In 1900, a young Senator named Albert J. Beveridge gave a speech before the U.S. Congress which every American should read. It expresses the thoughts behind a century of American foreign policy. It can be found in its entirety here.
After the Spanish-American War, the United States acquired, among other things, a jewel in the Pacific called the Philippines. It was ours because we entered a war for the purpose of acquiring territory. That is usually called imperialism. As such, we were to rule it as we saw fit. The locals didn’t like that very much and they started an old fashioned guerilla war against our occupation forces. Some Americans were for staying, while others wished to leave and mind our own business. On the road to the establishment of the American imperium, this was a critical turn, and Beveridge had something to say about it.
I will quote liberally from the speech, as it is public domain and in the Congressional record.
MR. PRESIDENT, the times call for candor. The Philippines are ours forever, "territory belonging to the United States," as the Constitution calls them. And just beyond the Philippines are China's illimitable markets. We will not retreat from either. We will not repudiate our duty in the archipelago. We will not abandon our opportunity in the Orient. We will not renounce our part in the mission of our race, trustee, under God, of the civilization of the world. And we will move forward to our work, not howling out regrets like slaves whipped to their burdens but with gratitude for a task worthy of our strength and thanksgiving to Almighty God that He has marked us as His chosen people, henceforth to lead in the regeneration of the world.
Going back nearly a century and reading such things as the above can be a shock to the system for people used to politically correct, sanitized speeches. But in many ways, politicians back in the days were more honest on certain issues. Empire, in particular, was an important point. America had the potential to be a great power, maybe the greatest power. Ergo, like other great powers, it must establish an empire. It’s fairly straightforward. That's how things are done.
However, the Filipinos didn’t want to be "territory belonging to the United States."
The war we found ourselves in involved classic horrors –- we burned down villages, we raped, we tortured, we ran death squads, stuff like that. The first great American atrocities in Asia took place not in Vietnam, Laos, or Cambodia, but in the countryside surrounding Manilla. There was domestic fallout over our situation -– namely, the fact that we couldn’t pacify this backwater country filled with brown savages, especially since we were offering them God’s gift of democracy and liberty and all those other propaganda terms which cause the average man's pulse to quicken. To which the Senator responded...
Senators must remember that we are not dealing with Americans or Europeans. We are dealing with Orientals. We are dealing with Orientals who are Malays. We are dealing with Malays instructed in Spanish methods. They mistake kindness for weakness, forbearance for fear. It could not be otherwise unless you could erase hundreds of years of savagery, other hundreds of years of Orientalism, and still other hundreds of years of Spanish character and custom....
Racism pervaded the mass culture in those times. One can find barbaric and near genocidal utterances from various politicians of the day. Their attitude was that the Philippines are ours and it’s a nice place, except for all these Filipinos who live there. We’ll have to do something about that, you understand...
Looking at the current national Iraq "debate," can one honestly say that such feelings do not also pervade our culture? Both the GOP and the Democrats love to blame the Iraqis for the problems of their country, problems nurtured in eighty years of Western meddling. When our "gift of democracy" has not taken root, well, it must because they’re backward Arabs who have no idea what their proper place is. The more things change...
This next passage is long, yet important. Read it carefully.
Mr. President, reluctantly and only from a sense of duty am I forced to say that American opposition to the war has been the chief factor in prolonging it. Had Aguinaldo not understood that in America, even in the American Congress, even here in the Senate, he and his cause were supported; had he not known that it was proclaimed on the stump and in the press of a faction in the United States that every shot his misguided followers fired into the breasts of American soldiers was like the volleys fired by Washington’s men against the soldiers of King George, his insurrection would have dissolved before it entirely crystallized.
The utterances of American opponents of the war are read to the ignorant soldiers of Aguinaldo and repeated in exaggerated form among the common people. Attempts have been made by wretches claiming American citizenship to ship arms and ammunition from Asiatic ports to the Filipinos, and these acts of infamy were coupled by the Malays with American assaults on our government at home. The Filipinos do not understand free speech, and therefore our tolerance of American assaults on the American President and the American government means to them that our President is in the minority or he would not permit what appears to them such treasonable criticism. It is believed and stated in Luzon, Panay, and Cebu that the Filipinos have only to fight, harass, retreat, break up into small parties, if necessary, as they are doing now, but by any means hold out until the next presidential election, and our forces will be withdrawn.
