Mr. Malic, though entirely correct in his appraisal of the outrage, alas, offers no reason for it. What may we ask was this war waged for? Was it strategic, for minerals, or because Milosevic couldn’t be bribed to sell out his country and join the EU perhaps? Or just part of the New World Order planning?
Nebojsa Malic replies:
Only those who started the war know the real reason for it. It could even be they believed their own lies – which makes it all that more horrifying. All I know for a fact is that their official reasons are lies, and that’s easy enough to verify just by reading their shifting propaganda. There are certainly many theories; I think Washington did it to revive the moribund NATO as its instrument of dominance in Europe (since Holbrooke was all about reasserting U.S. power). For Russophobes, smashing up Serbia was an added slap to the hated Moscow. And of course, rewarding sycophantic allies (Albanians) and beating up on the only independent government in the region (Serbia) would not have been irrelevant, either. In the end, it’s a little bit of everything, and all in the service of power, i.e., the Empire.
Why do I always feel like killing myself after reading a Malic article?
Nebojsa Malic replies:
Marsha,
I hope you don’t really feel suicidal; depressed I would understand. I feel depressed often, just looking at the travesty of a world we live in today. If I’m cynical and pessimistic, that’s only because I consider wishful thinking and delusions the enemy of truth – and thus the enemy of justice. But suicide would be kind of foolish. Plus it would be doing the Empire a favor. It cannot really win, as long as there is at least one soul out there who refuses to bow to it. Right now, there are plenty. That should be enough for hope.
“No one can blame an American soldier for wanting to come home in one piece. No one can blame him for doing whatever he, on the spot, thinks is necessary for his own survival.”
The one and only reason for armies to exist is to protect civilians. The American soldiers in Iraq are not there to protect American civilians, they are supposed to be there – according to the last remaining justification for the war – to liberate the Iraqi people. So they are supposed to protect the Iraqi people, by risking their own life if necessary.
Even if the war is stupid, the soldiers are there to protect civilians, not themselves. For a soldier to put his own life before that of the civilian population is an act of cowardice. So no, there can be no justification for indiscriminate shooting. It is a war crime.
Mr. Reese cannot think of one reason why Giuliana Sgrena would have been shot at deliberately. We in Europe can think of a powerful reason: the United States Army does not want foreign journalists to report on the atrocities committed by the occupying forces in Iraq. That’s the reason why many foreign journalists have been killed by U.S. troops. Only journalists embedded within units of the U.S. Army are allowed to be in Iraq. Of course, we know that whatever they report will be conveniently revised to suit the Army’s guidelines.
The most meaningful example of deliberate killing was that of the Spanish journalist of Antena 3 TV, José Couso. He was at the 14th floor of the Palestine Hotel when a U.S. tank parked over a nearby bridge, turned its turret toward the hotel, raised its cannon and fired a single missile against the room where Jose Couso was standing, blowing him up to bits. That was not accidental killing but premeditated murder. Regrettably, Spain’s then-prime minister José Maria Aznar, contrary to what Mr. Berlusconi has done in the case of Giuliana Sgrena, did not have the decency to ask the U.S. for an explanation, and Mr. Couso´s family was forced to ask the European Parliament to investigate the assassination.
Toward a Sensible Israel Policy
A sensible Israel policy requires first a sensible analysis of the Middle East’s various players and their interests.
It is disconcerting to find a neocon/Israeli propaganda canard in a publication that claims to lead the opposition to the neocon agenda:
“Identical pressure should be put on President Abbas; he, with our support, will have to face down the Saudi despots and the other Arab tyrants who support him only as long as he blocks peace.”
Since the days of Nasser and Abdullah, Arab despots have been ready to sell their grandmothers to get the Israeli Palestinian conflict out of their way. Indeed, two Arab despots, Abdullah and Sadat, were a bit too eager, and were assassinated for that reason precisely.
Arab despots are eager to see Abbas agree to everything the U.S. and Israel want. Jordanian Abdullah just asked the Arab League to normalize relations with Israel, and Mubarak wants to help Abbas build a police state in Palestine (he does know how); Mubarak just received lavish praise for that honorable “aid” from none other than Mofaz, Israel’s defense minister.
