In an interview this week about his forthcoming book, No Apology: The Case for American Greatness, Mitt Romney was asked what he meant when saying that America need not apologize. He responded as follows:
While we’ve made some mistakes, we have a record of promoting freedom, peace, and prosperity throughout the world. There is a view in Washington that America will be eclipsed by other nations. I think that would have grave consequences for freedom and world peace.
True to form, he did not actually answer the question. He first made a highly superficial concession that we’ve made some mistakes. (Which? How often? How damaging?) He then goes on to blabber about a “view” that other nations might “eclipse” America, something he feels would have “grave consequences”. How this is in any way connected to the original question is anyone’s best guess.
Mitt Romney, unsurprisingly, is wrong. He’s not the only one spouting this hollow rhetoric, however. Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) said just last week during his CPAC speech that we should “never, ever, ever” apologize for America. Former Governor Sarah Palin said last fall that we “should never apologize for our country”. George H.W. Bush said, as President, that “I’ll never apologize for the United States. Ever. I don’t care what the facts are.”
These shallow and ignorant statements are an affront to any sense of justice, morality, and civic virtue. If, as Romney suggests, America has “made some mistakes”, it might just follow that, depending on their severity and damage, we should apologize and/or make reparations. To see where this might apply, and in stark contrast to the superficiality of Romney and his like-minded cohorts, let’s dig a bit deeper and consider a few examples, in no particular order:
President Bush’s offensive statement above was no isolated incident. After a Navy missile destroyed an Iranian civilian airplane in 1988, killing all 290 passengers (including 66 children), Bush, who was Vice President and campaigning to become President, said in response to the event: “I will never apologize for the United States — I don’t care what the facts are… I’m not an apologize-for-America kind of guy.” You can only imagine how the family, friends, and Iranian population at large felt about these remarks by the soon-to-be leader of the so-called free world.
America’s role in Vietnam was not isolated only to the intense and protracted military engagement. As Martin Luther King, Jr., pointed out in a 1967 speech, our entanglements were both historical and highly damaging. Though this article’s brevity require I exclude all but a portion, the reader is very much encouraged to read it in its entirety.
They must see Americans as strange liberators. The Vietnamese people proclaimed their own independence in 1945 after a combined French and Japanese occupation, and before the Communist revolution in China. They were led by Ho Chi Minh. Even though they quoted the American Declaration of Independence in their own document of freedom, we refused to recognize them. Instead, we decided to support France in its reconquest of her former colony.
Our government felt then that the Vietnamese people were not “ready” for independence, and we again fell victim to the deadly Western arrogance that has poisoned the international atmosphere for so long. With that tragic decision we rejected a revolutionary government seeking self-determination, and a government that had been established not by China (for whom the Vietnamese have no great love) but by clearly indigenous forces that included some Communists. For the peasants this new government meant real land reform, one of the most important needs in their lives.
For nine years following 1945 we denied the people of Vietnam the right of independence. For nine years we vigorously supported the French in their abortive effort to recolonize Vietnam.
Before the end of the war we were meeting eighty percent of the French war costs. Even before the French were defeated at Dien Bien Phu, they began to despair of the reckless action, but we did not. We encouraged them with our huge financial and military supplies to continue the war even after they had lost the will. Soon we would be paying almost the full costs of this tragic attempt at recolonization.
…
What do the peasants think as we ally ourselves with the landlords and as we refuse to put any action into our many words concerning land reform? What do they think as we test our latest weapons on them, just as the Germans tested out new medicine and new tortures in the concentration camps of Europe? Where are the roots of the independent Vietnam we claim to be building? Is it among these voiceless ones?We have destroyed their two most cherished institutions: the family and the village. We have destroyed their land and their crops. We have cooperated in the crushing of the nation’s only non-Communist revolutionary political force — the unified Buddhist church. We have supported the enemies of the peasants of Saigon. We have corrupted their women and children and killed their men. What liberators?
Now there is little left to build on — save bitterness. Soon the only solid physical foundations remaining will be found at our military bases and in the concrete of the concentration camps we call fortified hamlets. The peasants may well wonder if we plan to build our new Vietnam on such grounds as these? Could we blame them for such thoughts? We must speak for them and raise the questions they cannot raise. These too are our brothers.
