Nigeria has been a failed state of corruption, outlawry, civil war and unspeakable violence and cruelty for decades. Literally millions have been starved, maimed and butchered owing to ethnic, tribal and religious clashes. And billions more have been stolen from the nation’s long-suffering people by government officials, the military and oppositionists alike in what is surely the most corrupt nation on earth.
In this context, the latest episode involving the kidnapped school girls is just another tragic eruption of the anarchy which is Nigeria. But it is also none of our business, period. Parachuting American forces into this chaos would be an act of sheer madness. Yet that’s exactly what Senator McCain is loudly proclaiming he would do if he were President.
Below are his exact words, and they bristle with imperial arrogance. To be charitable, this nonsense might be dismissed as the ravings of an old man who has gone off his meds.
But I think not. Washington has become an Imperial City and looks upon the rest of the world as provinces to be managed and pacified by American dollars, diplomacy, legionnaires and drones. Senator McCain is simply crude enough to express this deplorable beltway ethos baldly.
Needless to say, Imperial Washington has taken the nation’s foreign policy deep into the zone of folly. This has been exemplified most recently by our senseless intervention in Libya, near-miss invasion of Syria, continued destructive economic sanctions against 76 million innocent citizens in Iran, the drone war on Yemen and the sheer lunacy of our maneuverings in Putin’s backyard.
The blowback and ill-will generated by all of this unnecessary and unjustified interventionism is bad enough in it own right. But the worst thing is that it keeps the Warfare State in business and its unconscionable drain on the nation’s failing fiscal accounts running at full tilt.
The irony is that if given an honest choice, the American people would also act in a New York minute, but to shutdown Washington’s imperial apparatus, not to invade the last country standing.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said Tuesday he would like to see U.S. troops sent to Nigera to rescue the girls, whether the Nigerian government gives permission or not:
If they knew where they were, I certainly would send in U.S. troops to rescue them, in a New York minute I would, without permission of the host country,” McCain told The Daily Beast. “I wouldn’t be waiting for some kind of permission from some guy named Goodluck Jonathan.”
McCain said that if he were president, he would be prepositioning U.S. special forces to be prepared to enter Nigeria and rescue the girls.
“I would not be involved in the niceties of getting the Nigerian government to agree, because if we did rescue these people, there would be nothing but gratitude from the Nigerian government, such as it is,” he told The Daily Beast…..
Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., a member of the House Intelligence Committee, told CNN on Monday he would support sending U.S. special forces to rescue the girls.
“If the president decided to use special forces, I certainly would not oppose them. I realize all the complexities involved, all the dangers involved,” King said, but “as commander-in-chief, if he made that decision, I would support him.”
Mike Omeri, the director of the government’s information agency, said all options were being considered, including the possibility of a military operation with foreign help.
“At the moment, because all options are open, we are interacting with experts, military and intelligence experts from other parts of the world,” he said late Monday. “These are part of the options that are available to us, and many more.”
Reprinted with permission from David Stockman’s Contra Corner.
