Helplessly, We Await the Catastrophe Our Rulers Ar

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From: Jorge M ([e-mail])
Subject: A Disturbing Article
From Ludwig von Mises Institute President's Website
Date: 2002-09-24 21:18:15 PST
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Helplessly, We Await the Catastrophe
Our Rulers Are Creating.
by Robert Higgs

I cannot stop thinking of 1939, when everyone could see the war coming
and no one, it seemed, could do anything to stop it. Contemplating the
impending catastrophe, W. H. Auden wrote,

In the nightmare of the dark
All the dogs of Europe bark,
And the living nations wait,
Each sequestered in its hate;
Intellectual disgrace
Stares from every human face
And the seas of pity lie
Locked and frozen in each eye.

("In Memory of W. B. Yeats," 1939)

Today, the dogs of war are barking not in Europe but in the District
of Columbia, and again people are looking on helplessly as the tragedy
unfolds. We see the disaster being designed and touted, we observe the
intellectual disgrace staring from the faces of George W. Bush and his
advisers, and we note the seas of pity lying locked and frozen in
their eyes. Yet we can do nothing to prevent the makers of this coming
calamity from carrying out the devastation.

I wonder if they ever lie awake at night and imagine the faces of the
men, women, and children – people they do not know, people who do not
know them and who cannot harm them – who will be dead soon, their
bodies crushed, ripped, and burned by the force of U.S. munitions
exploding in their streets, homes, shops, schools, and hospitals.
Those bombs are smart, no doubt, but they are better at math than at
morality. Even when they work as they are supposed to, they are not
smart enough to discriminate between the innocent and the guilty as
they detonate in a densely populated urban area such as Baghdad. Do
Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld sleep peacefully nowadays, or do they
awake haunted by visions of the innocent strangers they are preparing
to obliterate? Do they rise at midnight to wash their hands, only to
find that they cannot cleanse the damned spot?

In Congress, the politicians declare their strong support for the
president's new policy of global preemptive wars and, in particular,
for his impending assault on the ailing, impoverished, nearly
defenseless Iraqis. The legislators dare not oppose the president's
plan, because then their electoral opponents would call their
patriotism into question. Their patriotism, it seems, requires that
they sacrifice their clear constitutional duty for the sake of
campaign appearances. A deeper patriotism – an allegiance to the
principles of the American Republic – lies beyond their comprehension.
In the name of a vulgar and superficial patriotism, they forsake all
loyalty to the traditions that once made the United States a beacon of
freedom, rather than a world-ranging bully to be feared and loathed.
Congress may posture and pretend, but it will do nothing substantial
to exercise its constitutional authority to decide whether to commit
the nation to war. Better to go along, to pass a vague, blank-check
resolution. Later, if the war goes badly, the members can criticize
it; if it goes well, they can take credit for supporting it; but in no
event will they put themselves in a position to be held genuinely
accountable.

So, with our supine and cowardly representatives unwilling to resist
the chief executive's usurpations, "we the people" can only wait and
watch as the president allows his strings to be pulled by people for
whom war will be not the last resort but the option they will exercise
as soon as they perceive a threat, however modest, to their mastery of
the world. The old boundaries have become irrelevant. No longer does
the U.S. government content itself to rule over a vast continental
domain. No longer does it find satisfaction merely in a Monroe
Doctrine that proclaims its hegemony in the Western Hemisphere. No,
our rulers have declared in sufficiently plain language, in their new
"National Security Strategy of the United States," made public on
September 20, that they intend to dominate the entire world. Some
members of the political class speak openly of empire; others avoid
the word but embrace the substance. Make no mistake, however: the
American Republic is no longer just sick unto death; it is stone-cold
dead.

Although many ordinary Americans appear to have no quarrel with what
is being done in their name, many others oppose this imperial
impudence and the brutalities that express and sustain it. For the
dissidents, the government has prepared a suitable reception. The TIPS
informants are getting ready to report suspicions about them. The
prison cells wait to receive more "material witnesses," "enemy
combatants," and anyone accused, no matter how baselessly, of aiding
or abetting alleged terrorists. For these unfortunates, no writ of
habeas corpus will spoil the government's day; no defense lawyer's
shadow will darken the doorway of its secret interrogations. As the
president and Attorney General John Ashcroft have made clear, if you
are not with the government, you are against it, and they have
demonstrated already how far they are willing to go to deal with those
who are against. Henceforth, thanks to the USA PATRIOT Act, all of us
will be subject to closer surveillance. As we are ever more
systematically monitored and regimented by our own government, even
the elementary freedoms of movement, speech, and assembly will go by
the board. In time, all of us will learn to keep quiet, if we know
what is good for us and our families.

We are told that the government's new policies, with their perpetual
wars "to keep the peace," will bring us security, but they will not do
so. Instead, the American empire's global violence will create a
bottomless reservoir of vengeful terrorists. By insisting on poking
its imperial stick into every hornet's nest on the planet, the U.S.
government will ensure that Americans will continue to be stung.
Wherever they may travel, at home or abroad, they will be at risk of
attack by aggrieved men and women.

Perhaps we should not weep. Maybe a once-free people who surrenders
its liberties so readily, so unjustifiably, deserves nothing better.
Meanwhile, we can only wait helplessly for our masters to commence the
catastrophe in Iraq, and heaven only knows where else.

September 23, 2002

Robert Higgs [send him mail] is senior fellow in political economy at
the Independent Institute, editor of The Independent Review, and
author of Crisis and Leviathan and numerous scholarly and popular
articles on Congress.

Robert Higgs Archives

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