|
|||||
INTRODUCTION: AMERICAN LEADERSHIP, AMERICAN EMPIRE Many of us first heard about the Bush administration's plan to invade Iraq last August. However, a small group of political elites planned the takeover of Iraq years ago. With that goal achieved, now is the time to look at who these people are, how they created a war on Iraq, and most importantly their plans for the future. The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) is a Washington-based neo-conservative think-tank founded in 1997 to "rally support for American global leadership." PNAC's agenda runs far deeper than regime change in Iraq. Its statement of principles begins with the assertion that "American foreign and defense policy is adrift" and calls for "a Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity." While their tone is high-minded, their proposal is unilateral military intervention to protect against threats to America's status as the lone global superpower. The statement is signed by such influential figures as Dick Cheney, Jeb Bush, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Dan Quayle, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz. PNAC is not alone, nor did it arise from new wells of power. Most of the founding members of PNAC held posts in the Reagan or elder Bush administration and other neo-conservative think-tanks, publications, and advocacy groups. The effect of PNAC's ideology is great on Bush -- the presidential candidate who promised a "humble," isolationist foreign policy. The events of September 11, 2001 provided a window of opportunity for furthering PNAC's agenda of American empire. Understanding that agenda can help us anticipate the Bush administration's next steps and organize accordingly. ONE LINK If
you only read one article in this bulletin, it should be this one. This
article from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel superbly covers the influence
of PNAC in Bush's decision to go to war with Iraq. As the author writes,
the goal is to transform the Middle East through a show of U.S. military
might and "the obvious place to start is with Iraq, which was already
in trouble with the United Nations, had little international standing
and was reviled even by some Arab nations." FORMING THE BUSH DOCTRINE The motivating event for the neo-conservatives who founded PNAC was the end of the 1991 Gulf War in Iraq. With Saddam's power weakened, the neo-conservatives believed he should be eliminated permanently. Instead, the elder President Bush encouraged the Iraqi opposition to rise up against the Ba'ath government. As their rebellion was put down by Iraqi troops, Bush ordered the U.S. military not to intervene, choosing instead a strategy of containment for Saddam. In 1992, Paul Wolfowitz, then-Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, authored an internal policy brief on America's military posture in the post-Cold War era: to prevent the emergence of a new rival power through preemption rather than containment and acting unilaterally if necessary to protect U.S. interests. When a draft was leaked to the press, controversy erupted and the report had to be softened. The
web accompaniment to the PBS Frontline special "The War Behind Closed
Doors" features an excellent chronology showing how Wolfowitz's draft
would become the basis of the Bush Doctrine. PAX AMERICANA An important step in PNAC's chronology is its major publication, "Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New Century" (RAD), released in September, 2000. The report takes Wolfowitz's draft as a starting point, hailing it as "a blueprint for maintaining U.S. preeminence, precluding the rise of a great power rival, and shaping the international security order in line with American principles and interests." RAD rejects cuts in defense spending, insisting that "Preserving the desirable strategic situation in which the United States now finds itself requires a globally preeminent military capability both today and in the future." Core missions for the U.S. military include the ability to "fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars" and to reposition permanent forces in Southeast Europe and Southeast Asia. Other samples from RAD: "The United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein." "At present the United States faces no global rival. America's grand strategy should aim to preserve and extend this advantageous position as far into the future as possible." "[N]ew methods of attack -- electronic, 'non-lethal,' biological -- will be more widely available ... 'combat' likely will take place in new dimensions: in space, 'cyber-space,' and perhaps the world of microbes ... advanced forms of biological warfare that can 'target' specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool." In
this Atlanta Journal-Constitution opinion piece, Jay Bookman compares
"Rebuilding America's Defenses" with the current Bush defense
policy. You
can read the entire document on PNAC's website. SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 In discussing changes to America's military strategy, the RAD report regretfully admits, "the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event -- like a new Pearl Harbor." Shortly
after September 11, PNAC sent a letter to President Bush welcoming his
call for "a broad and sustained campaign" and encouraging the
removal of Saddam even if Iraq could not be directly linked to the attacks. WHO'S STEERING THIS SHIP? "Most
neo-conservative defense intellectuals have their roots on the left, not
the right." Michael Lind argues in the New Statesman and Salon magazines
that many were anti-Stalinist Trotskyists who became anti-communist liberals,
then shifted to a "militaristic and imperial right with no precedents
in American culture or political history." PAUL
WOLFOWITZ is Deputy Defense Secretary, second-in-command at the Pentagon.
Wolfowitz was promoting regime change in Iraq and a strategy of preemptive
attack in 1992, but the elder Bush rejected his views as too radical.
This is an excellent brief from the Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace. RICHARD
PERLE was Assistant Secretary of Defense in the Reagan administration
and a foreign policy adviser in George W. Bush's presidential campaign.
He accepted Rumsfeld's offer to chair the Defense Policy Board, transforming
it from obscurity to influence. In March, Perle resigned as chairman after
a controversial lobbying scandal, but remains on the Board as a member. WILLIAM
KRISTOL is editor of The Weekly Standard, a conservative political magazine
with a small but elite readership, funded by Rupert Murdoch. The son of
neo-conservative founding father Irving Kristol, he is the president of
PNAC. Other important participants are Vice-President Dick Cheney; Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld; Iran-contra scandal convict Elliott Abrams, now Director of Middle East Affairs for the National Security Council; Washington Post columnist Robert Kagan; and special presidential envoy to Afghanistan and Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad. A
fairly complete list of PNAC participants can be found here: WHO PAYS THE BILLS? The
Bradley Foundation, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is the primary funder of
PNAC through PNAC's parent New Citizenship Project, Inc. With the largest
assets of any right-wing foundation, Bradley has focused its efforts on
ending affirmative action, reforming welfare, and privatizing schools.
