The grips of the Western powers on those places, thus broken, turned out, after the War, to be impossible to reimpose, and the U.S. policy thereafter became one of military presence instead.
Some might not see the difference. They might have forgotten how the definition of empire was engraved in stone centuries ago by many groups, most memorably by the Romans. The difference is that an empire involves the presence of provinces ruled over by administrations headed by governors, who are in place to collect taxes and other goods mainly for the enrichment of the home country.
For a while the Bush Administration tried to impose a governor on Iraq, in the person of Paul Bremer, but soon gave that up as a bad idea, and they didn't even try in Afghanistan. Therefore I don't see any U.S. empire today, other than the truncated one that remained after WW 2. I just see a lot of bases maintained all over the world at great cost only to U.S. taxpayers, the most useful function of which is merely to give a sector of American young people an opportunity available to the youth of no other country to see the world in all its huge variety of tastes, sights, sounds, and other sensory experiences.
End Note: Just yesterday the present Secretary of Defence, Robert Gates, took a chop at his supposed subordinates, the men and women of today's U.S. Air Force, on the grounds that they haven't dropped enough bombs or done enough strafing or whatever in Iraq. If true, good for them.
posted by Carl (aka Sofarsogoo) | 9:29 AM
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