TomDispatch: Tomgram: Andrew Bacevich, At the Altar of American Greatness
TomDispatch
Tomgram: Andrew Bacevich, At the Altar of American Greatness
By Andrew Bacevich Posted on February 23, 2017, Printed on February 24, 2017
http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176246/ ;
The members of what TomDispatch regular Andrew Bacevich, author of Americas
War for the Greater Middle East , calls the Church of America the Redeemer
are in some disarray these days and in quite an uproar over the new Pope and
his aberrant set of cardinals now ensconced in Washington. Perhaps there was
no more striking -- or shocking -- evidence of that than the brief comments
that hit the front page of the
New York Times last week in an article
on a month of turmoil in the Trump White House, but never became a
headline story nationally. Amid the hurricane of news about the fall
of national security adviser of 24 days
Michael Flynn, the
reported contacts of Trump associates with Russia, and a flurry of leaks
to
major papers
from what are assumedly significant figures in the intelligence community
(talk about "
feud
"!), one thing should have stood out. Heres the passage from that
Times piece
: "Gen. Tony Thomas, head of the militarys Special Operations Command,
expressed concern about upheaval inside the White House. 'Our government
continues
to be in unbelievable turmoil. I hope they sort it out soon because were a
nation at war,' he said at a military conference on Tuesday. Asked about his
comments later, General Thomas said in a brief interview, 'As a commander,
Im concerned our government be as stable as possible.'
It may not have looked like much, but it should have stunned
the news media and the country. That it didnt tells us a great deal about
how the U.S. has changed since September 11, 2001. Thomas, the head of the
crème de la crème, secretive military force (all
70,000
of them) cocooned inside the U.S. military, had just broken the unwritten
rules of the American political game in a major way. He fired what amounted
to an implicit warning shot across the bow of the Trump administration's
listing ship of state: Mr. President, we are at war and you better get your
house
in order fast. Really? Direct public criticism of the president from a top
commander in a military once renowned for its commitment to staying above
the
political fray? Consider that something new under the sun and evidence that
what might once have been considered a cliché -- sooner or later wars always
come home -- is now an ever more realistic description of just where weve
ended up 15-plus years after the Bush administration launched the war on
terror.
Seven days in May? Maybe not, but when the nation's top special warrior
starts worrying in public about whether civilian leaders are up to the task
of
governing, it's no ordinary day in February.
Its true, of course, that in many graphic ways -- including the migration
of
spying devices developed on this country's distant battlefields to police
departments here,
drone surveillance flights
not in Afghanistan but over this country, and the increasing
militarization of our police -- our wars in the Greater Middle East have
indeed made their way back to the homeland. Still, not like this, not
directly
into the sacrosanct heartland of democracy and of the political elite, into
what Bacevich might call the precincts of the American political Vatican,
where
those like New York Times columnist David Brooks once happily opined about
American greatness. It seems that were now plunged into the political
equivalent
of war in the nations capital, even if in the fog of battle its still a
little hard to tell just who is who on that battlefield.
Tom
block quote
Angst in the Church of America the Redeemer
David Brooks on Making America Great Again
By Andrew J. Bacevich
Apart from being a police officer, firefighter, or soldier engaged in one of
this nations endless wars, writing a column for a major American newspaper
has got to be one of the toughest and most unforgiving jobs there is. The
pay may be decent (at least if your gig is with one of the major papers in
New
York or Washington), but the pressures to perform on cue are undoubtedly
relentless.
Anyone who has ever tried cramming a coherent and ostensibly insightful
argument into a mere 750 words knows what Im talking about. Writing op-eds
does
not perhaps qualify as high art. Yet, like tying flies or knitting
sweaters, it requires no small amount of skill. Performing the trick week
in and week
out without too obviously recycling the same ideas over and over again -- or
at least while disguising repetitions and concealing inconsistencies --
requires
notable gifts.
David Brooks of the New York Times is a gifted columnist. Among
contemporary journalists, he is our
Walter Lippmann
, the closest thing we have to an establishment-approved public
intellectual. As was the case with Lippmann, Brooks works hard to suppress
the temptation
to rant. He shuns raw partisanship. In his frequent radio and television
appearances, he speaks in measured tones. Dry humor and ironic references
abound.