This article describes Bradley's funding of neo-conservative think-tanks,
magazines, and books like "The Bell Curve." PAX ISRAELICA? Nearly
all PNAC participants, whether Jewish or Christian, are right-wing Zionists
who support Ariel Sharon's Likud Party. In 1996, Richard Perle, Douglas
Feith, and others drafted a paper for incoming Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu urging him to make "a clean break" from the Oslo peace
process preferring "peace through strength," including the ouster
of Saddam Hussein. This
essay describes many of the familiar neo-conservatives as having "dual
loyalties," making policy decisions in the interests of the State
of Israel as much as the United States. POST-WAR IRAQ PNAC
participants are backing Ahmed Chalabi of the Iraqi National Congress
in his bid to run the interim government in Iraq. From The American Prospect,
who is Chalabi and why is he so popular with the neo-conservatives? NEO-CONSERVATISM PNAC is in the same Washington, D.C. office building as the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), another major neo-conservative think-tank. They share far more than an address: PNAC participants like Richard Perle, Thomas Donnelly, Jeane Kirkpatrick, William Schneider, Lynne Cheney (Dick Cheney's wife), and Irving Kristol (William Kristol's father) are all AEI scholars and fellows. Similar overlap is found among all the neo-conservative think-tanks -- Hudson Institute, Center for Security Policy, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Middle East Forum, and Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs -- giving the agenda of a few political elites the appearance of widespread agreement. WHAT NEXT -- SYRIA? This
piece from Foreign Policy in Focus discusses a 2000 Middle East Forum
study calling for military force against Syria. The report, "Ending
Syria's Occupation of Lebanon: The U.S. Role," was signed by numerous
PNAC participants. IRAN? From
the Washington Monthly, a smart article that compares the neo-conservative
plan for the Middle East to "giving a few good whacks to a hornets'
nest because you want to get them out in the open and have it out with
them once and for all." CHALLENGING THE PROJECT FOR THE NEW AMERICAN CENTURY The
Peace Education Fund and California Peace Action have launched a national
advertising campaign that features the infamous photo of Donald Rumsfeld
shaking hands with Saddam Hussein. The ads ask the question: "Who
Are We Arming Now?" The ad is part of Peace Action's Campaign for
a New American Foreign Policy which is building political pressure for
an alternative to the bleak vision of the Project for the New American
Century. CONCLUSION Beyond all the specifics presented in this bulletin and the linked resources, it's essential to remember how interlocked the neo-conservative organizations are. They represent the views and interests of only a tiny elite, not the popular sentiment in the United States. Most Americans would be horrified to learn how PNAC and others are shaping the Bush Doctrine -- both because of the ideology they describe and because they use money and media to gain disproportionate political influence. Money makes it easy to organize networks and gain political influence; control of the media limits our ability to consider the various options America has for handling crises in the international community. The work we are doing as MoveOn members is organizing without massive wealth and educating without owning the media. Our work is to vocalize the love of democratic decision-making shared by all people, clearly and with the most complete information. Please let us know what information you need to do this work, and we will do our best to make it available through the bulletin. CREDITS/SOURCES:
In the year 2000, a project set up by the men who now surround George W Bush said what America needed was "a new Pearl Harbor". Its published aims have, alarmingly, come true. The threat posed by US terrorism to the security of nations and individuals was outlined in prophetic detail in a document written more than two years ago and disclosed only recently. What was needed for America to dominate much of humanity and the world's resources, it said, was "some catastrophic and catalysing event - like a new Pearl Harbor". The attacks of 11 September 2001 provided the "new Pearl Harbor", described as "the opportunity of ages". The extremists who have since exploited 11 September come from the era of Ronald Reagan, when far-right groups and "think-tanks" were established to avenge the American "defeat" in Vietnam. In the 1990s, there was an added agenda: to justify the denial of a "peace dividend" following the cold war. The Project for the New American Century was formed, along with the American Enterprise Institute, the Hudson Institute and others that have since merged the ambitions of the Reagan administration with those of the current Bush regime. One of George W Bush's "thinkers" is Richard Perle. I interviewed Perle when he was advising Reagan; and when he spoke about "total war", I mistakenly dismissed him as mad. He recently used the term again in describing America's "war on terror". "No stages," he said. "This is total war. We are fighting a variety of enemies. There are lots of them out there. All this talk about first we are going to do Afghanistan, then we will do Iraq... this is entirely the wrong way to go about it. If we just let our vision of the world go forth, and we embrace it entirely and we don't try to piece together clever diplomacy, but just wage a total war... our children will sing great songs about us years from now." Perle is one of the founders of the Project for the New American Century, the PNAC. Other founders include Dick Cheney, now vice-president, Donald Rumsfeld, defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, deputy defence secretary, I Lewis Libby, Cheney's chief of staff, William J Bennett, Reagan's education secretary, and Zalmay Khalilzad, Bush's ambassador to Afghanistan. These are the modern chartists of American terrorism. The PNAC's seminal report, Rebuilding America's Defences: strategy, forces and resources for a new century, was a blueprint of American aims in all but name. Two years ago it recommended an increase in arms-spending by $48bn so that Washington could "fight and win multiple, simultaneous major theatre wars". This has happened. It said the United States should develop "bunker-buster" nuclear weapons and make "star wars" a national priority. This is happening. It said that, in the event of Bush taking power, Iraq should be a target. And so it is. As for Iraq's alleged "weapons of mass destruction", these were dismissed, in so many words, as a convenient excuse, which it is. "While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification," it says, "the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein." How has this grand strategy been implemented? A series of articles in the Washington Post, co-authored by Bob Woodward of Watergate fame and based on long interviews with senior members of the Bush administration, reveals how 11 September was manipulated. On the morning of 12 September 2001, without any evidence of who the hijackers were, Rumsfeld demanded that the US attack Iraq. According to Woodward, Rumsfeld told a cabinet meeting that Iraq should be "a principal target of the first round in the war against terrorism". Iraq was temporarily spared only because Colin Powell, the secretary of state, persuaded Bush that "public opinion has to be prepared before a move against Iraq is possible". Afghanistan was chosen as the softer option. If Jonathan Steele's estimate in the Guardian is correct, some 20,000 people in Afghanistan paid the price of this debate with their lives. Time and again, 11 September is described as an "opportunity". In last April's New Yorker, the investigative reporter Nicholas Lemann wrote that Bush's most senior adviser, Condoleezza Rice, told him she had called together senior members of the National Security Council and asked them "to think about 'how do you capitalise on these opportunities'", which she compared with those of "1945 to 1947": the start of the cold war. Since 11 September, America has established bases at the gateways to all the major sources of fossil fuels, especially central Asia. The Unocal oil company is to build a pipeline across Afghanistan. Bush has scrapped the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas emissions, the war crimes provisions of the International Criminal Court and the anti-ballistic missile treaty. He has said he will use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states "if necessary". Under cover of propaganda about Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, the Bush regime is developing new weapons of mass destruction that undermine international treaties on biological and chemical warfare. In the Los Angeles Times, the military analyst William Arkin describes a secret army set up by Donald Rumsfeld, similar to those run by Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger and which Congress outlawed. This "super-intelligence support activity" will bring together the "CIA and military covert action, information warfare, and deception". According to a classified document prepared for Rumsfeld, the new organisation, known by its Orwellian moniker as the Proactive Pre-emptive Operations Group, or P2OG, will provoke terrorist attacks which would then require "counter-attack" by the United States on countries "harbouring the terrorists". In other words, innocent people will be killed by the United States. This is reminiscent of Operation Northwoods, the plan put to President Kennedy by his military chiefs for a phoney terrorist campaign - complete with bombings, hijackings, plane crashes and dead Americans - as justification for an invasion of Cuba. Kennedy rejected it. He was assassinated a few months later. Now Rumsfeld has resurrected Northwoods, but with