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No One Left Behind – Unless You’re an Iraqi or Afghani Interpreter
This past week, The Federalist featured a story reported by Fox News about an Afghan interpreter, Fraidoon Akhtari, who was finally granted a Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) after a five-year wait. Akhtari accompanied US troops in 500 combat missions over 13 years.
In another story, an Afghani translator, Mohammed Janis Shinwari spent five years waiting for an SIV. It took US Army Captain Matt Zeller, who harassed the media, contacted Congressional members, and set up an online petition to rescue the man who had saved his life.
These stories are not news; the topic has been written about numerous times, but Iraqi and Afghani lives are still in danger because the wheels have been turning so slowly.
The State Department is one of the chief culprits. It sets the requirements for the approval process [boldface is theirs]:
You may apply for this program if you meet all of the following requirements:
- You must be a national of Iraq or Afghanistan; and
- You must have worked directly with the U.S. Armed Forces or under COM authority as a translator or interpreter for a period of at least 12 months; and
- You must have obtained a favorable written recommendation from a General or Flag Officer in the chain of command of the U.S. Armed Forces unit that was supported by you, as a translator or interpreter, or from the Chief of Mission from the embassy where you worked.
The requirements are strict, but not unfair.
Unfortunately this website provides conflicting information about the number of SIVs that are issued each year. It shows a chart that states that the processing time for a person who applies through Kabul is 287 days. Although a long period, it doesn’t seem unreasonable, in my opinion (given that we are talking about the US government.) Yet it’s also clear that data on approval rates does not match the reality. Many applicants are waiting years, not months, to be approved.
If you look more closely at the process, you’ll notice that Section 1059 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006, which was amended in 2008 to allow 5,000 SIVs to be issued for the next five years, was amended in March 2017 to only 1,500. I would assume this latest figure is correct, but it’s hard to be sure. This change could affect as many as 10,000 applications. According to the NY Times, “It is unclear whether the reported suspension of new applications was related to the number of available visas or to the president’s order reducing refugee intake generally, or to a combination of the two factors.”
The State Department claims that delays can be a result of incomplete applications, applicants not meeting the requirements, or other applicant-related problems. If there are thousands of people who endangered their lives by helping our troops, why are so few even applying? Are they discouraged by the slow pace of approval (even though the system has been improved)? Do they receive any assistance in completing the documentation?
Fortunately one non-profit organization has stepped up to aid Iraqi and Afghanis in this process, once they are here, called No One Left Behind. This is their mission:
The mission of No One Left Behind is to help Afghan and Iraqi combat interpreters with Special Immigrant Visas (SIVs) resettle safely in the United States. We bridge the gap that exists between current State Department and NGO refugee relief programs, and provide assistance with housing, employment and cultural adaptation. We treat our clients as the heroic veterans they are.
The organization estimates that there are more than 35,000 individuals who’ve aided American troops, and they and their families are in constant danger for the aid they provided.
Significant issues surface in the face of these endangered interpreters and translators who are left to struggle in their respective countries. Why does the number of SIVs approved keep changing, when thousands of Iraqis and Afghanis and their families are looking for asylum? Do we have an obligation to be more generous in the number of people we approve and the timeliness with which we do it? Since they not only put their lives at risk to assist our troops, doesn’t it matter that they are possibly in even greater danger remaining in their countries? Do you suspect other reasons for the State Department dragging its feet? And it’s not clear whether integrating them into this country is part of the government’s job, or if it should be left to organizations like No One Left Behind.
At the very least, we should be doing a better job of bringing these heroes to safety. They helped keep our troops alive.
Published in Military
Freesmith, do you view the Weekly Standard and Commentary as the Enemy? You make them sound a bit like some kind of conspiracy…
I suppose such things should be determined by those who served with them in the United States military. Did they really put their lives on the line or were their merely translating documents in the Green Zone? As Senator Alan Simpson once stated, veterans benefits should be different for those were injured in a war zone as compared to someone who was essentially never in harm’s way.
However, two things should be noted.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_English-speaking_population
No conspiracy. The editorial positions of both magazines are out in the open, there for all to see.
They want the US to be the policeman of the world. They think that stance is in the long term best interests of the US.
I think that position has not worked out very well for traditional Americans and traditional, conservative values. I think it spells big trouble going forward. I especially don’t think it serves America’s interests now that foreign affairs is viewed through partisan lenses.