And like Lippmann, when circumstances change, he makes at least a show of
adjusting his views accordingly.
block quote end
block quote
For all that, Brooks remains an ideologue. In his columns, and even more so
in his weekly appearances on NPR and PBS, he plays the role of the
thoughtful,
non-screaming conservative, his very presence affirming the ideological
balance that, until November 8th of last year, was a prized hallmark of
respectable
journalism. Just as that balance always involved considerable posturing,
so, too, with the ostensible conservatism of David Brooks: its an act.
Praying at the Altar of American Greatness
In terms of confessional fealty, his true allegiance is not to conservatism
as such, but to the Church of America the Redeemer. This is a virtual
congregation,
albeit one possessing many of the attributes of a more traditional religion.
The Church has its own Holy Scripture, authenticated on July 4, 1776, at
a gathering of 56 prophets. And it has its own saints, prominent among them
the Good Thomas Jefferson, chief author of the sacred text (not the Bad
Thomas
Jefferson who owned and impregnated slaves); Abraham Lincoln, who freed said
slaves and thereby suffered martyrdom (on Good Friday no less); and, of
course,
the duly canonized figures most credited with saving the world itself from
evil: Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt, their status akin to that of
saints Peter and Paul in Christianity. The Church of America the Redeemer
even has its own Jerusalem, located on the banks of the Potomac, and its own
hierarchy, its members situated nearby in High Temples of varying
architectural distinction.
This ecumenical enterprise does not prize theological rigor. When it comes
to shalts and shalt nots, it tends to be flexible, if not altogether
squishy.
It demands of the faithful just one thing: a fervent belief in Americas
mission to remake the world in its own image. Although in times of crisis
Brooks
has occasionally gone a bit wobbly, he remains at heart a true believer.
In a March 1997 piece for The Weekly Standard, his then-employer, he
summarized his credo. Entitled
A Return to National Greatness
, the essay opened with a glowing tribute to the Library of Congress and,
in particular, to the building completed precisely a century earlier to
house
its many books and artifacts. According to Brooks, the structure itself
embodied the aspirations defining Americas enduring purpose. He called
particular
attention to the dome above the main reading room decorated with a dozen
monumental figures representing the advance of civilization and
culminating
in a figure representing America itself. Contemplating the imagery, Brooks
rhapsodized:
The theory of history depicted in this mural gave America impressive
historical roots, a spiritual connection to the centuries. And it assigned a
specific
historic role to America as the latest successor to Jerusalem, Athens, and
Rome. In the procession of civilization, certain nations rise up to make
extraordinary
contributions... At the dawn of the 20th century, America was to take its
turn at global supremacy. It was America's task to take the grandeur of
past
civilizations, modernize it, and democratize it. This common destiny would
unify diverse Americans and give them a great national purpose.
This February, 20 years later, in a column
with an identical title, but this time appearing in the pages of his
present employer, the New York Times, Brooks revisited this theme. Again,
he began
with a paean to the Library of Congress and its spectacular dome with its
series of monumental figures that placed America at the vanguard of the
great
human march of progress. For Brooks, those 12 allegorical figures convey a
profound truth.
America is the grateful inheritor of other peoples gifts. It has a
spiritual connection to all people in all places, but also an exceptional
role.
America culminates history. It advances a way of life and a democratic
model that will provide people everywhere with dignity. The things
Americans do
are not for themselves only, but for all mankind.
In 1997, in the midst of the Clinton presidency, Brooks had written that
Americas mission was to advance civilization itself. In 2017, as Donald
Trump
gained entry into the Oval Office, he embellished and expanded that mission,
describing a nation assigned by providence to spread democracy and
prosperity;
to welcome the stranger; to be brother and sister to the whole human race.
Back in 1997, a moment of world supremacy unlike any other, Brooks had
worried that his countrymen might not seize the opportunity that was
presenting
itself. On the cusp of the twenty-first century, he worried that Americans
had discarded their pursuit of national greatness in just about every
particular.
The times called for a leader like Theodore Roosevelt, who wielded that
classic big stick and undertook monster projects like the Panama Canal.
