Face It: The Democratic Party has NEVER been Isolationist / Neo-Isolationist

[denem]

(Progressive: TR Roosevelt) - Spanish-American War;
Woodrow Wilson - WWI, Liberal Internationalism, League of Nations;
FDR - Lend-Lease, WWII;
Truman- Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Korea;
JFK - Bay of Pigs, Cuban Missile Crisis, Vietnam;
LBJ - Vietnam (double plus bad);
Carter - Afghanistan;
Clinton - Bosnia / Kosovo; and
Barack Obama (1992) :

I don’t oppose all wars... What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war... A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics.

You can criticize every postion and decision
as a mistake, but this "Base" Neo-Isolationist Movement
is not The Democratic Party.

For Neo-Isolationists,
Your heroes are -
Taft;
Coolidge;
Hoover;
Charles Lindbergh; and
The "Peace Makers"
Eisenhower - Korea / Industrial Military Complex;
Nixon - Vietnam / START; onwards to reductio ad adsurdum
Reagan - Cold War /Eastern Europe

Pacifist / Small Government tweeters
are not the base of The Democratic Party.

Cue to 'The Internationale' and
McGovern 1972.

Footnote: The Communists were sternly
Isolationist until Operation Barbarossa.
Come the 1946 Cold War,
all bets were off.

NB: Homage to Catalonia

[Ken Burch]

1. Almost no one thinks World War I was still a just war

Korea and Vietnam have also been discredited in the eyes of almost all serious historians.

The Sixties antiwar movement was built in significant measure by Democrats who realized that Kennedy and Johnson's war was immoral, unwinnable and inalterably damaging to the cause of building a "Great Society".

Yes, some past Democrats got us into wars. That does NOT mean that Democrats are forever obligated to be "the war party".

Finally, opposition to military intervention is not "isolationism". Our country can be fully and positively engaged with the world without being engaged in the act of invading large sectors of it.

[denem]

3. WWI was saw the collapse of Russia and Austro-Hungary.

The League of Nations was killed by Taft.

[Ken Burch]

5. Actually, it was killed by the Republican Senate and Harding

And the British and French Empires grew in power and influence from that war, which was hardly a victory for anything, especially since the postwar arrogance both countries showed towards Germany was directly responsible for creating the conditions that led to Naziism. Thus, the bad behavior of the "winners" in World War I CAUSED World War II and the Holocaust.

Really, World War I was mainly about keeping the workers of Europe from uniting and throwing off their shackles. Had it not occurred, those workers WOULD have freed themselves and we'd have almost certainly been spared both Hitler AND Stalin.

Ten million or more died flying the pointless flag of "nationalism". None but the wealthy gained anything from all that death.

[denem]

6. "keeping the workers of Europe from uniting" = Revisionism.

YES - after the Bolshevik Revolution and Rosa Luxemburg. 1914? Not so much.

[Ken Burch]

7. There were strong socialist movements in France, Germany, and almost all other European countries

It was the industrialists who pushed for war, and then seduced those with nothing into killing each other in the name of various colored pieces of cloth on long poles.

No workers gained anything from that war.

[denem]

10. "No workers gained anything from that war"/ Agreed!

But the outcome does not prescribe the motive.

[proteus_lives]

14. "No workers gained anything from that war."

Especially not in Russia.

[denem]

18. You peasant!

[tblue]

11. Can you pls recommend

a good book on WWI (hopefully one under 1000 pp -- lol). I had a lousy history teacher in high school and I read a lot of history on my own, but I've never read a book on this war. Hard for even me to believe! I'm sure you know many, and I'd appreciate your recommendation. Thanks, bud!

[denem]

16. (Sigh) (maybe)

On the Net - You could start with Wikipedia (shudder)

Austia - Hungary Austria–Hungary
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austria%E2%80%93Hungary
WWI http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_War_I
Liberal Internationalism : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_internationalism
Treaty of Versailles http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Versailles
Stab-in-the-back legend http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stab_in_the_back

[tblue]

17. Okay. That's great. But I really want a book or two.

None?

[EmeraldCityGrl]

20. This is what I'm reading now...

"The People's History of The United States" by Howard Zinn

It's not exclusively about WWI. My son asked me to read it and I'm finding it engrossing.