Divided nations, like divided armies, should not advance into enemy terrain.
A fair question, Gaijin. I don’t know the answer, although there is anecdotal evidence that some were in the middle of the action and saved the lives of some of our folks. Then there’s the fact that they very well could be at risk among their own folks because they helped the Americans.
It’s more than that, barging into tribal societies like some pukka sahib. The whole imperial project is not suitable for a small government, republican nation. Even honest socialists have understood it: it was Randolph Bourne who coined the maxim, “War is the health of the state.” And why do you think every starry-eyed progressive dreams that his utopian cause will be carried out with “the moral equivalent of war”?
Nations at war follow orders. They ask few questions. That is a lovely arrangement for our soi disant elite, but it’s not so good for a stiff-necked, free people. We’re not England, after all.
But if you want to revisit the policeman of the world argument, take it up with “conservative” Bret Stephens. His last book was a ringing endorsement of the concept.
It should come as no surprise that Stephens, like his pals at Commentary And The Weekly Standard, is also a rapid NeverTrumper. Like Max Boot and Gabriel Schonenfeld, he voted for Hillary.
Statists of a feather flock together. Keep an eagle eye on them – an American eagle.
I find the comments of @freesmith to be eloquently stated but nonetheless unconvincing.
What’s wrong with America being the world’s policeman? Freesmith implies a counterfactual, that America and/or the world would be a better place if we weren’t the world’s policeman. But what basis is there for believing that?
We essentially took over de facto management of global security in 1945. Since then, the world has experienced the greatest interval without open major-power conflict in recorded history. More people live in freedom and prosperity today than at any time in history. We spend a few percent of our GDP on defense, a lot of money but hardly a large part of our wealth. People, products, and knowledge move around the world through a physical and virtual infrastructure that we keep safe and open to all.
Even as science marches forward and weapons become ever more portable and destructive, we in the west live without the looming fear of serious attack. It is American and western vigilance — policing — that makes this possible. It may not always be possible: the world remains a dangerous place, and technology may outpace our ability to protect ourselves from it. But, today, we enjoy security and prosperity.
Of course, there’s the problem of Islamic violence. But that isn’t a product of American policing: Islamic doctrine is expansionist and supremacist, and our passivity won’t protect us from the inevitable conflicts with Islam’s more extreme and oppressive practitioners. Rather, our effective policing of the world’s Islamic hot-spots will help give us our best chance of keeping this dangerous ideology in check.
So, yes, let’s be the world’s policeman. It’s worked remarkably well so far.
Very eloquent, Henry. I think that the term “policing” is not very well defined here. And given the current world conditions, I don’t know that we should stop policing, but I think we need to revisit our role in the world. With more countries getting nuclear weapons, with the demands that Islamist terrorism makes on us, at the very least we need perhaps to develop a clearer strategy for deciding when to intervene, why we will intervene, and whether we can be helpful or successful. I think that’s a reasonable, albeit difficult approach.
Absolutely. I’m defending our role; how we go about carrying it out, and how our actions evolve over time, is a much bigger question.
My own preference is that we maintain a large global presence, with bases in many countries (as today) and the ability to project military power effectively. (I want that 350+ ship Navy we were promised. That’s one of the handful of crucial checkboxes in my assessment of the Trump administration.)
However we go about policing the world, I want us to do it. I want us to do it well, wisely, humanely, and effectively, but I want us to do it.
Americans are not suited for imperial projects. We are a republican people and were for most of our history. Managing the world, as in the Roman example which our founders took to heart, is the death warrant for republics.
Today many continue to feel America is different and can maintain its special character – its exceptionalism – as policeman of the world. And the patriotic appeal of having the world’s greatest military and being “the essential nation” helps to make the role an easy sell, even to conservatives. (The fortunes to be made and protected don’t hurt either.)
These people think this way even as our “Invade the world, invite the world” policies bear their fruit within the nation. I’ll give one example and let everyone mull on it. Dismiss it or rationalize it away if you like, only think about it.
The US became the foremost industrial power in the world in the 1890s. We went to war in 1917, but stepped back from the international stage in 1920, even closing our borders to immigration in 1924. We suffered a decades-long Great Depression in the 1930s, when at one point 25% of the working class was unemployed. But through all that in one very specific way we differed from all other Western nations: we did not have a major Socialist party, even though we were highly industrialized and capitalism had seemingly failed.
