Chalmers Johnson, 1931-2010, on the Last Days of the American Republic
The distinguished scholar and best-selling author Chalmers Johnson has died.
He passed away in California on Saturday afternoon at the age of 79. During
the Cold War, he served as a consultant to the Central Intelligence Agency
and was a supporter of the Vietnam War, however, later became a leading
critic of U.S. militarism and imperialism. He wrote the book, Blowback: The
Costs and Consequences of American Empire in 2000, which became a bestseller
after the 9/11 attacks. He went on to complete what would become a trilogy
about American empire. Today we re-air part of our last interview with
Chalmers Johnson from 2007.
"Imperialism is a form of tyranny," Johnson said. "It never rules through
consent of the governed. .We talk about the spread of democracy, but we talk
about the spread of democracy at the point of an assault rifle."
Chalmers Johnson, author of 14 books including "Blowback: The Costs and
Consequences of American Empire" in 2000," "Sorrows of Empire: Militarism,
Secrecy and the End of the Republic," and "Nemesis: The Last Days of the
American Republic." He taught for 30 years at the Berkeley and San Diego
campuses of the University of California where he held endowed chairs in
Asian politics. He was president of the Japan Policy Research Institute and
at Berkeley he chaired the Center for Chinese Studies.
AMY GOODMAN: The distinguished anti-imperialist scholar, best-selling author
Chalmers Johnson has died. He passed away in California on Saturday
afternoon at the age of 79. He taught for 30 years of the Berkeley and San
Diego campuses of the University of California or he held endowed chairs in
Asian politics. He was president of the Japan Policy Research Institute and
at Berkeley he chaired the Center for Chinese studies. In a tribute by Steve
Klemens of the New America Foundation, Chalmers Johnson is described as,
"The most significant intellectual force to have shaped and defined the
fundamental boundaries and goalposts of U.S. foreign policy in the Modern
Era." Chalmers Johnson served in the Korean War and was a consultant for the
CIA's Allen Dulles between 1967 and 1973. He first visited Japan in 1953 as
a U.S. Navy officer and lived and worked for many years with his wife, the
anthropologist Sheila Johnson. In 1994, he founded the Japan Policy Research
institute. He was a prolific writer and authored some 16 books, numerous
articles for The L.A. Times, The London Review of Books, Harper's Magazine
and The Nation.
Over the years, Johnson transformed from a right-wing conservative into an
icon of the left and a trenchant critic of U.S. militarism. His last four
books focus on American military hegemony and imperialism. He wrote
Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of the American Empire in 2000, which
became a bestseller after the 9/11 attacks. He went on to complete what
would become a trilogy about American empire, Sorrows of Empire: Militarism,
Secrecy and the End of the Republic, and Nemesis: The Last Days of the
American Republic. His latest book was published in August, a collection of
essays published over the last three years called Dismantling the Empire:
America's Last Best Hope He was featured prominently in the award-winning
documentary Why We Fight. I want to plan excerpt from my last interview with
Chalmers Johnson. It was February 2007, and the final volume of his trilogy
had just been published. I began by asking him about the title of that book,
Nemesis.
CHALMERS JOHNSON: Nemesis was was the ancient Greek goddess of revenge, the
punisher of hubris and arrogance in human beings. You may recall that she is
the one that lead Narcissus to the pond and showed him his reflection, and
he dove in and drowned. I chose the title because it seems to be she's
present in our country right now, just waiting to make her, uh, to carry out
her divine mission.
By the subtitle, I really do mean it. This is not just hype to sell books.
"The last days of the American Republic." I am here concerned with the very
real, concrete problem in political analysis, namely that the political
system of the United States today, history tells us, is one of the most
unstable combination there is. That is, domestic democracy and foreign
empire. The choices are stark, a nation can be one or the other, a democracy
or an imperialist, but it can't be both. If it sticks to imperialism, it
will, like the old Roman Republic, on which so much of our system was
modeled, like the old Roman Republic it will lose its democracy to a
domestic dictatorship.
I have spent some time in the book talking about an alternative, namely that
of the British Empire after World War II, in which it made the decision, not
perfectly executed by any manner of means, but nonetheless, made the
decision to give up its empire in order to keep its democracy. It became
apparent to the British quite late in the game that they could keep their,
uh, the jewel in their crown, India, only at the expense of it
administrative massacres, of which they had carried out often in India. In
the wake of the war against Nazism, which had just ended, it became, I
think, obvious to the British that in order to retain their empire, they
would have to become a tyranny, and they therefore, I believe, properly
chose- admirably chose- to give up their empire. As I say, they did not do
it perfectly. There were tremendous atavistic fall-backs in the 1950's in
the Anglo-French-Israeli attack on Egypt. In the repression of the Nakuru-
the savage repression in Kenya. And then, of course, the most obvious and
weird atavism of them all, Tony Blair and his enthusiasm for renewed British
imperialism in Iraq. But nonetheless, it seems to me that the history of
Britain is clear that it gave up its empire in order to remain a democracy.
