White Man's Burden

Or so the great champion of colonialism Rudyard Kipling referred to it.

But that was long ago, right? Surely, with all the current woes resulting from convoluted alliances, laying tripwires all across the globe, no one would dare entertain such notions today. Certainly, with hundreds of years of evidence refuting the benefits of colonialism, no one would contemplate such a thing. And of course, most of all, no one claiming to be a conservative, whose first principle is to beware the unintended consequence, would even imagine such exploitations. Right?

Oh, but, haven't you heard? Colonialism is back, baby!

At least in the minds of the All The Usual Suspects.

No more nebulous concepts of imperialism, no more “spheres of influence.” We're talking full-bore colonialism. We'll be running everything.

Ah, yes. Those halcyon days of colonialism. Rumpled cotton khakis, servants for two bits a month, cricket, caning the wogs. And, of course, teaching the rudimentary elements of civilization to the natives.

And let us not forget passing along all those skill sets that will make them invaluable assets in the global economy – skills that they'll need in order to make sneakers and snow globes – skills that will put money in their pockets, and allow them unhindered access to American fast food and entertainment. We shall make the world safe for McDonald's and MTV. The ignorant heathen just doesn't know a good thing when he sees it.

Of course, we'll also carefully consider their spiritual needs. Instead of Dervishes spinning upon their right foot, whirling into a state of communion with God, their left eye will become fixated upon by the gyrating navel of Britney Spears.

But why colonialism, and why now? Apparently, in an antithesis to Paul Kennedy's much-referred thesis “imperial overstretch,” we are experiencing imperial understretch. You see, it's not that we have become too entangled in the world, it's that we haven't been entangled enough, and haven't been bold enough in doing it. And let's face it, the noble savage, well, needs a bit of “tough love” to realize his nobility.

Truly, I'm not exactly for the Indian tradition of the immolation of widows on their husband's funeral pyres. It's not that I don't think we have nothing to offer, temporal or spiritual. Trust me, I'm the last to equivocate on the value of cultures.

But, that's not really the point, is it?

The point is, our designers of the Newest World Order will repeal the human condition employing the usual modality: Force.

But we are told, in the end, the natives will be grateful. Yes, we have plenty of evidence that they're all are so grateful. So grateful that when I not long ago was reading travelling tips for the Middle East and North Africa, the author strongly recommended against wearing shirts with epaulettes … and wearing sunglasses … because, you see, it reminded the natives of, well, colonialism. The recommendation given, and worded approximately, was, regardless of the sun's intensity, “Just let your eyes burn out.”

I must admit, bringing enlightenment to the heathen via freedom through force sure has a big selling point, at least in the short term. It certainly eliminates a lot of messiness … at least on our part.

Let's take a look at an alternative – for example, teaching The Invisible God, and later God Incarnate, the faithful were viciously persecuted for it.

To be sure, the faithful withstood … trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented … I admit, this sounds not at all like living the good life in the south of France, so it tends to be a pretty hard sell. But, I suppose that's the Christian's cross to bear.

Malcolm Muggeridge, that great and hilarious man, once marveled at that most prominent symbol of Christian faith. He imagined an ancient meeting with an ad exec, upon which the Christian client begins, “You see, we have this cross …”

But to be certain, our modern proselytizers are not altogether interested in the finer points of what Dietrich Bonhöffer called The Costs of Discipleship. But who needs Bonhöffer when we have The Modern Christian State?

So how do we sell our modern hybrid (which isn't actually a hybrid at all)? We need a slogan – wait a minute – how about: Bombs for Jesus! Maybe not. Perhaps we should be thinking more along symbolic lines. Imagine … Polycarp with a Howitzer. I'm sure a competent graphic artist could come up with a convincing poster. Just think, instead of showing Christian hospitality to his brethren and executioners alike in the hours preceding his death (as did Bonhöffer), just think how Polycarp could have kicked ass with a little modern materiel.

And for the intellectuals, I'm sure we can twist some words from the Summa Theologica into some convenient theses. (Or considering our current enemy, maybe the Summa Contra Gentiles is more in order?)

In this welfare program writ large, our latter-day do-gooders would accomplish in the Third World what has been accomplished with the Third Estate – but of course, always with the best of intentions.

But I understand the neocolonialists' frustration. I suppose since the protection racket isn't working out, they would like to find some new clients, and give them an offer they can't refuse.

But before we find out what the boy geniuses have been considering for us, let's take a quick look at the track record, and America's first steps toward imperialism.  

Reflections on Early American Empire

A Splendid Little War

I've recently had more than a few of my Christian brethren refer the following passage to me: Thus saith the LORD of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt. Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass. No, it's not from National Review, it's from The Holy Bible.

And I fear that the reason my brethren point out this scripture to me is that they feel it is evidence that we can do as we please, because The Lord is on our side. Oh, dear. However, if any of my brethren have been receiving Direct Instruction on this most current matter, I certainly hope they make me privy to His Pronouncements – I don't want to be left in the dark.