But seventy years into our role as world leader, the first 45 of which were dominated by an existential struggle with a socialist empire – when “commie” had the same force of opprobrium as “racist” does today – one of our two long-time major parties is effectively socialist. Just like Europe
Exceptional no more.
America’s role as policeman of the world really began in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the superpower rivalry of our two countries. Only then were we free to act hegemonically as the uni-power. Kuwait 1991 marks the beginning of this new era of American history.
Domestically, how has America fared during this period? Have conservative traditional values become stronger or weaker at home? I say weaker, by far. Have our finances improved as we dominate financial markets and the dollar is the reserve currency of the world? Well, we just passed 20 trillion in national indebtedness and are running bigger deficits than ever. Are we more united as we pursue the maintenance of world order, or more divided? Is economic inequality growing or shrinking? Culturally, do our people appear to be growing in maturity under the weight of our role, or more and more do we exhibit what can only be called “grasshopper morality:” i.e., living for today. And our capital city – Is it in touch with the people of the country, their wants and needs; or does it more give the appearance of The Royal Domain, complete with courtiers, mandarins and a growing class of dependents on government programs, policies and promises, ready and willing to shape the national debate to suit their a priori interests and woefully out-of-touch with the heartland?
Are we on the right track or the wrong track since 1991? The polls have been consistently negative for years, but why don’t you tell me what you think?
You know my answer.
Remember, @susanquinn and @henryracette, it’s not enough that things “not be so bad” under our policeman-of-the-world role, it’s that things should be better than they were before. Otherwise why do it?
Everything else, my friends, is mere speculation and counter-factuals.
“By their fruits shall you know them;” not by their dreams, wishes or fears.
I am eager to do so, and will tonight, as soon as parental duties allow.
We’ve been on the wrong track for a while, Freesmith. But I refuse to cave in to hand-wringing and negativity. Your analysis is accurate. But it leaves out those of us who still celebrate the American spirit. That’s why I post here. Not so much to bemoan what is happening, what has happened, but to figure out how things can change. Will it be incredibly difficult to change? Likely? Will it be impossible? I don’t know. But I do know that I love this country with its many faults and mistakes and bad choices. And I won’t give up. Will you?
So, things are getting worse (true) and they need to change (also true).
Remember, however, that the twin topics of this discussion thread for me have been
Let’s start by changing both of them. Drastically reduce all immigration and step back from being policeman of the world. They are both contributing – I say major, but you don’t have to agree with that characterization – factors to things getting worse in our beloved country in the concrete ways I’ve pointed out (Comments #40 and #41).
Yes, it will be difficult, but I haven’t given up. Have you?
Freesmith
I would rather have the interpreters here than you. In fact, I find your betrayal & isolationism ideology to be incredibly cowardly and short-sighted . Others have called you out for combining refugees and people who risked their lives to help us. In many cases, our soldiers owe them their lives. How do you expect people to work with us to kill terrorists if we will sell them out? Or do you think that if we hide under the bed ISIS will leave us alone?
Aside from that, how do you pretend to show that aggressive foreign policy is the reason for American decline? Correlation is not causation, otherwise American isolationism caused WWII.
Freeman, I’ve already answered your questions to some degree, but let me bring my answers together. First, I am all for re-assessing our immigration policies; in my mind, that probably means cutting back the numbers for the foreseeable future. I don’t believe that past criteria for immigration work for us today. So we at least agree on cutting back. Second, we haven’t defined what it means to be policemen of the world. So when you say we should stop doing that, I ask, “doing what”? I don’t want us initiating conflicts like Iraq. At the same time, we were trying to destroy Islamist groups in Afghanistan because they attacked us here. So should we never go anywhere else in the world? I’m not prepared to say that. But I do think we need to look at our relationship to the world in a new way. I do want us to be seen as a force to be reckoned with; my hope is that dangerous actors might think twice before doing whatever they want. After all, we now know that something that blows up elsewhere in the world could end up in some form on our doorstep (such as Islamist training camps). But I do think we need to re-define what it means to be a global force in the world and what it will take to do that.
I have not given up, not by a long shot. But I don’t want to get stuck in issues of the past. I want us to analyze them and use them as data for a way forward.
So on your first point, we’re probably not that far apart. On your second point, I don’t know where we are with each other.
Thanks for the kind words and the thoughtful response. Pleasure talking with you.
I agree. Fortunately, America has not been an imperial nation, and isn’t one today.
