The United States Appetite for Invasion - Assignment Example

What was the most important idea, concept, person, or event you learned about this semester? People Push Back One of the most important ideas I learned from this semester is the reality that whenever you push people around, their tendency is to retaliate with equal or much greater force. As activist-historian Ward Churchill put it while quoting a line in Lawrence Fishburn’s movie, people got to learn the fact that “when you push people around, some people push back”. Analyzing the experiences of Iraq, Cuba, Vietnam, and the Philippines would tell us that people of different culture or nationality do strike back whenever they are under pressure or when their national or individual sovereignty is violated. For instance, many believe that the World Trade Centre attack in 2001 was a response to what the American and its allies had done to Iraq and its people during the Gulf War. Innocent Iraqi men, women, and children were killed and properties destroyed. In Cuba, the rebellion and struggle for freedom and independence was brought about by foreign presence in the country. The Platt amendment, which was designed by the US to infiltrate the Cuban economy further, was actually made part of the Cuban Constitution. The purpose was to control the Cuban political affairs and clandestinely make it a quasi-colony of the U.S. so they can control its resources regardless of the fact that the country already acquired its formal independence from Spain. Consequently, the Cubans reacted violently and demand ouster of U.S. presence in their territory. The Platt Amendment was a United States tool to secure a permanent rule over Cuba. A specially designed platform that gives Cubans their supposed independence while it enables U.S. forces to invade Cuba anytime they want to uphold Cuban sovereignty and bring back stability (Lipman, 23). In other words, the 1901 Platt Amendment gave U.S. the right to intervene with Cuba’s internal affairs (Winn 531). The Platt Amendment made Cuba as an island satellite of the United States and although it is a complete humiliation to all Cubans, they have no choice but to accept the amendment in place of an inevitable permanent military occupation (Johnson, 42). Consequently, following the provisions of the Platt Amendment, Cuba cannot make any deal with other countries, acquire loans, or move without the blessing of the United States government. Similarly, the United States also tried to set almost similar rule to the Philippines and intensified their military presence to strengthen their grip over the region. However, since no country would ever entertain the idea of being under a foreign government particularly when they feel exploited, the people of the Philippines revolted against the American rule resulting to hostilities on both sides leaving thousand of casualties. The United States intervention of the Philippines sovereignty was part of the plan to take control its resources and geopolitical advantage. More importantly, the Americans viewed Filipinos as uncivilized and illiterate savages that need foreign government to survive. The war atrocities in Vietnam was being justified as a war against the communist but turned out later to be an unimaginable atrocity against the Vietnamese civilians and Americas increasingly unpopular interventionism. When the United States practiced its interventionism, anti-imperialist sentiments increase and the Vietnam war provided an eager audience made up of diverse coalition that demand an explanation why America has become “a bastard empire that relies upon force to achieve its purposes” (Ninkovich 240). The United States Appetite for Invasion The common attributes of the United States justifications for invading sovereign people is civilization and democracy. For instance, the justification used by the U.S. government for going to war and acquire Texas was civilizing Mexico (Gonzalez, 93) in the belief that Mexican cannot achieve modernization by themselves and need the United States to participate and take on the responsibility of tutoring Mexico to adulthood. The United States from the beginning seems so interested into forcing their idealism and culture to other nations, which they call backward, uncivilized, and illiterate. The backward must adjust, forcibly if need to be, and learn the teaching the of worlds greatest white teachers. According to Baran & Davis, the white man has to bring civilization and high culture to uncivilized parts of the world even if this meant suppressing indigenous cultures and annihilating the people who practiced them (p. 61). Similarly, the invasion of Vietnam and Iraq what justified as a war against evil, a war against the enemy of democracy, and a war against a culture that does not conform with the white man’s brand of reality. The war in Iraq was fought for a number of reasons and among the most popular was preventing the production of weapons of mass destruction, counter-terrorism, and preservation of human rights in the Middle East. However, although it may not be as popular as the others may, but one of the strongest reason for invading Iraq is economic. Similar to Clinton’s justification for going to war with Iraq during his second administration, the objective was not just peace but to “ensure adequate supplies” (Johnson, 226) of oil. The Bush administration wants to access and control oil deposits by establishing a controlled government over Iraq. The gracious justification of preserving world democracy was just a cover for war for oil and economic supremacy. The war in the Philippines was fought for the same reason, as the country is rich with natural resources such as timber, coal, gold, and many others that the United States was very much economically interested. The United States Brand of Imperialism The United States imperialism had gone a long way. According to historian Howard Zinn , the United States have been an imperialist from the beginning (Parry, 32). Similar to Britain’s occupation and colonization of India and Kenya, American imperialism began to expand overseas occupying lands and dominating internal political affairs of a sovereign country. The Platt Amendment that U.S. installed in Cuba and making every country it chooses as a vassal state by providing military assistance, the United States had found ways to dominate weaker nations (Lens & Zinn, 8). As the United States grew larger, its economy consequently reached the point where internal consumption could not cope with the production rate. The solution was to find new markets and one of these markets as discussed earlier was Cuba. The United States later expands to China and the Philippines in countries it considered ‘natural customers’ for American surplus goods. According to Lens & Zinn, “America the benevolent….does not exists” (p.2) as it has actually forced its way to various helpless