Saudis do fund Hamas, but certainly not in order to block peace, but rather in order to bolster their Islamic credentials and legitimacy and maintain influence in Palestinian politics. In fact, the Saudi government has been long trying to pressure both Arafat and Hamas to moderate their positions. That is, for example, a claim made a few years ago (“Saudi pressure on Arafat has failed“) by Israeli journalist Ze’ev Schiff, who gets his information directly from Israel’s top intelligence officers.
The Jerusalem Post, not known for its support of Palestinian resistance, agrees. It claimed, based again on Israeli intelligence, that Saudi support for Palestinian militants was motivated by the desire to hasten the end of the second Intifada, which threatened regional destabilization.
The only Arab despot who doesn’t want the Palestinians to surrender just yet is Assad, and that too, only because he’s afraid of losing another chip that could help him getting back the Golan Heights. Assad and his father before him have been ready for years to sign a peace deal in return for the Golan land and forget Palestinians. Syria has no interest in Palestinian resistance beyond that, and no other despot has. The Palestinian resistance is a constant reminder – until the Iraq invasion, the only reminder – that abject surrender to Western interests is not the only choice open to Arabs. If you believe Arab despots enjoy being reminded of that, you’ve been reading too many AIPAC press releases.
While Michael Scheuer’s argument for a rethink of the U.S.-Israel relationship is welcome and long overdue, his understanding of the history and dynamics of the Israel/Palestine conflict falls far short of his knowledge of U.S. history. His analysis is flawed in several key respects:
1) Israel is a “tiny, embattled democracy in the Arab world”? A colonizing movement called Zionism enters a part of the Arab world, Palestine, under the protection of British bayonets. Its aim is to set up an exclusively Jewish state, necessarily at the expense of Palestine’s indigenous Arab inhabitants, the bulk of whom are ethnically cleansed from their homes and lands under the cover of the 1948-49 war, leaving behind a Jewish majority in the territories overrun by Zionist forces. To cut to the chase, pre-’67 Israeli “democracy” is predicated on a consistent policy of refusing the right of return to these ethnically cleansed Palestinian refugees, thus disenfranchising them and rendering them stateless. Apartheid South Africa’s disenfranchised blacks were at least spared expulsion. Israeli democracy is thus based on the forced disenfranchisement of millions of its potential citizens. Only when these refugees are able to return to their homes and lands in what is now Israel as full and equal citizens with Israel’s present population will Israel truly become a democracy. Nor should one be fooled by the fact that those Palestinians who managed to avoid expulsion in ’48-’49, the so-called Israeli Arabs, can now vote in the Israeli Knesset: in a genuine democracy they would also have the same access to the land and other material resources of the country as their Jewish fellow citizens. They do not – the bulk of the land of Israel being designated in law as belonging to its Jewish citizens alone as well as to Jews the world over.
2) Israel was never an “underdog” – after or before it acquired nuclear weapons. It has always played Goliath to the Arab states and the Palestinians’ David. It’s time Michael Scheuer junked his dog-eared copy of Leon Uris’ Exodus and read Stephen Green’s Taking Sides, America’s Secret Relations with a Militant Israel 1948/1967 (1984). Much of Green’s revealing research for 1948, the year of Israel’s birth, and after, is based on U.S. intelligence reports obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.
3) “Their endless war, their half-century of reckless intransigence … their willful 50-year failure to find a way to live with each other in a state other than war”!? Israel and Palestine are not engaged, and have never been engaged, in a conventional military slugfest. What has gone on in the past 50 plus years in Palestine, and is still going on, is just another variation on cowboys and Indians. As such, it is a hopelessly one-sided contest between Zionist colonizers, initially boosted by Imperial Britain, and now backed to the hilt by Imperial America, and a virtually defenseless indigenous population, most of whom were expelled in ’48-’49, while the remainder are grimly trying to hang on to the last bits of historical Palestine left to them. Michael Scheuer’s words, quoted above, are a gross misrepresentation of the conflict. And only someone who has no idea of what is going on, or has been going on, in Palestine over the last half century can talk of the need for “Palestinian compromises.”
The U.S., having massively subsidized Israeli intransigence since the late ’40s, is directly responsible for steamrollering the hapless Palestinians. The U.S., therefore, owes the Palestinian people infinitely more than a rethink on its relationship with Israel. That, however, would at least be a start.
