war and empire. the american way .
Obama's Pacific tilt has a history. a long one.
Yet, perhaps the clearest and rawest expression of this group's objectives was made by Senator Albert Beveridge speaking on the floor of the Senate in 1901. A brutal counter-insurgency jungle war was then underway-America's first- in the Philippines, where natives who had been promised independence after Spain's defeat had been betrayed. Now Washington proclaimed itself the protector of the Pacific and declared that bases were needed from which to operate. Numerous atrocities against civilians committed by U.S. forces had been decried by the press and by the likes of Mark Twain, while pillars of the establishment like Andrew Carnegie funded the anti-imperialist movement. Beveridge responded:
Social Darwinism provided the perfect fertilizer for these ideas to take root. We are accustomed to believe that Nazi ideology provided the provenance of notions of one nation's "racial superiority" over others, but it is too often forgotten that these ideas flowered at centers of learning like Yale and Oxford Universities in the late 19th century, where Darwin's ideas about the biological sphere were adapted by William Graham Sumner and...... to pseudo-scientific social theory to provide justification for the then ongoing plunder of what would later be termed the Third World, and the subordination of its peoples to the interests of western capital. The nation's political and military elites took Social Darwinist doctrine as matters of faith. Said TR: "Democracy has justified itself by keeping for the white race the best portion's of the earth's surface." The first governor-general of the Philippines, General Arthur MacArthur, father of Douglas, mirrored these ideas when he claimed that "America's wonderful thrust into Asia was the destiny of the magnificent Aryan people."
When revolution threatened American oil interests in Mexico, where American corporations controlled fully 80 percent of all mineral resources, President Woodrow Wilson declared: "I will teach them to elect good men," then ordered the bombardment of Vera Cruz.
http://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/155-history/25996.html
Yet, perhaps the clearest and rawest expression of this group's objectives was made by Senator Albert Beveridge speaking on the floor of the Senate in 1901. A brutal counter-insurgency jungle war was then underway-America's first- in the Philippines, where natives who had been promised independence after Spain's defeat had been betrayed. Now Washington proclaimed itself the protector of the Pacific and declared that bases were needed from which to operate. Numerous atrocities against civilians committed by U.S. forces had been decried by the press and by the likes of Mark Twain, while pillars of the establishment like Andrew Carnegie funded the anti-imperialist movement. Beveridge responded:
God has not been preparing the English-speaking and Teutonic peoples for a thousand years for nothing but vain and idle self-admiration. No, he has made us the master organizers of the world...that we may administer government among savages and senile peoples...the Philippines are ours forever...and just beyond the Philippines lie China's illimitable markets...We will not renounce our part inthe mission of our race, trustee under God, of the civilization of the world...China is our natural customer. The Philippines give us a base at the door of the East...it has been charged that our conduct of the war has been cruel. Senators, it has been the reverse. Senators, remember that we are not dealing with Americans or Europeans. We are dealing with Orientals.
In 1946 a State Department position paper declared:
Our petroleum policy is predicated on a mutual recognition of a very extensive joint interest and upon control?of the great bulk of the petroleum resources of the world????US-UK agreement upon the broad, forward-looking pattern of the development and utilization of petroleum resources under the control of nationals of the two countries is of the highest strategic and commercial importance.
Social Darwinism provided the perfect fertilizer for these ideas to take root. We are accustomed to believe that Nazi ideology provided the provenance of notions of one nation's "racial superiority" over others, but it is too often forgotten that these ideas flowered at centers of learning like Yale and Oxford Universities in the late 19th century, where Darwin's ideas about the biological sphere were adapted by William Graham Sumner and...... to pseudo-scientific social theory to provide justification for the then ongoing plunder of what would later be termed the Third World, and the subordination of its peoples to the interests of western capital. The nation's political and military elites took Social Darwinist doctrine as matters of faith. Said TR: "Democracy has justified itself by keeping for the white race the best portion's of the earth's surface." The first governor-general of the Philippines, General Arthur MacArthur, father of Douglas, mirrored these ideas when he claimed that "America's wonderful thrust into Asia was the destiny of the magnificent Aryan people."
When revolution threatened American oil interests in Mexico, where American corporations controlled fully 80 percent of all mineral resources, President Woodrow Wilson declared: "I will teach them to elect good men," then ordered the bombardment of Vera Cruz.
http://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/155-history/25996.html
posted by Satish Sharma at
14:39
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