However, this wouldn't be the first time we have Received Permission to invade another nation.

In A Republic, Not an Empire, Pat Buchanan records the words of President McKinley, who came down to a press conference to deliver these words: I walked the floor of the White House night after night until midnight, and I am not ashamed to tell you, gentlemen, that I went down on my knees and prayed [to] Almighty God for light and guidance more than one night. And one night late it came to me this way – I don't know how it was but it came. … that there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift them and civilize and Christianize them, and by God's grace do the very best we could by them, as our fellow-men for whom Christ also died. Imagine for a moment the reaction of the cynical Washington Press Corps of today hearing these words from the lips of President George W. Bush. But who knows, perhaps The Fourth Estate could swallow their vanity long enough to see their aspirations fulfilled.

Buchanan notes “that baptisms had begun in the islands fifty years before the English landed at Jamestown, and that two million Filipinos had already been received into the Church …”

In what can only be described as Manifest Destiny turned Manifest Madness, Albert Beveridge, Indiana's newly elected thirty-five-year-old senator, delivered these words as the nascent American Empire was considering the invasion of The Philippines: It is elemental, it is racial. God has not been preparing the English and Teutonic-speaking peoples for a thousand years for nothing but vain and idle self-admiration. … He has made us the master organizers of the world to establish system where chaos reigns. … He has made us adepts in government that we may administer government among savage and senile peoples. In a counterfeit echo of the aforementioned words to Saul, William Allen White's Emporia Gazette didn't mince words: “It is the Anglo-Saxon destiny to go forth as a world conqueror. He will take possession of all the islands of the sea. He will exterminate the peoples he cannot subjugate. This is what fate holds for the chosen people. It is so written.”

But perhaps what is more important is that “the man on the street” was heady about the prospect of expanding America's domain and dominion.

So we took The Philippines from Spain, with the support of the Philippine people, because (in a very familiar pattern) they believed that America was helping them throw off the yoke of the Spanish Empire. Instead, we installed a colonial government, with William Howard Taft as Civil Governor. Unfortunately, the Filipinos hadn’t understood the first principle of geopolitical intercourse: Trust no one – otherwise, simply trade one master for another. 

When the Filipinos realized that they had been betrayed, they revolted.

In Anti-Imperialism in the United States, 1898 – 1935, Jim Zwick recounts that after the Filipinos were victorious at Balangiga, Gen. Jacob Smith issued the following orders: “I want no prisoners. I wish you to kill and burn, the more you kill and burn the better you will please me. I want all persons killed who are capable of bearing arms in actual hostilities against the United States.” Gen. Smith later clarified that all Filipinos on Samar over the age of ten should be killed. 

By the time the war was over in 1902, and The Philippines defeated, as many as (estimates vary greatly) a half-million Filipinos perished, mostly civilian, from the effects of war.

Not everyone was bedazzled by the war effort, and the opposing voices were powerful, but few. The Anti-Imperialist League included such luminaries as H. L. Mencken, Mark Twain, Andrew Carnegie, and William Jennings Bryan. 

In Columbia magazine, James B. Dahlquist adds “Soldiers also assisted the cause. Their letters, sometimes describing cruelties committed by both sides, were used to educate the public about the war, which had started out with humanitarian goals but had now lost its moral compass. Even some conservatives debated whether the Philippine policy was consistent with the ideals upon which the United States was founded.”

Congress was to conduct hearings on military conduct, but the war was over, and the American people weary.

Not a very good first step for American Empire and American Colonialism.

Lawrence of Arabia

The War to Make the World Safe for Democracy was fought on many fronts.

WW I has also been called The War that Killed God, as so many of the post-WW I congregation left the church after the horrors of the war, remembering their pastors beating their pulpits as war drums for righteousness' sake.

I do not know how my great-grandmother, who died when I was six, would have expressed her feelings on the outcome of this war. She was a church-goer, and certainly knew her scripture. (It doesn't seem possible that her life spanned from horse buggies to bikinis – but she stoically and patiently watched the world's peculiarities to the very end.) I would dearly love to have been able to speak to her about her times, and her faith.

But I wonder if her thoughts might have been reflected in her son, who not long before he died, recalled to me a man whom he had admired deeply, a banker in their hometown of Binghamton, New York (the burial place of his great-grandparents). A vigorous and inquisitive man, my grandfather always had the gift of the gab, and the expression “hail fellow well met” was invented for him. I can only imagine how this precocious lad entertained his idol.

He would have been about nine years old at the outbreak of the war.

He reminisced the brave soldiers marching in parade, off to right the wrongs of humanity; and the man he admired was one of them. He then told me that he didn't return from battle, and he said no more – but as I looked at his face, the implicit meaning of his expression seemed to be, “for what?”