~ Colin Andersen, Deir Yassin Remembered, Sydney, Australia
Gordon Prather,
In my opinion, you are the go-to man these days for plain-speaking analysis of what’s going on with Iran’s nuclear program, the negotiations with the EU3 and the U.S. response. Excellent stuff!
But in your “Nuts to Bush” column, you didn’t mention anything about media reports that the EU3 supposedly agreed with Bush to refer Iran to the Security Council (SC) if Iran fails to permanently halt its uranium-enrichment activities. Since, as you remind us in your column, “Iran has repeatedly proclaimed that any long-term EU-Iran agreement must recognize – at a minimum – Iran’s inalienable right to enrich uranium,” it would seem that Bush has put the EU3 in his back pocket, and that Iran’s position means that it will inevitably be referred to the SC (leaving aside for the moment the mechanics of how the SC reference would work if the IAEA Board is unwilling to play along and that such a referral based on the alleged U.S.-EU3 agreement would violate a central principle of the NPT).
Or were the media reports simply wrong? I notice that the U.S. State Department had this to say about the U.S.-EU3 agreement (“U.S. Support for the EU-3“): “In order to support the EU-3’s diplomacy, the president has decided that the U.S. will drop its objection to Iran’s application to the World Trade Organization and will consider, on a case by case basis, the licensing of spare-parts for Iranian civilian aircraft, in particular from the EU to Iran.”
In the full statement, there’s no mention of a joint U.S.-EU3 decision to try to get Iran to surrender its enrichment program, which, as you also remind us, has not enriched anything yet.
I don’t see a copy of the text of the March 11 U.S.-EU3 agreement at the State Department Web site, nor at other Web sites that track nuclear issues, such as Carnegie’s Proliferation News and Resources. So what in fact did the U.S. and EU3 really agree to regarding Iran?
Hope you can squeeze in a comment or two about this in an upcoming column.
Gordon Prather replies:
I have not seen any verification by EU negotiators that they have agreed to what Bush et al. say they have agreed to. Nor any reaction from Iranian negotiators to such an agreement having been reached or even to the reports of such an agreement. But I have seen reports by both Russians and Europeans that Russia is in agreement with the EU’s position in the EU-Iranian negotiations, which can hardly mean the EU is demanding that Iran give up uranium enrichment permanently.
“That neoconservatism owes more to the legacy and spirit of the founder of the Red Army than it does to the canons of a recognizable conservatism is a point to which the neocons are especially sensitive,” writes Justin Raimondo; and it seems to be a current throughout his columns that the Bush administration’s foreign policy (which he calls imperialist) is essentially a manifestation of left-wing socialist internationalism. How then, is it possible that the entire modern socialist movement, articulated by sources such as the World Socialist Web Site and The Militant, repudiates Bush and his policies, which they also describe hatefully as “imperialist”?
Surely Mr. Raimondo must know that any socialist today, whom he prods about the connections between his internationalism and current American foreign policy, would vehemently deny any relationship and declare his staunch opposition to American “imperialism.” Mr. Raimondo has seen the socialist composition of the antiwar camp; it is rather odd that as he counts himself a member of the same movement, he paints these resolutely anti-imperialist protesters with the same brush as the Bush administration.
How is it possible to square Justin Raimondo’s description of neoconservatism as a left-wing ideology with the mutual opposition of left (socialist) and right (imperialist) camps, not only in the United States but in all of the advanced countries in the world (Europe in particular)? Has the mutual hatred and enmity of every “neoconservative” and “socialist” been misguided? Has the entire course of political debate in advanced countries over the last hundred-plus years amounted to nothing?
How can it be that European social-democrats and right-wing imperialists, whose struggle has defined political life in Europe (and to a lesser extent, in America) since the late 1800s, how can almost the whole populations of these developed countries been unanimously wrong about their own political allegiances, for all of modern history?