Fast forward to the event that began America’s commitment of soldiers to war in a distant land. The false-flag Gulf of Tonkin incident served aspolitical fodder for Robert McNamara and others to further involve America in the “cold war” worldwide battle to “contain” communism. The alleged goal was to prevent a communist takeover of South Vietnam; after over a decade of American involvement, and the groundswell of public opposition, our government removed its military support from the unsuccessful campaign. One Vietnamese in every ten had become acasualty of war (1.5 million killed, 3 million wounded), and the Vietnamese had been embroiled in resistance to foreign intervention or occupation for 116 years. Almost 60,000 Americans were killed, over 300,000 wounded, and all for an unncessary military campaign desired by a few politicians.
The CIA helped overthrow the democratically-elected Prime MinisterMohammed Mosaddeq, install the authoritarian monarch Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (the “Shah”) in his place (so much for “spreading democracy”, right?), and train his secret police force.
Eisenhower consider this project (“Operation Ajax”) a “successful secret war” though the event is now widely recognized as being a massive failure since the resulting “blowback” heavily contributed to the 1979 Iranian Revolution, which overthrew the Shah and replaced his pro-Western monarchy with the Islamic Republic of Iran, certainly no friend of the West.
In 2000, globalist and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright stated “The Eisenhower administration believed its actions were justified for strategic reasons. … But the coup was clearly a setback for Iran’s political development. And it is easy to see now why many Iranians continue to resent this intervention by America in their internal affairs.(emphasis added)” While not an apology, this recognition is at least a petty needle in a voluminous haystack of long-standing imperial arrogance.
On October 16, 1970, the CIA sent a message to its branch in Chile which read:
It is firm and continuing policy that Allende be overthrown by a coup. It would be much preferable to have this transpire prior to October 24 [1970] but efforts in this regard will continue vigorously beyond this date. We are to continue to generate maximum pressure toward this end, utilizing every appropriate resource. It is imperative that these actions be implemented clandestinely and securely so that the USG and American hand be well hidden…
Just shy of three years later, and in the alleged name of rooting out Communism, the CIA was successful in helping to overthrow the government of democratically-elected President Salvador Allendethrough a military coup. The military junta that consolidated control of the government was backed by the U.S. government, composed of the leaders of Chile’s various military branches, and headed by GeneralAugusto Pinochet.
Around three months of riots and public resistance to the coup followed, leading to the arrest of tens of thousands of people who were held in the National Stadium. The Rettig Report determined that 2,279 individuals were killed by the military dictatorship for political reasons or as a result of political violence. The Valech Report stated that 31,947 individuals were tortured, and 1,312 were exiled. Two-thirds of these instances of brutal oppression occurred within one year of the U.S.-assisted coup.
The military interventions into Central America and Caribbean countries in the early 1900s received this nickname because of their primary purpose, which was to preserve American commercial interests in the region (banana production chief among them). The list of countrieswhose governments the U.S. overthrew and occupied shows the magnitude of military force being used to clear the way for the American corporate prostitution of these countries’ natural resources.
Smedley Butler, who at the time of his death was the most decorated Marine in U.S. history, was highly involved in these wars and laterstunned an audience recounting his participation in and assessment of these wars:
I spent 33 years…being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism….
I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1916. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City [Bank] boys to collect revenue in. I helped in the rape of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street….
In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested….I had…a swell racket. I was rewarded with honors, medals, promotions….I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate a racket in three cities. The Marines operated on three continents…
From 1990 to 2003, and initiated at the U.S. government’s behest, the U.N. imposed sanctions on Iraq after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. After the Iraqis were forced out, the sanctions began with the U.N. mandating that the country comply with Security Council Resolution 687which demanded that Iraq eliminate its weapons of mass destruction and that it recognize the nation-state of Kuwait.
Rolf Ekeus, the U.N. representative responsible for identifying and destroying Iraq’s weaponry, had already certified that 817 out of Iraq’s 819 long-range missiles had been destroyed. This report was a political liability for President Bill Clinton, who had his new Secretary of State Madeleine Albright declare that sanctions would continue until Saddam was removed from office.—a much different purpose than their original one. This led to Saddam refusing to work with the weapons inspectors any longer, leaving only the hopes of Clinton’s administration that heavy suffering imposed on the Iraqi citizens would somehow bring down the despot.