resources undreamt of in 1963 and with no global rival to invite caution. You have to keep reminding yourself this is not fantasy: that truly dangerous men, such as Perle and Rumsfeld and Cheney, have power. The thread running through their ruminations is the importance of the media: "the prioritised task of bringing on board journalists of repute to accept our position". "Our position" is code for lying. Certainly, as a journalist, I have never known official lying to be more pervasive than today. We may laugh at the vacuities in Tony Blair's "Iraq dossier" and Jack Straw's inept lie that Iraq has developed a nuclear bomb (which his minions rushed to "explain"). But the more insidious lies, justifying an unprovoked attack on Iraq and linking it to would-be terrorists who are said to lurk in every Tube station, are routinely channelled as news. They are not news; they are black propaganda. This corruption makes journalists and broadcasters mere ventriloquists' dummies. An attack on a nation of 22 million suffering people is discussed by liberal commentators as if it were a subject at an academic seminar, at which pieces can be pushed around a map, as the old imperialists used to do. The issue for these humanitarians is not primarily the brutality of modern imperial domination, but how "bad" Saddam Hussein is. There is no admission that their decision to join the war party further seals the fate of perhaps thousands of innocent Iraqis condemned to wait on America's international death row. Their doublethink will not work. You cannot support murderous piracy in the name of humanitarianism. Moreover, the extremes of American fundamentalism that we now face have been staring at us for too long for those of good heart and sense not to recognise them. CREDITS/SOURCES:
The Push for War - Anatol Lieven considers what the US Administration hopes to gain The most surprising thing about the Bush Administration's plan to invade Iraq is not that it is destructive of international order; or wicked, when we consider the role the US (and Britain) have played, and continue to play, in the Middle East; or opposed by the great majority of the international community; or seemingly contrary to some of the basic needs of the war against terrorism. It is all of these things, but they are of no great concern to the hardline nationalists in the Administration. This group has suffered at least a temporary check as a result of the British insistence on UN involvement, and Saddam Hussein's agreement to weapons inspections. They are, however, still determined on war - and their power within the Administration and in the US security policy world means that they are very likely to get their way. Even the Washington Post has joined the radical rightist media in supporting war. The most surprising thing about the push for war is that it is so profoundly reckless. If I had to put money on it, I'd say that the odds on quick success in destroying the Iraqi regime may be as high as 5/1 or more, given US military superiority, the vile nature of Saddam Hussein's rule, the unreliability of Baghdad's missiles, and the deep divisions in the Arab world. But at first sight, the longer-term gains for the US look pretty limited, whereas the consequences of failure would be catastrophic. A general Middle Eastern conflagration and the collapse of more pro-Western Arab states would lose us the war against terrorism, doom untold thousands of Western civilians to death in coming decades, and plunge the world economy into depression. These risks are not only to American (and British) lives and interests, but to the political future of the Administration. If the war goes badly wrong, it will be more generally excoriated than any within living memory, and its members will be finished politically - finished for good. If no other fear moved these people, you'd have thought this one would. This war plan is not like the intervention in Vietnam, which at the start was supported by a consensus of both political parties, the Pentagon, the security establishment and the media. It is true that today - for reasons to which I shall return - the Democrats are mostly sitting on the fence; but a large part of the old Republican security establishment has denounced the idea and the Pentagon has made its deep unhappiness very clear. The Administration has therefore been warned of the dangers. And while a new attack by al-Qaida during the war would help consolidate anti-Muslim American nationalism, the Administration would also be widely accused of having neglected the hunt for the perpetrators of 11 September in order to pursue an irrelevant vendetta. As far as the Israeli lobby is concerned, a disaster in the Middle East might be the one thing that would at last bring a discussion of its calamitous role into the open in the US. With the exception of Donald Rumsfeld, who conveniently did his military service in the gap between the Korean and Vietnam Wars, neither Bush nor any of the other prime movers of this war served in the military. Of course, General Colin Powell served in Vietnam, but he is well known to be extremely dubious about attacking Iraq. All the others did everything possible to avoid service. If the war goes wrong, the 'chicken hawk' charge will be used against them with devastating political effect. Vietnam veterans, both Democrat and Republican, have already started to raise this issue, stirred up in part by the insulting language used by Richard Perle and his school about the caution of the professional military. As a recent letter to the Washington Post put it, 'the men described as chicken hawks avoided military service during the Vietnam War while supporting that war politically. They are not accused of lacking experience and judgment compared to military men. They are accused of hypocrisy and cowardice.' Given the political risks of failure - to themselves, above all - why are they doing this? And, more broadly, what has bred this reckless spirit? To understand the Administration's motivation, it is necessary to appreciate the breathtaking scope of the domestic and global ambitions which the dominant neo-conservative nationalists hope to further by means of war, and which go way beyond their publicly stated goals. There are of course different groups within this camp: some are more favourable to Israel, others less hostile to China; not all would support the most radical aspects of the programme. However, the basic and generally agreed plan is unilateral world domination through absolute military superiority, and this has been consistently advocated and worked on by the group of intellectuals close to Dick Cheney and Richard Perle since the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. This basic goal is shared by Colin Powell and the rest of the security establishment. It was, after all, Powell who, as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, declared in 1992 that the US requires sufficient power 'to deter any challenger from ever dreaming of challenging us on the world stage'. However, the idea of pre-emptive defence, now official doctrine, takes this a leap further, much further than Powell would wish to go. In principle, it can be used to justify the destruction of any other state if it even seems that that state might in future be able to challenge the US. When these ideas were first aired by Paul Wolfowitz and others after the end of the Cold War, they met with general criticism, even from conservatives. Today, thanks to the ascendancy of the radical nationalists in the Administration and the effect of the 11 September attacks on the American psyche, they have a major influence on US policy. To understand the genesis of this extraordinary ambition, it is also necessary to grasp the moral, cultural and intellectual world of American nationalism in which it has taken shape. This nationalism existed long before last September, but it has been inflamed by those attacks and, equally dangerously, it has become even more entwined with the nationalism of the Israeli Right. To take the geopolitical goals first. As with National Missile Defense, the publicly expressed motive for war with Iraq functions mainly as a tool to gain the necessary public support for an operation the real goals of which are far wider. The indifference of the US public to serious discussion of foreign or security affairs, and the negligence and ideological rigidity of the US media and policy community make searching debate on such issues extremely difficult, and allow such manipulation to succeed. The immediate goal is indeed to eliminate Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. There is little real fear, however, that Saddam Hussein will give those weapons to terrorists to use against the United States - though a more genuine fear that he might conceivably do so in the case of Israel. Nor is there any serious prospect that he would use them himself in an unprovoked attack on the US or Israel, because immediate annihilation would follow. The banal propaganda portrayal of Saddam as a crazed and suicidal dictator plays well on the American street, but I don't believe that it is a view shared by the Administration. Rather, their intention is partly to retain an absolute certainty of being able to defend the Gulf against an Iraqi attack, but, more important, to retain for the US and Israel a free hand for intervention in the Middle East as a whole. From the point of view of Israel, the Israeli lobby and their representatives in the Administration, the apparent benefits of such a free hand are clear enough. For the group around Cheney, the single most important consideration is guaranteed and unrestricted access to cheap oil, controlled as far as possible at its source. To destroy and occupy the existing Iraqi state and dominate the region militarily would remove even the present limited threat from Opec, greatly reduce the chance of a new oil shock, and eliminate the need to woo and invest in Russia as