The impression that the American government is waging an honest struggle for democracy should be easy to discredit, and someone as well-read as Mr. Raimondo should have no trouble seeing through it. There are a thousand examples that show the two-faced and hypocritical nature of the American administration’s selective opposition to “tyranny.” To summarize a few of them, we only need to mention America’s installation and support of the repressive shah in Iran until 1979. When America’s autocratic shah was overthrown, the American government supported the Evil Dictator Saddam Hussein against Iran. The state-terrorist Contra war in Nicaragua and the bloody installation of Augusto Pinochet are further examples. To this day, American administrations are perfectly content to maintain a barbaric monarchy in Saudi Arabia and military dictatorship in Pakistan. Justin Raimondo cannot be unaware of this; how can he possibly maintain his belief that America is today acting altruistically(!) in the interests of global democracy?
It should be clear that the American government is cynically manipulating the altruistic and democratic feelings of the American people to confuse them into supporting its strategic, imperialist interests.
Zbigniew Brzezinski’s book The Grand Chessboard and many other sources should assist in exposing the neoconservative and imperialist lie that the American government is really interested in the spread of democracy, beyond the point where “democracy” means the opening of foreign resources and markets to American domination. I do not understand why Mr. Raimondo echoes this plank of the neoconservatives; would he not find it much easier to build a principled opposition to “brutal imperialism” than to humanitarian altruism, generosity, and neoconservative”good intentions”?
“18-Mar 1 Pfc. Lee A. Lewis, Jr 28, of Norfolk, Va., died Mar. 18 in Sadr City, Iraq, when his patrol was attacked by enemy small arms fire. Lewis was assigned to 3rd Battalion, 15th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division, Fort Stewart, Ga.”
This really isn’t that much of a submission, but that’s my uncle, and I Googled his name and got this site – and all I could do was stare at his name. This war is extremely pointless, and it’s a horrible shame we lost him to it; every single person in my family agrees, and he was a beautiful man lost in vain.
The International Highway to Hell
I can see why some of the wounded soldiers may express a wish to return to the battle zone in Iraq. The process of brainwashing starts from a very early age. Beginning with the Pledge of Allegiance in the elementary school and the lies and half-truths taught in history books, and continuing with our movies, media, and politicians, including the president, our future soldiers are inculcated with a false sense of obligation to fight any war no matter how illegal.
Our patriotism to the U.S. does not mean that we have to honor illegal wars or criminal actions by some of our leaders. Might does not make right. World history is not written exclusively by the American demagogue historians. Destroying the country in the name of “democracy” does not wash the crime committed by our leaders.
Let us not forget that the very first casualty in any war is always the truth. It is these lies and the profits for the selected groups that keep the wars going and our people getting wounded and killed (needlessly). The media is an active participant in this conspiracy against justice. You mentioned the case of Indonesia being apprehensive about our presence in their waters. They may remember 1965 when the civil war “erupted” and about 1,000,000 Indonesians died. According to several reliable sources, including our own ambassador at that time in Indonesia, our ambassador was supplying the military junta the names of the progressives to be executed. The worst part of that was that there was not a single line in our media exposing this crime. So much for the free “democratic American” press.
True Democracy practices Vox populi, vox Dei (“the voice of the people is the voice of God”), and is not in the U.S. As long as we are being fed a bunch of lies wrapped in the Old Glory National Flag, we shall have misplaced patriotism and delusions as to what we should fight for.
Rendition, or Outsourcing Torture?
That the U.S. administration states that it does not send prisoners to countries that use torture for interrogation is pathetic. Since when has the U.S. needed anybody’s help to interrogate prisoners? How many prisoners were returned to Britain and Australia, core countries in the coalition of the grilling, “for interrogation”? None, zero, zilch. And how many were “rendered” to non-coalition countries that use torture? The numbers speak for themselves, except they can only speak the truth. Numbers cannot spin.
America’s Ready for Withdrawal – but Are Progressives?
Solomon wrote an excellent piece explaining why we shouldn’t be in Iraq and why we should leave sooner than later. But I take offense to his listing of “national organizations … providing forthright leadership to pursue the goal of getting U.S. troops out of Iraq.” I find it interesting that he specifically did not address any political parties who are also leading the fight. May I suggest that Mr. Solomon revisit his old Green Party platform. Fortunately for real progressives in this country, we still have ONE non-corporate controlled political party that has ALWAYS stood for peace and NEVER backed this war.