Yet
Americans were stuck instead with Bill Clinton, a small-bore triangulator.
We no longer look at history as a succession of golden ages, Brooks
lamented.
And, save in the speeches of politicians who usually have no clue what
they are talking about, America was no longer fulfilling its special role
as
the vanguard of civilization.
By early 2017, with Donald Trump in the White House and Steve Bannon
whispering in his ear, matters had become worse still. Americans had
seemingly abandoned
their calling outright. The Trump and Bannon anschluss has exposed the
hollowness of our patriotism, wrote Brooks, inserting the now-obligatory
reference
to Nazi Germany. The November 2016 presidential election had exposed how
attenuated our vision of national greatness has become and how easy it was
for
Trump and Bannon to replace a youthful vision of American greatness with a
reactionary, alien one. That vision now threatens to leave America as
just
another nation, hunkered down in a fearful world.
managed/bacevichamericaswar What exactly happened between 1997 and 2017, you
might ask? What occurred during that moment of world supremacy to reduce
the United States from a nation summoned to redeem humankind to one hunkered
down in fear?
Trust Brooks to have at hand a brow-furrowing explanation. The fault, he
explains, lies with an educational system that doesnt teach civilizational
history or real American history but instead a shapeless multiculturalism,
as well as with an intellectual culture that cant imagine providence.
Brooks
blames people on the left who are uncomfortable with patriotism and people
on the right who are uncomfortable with the federal government that is
necessary
to lead our project.
An America that no longer believes in itself -- thats the problem. In
effect, Brooks revises Norma Desmonds
famous complaint
about the movies, now repurposed to diagnose an ailing nation: its the
politics that got small.
Nowhere does he consider the possibility that his formula for national
greatness just might be so much hooey. Between 1997 and 2017, after all,
egged
on by people like David Brooks, Americans took a stab at greatness, with
the execrable Donald Trump now numbering among the eventual results.
Invading Greatness
Say what you will about the shortcomings of the American educational system
and the countrys intellectual culture, they had far less to do with
creating
Trump than did popular revulsion prompted by specific policies that Brooks,
among others, enthusiastically promoted. Not that he is inclined to tally up
the consequences. Only as a sort of postscript to his litany of contemporary
American ailments does he refer even in passing to what he calls the
humiliations
of Iraq.
A great phrase, that. Yet much like, say, the tragedy of Vietnam or the
crisis of Watergate, it conceals more than it reveals. Here, in short, is
a succinct historical reference that cries out for further explanation. It
bursts at the seams with implications demanding to be unpacked, weighed, and
scrutinized. Brooks shrugs off Iraq as a minor embarrassment, the
equivalent of having shown up at a dinner party wearing the wrong clothes.
Under the circumstances, its easy to forget that, back in 2003, he and
other members of the Church of America the Redeemer devoutly supported the
invasion
of Iraq. They welcomed war. They urged it. They did so not because Saddam
Hussein was uniquely evil -- although he was evil enough -- but because they
saw in such a war the means for the United States to accomplish its salvific
mission. Toppling Saddam and transforming Iraq would provide the mechanism
for affirming and renewing Americas national greatness.
Anyone daring to disagree with that proposition they denounced as craven or
cowardly. Writing at the time, Brooks
disparaged
those opposing the war as mere marchers. They were effete, pretentious,
ineffective, and absurd. These people are always in the streets with their
banners and puppets. They march against the IMF and World Bank one day, and
against whatever war happens to be going on the next... They just march
against.
Perhaps space constraints did not permit Brooks in his recent column to
spell out the humiliations that resulted and that even today continue to
accumulate.
Here in any event is a brief inventory of what that euphemism conceals:
thousands
of Americans needlessly killed; tens of thousands grievously
wounded in body or spirit; trillions
of dollars
wasted ; millions of Iraqis dead, injured, or displaced
; this nations moral standing compromised by its resort to torture,
kidnapping
, assassination, and other perversions; a region thrown into chaos and
threatened by radical terrorist entities like the Islamic State that U.S.
military
actions helped foster. And now, if only as an oblique second-order bonus,
we have Donald Trumps elevation to the presidency to boot.
