shanek
16th August 2003, 06:07 AM
http://www.lp.org/lpnews/0309/review.html
It may be true that those who are ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it. But it is equally true that those who repeat history are usually determined to ignore it.
At least, that seems to be the case in Iraq. The United States' mission to eradicate Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction -- er, to free the Iraqi people from tyranny -- has turned into an open-ended nation-building mission. Spending taxpayer dollars at the rate of $1 billion a week, the United States has accepted what the Business Standard magazine called the "massive responsibility to ensure a safe, stable future for Iraqis."
However, before taking on that daunting task, Bush administration planners should have read Fool's Errands. Published in late 2001, it is more timely than ever. The book examines the U.S.'s last four efforts at nation building -- Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, and Kosovo. And as it convincingly demonstrates, the fate of those missions ranged from failure to fiasco.
Whatever it is, nation-building is a task that appeals to both liberals and conservatives. Liberals like it because it is government do-goodism on a global scale -- and justifies huge foreign aid budgets. Conservatives like it because it allows them to smite real or imagined enemies of the U.S. -- and justifies huge defense budgets.
But whatever it is, it hasn't worked.
As Dempsey and Fontaine note: "Washington said it would bring order to Somalia, but left chaos; it went to Haiti to restore democracy, but produced tyranny; it intervened in Bosnia to reverse the effects of civil war, but now oversees a province that is not self-sustaining; and it occupied Kosovo to build a multiethnic democracy, but has instead observed widespread ethnic cleansing."
* Somalia: In 1992, the African nation spiraled into anarchy after its oppressive government was overthrown. Rival clans launched a bloody, free-for-all civil war -- leaving 300,000 Somalians dead from battle and starvation. So President Bush (senior) sent in U.S. troops on a humanitarian mission. One optimistic Washington bureaucrat promised a "bright new chapter" in the nation's history.
It was not to be. When President Clinton was sworn into office, peacekeeping quickly turned into war-making. One warlord was singled out as the designated bad guy, and U.S. troops launched a series of raids on his strongholds, killing innocent civilians in the process. Once hailed as saviors, American soldiers were soon seen as just another faction in the ongoing struggle. (It didn't help that the U.S. government dropped leaflets that had mistakenly translated the words "United Nations" into Somalian for "Slave Nation.")
The escalating attacks climaxed with a battle that left 18 U.S. Rangers dead. When jubilant Somalians dragged the dead bodies through the streets of Mogadishu, the grisly scene was captured on videotape. The American public was appalled.
In 1994, after spending $2.3 billion and seeing 200 American soldiers killed or injured, the U.S. withdrew from Somalia. Clinton explained, "It is not our job to rebuild Somalia's society."
* Haiti: Another overthrow, another humanitarian relief mission. After decades of rule by "Papa Doc" and "Pap Doc" Duvalier, Haitians had relatively free elections in 1990, and chose Jean-Bertrand Aristide as president. The next year, however, he was overthrown by a military junta.
In 1994, President Clinton sent 20,000 troops to restore democracy in the Caribbean nation. As the U.S. would later do in Iraq, Clinton claimed Haiti's military rulers were "a threat to international peace." (How the impoverished nation could threaten anyone was never explained.)
Unlike Somalia, Haiti never turned into a graveyard for American soldiers -- only for the boasts of Washington bureaucrats that they could miraculously transform a nation that had been plagued for decades by poverty, corruption, brutality, and tyranny into a peaceful, prosperous democracy.
Five years later, Haitians were "poorer, hungrier, and less literate" than when U.S. troops had arrived, reported Dempsey and Fontaine. And Aristide's hand-picked successor had dissolved the parliament and was ruling by decree.
U.S. policy makers shouldn't have been surprised at the failure. It was, after all, the third time U.S. troops had occupied Haiti in the 20th century: They had launched similar missions in 1915 (staying for 19 years) and in 1961 (staying two years). After 90 years, the score was Haiti 3, the United States 0.
* Bosnia: After the fall of communism, Yugoslavia began to splinter into feuding factions of Roman Catholic Croats, Eastern Orthodox Serbs, and Muslim Slavs. Open warfare -- described as the bloodiest armed conflict in Europe since World War II -- erupted in the province of Bosnia. After several years of bloodshed, a peace treaty was hammered out in 1995, and Clinton sent 20,000 U.S. troops to keep the peace. (Another 40,000 NATO troops also participated.)
Secretary of State Madeline Albright cheerfully predicted that the U.S. would quickly build a "unified, multiethnic state." President Clinton estimated the mission would take "about a year."
The U.S. and the United Nations set to work. To teach Bosnians how democracy works, Western overseers dissolved city councils if voters picked the wrong candidates (replacing them with a more ethnically "diverse" selection); censored textbooks if they contained ethnically objectionable materials; and shut down radio and TV stations if they criticized NATO peacekeepers.