Let’s give credit where credit is due – especially when we all know what both the corporate-controlled Democrats and Republicans have done to get us to this point. If progressives like Mr. Solomon were truly interested in stopping war and our bloated military budget, he and others would be working to really change our policies toward the rest of the world by working with the only political party willing to do just that.
~ B. Stroman, Green Party member
On Anniversary of Halabja Massacre, Kurds Poised to Regain Kirkuk
Like almost everyone, the author assumes that the massacre at Halabja was ordered by Saddam Hussein. However, Stephen Pelletiere’s article, “A War Crime or an Act of War?” (NYT, January 2003), gives evidence that the massacre was committed by Iranian forces. To date, there has been no refutation of Pelletiere’s evidence, that I know of. Does anyone know what really happened in Halabja?
Time for Congress to Stop Copping Out
Dear Ralph Nader,
First, I voted for you in the presidential election.
I read most of your op-eds and appreciate your clarity and insight (mostly plain ol’ common sense), so rare these days.
Regarding this piece, some comments: I immediately winced at the the term “they” in reference to antiwar activists. The correct usage should be “we” – meaning, of course, to include yourself. I have read a number of really terrific op-ed pieces by persons opining on what antiwar activists or “they” need to be doing. My reaction is the same as the reaction I have out on the street – in front of the Federal Building in Louisville – or anywhere where someone comes up to me (us) and tells me (us) what a “great job you’re doing”! My response always is, “Are you excluding yourself? Join us! Make this your action, too!”
Regarding your advice: Well put! But did you know that activists across the country have been doing this very thing since before the war started?! Over and over and over.
Activists from Kentucky have the hardest time of it – all these wrapped-in-red reps and senators! Why, every Sunday, for over a year, we demonstrated in front of the house of Anne Northup (10-15 at a time) – until she agreed to meet with us herself and answer for her parroting in her newsletter of Bush White House data regarding Saddam’s massive arsenal of WMD. She refused to answer our letters, calls, office demos, so we took it to her residence, got tremendous publicity. She finally agreed to meet with us, and even though we controlled the agenda, she was unable to hear us. Her arrogance was astounding!
Mainly, I just wanted to say, from now on when you write, use the “we” word, and be aware of what activists have been doing for three years – long before the war started! The continued lack of response, even now, on the part of Congress, is revealing of how far our democratic process has deteriorated!
~ Marcia Schneider, Louisville, KY
Mr. Johnson, as always, presents us with a very informative, well-researched, and interesting article. I would like to suggest a greater emphasis on what may be an underestimated factor adding to the potentially incendiary relations between China, on the one side, and Japan and America, on the other. Although Mr. Johnson mentions, briefly, the skewed sex ratio among young people in China, he fails to mentions the implications for Chinese domestic, and thereby international, security. The most-skewed sex ratios are found in the rural areas of the country. Soon, there are going to be literally tens of millions of young men, of military age(!), in rural, poverty-stricken areas, most of them poorly educated relative to their counterparts in the cities, who have absolutely no hope of forging permanent relationships with female peers and indulging in family life, long believed in Asia (as it is elsewhere) to be a necessary part of belonging to society.
There is no complete “solution” to this problem, but I see two broad approaches to at least dealing with this future reality. One is to encourage and assist China in its efforts to increase educational levels in rural areas (and education is clearly more valued in China than in North America) and to put into place policies that enhance mobility and freedom among all of its citizens, so that young men with no stable future in their provinces at least have some hope of a better life somewhere. Another is to threaten and bully China so that the solutions to its own internal problems are seen by its leaders as national security issues. They may therefore see an advantage to keeping control over these young men by having a huge army of formerly listless, undereducated men who will likely be willing to turn over their identities to an organization like the military that offers them a future purpose. A country with a military force consisting of young men without domestic concerns is a country less reluctant to use its army in foreign adventures. Such a country may not respond well to bullying and threatening by another country.
Unfortunately, I don’t see the current administration choosing wisely among these options.
~ Glenn Ward, Ph.D., Department of Health Studies and Gerontology, University of Waterloo, Canada
The Eyewitnesses Must Be Crazy
The Second Law of Watergate Politics: Never believe anything until it is officially denied.
