Diana Johnstone, Queen of Chaos: The Misadventures of Hillary Clinton (2015) — a Book Review

10 January 2016

An accurate summary of oligarchic-propagandist American foreign policy

Queen of Chaos: The Misadventures of Hillary Clinton’s worth lies in Diana Johnstone’s talent as a concise summarist:

In April 2014, a peer-reviewed study for Princeton and Northwestern Universities concluded that the United States is not a democracy, but an “oligarchy” run by “economic elites”.

The scholars concluded that:

“The central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on US government policy, while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence.”

The American state is dedicated to creating profit and personal advancement for ruling elites:

[B]y allowing unlimited campaign contributions, the United States has reverted, not to “bourgeois” democracy, but to billionaire democracy. The advantage of this revised democracy is that if you have the money, you can buy it.

This (less than public-minded) trait has, as Johnstone points out, unfortunate effects for most of humanity.

The author takes readers through American meddling and interventions in the Rwanda, Yugoslavia, Bosnia, Serbia, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Crimea and the larger Ukraine (among others) and concludes that:

For most Americans, U.S. wars are simply a branch of the entertainment industry, something to hear about on television but rarely seen. These wars give you a bit of serious entertainment in return for your tax dollars. But they are not really a matter of life and death…

The United States no longer even makes war in order to win, but rather to make sure that the other side loses.

These are essentially spoiler wars, fought to get rid of real or imagined rivals; everyone is poorer as a result. Americans are being taught to grow accustomed to these negative wars, whose declared purpose is to get rid of something – a dictator, or terrorism, or human rights violations. The United States is out to dominate the world by knocking out the other players.

Johnstone works in Hillary Clinton’s statements, especially made during her service as Secretary of State, to demonstrate that Secretary Clinton is probably even more radically a neocon plutocrat than President Obama has been.

Pointing out Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin’s Russian interest-based, rationally taken countermoves

Johnstone’s view of President Putin — as a not necessarily demented American adversary — mirrors my own. She quotes him at some length. The American media (of course) generally do not bother to investigate the arguable sense of some of his statements of Russian purpose.

I appreciated Johnstone’s overview of Federation strategy because — at least with a modicum common sense and historical knowledge engaged — it becomes apparent that the crazy person on the block has (very arguably) not been the Russian leader.

It is difficult for historically and culturally knowledgeable people to quarrel with Johnstone’s negative conclusions about American policy and leaders

The United States’ purpose these days is to make perennial war for personal and corporate profit. We have no self-perceived interests other than these, despite the fact that our self-serving propaganda pretends that we do.

Laughably, institutions that should be critiquing these arguable wrongs have been coopted — (including, according to Johnstone, Amnesty International):

The Western human rights community is a network of organizations that thrive on leveling accusations against the countries that Western donors want to embarrass.

Our widely shared inability to separate propaganda from rational and ethical thinking arguably results in some geopolitical strategic mistakes, even when assessed according to America’s already twisted perceptions of its national self-interest:

The Middle East “regime change” wars have targeted precisely the secular nationalist governments that Israel wanted to get rid of. The only conceivable benefit to the United States of this policy would have been to gain control of those countries’ oil resources.

This is an explanation favored by various economic determinists. However, the chaos resulting from these wars has made any orderly exploitation of petroleum resources all but impossible.

Our supposed “values” have trumped our interests.

Are we a maniacal nation?

If so, Johnstone suggests a cure:

Wars fought at a distance by mercenaries and drones must be stopped at the top, or finally defeated either by foreign forces or by domestic collapse.

A peace party must have a strategy for stopping war at the top. The rise of Hillary Clinton should make clear the total failure of clinging to the Democratic Party as the “lesser evil”. A Peace Party needs to be non-partisan and cross-partisan, rallying people who are fed up with a War Party composed of neocons and humanitarian hypocrites. People can honestly disagree on domestic policy and still understand that war is a matter of life and death.

The United States cannot go on dominating the world. The question is: can the United States dominate itself?

Basic wisdom is ancient and simple. Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall. That is a lesson almost anyone should be able to understand.

Despite author Johnstone’s implied hope for change

I doubt that “we” are going to learn anything.

Perhaps our grand or great-grandchildren will. But probably only after other people economically or militarily obliterate them, as a consequence of the United States having been a seemingly interminable deadly nuisance decades prior.

Unfortunately (from a moral perspective), History holds virtually no one directly responsible for sins — instead extracting arguably misdirected revenge long afterward upon people who had nothing at all to do with the errors that delayed accountability now faults. It is no wonder that some of humanity invented the concept of Hell, so as to make ourselves feel better about the Universe’s apparently missing deserved assertions of personal and national responsibility.

One caveat

Johnstone fails to footnote properly. There are only 40 notes for a book length that would require at least 100 to (more probably) 300.

Too much of Johnstone’s supporting historical detail is left unsourced. Given how critical some of these assertions are to her arguments, this is unfortunate.

Those of us who are old enough to remember — and were motivated enough at the time to read or experience widely — may see the merit of Johnstone’s unauthenticated pronouncements. Nevertheless, sourcing her conclusions to the data that allegedly support them would have been preferable.

Readers who agree with Johnstone may let this criticism slide. Hostile (and ignorant) ones likely will not.

Nevertheless — recommended

Queen of Chaos: The Misadventures of Hillary Clinton will not change minds. Rationality is not a predominating human quality. And the very people who cause the problems the author points out will have personal self-interest impenetrably masking their already limited ability to perceive morally and strategically abominable behavior.

On the other hand, similarly minded people will appreciate Diana Johnstone’s facility for clear and succinct summation of “our” shared perspective — “What she said!”

The book is essentially a criminal trial’s closing argument. It can be admired, even while recognizing its scholarly shortcomings.

PeteFree.com

Diana Johnstone, Queen of Chaos: The Misadventures of Hillary Clinton (2015) — a Book Review