I am mildly surprised that the split-up-Yugoslavia solution for Zimbabwe is apparently not being considered — at this time — but maybe those discussions are going on, secretly. This Washington Post article did leave me with the distinct impression that all kinds of scenarios are being discussed behind the scenes, and that chunks of the original article were taken out.
It is obvious, though, that the US is looking at weaker and weaker target countries.
But ultimately — the US does not have the manpower to carry out its plans for looting and mayhem, unless it somehow leverages influence — and Ethiopia is rather far away, and tied up on another errand. So — who might they use? Nobody comes to mind, and the US plans for Zimbabwe may be like the carefully laid-out US plans for changing the Cuban law system after Fidel Castro dies — of absolutely no practical consequence.
I also note that if the Africans were able to get rid of the old imperialist powers decades ago, they should be able to fight off a weakening imperialist power with illusions of greatness.

Posted by: Owl | Nov 24 2007 10:59 utc | 3

Brilliant, thank you.

Posted by: Alamet | Nov 24 2007 15:26 utc | 5

I didn’t know that the Archbishop of Canterbury was a lurker at MoA:
US is‘worst’ imperialist: archbishop
Snip…

THE Archbishop of Canterbury has said that the United States wields its power in a way that is worse than Britain during its imperial heyday.
Rowan Williams claimed that America’s attempt to intervene overseas by “clearing the decks” with a “quick burst of violent action” had led to “the worst of all worlds”.
In a wide-ranging interview with a British Muslim magazine, the Anglican leader linked criticism of the United States to one of his most pessimistic declarations about the state of western civilisation.
He said the crisis was caused not just by America’s actions but also by its misguided sense of its own mission. He poured scorn on the “chosen nation myth of America, meaning that what happens in America is very much at the heart of God’s purpose for humanity”.

Leaving aside for a moment the debatable premise of “God’s purpose”, by acknowledging the USA as the “worst”, one must implicitly recognise that there were other empires. They just apparently happened to be benign empires who cared deeply about the welfare of their vassal states.
He contrasted (the united States) unfavourably with how the British Empire governed India. “It is one thing to take over a territory and then pour energy and resources into administering it and normalising it. Rightly or wrongly, that’s what the British Empire did — in India, for example.
“It is another thing to go in on the assumption that a quick burst of violent action will somehow clear the decks and that you can move on and other people will put it back together — Iraq, for example.”
Makes one long for the good old days, doesn’t it? Let’s all have a rousing chorus to the old, benign British empire who so gallantly shouldered the white man’s burden for so long, eh wot…?
Sorry, guys. In typical American fashion I’ll have to announce that this shit’s wearing thin. Disagree with American imperialism all you like, I certainly do, but I fail to see the moral high ground that so many seem is implicit by their frequent pronouncements that they had the good taste to be born in countries that aren’t the superpower-of-the-day.
Do you really suppose that the UK, had they the same toys that the USA currently has, would be treating Chavez more deferentially than they treated Galtieri? For that matter, is there any group of human beings on the planet so wise that the mitre of unilateral rule should be handed to them by mere dint of the accident of their nationality?
Imperialism sucks no matter who the imperialists under discussion happen to be. Waxing nostalgic about how the trains ran on time when Stalin or Nero or Mussolini were running things is really starting to set my teeth on edge.

Posted by: Monolycus | Nov 25 2007 7:54 utc | 7

Tranlsation – non-whities in Latin America are to dumb to be trusted to vote.
b, have i told you lately how much i love you?
i am having a b appreciation moment.

Posted by: annie | Nov 25 2007 10:54 utc | 9

Monolycus @7
Britain’s means of population destruction are well known and in no way inferior to the present slaughter. When the potato was destroyed in Ireland the British government forbad any relief while the English landowners in Ireland continue to export food. The reason was that Lord Russell’s government didn’t want to interfere with the market. Again the British government did not want to interfere with the market while millions of Indians starved and the English entrepreneurs continued to export food from India. I mull many times how people get worked up about the Inquisition and they disregard completely all the monstruous crimes that their own nations have committed and committ in the name of some abstract notion like democracy or the market or liberty or fraternity. And now in our own country we have the mostruous fact of abortion supported on the supposed right of a woman to force people to accept the deletion of the effects of her own acts. Crimes abound, they are universal, no country is exempt.

Posted by: jlcg | Nov 25 2007 15:50 utc | 11

another phrase in that wapo opinion piece that i always find revealing, seeing as how even at least one pentagon clerk has used it this year to promote u.s. interests in the african continent.

Zimbabwe, with its powerful history of … tremendous human capital … could be as inspiring tomorrow as it is depressing today.

from the first web reference on word origins that i come across

Capital: This word comes ultimately from the Latin word for “head”. The words capital and cattle come from this same root. Cattle were and are a source of wealth, and are typically measured in terms of how many “head of cattle”.

to exactly what “powerful history” of “tremendous human capital” does gavin allude? the human labor that built the great stone structures of the 14th century which early euro explorers compared to the great pyramids of egypt and from which zimbabwe took its name? perhaps.
but probably not the pastoralist empire of the mutapa in the 15th which conquered regional peoples & oversaw tremendous herds of cattle, for the author explicitly uses the term “human capital”.
could we infer then that maybe she refers to a more recent history, say that of occupied white settler state of southern rhodesia, which saw a booming post-WWI economy based on surplus labor (otherwise known as the people who used to live & produce there) focused on extraction and farming lands now owned by whitefellas? having been kicked off their own lands, corraled onto de facto reservations, and forced to work on behalf of the white settlers for a mere pittance, the majority of shona, ndebele, & other peoples of zimbabwe were the muscle behind the country’s economy as it took off & gained international status, yet they themselves had little to show for it as wealth, as is typical, only concentrated in the hands of the few.
could this be the “tremendous human capital” that the CFR would like to see return? that would be my interpretation.
(the white supremacist ian smith died in his bed barely a week ago at the ripe old age of 88. zimbabwe’s state-run newspaper the herald actually ran a tolerant obit, which i found somewhat surprising considering smith’s vituperative ventings toward the majority rule govt & the amount of zim blood on his hands.)
— — —
stephen gowans’ latest essay
Looking For Evil In All The Wrong Places

