Official histories are neat. In textbooks, they are almost always clean; they usually lack specific detail, and because of the breadth of the overall subject, offer very little depth, or insight into the topics they intend to describe. Most often, they are neither investigative, nor analytical, but readily accepting of the shaped, or skewed dictations presented by the press, and the government, as the events occurred. This is not the most responsible way to record history, nor even an appropriate one. Fortunately, many historians are not convinced by these “official” stories, either as a result of newly uncovered evidence, or as investigative analyses have been used to expose previously received “truths.” Chalmers Johnson is one of those historians, and The Sorrows of Empire is an accumulation of facts, the dirty truths that have been buried by American institutions over the last century, that challenge the good-guy image America wears on its sleeve and forcefully carries abroad. And it’s a shame, too, that from childhood, we are purposely sheltered from the truth in books like Mr. Johnson’s, and are instead spoon-fed false histories in classrooms, as defined by politicians, and their personal agendas. The Sorrows of Empire is everything my textbooks are not: dirty, detailed, revealing, and above all, fascinating. In this sense, the propaganda machine responsible for the school texts are what relegate books like The Sorrows of Empire into the category of “conspiracy theory,” a term applied to the educated, weirdoes, wacko’s, and social misfits; this becomes the criteria whereby its revealing truths are deemed secret.
The Sorrows of Empire alleges that America is under attack—not from communism, or terrorism, as the recent neo-conservatives in power have asserted, but from an inner enemy Mr. Johnson calls militarism. This escalation of the military empire takes shape in three forms, but it is a quote from first president, George Washington, that gives warning in what we have too conveniently forgotten today. “Overgrown military establishments are under any form of government inauspicious to liberty, and are to be regarded as particularly hostile to Republican liberty.” (Johnson, 39) Washington’s words provide an interesting and alarming context to The Sorrows of Empire. He clearly foresaw, from first-hand experience, the dangerous conditions associated with a large military at the government’s convenience, and noted the potential effects it would have on the ideals our nation was originally founded on.
Mr. Johnson’s “militarism” is marked first by the “emergence of a professional military class and the subsequent glorification of its ideals.” Of professionalism, he asserts the goal “is to produce soldiers who will fight solely and simply because they have been ordered to do so and not because they necessarily identify with, or have any interest in, the political goals of a war.” (Johnson, 58) It is easy to trace this thought back to the middle of the twentieth century. In World War II, Americans were particularly moved to participate in the war effort, if even domestically. Despite intentional provocations with the Germans in the Atlantic, Pearl Harbor seemed to be the last straw for ordinary citizens, and their prior refusal to stay out of the war had turned into a fierce motive for vengeance. But American thought was changed drastically after the war as American veterans returned home. For them, this wasn’t a 162 game season, and with the war over, there was not a need to continue having such a large standing force.
The U.S. military debacles in Korea and Vietnam exacerbated the trend for soldiers to begin questioning their involvement and service at the hands of questionable politicians; conscription failed to keep the size of the military at the level politicians and big government envisioned, and as a result to these failed conflicts, and others, the military began to rely, successfully initially, on a volunteer force for staffing. By nature, those willing to enlist had agreed to waive their rights, especially in questioning the missions they would be given. From this arose a sense of pride that would be built over time, instilling in recruits new values that essentially made them nameless subjects at the government’s fingertips, and to do its bidding.