Half a million children are estimated to have died as a result of the sanctions—a number which Albright once declared in an interview as being “worth it”. In 2000, Christian Aid observed that:
The immediate consequence of eight years of sanctions has been a dramatic fall in living standards, the collapse of the infrastructure, and a serious decline in the availability of public services. The longer-term damage to the fabric of society has yet to be assessed but economic disruption has already led to heightened levels of crime, corruption and violence. Competition for increasingly scarce resources has allowed the Iraqi state to use clan and sectarian rivalries to maintain its control, further fragmenting Iraqi society.
During the dozens years of sanctions, bombs were being dropped on Iraq almost daily, while the sanctions continued a long campaign of human rights violations. The U.N.’s humanitarian aid chief, Dennis Halliday, resigned in protest, as did his successor, Hans von Sponeck. Together,they wrote that:
The death of some 5–6,000 children a month is mostly due to contaminated water, lack of medicines and malnutrition. The US and UK governments’ delayed clearance of equipment and materials is responsible for this tragedy, not Baghdad.
One cannot think of an action committed by this country’s government that necessitates an apology without having the bombing of these two Japanese cities come to mind. President Harry S. Truman ordered the bombing of these two cities, filled with hundreds of thousands ofcivilians, in supposed retaliation for the attack on Pearl Harbor, a military installation. The lives of some 200,000 civilian men, women, and children were immediately snuffed out, or slowly and miserably drained through the effects of radiation poisoning, in one of the greatest war crimes this nation has ever committed.
Consider two variants on the action. Would so many Americans cheer the retaliation if instead of sending the bombs, our military had rounded up each individual in the two cities and murdered them in gas chambers? Or, if Germany had dropped atomic bombs on cities instead of our government, would those responsible not have been charged as war criminals and sentenced to death at Nuremberg?
Guantanamo Bay is the military detention facility where the U.S. government imprisons alleged terrorists, beginning in 1991 when George H.W. Bush used it to round up HIV-positive Haitian immigrants who wereforcefully separated from other refugees after the 1991 Haitian coup. The first captives in George Bush’s “war on terror” arrived from Kandahar, some 8,000 miles away, on January 11, 2002, and locked up in wire cages. In order to sidestep the rights guaranteed to prisoners of war by the Geneva Conventions, they were labeled “unlawful (and later ‘enemy’) combatants”.
Out of 775 total detainees sent to Guantanamo, only 245 currently remain. 420 have been released without being charged for any crime—sent packing with nary an apology or compensation for the years of their lives lost. And thus far only three (three!) individuals have been charged with a crime:
- David Hicks was found guilty under retrospective legislation introduced in 2006 of providing material support to terrorists in 2001.
- Salim Hamdan took a job as chauffeur driving Osama bin Laden.
- Ali al-Bahlul made a video celebrating the attack on the USS Cole (DDG-67).
Thus, the fruits of this imperial institution are the successful prosecution of a man who donated some money or supplies, a car driver, and a videographer. The lives of hundreds of individuals have been forcefully altered through the decision of the U.S. government to imprison them without being charged of a crime, all in the name of allegedly providing security for Iraq/Afghanistan and our “homeland”. According to some sources, the government now plans to hold 47 of these individuals in infinite detention, neither giving them an opportunity to contest the (likely erroneous) allegations made against them, nor releasing them for lack of evidence.
Conclusion
The list, unfortunately, could continue. The examples cited above are a mere handful in an otherwise lengthy chronicle of circumstances in which the U.S. government has been directly responsible for denying other individuals the right to their life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.
Should America offer no apology for any of the aforementioned atrocities? Should our government be able to wash its hands so easily of these actions by merely declaring them necessary for “protecting America’s interests”, “spreading democracy”, or some similarly pathetic response? And should the ignorance and/or arrogance of current politicians be tolerated when they declare that “we should not apologize for America”?
History makes at least one thing absolutely clear: regardless of the stated purposes and proffered justifications, the United States of America has been the cause and source of untold death, destruction, and damage. To say that we should not apologize for these stains on our nation’s standard of liberty is not only a reflection of the individual’s inadequate level of morality, but an indication that he or she might one day participate in similar atrocities.
When the secret acts of men are revealed at the last day we will come to know that the autrocities of this world were orchestrated directly from here. If the alcoholic does not acknowledge he has a problem how will he ever overcome his problems? Impossible. As it is with the individual so it is with our nation.
Excellent summary of the historical follies of the US that have led us to to present crisis. The philosophy that promoted all these misadventures can be summed up in a single Orwellian-like double speak phrase—”we had to destroy the village to save it”
We have sowed the wind, and now must reap the whirlwind.
