| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"maff" |
| Date: |
25 Aug 2005 02:49:02 AM |
| Object: |
OT: Stagger on, weary Titan |
Stagger on, weary Titan
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1555724,00.html
The US is reeling, like imperial Britain after the Boer war - but don't
gloat
Timothy Garton Ash in Stanford
Thursday August 25, 2005
The Guardian
If you want to know what London was like in 1905, come to Washington in
2005. Imperial gravitas and massive self-importance. That sense of
being the centre of the world, and of needing to know what happens in
every corner of the world because you might be called on - or at least
feel called upon - to intervene there. Hyperpower. Top dog. And yet,
gnawing away beneath the surface, the nagging fear that your global
supremacy is not half so secure as you would wish. As Joseph
Chamberlain, the British colonial secretary, put it in 1902: "The weary
Titan staggers under the too vast orb of his fate."
Timothy Garton Ash
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.atheism/msg/2cc6a786ff8c7302
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| User: "stoney" |
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| Title: Re: OT: Stagger on, weary Titan |
30 Aug 2005 05:26:11 PM |
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On 25 Aug 2005 00:49:02 -0700, "maff" <maff91@yahoo.com> wrote:
Stagger on, weary Titan
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1555724,00.html
The US is reeling, like imperial Britain after the Boer war - but don't
gloat
Timothy Garton Ash in Stanford
Thursday August 25, 2005
The Guardian
If you want to know what London was like in 1905, come to Washington in
2005. Imperial gravitas and massive self-importance. That sense of
being the centre of the world, and of needing to know what happens in
every corner of the world because you might be called on - or at least
feel called upon - to intervene there. Hyperpower. Top dog. And yet,
gnawing away beneath the surface, the nagging fear that your global
supremacy is not half so secure as you would wish. As Joseph
Chamberlain, the British colonial secretary, put it in 1902: "The weary
Titan staggers under the too vast orb of his fate."
The United States is now that weary Titan. In the British case, the
angst was a result of the unexpectedly protracted, bloody and costly
Boer war, in which a small group of foreign insurgents defied the
mightiest military the world had seen; concern about the rising
economic power of Germany and the United States; and a combination of
imperial overstretch with socio-economic problems at home. In the
American case, it's a result of the unexpectedly protracted, bloody
and costly Iraq war, in which a small group of foreign insurgents
defies the mightiest military the world has seen; concern about the
rising economic power of China and India; and a combination of
imperial overstretch with socio-economic problems at home.
Iraq is America's Boer war. Remember that after the British had
declared the end of major combat operations in the summer of 1900, the
Boers launched a campaign of guerrilla warfare that kept British
troops on the run for another two years. The British won only by a
ruthlessness of which, I'm glad to say, the democratic, squeamish and
still basically anti-colonialist United States appears incapable. In
the end, the British had 450,000 British and colonial troops there
(compared with some 150,000 US troops in Iraq), and herded roughly a
quarter of the Boer population into concentration camps, where many
died.
In a recent CNN/Gallup poll, 54% of those asked said it was a mistake
to send American troops into Iraq, and 57% said the Iraq war has made
the US less safe from terrorism. The protest camp outside President
Bush's ranch in Crawford, which grew around the mother of a soldier
who died in Iraq, exemplifies the pain. CNN last Sunday aired a
documentary with top-level sources explaining in detail how the
intelligence on Saddam's weapons of mass destruction was distorted,
abused, sexed up and, as the programme was entitled, Dead Wrong. This
will hardly be news for British or European readers, but the facts
have not been so widely aired in the US. In another poll, the number
of those who rated the president as "honest" fell below 50% for the
first time. This week, he has again attempted to bolster support for
his administration and his war. It doesn't seem to be working.
A recent article in the New York Times plausibly estimated the
prospective long-term cost of the Iraq War at more than $1 trillion.