But there is never a shortage of charlatan newspapermen to do the bidding of The State, then as now. As journalists were reporting that Germans were throwing Belgian babies in the air and catching them on their bayonets, an American journalist was journeying the Near East to find a hero to help bring America into the war, whom he would eventually dub, Lawrence of Arabia.

Since childhood I had simply admired Lawrence of Arabia on its merits as a film, but I had not until fairly recently realized that David Lean's masterpiece about T. E. Lawrence was also the quintessential expression of the folly of imperialism and colonial rule.

What makes the story especially powerful is that Lawrence, though only a lieutenant at the start of the conflict, is an extraordinary scholar, knowing the geography, history, religion, tribal customs, dialects, and dynamics of the disparate Arabian Bedouins.

(A brilliant man with a corresponding ego? The editor's notes that precede the text of Lawrence's Revolt in the Desert are hilarious reading. The editor continued to complain about the inconsistent spellings of various proper nouns, to which Lawrence continued to provide convoluted and exasperating explanations of why it must be the way it is. The editor finally acquiesced.)

It's astonishing that we vainly enter into conflicts with far-flung nations when our best advisors have less than one-hundredth the intellect or applicable education that Lawrence had. The U.S. invasion of Afghanistan was seriously delayed because our government couldn't even find a translator to speak the language of the tribesmen with whom they were expected to ally themselves.

What makes Lawrence of Arabia so compelling is that it's a story of honor, loyalty, leadership, friendship, and bravery … and yes, vanity of every sort.

But in the end, Lawrence realized that for all his intellect, education, and qualities of leadership, he was not the man who could lead Arabia to sustained freedom.

He pinched the skin of his fair breast, and told Sherif Ali (played by Omar Sharif) that he could not change this thing, and told him, “You lead them – they're yours. Trust your own people, and let me go back to mine.”

But, after Lawrence returned to Cairo, the clever Allenby manipulated him into agreeing to return to the battlefield, and they discussed Lawrence's strategy of guerilla warfare paralyzing the Turks in Arabia: Allenby: Well, if we can see it, so can the Turk. If he finds he's using four divisions to fend off a handful of bandits, he'll withdraw. Lawrence: He dammed withdraw. Arabia's part of his empire. He gets out now, he knows he'll never get back again. Attending Officer: I wonder who will? Lawrence: No one will. Arabia is for the Arabs now … That's what I've told them anyway. … That's what they think. … That's why they're fighting. Allenby: [Allenby looks distant, snatches a cracker, and throws it to the birds.] Oh surely. Lawrence: They've only one suspicion – we let them drive the Turks out and then move in ourselves. I've told them that that's false, that we've no ambitions in Arabia. Have we? Allenby: I'm not a politician, thank God. [Turning to his attaché] Have we any ambition in Arabia, Dryden? Dryden: [After a long draw on his drink.] Difficult question, sir. Lawrence: I want to know, sir, if I can tell them in your name, that we've no ambitions in Arabia. Allenby: [He puts down his drink, emphatically.] Certainly! (It's difficult to know at this point who is more cynical, Allenby or Lawrence. Lawrence is far clever enough to know the subtleties of language. Near the end of the film, Dryden accuses Lawrence of intellectual dishonesty (though in my opinion, in a somewhat specious and self-serving way) in this vein: “A man who tells lies, like me, merely hides the truth. But a man who tells half-lies has forgot where he put it.”)

After the meeting's end, and Allenby and his entourage have left Lawrence: Dryden: Are you really going to give them artillery, sir? Colonel Brighton: I was wondering that sir – might be deuce divil to get it back again. Dryden: You give them artillery, and you've made them independent. Allenby: Then I can't give them artillery, can I? The duplicitousness is obvious, but at least these betrayers seem wiser than our own political geniuses, who seem never to think that their own artillery will be turned against them, as with Al Qaeda. Or maybe they don't care?

Nevertheless, with the help of the Bedouins, Lawrence captures Damascus, and Allenby captures Jerusalem.

And so the waning empire of England was like the waxing empire of America – as The Philippines were betrayed, so was Arabia betrayed.

Powder kegs

Before Allenby and Lawrence accomplish their historic victories, two “civil servants” (in the words of Dryden), one Sykes of England, and one Picot of France, have already carved up the Eastern World in a manner that has caused us sorrow u2018til this day, and may well lead to WW III.

The European theater was being handled no better. Synthetic and imaginary nation-states were being created that would breed the hatred leading to WW II.