Fantastic stuff, you should consider submitting it to lewrockwell.com – I’m sure he’d publish it, as I’ve seen similar treatments in the past.
You’re playing into Romney’s rhetorical hands by demanding apologies.
In talking just about some sort of duty to apologize we’re already halfway to his position. As if that’s all we need to “wash our hands”.
Are America’s hands still stained from slavery because “we” haven’t apologized for it? The reforms that ended slavery meant a whole lot more than sending a card with some flowers.
And if there’s any sort of private, individual responsibility left over from the structural racism of the past, following the commandment to love our neighbors should take care of the rest.
“Are America’s hands still stained from slavery because “we” haven’t apologized for it? The reforms that ended slavery meant a whole lot more than sending a card with some flowers.”
Which reform took 100 years after the end of the civil war–which was anything but civil. No other country in the world had to go to war to end slavery–but we did. And still the blacks were treated as second class citizens by the same northerners who upheld the Dread Scott decision, and forced Harriet Tubman to route escaped slaves to Canada to prevent being returned to the South. It took MLK to bring them the full constitutional freedom that Lincoln was reluctant to given them–After all, Liberia was set up by Lincoln as a means to ship them back.
But I do agree in part, that apologies are not what’s needed, but a humble attitude to stop trying to make the world safe for democracy. Why do we have to protect our “interests” abroad?–Which, as Smedly Butler correctly pointed out, are only businessmen s’ interests?
Our interests should center on minding our own business. The BOM bears witness of what happened when the Nephites left their borders to avenge themselves against the Laminates. Can you imagine Moroni doing a preemptive attack into Laminate (Not-captured Nephite) homeland? We should have learned from their mistake, which led to their destruction.
Ron, you’ve got to read Connor Boyack’s article on preventive war and the Book of Mormon: http://www.ldsfreemen.com/preventive-war-and-the-book-of-mormon/
Congrats on being posted on lewrockwell.com!
Thanks Skyler, for the link. It validates my conclusions on the issue of “Just War” I received from my personal reading the BOM.
This issue becomes emotionally clouded, for while we grieve and become angered over the persecution and enslavement of people in foreign lands, military intervention to solve the the problem often causes unintended consequences worst that the crime we are trying to rectify. War often creates a new power vacuum, which produces even greater tyrants and atrocities. One has to only look how our erstwhile ally, Uncle Joe Stalin, became a greater monster than the one we disposed. Or how Laos and Cambodia were dragged into the Vietnam conflict, resulting in Pol Pot gaining power and killing 2 million plus of his own people. Right now, we have cost more US lives avenging the deaths of 9/11, and have lost more individual freedom in the name of preserving it.
Of course, the biggest apology should be to the American people for at least a century of deception and murder, and for the betrayal of the American people’s freedom. Our politicians have been part of the One World Government movement since the turn of the 20th century.
“Wherefore, the Lord commandeth you, when ye shall see these things come among you that ye shall awake to a sense of your awful situation, because of THIS secret combination which shall be among you; or wo be unto IT, because of the blood of them who have been slain; for they cry from the dust for vengeance upon IT, and also upon those who built IT up.
“For it cometh to pass that whoso buildeth IT up seeketh to overthrow the freedom of all lands, nations, and countries; and IT bringeth to pass the destruction of all people, for IT is built up by the devil, who is the father of all lies;” (Ether 8:24–25, emphasis mine).
Notice in this passage that Mormon is not speaking in general anymore about secret combinations; he is talking about one in particular. Can it be denied that we live in the times foreseen by Mormon? Of course, the devil’s secret combinations have been around since the beginning, depriving people of their freedom; but never has it been on a global scale, nor as insidious.
God expects us to defend our freedoms when we must, but, as in the days of the Nephites, it is His coming alone that will bring about ultimate victory. I would like to see a restoration of freedom and liberty, but the scriptures are clear that the situation will deteriorate to utter chaos, until the only hope will be the Savior’s return.
“And it shall be called the New Jerusalem, a land of peace, a city of refuge, a place of safety for the saints of the Most High God;
“And the glory of the Lord will be there, and the terror of the Lord also shall be there, insomuch that the wicked will not come unto it, and it shall be called Zion.
“And it shall come to pass among the wicked, that every man that will not take his sword against his neighbor must needs flee unto Zion for safety.
“And there shall be gathered unto it out of every nation under heaven; and it shall be the only people that shall not be at war one with another.