nations against their wishers and interest. The new imperialist empire Lens & Zinn explained interceded in the internal affairs of different nations so they can choose the leaders they like (p2). The U.S. imperialism in the Philippines was different compared to other form imperialism in the sense that it did take a colonial form later on. According to Go & Foster, the acquisition of Philippines from Spain or the Treaty of Paris marked the beginning of the United States brand of overseas colonization. From then on, it had begun meddling with the affairs of Latin American republics in 1890 that involves military interventions, controlling local markets and economies, and extraction of local resources (p.4). The U.S. imperialist presence in the Philippines unleashed a common notion of white men’s invasion to civilize the savage Filipinos who lacked the required character for self-rule (Espiritu 210). However, people do push back and Filipino nationalist rebelled rather than submit to American authority. In 1899, the Philippine Insurrection began and lasted for over three years (Harrell et al. 743). The Essential of War for American Business The United States expansionism triggered by economic necessities in the 1890s according to Howard Zinn is not a new idea as it also evident during their war against Mexico. The list of interventions of the United States in the internal affairs of other nations between 1798 and 1895 suggest the United States long aspirations to create an empire around the world. For instance, the justifications given for intervening with China is to protect the American interest in Shanghai. Similarly, the U.S. intervention of Nicaragua was to protect American interest at Bluefields. The announcement of President McKinley to sell American surplus products was also for the United States interest and Roosevelt’s contemptuous attitude towards races and nations, which he deemed inferior and deserve the intervention of a great nation, was an act of white man’s natural expansionism. The United States business interest in Cuba came first during the Spanish-Cuban war, as McKinley was so interested in normalizing businesses than restoring freedom and justice to Cuba. According to Zinn, McKinley and the American businesspersons knew that their objective in Cuba could not be realized without war thus a U.S. intervention was required. The same type of intervention made Filipinos to revolt and it took the Americans three bloody years to crushed the rebellion. After piles of dead Filipinos, the imperialist finally gained economic and political control of the country’s fertile land, forest, and minerals. In present time, the same motives of intervention replaced the sanctions placed in Iraq for war and control of the Middle East oil resources. As expected, these motives were presented as a heroic deed of the American nation to liberate Kuwait from Iraqi control. However, although sounds pre-emptive and immature, the most convincing as far as the American people is concern, is the justification that Iraq was allegedly planning to build a nuclear bomb and biological weapons. According to Howard Zinn, this justification is nowhere possible since Iraq, assuming it had developed such a bomb, had no facility to launch it. Moreover, the decision to go to war was too early, as the supposed nuclear bomb did not yet exist. Apparently, the decision to go war was driven by something more urgent than a bomb that was never found until today. The 1991 Operation Desert Storm marked the destruction of Iraq and death of too many civilians. In mid February, the “war for oil” took 400 to 500 lives including children but the misery did not end there. The war had caused starvation and disease leading to the death of more people, men, women, and children. In one report by the Harvard medical team, they found child mortality rose abruptly compared to the years before the war. The war is over and the Middle East is now living under the American dominance and control and just like the war in the Philippines and Vietnam, the war in Iraq claimed thousand of lives but they are worthless since what matters most are American lives lost. Summary/Conclusion In summary, war or “pushing people around” is a necessity for the American government. From Roosevelt to Bush, there is a natural tendency for the American government to expand overseas to prevent economic crises at home. The American brand of imperialism primary concern is strengthening their influence over other countries natural wealth and geopolitical locations. The sovereignty of one nation, the lives of its people, and the future of its children seems not important for as long as the Americans survive. For one thing, the American government viewed them as illiterate savages that have no future without the white men. The war against the inferior Filipinos and the unimaginable atrocities in Vietnam had accomplished nothing but death. Similarly, the war in Iraq was nothing but a war for oil and death of innocent men, women, and children. Hiding behind the cloak of democracy and liberation of the oppressed, the American government’s real motivations as far as the sources of our study is concern, are domination of the weak and the benefits they would directly get from war. Clearly, killing thousands of people to civilize, educate, and liberate them is not a logical explanation as well as going to war with somebody who was only dreaming of a nuclear bomb. Historically, the American government or the superior white race was always at war with what they term as savages (the native Indians, Mexicans, Cubans, Vietnamese, Filipinos, Iraqis) but always met with resistance since “people push back” when they are pushed around. Work Cited List: Baran Stanley & Davis Dennis. Mass Communication Theory: Foundations, Ferment, and Future. Boston, USA: Cengage Learning, 2008 Go Julian & Foster Anne. The American colonial state in the Philippines: global perspectives. US: Duke University Press, 2003 Gonzalez Gilbert, Culture of empire: American writers, Mexico, and Mexican immigrants, 1880-1930, US: University of Texas Press, 2004 Harrel David. Unto a good land: a history of the American people, Volume 2. US: Eerdmans Publishing, 2005 Johnson Chalmers. The sorrows of empire: militarism, secrecy and the end of the republic, US: Verso, 2004 Lens Sidney & Zinn Howard. The forging of the American empire: from the revolution to Vietnam, a history of U.S. imperialism. Canada: Pluto Press, 2003 Lipman Jana. Guantánamo: A Working-Class History Between Empire and Revolution. US:University of California Press, 2008 Parry Amie Elizabeth. Interventions into modernist cultures: poetry from beyond the empty screen. US: Duke University Press, 2007 Ninkovich Frank. The United States and imperialism. US:Wiley-Blackwell, 2001 Zinn, Howard. A People's History of America. New York, USA. HarperCollins Publishers, 1995 Read More