By: G.M.L. Henry

This week the United States had the dubious distinction of celebrating its seventeenth anniversary of occupying Afghanistan. After seventeen years of war, occupation and “rebuilding” the Taliban is still a powerful force in the country and we are no closer to “peace” in the region. It could be said that if not for U.S. presence the alleged terrorist organization would again be in control of the country. So, after seventeen years we count the costs and ask: what have we gained? Hundreds and hundreds of lives have been lost, trillions of dollars have been spent and yet there is no resolution, no victory, no strong, American loving Afghan government. The embarrassing failure of America’s wars on terror is a subject that all politicians and media companies have agreed to sweep under the rug.

The failures of these wars and the various hypothetical solutions are subject of constant debate but are superfluous to the larger problem: the failure of American imperialism. In a time when so many conservative talk show hosts profess their love of the Constitution and their strict adherence to its original intent, American imperialism is an odd bedfellow for these same conservatives. Thus, we find ourselves in a very strange paradox where the conservative movement calls for less government and a large military at the same time; something that is as impossible as it is illogical. Large military forces have always been the tool of conquerors, monarchs, and emperors. They are not the agents of small government. Indeed, the greatest republics in history were famous for their use of citizen soldiers; common men of the country that took up arms when their country was threatened. Even a superficial study of ancient Rome will show that its republic was strongest when it relied on citizen soldiers. As the republic’s territories grew it required a more and more powerful, standing military to maintain order. This in turn resulted in the death of the republic and the beginning of the empire.

The founding fathers, the men who not only brought us the Constitution but American Independence, had a strong understanding of history and the lessons it teaches. They understood the two great evils that had convulsed all of human history: lust for power and money. Their system of government was designed to restrain the problems inherent in all nations. As the new country took on more and more of the unsettled frontier they implemented a unique method of controlling these territories: create new states. These new states, modelled after the original thirteen states, would form their own governments; on both county and state levels. These autonomous states would then pass their own state constitution, create their own judicial systems for their state and bring law and order to the territory they controlled. This allowed the United States to maintain a small central government and even smaller army. The founding fathers, understanding the ills of empire, constantly warned their descendants of the evils of a large standing army, foreign wars and conquest of other countries. George Washington, in his famous farewell address, spoke of the importance of unity and cohesion within the country to avert the frequent, continental wars of Europe, that “likewise they will avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments, which under any form of government are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty.”This is but one of the constant warnings from multiple founding fathers of a large standing military.

Later on, in his Farewell Address, George Washington goes on to warn of foreign alliances and dalliances that would cause an involvement in foreign disputes and problems that have no particular interest to the people of the United States. He wrote “So likewise, a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter, without adequate inducement or justification.”These general sentiments began to fade after the Civil War and became spurious to the infamous progressive movement that rose from the gilded age. It was in 1895 rebellion of Cuba against Spain that the new, American Imperialism sallied forth to conquer. Newspapers constantly printed embellished or outright false reports of Spanish atrocities and whipped up public furor in support of the rebels. Politicians began to advocate interference on behalf of the revolutionary forces and propose the annexation of Cuba by the United States. In 1898 the explosion of the U.S.S. Maine in Havana harbor was enough pretext for Congress to declare war against Spain. The powerful armed forces raised by the Americans overwhelmed the outdated forces of the decaying Spanish empire and in just a few months the United States found itself in possession of its first foreign conquests: Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines. The old anti-imperialist sentiment of the founders was gone and the republic had given way to an empire.

In 1899, as a poetic warning to the new American empire, British author Rudyard Kipling wrote the famous poem “Take up the White Man’s Burden”. In it he warns of the dangers of imperialism and its costly consequences. His warnings went unheeded. Shortly after ending the occupation of Cuba, the U.S. was forced to deal with a rebellion in the Philippines against its rule. They quickly discovered that an empire must have a large military to enforce its will on its conquered lands. To meet this need the American armed forces began a period of massive expansion. Standing troop numbers were bolstered and new regiments added. The navy was expanded and a new fleet was built. Foreign military and naval bases were built to protect the new territories. The career of military man changed from being one of almost entirely domestic to that of multiple foreign tours. A lengthy succession of progressive presidents bolstered the nation’s new foreign policy. Under the presidency of Woodrow Wilson, the United States, having made multiple favored alliances with European countries, used another pretext to enter the great World War I; dragging the country back into the wars of Europe that Washington had begged them to stay away from.

It is a waste of words to continue documenting recent history of the United States’ military rise. While we have become the greatest superpower in the world the consequences have been disastrous. We have created friends with some groups of peoples and enemies with others. Terrorism is a direct result of our constant meddling in foreign affairs that have no advantage to the ordinary citizen. Did the great world wars win some new freedom for the country? Was the ordinary citizen ever in danger from the German Kaiser or Imperial Japan? Can the farmer in Ohio or the fisherman in New England rest better at night because Fascist Italy no longer exists? All of these wars are a long string of causeless, useless, and needless wars that has cost so much wealth and human resources to the country. The German Kaiser never posed a serious threat to the U.S. The war with Japan would never have happened had we not started expanding our empire in the Pacific some fifty years prior, and while it is fashionable to claim moral motives for our campaigns no objective person can justify an alliance with Russia’s Stalin to get rid of Italy’s Mussolini.

Even though the so called “dangers” represented by these foreign despots were no real menace to the ordinary American’s freedom, the cost for such wars was devastating. Thousands of America’s finest sons perished on foreign soil. Untold millions of her wealth evaporated to finance these conquests; leaving her with massive debt that we still pay to this day. It created massive companies and enriched thousands with the industrial output such global wars required. After the World Wars the meddling of the United States in foreign affairs has reached epic proportions. The U.S. is involved in the Mideast, in Asia, in Europe and most heavily in Latin America. It is actively involved in espionage, overthrow of leaders it does not like, and regime change. Millions have suffered globally from U.S. foreign policy and it has created a large international collection of groups and countries that hate us. Our involvement in the Mideast created terrorism, famines and mass immigration. Our insistence on maintaining unpopular, corrupt governments in power in Latin America has cause massive illegal immigration to our own borders. Once the champion of freedom, we have now become the suppressors of self-determination in other countries. A country is only allowed to have a government we approve of. So, if Afghanistan wants the Taliban, we intervene to make sure they cannot be in power. Even though it is the most dominant group in the country they must be kept out of power by force. This nation building, forcing countries to have regimes they do not want, only spurs on the need for massive military presence in the world.

“Send forth the best ye breed, go bind your sons to exile to serve your captives needs.” This ominous warning was unheeded by the American people in 1899. His prophetic words have come true. The vast wealth of the United States wasted on the “savage wars of peace”. A great country now indebted to the Japan it conquered seventy-three years ago. A country we rebuilt then moved on to another. We have made them “with our living”and we have “marked them with our dead”. Far from championing freedom we have cause untold tragedies with our misguided imperialism. Arrogantly believing that the world can be forced into peace by our military will the campaigns continue. Iraq, Libya, Syria just to mention a few of the multiple conflicts we sustain around the world. Our exile sons keep going to fight meaningless wars, and we keep marking foreign soil with our dead. Massive taxation, massive bureaucracy, massive expenditure and a monstrous central government are all the results of one hundred years of constant war.

Yes America as we celebrate our seventeenth anniversary in Afghanistan, as we listen to the war cries from supposed conservatives that live in a fantasy where small government and huge armies coexist, we should heed the counsel of he who wrote of this dilemma so many years ago. We must: Have done with childish days– The lightly proferred laurel, The easy, ungrudged praise. Comes now, to search your manhood  Through all the thankless years Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom,  The judgment of your peers!