In refusing to reckon with the results of the war he once so ardently
endorsed, Brooks is hardly alone. Members of the Church of America the
Redeemer,
Democrats and Republicans alike, are demonstrably incapable of rendering an
honest accounting of what their missionary efforts have yielded.
Brooks belongs, or once did, to the Churchs neoconservative branch. But
liberals such as Bill Clinton, along with his secretary of state Madeleine
Albright,
were congregants in good standing, as were Barack Obama
and his secretary of state Hillary Clinton
. So, too, are putative conservatives like Senators
John McCain , Ted Cruz , and Marco Rubio
, all of them subscribing to the belief in the singularity and
indispensability of the United States as the chief engine of history, now
and forever.
Back in April 2003, confident that the fall of Baghdad had ended the Iraq
War, Brooks predicted that no day will come when the enemies of this
endeavor
turn around and say, We were wrong. Bush was right." Rather than admitting
error, he continued, the wars opponents will just extend their forebodings
into a more distant future.
Yet it is the wars proponents who, in the intervening years, have choked on
admitting that they were wrong. Or when making such an admission, as did
both
John Kerry and Hillary Clinton while running for president, they write it
off as an aberration, a momentary lapse in judgment of no particular
significance,
like having guessed wrong on a TV quiz show.
Rather than requiring acts of contrition, the Church of America the Redeemer
has long promulgated a doctrine of self-forgiveness, freely available to all
adherents all the time. You think our countrys so innocent? the nations
45th president recently
barked
at a TV host who had the temerity to ask how he could have kind words for
the likes of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Observers professed shock
that
a sitting president would openly question American innocence.
In fact, Trumps response and the kerfuffle
that ensued both missed the point. No serious person believes that the
United States is innocent. Worshipers in the Church of America the
Redeemer do
firmly believe, however, that Americas transgressions, unlike those of
other countries, dont count against it. Once committed, such sins are
simply to
be set aside and then expunged, a process that allows American politicians
and pundits to condemn a killer like Putin with a perfectly clear
conscience
while demanding that Donald Trump do the same.
What the Russian president has done in Crimea, Ukraine, and Syria qualifies
as criminal. What American presidents have done in Iraq, Afghanistan, and
Libya
qualifies as incidental and, above all, beside the point.
Rather than confronting the havoc and bloodshed to which the United States
has contributed, those who worship in the Church of America the Redeemer
keep
their eyes fixed on the far horizon and the work still to be done in
aligning the world with American expectations. At least they would, were it
not for
the arrival at center stage of a manifestly false prophet who, in promising
to make America great again, inverts all that national greatness is
meant
to signify.
For Brooks and his fellow believers, the call to greatness emanates from
faraway precincts -- in the Middle East, East Asia, and Eastern Europe. For
Trump, the key to greatness lies in keeping faraway places and the people
who live there as faraway as possible. Brooks et al. see a world that needs
saving and believe that its Americas calling to do just that. In Trumps
view, saving others is not a peculiarly American responsibility. Events
beyond
our borders matter only to the extent that they affect Americas well-being.
Trump worships in the Church of America First, or at least pretends to do
so in order to impress his followers.
That Donald Trump inhabits a universe of his own devising, constructed of
carefully arranged alt-facts, is no doubt the case. Yet, in truth, much the
same
can be said of David Brooks and others sharing his view of a country
providentially charged to serve as the successor to Jerusalem, Athens, and
Rome.
In fact, this conception of Americas purpose expresses not the intent of
providence, which is inherently ambiguous, but their own arrogance and
conceit.
Out of that conceit comes much mischief. And in the wake of mischief come
charlatans like Donald Trump.
Andrew J. Bacevich, a TomDispatch regular , is the author of
Americas War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History
, now out in paperback
.
Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook
. Check out the newest Dispatch Book, John Feffer's dystopian novel
Splinterlands
, as well as Nick Turses
Next Time Theyll Come to Count the Dead
, and Tom Engelhardt's latest book, Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret
Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single-Superpower World
.
