Richard Jernigan -> RE: Coffee (Mar. 17 2014 22:44:38)
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ORIGINAL: BarkellWH quote:
…for the USA's "national interests"--which are of course paramount from the point of view of one charged with protecting them. That, of course, would include both you and me, as both of us (I on the diplomatic track and you on the technical, operational track) were charged with protecting and advancing the United States' national interests in regard to our relationship with the Marshall Islands and our activities on Kwajalein. Personally, I have never experienced any conflict between protecting and advancing U.S. national interests and my deep appreciation for the cultures within which I lived and worked in order to protect and advance those interests. Cheers, Bill From personal experiences I won't bore people with here, I grew suspicious of the American Cold War policies many saw as "imperialism". The way I came to see it was that the Soviets saw us as imperialists and reacted imperialistically, while we saw them as imperialists and reacted imperialistically. I think now that both sides were right in their perceptions, and in the consequences were largely both wrong. As a Washington, DC teenager, I thought the Foreign Service might be an attractive career. We knew some sub-cabinet level State Department people, and I liked them. By the time I quit my involvement in Central America, I no longer harbored such feelings. When I turned in my resignation as the youngest commander of a paramilitary airborne company, I told the Station Chief, "I thought fighting communism in Central America was the right thing to do. Now I think we are just continuing the 4-century war of the whites against the Indians, while the Somozas blow smoke up Uncle Sam's a$$." I breathed a little tear gas opposing the Vietnam War while the police attacked peaceful demonstrations. I seldom feel entitled to the moral high ground. I saw too many people in my youth who did. I just thought it was a wrong move to choose sides in a war between a corrupt kleptocracy and a repressive revolution, at the cost of thousands of American lives. Based on combat experience in Central America countering the early phases of an armed rebellion against repressive dictatorships, I thought we would lose in Vietnam. I thought that knowledge of who their bosses were would kill the morale of the South Vietnamese Army, just as it had done in Central America. I lamented the radicalization of friends who joined the Weather Underground. I thought it was a wrong choice. Turned out it was. I had known and admired the first African-American undergraduates at the University of Texas. I thought Martin Luther King had a chance to assuage white fears, while shaming us into doing the right thing. But they killed him. I thought the Black Panther Party had chosen the wrong path. If they really went up against The Man, they were going to lose. In the midst of this moral maelstrom, and having stumbled into it in the defense business, I saw direct opposition to the Soviet Union in the nuclear standoff as potentially "right livelihood", if I may borrow a phrase. The objective of the nuclear chess game itself on both sides was not to capture the king, but to play with exquisite caution to a draw, since there was no winning that deadly game. In the broader focus we could much better afford to play than the Soviets. The drain of their military budget was one of the factors in their eventual economic collapse. Eighteen years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, more than 20 years after Larisa as a 13-year old and her mother left the Soviet Union for America, Larisa and I visited the Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. They had added a lot of material from the Soviet space program since the last time I was there. Larisa's mother was an aeronautical engineer in the Soviet Union. Her job and Larisa's father's job gave them a higher than average standard of living. With obvious pride she pointed out Soviet "firsts" in manned space flight. Teasing, I said, "So, should the Soviets have won the Cold War?" I was surprised when she flushed with anger. She never swears, but she practically spit, "NO! They were a bunch of evil bastards!" I apologized. It added to the degree of satisfaction I have felt from the small role I played in their downfall. After the Cold War ended, I looked around for a secure job. Kwajalein seemed like a good, more or less morally neutral choice. I had been there several times for a week or two, planning or overseeing flight tests. I knew and respected people there. The only contact I had with Marshallese people were the cooks who fixed my breakfast. The lifetime veteran of bi-cultural situations and stratified societies, I never gave it a thought. It turned out to be even more secure than I thought, and a lot of fun for a guy who enjoyed challenges in both engineering and human relations. Diving, sailing and underwater photography were a joy. I saved enough money and booming markets multiplied it into a financially independent retirement. I found I couldn't ignore the ill effects our hegemony upon the Marshallese. It wasn't all bad. We did some good. Almost all the Americans I knew were trying to help, or were at least neutral. There were a handful of racist bastards among my acquaintance, but there's a bad apple in every barrel. We did a lot of damage as well. I didn't brood over it. I didn't dwell on it all the time. Most of the time I went about my business or enjoyed myself. I had a few Marshallese friends who worked at Kwaj, or were landowners who got lease money. They were practical about it. They appreciated the opportunity to better their families' lot materially. With that ultimate Micronesian tact, they never brought up the fact that we had taken over their land and leased it without their having any real choice in the matter. It was the puppet government of the Trust Territory who signed the original leases, not the Kwajalein landowners. What little objection there was from the Kwajalein landowners was muffled by the shower of lease money. No one denied that. Besides we were already there in force. They or their parents had seen us wipe the Japanese Army and Imperial Navy off the islands in three days of mind numbing, spectacular violence, after the Japanese miltarists had utterly dominated them for decades. The uncle of the grandmother whose photo I showed earlier never spoke another word after witnessing the battle. I saw him only once, a very old man with fear in his eyes at the sight of me. It was impossible even to conceive of opposing us. Now we were going to give them money or jobs, and not even make them bow down to us. People I knew were grateful to us for liberating them from the Japanese militarists. Nowhere in the contract did it say that the bargain was going to finish destroying their culture. Only a few, like Amata Kabua were smart enough to figure that one out. He realized he was helpless to prevent it, but he set about trying to cushion the blow. In the traditional Micronesian way, he held his cards very close to his chest. There was the kerfuffle of the strikes and "sail-ins" of the 1980s over lease money and working conditions. An American friend who knew Imata Kabua as a young man told me that being beaten by the Roi-Namur police put the finishing touches on his radicalization. But that died down, and things went back to "normal". We made a few concessions, but we were still The Boss. I still can't say how I think it all balances out, or even if there is a way to balance it out. Some of my Marshallese friends were already wealthy enough to travel the world. Others worked hard, saved money and sent their children to school in the USA. Most of them stayed. I can't help thinking at times that our hands would have been much cleaner if we hadn't inherited colonialism from the Japanese in the Western Pacific, and if we hadn't perceived the necessity to expand and secure our sphere of influence everywhere in the world, at any opportunity to counter the Soviets. But that's not how it turned out. Choosing a different course could well have resulted in the destruction of our culture. The destruction of our culture would have pleased quite a few. But in my reading of history, it always results in chaos and suffering that take a very long time to get over. Are the Chinese and the Russians better off now than they were before the revolutions? Yes, definitely. Would I choose to pull up my tent stakes and move there? No thanks. Not yet. Not in my lifetime, the way I see it. As I said Bill, I seldom feel entitled to the moral high ground. I congratulate you on a well-executed career in the service of our country. I enjoyed our dinner at Killeen, and I hope to see you again. RNJ
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