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_People's_History_of_the_United_States

[denem]

21. Umm ... "A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918" (2007)

G. J. Meyer. A fresh work that deserves its rave reviews:
http://www.amazon.com/World-Undone-Story-Great-1914/product-reviews/0553382403/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1

If you read one book about WWI, this is the one...

The causes of World War I were so diverse and complex, and the military strategies so intricate, that the war becomes a historian's ultimate dilemma: Write about it comprehensively and lose all but the most earnest readers, or skim the surface and don't do it justice?

Mr. Meyer has found the perfect balance and tone to describe a war that was complicated, not at all glorious, and a proximate or ancillary cause of every major trouble the world has seen since. His journalistic skills serve the reader with startling immediacy, never forgetting to include the human effects of the war, so that rather than becoming an endless parade of statistics, the book is a riveting parable about a four-year train wreck of human miscalculation and arrogance in leadership, balanced by unbelievable heroism in the ranks.

As I write this, the American nation is still embroiled in a seven year war in Iraq and Afghanistan that has killed 5,000 American soldiers so far. That was a typical DAY in World War I. Our modern 24 hour cable news cycle will (thankfully) just not permit the kind of carnage that the generals in World War I so casually created. Also of great interest are Mr. Meyer's short background articles, on subjects like Kaiser Wilhelm, the Junkers, the Cossacks, etc, which give the reader a real grounding in the flavor of the times, and are fascinating in their own right.

The 'Umm' is 816 pages.

Also, I should have mentioned this site: http://www.firstworldwar.com

[Iterate]

27. I don't think there is one.

It's one of those periods in history where detail, perceptions, and decisions matter most. I found grand overviews of this time tend to be, ironically, either bloodless or inane and I gave up looking long ago.

Rather than an off-putting read, I would recommend the BBC series "The First World War" (10 parts) and BBC "WW1 - The Great War" (28 parts). There's plenty of social/historical context and archival footage. Mix watching these with a book about something more focused, say Gallipoli or Tannenburg, and you would have a beginning for filling in the blanks.

[TheKentuckian]

2. Who is calling for isolationism? Most want a more engaged foreign policy

and less cowboy intervention.

[denem]

4. Warning: Incoming.

[LeftyMom]

8. You fail history forever.

No American gov't since the industrial revolution from either party has been even nominally isolationist, except arguably Woodrow Wilson for his first term. He certainly ran for re-election on his isolationist record and exploited that sentiment, then promptly got involved in World War I once re-elected and relatively free to do as he pleased.

[denem]

12. OK, You list your sources,

and give details of the relevant Democratic party policy.

[LeftyMom]

19. Support for wars, empire and various "foreign entanglements."

The history of the US is one of nearly unceasing territorial expansion until the last few decades, at which point improved technology and improved transportation technology and long distance military capability made extensive foreign occupations largely unnecessary except to control oil fields and transportation, at which point expansion instead focused on establishment of foreign military bases and denial of such bases to potential rivals.

Also, the US has been at war, either itself or by proxy, for nearly the entire period, no matter which party was in control. The only comparatively long stretch with no military adventures was in the thirties, and that was arguably more because the US was too internally unstable and flat broke to get up to any trouble than because of a strong isolationist sentiment at the top, as FDR certainly embraced intervention in foreign affairs once the opportunity presented itself, first through arms sales and then through military action.

[Hippo_Tron]

24. We also sent troops to every continent at some point during the 19th century

[denem]

26. Taft/Harding isolationism did not take root until after the GOP split in 1912.

and it was opposed consistently by the Democratic Party, sometimes more sotto voce than others.

[denem]

25. 1930s isolationism reduced to "Too internally unstable and flat broke" FAIL.

I mean, what are you reading?

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

9. Which is a helluva good reason to vote principles rather than party.

Such as voting for those who don't advocate war. Or, against those who do.

[denem]

13. Democrats = Interventionist. Republicans (post 1952) = Interventionist

Take your chances if you will.

[tblue]

15. Yeah, I'm getting there fast.

Been a Dem all my life. With the neocon/Bush travesty, I realized it was important to get that lockstep fascist party out of power. Now, with a good percentage of Dems acting like Republicans, the lines are blurred and I'm throwing up my hands. I now realize principles and policy are all that matter to me. Not party, not personality, not legacy, not a platform that's not actually adhered to and is dismissed as soon as the election's over, and absolutely not some stupid, meaningless horse race.

