'Tomgram: John Brown, Invading Washington
Over the last seven years, it's often been said that George W. Bush exists in a bubble. When it comes to the cast of characters in his administration -- and the Washington Consensus generally -- it turns out he isn't alone. The other night I watched Harvard academic Joseph Nye and former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage discussion the crisis in Pakistan with talk-show host Charlie Rose. The two of them had just finished co-chairing a Center for Strategic and International Studies commission that produced a report, clearly meant for the next administration, on wielding American "smart power" in the world.
Nye is an exceedingly conventional American internationalist; Armitage is a former "Vulcan" who, in the first years of the Bush administration, though Colin Powell's deputy at the State Department, was close to the neocons of the Pentagon, but may now be repositioning himself for a Democratic administration. They could be said to represent the heartland of the present Washington Consensus.
Yet when they talked of Pakistani autocrat Pervez Musharraf ("I mean, Musharraf has been our boy, but we`ve not been able to do much with it..."), of the Pakistani situation more generally ("I mean, after Musharraf, there are other secular generals…"), and of the American role there ("Well, we have to be working with both Benazir Bhutto and also with our contacts in the army to make sure this doesn't turn into chaos…" "If you do anything to help Benazir, it has to be done very quietly and behind the scenes…"), they might as well have been discussing deploying federal "smart power" to Maryland, or more appropriately, to the U.S. Territory of Guam. Conceptually, they remain deep inside Washington's Pakistan, Washington's dream of a controllable world.
The Bush administration, too, had its dreams of a controllable Pax Americana to go along with a Washington-based Pax Republicana; but, as former diplomat John Brown makes clear below, these were the most provincial of global dreams, hatched at think-tanks inside the Washington Bubblesphere. The world was reimagined as a kind of imperial dreamscape for a go-it-alone group of armed imperial isolationists who, unlike most imperialists, couldn't even imagine a way those elsewhere could join in their imperial project. As Brown indicates, Bush and his top officials were the most bubblicious of non-diplomats. In the language of another era, they were not just Ugly Americans, but the ugliest of all -- and proud of it.
But perhaps they were only extremes of the Washington norm. Perhaps Americans, even in their post-World War II high-imperial phase, were never anything but powerful provincials with little grasp of the wider world: a self-contained universe of Joseph Nyes and Richard Armitages. Perhaps if you are singularly wealthy and powerful, as the United States was from 1945 into the 1970s, the provincial blunders you make don't blow back on you for 20, 30, 40 years. Now, on the downside of hyperpowerdom, they seem to blowback in about the time it takes to play your basic 30-second ad.
We also tend to ignore how much Americans actually take their bubble with them into the world. Consider, for instance, this description from the British Guardian's David Smith on his arrival at Camp Victory, one of the monstrous "mega-bases" the Bush administration has built in Iraq. American reporters often set foot in places like this, but almost never offer such descriptions, perhaps because finding a Little America in the midst of chaos and mayhem strikes them as nothing out of the ordinary.
"I arrived at Camp Liberty, one of the main US bases, and found breakfast in the 'morale area' where food facilities include a Burger King, Cinnabon, Popeye's Chicken & Biscuits and Seattle's Best Coffee Iraq. It's a sort of pre-fab American simulacrum, Disney World meets Platoon in the desert. There's also Alterations & Embroidery, Barber, Beauty, Electronics, Gift Shop, Jewelery, Magic Island Technologies, Rug Shop, Photo Processing and even New Car Sales. I wandered around the Bazaar, which takes credit cards but is closed on Fridays, and found kitsch mementos, hookah pipes, brass ornaments, 'Operation Iraqi Freedom' rugs bearing the US and Iraqi flags and a collection of Saddam portraits and clocks. A difficult purchase to explain at customs, perhaps. "'
Nye is an exceedingly conventional American internationalist; Armitage is a former "Vulcan" who, in the first years of the Bush administration, though Colin Powell's deputy at the State Department, was close to the neocons of the Pentagon, but may now be repositioning himself for a Democratic administration. They could be said to represent the heartland of the present Washington Consensus.
Yet when they talked of Pakistani autocrat Pervez Musharraf ("I mean, Musharraf has been our boy, but we`ve not been able to do much with it..."), of the Pakistani situation more generally ("I mean, after Musharraf, there are other secular generals…"), and of the American role there ("Well, we have to be working with both Benazir Bhutto and also with our contacts in the army to make sure this doesn't turn into chaos…" "If you do anything to help Benazir, it has to be done very quietly and behind the scenes…"), they might as well have been discussing deploying federal "smart power" to Maryland, or more appropriately, to the U.S. Territory of Guam. Conceptually, they remain deep inside Washington's Pakistan, Washington's dream of a controllable world.
The Bush administration, too, had its dreams of a controllable Pax Americana to go along with a Washington-based Pax Republicana; but, as former diplomat John Brown makes clear below, these were the most provincial of global dreams, hatched at think-tanks inside the Washington Bubblesphere. The world was reimagined as a kind of imperial dreamscape for a go-it-alone group of armed imperial isolationists who, unlike most imperialists, couldn't even imagine a way those elsewhere could join in their imperial project. As Brown indicates, Bush and his top officials were the most bubblicious of non-diplomats. In the language of another era, they were not just Ugly Americans, but the ugliest of all -- and proud of it.
But perhaps they were only extremes of the Washington norm. Perhaps Americans, even in their post-World War II high-imperial phase, were never anything but powerful provincials with little grasp of the wider world: a self-contained universe of Joseph Nyes and Richard Armitages. Perhaps if you are singularly wealthy and powerful, as the United States was from 1945 into the 1970s, the provincial blunders you make don't blow back on you for 20, 30, 40 years. Now, on the downside of hyperpowerdom, they seem to blowback in about the time it takes to play your basic 30-second ad.
We also tend to ignore how much Americans actually take their bubble with them into the world. Consider, for instance, this description from the British Guardian's David Smith on his arrival at Camp Victory, one of the monstrous "mega-bases" the Bush administration has built in Iraq. American reporters often set foot in places like this, but almost never offer such descriptions, perhaps because finding a Little America in the midst of chaos and mayhem strikes them as nothing out of the ordinary.
"I arrived at Camp Liberty, one of the main US bases, and found breakfast in the 'morale area' where food facilities include a Burger King, Cinnabon, Popeye's Chicken & Biscuits and Seattle's Best Coffee Iraq. It's a sort of pre-fab American simulacrum, Disney World meets Platoon in the desert. There's also Alterations & Embroidery, Barber, Beauty, Electronics, Gift Shop, Jewelery, Magic Island Technologies, Rug Shop, Photo Processing and even New Car Sales. I wandered around the Bazaar, which takes credit cards but is closed on Fridays, and found kitsch mementos, hookah pipes, brass ornaments, 'Operation Iraqi Freedom' rugs bearing the US and Iraqi flags and a collection of Saddam portraits and clocks. A difficult purchase to explain at customs, perhaps. "'
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