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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsTourists of Empire: America’s Peculiar Brand of Global Imperialism
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/10/27/tourists-empire-americas-peculiar-brand-global-imperialismCall it Imperial Tourist Syndrome, a bizarre American affliction that creates its own self-sustaining dynamic. To a local, it might look something like this: U.S. forces come to your country, shoot some stuff up (liberation!), take some selfies, and then, if youre lucky, leave (at least for a while). If youre unlucky, they overstay their welcome, surge around a bit and generate chaos until, sooner or later (in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, much, much later), they exit, not always gracefully (witness Saigon 1975 or Iraq 2011).
And heres the weirdest thing about this distinctly American version of the imperial: a persistent short-time mentality seems only to feed its opposite, wars that persist without end. In those wars, many of the countrys heavily armed imperial tourists find themselves sent back again and again for one abbreviated tour of duty after another, until it seems less like an adventure and more like a jail sentence.
The paradox of short-timers prosecuting such long-term wars is irresolvable because, as has been repeatedly demonstrated in the twenty-first century, those wars cant be won. Military experts criticize the Obama administration for lacking an overall strategy, whether in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, or elsewhere. They miss the point. Imperial tourists dont have a strategy: they have an itinerary. If its Tuesday, this must be Yemen; if its Wednesday, Libya; if its Thursday, Iraq.
In this way, Americas combat tourists keep cycling in and out of foreign hotspots, sometimes on yearly tours, often on much shorter ones. They are well-armed, as youd expect in active war zones like Iraq or Afghanistan. Like regular tourists, however, they carry cameras as well as other sensors and remain alert for exotic photo-shoots to share with their friends or the folks back home. (Look here, a naked human pyramid in Abu Ghraib Prison!)
As tourists, theyre also alert to the possibility that on this particular imperial safari some exotic people may need shooting. Theres a quip thats guaranteed to win knowing chuckles within military circles: Join the Army, travel to exotic lands, meet interesting people -- and kill them. Originally an anti-war slogan from the Vietnam era, its become somewhat of a joke in a post-9/11 militarized America, one that quickly pales when you consider the magnitude of foreign body counts in these years, made more real (for us, at least) when accompanied by discomforting trophy photos of U.S. troops urinating on enemy corpses or posing with enemy body parts.
Heres the bedrock reality of Washingtons twenty-first-century conflicts, though: no matter what strategy is concocted to fight them, well always remain short-time tourists in long-term wars.
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