[OHdem10]

22. Going back as far as Roosevelt and beyon, Trade was BI-Lateral

Each country set up and managed their own trade Deals.
For example. US and UK. very similar, people have
similar living standards, therefore there was a comparative
advantage. Trade Deals were. Similar situated countries deciding
to trade for specific goods.

From Reagan onward Free Market Trade Trade Policy. No comparaitve
advantage. Rich country like ours trading with very poor countries/
No comparative Advantage. Very often the people in these countries
cannot afford that many items made in America. Our country permits
the other countries to flood our market with less expensive goods.
Tje Transnationals go about the world seeking the cheapest labor
and off our jobs from this country to theirs.

FDR T. Wilson et.al, never had to deal with this situation. I believe
they would have been much wiser in establishing fair rules. There
is no way either of these men would have sold out our Middle Class.
After all they wete Liberals. Wilsonm more conservative but he
too would have looked out for our country first. Internationalist
with common sense.

Most Liberals at DU are not protectionist. But they do believe
the Trade Policies require some serious work. Continuiing the
Free Market Trade Policies have contributed to the Great Recession.
It is time to stop digging and look for better answeers.

[denem]

23. Yes. Never forget trade. (blushing)

I personally believe strongly in Fair Trade - not as a fig leaf for rust buckets, nor GM executives driving Hummers over a cliff, but as a great potential source of progress.

The WTO is a monumental work. What I think it must have is a social chapter, modeled after the EU. How to get there is another matter.

[pampango]

33. FDR was the one who started the move away from bilateral trade deals by pushing GATT after WWII.

He and Truman wanted a multilateral organization to regulate international trade to avoid the tit-for-tat tariff wars that resulted from the republicans' (Smoot/Hawley/Hoover) tariffs of the Great Depression.

FDR and Truman believed, rightly or wrongly, that tariff wars, while good for domestic politics ("we're protecting you from those evil foreigners"), was bad for the economy (which is why FDR got around SHH tariffs with bilateral trade deals). And they believed that the more that countries became accustomed to depending on trade with each other the less likely they were to go to war. (France and Germany are each other's biggest trading partners and have been at peace for 65 years-perhaps a European record. :) )

[Echo In Light]

28. Re Carter, you left out a major slaughter the US supported; East Timor

[denem]

30. East Timor was invaded in two waves December 7 and 10.

They chose that time as both the United States and Australia were between Administrations. By April 1976, the only way to get them out would have been invasion - the very interventionism under discussion here.

[Echo In Light]

32. ??? ...in 77/78 a huge slaughter was carried out w/full support of Carter's admin

[denem]

34. Arms sales are not full support, but I take your point.

It's worth noting that more than 60,000 people died during the invasion and it's immediate aftermath, a time Carter was not in a position to act.

But again I ask the question. Should the US have invaded East Timor in 76-78 to stem the holocaust.

Would you have supported intervention?

[Douglas Carpenter]

35. but the U.S. did not ever even contemplate invading East Timor - it increased arm sales to Indonesia

thus further enabling Indonesia's invasion and occupation. Indonesia's invasion of East Timor was made possible because of arms supply mostly from the U.S. in the first place, A world awash with weapons, the largest supplier being the United States, is what enables tin-horn tyrants like Suharto to to invade other countries like East Timor in the first place.

No invasion was necessary to convince Indonesia to withdraw. Indonesia withdrew once the U.S. demanded it. They simply were not going to say no to their godfather in Washington.

Repelling foreign invaders on humanitarian missions - counts for a very small amount of activity carried out by U.S. military power. In fact, the 1991 Gulf War was about the only occasion I can recall since the end of World War II - when vast oil reserves were at stake.

It is simply not the nature of foreign policy of any state to be guided by humanitarian principles. One can point to occasions when U.S. intervention had that effect - such as America's intervention in Europe in World War II - but these are the rare events in the use of military power - not the norm.