In Leftism Revisited, Erik von Kühnelt-Leddihn (another ironic proponent of colonialism) notes the profound lack of knowledge President Wilson had in matters that would shape at least the next hundred years: The ignorance of the former president of Princeton in matters of history and geography was simply prodigious. The Italians at one point showed him a spurious map on which a mountain, fittingly named “Vetta d'Italia,” appeared in the very heart of Austria; it served as proof, they claimed, that “historic Italy” (there was never such a country) extended right to that spot. As a result the Italians, for the first time ever, received the South and Central Tyrol with the Brenner Pass. (The second time occurred in 1946, with the result that the shooting and dynamiting in this restless, tortured area continues to this very day.) Harold Nicholson, who was at the Peace Conference, expressed in writing the current feeling that “if Wilson would swallow the Brenner, he would swallow everything.” Terrified later by his own mistakes, Wilson strove to prevent the annexation of Fiume (predominantly inhabited by Italians) by Italy, and somewhat undiplomatically toured the country to appeal to the Italians over the heads of their government. Is our current knowledge any better?

Visions of the Future?

All right, let's look at the arguments of our wannabe intellectual leaders. It would seem that since the “English and Teutonic-speaking peoples” have had their run, it's America's turn at colonialism.

The Usual Suspects

I have to compliment these folks on one thing: audacity. With unparalleled didactic exuberance they describe the omnipresent empire of their dreams. 

In the 15 October issue of The Weakly Standard, Max Boot, the Features editor for The War Shriek Journal, makes “The Case for American Empire: The most realistic response to terrorism is for America to embrace its imperial role.”

You know, I haven't been around that long (please do not attempt to discern my age from the retouched photograph at the bottom of this essay), but I remember a time when the strongest admonition regarding manners was that you might do as you please, “as long as you don’t do it in the street and frighten the horses.”

And, because of the insidiousness of our culture's decay, I'm not even shocked by the behavior of the characters on the nation's favorite television sitcom, Fops and Sluts (I believe the working title is Friends); but, I am utterly amazed at the brazen use of the words “imperialism” and “colonialism,” and I fear it might indeed frighten the horses. Youngsters across this great land, I assure you, not many years have passed since these words would not dare be uttered in mixed company.

But, if I can be certain that only adults are present, let's take a look at Boot's thesis: MANY HAVE SUGGESTED THAT THE September 11 attack on America was payback for U.S. imperialism. If only we had not gone around sticking our noses where they did not belong, perhaps we would not now be contemplating a crater in lower Manhattan. The solution is obvious: The United States must become a kinder, gentler nation, must eschew quixotic missions abroad, must become, in Pat Buchanan’s phrase, “a republic, not an empire.” In fact this analysis is exactly backward: The September 11 attack was a result of insufficient American involvement and ambition; the solution is to be more expansive in our goals and more assertive in their implementation. And you thought I was exaggerating!

Mr. Boot is careful to distinguish himself from such marginal radicals as Pat Buchanan and the former President Bush. He mocks eschewing quixotic missions abroad, but Mr. Boot is indeed tilting at windmills. What does he hold up as the shining example of American imperialistic accomplishment? Why, the Balkans, of course! We had better sense when it came to the Balkans, which could without much difficulty have turned into another Afghanistan. When Muslim Bosnians rose up against Serb oppression in the early 1990s, they received support from many of the same Islamic extremists who also backed the mujahedeen in Afghanistan. The Muslims of Bosnia are not particularly fundamentalist – after years of Communist rule, most are not all that religious – but they might have been seduced by the siren song of the mullahs if no one else had come to champion their cause. Luckily, someone else did. NATO and the United States intervened to stop the fighting in Bosnia, and later in Kosovo. Employing its leverage, the U.S. government pressured the Bosnian government into expelling the mujahedeen. Just last week, NATO and Bosnian police arrested four men in Sarajevo suspected of links to international terrorist groups. Some Albanian hotheads next tried to stir up trouble in Macedonia but, following the dispatch of a NATO peacekeeping force, they have now been pressured to lay down their arms. U.S. imperialism – a liberal and humanitarian imperialism, to be sure, but imperialism all the same – appears to have paid off in the Balkans.  This is deeply embarrassing – in one paragraph: we have helped Bosnian Moslems free themselves from “Serbian oppression” (“The West” had such “evidence” as a faked (not irresponsible, faked) television documentary on “Serbian concentration camps,” the “Srebrenica Massacre,” etc.); we were fortunate, because the Bosnian Moslems were free of religious fervor from their days under the Commies (Praise Allah for the Commies!), and because they were in no way influenced by Islamic mullahs (I don't buy it); forced the Bosnians to (apparently not) expel the mujahedeen, arrested four “men” linked to terrorism (read four “Moslem men,” out of probably thousands operating there), and (very temporarily) squelched Albanian ambitions in Macedonia.

And what he doesn’t bother mentioning is that we destroyed one of the world's oldest Christian states, large-scale ethnic cleansing in Kosovo by Moslems has taken place, 100,000 Bosnian passports have gone missing, there’s that funny little linkage to Al Qaeda, and Greater Albania is growing still.

And let us not overlook the most obvious: we're still there, and there's no sign we're leaving anytime soon.