an alternative source of energy. It would also critically undermine the steps already taken towards the development of alternative sources of energy. So far, these have been pitifully few. All the same, 11 September brought new strength to the security arguments for reducing dependence on imported oil, and as alternative technologies develop, they could become a real threat to the oil lobby - which, like the Israeli lobby, is deeply intertwined with the Bush Administration. War with Iraq can therefore be seen as a satisfactory outcome for both lobbies. Much more important for the future of mankind, it is also part of what is in essence a strategy to use American military force to permit the continued offloading onto the rest of the world of the ecological costs of the existing US economy - without the need for any short-term sacrifices on the part of US capitalism, the US political elite or US voters. The same goes for the war against al-Qaida and its allies: the plan for the destruction of the existing Iraqi regime is related to this struggle, but not as it has been presented publicly. Links between Baghdad and al-Qaida are unproven and inherently improbable: what the Administration hopes is that by crushing another middle-sized state at minimal military cost, all the other states in the Muslim world will be terrified into full co-operation in tracking down and handing over suspected terrorists, and into forsaking the Palestinian cause. Iran for its part can either be frightened into abandoning both its nuclear programme and its support for the Palestinians, or see its nuclear facilities destroyed by bombardment. The idea, in other words, is to scare these states not only into helping with the hunt for al-Qaida, but into capitulating to the US and, more important, Israeli agendas in the Middle East. This was brought out in the notorious paper on Saudi Arabia presented by Laurent Murawiec of the Rand Corporation to Richard Perle's Defense Policy Board. Murawiec advocated sending the Saudis an ultimatum demanding not only that their police force co-operate fully with US authorities, but also the suppression of public criticism of the US and Israel within Saudi Arabia - something that would be impossible for any Arab state. Despite this, the demand for the suppression of anti-Israeli publications, broadcasts and activities has been widely echoed in the US media. 'The road to Middle East peace lies through Baghdad' is a line that's peddled by the Bush Administration and the Israeli lobby. It is just possible that some members of the Administration really believe that by destroying Israel's most powerful remaining enemy they will gain such credit with Israelis and the Israeli lobby that they will be able to press compromises on Israel. But this is certainly not what public statements by members of the Administration - let alone those of its Likud allies in Israel - suggest. Rumsfeld recently described the Jewish settlements as legitimate products of Israeli military victory; the Republican Majority Leader in the House, Dick Armey (a sceptic as regards war with Iraq), has advocated the ethnic cleansing ('transfer') of the Palestinians across the Jordan; and in 1996 Richard Perle and Douglas Feith (now a senior official at the Pentagon) advised Binyamin Netanyahu to abandon the Oslo Peace Process and return to military repression of the Palestinians. It's far more probable, therefore, that most members of the Bush and Sharon Administrations hope that the crushing of Iraq will so demoralise the Palestinians, and so reduce wider Arab support for them, that it will be possible to force them to accept a Bantustan settlement bearing no resemblance to independent statehood and bringing with it no possibility of economic growth and prosperity. How intelligent men can believe that this will work, given the history of the past fifty years, is astonishing. After all, the Israelis have defeated Arab states five times with no diminution of Palestinian nationalism or Arab sympathy for it. But the dominant groups in the present Administrations in both Washington and Jerusalem are 'realists' to the core, which, as so often, means that they take an extremely unreal view of the rest of the world, and are insensitive to the point of autism when it comes to the character and motivations of others. They are obsessed by power, by the division of the world into friends and enemies (and often, into their own country and the rest of the world) and by the belief that any demonstration of 'weakness' immediately leads to more radical approaches by the 'enemy'. Sharon and his supporters don't doubt that it was the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon - rather than the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories - which led to the latest Intifada. The 'offensive realists' in Washington are convinced that it was Reagan's harsh stance and acceleration of the arms race against the Soviet Union which brought about that state's collapse. And both are convinced that the continued existence of Saddam Hussein's regime of itself suggests dangerous US weakness and cowardice, thus emboldening enemies of the US and Israel across the Middle East and beyond. From the point of view of the Arab-Israeli conflict, war with Iraq also has some of the character of a Flucht nach vorn - an 'escape forwards' - on the part of the US Administration. On the one hand, it has become clear that the conflict is integrally linked to everything else that happens in the Middle East, and therefore cannot simply be ignored, as the Bush Administration tried to do during its first year in office. On the other hand, even those members of the American political elite who have some understanding of the situation and a concern for justice are terrified of confronting Israel and the Israeli lobby in the ways which would be necessary to bring any chance of peace. When the US demands 'democracy' in the Palestinian territories before it will re-engage in the peace process it is in part, and fairly cynically, trying to get out of this trap. However, when it comes to the new rhetoric of 'democratising' the Arab world as a whole, the agenda is much broader and more worrying; and because the rhetoric is attractive to many liberals we must examine this agenda very carefully. Belief in the spread of democracy through American power isn't usually consciously insincere. On the contrary, it is inseparable from American national messianism and the wider 'American creed'. However, this same messianism has also proved immensely useful in destroying or crippling rivals of the United States, the Soviet Union being the outstanding example. The planned war against Iraq is not after all intended only to remove Saddam Hussein, but to destroy the structure of the Sunni-dominated Arab nationalist Iraqi state as it has existed since that country's inception. The 'democracy' which replaces it will presumably resemble that of Afghanistan - a ramshackle coalition of ethnic groups and warlords, utterly dependent on US military power and utterly subservient to US (and Israeli) wishes. Similarly, if after Saddam's regime is destroyed, Saudi Arabia fails to bow to US wishes and is attacked in its turn, then - to judge by the thoughts circulating in Washington think-tanks - the goal would be not just to remove the Saudi regime and eliminate Wahabism as a state ideology: it would be to destroy and partition the Saudi state. The Gulf oilfields would be put under US military occupation, and the region run by some client emir; Mecca and the Hejaz might well be returned to the Hashemite dynasty of Jordan, its rulers before the conquest by Ibn Saud in 1924; or, to put it differently, the British imperial programme of 1919 would be resurrected (though, if the Hashemites have any sense, they would reject what would without question be a long-term death sentence). Beyond lies China. When the Bush Administration came to power, its major security focus was not the Middle East. There, its initial policy was benign neglect ('benign' at any rate in the case of Israel). The greatest fears of right-wing nationalist gurus such as Robert Kagan concerned the future emergence of China as a superpower rival - fears lent a certain credibility by China's sheer size and the growth of its economy. As declared in the famous strategy document drawn up by Paul Wolfowitz in the last year of the first Bush Administration - and effectively proclaimed official policy by Bush Jr in his West Point speech in June - the guiding purpose of US strategy after the end of the Cold War should be to prevent the emergence of any 'peer competitor'anywhere in the world. What radical US nationalists have in mind is either to 'contain' China by overwhelming military force and the creation of a ring of American allies; or, in the case of the real radicals, to destroy the Chinese Communist state as the Soviet Union was destroyed. As with the Soviet Union, this would presumably involve breaking up China by 'liberating' Tibet and other areas, and under the guise of 'democracy', crippling the central Chinese Administration and its capacity to develop either its economy or its Army. To judge by the right-wing nationalist media in the US, this hostility to China has survived 11 September, although in a mitigated form. If the US can demonstrate overwhelming military superiority in the Middle East, there will certainly be groups in the Republican Party who will be emboldened to push for a much tougher line on China. Above all, of course, they support formal independence for Taiwan. Another US military victory will certainly help to persuade these groups that for the moment the US has nothing to fear from the Chinese Navy or Air Force, and that in the event of a Taiwanese declaration of independence, the island can be defended with relative impunity. Meanwhile, a drastic humiliation of China over Taiwan might well be seen as a key stepping-stone to the overthrow of Communism and the crippling