Dr. Thomas DiLorenzo, economic historian and author of The Real Lincoln and Lincoln Unmasked, addresses the title question in a short article for LRC: The answer is simple: Decentralized governments abroad are more difficult for an imperialist power like the U.S. government to control. It’s much easier to control a single despot with bribes and threats. Comparing the despot to the “sainted” Abe Lincoln also helps stave off opposition by the American sheeple. Sometimes the puppet/dictator makes the comparison himself, as the former dictator of Pakistan did a few years ago when he declared marshal law there. “Lincoln did it,” he said, so everyone should just shut up! One frequently hears the Newt Gingriches and other neocons tell their American audiences the exact same thing.
It’s also more difficult for despots and tyrants to control the American public when government is more decentralized. This is why both major political parties constantly perpetuate and expand upon the Lincoln myth, telling bigger and bigger lies about Dishonest Abe every year.
This classic, Claremont Institute/Hillsdale College scamosophy was on display this morning on FOX News when a former Bush administration “pentagon official” said we cannot leave Afghanistan now because government there is too decentralized and “lacks centralized control.” It lacks easy control BY THE U.S. REGIME, in other words. This is why the military/industrial/congressional complex funds big government, pro-imperialism outfits such as the Claremont Institute with all of its Lincoln and Churchill worship, its “statesman of the year” awards to the likes of Rumsfeld and Cheney, etc.
Secession is an expression of voluntary association and has long been a part of the classical liberal tradition. It was the route to freedom to millions enslaved by the former Soviet empire and was how America was created in the first place — by seceding from the British empire. The founders understood that the mere threat of secession (and nullification) was an essential means of controlling the tyrannical proclivities of the central state, if they were ever to be controlled. None of this matters to the Claremontistas and other varieties of neocons, for they are not interested in freedom — for Americans or for anyone else — but in the never-ending expansion of the American empire, and the fame and riches it creates for them personally.
(The same former “pentagon official” also said we can’t leave Afghanistan now, because al Qaeda might then return to that country. This is another way of saying that we can NEVER leave Afghanistan, for al Qaeda could always hypothetically return. In fact, it’s time to “double down” our imperialistic interventions, he said).