“And it shall be said among the wicked: Let us not go up to battle against Zion, for the inhabitants of Zion are terrible; wherefore we cannot stand.
“And it shall come to pass that the righteous shall be gathered out from among all nations, and shall come to Zion, singing with songs of everlasting joy” (D&C 45:66–71).
“And thus, with the sword and by bloodshed the inhabitants of the earth shall mourn; and with famine, and plague, and earthquake, and the thunder of heaven, and the fierce and vivid lightning also, shall the inhabitants of the earth be made to feel the wrath, and indignation, and chastening hand of an Almighty God, until the consumption decreed hath made a FULL END OF ALL NATIONS;” (D&C 87:6, emphasis mine).
Will the day come when freedom-lovers have to gird on their armor and take up arms? I don’t know; I hope not, but we’d be fools not to be prepared, spiritually and temporally. Don’t forget the parable of the wise and foolish virgins.
Another excellent article.Although i’m not lds anymore,i am leaning towards a philosophy which puts the earth in a context of a time scale cycle which is coming to a very significant juncture. Hence I ‘believe’ the ‘ what is ethical’ questions will/are becoming much more prominent in the ‘soul’ of human kind. However,unlike some religious communities, i do not believe JC will return to sort it all out as wonderful that would be and i reserve the right to the same knowlege as doubting thomas… i do believe it is the responsibility of the individual to awaken and act accordingly to the ‘principle’ of love.Love or fear is what i think are the only choices.We are ALL brothers and sisters,in that respect at least,we are one.We will realize this to the extent that we will not harm each other because we will KNOW it harms ourself. Yes we all need to ‘repent’ (apologize) as it becomes clearer we have ‘sinned’(commited gross injustices), individuals and as countries.
I disagree with this article’s premise.
The Lord can not look upon sin with the least degree of allowance… men don’t have that luxury. In the secular world the good is measured against the bad… in that analysis the US is a net generator of good… not a net generator of perfection.
The often unspoken goal of those who want the US to appologize is to destroy the US and undo the good (and by some measures they are succeeding). I have no doubt that the world would be a much worse place had the US never existed. ( see also the restoration of gospel)
The church never got an appology or redress of their grievance for the atrocities they suffered before the exodus to the rocky mountains, but you dont see the brethren holding grudges. Perhaps we should do like wise.
Even with that all said I do have a few quibbles with your historical examples.
The civil war was a war for union not to end slavery. The end of slavery was a beneficial but unintended consequence (see Lincoln’s first inaugral address).
And the bombing of hiroshima and nagasaki is only on your list because its a touch stone for america haters.This was not done as you suggest as deliberate retalliation against civillians for an attack on our military. It was done to shorten the war and avoid millions more japanese civillian casualties that would have been likely in the even of an invasion fo the Japanese home islands.
PS. Dozens of civillian population centers were deliberately destroyed by various means by parties on both sides of the war (see also the rape of nanking, Dresden, the London blitz, LeMay’s B-29 campaign). It was a war silly. Nobody intheri right mind likes war… but once you in one the best thing to do is to get it over with ASAP.
I disagree with this article’s premise.
The Lord can not look upon sin with the least degree of allowance… men don’t have that luxury. In the secular world the good is measured against the bad… in that analysis the US is a net generator of good… not a net generator of perfection.
The often unspoken goal of those who want the US to appologize is to destroy the US and undo the good (and by some measures they are succeeding). I have no doubt that the world would be a much worse place had the US never existed. ( see also the restoration of gospel)
The church never got an appology or redress of their grievance for the atrocities they suffered before the exodus to the rocky mountains, but you dont see the brethren holding grudges. Perhaps we should do like wise.
Even with that all said I do have a few quibbles with your historical examples.
The civil war was a war for union not to end slavery. The end of slavery was a beneficial but unintended consequence (see Lincoln’s first inaugral address).
And the bombing of hiroshima and nagasaki is only on your list because its a touch stone for america haters.This was not done as you suggest as deliberate retalliation against civillians for an attack on our military. It was done to shorten the war and avoid millions more japanese civillian casualties that would have been likely in the even of an invasion fo the Japanese home islands.
PS. Dozens of civillian population centers were deliberately destroyed by various means by parties on both sides of the war (see also the rape of nanking, Dresden, the London blitz, LeMay’s B-29 campaign). It was a war silly. Nobody intheri right mind likes war… but once you in one the best thing to do is to get it over with ASAP.