{"id":37746,"date":"2013-05-31T09:46:11","date_gmt":"2013-05-31T08:46:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/the-imperial-mindset\/37746\/"},"modified":"2013-05-31T09:46:11","modified_gmt":"2013-05-31T08:46:11","slug":"the-imperial-mindset","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/the-imperial-mindset\/","title":{"rendered":"The Imperial Mindset"},"content":{"rendered":"

Max Boot, one of the nation\u2019s leading\u00a0chickenhawks<\/a>, and someone who\u00a0wrote<\/a>\u00a0in 2011, rather straightforwardly, that the United States should maintain its presence in Iraq because \u201cit would allow us to project power and influence in the region,\u201d has written an\u00a0op-ed<\/a>\u00a0for\u00a0The Los Angeles Times<\/i>,\u00a0<\/i>unapologetically titled \u201cChoosing Sides in Afghanistan.\u201d\u00a0Boot, who currently holds the gruesome title of \u201cJeane J. Kirkpatrick Senior Fellow in Natural Security Studies\u201d at the Council of Foreign Relations, is a throwback to a simpler time, when Western intellectuals felt comfortable speaking in\u00a0explicitly<\/i>\u00a0imperialistic terms. His honesty is almost refreshing.<\/p>\n

The primary point of his new column is to bemoan the United States\u2019s ostensible \u201cneutrality\u201d in the April 2014 presidential election in Afghanistan. Boot writes, naturally, as an honest friend and ally of the Afghan people. He even includes the boast, typical of many chickenhawks, that he \u201cvisited\u201d the country recently. He\u2019s so brave.<\/p>\n

He starts out by saying that the United States should threaten to withhold aid if President Karzai cancels the election and just assumes dictatorial power (there is apparently \u201cwidespread suspicion\u201d in Afghanistan that this will happen). This seems sensible enough; we shouldn\u2019t be providing aid to any corrupt dictators.<\/p>\n

Then, though, Boot informs us that, while striking a position of \u201cneutrality\u201d in a \u201cforeign election\u201d might be a \u201cnice ideal,\u201d it is simply \u201cimpossible\u201d in this case. Boot\u2019s prescription, shockingly enough, is for the United States to \u201cembrace a more politically activist role\u201d in the presidential election of a sovereign nation. Indeed, the Unites States should \u201cpick a favorite\u201d among the candidates, and then \u201cuse its influence, including those notorious CIA bags of cash\u201d to \u201cdo what it can to secure the election\u201d of its preferred choice. Boot recognizes the \u201cobvious objections\u201d to such a strategy, including our disastrous record of meddling in Afghan politics, but he warns that these past \u201cmistakes\u201d should not \u201cparalyze\u201d us now. This is just an astonishing paragraph right here:<\/p>\n

That\u2019s all true, but we need not be paralyzed by past mistakes. In 2001, U.S. officials knew little of the Afghan political landscape. We have had a dozen years since then to learn the lay of the land, which, one hopes, would allow us to make a better choice this time around.<\/p>\n

Think about that last sentence. Boot asserts, flat-out, that the United States must \u201cmake a better choice\u201d in\u00a0the presidential election of another sovereign nation<\/i>. I wonder if the people of Afghanistan are aware that the \u201cchoice\u201d in next year\u2019s election is, in fact, one that ought to be made by the United States.<\/p>\n

Imagine if a foreign writer, highly respected in domestic establishment circles, demanded that his government \u201cembrace\u201d a \u201cpolitically activist role\u201d in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, picking a \u201cfavorite\u201d candidate and then \u201cuse its influence\u201d to \u201csecure the election\u201d of said candidate. This is virtually unthinkable. I\u2019m not even sure if Boot is consciously aware of how hypocritical and contemptuous all of this is. I doubt he even thinks there is anything unusual about the very notion of proposing direct interference in a foreign election. This is how the deep the imperial mindset runs in people like Boot and other establishment intellectuals.<\/p>\n

Justin Doolittle<\/strong>\u00a0writes a political blog called\u00a0Crimethink<\/a>. He has\u00a0an M.A. in public policy from Stony Brook University and a B.A. in political science from Coastal Carolina University.<\/em><\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on: Counterpunch<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Max Boot, one of the nation\u2019s leading\u00a0chickenhawks, and someone who\u00a0wrote\u00a0in 2011, rather straightforwardly, that the United States should maintain its presence in Iraq because \u201cit would allow us to project power and influence in the region,\u201d has written an\u00a0op-ed\u00a0for\u00a0The Los Angeles Times,\u00a0unapologetically titled \u201cChoosing Sides in Afghanistan.\u201d\u00a0Boot, who currently holds the gruesome title of \u201cJeane […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-37746","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-breaking-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37746\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}