I agree that it would certainly be out of character for America to try to “manage the world.” Fortunately, again, we don’t.
Number me among them, and wholeheartedly so.
Because… why, exactly? Because the Democratic party has moved hard left — for reasons which we can debate? On that basis you conclude we aren’t “exceptional?”
How about the fact that we’re a hyper-power without empire? How about the fact that we’re an amazingly non-racist country? That we jealously protect our freedom of expression? Of religion? That we value innovation and embrace change? Can you think of anything beyond the wackiness of one of our two major parties that might justify saying, as I believe, that America remains exceptional?
I’m not alone in questioning that assertion. A more accurate statement, I think, would be that we have been the world’s policeman since 1945, when we stood as the only intact major industrial power and at the peak of our military capacity. (Incidentally, if we ever were going to pursue empire, that would have been the time. But we didn’t.)
Your assessment seems to ignore our role in opposing Soviet bloc expansion through the Cold War; in securing Europe via NATO; in maintaining the security of South Korea; in preserving a precarious balance in the Middle East; and in protecting Israel from annihilation. Those are all examples of our global policing role, and I’d argue that all were largely successful.
(cont’d)
(cont’d — part 2)
This is an example of cherry-picking in order to assert a causal relationship. The folks in the climate change community do it all the time. I don’t know if they do it deliberately, or if you do. It doesn’t matter; it’s still a mistake.
America made a huge lurch away from “traditional values” when we embraced the New Deal in the 1930s. We continued with the Great Society programs of the 1960s. The 1960s and 1970s saw enormous social change and radicalism.
Pinning the death of “traditional values” on 1991 and our liberation of Kuwait is, I think, nonsensical and wildly arbitrary.
This is the last bit of you comments that I’ll quote and respond to right now, because I think it captures beautifully the error in your analysis.
You presume to associate our huge national debt (overwhelmingly the product of social spending), our income inequality (largely a product of technological change), cultural “maturity” (whatever that means), and a short-term immediate-gratification lifestyle (that began generations ago with the popularization of consumer debt) with the fact that “we pursue the maintenance of world order?”
You might as well blame it on CO2 emissions, for all the causal argument you’re providing.
So I disagree pretty comprehensively with your arguments. I think the world has done pretty well under the uniquely benign super-power protection of the United States. It certainly hasn’t been perfect, but it’s unrealistic to imagine that it could be. What it has been is richer, freer, and secure longer than at any previous time in human history. That isn’t entirely due to American hegemony, but one would have a hard time arguing that American hegemony — the generous non-imperialist global military and humanitarian assistance provided by the United States since 1945 — has made the world a worse place than it otherwise would have been. Neither history nor logic supports that assertion.
And all our domestic challenges and the global problems of rogue states and Islamic terror notwithstanding, I see no reason why the United States should abandon its long and successful role as global protector and policeman.
Well, at least your response was somewhat better than another I received. But I do have a problem with your understanding of my two separate comments.
The first one is easy, Henry. Please look again at my comment about the sudden appearance of a major socialist party in the US. I crafted it very carefully. I was referring in that one, single example of the fruit that our “Invade the world, invite the world” policy brings forth in America to “one very specific way we differed from all other Western nations.” Which was that we were exceptional in never having had a major socialist party – and now we do. “Just like Europe. Exceptional no more.”
I can see that the phrase sets you off. You launched into a long defense of American exceptionalism in several realms, none of which I had mentioned, with outraged question marks everywhere. You just misread my point.
Now we can debate why socialism has taken over the dreams of Democrats. I’ve already implied some arguments, but there are more: 1) Deep political interaction with the world affects the “cop” as well as the “civilian;” 2) War is the health of the state and socialism is the ideology of the statist; 3) Our infantilizing hegemony allowed Western Europe to shun defense, use their resources to make socialism seem to work and become models for progressives in America. Sure, they’re a bit more nuanced than “wacky,” but I’m sure you’ve got better theories.
Let’s talk about my follow-up comment.
People can disagree about how “imperialistic” America is. We’re a commercial nation, so its not surprising that we might have garrisons in faraway places and patrol the seas for pirates. But we also invade countries and engage in setting-up regimes and nation-building. Many people at home and abroad see us as imperialistic. However, I used the term “imperial project” and I used it only twice. Deliberately. Never in these comments did I write “imperialism” or “empire.” Deliberately.