Today, the red-state propaganda is everywhere. If you don’t have a yellow, magnetic ribbon on your car to support the soldiers, then you are not patriotic. Fraternal catch phrases like “the few, the proud,” exclude those who just aren’t tough enough to handle the Marines way of life. The Army’s favorite slogan, “freedom isn’t free” is a guilt trip remembrance to “those who gave all,” and implies that those have not given anything are less entitled to share the reward and benefits for what has already been won. Perhaps even worse is that soldiers not only waive their right to personal opinion, but also are used at the government’s convenience for tests of inoculations and experimental medical practices in combat. An extreme example of this is documented by Eileen Welsome’s article, The Plutonium Experiments, contained in John Friedman’s book The Secret Histories. While Elmer Allen is the subject of the article, it goes on to explain that, in addition to the poor, black communities, soldiers were also among the thousands of human guinea pig experiments sponsored by the government, sometimes at the hands of Nazi scientists, in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s. (Friedman, 63)
In The Sorrows of Empire, Chalmers Johnson attributes the second “political hallmark of militarism as the preponderance of military officers or representatives of the arms industry in high government positions.” (Johnson, 62) In 2001, former President George W. Bush’s regime went overboard by emplacing executives from Lockheed Martin, Enron, General Dynamics, and Northrop Grumman into key civilian leadership positions in the military, proceeding to then hand out large military contracts to those companies in an attempt to further bolster, as Johnson argues, America’s preparation for war, than its supposed aim to prevent it. (Johnson, 63) The marriage between business, technology, and weapons with government took a horrific and deadly turn in the first half of the twentieth century. In The Secret Histories, Edwin Black recounts his research into IBM and its involvement with German Nazi’s. He found that a German subsidiary of American IBM, with complicit knowledge from American executives, had created the tracking punch-card machines the Nazi’s used to find, sort, track, and monitor movements of every Jew in Europe. (Friedman, 17) The use of this technology implicates IBM’s partial responsibility for the systematic annihilation of over six million Jews. Clearly, this example illustrates what can go wrong when business, government, and military share the same bed.
Mr. Johnson’s “third hallmark of militarism is a devotion to policies in which military preparedness becomes the highest priority of the state.” (Johnson, 63) He describes the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center as the “manna,” a gift from heaven, enabling, perhaps justifying Bush’s desire that we needed to be more ready. We needed more troops, more guns, more bombs, and more planes. After watching “Zero” in class, I’m inclined to think 9/11 was not a gift from heaven, but a well-staged event that deceived the nation into believing we needed more of what Bush was proposing. In 2004, after returning from a year in Iraq, my Infantry Battalion allowed us to take thirty days of vacation, and upon our return, we dove headfirst into training for the next combat deployment to Iraq. A standing military is no good lest it is trained and ready to fight, but in defiance of Mr. Johnson’s first hallmark of militarism, professionalism, I wasn’t the only one beginning to question what we were fighting for. Here, we had just returned from war, and were, just thirty-days later, after finally relaxing and trying to reintegrate into family life, we began to train up for the next war! The Sorrows of Empire asserts the empire was already “well prepared for war” when Bush took office, but additionally questioned his “policies of enlarging its military capabilities.” Johnson also alleges that the enormous “growth of the armaments industry,” the “staggering overkill in our nuclear arsenal,” and the “lack of any rational connection between nuclear means and nuclear ends is further evidence of the rise to power of a militarist mind-set.” (Johnson, 64)
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to make one and one, two. If we are able to look past the doctored amnesia of the last critical event to occupy our short-term memory, to potentially see the repetitious patterns spread throughout the last century, one can arrive at the same conclusions Chalmers Johnson has. In this context, there is a resoundingly clear pattern of political attack in our government favorable to conflict. The disparity between lives lost, and revenues earned, as a result of war, makes it a very profitable endeavor. A seemingly endless supply of “professionalized” pawns will see that it remains, while politicians, and big business executives continue to grow their economic empires, and our country’s own imperialist expansion. In The Sorrows of Empire, Chalmers Johnson is more of a scientist than a historian. Americans do not have to believe the officially recorded versions of “truth” our government is feeding, especially when the facts are visible and available to all. Mr. Johnson is simply an observer. He asks questions, and arranges the answers in a logical manner. In that regard, he becomes the mathematician, adding snippets of evidence, until finally, some answers are in conflict with what the government sponsors. And in this regard, we need to challenge the neatness, cleanness, and vague descriptions supplied in our history books. Until this happens, or until changes are made, The Sorrows of Empire will be secret as long as the masses are learning what the government sponsors in the classroom. An examination of the collapse of the Roman Empire, and the recent history of our country will probably remain shelved, just in case anyone is paying attention.