of the Chinese state system. At present these are only long-term ambitions - or dreams. They are certainly not shared even by a majority of the Administration, and are unlikely to be implemented in any systematic way. On the other hand, it's worth bearing in mind that the dominant groups in this Administration have now openly abandoned the underlying strategy and philosophy of the Clinton Administration, which was to integrate the other major states of the world in a rule-based liberal capitalist order, thereby reducing the threat of rivalry between them. This tendency is not dead. In fact, it is strongly represented by Colin Powell, and by lesser figures such as Richard Haass. But their more powerful nationalist rivals are in the meantime publicly committed to preventing by every possible means the emergence of any serious rival or combination of rivals to the US, anywhere in the world, and to opposing not just any rival would-be world hegemon, but even the ability of other states to play the role of great power within their own regions. Under the guise of National Missile Defense, the Administration - or elements within it - even dreams of extending US military hegemony beyond the bounds of the Earth itself (an ambition clearly indicated in the official paper on Defense Planning Guidance for the 2004-09 Fiscal Years, issued this year by Rumsfeld's office). And while this web of ambition is megalomaniac, it is not simply fantasy. Given America's overwhelming superiority, it might well work for decades until a mixture of terrorism and the unbearable social, political and environmental costs of US economic domination put paid to the present order of the world. As things stand, the American people would never knowingly support such a programme - nor for that matter would the US military. Even after 11 September, this is not by historical standards a militarist country; and whatever the increasingly open imperialism of the nationalist think-tank class, neither the military nor the mass of the population wishes to see itself as imperialist. The fear of casualties and of long-term overseas military entanglements remains intense. And all opinion polls suggest that the majority of the American public, insofar as it considers these issues at all, is far more interested than this Administration in co-operation with allies. Besides, if the US economy continues to stagnate or falls sharply, the Republicans will most probably not even be in power after 2004. As more companies collapse, the Administration's links to corrupt business oligarchies will become more and more controversial. Further economic decline combined with bloated military spending would sooner or later bring on the full consequences of the stripping of the public finances caused by this Administration's military spending and its tax cuts for the rich. At that point, the financial basis of Social Security would come into question, and the Republican vote among the 'middle classes' could shatter. It is only to a minimal degree within the power of any US administration to stimulate economic growth. And even if growth resumes, the transformation of the economy is almost certain to continue. This will mean the incomes of the 'middle classes' (which in American terminology includes the working proletariat) will continue to decline and the gap between them and the plutocracy will continue to increase. High military spending can correct this trend to some extent, but because of the changed nature of weaponry, to a much lesser extent than was the case in the 19th and most of the 20th centuries. All other things being equal, this should result in a considerable shift of the electorate to the left. But all other things are not equal. Two strategies in particular would give the Republicans the chance not only of winning in 2004, but of repeating Roosevelt's success for the Democrats in the 1930s and becoming the natural party of government for the foreseeable future. The first is the classic modern strategy of an endangered right-wing oligarchy, which is to divert mass discontent into nationalism. The second, which is specifically American, is to take the Jewish vote away from its traditional home in the Democratic Party, by demonstrating categorical Republican commitment not just to Israel's defence but to its regional ambitions. This is connected both to the rightward shift in Israel, and to the increasingly close links between the Republicans and Likud, through figures like Perle and Feith. It marks a radical change from the old Republican Party of Eisenhower, Nixon and Bush père, which was far more independent of Israel than the Democrats. Of key importance here has been the growing alliance between the Christian Right - closely linked to the old White South - and the Israeli lobby, or at least its hardline Likud elements. When this alliance began to take shape some years back, it seemed a most improbable combination. After all, the Christian Right and the White South were once havens of anti-semitic conspiracy theories. On the other hand, the Old Testament aspects of fundamentalist Christianity had created certain sympathies for Judaism and Israel from as far back as the US's 17th-century origins. For Christian fundamentalists today the influence of millenarian thought is equally important in shaping support for Israel: the existence of the Israeli state is seen as a necessary prelude to the arrival of the Antichrist, the Apocalypse and the rule of Christ and His Saints. But above all, perhaps, this coming together of the fundamentalist Right and hardline Zionism is natural, because they share many hatreds. The Christian Right has always hated the United Nations, partly on straight nationalist grounds, but also because of bizarre fears of world government by the Antichrist. They have hated Europeans on religious grounds as decadent atheists, on class grounds as associates of the hated 'East Coast elites', and on nationalist grounds as critics of unconstrained American power. Both sides share an instinctive love of military force. Both see themselves as historical victims. This may seem strange in the case of the American Rightists, but it isn't if one considers both the White South's history of defeat, and the Christian Right's sense since the 1960s of defeat and embattlement by the forces of irreligion and cultural change. Finally, and most dangerously, both are conditioned to see themselves as defenders of 'civilisation' against 'savages' - a distinction always perceived on the Christian Right as in the main racially defined. It is no longer possible in America to speak openly in these terms of American blacks, Asians and Latinos - but since 11 September at least, it has been entirely possible to do so about Arabs and Muslims. Even in the 2000 elections, the Republicans were able to take a large part of the white working-class vote away from Gore by appealing to cultural populism - and especially to those opposed to gun control and environmental protection. Despite the real class identity and cultural interests of the Republican elite, they seem able to convince many workers that they are natural allies against the culturally alien and supercilious 'East Coast elites' represented as supporting Gore. These populist values are closely linked to the traditional values of hardline nationalism. They are what the historian Walter Russell Mead and others have called 'Jacksonian' values, after President Andrew Jackson's populist nationalism of the 1830s. As Mead has indicated, 11 September has immensely increased the value of this line to Republicans. If on top of this the Republicans can permanently woo the Jewish vote away from the Democrats - a process which purely class interests would suggest and which has been progressing slowly but steadily since Reagan's day - there is a good chance of their crippling the Democrats for a generation or more. Deprived of much of their financial support and their intellectual backbone, the Democrats could be reduced to a coalition of the declining unionised white working class, blacks and Latinos. And not only do these groups on the whole dislike and distrust each other, but the more the Democrats are seen as minority dominated, the more whites will tend to flee to the Republicans. Already, the anti-semitism of some black leaders in the Democratic Party has contributed to driving many Jews towards the Republicans; and thanks to their allegiance to Israel, the liberal Jewish intelligentsia has moved a long way from their previous internationalism. This shift is highly visible in previously liberal and relatively internationalist journals such as the New Republic and Atlantic Monthly, and maybe even in the New Yorker. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that as a result the internationalist position in the Democratic Party and the US as a whole has been eviscerated. The Democrats are well aware of this threat to their electorate. The Party as a whole has always been strongly committed to Israel. On Iraq and the war against terrorism, its approach seems to be to avoid at all costs seeming 'unpatriotic'. If they can avoid being hammered by the Republicans on the charge of 'weakness' and lack of patriotism, then they can still hope to win the 2004 elections on the basis of economic discontent. The consequence, however, is that the Party has become largely invisible in the debate about Iraq; the Democrats are merely increasing their reputation for passionless feebleness; whereas the Republican nationalists are full of passionate intensity - the passion which in November 2000 helped them pressure the courts over the Florida vote and in effect steal the election. It is this passion which gives the nationalist Right so much of its strength; and in setting out the hopes and plans of the groupings which dominate the Bush Administration, I don't want to give the impression that everything is simply a matter of conscious and cynical manipulation in their own narrow interests. Schematic approaches of this kind have bedevilled all too much of the reporting of nationalism and national conflict. This is odd and depressing, because in recent decades the historiography of pre-1914 German nationalism - to take only one example - has seen an approach based on ideas of class manipulation give way to an infinitely more subtle analysis which emphasises the role of socio-economic and cultural change, unconscious identifications, and interpenetrating political influences from above and below. To understand the radical nationalist Right in the US, and the dominant forces in the Bush Administration, it is necessary first of all to understand their absolute and absolutely sincere identification of themselves with the United States, to the point where the presence of any other group in government is seen as a usurpation, as profoundly and inherently illegitimate and 'un-American'. As far as the hardline elements of the US security establishment and military industrial complex are concerned, they are the product of the Cold War, and were shaped by that struggle and the paranoia and fanaticism it bred. In typical fashion for security elites, they also became conditioned over the decades to see themselves not just as tougher, braver, wiser and more knowledgeable than their ignorant, innocent compatriots, but as the only force standing between their country and destruction. The Cold War led to the creation of governmental, economic and intellectual structures in the US which require for their survival a belief in the existence of powerful national enemies - not just terrorists, but enemy states. As a result, in their analyses and propaganda they instinctively generate the necessary image of an enemy. Once again, however, it would be unwise to see this as a conscious process. For the Cold War also continued, fostered and legitimised a very old discourse of nationalist hatred in the US, ostensibly directed against the Communists and their allies but usually with a very strong colouring of ethnic chauvinism. On the other hand, the roots of the hysteria of the Right go far beyond nationalism and national security. Their pathological hatred for the Clinton Administration cannot adequately be explained in terms of national security or even in rational political or economic terms, for after a very brief period of semi-radicalism (almost entirely limited to the failed attempt at health reform), Clinton devoted himself in a Blairite way to adopting large parts of the Republican socio-economic agenda. Rather, Clinton, his wife, his personal style, his personal background and some of his closest followers were all seen as culturally and therefore nationally alien, mainly because associated with the counter-culture of the 1960s and 1970s. The modern incarnation of this spirit can indeed be seen above all as a reaction to the double defeat of the Right in the Vietnam War - a defeat which, they may hope, victory in Iraq and a new wave of conservative nationalism at home could cancel out once and for all. In Vietnam, unprecedented military defeat coincided with the appearance of a modern culture which traditionalist Americans found alien, immoral and hateful beyond description. As was widely remarked at the time of Newt Gingrich's attempted 'Republican Revolution' of the mid-1990s, one way of looking at the hardline Republicans - especially from the Religious Right - is to see them as motivated by a classical nationalist desire for a return to a Golden Age, in their case the pre-Vietnam days of the 1950s. None of these fantasies is characteristic of the American people as a whole. But the intense solipsism of that people, its general ignorance of the world beyond America's shores, coupled with the effects of 11 September, have left tremendous political spaces in which groups possessed by the fantasies and ambitions sketched out here can seek their objectives. Or to put it another way: the great majority of the American people are not nearly as militarist, imperialist or aggressive as their German equivalents in 1914; but most German people in 1914 would at least have been able to find France on a map. The younger intelligentsia meanwhile has also been stripped of any real knowledge of the outside world by academic neglect of history and regional studies in favour of disciplines which are often no more than a crass projection of American assumptions and prejudices (Rational Choice Theory is the worst example). This has reduced still further their capacity for serious analysis of their own country and its actions. Together with the defection of its strongest internationalist elements, this leaves the intelligentsia vulnerable to the appeal of nationalist messianism dressed up in the supposedly benevolent clothing of 'democratisation'. Twice now in the past decade, the overwhelming military and economic dominance of the US has given it the chance to lead the rest of the world by example and consensus. It could have adopted (and to a very limited degree under Clinton did adopt) a strategy in which this dominance would be softened and legitimised by economic and ecological generosity and responsibility, by geopolitical restraint, and by 'a decent respect to the opinion of mankind', as the US Declaration of Independence has it. The first occasion was the collapse of the Soviet superpower enemy and of Communism as an ideology. The second was the threat displayed by al-Qaida. Both chances have been lost - the first in part, the second it seems conclusively. What we see now is the tragedy of a great country, with noble impulses, successful institutions, magnificent historical achievements and immense energies, which has become a menace to itself and to mankind. Anatol Lieven, a Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington DC, is the author of Chechnya and Ukraine and Russia: A Fraternal Rivalry. CREDITS/SOURCES:
The People versus the Powerful is the oldest story in human history. At no point in history have the Powerful wielded so much control. At no point in history has the active and informed involvement of the People, all of them, been more absolutely required. The Project for the New American Century, or PNAC, is a Washington-based think tank created in 1997. Above all else, PNAC desires and demands one thing: The establishment of a global American empire to bend the will of all nations. They chafe at the idea that the United States, the last remaining superpower, does not do more by way of economic and military force to bring the rest of the world under the umbrella of a new socio-economic Pax Americana. The fundamental essence of PNAC's ideology can be found in a White Paper produced in September of 2000 entitled "Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century." In it, PNAC outlines what is required of America to create the global empire they envision. According to PNAC, America must:
Most ominously, this PNAC document described four "Core Missions" for the American military. The two central requirements are for American forces to "fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars," and to "perform the 'constabulary' duties associated with shaping the security environment in critical regions." Note well that PNAC does not want America to be prepared to fight simultaneous major wars. That is old school. In order to bring this plan to fruition, the military must fight these wars one way or the other to establish American dominance for all to see. Why is this important? After all, wacky think tanks are a cottage industry in Washington, DC. They are a dime a dozen. In what way does PNAC stand above the other groups that would set American foreign policy if they could? Two events brought PNAC into the mainstream of American government: the disputed election of George W. Bush, and the attacks of September 11th. When Bush assumed the Presidency, the men who created and nurtured the imperial dreams of PNAC became the men who run the Pentagon, the Defense Department and the White House. When the Towers came down, these men saw, at long last, their chance to turn their White Papers into substantive policy. Vice President Dick Cheney is a founding member of PNAC, along with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Defense Policy Board chairman Richard Perle. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz is the ideological father of the group. Bruce Jackson, a PNAC director, served as a Pentagon official for Ronald Reagan before leaving government service to take a leading position with the weapons manufacturer Lockheed Martin. PNAC is staffed by men who previously served with groups like Friends of the Democratic Center in Central America, which supported America's bloody gamesmanship in Nicaragua and El Salvador, and with groups like The Committee for the Present Danger, which spent years advocating that a nuclear war with the Soviet Union was "winnable." PNAC has recently given birth to a new group, The Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, which met with National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice in order to formulate a plan to "educate" the American populace about the need for war in Iraq. CLI has funneled millions of taxpayer dollars to support the Iraqi National Congress and the Iraqi heir presumptive, Ahmed Chalabi. Chalabi was sentenced in absentia by a Jordanian court in 1992 to 22 years in prison for bank fraud after the collapse of Petra Bank, which he founded in 1977. Chalabi has not set foot in Iraq since 1956, but his Enron-like business credentials apparently make him a good match for the Bush administration's plans. PNAC's "Rebuilding America's Defenses" report is the institutionalization of plans and ideologies that have been formulated for decades by the men currently running American government. The PNAC Statement of Principles is signed by Cheney, Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld, as well as by Eliot Abrams, Jeb Bush, Bush's special envoy