Three years later, a puzzled Clinton acknowledged that the task of unifying ethnic enemies who had hated and feared each other for hundreds of years was "taking longer than anticipated."
Meanwhile, the rival ethnic factions continued to kill each other, the population had largely self-segregated into ethnic enclaves, and 85% of Bosnians said they would never vote for a political candidate from another ethnic group. Efforts to rebuild the economy also fizzled amidst corruption and communist inertia: Bosnia ranked as the world's 14th least-free economy, just ahead of North Korea.
Eight years and $12 billion later, U.S. troops are still in Bosnia.
* Kosovo: Another Yugoslavian province that suffered from ethnic-cleansing and all-out war. When ethnic Albanian separatists in the Kosovo Libertarian Army (KLA) tried to win their independence, Yugoslavian strongman Slobodan Milosevic sent the army to ruthlessly put down the revolt.
In 1999, Clinton announced that Milosevic was a "dictator" who pours "gasoline on the flames of ethnic and religious division." So he launched a 78-day NATO bombing campaign to drive Milosevic from power. Under the onslaught of B-2 bombers, Milosevic capitulated, and allowed United Nations troops into the war-torn province.
Once again, however, the challenge of guiding a communist backwater, torn by ethnic strife and hatred, towards peace, tolerance, and a market economy has proved to be insurmountable.
With the (primarily Serb) Yugoslavian army no longer tormenting the ethnic Albanians, the ethnic Albanians turned their attention to tormenting the Serbs -- driving more than 160,000 of them out of the provence. The KLA (America's ostensible ally) turned out to be every bit as "violently racist" as Milosevic, according to Time magazine.
Today, 20,000 troops (including 6,000 Americans) still occupy Kosovo. And although the U.S. has spent more than $5 billion to rebuild Kosovo, the province is still an economic basket case. The United Nations' mission in Kosovo now runs the province's education, banking, mail, and health care systems.
To put it briefly, Washington, DC policy makers always underestimate the difficulty of what they are trying to achieve, and always overestimate the ability of the U.S. government to bring peace, democracy, and prosperity (at gunpoint) to other nations.
As a result, the missions drag on, Americans casualties mount, and the costs grow.
Even worse, such nation-building exercises are harmful to American freedom. As Dempsey and Fontaine point out, such missions "tend to expand, rather than limit, the size and scope of the U.S. government, and tend to make the president's powers dominant at the expense of America's republican form of government."
But, I guess Iraq's all right, huh, since it's Republican nation-building?
It may be true that those who are ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it. But it is equally true that those who repeat history are usually determined to ignore it.
At least, that seems to be the case in Iraq. The United States' mission to eradicate Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction -- er, to free the Iraqi people from tyranny -- has turned into an open-ended nation-building mission. Spending taxpayer dollars at the rate of $1 billion a week, the United States has accepted what the Business Standard magazine called the "massive responsibility to ensure a safe, stable future for Iraqis."
However, before taking on that daunting task, Bush administration planners should have read Fool's Errands. Published in late 2001, it is more timely than ever. The book examines the U.S.'s last four efforts at nation building -- Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, and Kosovo. And as it convincingly demonstrates, the fate of those missions ranged from failure to fiasco.
Whatever it is, nation-building is a task that appeals to both liberals and conservatives. Liberals like it because it is government do-goodism on a global scale -- and justifies huge foreign aid budgets. Conservatives like it because it allows them to smite real or imagined enemies of the U.S. -- and justifies huge defense budgets.
But whatever it is, it hasn't worked.
As Dempsey and Fontaine note: "Washington said it would bring order to Somalia, but left chaos; it went to Haiti to restore democracy, but produced tyranny; it intervened in Bosnia to reverse the effects of civil war, but now oversees a province that is not self-sustaining; and it occupied Kosovo to build a multiethnic democracy, but has instead observed widespread ethnic cleansing."
* Somalia: In 1992, the African nation spiraled into anarchy after its oppressive government was overthrown. Rival clans launched a bloody, free-for-all civil war -- leaving 300,000 Somalians dead from battle and starvation. So President Bush (senior) sent in U.S. troops on a humanitarian mission. One optimistic Washington bureaucrat promised a "bright new chapter" in the nation's history.
It was not to be. When President Clinton was sworn into office, peacekeeping quickly turned into war-making. One warlord was singled out as the designated bad guy, and U.S. troops launched a series of raids on his strongholds, killing innocent civilians in the process. Once hailed as saviors, American soldiers were soon seen as just another faction in the ongoing struggle. (It didn't help that the U.S. government dropped leaflets that had mistakenly translated the words "United Nations" into Somalian for "Slave Nation.")
The escalating attacks climaxed with a battle that left 18 U.S. Rangers dead. When jubilant Somalians dragged the dead bodies through the streets of Mogadishu, the grisly scene was captured on videotape. The American public was appalled.