There are dozens of US client states whose leaders fit the description “cruel dictator” who most people don’t know rig elections, jail opponents, close newspapers and start wars. On the other hand, there are a few leaders, invariably elected, who preside over governments that pursue traditional leftist goals of socialism or escape from neo-colonialism or both who many people understand incorrectly to be cruel dictators (Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, Alexander Lukashenko, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Robert Mugabe.) Government officials, news media and even many leftists in the West reserve the term cruel dictator for the opponents of imperialism, while saying virtually nothing about the real dictators who defend and promote Western strategic and economic interests at the expense of their own people. This essay focuses on Robert Mugabe, one leader the West vilifies as a cruel dictator, and compares the accusations made against him with the records of such US allies as Hosni Mubarak, Meles Zenawi, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, Mikheil Saakashvili and Pervez Musharraf.

— — —
comparisons between british empire and the current u.s. superpower are somewhat difficult to make. most political scientists will claim that the u.s. is not literally an empire, in that it is not conquering territories and then incorporating the inhabitants of those lands into its polity, which is the traditional definition. while the shock troops, bureaucrats and economists are subduing peoples and dictating how they organize & run their institutions, iraq, afghanistan, and others are not now or will they likely ever be considered part of the u.s.
(the u.s. is a continental empire, though, incorporating indigenous americans into its base after a period of (often violent) territorial expansion.)
there is debate on this use of the term empire, however, in that its earlier meanings have shifted to take on new understandings of what constitutes modern empire. despite the u.s. not incorporating these other peoples into a larger polity, the president of the united states is widely seen as being the most powerful official on the planet, exercising dominion, in varying degrees, over many nations and peoples outside of its continental borders. while not a king or emperor by official title (another debatable point wrt our current selected ruler, the chimperor), their power is still recognized across vast holdings.
aside from the direct control over territories & govts, there is the reality that the u.s. has hundreds of military outposts spread across the planet to provide the force & influence necessary for dominating international trade & political ideology & protecting its interests. it is w/o question to state that u.s. imperial reach is immense.
the u.s. also has control over international financial institutions such as the world bank & the IMF from which to promote & protect its hegemony. actually, hegemony might not be the appropriate word here. hegemony implies a system of dominance is enacted & accepted b/c it benefits all involved. certainly this is how the u.s. global domination sells itself, w/ programs espousing (very specific, limited meanings of) democracy, free-trade, and civil (and not really human) rights. but, again, it can be seriously argued that nothing that the u.s. only acts in its own selfish interest, that their authority is not legitimate, and that a consensus supporting this system was never reached, let alone sought. so hegemony is not quite the correct word either, as it doesn’t seem to define much of what the u.s. does in the world anymore.
saying that the united states is an imperialist country is most definitely not a controversial stmt to make, as the u.s. has clearly inflicted control throughout much of the world on political, civil, social, and economic planes at least since the period immediately following WWII. since these conquests are not governed by a single authoritarian structure, however, historians and political scientists generally favor using the term “imperialist” to describe the u.s. in place of “empire.”
that’s my understanding so far.
monolycus is correct that it is an exercise in futility to rate imperialisms on a scale of good-to-bad. they all rely on varying degrees of oppression & exploitation, occur in divergent contexts, w/ different actors & ingredients, but the results are the same for those on the short end of the stick.

Posted by: b real | Nov 25 2007 19:35 utc | 13

I have a hard time seeing how people can defend the past decade and a half of Robert Mugabe’s rule in Zimbabwe. The economy has gone dramatically downhill since 1994. People don’t have enough to eat now; they did then. People can’t speak out much against the government now; they could do so somewhat more then. Etc. I spent a couple of months in Zim in 1993, traveling around by bus, train, autostop, and rented auto. The country was thriving then. Today, not so much. The opposition to Mugabe was widely viewed as having the elections in the mid-to-late 90s stolen from them, and again earlier this century.
I don’t see any useful role the U.S. could play, but South Africa and others could play more constructive roles there.

Posted by: Maxcrat | Nov 25 2007 23:13 utc | 15

@ 16
And why do you think Zim went down the economic toilet since your visit in 1993? Since almost ALL African and Latin American states went down the toilet during the so called ‘lost decades’ of the 1980s and 1990s, I’m curious to see where you would think Zim to be the exception.
Revealing the problems of the Mugabe government does not negate the validity of criticisms leveled at the glaringly selective punitive measures taken by the some of the most critical players on the African continent – The IFIs and former colonial powers.
As for the claim that the elections were “widely” viewed as “stolen” – widely viewed by whom? And exactly for what and with whom do the opposition stand for?
I’m sure if Bhutto “wins” in the Pakistani elections that are viewed “widely” no less as free and fair then the case is closed and electoral democracy has been served right?

Posted by: BenIAM | Nov 26 2007 4:48 utc | 17

Ben: I don’t disagree about the IFIs necessarily, although I can’t speak to their specific role in Zimbabwe. My point is that Mugabe has pursued his goals in an ineffective way that has been hugely hurtful to the people of Zimbabwe.
Jony: I have intermittently followed the local and regional press; the view that the election was stolen seemed pretty widespread there. The opposition party seemed a legitimate one.

Posted by: Maxcrat | Nov 26 2007 12:02 utc | 19