to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad, and many others. William Kristol, famed conservative writer for the Weekly Standard, is also a co-founder of the group. The Weekly Standard is owned by Ruppert Murdoch, who also owns international media giant Fox News. The desire for these freshly empowered PNAC men to extend American hegemony by force of arms across the globe has been there since day one of the Bush administration, and is in no small part a central reason for the Florida electoral battle in 2000. Note that while many have said that Gore and Bush are ideologically identical, Mr. Gore had no ties whatsoever to the fellows at PNAC. George W. Bush had to win that election by any means necessary, and PNAC signatory Jeb Bush was in the perfect position to ensure the rise to prominence of his fellow imperialists. Desire for such action, however, is by no means translatable into workable policy. Americans enjoy their comforts, but don't cotton to the idea of being some sort of Neo-Rome. On September 11th, the fellows from PNAC saw a door of opportunity open wide before them, and stormed right through it. Bush released on September 20th 2001 the "National Security Strategy of the United States of America." It is an ideological match to PNAC's "Rebuilding America's Defenses" report issued a year earlier. In many places, it uses exactly the same language to describe America's new place in the world. Recall that PNAC demanded an increase in defense spending to at least 3.8% of GDP. Bush's proposed budget for next year asks for $379 billion in defense spending, almost exactly 3.8% of GDP. In August of 2002, Defense Policy Board chairman and PNAC member Richard Perle heard a policy briefing from a think tank associated with the Rand Corporation. According to the Washington Post and The Nation, the final slide of this presentation described "Iraq as the tactical pivot, Saudi Arabia as the strategic pivot, and Egypt as the prize" in a war that would purportedly be about ridding the world of Saddam Hussein's weapons. Bush has deployed massive forces into the Mideast region, while simultaneously engaging American forces in the Philippines and playing nuclear chicken with North Korea. Somewhere in all this lurks at least one of the "major theater wars" desired by the September 2000 PNAC report. Iraq is but the beginning, a pretense for a wider conflict. Donald Kagan, a central member of PNAC, sees America establishing permanent military bases in Iraq after the war. This is purportedly a measure to defend the peace in the Middle East, and to make sure the oil flows. The nations in that region, however, will see this for what it is: a jump-off point for American forces to invade any nation in that region they choose to. The American people, anxiously awaiting some sort of exit plan after America defeats Iraq, will see too late that no exit is planned. All of the horses are traveling together at speed here. The defense contractors who sup on American tax revenue will be handsomely paid for arming this new American empire. The corporations that own the news media will sell this eternal war at a profit, as viewership goes through the stratosphere when there is combat to be shown. Those within the administration who believe that the defense of Israel is contingent upon laying waste to every possible aggressor in the region will have their dreams fulfilled. The PNAC men who wish for a global Pax Americana at gunpoint will see their plans unfold. Through it all, the bankrollers from the WTO and the IMF will be able to dictate financial terms to the entire planet. This last aspect of the plan is pivotal, and is best described in the newly revised version of Greg Palast's masterpiece, "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy." There will be adverse side effects. The siege mentality average Americans are suffering as they smother behind yards of plastic sheeting and duct tape will increase by orders of magnitude as our aggressions bring forth new terrorist attacks against the homeland. These attacks will require the implementation of the newly drafted Patriot Act II, an augmentation of the previous Act that has profoundly sharper teeth. The sun will set on the Constitution and Bill of Rights. The American economy will be ravaged by the need for increased defense spending, and by the aforementioned "constabulary" duties in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Former allies will turn on us. Germany, France and the other nations resisting this Iraq war are fully aware of this game plan. They are not acting out of cowardice or because they love Saddam Hussein, but because they mean to resist this rising American empire, lest they face economic and military serfdom at the hands of George W. Bush. Richard Perle has already stated that France is no longer an American ally. As the eagle spreads its wings, our rhetoric and their resistance will become more agitated and dangerous. Many people, of course, will die. They will die from war and from want, from famine and disease. At home, the social fabric will be torn in ways that make the Reagan nightmares of crack addiction, homelessness and AIDS seem tame by comparison. This is the price to be paid for empire, and the men of PNAC who now control the fate and future of America are more than willing to pay it. For them, the benefits far outweigh the liabilities. The plan was running smoothly until those two icebergs collided. Millions and millions of ordinary people are making it very difficult for Bush's international allies to keep to the script. PNAC may have designs for the control of the "International Commons" of the Internet, but for now it is the staging ground for a movement that would see empire take a back seat to a wise peace, human rights, equal protection under the law, and the preponderance of a justice that will, if properly applied, do away forever with the anger and hatred that gives birth to terrorism in the first place. Tommaso Palladini of Milan perhaps said it best as he marched with his countrymen in Rome. "You fight terrorism," he said, "by creating more justice in the world." The People versus the Powerful is the oldest story in human history. At no point in history have the Powerful wielded so much control. At no point in history has the active and informed involvement of the People, all of them, been more absolutely required. The tide can be stopped, and the men who desire empire by the sword can be thwarted. It has already begun, but it must not cease. These are men of will, and they do not intend to fail. William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times bestselling author of two books - "War On Iraq" (with Scott Ritter) available now from Context Books, and "The Greatest Sedition is Silence," available in May 2003 from Pluto Press. He teaches high school in Boston, MA. Scott Lowery contributed research to this report. CREDITS/SOURCES:
A Hearing on the Project for the New American Century ( PNAC) and its war policies put into effect under the Bush administration by the invasion of Iraq Synopsis The Brussels Tribunal will be a hearing or a commission of inquiry composed of academics, intellectuals and artists in the tradition of the Russell Tribunal, set up in 1967 to investigate war crimes committed during the Vietnam War. The hearing is scheduled for 15-17th April 2004 at The Beursschouwbug and Les Halles in Brussels. It will be presided by Professor François Houtart, one of the founding fathers of the World Social Forum in Porto Allegre. It is directed against the war in Iraq and the Imperial war policies of the Bush II administration. Its main focus will be the ‘Project for the New American Century’, the think tank behind this war, in particular three of the co-signatories of the mission statement: Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz, as they are the physical link between the discourse and the brutal practice of the New Imperial World Order as designed by PNAC. History of the initiave Just before the start of the war in Iraq a petition was launched. It was signed by some 500 artists, writers, intellectuals and academics, including Julia Kristeva, Richard Plunz, Irving Wolfharth, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Hans Ulrich Obrist, and François Houtart. It called for moral and, if possible, legal action against the ‘Project for the New American Century’ and the authorities responsible for the war against Iraq. It was published on March 21st in two Belgian newspapers, De Standaard and De Morgen. It soon appeared that legal action was unlikely to succeed as the United States have consistently acted against any legal authority that would be liable to threaten them and still continue to do so. Hence the idea to set up a ‘Moral Court’ or ‘People's Court’ to condemn the new American policy as well as the think tanks behind it (the latter always remain beyond the grasp of legal action). A broad platform composed of several Belgian cultural organizations was created to carry out the petition’s first proposal: to set up a Brussels Tribunal, after the historical example of the Russell Tribunal. At a networking conference set up by the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation at the end of June 2003 in Brussels it was decided that a series of hearings would be held in different places all over the world, culminating in a final session in Istanbul. The Brussels Tribunal will be one of these commissions of inquiry. The Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation accepted to support the initiative. In a press release after the conference they stated: “A proposal to constitute a Commission of Inquiry culminating in a Tribunal on the war in Iraq was discussed. Working parties would be considering this proposal further in a round of consultations in Turkey, Belgium, the United States and Japan”. Many peace and lawyer organisations around the globe joined the network since. The initiative is gaining in scale and momentum everyday. (A provisional list of supporting organisations is included at the end of this document). Concise information on PNAC The acronym PNAC is a key to the war in Iraq and to many other wars to come. In the spring of 1997 the neo-conservatives Robert Kagan and William Kristol of The Weekly Standard founded ‘The Project for the New American Century’ (PNAC). The most distinguished signatories of the mission statement are Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Jeb Bush (George W. Bush's brother), Francis Fukuyama, and ‘last but not least’ Paul Wolfowitz, a former Professor of International Politics and former Dean of the Department of International Politics at Johns Hopkins University. Its current director is Gary Schmitt. It is important to note that many of its members have close ties with both the military and the oil industry. PNAC describes itself as “a non-profit, educational organization whose goal it is to promote American global leadership.” Its ‘Statement of principles’ is unequivocal: “The history of the 20th century should have taught us that it is important to shape circumstances before crises emerge, and to meet threats before they become dire. The history of this century should have taught us to embrace the cause of American leadership.” (That is the doctrine of "Premptive Strike" and "Benevolent Hegemony") PNAC drew up a four-point agenda to achieve its mission: “we