If Iraqi politicians do finally agree a draft constitution for their
country today, only the world's greatest optimist can believe that it
will turn Iraq into a peaceful, stable, democratic federal republic.
Increasingly, the Islamic Republic of Iran quietly calls the shots in
the Shia south of Iraq. As the Washington joke goes: the war is over,
and the Iranians won.
Meanwhile, oil prices of more than $60 a barrel put the price of
petrol at American pumps up to nearly $3 a gallon for basic unleaded
fuel. For someone from Europe this is still unbelievably cheap, but
you should hear the shrieks of agony here. "Gas prices have changed my
life," moaned a distressed Californian commuter. If higher energy
prices persist, they threaten not just a still vibrant economy but a
whole way of life, symbolised by the Hummer (in both its civilian and
military versions). Besides instability in the Middle East, the main
force pushing up oil prices is the relentless growth of demand for
energy from the emerging economic giants of Asia. The Chinese go
around the world quietly signing big oil supply deals with any
oil-producing country they can find, however nasty its politics,
including Sudan and Iran. When a Chinese concern tried to buy a big
California energy company, that was too much - American politicians
screamed and effectively blocked the deal.
China and India are to the United States today what Germany and
America were to Britain a hundred years ago. China is now the world's
second largest energy consumer, after the United States. It also has
the world's second largest foreign currency reserves, after Japan and
followed by Taiwan, South Korea and India. In the foreign reserve
stakes, the US comes only ninth, after Singapore and just before
Malaysia. According to some economists, the US has an effective net
savings rate - taking account of all public spending and debt - of
zero. Nil. Zilch. This country does not save; it spends. The
television channels are still full of a maddening barrage of endless
commercials, enticing you to spend, spend, spend - and then to
"consolidate" your accumulated debt in one easy package.
None of this is to suggest that the United States will decline and
fall tomorrow. Far from it. After all, the British empire lasted for
another 40 years after 1905. In fact, it grew to its largest extent
after 1918, before it signed its own death warrant by expending its
blood and treasure to defeat Adolf Hitler (not the worst way to go).
Similarly, one may anticipate that America's informal empire - its
network of military bases and semi-protectorates - will continue to
grow. The United States, like Edwardian Britain, still has formidable
resources of economic, technological and military power, cultural
attractiveness and, not least, the will to stay on top. As one British
music hall ditty at that time proclaimed:
And we mean to be top dog still. Bow-wow.
Yes, we mean to be top dog still.
You don't have to go very far to hear that refrain in Washington
today. The Bush administration's national security strategy makes no
bones about the goal of maintaining military supremacy. But whether
the "American century" that began in 1945 will last until 2045, 2035
or only 2025, its end can already be glimpsed on the horizon.
If you are, by any chance, of that persuasion that would instinctively
find this a cause for rejoicing, pause for a moment to consider two
things: first, that major shifts of power between rising and falling
great powers have usually been accompanied by major wars; and second,
that the next top dog could be a lot worse.
So this is no time for schadenfreude. It's a time for critical
solidarity. A few far-sighted people in Washington are beginning to
formulate a long-term American strategy of trying to create an
international order that would protect the interests of liberal
democracies even when American hyperpower has faded; and to encourage
rising powers such as India and China to sign up to such an order.
That is exactly what today's weary Titan should be doing, and we
should help him do it.
www.freeworldweb.net
Timothy Garton Ash
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.atheism/msg/2cc6a786ff8c7302
--
Contempt of Congress meter reading-offscale.
Hello, theocracy with a fundamentalist US Supreme
Court who will ensure church and state are joined
at the hip like clergy and altar boys.
America 1776-Jan 2001 RIP
"As democracy is perfected, the office of president
represents, more and more closely, the inner soul
of the people. On some great and glorious day the
plain folks of the land will reach their heart's
desire at last and the White House will be adorned
by a downright moron." --- H.L. Mencken (1880 - 1956)
Religion is the original war crime.
-Michelle Malkin (Feb 26, 2005)
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