All this has aided the enemy more than climate, arms, and battle. Senators, I have heard these reports myself; I have talked with the people; I have seen our mangled boys in the hospital and field; I have stood on the firing line and beheld our dead soldiers, their faces turned to the pitiless southern sky, and in sorrow rather than anger I say to those whose voices in America have cheered those misguided natives on to shoot our soldiers down, that the blood of those dead and wounded boys of ours is on their hands, and the flood of all the years can never wash that stain away. In sorrow rather than anger I say these words, for I earnestly believe that our brothers knew not what they did.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you call your political opponents traitors while simultaneously attempting a war of conquest. Our current imitators are pale shadows of a far greater time.
Mr. President, this question is deeper than any question of party politics; deeper than any question of the isolated policy of our country even; deeper even than any question of constitutional power. It is elemental. It is racial. God has not been preparing the English-speaking and Teutonic peoples for a thousand years for nothing but vain and idle self-contemplation and self-admiration. No! He has made us the master organizers of the world to establish system where chaos reigns. He has given us the spirit of progress to overwhelm the forces of reaction throughout the earth. He has made us adepts in government that we may administer government among savage and senile peoples. Were it not for such a force as this the world would relapse into barbarism and night. And of all our race He has marked the American people as His chosen nation to finally lead in the regeneration of the world. This is the divine mission of America, and it holds for us all the profit, all the glory, all the happiness possible to man. We are trustees of the world's progress, guardians of its righteous peace. The judgment of the Master is upon us: "Ye have been faithful over a few things; I will make you ruler over many things."
This is, dressed in flowery language, the national security consensus which is often referenced. Did you catch it? The last bits are crucial. The basic summary is that America has the right to do whatever it wants, whenever it wants, however it wants. It will dictate to the world how it will act and how it expects others to act. Not acting in accord with the United States will entail consequences which the United States will dole out as it sees fit. This is not only how the world will work, in idealized form, it is how it ought to work, meaning no one should complain about it.
It is crucially important to understand that the Democratic Party has been part of this consensus for over a century.
Not understanding this leads to bizarre thoughts, like the idea Democrats are interested in peace for the sake of peace, or that the Democrats don’t like war and coups and death squads to further American business interests. How one could hold such opinions while knowing anything of the history of the 20th century, about Wilson, about WWI, about Kennedy and LBJ and even Carter’s support for the Indonesia genocide in East Timor, and the laundry the list of tiny countries in our very backyard which we have mercilessly smashed, is baffling. It is nearly impossible for me to fathom how one could believe otherwise after one listens to the leading Democratic Presidential nominees talk about America's role in the world. Just listening to them sickens me. It can lead to such strange quotes from otherwise intelligent people as (and I will not reveal usernames here):
"Sure we'd like to politicians to be totally nice about things and polite but quite frankly, that is the reason why the Democratic Leadership has failed to really move towards ending the war."
No, the Democratic leadership has failed to move towards ending the war because they like the war. Permanent bases in Iraq would constitute a prize of staggering proportions. Their only problem with Bush and the war they gave him is that he is insanely incompetent. The center plank of their election strategy is the idea that they can run the American empire better than the GOP can. And they are right, considering the current makeup of the Republican Party, which is why the powers that be are rallying behind Hillary Clinton.
In the coming year, an important event will happen: the strongest military power in world history will be led by either a woman or a black man. Both who, by all appearances, are deeply in love with the national security consensus and who understand the machinery of empire and how to run it responsibly. It will be a thing to behold, for the gears of progress have turned mightily since Beveridge spoke on that cold day in 1900. For the once oppressed classes of society will be able to, at long last, ascend to the throne of power and bomb, maim, kill, and torture in the name of America, in the name of God, just as good if not better than any white male ever could.
One may ask what we should do about it. I have no answer. I don't believe there is anything we can do, no more than the people of the USSR could resist their leader's grand, mad schemes which they thrust upon the mountains of Afghanistan -- mountains which pierced the heart of the Soviet soul and upon which lay the graves of countless empires.
Some day, if things continue down this path, the soul of America will be pierced as well. America is the most powerful empire the world has ever seen, but all empires wither and America is no less mortal. I only hope what comes out of the ash is something more closely resembling a vibrant democracy with a well informed citizenry, and not the charade we currently inhabit.