Category: Columnists

•An empire is its greatest enemy.

An empire’s demise comes in unscripted, nonlinear steps. Unforeseen events and competitor nations arise to challenge the imperial seat. When guided by figures touched with the spirit that gave it greatness, the empire casts aside adverse events and rivals with singular purpose. At the empire’s most fecund stages, a political consensus exist that all other interests are subservient to the imperatives of collective greatness. No deed, from the noblest to the tawdriest, is outside the ken of the empire’s architects so long as the deed serves the empire. Every empire is built on equal parts heroism and crime because no empire comes without the taking of another’s possessions or life. A saint cannot erect a worldly empire; for he will love his foes not crush them. Nor can the abject madman because his endless folly will turn to defeat any victories gained. Building an empire requires a statesman capable of being saint or sinner depending on the situation. By creating an empire, the leader bequeaths more than wealth and power to his successors. It is for them to launder history by bleaching pristine his scarlet deeds; he also gives them the comfort of power and wealth whereby they can afford to act more humanely in maintaining the rare thing they have inherited than he did in building it.

Paradoxically, things never work as planned. The dynamics of imperial institutions eventually places the empire in the hands of those incapable of maintaining it. Success turns the political culture into a lathe of arrogance. Greed and ambition become high morality. Virtue and honesty are banished from secular practice. Money comes to count for everything because it can buy anything, including the souls and minds of society’s great men. Nothing that can be done without money is worth doing. A few great men and women still exist but none participate in governance. Those who govern are neither great nor evil. They are not sufficiently profound or possessed of an unshakable vision to be either. They are more interested in position and title than in achievement. The deeds that interest them are the ones that gain entrance into valued realty not the ones that gain entrance into history’s ledger. They would rather cut a bad compromise than stand for right.

These leaders preside over the slow leveling of a great edifice. The reduction happens so gradually and in such minute increments that no one involved realizes the descent. They believe things shall be as they always were. They see no great problems, so they take no warnings. They are sober, unimaginative figures who do not rock the boat because they never realize they are at sea. Impervious to the debt they owe history, they believe they own history. As such, they study nothing and understand even less. Their wisdom consists of their prejudices and ignorant notions of other nations and peoples.

Success has giddied them. A fatal turn of perspective is had. No longer do the empire’s leaders satisfy their personal ambitions within the context of the empire’s progress. The mindset shifts to exploring how the empire can satisfy the leaders’ selfish aims. They confuse being powerful with being all powerful. Thus, the treasury is squandered on wars in distant places of little consequence. The state becomes highly militarized. The people become inured to war. It becomes a national pastime much like organized sports. The more militarized the state, the less real its democracy and more imbalanced its economy. Yet, no true threat really exists.

Living without a genuine mortal threat, internal unity weakens. Competing elites see each other as enemies. They spend more time bickering than in sanitizing the body politic of the rot that may ultimately lay them low. A glittery decay sets in. Termites busy themselves at the woodwork. The mirror becomes a sword. The vast empire ceases being an extraordinary singularity. It fissures into a multiplicity of haggling constituencies led by lackluster personages. Inertia sustains the empire for a time but grandeur eventually fades. Because the leaders are below par builders and visionaries, they can’t save the empire by reviving the spirit upon which it was built. Instead, they summon real and imagined enemies to fight; they seek to lead through fear instead of inspiration. The military is called the save the empire where no danger exists.

Those in charge see themselves as different and superior to other people. They can no longer listen or learn. They believe what they want has the force of right and of law. But all it has is the force of force. They have inserted themselves into an unwinnable paradox. A durable empire is based on a balancing of interests between the center and the periphery. Thus, an empire that despises the diverse people under its umbrella is an empire in search of its own undoing.

Against this backdrop, President Obama’s new foreign policy team must be weighed. While disavowing imperial proclivities, American politicians’ frequent references to America as the “lone superpower” and the “indispensable nation” has but one meaning. America expends more on its military than all other nations combined. America has a military installation in most nations. If this is not imperial, than nothing is.

Senator John Kerry is the nominee to replace Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Clinton’s popularity surpassed her effectiveness. She travelled much but accomplished little. The world is no better than when she took office. The thrust of foreign policy remains in the talons of the military and intelligence combine mainly populated by hawkish conservatives who would rather destroy than dialogue with an adversary. Clinton was just the application of a liberal face to Prussian foreign policy. She was a glorified public relations officer. The oft dour Kerry will make the same pitch but with significantly less charm. Above all, he is an establishment man who will not ask even small questions about big matters. He’d rather excite himself by asking big questions about small matters.

Former Senator Chuck Hagel is the Defense Secretary nominee. Like his predecessor, Hagel is a moderate Republican. He is more cautious on Iran and more willing to see defense budget cuts than any known Republican since Abraham Lincoln. This moderation will estrange him to the uniforms in the Pentagon. These bureaucratically canny generals will make Hagel an outcast in the very department he is to run. The generals and the immense martial infrastructure atop which they sit will have their way. Hagel will make a decision but the generals will bury it then do as they please. Hagel will be powerless to stop them. They will salute him yet detest him all the while.

