Today I’m going to do something I’ve never done before – I’m writing a book report. It’s funny, when we’re adults, and we read about books in the newspaper, on the web or in magazines, they are called “reviews”. But guess what? They are just book reports, like we all wrote in the 3rd grade.
Hopefully, we at least have better grammar now.
I’m a progressive, and Stephen Kinzer is obviously a progressive as well, but for the majority of his book Overthrow: America’s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq, he remains largely centrist. Only later, when describing the current invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq does the rhetoric take a slightly more pronounced left turn. More on that later.
Most Americans probably think the concept of “regime change” is a fancy world first spoken on CNN or Fox News during the recent attack on and ongoing war in Iraq. Thus is the premise of Kinzer’s book. The facts he lays out show a continuous policy of regime change from McKinley to Bush, from the overthrow of the monarchy in Hawaii to present day, America’s last century has seen a continuous chain of interference in foreign affairs. And the common thread between most of these events, unsurprisingly, is business.
Cuba, the Phillipines, Honduras, Panama, Guatemala, Iran – the list goes and on and on. From expansion of the West’s almost imperialist influence in business, to the flagrantly obtuse and close-minded “Communist Menace” to today’s spreading of “western democracy”, America has continuously clouded truths in order to further our own agenda.
But this isn’t necessarily news. Anyone with a brain knows the current administration did not invade Iraq to free it’s people. And this is where Kinzer (and I, obviously) bend left. But can you blame us? Could you blame us if we bent right, either? Fact is, with the cool hindsight of history to examine the first 2 eras of expansion, from the 1890s to 1960s, it’s easy to be calm, collected and objective. But when reflecting on modern-day, ongoing events, it’s not so easy – our personal views tend to invade our objective reasoning.
But that doesn’t mean we are wrong. In fact, Kinzer alters his writing on these later events in another way than just leaning left, which helps make up for that fact – he describes the pitfalls that created the current problems. By the time we reach the September 11 attacks, Kinzer has laid out, plain as day, how we allowed such a thing to come to pass. In light of those events, precipitated not only by the Afghan conflict in the 80s but by a full century of practice, it’s all too obvious why we are mired in continuous and seemingly unending war today.
I would go so far as to say that this book should be required reading as foreign policy primer for any federally elected official. I feel better equipped as a layman having read this tome than most politicians we are asked to back every 4-6 years. Certainly our current leaders should read this, and our candidates presumptive.
They won’t. But maybe you will.
The answers to “why” have been staring us in the face for over 100 years. Trouble is, we haven’t been looking in the mirror. Thanks to Kinzer’s Overthrow, more of us can start.