But in what sounds more like a fashion statement than a strategy, he tells us that “Afghanistan and other troubled lands today cry out for the sort of enlightened foreign administration once provided by self-confident Englishmen in jodhpurs and pith helmets.” Note: watch out for all words that contain the syllables “en-light-en” – this seems to be the preeminent obsession of leftists. (Mark Steyn also announces that “colonialism is progressive and enlightened.”) Indeed, he calls bin Laden a “holy warrior who rejects the Enlightenment and all its works.” I’m sure we can be expecting the pagan equivalent of a fatwah from Mr. Boot any day now against LRC.

And under what auspices will this enlightened foreign administration take place? “This precedent could easily be extended, as suggested by David Rieff, into a formal system of United Nations mandates modeled on the mandatory territories sanctioned by …” Yes, that’s right, you guessed it, more of the same from all those fine folks who brought you WW II, and probably WW III: ” … the League of Nations …”

As much fun as The Weakly Standard is, let’s take a look at our beloved Irrational Review.

Of course, Jonah Goldberg read the Boot piece, and was he thrilled. In Goldberg's 12 October column titled “Raise the flag on a new American empire,” he lauded the Boot piece, but also takes care to recognize his fellow travelers on the left: Washington Post columnist, E.J. Dionne, the intellectual conscience of the Democratic Party, has already declared this a “just war.” The liberal New Republic is hectoring President Bush from his right and demanding a broad commitment to rearranging the global chessboard.

Perhaps the most revealing canary in the liberal coal mine, Scott Simon, the host of National Public Radio’s “Weekend Edition” and a Quaker, recently wrote in The Wall Street Journal that his fellow pacifists must abandon their knee-jerk anti-militarism and support the war effort. Brother Jonah still seems to think that warmongering (as opposed to defense) is a characteristic of the right, and he almost seems to be surprised to find he's in agreement with National Propaganda Radio and the War Shriek Journal! (And I guess The Friends Church isn't what it used to be.)

Of course, Brother Jonah has been harping for a return to colonialism for quite some time. His 3 May 2000 column, “A Continent Bleeds,” and his follow-up 10 May column, “Jonah Goldberg's African Invasion,” are, um, interesting.

Like his friends at The Weekly Standard, Brother Jonah's foreign policy sounds more like high school football.

He asks “What Good Is Being #1?” This reminds me of a story about a high-level meeting Chairman Powell was attending. Mad Madeleine Albright, angry at Powell's reticence to use the military, whined (I'm paraphrasing), “What good is it to have the world's most powerful military if we can't use it?” As Mr. Powell related this incident, he also reported a rise in his blood pressure. Seriously, sir, stay away from the salt – we need you. But, Ms. Albright's question is a good one. I wonder if the answer lies in the founders' not favoring a standing military? If there is one universal tenet regarding any government agency, it is this: if it exists, there will be found a use for it.

Like his namesake, Brother Jonah misses the point. The prophet Jonah is given the power to witness to Ninevah their impending destruction according to their grievous sins. But the most unusual and extraordinary thing happens – they listen to Jonah, and of their own free will, they repent. So The Lord spares them. But because the prophecy doesn't come to pass, Jonah feels like a fool, and mourns the loss of the power that was never his.

Similarly, there seems to be little room in Brother Jonah's mind for free will conversion.

What he wants to make clear to us is that his form of colonialism, as he so graciously expresses, doesn't “mean ripping off poor countries … [and] setting tribes against one another and paying off corrupt u2018leaders' to keep down unrest. I mean going in – blazing if necessary – for truth and justice.” He left out “and The American Way!” I really would not have expected an übermensch such as Brother Jonah to make such an oversight.

But he obviously has at least some advertising acuity. He notes that “I think it's time we revisited the notion of a new kind of Colonialism – though we shouldn't call it that.” Indeed, this would be a very poor pr move.

Actually, his campaign to colonize the whole of Africa is perfect for Madison Avenue – lots of form, and no substance. He admits that the idea of “American Greatness … mostly pushed by our friends at The Weekly Standard, is a fairly amorphous notion …”

I admire Brother Jonah's honesty regarding the amorphousness of the imperial plans of the leftists at The Weekly Standard and National Review, but the debate on “American Greatness” has not been among (real) conservatives, and has most certainly not been about its inherent merits.

Of course, those pesky little details can be worked out later. 

But to be certain – Brother Jonah and his marauding monks may not know exactly what they want, but they sure do want it. “We should put American troops in harm's way. We should not be surprised that Americans will die doing the right thing.” Interesting language – perhaps a bit Freudian? Isn't the purpose of a military goal to accomplish mission success while minimizing harm to our American troops? It almost sounds as though we must make an oblation of blood to the god of American Greatness.

