This post
of an excerpt by the Abbeville Institute from William Fulbright’s book The
Arrogance of Power reminds us that not all Southerners are idiots as the New
York Times and Washington Post would have us believe. The people who got us into Afghanistan and
Iraq would have done well to read Fulbright’s book. Fulbright wrote:
The attitude
above all others which I feel sure is no longer valid is the arrogance of
power, the tendency of great nations to equate power with virtue and major
responsibilities with a universal mission. The dilemmas involved are
preeminently American dilemmas, not because America has weaknesses that others
do not have but because America is powerful as no nation has ever been before
and the discrepancy between its power and the power of others appears to be
increasing….
We are now engaged in a war to “defend
freedom” in South Vietnam. Unlike the Republic of Korea, South Vietnam has an
army which [is] without notable success and a weak, dictatorial government
which does not command the loyalty of the South Vietnamese people. The official
war aims of the United States Government, as I understand them, are to defeat
what is regarded as North Vietnamese aggression, to demonstrate the futility of
what the communists call “wars of national liberation,” and to create
conditions under which the South Vietnamese people will be able freely to
determine their own future. I have not the slightest doubt of the sincerity of
the President and the Vice President and the Secretaries of State and Defense
in propounding these aims. What I do doubt and doubt very much_is the ability
of the United States to achieve these aims by the means being used. I do not
question the power of our weapons and the efficiency of our logistics; I cannot
say these things delight me as the y seem to delight some of our officials, but
they are certainly impressive. What I do question is the ability of the United
States, or France or any other Western nation, to go into a small, alien,
undeveloped Asian nation and create stability where there is chaos, the will to
fight where there is defeatism, democracy racy where there is no tradition of
it and honest government where corruption is almost a way of life. Our handicap
is well expressed in the pungent Chinese proverb: “In shallow waters dragons
become the sport of shrimps.”
Early last month demonstrators in
Saigon burned American jeeps, tried to assault American soldiers, and marched
through the streets shouting “Down with the American imperialists,” while one
of the Buddhist leaders made a speech equating the United States with the
communists as a threat to South Vietnamese independence. Most Americans are
understandably shocked ant angered to encounter such hostility from people who
by now would be under the rule of the Viet Cong but for the sacrifice of
American lives and money. Why, we may ask, are they so shockingly ungrateful?
Surely they must know that their very right to parade and protest and
demonstrate depends on the Americans who are defending them.
The answer, I think, is that “fatal
impact” of the rich and strong on the poor and weak. Dependent on it though the
Vietnamese are, our very strength is a reproach to their weakness, our wealth a
mockery of their poverty, our success a reminder of their failures. What they
resent is the disruptive effect of our strong culture upon their fragile one,
an effect which we can no more avoid than a man can help being bigger than a
child. What they fear, I think rightly, is that traditional Vietnamese society
cannot survive the American economic and cultural impact….
The cause of our difficulties in
southeast Asia is not a deficiency of power but an excess of the wrong kind of
power which results in a feeling of impotence when it fails to achieve its
desired ends. We are still acting like boy scouts dragging reluctant old ladies
across the streets they do not want to cross. We are trying to remake
Vietnamese society, a task which certainly cannot be accomplished by force and
which probably cannot be accomplished by any means available to outsiders. The
objective may b e desirable, but it is not feasible….
If America has a service to perform
in the world_and I believe it has_it is in large part the service of its own
example. In our excessive involvement in the affairs of other countries, we are
not only living off our assets and denying our own people the proper enjoyment
of their resources; we are also denying the world the example of a free society
enjoying its freedom to the fullest. This is regrettable indeed for a nation
that aspires to teach democracy to other nations, because, as Burke said!
“Example is the school of mankind, and they will learn at no other.” . . .
There are many respects in which
America, if it can bring itself to act with the magnanimity and the empathy
appropriate to its size and power, can be an intelligent example to the world.
We have the opportunity to set an example of generous understanding in our
relations with China, of practical cooperation for peace in our relations with
Russia, of reliable and respectful partnership in our relations with Western
Europe, of material helpfulness without moral presumption in our relations with
the developing nations, of abstention from the temptations of hegemony in our
relations with Latin America, and of the all- around advantages of minding
one’s own business in our relations with everybody. Most of all, we have the
opportunity to serve as an example o f democracy to the world by the way in
which we run our own society; America, in the words of John Quincy Adams,
should be “the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all” but “the champion
and vindicator only of her own.” . …
If we can bring ourselves so to act,
we will have overcome the dangers of the arrogance of power. It will involve,
no doubt, the loss of certain glories, but that seems a price worth paying for
the probable rewards, which are the happiness of America and the peace of the
world.
From J. William Fulbright, The Arrogance of Power (Random
House, 1967).