Copyright 2017 Andrew J. Bacevich
block quote end
© 2017 TomDispatch. All rights reserved. View this story online at:
http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176246/TomDispatch: Tomgram: Andrew
Bacevich, At the Altar of American Greatness
TomDispatch
Tomgram: Andrew Bacevich, At the Altar of American Greatness
By Andrew Bacevich Posted on February 23, 2017, Printed on February 24, 2017
http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176246/ ;
The members of what TomDispatch regular Andrew Bacevich, author of Americas
War for the Greater Middle East , calls the Church of America the Redeemer
are in some disarray these days and in quite an uproar over the new Pope and
his aberrant set of cardinals now ensconced in Washington. Perhaps there was
no more striking -- or shocking -- evidence of that than the brief comments
that hit the front page of the
New York Times last week in an article
on a month of turmoil in the Trump White House, but never became a
headline story nationally. Amid the hurricane of news about the fall
of national security adviser of 24 days
Michael Flynn, the
reported contacts of Trump associates with Russia, and a flurry of leaks
to
major papers
from what are assumedly significant figures in the intelligence community
(talk about "
feud
"!), one thing should have stood out. Heres the passage from that
Times piece
: "Gen. Tony Thomas, head of the militarys Special Operations Command,
expressed concern about upheaval inside the White House. 'Our government
continues
to be in unbelievable turmoil. I hope they sort it out soon because were a
nation at war,' he said at a military conference on Tuesday. Asked about his
comments later, General Thomas said in a brief interview, 'As a commander,
Im concerned our government be as stable as possible.'
It may not have looked like much, but it should have stunned
the news media and the country. That it didnt tells us a great deal about
how the U.S. has changed since September 11, 2001. Thomas, the head of the
crème de la crème, secretive military force (all
70,000
of them) cocooned inside the U.S. military, had just broken the unwritten
rules of the American political game in a major way. He fired what amounted
to an implicit warning shot across the bow of the Trump administration's
listing ship of state: Mr. President, we are at war and you better get your
house
in order fast. Really? Direct public criticism of the president from a top
commander in a military once renowned for its commitment to staying above
the
political fray? Consider that something new under the sun and evidence that
what might once have been considered a cliché -- sooner or later wars always
come home -- is now an ever more realistic description of just where weve
ended up 15-plus years after the Bush administration launched the war on
terror.
Seven days in May? Maybe not, but when the nation's top special warrior
starts worrying in public about whether civilian leaders are up to the task
of
governing, it's no ordinary day in February.
Its true, of course, that in many graphic ways -- including the migration
of
spying devices developed on this country's distant battlefields to police
departments here,
drone surveillance flights
not in Afghanistan but over this country, and the increasing
militarization of our police -- our wars in the Greater Middle East have
indeed made their way back to the homeland. Still, not like this, not
directly
into the sacrosanct heartland of democracy and of the political elite, into
what Bacevich might call the precincts of the American political Vatican,
where
those like New York Times columnist David Brooks once happily opined about
American greatness. It seems that were now plunged into the political
equivalent
of war in the nations capital, even if in the fog of battle its still a
little hard to tell just who is who on that battlefield.
Tom
block quote
Angst in the Church of America the Redeemer
David Brooks on Making America Great Again
By Andrew J. Bacevich
Apart from being a police officer, firefighter, or soldier engaged in one of
this nations endless wars, writing a column for a major American newspaper
has got to be one of the toughest and most unforgiving jobs there is. The
pay may be decent (at least if your gig is with one of the major papers in
New
York or Washington), but the pressures to perform on cue are undoubtedly
relentless.
Anyone who has ever tried cramming a coherent and ostensibly insightful
argument into a mere 750 words knows what Im talking about. Writing op-eds
does
not perhaps qualify as high art. Yet, like tying flies or knitting
sweaters, it requires no small amount of skill. Performing the trick week
in and week
out without too obviously recycling the same ideas over and over again -- or
at least while disguising repetitions and concealing inconsistencies --
requires
notable gifts.
David Brooks of the New York Times is a gifted columnist. Among
contemporary journalists, he is our
Walter Lippmann
, the closest thing we have to an establishment-approved public
intellectual. As was the case with Lippmann, Brooks works hard to suppress
the temptation
to rant. He shuns raw partisanship. In his frequent radio and television
appearances, he speaks in measured tones. Dry humor and ironic references
abound.
