The Marines, Counterinsurgency, and Strategic Culture

158 Chapter 6
Nicaragua was often described by Marines as an attractive posting, but
even there Marines brought the full spectrum of ethnocentrism to bear: racism,
paternalism, and superiority. Despite the fact that Nicaraguan elites
saw themselves as “white,” their American guests “typically considered all
native Nicaraguans to be nonwhite (usually of mixed race) and thus culturally
inferior” and by virtue of their inferiority prone to civil disorder. These
views were expressed in articles penned for North American journals—articles
that were read by local elite. These tended to exaggerate exotic aspects
of Nicaragua and cast the country in a primitive light. 95
In its best form, racism came in the guise of paternalism. The “for your
own good” mentality possessed by Marines provided cognitive justification of
their strict and coercive measures, usurpation of decision- making authority,
and ongoing presence in order to achieve what was “best” for the country.
Mary Renda documents a consistent strain of paternalism in Marine attitudes
toward the occupation of Haiti. She quotes the most famous of the Haitian
expeditionary figures, Smedley Butler, in testimony to Congress during its
1921 and 1922 investigations: “We were all embued [sic] with the fact that we
were the trustees of a huge estate that belonged to minors. That was the viewpoint
I personally took, that the Haitians were our wards and that we were
endeavoring to make for them a rich and productive property, to be turned
over to them at such a time as our government saw fit.” 96 Documented elsewhere,
Butler’s private remarks reflected the attitudes of most Marines when
he dubbed his Gendarmerie subordinates “my little chocolate soldiers” and
cast his ambitions as an effort to do his “level best to make a real and happy
nation out of this blood crazy Garden of Eden.” 97 Renda argues that this
paternalism came in the form of “domination, a relation of power, masked
as benevolent by its reference to paternal care and guidance, but structured
equally by norms of paternal authority and discipline.” Paternalism was not
an alternative to violence “but rather as one among several cultural vehicles
for it.” 98 Although America’s resolve to do “what was best” for the republics
was not insincere, its marriage to racist paternalism ensured incurring the
sharp resentment of the nations’ populations. Marines alone cannot be saddled
with the blame for bringing racism with them—they did this by virtue
of their American heritage—but they must own the belligerent actions they
vindicated through this perceptual lens, actions that fell enough outside the
American norm—racist as it was—that it was rejected by the Marines’ own
domestic public and brought shame and indignation down on their service.
Marines Behaving Badly: The Banana Wars Years
Marines of the Banana Wars era were racist, rough, somewhat divorced from
domestic civilian life, trained toward violence as a problem- solving device,
and dangerous when bored. To cite only one example, Marines acting as