Far-fetched? The aforementioned Max Boot recently made a similar complaint in The Wall Street Journal: This is not a war being won with American blood and guts. It is being won with the blood and guts of the Northern Alliance, helped by copious quantities of American ordnance and a handful of American advisers. After Sept. 11, President Bush promised that this would not be another bloodless, push-button war, but that is precisely what it has been. And in what sounds a lot more confused than amorphous, Brother Jonah says his American Dream “would be a display of arrogance of historic proportions, even a crusade,” but “wouldn't be a military one,” but then again “cannot be merely an armed invasion…” (All these phrases were actually in one paragraph.) Huh?!

But in order to prove his conservative credentials, Brother Jonah takes a few perverse stabs at the right, such as this: “I'm as romantic as the next guy about preserving traditional cultures and communities.” You see, it's not about that old-fashioned idea of sovereignty, it's really all about quaintness. He also instructs us that the United States should be Equal Opportunity Murderers: “We should not be squeamish, either, about the fact that (mostly white) Americans will kill some black Africans in the process.”

Brother Jonah would also like to enlist “evangelical churches.” Cute. He knows that among the “evangelical churches” are likely to be found the most patriotic citizens in America. I suspect he's also hoping they won't think too much. He's likely to be disappointed on all counts. I believe the balance of American Christians know the difference between nationalism and patriotism.

I also suspect he wants to enlist the churches only inasmuch as they are of the variety suggested by that Bombastic Barbie Ann Coulter, that would champion “killing all their leaders and converting them to Christianity.”

But for the most part, it's difficult to find even a pretense of anything resembling the right in his assertions. Instead, we find comments like “America should do big things to fulfill its destiny, and conservatives should not shy from the idea that government must do these big things,” and “We should spend billions upon billions doing it.”

And since the raison dêtre of our new crusaders is to “mount a serious effort to bring civilization” to the dark corners of the world, Brother Jonah includes an homage to his intellectual forebears, noting that “there are, of course, ingredients to civilization other than the rudimentary scientific assumptions of the Enlightenment.” More references to the atheistic Enlightenment? I'm glad, at least, that our new crusaders are all on the same page.

Yes, as Brother Jonah proclaims, “The whole point is to enlighten, not just dominate.” That's right, not just dominate, but dominate with a reason – as opposed to those that dominate with no reason.

Brother Jonah assures us that the new colonialists won't make the same mistakes as the past. “It might also be necessary to erase a lot of the pernicious boundaries created by the colonialists…” Yes, those were the old colonialists. We'll draw new borders, because we know so much now about the entire African continent, their history, their grievances against one another, their claims to territory – just like Woodrow Wilson did about the obscure European continent.

He also assures us that “being imperial is not necessarily a bad thing. The British Empire … didn't care about the u2018sovereignty' of other nations when it came to an evil institution. They didn't care about the u2018rule of international law,' they made law with the barrel of a cannon.”

I'm glad Brother Jonah knows his Quotations from Chairman Mao Tsetung: “Every Communist must understand this truth: Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. Our principle is that the party commands the gun; the gun shall never be allowed to command the party.”

Speaking of commies, Mr. Buckley told us some half-century ago that his brand of “conservatism” was only a transitional form, but necessary, because even the radical growth of the state was necessitated by the threat of communism. Well, the threat of communism is gone – and we're still waiting.

But what of new threats, real or perceived? The state was still growing by leaps and bounds before 11 September, and it's demonstrative of the carelessness and cowardice of so-called “patriots” that they vote for bills that sew the seeds of tyranny.

O.K., enough of Brother Jonah.

But on a closing note, he does admit that “… most of the founders would probably be horrified by my proposal, and that should make any conservative pause.” Let's leave it at that.

Modern Times?

Unfortunately, not all proponents of colonialism are youngsters. There are some quite older fellows that wish to pass along the worst habits of the last century.

The inestimable historian Paul Johnson is one such man, and he is, among many other things, a contributor to National Review.

Oddly enough, Johnson is no stranger to the folly of man. If there is only one thesis that his eloquent history Modern Times expresses, it is that social engineering, treating man like so much concrete, is the great tragedy of the twentieth century. (One of the chapter titles is “Experimenting with half Mankind.”)

Indeed, Modern Times was obviously named after the famous Charlie Chaplin film, where the worker, attempting to oil the gears, is caught in, and becomes part of, the machinery.

Let's explore his vision of tomorrow in the 18 April 1993 column in The New York Times Magazine, titled “Colonialism's Back – and Not a Moment Too Soon : Let's face it: Some countries are just not fit to govern themselves.”

The irony of this article is that it was written after 4 December 1992, when Bush I launched the Somalia intervention, but just before the escalation and subsequent disaster in Mogadishu. It was such a disaster that both candidates Bush and Gore expressed unique regret, among all interventions, with respect to Somalia. Now this begs the question – should we be listening to people like Mr. Johnson?

Johnson writes that “a historic line was crossed when American marines landed in Somalia – without any request, because no government existed.” No government? Oh, I'm sure someone was around to steal their money!

Nevertheless, unrequested intervention is held up as the goal for the Ultimate Power. 