And like Lippmann, when circumstances change, he makes at least a show of
adjusting his views accordingly.
block quote end
block quote
For all that, Brooks remains an ideologue. In his columns, and even more so
in his weekly appearances on NPR and PBS, he plays the role of the
thoughtful,
non-screaming conservative, his very presence affirming the ideological
balance that, until November 8th of last year, was a prized hallmark of
respectable
journalism. Just as that balance always involved considerable posturing,
so, too, with the ostensible conservatism of David Brooks: its an act.
Praying at the Altar of American Greatness
In terms of confessional fealty, his true allegiance is not to conservatism
as such, but to the Church of America the Redeemer. This is a virtual
congregation,
albeit one possessing many of the attributes of a more traditional religion.
The Church has its own Holy Scripture, authenticated on July 4, 1776, at
a gathering of 56 prophets. And it has its own saints, prominent among them
the Good Thomas Jefferson, chief author of the sacred text (not the Bad
Thomas
Jefferson who owned and impregnated slaves); Abraham Lincoln, who freed said
slaves and thereby suffered martyrdom (on Good Friday no less); and, of
course,
the duly canonized figures most credited with saving the world itself from
evil: Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt, their status akin to that of
saints Peter and Paul in Christianity. The Church of America the Redeemer
even has its own Jerusalem, located on the banks of the Potomac, and its own
hierarchy, its members situated nearby in High Temples of varying
architectural distinction.
This ecumenical enterprise does not prize theological rigor. When it comes
to shalts and shalt nots, it tends to be flexible, if not altogether
squishy.
It demands of the faithful just one thing: a fervent belief in Americas
mission to remake the world in its own image. Although in times of crisis
Brooks
has occasionally gone a bit wobbly, he remains at heart a true believer.
In a March 1997 piece for The Weekly Standard, his then-employer, he
summarized his credo. Entitled
A Return to National Greatness
, the essay opened with a glowing tribute to the Library of Congress and,
in particular, to the building completed precisely a century earlier to
house
its many books and artifacts. According to Brooks, the structure itself
embodied the aspirations defining Americas enduring purpose. He called
particular
attention to the dome above the main reading room decorated with a dozen
monumental figures representing the advance of civilization and
culminating
in a figure representing America itself. Contemplating the imagery, Brooks
rhapsodized:
The theory of history depicted in this mural gave America impressive
historical roots, a spiritual connection to the centuries. And it assigned a
specific
historic role to America as the latest successor to Jerusalem, Athens, and
Rome. In the procession of civilization, certain nations rise up to make
extraordinary
contributions... At the dawn of the 20th century, America was to take its
turn at global supremacy. It was America's task to take the grandeur of
past
civilizations, modernize it, and democratize it. This common destiny would
unify diverse Americans and give them a great national purpose.
This February, 20 years later, in a column
with an identical title, but this time appearing in the pages of his
present employer, the New York Times, Brooks revisited this theme. Again,
he began
with a paean to the Library of Congress and its spectacular dome with its
series of monumental figures that placed America at the vanguard of the
great
human march of progress. For Brooks, those 12 allegorical figures convey a
profound truth.
America is the grateful inheritor of other peoples gifts. It has a
spiritual connection to all people in all places, but also an exceptional
role.
America culminates history. It advances a way of life and a democratic
model that will provide people everywhere with dignity. The things
Americans do
are not for themselves only, but for all mankind.
In 1997, in the midst of the Clinton presidency, Brooks had written that
Americas mission was to advance civilization itself. In 2017, as Donald
Trump
gained entry into the Oval Office, he embellished and expanded that mission,
describing a nation assigned by providence to spread democracy and
prosperity;
to welcome the stranger; to be brother and sister to the whole human race.
Back in 1997, a moment of world supremacy unlike any other, Brooks had
worried that his countrymen might not seize the opportunity that was
presenting
itself. On the cusp of the twenty-first century, he worried that Americans
had discarded their pursuit of national greatness in just about every
particular.
