Old writing.

From June 2004, unearthed while doing my job. I've edited it, though it's actually half of an excellent dialogue. But I'm mostly interested in it as an artifact of my thought (and this is my self-absorbed space):

Whatever project the Bushies are on, it seems far more closely rooted to a paranoid notion of American security than to a gloriously expansionistic commitment to "the nation." Aside from the unabashedly pro-imperialist Robert Kaplan, I'm not sure that any of the neo-cons could be characterized as fitting Orwell's description of nationalists.

American actions under this administration have been persistently justified in paranoid terms of national security. The rhetoric used to articulate our policies would indicate that we don't have a systemic nationalist problem in the U.S. Though the perpetual deceitfulness of the Administration undermines the strength of their national security arguments, their absolute unwillingness to commit to meaningful military victories and the holding of territory also give the lie to any presumption of imperial ambition.

If this has all been an elaborate attempt to grab "power and prestige" then it should be judged a failure, when one considers that much of our military readiness is now trapped in the mire of Mesopotamia and America is an object of record amounts of scorn and derision throughout the world.

Having weakened our national power and our national prestige, it's really hard to think of the Bush Admin crew as anything like the militant imperialists described by Orwell.

[...]

Generally speaking, the term "neocon" applies to a group of persons who are:
a) relatively disinterested in American domestic policy
b) advocates of the univeral appeal of liberal democratism
c) committed to the ends above the means (willing to do some very illiberal and very undemocratic things in the name of liberal democratism)

The British Imperial project was interested in the exploitation of colonies, not in the construction of liberal democracies in oppressed parts of the world. From an "imperialist" perspective, the neocon agenda is self-contradictory. Part of the reason why the neocons are also such advocates of "light footprints" is that they had some dangerously naive notions of how easy it is to transform societies and no real interest in imperial rule. They're ideologues, but they're not nationalists. In one of the bizarre ironies of history, the neocons are kind of like a Fifth International, with all the ideological fervor of socialism transplanted wholesale to the hostile soil of liberalism. It's not a surprise that their projects have withered on the vine, since their indifference to method doesn't square well with their putative ideals. But their ideology is obviously as sincere as it is misguided and ineffective... and manifestly NOT "imperialism."

[...]

I find it's helpful to think of the term "clientism" as a couterpoise to "imperialism." If you're an "imperialist" you want to rule. You want them to pay you some fucking respect, and pay you some tribute. You want to control, and to have power. Think of "the White Man's Burden." Our goal was to provide the moral uplift necessary to bring our colonial subjects into the modern world. Then think of post-war Saudi Arabia. We just wanted the oil. They could hate us, and raise generations of anti-Americans in their madrassas just so long as the supply of oil was stable. The paranoid frame of mind is content with "clientism." Is Afghanistan going to be ruled by warlords no better than the Taliban? Sure, but if they keep those terrorists under control, what's the harm?

The sincere neocons are ideologues, not clientists or imperialists, but the rest of the establishment (i.e. Rumsfeld) are content to set up oppressive client regimes that will provide certain security guarantees. So, I don't think it's helpful to call them "imperialists." That just confuses terms. 19th-century British imperialism was VERY different than 20th-century American imperialism and it isn't helpful to conflate them too readily.

[...]

I dunno if you remember Omar Sharif and Sylvester Stallone dining on goat milk in Rambo 3, but the "fundies" were popularly portrayed as our allies. But, let's even stipulate that was mere propaganda. The question is, in 1984 was a ragtag band of turbaned guerillas in Central Asia really comparable in scale to the global threat of international Communism, with a conventional army of vast size and an array of ICBM's targeted at the American mainland? The Cold War was real. Yes, we did some really disgraceful things in the context of it, and many of them were tactical, strategic, and even moral errors. When Afghanistan was Soviet occupied, we really didn't think the Afghans were a threat to us. And in fact, they weren't. They were a fratricidal band of thugs. It wasn't until the Pakistani-backed Taliban swept to power, starting in 1994, that militant fundamentalism, very similar to the early militant Communism of Che Guevara-type revolutionaries began to legitimately threaten the West. Many of the revolutionaries we backed were actually quite secular (say, Rashid Dostum), though some were obviously Islamic fundamentalists (say, Ismail Khan). But even today, we back the ones on our side (both of them), whatever their approach to Islamic fundamentalism.

[...]

I disagree with this. They ARE a threat to the West. We think of Islamic fundamentalism too reductively when we worry about nothing more than attacks against Western cities. The project is to seize control of states. Especially Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Imagine militant Sunni funadmentalist regimes with close links controlling the world's biggest oil producer and nuclear bombs.

They are a meaningful threat, but it's a threat of the long-term. But the corner we're backed into now, supporting autocratic clients against theocratic insurgents is far far from ideal.

I don't think we should have attacked Iraq, because it always seemed a poorly conceived response to our present dilemma. But it's not an entirely trivial problem. If Sunni fundamentalist insurgents enact their political visions in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, the consequences would be...

...historical.

I don't mean to overstate the threat. But it shouldn't be diminished too. The threat is strategic. Not the mere potential loss of "some buildlings."