The hunt
for Osama bin Laden was always a sideshow. President George W. Bush even said
at one point that he wasn’t much concerned with finding him. He probably meant
it. Still, bin Laden played a useful role for the U.S. foreign-policy elite: he
was still out there plotting, necessitating a vigilant “war on terror.” And if
he were eventually caught and killed, whoever was occupying the White House
would score a point with the American electorate.
Now it has
been done. What’s next? Don’t look for any big change. American foreign policy
was formulated long before al-Qaeda came into being, and its decapitation (if
that’s what it is) won’t make much difference. Not that there won’t be surface
changes. President Obama may well get the remaining troops out of Iraq as
required by the agreement Bush signed with the Iranian-backed government the
U.S. military helped install (although the State Department may succeed in
maintaining a private army there). And Obama will probably make a big show of
drawing down the 100,000-troop force in Afghanistan. The American people are
sick of that war (to the extent they are paying attention), and Obama is up for
reelection next year. He’d probably like to be rid of the Afghan albatross if
he can do it in a way that won’t let the Republicans portray him as a wimp. The
bin Laden hit helps him out in that regard.
But
assuming those things happen, what has really changed? Will the U.S. government
have renounced its global policeman role? Hardly. It will still be bombing
Libya, Pakistan, and Yemen, and it continues to claim the authority to
intervene anywhere, with or without the blessing of Congress, NATO, or the UN
Security Council. (Who cares what the American people think?)
So it’s
imperative that we not be fooled by appearances. The policymakers will not be
using bin Laden’s death as grounds to dismantle the thousand U.S. military
installations around the world, to stop supporting torture-loving dictators
when they serve “American interests,” to end the violations of Americans’ civil
liberties, or to defund the trillion-dollar-plus national security state. That
gravy train, which gives prestige to “statesmen,” shapes the global order
American-style, and lines the pockets of contractors, is not going to end
merely because one man was shot by Navy SEALS.
It took no
more than a few nanoseconds after the killing of bin Laden for the government
to inform us that this is no time to let down our guard. The Bush Perpetual
Motion Machine is intact. Every move to counter terrorists creates its own
grounds for further moves. For every terrorist killed, ten more arise. (Gen.
Stanley McChrystal said that.) Demand creates its own supply. It’s an empire-builders’
dream come true. The 9/11 attacks were monstrous crimes, but they were not out
of the blue.
If we
Americans are to free ourselves of the burdens of empire, we have to go to the
root. Government must not be allowed the role of shaping the world to the
policymakers’ liking. Even if their goals were entirely wholesome — individual
liberty and free markets — a superpower global policeman would be impotent to
bestow them on the world’s people. Government is a blunt instrument that works
in top-down fashion. Freedom is something that must bubble up from the
grassroots if it is to be genuine and enduring. Oppressed populations will not
have decent nations built by outsiders. They will have to make their own
nations decent.
Anyway,
having wholesome goals is not enough. The policymakers would also have to know
what they are doing. Yet the complexity of any society puts the relevant
knowledge beyond the reach of even the brainiest social engineers. If they are
incapable of planning the domestic economy, they certainly will not be able to
reconstruct a foreign society.
Of course,
it is unrealistic to assume the policymakers have wholesome goals. Behind the
pretty window dressing we consistently find an agenda that serves particular
political and economic interests. American foreign policy has long been the
tool for arranging the world in just such a way as to ensure power and wealth
for the right people. Just a coincidence? Not likely.
* Sheldon Richman is senior fellow at
The Future of Freedom Foundation (www.fff.org) and editor of The Freeman magazine.
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