The times called for a leader like Theodore Roosevelt, who wielded that
classic big stick and undertook monster projects like the Panama Canal.
Yet
Americans were stuck instead with Bill Clinton, a small-bore triangulator.
We no longer look at history as a succession of golden ages, Brooks
lamented.
And, save in the speeches of politicians who usually have no clue what
they are talking about, America was no longer fulfilling its special role
as
the vanguard of civilization.
By early 2017, with Donald Trump in the White House and Steve Bannon
whispering in his ear, matters had become worse still. Americans had
seemingly abandoned
their calling outright. The Trump and Bannon anschluss has exposed the
hollowness of our patriotism, wrote Brooks, inserting the now-obligatory
reference
to Nazi Germany. The November 2016 presidential election had exposed how
attenuated our vision of national greatness has become and how easy it was
for
Trump and Bannon to replace a youthful vision of American greatness with a
reactionary, alien one. That vision now threatens to leave America as
just
another nation, hunkered down in a fearful world.
managed/bacevichamericaswar What exactly happened between 1997 and 2017, you
might ask? What occurred during that moment of world supremacy to reduce
the United States from a nation summoned to redeem humankind to one hunkered
down in fear?
Trust Brooks to have at hand a brow-furrowing explanation. The fault, he
explains, lies with an educational system that doesnt teach civilizational
history or real American history but instead a shapeless multiculturalism,
as well as with an intellectual culture that cant imagine providence.
Brooks
blames people on the left who are uncomfortable with patriotism and people
on the right who are uncomfortable with the federal government that is
necessary
to lead our project.
An America that no longer believes in itself -- thats the problem. In
effect, Brooks revises Norma Desmonds
famous complaint
about the movies, now repurposed to diagnose an ailing nation: its the
politics that got small.
Nowhere does he consider the possibility that his formula for national
greatness just might be so much hooey. Between 1997 and 2017, after all,
egged
on by people like David Brooks, Americans took a stab at greatness, with
the execrable Donald Trump now numbering among the eventual results.
Invading Greatness
Say what you will about the shortcomings of the American educational system
and the countrys intellectual culture, they had far less to do with
creating
Trump than did popular revulsion prompted by specific policies that Brooks,
among others, enthusiastically promoted. Not that he is inclined to tally up
the consequences. Only as a sort of postscript to his litany of contemporary
American ailments does he refer even in passing to what he calls the
humiliations
of Iraq.
A great phrase, that. Yet much like, say, the tragedy of Vietnam or the
crisis of Watergate, it conceals more than it reveals. Here, in short, is
a succinct historical reference that cries out for further explanation. It
bursts at the seams with implications demanding to be unpacked, weighed, and
scrutinized. Brooks shrugs off Iraq as a minor embarrassment, the
equivalent of having shown up at a dinner party wearing the wrong clothes.
Under the circumstances, its easy to forget that, back in 2003, he and
other members of the Church of America the Redeemer devoutly supported the
invasion
of Iraq. They welcomed war. They urged it. They did so not because Saddam
Hussein was uniquely evil -- although he was evil enough -- but because they
saw in such a war the means for the United States to accomplish its salvific
mission. Toppling Saddam and transforming Iraq would provide the mechanism
for affirming and renewing Americas national greatness.
Anyone daring to disagree with that proposition they denounced as craven or
cowardly. Writing at the time, Brooks
disparaged
those opposing the war as mere marchers. They were effete, pretentious,
ineffective, and absurd. These people are always in the streets with their
banners and puppets. They march against the IMF and World Bank one day, and
against whatever war happens to be going on the next... They just march
against.
Perhaps space constraints did not permit Brooks in his recent column to
spell out the humiliations that resulted and that even today continue to
accumulate.
Here in any event is a brief inventory of what that euphemism conceals:
thousands
of Americans needlessly killed; tens of thousands grievously
wounded in body or spirit; trillions
of dollars
wasted ; millions of Iraqis dead, injured, or displaced
; this nations moral standing compromised by its resort to torture,
kidnapping
, assassination, and other perversions; a region thrown into chaos and
threatened by radical terrorist entities like the Islamic State that U.S.
military
actions helped foster. And now, if only as an oblique second-order bonus,
we have Donald Trumps elevation to the presidency to boot.