I persist in asserting that 1991 marked a real turning-point for American foreign policy. Before that, and in each of the examples that you cite, America was engaged in Cold War calculations, opposing, countering and thwarting Soviet – sometimes Chinese – Communist statecraft and Soviet military ambitions. (You left out Vietnam.) We weren’t a policeman; we were a soldier waging war by many methods against a determined enemy.
That ended in 1991 – right, Henry? After that the US had a freer hand, with Russia prostrate and China concentrating on keeping its nascent economic miracle alive. We were the “uni-power,” the cop-on-the-beat, the bringer of the New World Order.
(continued next comment)
And all of a sudden, things started to go badly. The culture war, which had been going on since the days of the Moral Majority, began to accelerate away from traditionalists. Things they had passed laws against in the 1990s became broadly accepted by everyone only a few years later. And causes traditionalists had never dreamed could be spoken of, like transgender rights, seemed to blossom into acceptance with amazing speed.
And our own government. the government we elected, began to view a lot of average Americans with contempt and scorn, something which just seemed to coincide with the amassing of more and more power by the increasingly regal administrative state. Elections, unlike in the 70s and 80s, seemed to have no force to stop the grinding, relentless leftward lurch.
Of course, different people have varying ideas about the root cause or causes of these developments and the other ones I mentioned in Comment #41. Some might point to the generalized decline of religious faith, the spread of the teachings of the Frankfurt School, or Derrida and Foucault, or myriad other reasons. You have a laundry list of causes yourself.
But I’m a flesh-and-blood kind of guy, not someone who leans toward fuzzy abstractions. I think that when you engage the world the world engages you; and when you bring in millions from wildly divergent cultures and religions, it’s going to have an impact. It’s not coincidence and it’s not correlation. Send your child overseas and she’ll come back different; live among strangers and you’ll act different. (Or so say Putnam and Murray.)
So I push for immigration restrictions and a less-assertive foreign policy. That’s how I hope to change the country and perhaps put it on the right track again for my son and daughter.
Your arguments haven’t convinced me. To be frank, they’re just the same old thing.
I may be an old dog, but I can learn new tricks. I’ve got to: it’s dangerous out there.
Perhaps your summary would have been stronger if you had emphasized all the wonderful things the role of global protector had done for your fellow Americans.
That’s why I was complaining about it – remember?
(Bold type added by me.)
Goodnight, all.
None of my question marks were outraged. They were all self-controlled, even-tempered — gracious, even, in their own quizzical way.
Ah, I get it. Thanks for the clarification.
So what you actually meant by “Exceptional no more” was “Exceptional in not having a major socialist political party, no more.” I’ll accept that.
We’re still exceptional in a bunch of other ways. So, back to the top of your comment, where you said:
I’ll grant that we aren’t exceptional in that one respect — that we don’t have an essentially socialist major political party. And that’s too bad. But it doesn’t mean that we can’t continue competently policing the world. (It probably does mean that we can’t let the Democrats be in charge of it very often.)
And that would be worthwhile.
I think the suggestion that our willingness to protect Europe, Israel, South Korea, and the global order in general is a proximate cause of the leftward tilt of the Democratic party is, while interesting and worth discussing, not particularly compelling. I can think of other factors that would seem to be much more important: the social transformations of the 60s and 70s, the left’s obsession with multiculturalism and the effect that had on civics education, prosperity and the impact that had on our willingness to live with more risk than our predecessors, television and its ability to feed our lust for novelty and edginess, the natural ratcheting upward of social spending and the growing dependent classes that result. Etc.
All politics isn’t really local, but domestic economic and social forces must surely dominate — at least in times of relative peace, as we’ve enjoyed since at least the early 70s. One of the interesting characteristics of U.S. post-Vietnam military activity is how very little impact it has had on most Americans. Claiming to see in it the impetus for a major cultural shift to the left simply isn’t convincing.
(cont’d)
(cont’d — part 2)
Well, okay. But I’m wondering what the purpose of an “imperial project” is if not, you know, “imperialism” and “empire.” I mean, would you undertake a “garden project” without intending, at some point, to establish a garden?
Perhaps you’re simply too subtle for me.
I left out Vietnam and a lot of other examples. It wasn’t an exhaustive list.