These underwhelming appointments signify that policy toward Africa will remain at low ebb. During his first term, President Obama kept Africa at arm’s length. He treated it like the ambitious man does the bumptious country cousin who pops up unexpectedly at the boss’s cocktail party. Afraid of being criticized as a radical, Obama did everything he to run away from things black, short of jumping out of his skin. Most observers state President Bush was more engaged and humanitarian on Africa than Obama. For once, conventional wisdom is right. Since the tact proved successful there is no reason why Obama would shift.

The contours of Obama’s approach toward sub-Saharan Africa are seen even in the western hemisphere. Beyond the bland indifference toward Black America, just look at Haiti. That nation is an African microcosm that was cargoed to the Antilles. Although it sits at America’s doorstep, the welfare of its people is that of the Congo. Haiti’s leadership is a motley collection of factotums to American interests but that avails nothing. So long after the devastating earthquake, the displaced still live in the same conditions that existed the week after the tribulation. Although former President Clinton is the UN’s coordinator for Haitian relief, he attracts no criticism for this dismal condition. In truth, Clinton struts about more like the American pro-consul than like a humanitarian. He has registered more progress in turning north Haiti into a resort of the rich and an industrial camp where American textile companies can open factories exploiting desperate Haitians at indecent wages.

Haiti sits atop significant but dormant oil and gas reserves because the United States has determined exploration is not in condign for the time being. Haiti seems accursed. This is not so. It merely suffers the consequences of the sentence imposed on it for having the temerity to declare itself an independent black republic some two centuries ago. What Haiti now eats Africa will soon taste.

The cornerstone of America’s African policy is AFRICOM. While AFRICOM started under his predecessor, the Obama’s indifference to the black world has allowed the military to give AFRICOM greater push. AFRICOM attempts to establish a large, permanent American military presence on African soil. Its purported reason — to help Africa build democracy — is laughable. A tumescent military is an internal threat to American democracy. Under the war on terror, the military and intelligence communities pressured the civilian establishment into legislation giving both the military and intelligence agencies unprecedented power to surveil, detain and kill citizens without recourse to judicial protection. It makes little sense that these institutions threatening democracy at home would nourish it abroad.

America’s Africa policy has two cynical objectives. First, the flow of natural resources to western economies must be safeguarded. This has adverse ramifications. African industrialization conflicts with American interests and thus American will do what it can to discourage this approach to economic development.

Second, America wants to ensure that terrorists groups don’t attain the capacity to harm the American homeland. The objective is to contain terrorism not end it. The American people want terrorism ended but the vast, lucrative condominium of military power sees things differently. In perpetual war, there are perpetual profits. Victory ends the funding banquet. Victory over terrorism would bring two defeats. The first one would be that of the terrorists. The second would be that to the expansion of the military. Thus, the military wants the threat tamed but also alive to keep afraid the America’s civilian leadership. This way, military funding remains at high velocity; the military’s influence in government grows like weeds in the untended garden.

Consequently, American never resolves nor retreats from chronic troubled spots. Somalia is as it has been. Congo is as it has been. Sudan has been split in two and now both sides are ready to lunge at the other’s throat in a moment’s notice. The insecurity attendant to the partition has put the Chinese on their heels. America now encroaches where China thought it had economic suzerainty. Oil is discovered in Uganda. America increases military aid and deploys Special Forces to find Joseph Kony’s Lord Resistance Army. Yet, they can’t find the jungle prophet because they are not looking for him. They would rather he exist because he brightens the halo of danger. The true reason for this and similar missions are to keep danger at the right level so that rival mining interests are deterred and pro-American one feel secure enough to work.

The American military now rehashes in Africa its escapades in Latin America decades ago. That experiment ended badly. Latin American militaries grew too mean and overconfident because of their American benefactors. Democracy was either beaten or blackmailed in the process.

The permanent deployment of a superior foreign military on African soil means trouble and less independence. For the foreign military to benefit Africa, it would have to place Africa’s interests above those of its home nation. This is impossible, particularly given that the American military already exalts its special interests above those of the nation it is meant to serve. The more African governments rely on foreign militaries for their stability is the more they forfeit independence. A nation’s domestic and foreign policies becomes dictated from abroad. Leaders of such nations are in danger of becoming glorified stenographers copying what others have told them.

This is particularly true given the nature of the current American government and military. America is a strong but uneasy empire seeking to reassert itself with a strong hand. American democracy has ossified to the point where only moneyed elites influence matters. The two richest and most powerful elites are Money Power and the military complex. Both are highly conservative and both disdain for representative democracy. Money Power constitutes the government behind the government. The military complex constitutes the government within the government. Neither is government by the people. Both are governments that bypass the people.

Nominally, President Obama sits atop the perch. However, he did not rise to the top as the head of a reformist movement. He got there by making a pact with the status quo. Being perceived as pro-black would break the pact he signed. In the end, he is a constrained, moderate leader of an imperial power working toward preserving its interests which are basically to return to the power relationships with Africa that existed two-three decades ago. Thus, Africa should expect no great succor from him by way of policies that would promote equitable economic development. In turn, Africa should not let the imperialists exploit Obama’s heritage as a device to outmaneuver Africa on its own soil. Africa must stand and think for itself for it does not have a brother in the White House. It might not even have a reliable friend there. All you can be sure of is that the empire will continue to grind away to get what it wants until such time that the empire has ground itself to dust or some miracle takes place allowing America to recover its better through governance by its more democratic, statesmanlike elements. In the dangerous neighborhood, one should pray for a miracle but prayer should be made with one eye open and the door locked.

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