The new order “would be empowered not merely to impose order by force, but to assume political functions. They would in effect be possessed of sovereign powers.” I guess there are some pretty stringent requirements in acquiring membership in that club of “sovereign powers.” Incidentally, Johnson's “not merely to impose order by force” sounds a lot like Brother Jonah's “not merely an armed invasion.” Has Mr. Johnson been tutoring Brother Jonah? This is what I’m afraid is so.

He reminds us that “in the 1980s … Western powers showed a renewed willingness to use force in what they believed to be right.” This force was demonstrated by England and America against the colossi of the Falklands and Grenada, respectively. But, I suppose it's time to think a little bigger.

Like Goldberg, Johnson doesn't want anyone to think he's racist, so he assures his audience that “the new colonialism is not just about white men running the affairs of nonwhite countries but can involve intervention in Europe …” Well thank heavens for that! Indeed, like Boot, Johnson holds up the “direct military intervention in the internal affairs of the former Yugoslavia” as the epitome of success.

Johnson reassures us that “Happily, the civilized powers need not get stuck in the old colonial quagmire, because they have the example of the trusteeship system before them.” Trust us, it's all worked out now.

“Trusteeship,” he tells us, “was a notion derived from English common law in which a child was made a ward of the court until attaining the age of 21.” This harkens a commandment that our new colonialists would do well to heed: “Thou shalt not provoke your children to anger.”

Johnson's vision is that “their mandate would usually be of limited duration – 5, 10, 20 years, for example – and subject to supervision by the Security Council; and their ultimate object would be to take constitutional measures to insure a return to effective self government with all deliberate speed.” It's not that I don't trust that they'll do some quite smashing things on their little excursions, it's just the “all deliberate speed” part of which I'm a little wary, especially when Johnson throws out lengths of time like “20 years.” He continues, “The trustees should not plan to withdraw until they are reasonably certain that the return to independence will be successful this time. So the mandate may last 50 years, or 100.” Say what? 50, 100? That's not colonialism – that's more like a high colonic! And if we employ a typical MCM (for those not familiar, that's Mission Creep Multiplier) of 10, then we can be out of there in only one millennium.

They are our little children that we're supposed to train to be independent? Talk about empty nest syndrome!

But in the end, we'll have the “unspoken gratitude of millions of misgoverned or ungoverned people.” Personally, I think ungoverned people are already happy. But doesn't the phrase “unspoken gratitude” sound a little suspicious?

Mr. Johnson also recently voiced his opinions in the 15 October 2001 National Review in a column titled “u2018Relentlessly and Thoroughly' The only way to respond.”

The object of this piece (or any pro-colonial piece) is to paint a picture of Islamic backwardness, so that their defeat and subsequent colonialism are justified.

He begins by telling us that “Islam is an imperialist religion, more so than Christianity has ever been, and in contrast to Judaism.” Wait a minute – I'm confused. Imperialism good, or imperialism bad? Incidentally, I think this sentence is a little awkward. Christianity imperialistic? So the trumped-up charges against Jesus were legitimate? I think “so-called Christian states” might read better than “Christianity.”

Referring to the Quoran, Johnson tells us that “These canonical commands cannot be explained away or softened by modern theological exegesis, because there is no such science in Islam.” This isn't exactly consistent with the scholarship of Alan Jones, who taught Arabic and Islamic studies at Oxford from 1957-2000, and who states that the main difference between the Quoran of the Sunni and the Shi'is lies in exegesis (tafsir), which is crucial: for although the Koran declares itself to be “clear,” its rhetorical nature often calls out for explanation, and through the centuries pious and learned scholars have written a whole series of commentaries that show scholarship of the highest quality. Johnson continues, “Unlike Christianity, which, since the Reformation and Counter Reformation, has continually updated itself and adapted to changed conditions, and unlike Judaism, which has experienced what is called the 18th-century Jewish enlightenment, Islam remains a religion of the Dark Ages.” We are to now envision the most filthy and barbaric conditions, and shudder. No education. No clean water. No underarm deodorant. No table manners. None of the blessings of modernity.

This is a particularly peculiar statement since the Islamic world of the early Middle Ages far exceeded the culture, science, and technology of the contemporaneous West. And in fact, it was the Arab races who preserved the Greek classics, which allowed the “re-discovery” of them by the West.

But now Johnson delivers the coup de grace, “The 7th-century Koran is still taught as the immutable word of God, any teaching of which is literally true. In other words, mainstream Islam is essentially akin to the most extreme form of Biblical fundamentalism.” Gadzooks! Not that! We all know how backward those people are!

He knows that when the word “literalism” (whatever that means) is employed, we're to picture those ignorant in-breeding Appalachian Christians who take the Bible seriously, of whom obviously the Wahabbi Muslims are our close theological cousins.

