Wednesday April 1, 2009
Selective Outrage
Surely
the most ironic twist this year is the international interventionists on the right decrying the Government GM
Intervention on the left.
Indeed, Usama bin Laden has bedded down with Senator Shelby of Alabama,
both decry the intervention of the US Government. Bin Laden is distressed that
the US wants to run every other country in the world, Shelby is distressed the
Government wants to run General Motors. The irony of all this is that
interventionists like Shelby regularly vote for foreign wars but selectively
oppose some domestic intervention.
Where
has the US Government thrown its weight around the world, let me count the
major spots, just in my lifetime. Since WW II the US has intervened in Berlin,
Korea, the Mid East (Lebanon, Kuwait, Israel, too many times and places to
list), Quemoy and Matsu, Guatemala,
Cuba Bay of Pigs, Cuban Missile Crisis (closest brush with nuclear war),
Viet Nam, Grenada, Iraq 1979,
Panama, Serbia Croatia, Kuwait, Georgia, Iraq 2003 to now, Saudi
Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan
(again and again which promoted bin Laden to his current status), and the
latest gunboat Bush diplomacy with a gunboat cruising near Soviet influenced
Georgia. Let’s not forget CIA botched efforts like the U-2 Gary Powers fiasco
or the Pueblo spy ship kidnapped by Korea. U S soldiers have been killed,
wounded, or captured in all these efforts. The US has brazenly told the
countries involved how they should be run and indeed, who should be be in
charge. Is it any wonder a world weary of the US calls for another reserve
currency? As Congressman Ron Paul observes, Usama wants us back here because we are over there….
Supposed
conservative (smaller government) types like Shelby have supported most of
these international interventions.
By the way, Shelby’s web site just announced a $380,000 earmark for
streets in Aliceville, AL! No
problem with government intervention in Aliceville, eh Senator?
It
will no doubt shock conservatives opposed to the US attempting to bring some
order to GM to learn of President Truman’s action in 1946.
When
the railway workers turned down a proposed settlement, Truman seized control of
the railways and threatened to draft striking workers into the armed forces
While delivering a speech before Congress
requesting authority for this plan, Truman received word that the strike had
been settled on his terms.
Gee
that sounds pretty interventionist to me!
Critics of GM has long called for an ouster of the existing Board and
management that has shrunk the company to less than a 25% market share. Now it
is a reality. By the way,
President Truman is regularly hailed as a great US President by both parties,
because of his unprecedented actions, the ironies abound here.
This
column has noted the enormous cost of a GM failure, or even a court
bankruptcy. GM extends to
Andrews, unlike Eastern Airlines.
Michigan has already added to the mortgage problem a GM collapse would
bring massive supplier employment
and loan defaults, just what is not needed now. Calls for GM to go to court
ignore the reality that would be a Chapter 7 liquidation without more
government money.
The
same Congressional critics that have urged US intervention in countries around
the world now decry intervention in GM.
For once the US government is at least doing something in this country
regarding US employees in a large US industry. What did George Bush do about this looming problem for eight
years? Answer - invade Iraq. A three month expenditure in
Iraq would wipe out all GM debt,
think about that.
Congress
rarely flinches at the idea we dictate who presides over Iraq, Kuwait, or Viet
Nam. The suggestion that Rick Waggoner step down pales in comparison to this
Viet Nam era stunt.
The
CIA was in contact with
generals planning to remove Diem. They were told that the United States would
not oppose such a move nor punish the generals by cutting off aid. President
Diem was overthrown and executed, along with his brother, on November 2, 1963.
When he was informed, Maxwell Taylor remembered that Kennedy "rushed from
the room with a look of shock and dismay on his face." He had not approved
Diem's murder. The U.S. ambassador to South Vietnam, Henry Cabot
Lodge, invited the coup leaders to the embassy and congratulated
them. Ambassador Lodge informed Kennedy that "the prospects now are for a
shorter war"
Meanwhile, Congress bloviates about GM but the
money flows to Aliceville, Alabama. Outrage it seems, is very selective.
Dennis
Elam teaches at Texas A & M San Antonio and can be reached at
dennis.elam@att.net.