In 1994, after spending $2.3 billion and seeing 200 American soldiers killed or injured, the U.S. withdrew from Somalia. Clinton explained, "It is not our job to rebuild Somalia's society."
* Haiti: Another overthrow, another humanitarian relief mission. After decades of rule by "Papa Doc" and "Pap Doc" Duvalier, Haitians had relatively free elections in 1990, and chose Jean-Bertrand Aristide as president. The next year, however, he was overthrown by a military junta.
In 1994, President Clinton sent 20,000 troops to restore democracy in the Caribbean nation. As the U.S. would later do in Iraq, Clinton claimed Haiti's military rulers were "a threat to international peace." (How the impoverished nation could threaten anyone was never explained.)
Unlike Somalia, Haiti never turned into a graveyard for American soldiers -- only for the boasts of Washington bureaucrats that they could miraculously transform a nation that had been plagued for decades by poverty, corruption, brutality, and tyranny into a peaceful, prosperous democracy.
Five years later, Haitians were "poorer, hungrier, and less literate" than when U.S. troops had arrived, reported Dempsey and Fontaine. And Aristide's hand-picked successor had dissolved the parliament and was ruling by decree.
U.S. policy makers shouldn't have been surprised at the failure. It was, after all, the third time U.S. troops had occupied Haiti in the 20th century: They had launched similar missions in 1915 (staying for 19 years) and in 1961 (staying two years). After 90 years, the score was Haiti 3, the United States 0.
* Bosnia: After the fall of communism, Yugoslavia began to splinter into feuding factions of Roman Catholic Croats, Eastern Orthodox Serbs, and Muslim Slavs. Open warfare -- described as the bloodiest armed conflict in Europe since World War II -- erupted in the province of Bosnia. After several years of bloodshed, a peace treaty was hammered out in 1995, and Clinton sent 20,000 U.S. troops to keep the peace. (Another 40,000 NATO troops also participated.)
Secretary of State Madeline Albright cheerfully predicted that the U.S. would quickly build a "unified, multiethnic state." President Clinton estimated the mission would take "about a year."
The U.S. and the United Nations set to work. To teach Bosnians how democracy works, Western overseers dissolved city councils if voters picked the wrong candidates (replacing them with a more ethnically "diverse" selection); censored textbooks if they contained ethnically objectionable materials; and shut down radio and TV stations if they criticized NATO peacekeepers.
Three years later, a puzzled Clinton acknowledged that the task of unifying ethnic enemies who had hated and feared each other for hundreds of years was "taking longer than anticipated."
Meanwhile, the rival ethnic factions continued to kill each other, the population had largely self-segregated into ethnic enclaves, and 85% of Bosnians said they would never vote for a political candidate from another ethnic group. Efforts to rebuild the economy also fizzled amidst corruption and communist inertia: Bosnia ranked as the world's 14th least-free economy, just ahead of North Korea.
Eight years and $12 billion later, U.S. troops are still in Bosnia.
* Kosovo: Another Yugoslavian province that suffered from ethnic-cleansing and all-out war. When ethnic Albanian separatists in the Kosovo Libertarian Army (KLA) tried to win their independence, Yugoslavian strongman Slobodan Milosevic sent the army to ruthlessly put down the revolt.
In 1999, Clinton announced that Milosevic was a "dictator" who pours "gasoline on the flames of ethnic and religious division." So he launched a 78-day NATO bombing campaign to drive Milosevic from power. Under the onslaught of B-2 bombers, Milosevic capitulated, and allowed United Nations troops into the war-torn province.
Once again, however, the challenge of guiding a communist backwater, torn by ethnic strife and hatred, towards peace, tolerance, and a market economy has proved to be insurmountable.
With the (primarily Serb) Yugoslavian army no longer tormenting the ethnic Albanians, the ethnic Albanians turned their attention to tormenting the Serbs -- driving more than 160,000 of them out of the provence. The KLA (America's ostensible ally) turned out to be every bit as "violently racist" as Milosevic, according to Time magazine.
Today, 20,000 troops (including 6,000 Americans) still occupy Kosovo. And although the U.S. has spent more than $5 billion to rebuild Kosovo, the province is still an economic basket case. The United Nations' mission in Kosovo now runs the province's education, banking, mail, and health care systems.
To put it briefly, Washington, DC policy makers always underestimate the difficulty of what they are trying to achieve, and always overestimate the ability of the U.S. government to bring peace, democracy, and prosperity (at gunpoint) to other nations.
As a result, the missions drag on, Americans casualties mount, and the costs grow.
Even worse, such nation-building exercises are harmful to American freedom. As Dempsey and Fontaine point out, such missions "tend to expand, rather than limit, the size and scope of the U.S. government, and tend to make the president's powers dominant at the expense of America's republican form of government."
But, I guess Iraq's all right, huh, since it's Republican nation-building?