I agree that getting out of the empire business is a complicated affair - getting into them seems to lead to even greater complications for which one thing always leads to another and another and there is no end. It now appears the U.S. has no way to really get out of Iraq or Afghanistan - not really - one way or another we will in all likelihood be stuck in Iraq and Afghanistan until such a time that the U.S. no longer cares if the American backed governments fail or succeed as what happened in Viet Nam. American back regimes directly installed and sustained by American military power in the middle of the Islamic world and policed by American military personnel, simply do not fare very well.

Perhaps we are now seeing the beginnings of endless effort to "impose order" in Yemen in an intractable and un-winnable situation - Yemen is in many ways an Arabian Peninsula version of Afghanistan, with a very weak central government and tribal rebellions, both north and south and largely lawless throughout most of the country. There are simply not enough Americans in the world to police all the lawless places in the world where potential terrorist can meet and plan and train. And none of this prevents a small group of determined people from getting a hold of a small amount of explosives and sending someone willing to die for their cause, off on a mission to blow up some airline somewhere. Only better screening can do that. In fact, increased U.S. military intervention appears far more likely to assure new recruits who are willing and able to engage in such activities.

In the mean time, U.S. military power becomes so overextended that if, God forbid, the situation should arise, comparable for to the need for American intervention in World War II, this unsustainable military empire's is completely compromised. Because all of its resources are spread out around the world. Once it becomes clear that American military power is so overextended, even the threat of U.S. intervention losses its deterrence effect.

An endless series of quagmires stuck in lawless lands, trying to impose American will - in an endless number of places, is simply not sustainable. It does however guarantee more recruits willing and able to strike at America. And it does compromise America's genuine security needs. And it cost a lot of money, better spent on other things, while endlessly increasing ill will and inviting more problems endlessly leading to more and more problems. This is simply not sustainable.

(BTW: Theodore Roosevelt was a Republican President - and the Democratic Party at the time did very much oppose the invasion of the Philippines - in very strong terms)

[Echo In Light]

36. 90% of the Indonesian army's arms came from the US

I haven't any want of downplaying it, so we'll have to agree to disagree.

(Chomsky) A: This was a Carter initiative. Not only did they radically increase the flow of aid to Indonesia, but Walter Mondale, who was then vice president, flew to Jakarta in 1978. That was the period of the worst atrocities, which were well known incidentally, I mean the press wasn't reporting them, but there were plenty of other sources. Surely US intelligence knew all about it. Mondale went to Jakarta. He was terribly impressed by how wonderful it was. He telegraphed back to Washington that they ought to send them more jet planes. Carter couldn't do that because of congressional legislation that prevented direct military aid to human rights violators, so they arranged with Israel to ship American jets to Indonesia. That was all White House initiatives.

Q: What could have been his motivations?

A: His motivations were ``stability'' and the usual things. When you ask whether Carter was a hypocrite or not, I haven't the slightest idea. You'd have to get into his head and find out. Maybe he believed he was doing the right thing, who knows? In my opinion, these are not very interesting questions. Most people, we all know from our own personal experiences, if not from reading history, that it's very easy to construct a pattern of justification for just about anything you choose to do. I mean none of us are so saintly that we haven't done ugly and unpleasant things in our lives, like maybe you took a toy from your five-year-old brother when you were a kid or something. Just ask yourself, anybody can ask themselves, how often did I say to myself, ``Boy I'm really rotten, but this is what I feel like doing.'' Very rarely. Usually you set up a pattern of justification that makes it exactly the right thing to do. That's the way beliefs are formed.

Motivations are kind of hidden. If you're honest maybe you could dig out and find them, but it's awfully easy and a common experience to construct a pattern of justification for things you do out of some kind of self interest. And that's done in statecraft all the time. So the question whether someone's being hypocritical or not is almost meaningless.

