David Rieff and American "hegemony"

David Rieff: "We're doomed."

Rieff has just written for The Los Angeles Times a poor echo of territory more eloquently covered by Chomsky and even Osama bin Laden -- that the United States is an empire and that we're doomed. Even C3PO said it better: "We're doomed." Most of these unrealistic socialist outbursts died away after the initial backlash to the Iraq War began to fade away. Rieff isn't content to tell people we're awful and live in an awful country. He wants to make sure we know it will all be over soon.

He compares the US to the British Empire, which was at its peak in 1900, and the Roman Empire, which faded more than 1500 years ago. I've been laughing at these comparisons since the socialist media, led by The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and CNN began pushing them, full time, about four years ago. I'm trying to picture in my mind how many of Rome's conquered provinces were allowed, and even encouraged, to vote for their own leaders, and then Rome backed away to allow total sovereignty. Well, let's see now. Zero.

The U.S. has a long list of removing tyrants, then giving self rule a chance, and then bowing out: Germany, Japan, Korea, Vietnam (even though the commies broke their agreement upon our exit), and now with Afghanistan and Iraq. The Brits didn't invade territories across the globe to remove tyrants and set up self-governing democracies, either.

And I'm trying to remember the last empire to have elected leaders. None come to mind.

If anything, the world should thank their lucky stars that we have absolutely nothing in common with the Roman or British empires.

So why does Rieff compare apples to oranges? Is he an imbecile? No, he's a socialist who, by default, hates his own country. Socialists hate strength and worship weakness, so it's only natural he hates the strongest country in history.

Not surprisingly, Muslims are usually the first to gobble up the irrational "hegemony" nonsense. They believe that the U.S. military presence in the Middle East is some new crusade. They call us "Crusaders". They believe that because their culture is mired in the Dark Ages, everybody else's is, as well. They're conveniently forgetting that we have nukes, and more of them than anybody else, with more reliable and sophisticated delivery platforms. If we were "crusading" against Muslims, the Middle East would be a radiated parking lot.

Rieff also says that China and India will overtake the US:

Americans, who grow up believing in their country's exceptionalism (which in foreign policy terms often seems to mean not believing that the historical constraints that apply to other nations apply to the U.S.), are not predisposed to believe that American predominance could possibly be coming to an end. And yet it seems more like wishful thinking than rational analysis to believe that the United States -- which in the coming decades will certainly have to adapt to a multipolar world in geo-economic terms, as China and India reoccupy the central place in the global economy that they had 500 years ago -- can continue indefinitely to play a hegemonic role.

The Economist quotes John Berry of Bloomberg:

China's economy is growing so fast that estimates of its long-term prowess are bordering on the absurd. After Chinese statisticians recently sharply revised up their estimate of economic output in 2004 ..., some analysts said that in 35 years it would overtake the U.S. economy. No way, no how. ... Even if China's GDP were to grow indefinitely at 11 percent a year -- 9 percent real growth plus 2 percent inflation -- and the U.S. experienced 5.5 percent growth -- 3.5 percent real and 2 percent inflation -- it would take the Chinese 40 years to catch up in terms of nominal GDP. Sustainable nominal GDP growth of 5.5 percent annually is well within the capability of the U.S. Eleven percent growth, about what Chinese authorities expect in 2006, isn't remotely possible in the long run.