Protective Occupation and the Imprint of America's Boot (Book Notes: The American Revelation)

A key component of America's justification for its invasion and occupation of Iraq has been the idea that America has an obligation to bring democracy and freedom to oppressed people - and by force, if necessary. Neoconservatives would like to extend this principle throughout American foreign policy and it has a long tradition in American history - but not a generally very good one.

In The American Revelation: Ten Ideals That Shaped Our Country from the Puritans to the Cold War, Neil Baldwin writes:

By the fall of 1845, most American newspapers had fallen into line on the chauvinistic "whole-of-Oregon" issue behind John L. O'Sullivan, who believed that the nation should put some spine into its internationalist posture. Acquisition of territory in the Americas could hardly be perceived as analogous to "invasions and conquests in the old world [Europe]. . . . We are above and beyond the influence of such views," he wrote with customary pride. "We take from no man; the reverse rather — we give to man... [W]e can, therefore, afford to scorn the invective and imputations of rival nations." [...] [emphasis added]

O'Sullivan's comments here have been repeated, in various contexts, by political pundits ever since. Among neoconservatives today, this sort of attitude is expressed in a generally pragmatic and secular language. It must be remembered, however, that American neoconservatives are part of a political alliance with Christian evangelicals who have a much more apocalyptic and millennialist vision of America. For them, use of the military is necessary to bring Christianity to the rest of the world in preparation for the End Times.

It can't be a coincidence that the same sorts of alliances and attitudes seem to have existed in O'Sullivan's day:

During the winter and spring of 1846, the purpose and design of manifest destiny once gloriously conceived by John O'Sullivan began to take on an ominous tone, darkened by the resurgence of millennialist doctrine, that the course of American history under God's guidance must lead to a holy Utopia on earth.

American millennialism drew its core of conviction from the prophetic book of the revelation of St. John, in which the "end," or goal, of man's universal history was to overcome the forces of evil. In order to defeat Satan and shrink his territory, a sanctified Anglo-Saxon nation had the right — the obligation — to unimpeded growth in its progressive desire for dominion.

This isn't just millennialism, it's messianism: America has a messianic view of itself as the savior of the world. This can take on a secular context, when people insist that the world needs America to bring freedom and democracy to everyone, or it can take on a religious context where people insist that American military and political might be used to pave the way for Christian missionaries.

Either way, America isn't simply one nation among many; instead, America is accorded an exceptional status, outside general norms and international laws. America has a higher calling than other merely political nation-states, often a calling that comes directly from God, and therefore cannot be bound by the same restrictions which apply to everyone else. If the Cause requires stepping out and acting unilaterally, then that's what America will do.

Unfortunately, these sorts of attitudes among political writers are not without influence with the politicians who actually make life-and-death decisions. O'Sullivan's ideas fit very nicely with how the U.S. government already wanted to act, thus providing rhetorical and ideological cover as well as creating wider popular support for American expansion through military force:

President Polk's acquisitive energies escalated. In mid-June the United States begrudgingly reached agreement with Her Majesty's government on the Oregon Territory "in regard to limits Westward of the Rocky Mountains." The boundary was extended along the forty-ninth parallel. While a two-thousand-mile journey from Missouri brought the Great American Migration pouring into the interior valleys of California, Polk arrogantly refused to reassure Britain and France that he had no intention of appropriating it by force.

The Mexican situation degenerated as Gen. Zachary Taylor's four thousand troops moved further south, to disputed territory by the Rio Grande at Fort Brown, opposite Matamoros. Polk self-righteously insisted he was not scheming to extend American slavery by a war of conquest, hewing to a policy of transcontinental brinkmanship he euphemistically called "protective occupation."

Is "protective occupation" a bit like "preventative war"?

Although many of these attitudes are idealistic, it's been common for such idealism to take on a darker cast once it becomes clear that those being liberated don't always show the proper appreciation:

O'Sullivan's language, no longer altruistic and upbeat, turned cranky and patronizing. He lost his headstrong passion for preaching the attributes of "just, beneficent and peaceful continentalism." He no longer talked as he once did of adventurous American democracy transcending "the tyranny of kings, hierarchs and oligarchs," instead asserting that it was the fate of the unenlightened savages — Indians of Texas, Oregon, Louisiana, Georgia, and Florida — to be denied the new Eden. The Indians deserved the forced removal from their birthright lands perpetrated by Jackson and Van Buren.

The indigenous population of "disadvantaged peoples" in "imbecile Mexico" also did not seem to understand the blessings that would arrive with the imprint of "the Anglo-Saxon foot." Mexicans were oppressed for so many centuries, O'Sullivan wrote, that they had become "unaccused to the duties of self-government." Trying to halt the inevitable American advance, they were bringing on hostilities and undermining regeneration and future happiness. The mixed races of Mexico, for their own good, needed to be "schooled in the meaning and methods of freedom" under the light of the beacon of liberty.

Self-appointed messiahs are never truly appreciated in the manner they expect and demand, perhaps because so many people don't believe that they actually need a messiah to save them in the first place. This means that they can't see as well as the messiah and can't understand what's going on as well as the messiah. Thus, not only is the messiah a savior to people, but is also in fact smarter and superior to those being saved.

Over time, this attitude degenerates into the feeling that those being saved probably don't really deserve salvation after all, thus continued efforts to help them may proceed in a condescending manner. If they don't deserve it, there is little obligation to proceed in a manner that is gentle, giving, and generous — it can simply be imposed by force and for their own good.

 

Read More Book Notes from the Book Reviews on this site.