His motivations are straightforward. Indonesia's a very rich country, huge resources which were open to exploitation by foreign corporations. Suharto, the head, was keeping the country under control. If you want to know the motivation, I suggest if you're interested you might have a look at, I have a book that came out about a year ago called ``Year 501'' and one of the chapters in it reviews the western reaction to the military coup that brought Suharto to office in 1965. He immediately launched the biggest slaughter since the holocaust. Nobody knows how many, but maybe seven- or eight-hundred thousand people were slaughtered in four months. Huge bloodbath, Time magazine called it ``a boiling bloodbath.'' Most of the people killed were landless peasants. It destroyed the only popular organization in the country, namely the Indonesian Communist Party, mostly the peasant party. What's interesting about it was the reaction of the west, which was total euphoria. The New York Times described it as ``a gleam of light in Asia.'' News magazines were writing about ``hope where there once was none.'' New York Times editorials, which I run through closely in this, thought it was just magnificent. The more the boiling bloodbath boiled the more they loved it. It wasn't even hidden. It was quite open. It was a very interesting episode. It's a lot of detail about it there and the point was very straightforward: this vindicated the US war in Vietnam. In fact American liberals were writing that this proves that we were right to be in Vietnam because in Vietnam we were providing a shield which encouraged the Indonesian generals to get on with the necessary work of cleansing their own society and throwing it open to western robbers. It was remarkably open. Take a look at the quotes. I went through a very comprehensive review then, complete euphoria. A lot of the reason why the Vietnam war was fought was to protect the surrounding regions from the infection of popular uprisings. The most brutal dictatorship we supported was in Indonesia, but at the same time we also supported very bloody dictatorships and coups in other surrounding countries in Thailand, the Marcos coup in the Philippines and so on, all for the same reasons. So sure, that's the motivation.

[laststeamtrain]

29. "The Democratic Party has NEVER been Isolationist" - Maybe we should try it.

737 U.S. Military Bases = Global Empire
By Chalmers Johnson, Metropolitan Books
Posted on February 19, 2007, Printed on December 29, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/47998/

The following is excerpted from Chalmers Johnson's new book, "Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic" (Metropolitan Books).

Once upon a time, you could trace the spread of imperialism by counting up colonies. America's version of the colony is the military base; and by following the changing politics of global basing, one can learn much about our ever more all-encompassing imperial "footprint" and the militarism that grows with it.

It is not easy, however, to assess the size or exact value of our empire of bases. Official records available to the public on these subjects are misleading, although instructive. According to the Defense Department's annual inventories from 2002 to 2005 of real property it owns around the world, the Base Structure Report, there has been an immense churning in the numbers of installations.

The total of America's military bases in other people's countries in 2005, according to official sources, was 737. Reflecting massive deployments to Iraq and the pursuit of President Bush's strategy of preemptive war, the trend line for numbers of overseas bases continues to go up.

Interestingly enough, the thirty-eight large and medium-sized American facilities spread around the globe in 2005 -- mostly air and naval bases for our bombers and fleets -- almost exactly equals Britain's thirty-six naval bases and army garrisons at its imperial zenith in 1898. The Roman Empire at its height in 117 AD required thirty-seven major bases to police its realm from Britannia to Egypt, from Hispania to Armenia. Perhaps the optimum number of major citadels and fortresses for an imperialist aspiring to dominate the world is somewhere between thirty-five and forty. ... http://www.alternet.org/story/47998

*

From the Wiki on Chalmers Johnson: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chalmers_Johnson

Johnson sees that the enforcement of American hegemony over the world constitutes a new form of global empire. Whereas traditional empires maintained control over subject peoples via colonies, since World War II the US has developed a vast system of hundreds of military bases around the world where it has strategic interests. A long-time Cold Warrior he applauded the collapse of the Soviet Union, I was a cold warrior. There's no doubt about that. I believed the Soviet Union was a genuine menace. I still think so.<1> But at the same time he experienced a political awakening after the USSR 1989 collapse, noting that instead of demobilizing its armed forces, the US accelerated its reliance on military solutions to problems both economic and political. The result of this militarism (as distinct from actual domestic defense) is more terrorism against the US and its allies, the loss of core democratic values at home, and an eventual disaster for the American economy. The books of the trilogy are:

* Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire
* The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic
* Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic.


*

Maybe we should try being a democratic republic at home before we try to 'export democracy'.

Face it: we're an oligarchy at home, an empire abroad.

If 'isolationism' means 'avoiding foreign entanglements', Yeah, let's do that.

Fewer bases overseas could mean fewer bridges that fall into rivers during rush hour. Not to mention universal health care.

[denem]

31. I (more than) respect your point of view. Note

'avoiding foreign entanglements' is line ball with 'keeping out of Europe', aka FDR's pledge in the 1940 election.