U.S. awash in jingoism

Have you noticed? Since 9/11, America is in full retreat from long-cherished principles and policies at home and abroad. In the name of national security, with little public protest, our government unilaterally asserts vast war making rights worldwide and, at home, tramples on civil liberties and rights of privacy.

The Patriot Act and the Homeland Security Act are grave setbacks. They authorise racial profiling, detention without charge, fingerprinting of people purely on the basis of national origin, deportation based on secret testimony, and broadened wiretapping. Our government spies indiscriminately on the American people and stores the information in an immense database in the Defence Department.

In foreign policy, the new America is shocking. At President Bush's request, a panicky Congress has authorised unprecedented presidential war powers. In violation of the United Nations Charter and longstanding rules of international law, Congress has authorised the president to order pre-emptive acts of war wherever he deems necessary. This authority trivialises national sovereignty, a doctrine honoured for centuries as the cornerstone of the legal relationships among nations.

A government announcement proclaims our country the policeman of the world and promises sufficient military resources for the task, including a network of foreign bases. It warns that U.S. forces will keep unfriendly nations from increasing their military strength.

This is not the America my generation fought to preserve. As a Navy Seabee in World War II, I was proud to help destroy Japan's dreams of empire, but, at the time, I could not imagine America having - or wanting - an empire of its own. Nor could I imagine humankind surviving another great war. Shortly after the armistice, while walking through the rubble at Nagasaki, Japan, where a few weeks earlier one bomb instantly killed over 60,000 people, I sensed the awful dimension of future wars. Later, back home, I heard Winston Churchill call for arming the UN so it could enforce international law, but few seemed to listen. His call was one of the reasons I sought election to Congress.

In Congress, after the Vietnam ordeal, I helped write and enact the War Powers Resolution, hoping it would deter future presidents from entangling America in wars. In seeking support for the resolution, I frequently quoted Abraham Lincoln's warning, issued in 1848 during his term as a U.S. Representative, that "no one man should hold the power" to make war. Lincoln explained: "Allow the president to invade a neighbouring nation whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary.... Study to see if you can fix any limit to his power."

Instead of heeding Lincoln's warning, today's Congress has established war making as a personal, ready instrument of presidential power, no longer a decision of last resort in which the Congress must participate. Instead of trying to prevent presidential wars, Congress has authorised them without limit. The president need not consult Congress or anyone else before ordering pre-emptive attacks. Any airspace, land, or sea is fair game.

We seem to have forgotten war's human cost. During the 20th Century, 87 million people were killed in wars. Most of the conflicts could have been prevented by international institutions strong enough to enforce the rule of law. In the realm of world policing and peacekeeping, our government has scuttled our long tradition of relying on consensus and unity among major powers, as expressed through the United Nations, the North Atlantic Treaty, and other treaties. In its turn to war, is America ushering in another century of mega-death?

Although the Baghdad regime had no apparent role in 9/11 and poses no direct threat to America, our nation verges on a pre-emptive assault on Iraq. What are the real reasons - to control big oil reserves? to protect Israel? to establish bases useful in our role as world policeman? The answer is probably a combination of the three.

Strangely, our government has made no serious effort to understand why the 9/11 assault occurred. A friend who works in Bahrain is convinced that the agony in Palestine is the real "ground zero," with 9/11 an example of collateral damage. There is reason to believe that 9/11 would not have happened if our government had refused to support Israel's usurpation of Palestinian land and brutal treatment of its inhabitants. America has, in effect, financed this scofflaw behaviour for over 30 years, enraging Muslims and Arabs and many others all that time. If, instead, the U.S. had pursued an even-handed policy in the Middle East and refused aid unless Israel obeyed international law, Israel would likely be living today at peace with Iraq and all other Arab neighbours.

Nine-eleven should have been America's wakeup call. It should have impelled our government to address Arab/Muslim grievances and impose conditions on further aid to Israel. Instead, our government has grossly overreacted. Amid unparalleled flag waving, America has lowered its national standard. Instead of upholding the rule of law, we brandish the sword, and anti-American fervour rises.

We display excessive nationalism and belligerency in foreign policy. These are unmistakable signs of jingoism. Where is the idealism that inspired Abraham Lincoln to urge that "reverence for the law" be the "political religion of our nation?" Where are the voices of reason? Why the silence?


Paul Findley, a Representative from Illinois, 1961-83, and a principal author of the War Powers Resolution, resides in Jacksonville, Illinois. He is the author of several books on the Arab-Israeli conflict. His latest is "Silent No More: Confronting America's False Images of Islam," published by Amana Publications.