Dinesh D'Souza - America: Imagine a World without Her Read Online Free PDF Page A

long-term interest of America to have trading partners in Europe. Even so, there is something incredible in the idea of America investing to rebuild not just the nations of Europe but of its former enemies Germany, Austria, and Italy. Instead of taking what it could from a defeated opponent, a victorious America instead helped Germany become a postwar economic powerhouse. This is the very opposite of theft—it comes close to a rare case of philanthropy.
    Germany and Japan benefited not merely from American financial assistance but from the adoption of American ideals and American-style free institutions. We hear from President Obama that democracy cannot be imposed at the point of a bayonet. Obama writes in The Audacity of Hope that “when we seek to impose democracy with the barrel of a gun” we are “setting ourselves up for failure.” 6 Some progressives say there is something contradictory in attempting to force other countries to be free. Yet we imposed democracy at the point of a bayonet on both Germany and Japan—we forced both countries to establish free institutions—and the results have been excellent.
    After the war, America actively pushed for the dissolution of European empires, in particular the British Empire. In the Suez crisis, for instance, America backed the Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser over the British. Both publicly and privately, America sought self-government for the nations of Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, just as it had for South America with the Monroe Doctrine. This liquidation of European power is precisely what James Burnham termed the “suicide of the West.” In the sense just described, America did indeed aid the suicide of the West. America’s willingness to push its wartime ally Britain to jettison its worldwide colonies was especially brave considering that America was starting to fight a cold war with the Soviet Union. Many of the newly independent nations declared themselves “non-aligned” states that were often socialist or even pro-Soviet.
    Nevertheless, the United States and its Western allies won the Cold War, as Margaret Thatcher put it, “without firing a shot.” 7 The remarkable success of this victory, achieved without the usual carnage that accompanies war, has caused many to forget what enormous resources, what determination and patience, and what intelligent strategy, went into defeating the Soviet empire. Again,America fought the Cold War primarily for reasons of self-interest. We didn’t want to be at the receiving end of the Soviet Union’s nuclear missiles. Russia still has a lot of missiles, but they are less menacing than they used to be when the trigger fingers on the other end belonged to the grim members of the Soviet Politburo. So Americans can breathe a little easier, the people of Russia and Eastern Europe are vastly freer and better off, and Russia, while still dangerous, no longer poses an expansionist Communist threat to the peace and security of the world. America’s role in the Cold War, far from being a case of imperial looting, was one of protecting ourselves while extending liberty to a sizable fraction of humanity, both inside and outside Russia.
    What, then, of more recent involvements, from America’s alliance with unsavory Middle Eastern dictators to its role in Vietnam, the Gulf War, and the Afghanistan and Iraq invasions? Many progressives point out that America has long allied with dictators like the Shah of Iran and the Saudi royal family in order to maintain access to oil supplies. By doing this, we become part of the “gang of thieves” exploiting the people. We even allied for some years with Saddam Hussein, before turning against him. During the Soviet War in Afghanistan, the United States supplied weapons to Osama bin Laden. These facts seem to suggest, on America’s part, an amoral mercenary foreign policy, a vindication of the progressive allegation that America’s actions are motivated by power-seeking and