I believe this is something we should be discussing very hard in the United
States.
AMY GOODMAN: Chalmers Johnson, you connect the breakdown of constitutional
government with militarism.
CHALMERS JOHNSON: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the signs of the breakdown of constitutional
government and how it links?
CHALMERS JOHNSON: Well, yes. Militarism is what the social scientists has
called the intervening variable, the causative connection. That is to say,
to maintain an empire requires a very large standing army, huge expenditures
on arms that leads to a military-industrial complex, and generally speaking,
a vicious cycle sets up of interests that lead to perpetual series of wars.
It goes back to probably the earliest warning ever delivered to us by our
first president, George Washington, and his famous farewell address. It's
read at the opening of every new session of Congress. Washington said that
the great enemy of the republic is standing armies. It is a particular enemy
of republican liberty. What he meant by it is it breaks down the separation
of powers into an executive, legislative, and judicial branches that are
intended to check each other. This is our most fundamental bulwark against
dictatorship and tyranny. It causes it to break down because standing
armies, militarism, a military establishment, military-industrial complex
all draw power away from the rest of the country to Washington, including
taxes. And within Washington they draw it to the presidency, and they begin
to create an imperial presidency, who then implements the military's desire
for secrecy, making oversight of the government almost impossible for a
member of Congress even, much less for a citizen.
AMY GOODMAN: Chalmers Johnson, you write in your book Nemesis, "Once upon a
time you could trace the spread of Imperialism by counting up colonies.
America's version of the colony is the military base." Can you lay out the
global picture of American military bases, how many there are, what does the
map look like?
CHALMERS JOHNSON: Americans really wouldn't believe it, to see it, but
according to the official count- it's something called the Base Structure
Report, which is an unclassified Pentagon inventory of real property owned
around the world and the cost it would take to replace it. There are right
now, 737 American military bases on every continent, and well over 130
countries. Some apologists from the Pentagon like to say, "Well, this is
false, that we're counting Marine guards at embassies." I guarantee you that
is simply stupid. We don't have anything like 737 American embassies abroad,
and all of these are genuine military bases with all of the problems that
that involves.
In the southernmost prefecture of Japan, Okinawa, site of the Battle of
Okinawa in 1945, there is a small island, smaller than Kauai in the Hawaiian
islands, with over a 1,300,000 Okinawans. There are 37 American military
bases there. The revolt against them has been endemic for 50 years. The
governor is always saying to the local military commander, "You're living on
the side of a volcano that could explode at any time. It has exploded in the
past. What this means is just an endless, nonstop series of sexually violent
crimes, drunken brawls, hit-and-run accidents, environmental pollution,
noise pollution, helicopters falling out of the air from Futenma Marine
Corps Air Base and falling onto the campus of Okinawa International
University. One thing after another. Back in 1995, we had one of the most
serious incidents, when two Marines and a sailor abducted, beat and raped a
12-year-old girl. This led to the largest demonstrations against the United
States since we signed the security treaty with Japan decades ago. It's this
kind of thing. I first went to Okinawa in 1996. I was invited by then
Governor Ota in the wake of the rape incident. I have devoted my life to the
study of Japan, but like many Japanese- many Japanese specialists- I had
never been in Okinawa. I was shocked by what I saw. It was the British raj.
It was like Soviet troops living in East Germany, more comfortable than they
would be back at, say, Oceanside, California, next door to Camp Pendleton.
And it was a scandal in every sense. My first reaction-I've not made a
secret of it, that I was, before the collapse of the Soviet Union, certainly
a Cold Warrior. My first explanation was this is simply off the beaten
track, that people don't come down here and report it. As I began to study
the network of bases around the world and the incidents that have gone with
them and the military coups that have brought about regime change and
governments that we approve of, I began to realize that Okinawa was not
unusual. It was, unfortunately, typical.
These bases, as I say, are spread everywhere. The most recent manifestation
of the American military empire is the decision by the Pentagon now, with
presidential approval of course, to create another regional command in
Africa. This may either be at the base that we have in Djibouti, on the Horn
of Africa. In may well be in the Gulf of Guinea, where we are prospecting
for oil and the Navy would very much like to put ourselves there. It is not
at all clear that we should have any form of American military presence in
Africa, but we're going to have an enlarged one. Invariably, remember what
this means: imperialism is a form of tyranny. It never rules through consent
of the governed. It doesn't ask for the consent of the government. We talk
about the spread of democracy, but we're talking about the spread of
democracy at the point of an assault rifle. That's a contradiction in terms.
It doesn't work. Any self respecting person being democratized in this
manner starts thinking of retaliation. Nemesis becomes appropriate.
AMY GOODMAN: Chalmers Johnson, author and scholar. That interview from 2007.
You can see the entire interview democracynow.org. Chalmers Johnson died
Saturday at the age of 79.
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