'The Ugly American' 50 Years On

DIGG THIS

Fifty years on, and nothing has really changed. Oh, sure, JFK started the Peace Corps in response to the book, but that was like answering cannon with firecrackers. The principal problems with US foreign policy outlined in this work of fiction are still with us and are worse than ever.

The book is a collection of vignettes held together by the story of a newly appointed ambassador to a Southeast Asian country. There is the harmonica-playing Air Force Colonel, the Catholic Missionary Priest, the Chicken Farmer, and the ugly engineer. These are the good guys each trying to make life a little better for the people in the villages. Then there is the distracted Naval Attaché, the junketing Senator, the pompous professional operatives, the gushing schoolgirl recruits, and an incompetent State Department. The overall thrust of the book is that the "professionals" undo all the good that is being done by ordinary Americans.

The battle is over whether to spend foreign aid on showy projects or on aid that would really make a difference. The few thousand dollars for the Chicken Farmer who could have revolutionized poultry production in the jungle outback is impossible to obtain, but millions are available for a superhighway that is not really needed (especially since a lot of it will end up in the pockets of the politicians).

But the book goes deeper than that. The authors made it clear that we were going to be involved in a full-fledged war in Southeast Asia. That war would be fomented by arrogant politicians who had no clue what they were doing but nonetheless manipulated and were themselves manipulated. The war had to happen. And it did.

In the fifty years since The Ugly American was published, we can hardly say that US diplomacy has been successful. The Vietnam War cost us many, many lives not to mention the lives of far more Vietnamese. We're embroiled in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Hugo Chavez is on a roll in Venezuela. Bolivia is going down the tubes. Africa is a mess. The Middle East is still in conflict and it is getting worse instead of better. Russia is flexing its muscle. China is rattling sabers.

This is largely the result of a totally politicized foreign service. We have lost our roots. We promote democracy as if that was what made our country great when it was really Liberty that made us special. Tax and tax, spend and spend, elect and elect. And as we have lost our focus on Liberty, we and the rest of the world are suffering.

Imagine how it will be with a consummate politician with no real foreign policy experience as Secretary of State.

December 25, 2008