In refusing to reckon with the results of the war he once so ardently
endorsed, Brooks is hardly alone. Members of the Church of America the
Redeemer,
Democrats and Republicans alike, are demonstrably incapable of rendering an
honest accounting of what their missionary efforts have yielded.
Brooks belongs, or once did, to the Churchs neoconservative branch. But
liberals such as Bill Clinton, along with his secretary of state Madeleine
Albright,
were congregants in good standing, as were Barack Obama
and his secretary of state Hillary Clinton
. So, too, are putative conservatives like Senators
John McCain , Ted Cruz , and Marco Rubio
, all of them subscribing to the belief in the singularity and
indispensability of the United States as the chief engine of history, now
and forever.
Back in April 2003, confident that the fall of Baghdad had ended the Iraq
War, Brooks predicted that no day will come when the enemies of this
endeavor
turn around and say, We were wrong. Bush was right." Rather than admitting
error, he continued, the wars opponents will just extend their forebodings
into a more distant future.
Yet it is the wars proponents who, in the intervening years, have choked on
admitting that they were wrong. Or when making such an admission, as did
both
John Kerry and Hillary Clinton while running for president, they write it
off as an aberration, a momentary lapse in judgment of no particular
significance,
like having guessed wrong on a TV quiz show.
Rather than requiring acts of contrition, the Church of America the Redeemer
has long promulgated a doctrine of self-forgiveness, freely available to all
adherents all the time. You think our countrys so innocent? the nations
45th president recently
barked
at a TV host who had the temerity to ask how he could have kind words for
the likes of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Observers professed shock
that
a sitting president would openly question American innocence.
In fact, Trumps response and the kerfuffle
that ensued both missed the point. No serious person believes that the
United States is innocent. Worshipers in the Church of America the
Redeemer do
firmly believe, however, that Americas transgressions, unlike those of
other countries, dont count against it. Once committed, such sins are
simply to
be set aside and then expunged, a process that allows American politicians
and pundits to condemn a killer like Putin with a perfectly clear
conscience
while demanding that Donald Trump do the same.
What the Russian president has done in Crimea, Ukraine, and Syria qualifies
as criminal. What American presidents have done in Iraq, Afghanistan, and
Libya
qualifies as incidental and, above all, beside the point.
Rather than confronting the havoc and bloodshed to which the United States
has contributed, those who worship in the Church of America the Redeemer
keep
their eyes fixed on the far horizon and the work still to be done in
aligning the world with American expectations. At least they would, were it
not for
the arrival at center stage of a manifestly false prophet who, in promising
to make America great again, inverts all that national greatness is
meant
to signify.
For Brooks and his fellow believers, the call to greatness emanates from
faraway precincts -- in the Middle East, East Asia, and Eastern Europe. For
Trump, the key to greatness lies in keeping faraway places and the people
who live there as faraway as possible. Brooks et al. see a world that needs
saving and believe that its Americas calling to do just that. In Trumps
view, saving others is not a peculiarly American responsibility. Events
beyond
our borders matter only to the extent that they affect Americas well-being.
Trump worships in the Church of America First, or at least pretends to do
so in order to impress his followers.
That Donald Trump inhabits a universe of his own devising, constructed of
carefully arranged alt-facts, is no doubt the case. Yet, in truth, much the
same
can be said of David Brooks and others sharing his view of a country
providentially charged to serve as the successor to Jerusalem, Athens, and
Rome.
In fact, this conception of Americas purpose expresses not the intent of
providence, which is inherently ambiguous, but their own arrogance and
conceit.
Out of that conceit comes much mischief. And in the wake of mischief come
charlatans like Donald Trump.
Andrew J. Bacevich, a TomDispatch regular , is the author of
Americas War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History
, now out in paperback
.
Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook
. Check out the newest Dispatch Book, John Feffer's dystopian novel
Splinterlands
, as well as Nick Turses
Next Time Theyll Come to Count the Dead
, and Tom Engelhardt's latest book, Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret
Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single-Superpower World
.
Copyright 2017 Andrew J. Bacevich
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