George Koo on the limits of American exceptionalism

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Former Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter, Liz, published their essay in praise of American exceptionalism (WSJ, 8/29/15) on the same day Asia Times posted Alexander Casella’s criticism of America’s Middle East policy. The contrast would have been amusing except the toll of human suffering attributed by Casella as horrible consequences of American acts of exceptionalism were too much to bear for any one with a conscience and moral scruples.

Casella spoke of the unintended devastation caused by American military incursions into Iraq and Libya. Knocking out the tyrants with the exceptional American firepower was the easy part, the part that the Cheneys adore. Maintaining order and keeping the countries from falling apart has not been as easy, and that’s the part the Cheneys don’t give a hoot about or take any responsibility for.

Yet, the chaos from destabilized Iraq and then neighboring Syria and Libya have resulted in the deaths of untold thousands of refugees due to drowning at sea or suffocation on land. The US created the mess but it’s the Europeans that are left to deal with the humanitarian crisis. The human tragedy being played out now does not concern the Cheneys; they are looking for other places to throw their exceptional weight around.

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It’s about time America learns that breaking a vase is easy, but holding it together after the breakage is a challenge. It is hard to know how long the U.S. can remain exceptional if we continue to listen to the likes of Dick and Liz Cheney and their ilk and to act on the principle that might is right and damn the consequences.

http://atimes.com/2015/08/europes-bearing-the-cost-of-washingtons-middle-eastern-policy/

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1. Europe’s bearing the cost of Washington’s Middle Eastern policy

GENEVA — Four years after having brought about the fall of the Gadhafi regime in Libya, Europe is having to come to terms with the law of unintended consequences. Removing Gadhafi was essentially the Obama’s administration doing, acting through NATO with the support of France and the UK and was supposed to usher in Libya an era of freedom and democracy. That it would lead to the collapse of the Libyan state and bring about a fragmentation of the country was something that the planners in Washington visibly overlooked. And so was the fact that Libya, after having been a country of immigration would become one of the main avenues for illegal immigration to Europe. With the US shielded by geography, it is now America’s allies that are left carrying the baby namely a massive wave of illegal immigrants coming through Libya, which they are proving increasingly unable to address.

High oil revenues, a visa-free regime and a low population level, had made of Libya a preferred destination for sub-Saharan Africans seeking employment and it was estimated that, at any given time some 2 million foreigners were working in the country. That some, among this number, would want to move illegally to Italy was a given, albeit one that was under control. Over the years the Italian authorities had worked out several arrangements with Gadhafi, some formal and some informal which provided that he would keep the lid on transit migration through Libya. Moreover, since 2009 Gadhafi accepted to take back illegal migrants intercepted by the Italian on the high sea, a move which while not quite consonant with the Refugee Conventions acted as a further deterrent to irregular movement.

http://atimes.com/2015/08/europes-bearing-the-cost-of-washingtons-middle-eastern-policy/

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2. Restoring American Exceptionalism

President Obama has dangerously surrendered the nation’s global leadership, but it can be ours again—if we choose his successor wisely.

In 1983, as the U.S. confronted the threat posed by the Soviet Union, President Ronald Reagan explained America’s unique responsibility. “It is up to us in our time,” he said, “to choose, and choose wisely, between the hard but necessary task of preserving peace and freedom, and the temptation to ignore our duty and blindly hope for the best while the enemies of freedom grow stronger day by day.” It was up to us then—as ...

http://www.wsj.com/articles/restoring-american-exceptionalism-1440801129