You are trying to define “policing” as what happened post-1991, and call our actions prior to that something else. I reject that. We’ve done all sorts of things in our role as global super-power, from defensive treaties to fighting local wars to stopping genocide. None of our engagements since World War II, except our attack on Afghanistan, were plausibly defensive in nature. We took them on because we chose to play a role as a global authority. Your distinction of “soldier” versus “policeman” is irrelevant. Most of our policing involves soldiers, and quite often they’re “waging war by many methods against a determined enemy,” as you put it — whether we choose to call it “war” or not.
What ended in 1991? Our soldiers “waging war by many methods against a determined enemy?” Obviously not: we’re still doing it. Is it more essential that we do it in Iraq than in Granada or Korea or Vietnam?
I think the distinction you’re actually making is between conventional and asymmetric enemies. When we were fighting in Korea and Vietnam, we were fighting conventional war against conventional enemies. Today we fight asymmetic war against non-state or quasi-state actors. That doesn’t make them less committed or less lethal. It does change the character of the conflict, from the monolithic orderly progression of war to something smaller and more dynamic, localized, reactive.
But that isn’t what defines our role as global policeman. That’s defined not by the nature of the conflict, but by its relationship to us, and by why we choose to take it on — as a matter of national defense, or to preserve global order.
(cont’d)
(cont’d)
So the fad of transgenderism is the result of nation-building in Iraq?
Humans have a natural tendency to find patterns where none exist. There’s a name for this: apophenia. It’s undoubtedly a useful survival trait, but it leads to some odd conclusions.
We have had hundreds of bases in scores of countries all around the world for decades. Most of those soldiers haven’t been involved in conflicts in recent years. They’ve been “policing,” maintaining a force presence to encourage stability, to increase our reach so that we can help preserve order and create a sense of security.
And the fad of transgenderism took off because we pushed Iraq out of Kuwait and subsequently deposed its government? That was the straw that broke the camel’s back and propelled Bruce Jenner to womanhood?
I know you find this plausible. Can you see why I don’t?
This looks to me like a fuzzy abstraction:
Invade Iraq ergo Sexually Confused Boys in Girls’ Restrooms
Perhaps your assertion would be more plausible if some of those “wildly divergent cultures and religions” we’ve imported were notorious proponents of same-sex marriage and the accommodation of sexually-confused male teens. But I don’t think any of them are. So this seems pretty fuzzy to me.
(cont’d — but only one more time, I promise)
(cont’d — but this is it)
And this gets into the causality problem, Free. It’s something I try to avoid, asserting causality when all we really know is correlation. So, no, I can’t tell you, beyond the narrowest concrete examples, what being the global protector has “done” for my fellow Americans — any more than you can tell me, beyond the narrowest concrete examples, what it has done “to” my fellow Americans.
But what I can tell you is what I said above: since America assumed the role of global authority, we have had the longest period in human history without a major-power war. We now have more people living in freedom than at any time in history, more people living in prosperity. Money, materials, products, labor, and knowledge move around the globe with ease.
We have an ongoing battle, or policing action if you prefer, with terrorism, one we won’t win in the foreseeable future because its source — supremacist Islam — is deeply embedded and intractable. It won’t go away if we stop fighting it. But, if we continue fighting it, we seem able to keep the worst of it far away.
Peace, security, prosperity, freedom. I think the world can thank America for a lot of that, but I can’t prove that it’s all the result of America’s global authority. Maybe everyone would get along reasonably well even without us. I doubt it, but maybe.
And, who knows, maybe if we hadn’t invaded Iraq twice, Bruce Jenner would still self-identify as a man. But you’re going to have to work hard to convince me of that.
Republics suck at keeping promises. Republics suck at doing a lot of things right.
We are not an Imperial power, and as such, are not able to engage in imperial actions.
As I’ve said elsewhere, I don’t think we have imperial ambitions. But, just for the sake of clarity, what kinds of things are you thinking of when you speak of “imperial actions?” Perhaps we have different ideas of what that means.
Consistent foreign policy requires consistent leadership. Our nation does not have that, as we are a Republic. An Imperial structure would have far more stability in that area.
Nation Building is, by nature, an imperial action. We managed it after WWII because the world was in smoking ruins, and there was no one left to set things back up. We had a brief (for history) period of consensus in the Republic that broke down in the 60’s. So, we suck at nation building, because the citizens of a commercial republic suck at it. We are so egalitarian, that we are unwilling to impose our will on anyone, and even defend our own culture these days. It is little wonder the citizens do not demand our leaders keep promises to others.