I’ve used this as a guide for a number of years and it is serving better and better. I think a more general statement could be used: Believe the opposite of any official statement (or anything about government reported by the mainstream media) and you’ll be much closer to the truth. (Pvt. Lynch, Saddam captured in a spider hole, WMD, Sgrena shooting, etc., etc.)
Does Bush tell the truth about anything? Does he know the truth about anything?
Q&A
I am doing a school project and I need info. I have a few questions. Do you think Bush is doin’ the right thing? What is this war about and when will it end? Does the war impact your life? And what do you think lies ahead for all America?
Scott Horton replies:
Dear Anonymous Student,
Everything Bush has done has only made our enemies more powerful since September 11th. Passing up the opportunity to respond in a limited fashion against those few individuals responsible for the attacks (as congress authorized him to do), his conflation of al Qaeda with the Taliban, the “Axis of Evil,” and now, “outposts of tyranny,” has created a situation that seems to guarantee the generational conflict he promises. The CIA’s National Intelligence Council, the new director, Porter Goss, and former CIA analyst Mike Scheuer, author of Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror, have all said that our aggressive policy of preemptive war against Middle Eastern nation states that had nothing whatsoever to do with the attacks of 9/11 has helped to rally even more people who are willing to kill Americans, and that Iraq will be a recruiting ground for terrorists for many years to come.
Many people ask what the Iraq war is about. First of all, this shows that the politicians were dishonest when they convinced us to let them kill the tens of thousands they’ve killed there so far, if we’re still asking “what’s it all about?” There are, of course, many reasons for the invasion, none of which are legitimate reasons for war, and none of which were explained to the American people before the war. It will put off, for a time, the ability of Iraq to become a powerful state that can threaten Israel, it ensures that Iraqi oil will be sold in dollars, not euros, and it establishes new U.S. military bases, allowing troops previously stationed in Saudi Arabia (one of bin Laden’s stated reasons for attacking us, as they consider that land their “Holy Peninsula” – land of Mecca and Medina) to be moved north into Iraq. According to former CIA analyst and author of The Sorrows of Empire, Chalmers Johnson, there are 725 U.S. military bases around the world. The “war on terror” expands our “footprint” into the heart of that region.
This war will probably end when people wise up and realize that meddling overseas is what created our “terrorist problem” in the first place and is no intelligent solution, or when the world decides to stop investing in our currency, which is increasingly worthless as a result of going into debt to finance our disastrous foreign policy.
The foreign wars our government fights are very important to all of our lives because, as Randolph Bourne famously said, “War is the Health of the State.” This means that when our government is invoking their war powers, even to fight an enemy far away, the liberty of the people here at home is sacrificed, and many people’s lives are turned completely upside down. During every war America has fought, there have been new and expansive federal powers granted at the same time. There was conscription during the Civil War (on both sides), World Wars I and II (millions forced to fight “for freedom”), and during the debacles in Korea and Vietnam, where young Americans were forced to serve and die for the state to “fight communism.” During these wars, there are always new laws infringing on people’s right to speech, due process of law, and federal encroachment into the market, centralizing regulatory capacity, and delivering huge sums of tax money to favored companies.
We have seen the rapid advance of state power since 9/11. The U.S. government has passed the PATRIOT Act, the Department of Homeland Security act, and the National Intelligence bill, which have created executive orders that presume to allow the military to take custody of American citizens away from the courts, and hold them indefinitely, or even execute them without trial, and all in secret. They have intervened even more than before, which was a lot, in the affairs of local and state police departments, making them dependent on federal money and therefore susceptible to their control. They eavesdrop on private conversations between accused and their lawyers, they read e-mails and spy on bank accounts without warrants, and they fight tooth and nail in court to have these despicable and unconstitutional crimes against human liberty upheld.
If we are smart and follow our founders’ advice, we could have a great future ahead. If we continue down the path of empire, we will fall, just like all the others.
“Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes. And armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.
“Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her [America’s] heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force …. She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit…. [America’s] glory is not dominion, but liberty. Her march is the march of the mind. She has a spear and a shield: but the motto upon her shield is, Freedom, Independence, Peace. This has been her Declaration: this has been, as far as her necessary intercourse with the rest of mankind would permit, her practice.”
– John Quincy Adams