But ultimately, Johnson misses the point. In fact, I cannot figure out why he included this passage: The Crusades, as it happened, fatally weakened the Greek Orthodox Byzantine Empire, the main barrier to the spread of Islam into southeast and central Europe. As a result of the fall of Constantinople to the ultra-militant Ottoman Sultans, Islam took over the entire Balkans, and was threatening to capture Vienna and move into the heart of Europe as recently as the 1680s. I've decided the first casualty of war is not truth, but irony. How about an alternative reading of the above? The Balkan War, as it happened, fatally weakened the Serbian Orthodox Christians, the main barrier to the spread of Islam into southeast and central Europe. As a result of the fall of Sarajevo to the ultra-militant Albanian Moslems, Islam took over the entire Balkans, and was threatening to capture Vienna and move into the heart of Europe as recently as the 1980s.

Well, not exactly, but close enough – and in ways, worse. Aside from America's illegal, immoral, and ignorant persecution of Serbia, the tidal wave of Islamic immigrants into the “heart of Europe” threaten the existence of the Western World. (E.g., Sam Francis on VDARE.com informs us that Berlin is the third largest Turkish city in the world.) And let us not forget the Bosnian connection or the Albanian connection to Al Qaeda.

We Will Not Be Silenced

I never before appreciated the dictum, “War is the health of the state,” as now. Before 11 September, I was able to discuss these same issues with the same people, and they were mostly in agreement with me; but now they can't be broached. Not just specifically, they can't even be discussed in theory.

I've received heartfelt letters, some from active and retired military personnel, who have experienced the same thing.

But, as the weeks pass, things seem to be loosening up a bit. 

In the meantime, here's a November 1993 letter to First Things editor Richard John Neuhaus from Thomas Molnar, another who has served his country, but is not afraid to criticize its government. Molnar is responding to Fr. Neuhaus' thoughts on Paul Johnson's “new colonialism.” I am compelled to include it in full: Anglo-Saxon regimes and races have a curious urge to “save the world” – from sin and its secular variants like non-democratic regimes, and now, in Fr. Neuhaus' words, from the status of “failed nations.” A strange recommendation in view of the failure of Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, and George Bush to save the world, make it safe for democracy, abolish fear, and institute a new world order. The recommendation is even more misplaced in the eyes of one like me who saw the Congo in the early 1960s occupied by UN troops, mostly from India, who plundered the territory, appropriated UN material and weapons, and whom the population feared and detested. From the Congo to Somalia, Cambodia, and Bosnia, the UN has done precious little to be entrusted with rule over “failed nations.” Besides, who is going to define “failure”? Big Brother?

On a more theoretical plane, why not consider that failure in the Third World may be, just may be, the consequence of Western imposition of political structures – democracy, pluralism, even statehood – that are alien to local tradition and mentality. If so, the Western doctor cures with one hand and causes disease with the other. I shudder in anticipation of the day of UN tutelage over the “failed nation” of Hungary, decided, let's say, with the votes of Bucharest and Belgrade.

Finally, is the United States so pure (elsewhere in the issue Fr. Neuhaus speaks of the “stench of decaying empire”), so secure from failure itself, that we can confidently dictate to a world that has recently gotten rid of another uninvited tutor? Our future?

After T. E. Lawrence had occupied Damascus, he was approached by a medical officer. The MO was complaining that the Arab Council (which was rapidly disintegrating) had overlooked the Turkish Military Hospital. Lawrence looked into it.

In one of the most memorable scenes of the film, Lawrence approaches the makeshift hospital, which is an open-air structure, filthy, and fly infested. He desperately tries to find water, finds a spigot, turns the knob, but nothing comes out. English medical officers arrive. A pompous-ass officer approaches the hospital, and as he sees the conditions, is filled with righteous indignation, “This is outrageous. OUTu2014RAGEOUS!”

He looks at Lawrence (who is still in Bedouin dress, with his face covered), and yells “Outrageous!” Lawrence, exhausted, frustrated, and seeing the irony of the officer's reaction, starts laughing. The officer screams, “You filthy little wog!” and slaps Lawrence to the ground, but he continues to laugh.

(This is the last time we see Lawrence in Bedouin dress.)

Let us be convinced, all empires finish exhausted and unappreciated.

In the last dialogue of the movie, Dryden remarks on the final draft of negotiations between England and Prince Feisal, “Well, it looks as though we're going to have an English water works with an Arab flag on it!” Prince Feisal asks, “Well, Mr. Dryden, you seem to be the architect of this agreement, what do you think of it?”

He dryly answers, “On the whole, I wish I'd stayed in Tunbridge Wells.”

Speaking of Englishmen, dear Mr. Johnson, might you, kind sir, eschew regaling the lads at National Review and The Weekly Standard with tales of the salad days of English colonialism? You see, they're at that impressionable age. You understand.

I'm certain you can find something else to amuse yourself, perhaps even in your native England. Perhaps gardening? That's a good English gentleman's pastime, isn't it?

November 29, 2001