need to increase defense spending significantly if we are to carry out
our global responsibilities today and modernize our armed forces for the
future;” When Bush came to power, with Dick Cheney as Vice-President, Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense, and Paul Wolfowitz as Deputy Secretary of Defense, the PNAC theories became a blueprint for the American defense and international policy. This policy was officially accepted in a White House document personally signed by President Bush: ‘The National Security Strategy of the United States of America’ (September 2002). Events have confirmed in the meantime that the theory of ruthless military world dominance is currently being put into practice. After 9/11, these people had in hand the necessary “catastrophic and catalyzing event” and the political credit to implement their program. They could carry out one of the four core tasks of the transformed American army: “to fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theatre wars” (p. IV). This terrible sentence requires maybe some explanation. “Major theatre wars” is a military term for extended battlefields, but if you know that you will “decisively win” even before going to war, the effort becomes a ‘theatre war’ in the more general sense of a ‘theatrical war’. The rhetoric should be evident to the entire planet. In the words of George W. Bush himself: “Who is not with us, is against us”. Therefore these wars have to be “multiple and simultaneous”. As was the case in the Roman Empire, the Project for the New American Century wants to enforce a planet-wide so-called “Pax Americana”, but its means is "Full spectrum dominance". The PNAC report is a road map to a New Imperial Order, with a high-tech mega-army ruling “an increasingly chaotic world” with shock and awe interventions and slash and burn techniques. 'Accusation' We believe that the PNAC program, put into practice by the Bush War Cabinet, leads directly to violations of international law, thousands of unnecessary war victims, and the destabilization of the entire planet in a social, political, and humanitarian respect. It is heading for an unheard of militarisation of the world. This New American Hegemony is in fact a way to serve the glory of the oil industry and military industrial complex (with which many PNAC members and Bush aides are closely linked). This policy threatens world peace in a sustained and severe way. The ‘bill of indictment’ may provisionally be phrased as follows: “The Project for the New American Century and its members, especially PNAC's key figures in the Bush War Cabinet, have been preaching, planning and committing crimes against international law and against humanity.” Even if PNAC has only been producing discourse and therefore could and will invoke "free speech", we believe that their speech acts are performative: it is an intention for action. Such speech acts are not merely free speech. They are the source of actions. The actions that directly followed from the PNAC discourse and its translation into "The national Security Strategy of the United States, signed by president Bush (september 2002), are inadmissible. The most important ones are listed below: 1) Planning a war without proof of imminent danger to the country involved is considered an ‘act of aggression’ under international law. Waging such a war of aggression is a clear violation of the Charter of the United Nations. - The doctrine of the “pre-emptive strike” proposed by Paul Wolfowitz in the 1991 Defense Guidelines is incompatible with international law, which restricts the use of force in self-defense to situations where a State has been subjected to an armed attack, i.e. an aggression. This doctrine, officially taken up by President Bush in his speech at West Point Military Academy (6/1/2002) is a major threat to world peace and a violation of international law. - The invasion of Iraq by the United States and the United Kingdom is a major violation of international law and of the UN Charter. - Aside from situations of self-defense, the UN Charter determines that States can only resort to armed force with the consent of the UN Security Council. The Charter has instituted a system of collective security, which is being blatantly disregarded by the current US administration. Moreover top administration advisers such as Richard Perle consider it irrelevant, and an obstacle to be removed. - So far no Weapons of Mass Destruction have been found, rendering the entire casus belli a fraud. 2) During the Iraq war international humanitarian law was breached on several occasions, and repeatedly and grossly violated: - The use of cluster bombs against civilians can be considered a war crime, as it causes unnecessary injuries, including those occasioned long after combat has ceased. - The use of uranium in ammunition and bombs can be considered a completely unnecessary act and a severe war crime. - The hunt for non-embedded journalists can be seen as a war waged against the free press and, therefore, a violation of the right to free speech. - International law states clearly that it is the duty of the army at war to identify and bury the soldiers it has killed. The United States and the coalition forces have not complied with this rule. 3) The duties of an occupation force were not (and are still not) respected: - Not only did the massive bombing wreck the country, the fact that the looting of hospitals went on for several days proves that the coalition was not interested in putting a stop to it (its forces exclusively secured the oil fields and the oil Ministry). The total lack of protection of all hospitals was a breach of the occupying forces' duty to assist the victims of war. We may consider this severe omission a breach of the laws of war, as international war legislation clearly states that it is the duty of the occupying country to establish order and security in the occupied country. - The permissive policy regarding the looting of all Ministries proves that the coalition is not really interested in investigating the history of this hideous regime, for it tolerated the destruction of a significant part of its archives. This constitutes in a sense an attack on Iraq's collective memory. - The permissive policy of the US Army and the coalition forces regarding the looting of the National Museum of Baghdad may be considered a crime against the cultural heritage of the country, and even of humanity itself. - The reconstruction of Iraq is and will be a profitable deal for several American companies: Halliburton, Kellogg Brown & Root, Bechtel. The revenues of Iraqi oil will flow directly back to American companies (incidentally, most of them being competitors in the oil business). This runs contrary to the most basic principles of international law, according to which the State(s) responsible of breaches of international laws or regulations may not take advantage of this fact and are required to provide compensation for damages resulting from those breaches. 4) The occupation of Iraq by the US and British military forces is a violation of international law. - The fact that the occupation powers are permanent members of the UN Security Council and will veto any resolution aimed at ending the occupation, does not change the situation of permanent violation of international law and of the UN Charter, ratified by both the US and the UK. 5) The ‘New American Imperial Sovereignty’ is heading for a global 'State of Exception'. The war in Iraq is not an isolated event, as can be concluded from the content of the PNAC report and the case of Afghanistan, not to mention the threats against Syria and Iran or the concept of ‘punishing’ France for its opposition to this war or Belgium for its anti-genocide law. This ‘unilateral policy’, heading for a hegemony of the entire world as spelled out by the PNAC report (September 2000), then translated into the official ‘Security Report’ of President George W. Bush (September 2002) and put into practice since, will continue to destabilize the planet in a social, economical, political and humanitarian respect and claim many unnecessary victims. The rejection of all international law authorities that would be able to control or convict the citizens of the United States, notably the blatant opposition to the United Nations and the rejection of the International Criminal Court, prove that the United States are withdrawing all respect for the international legal order. It seems necessary to us to study and criticize the ‘philosophical’ (or ideological) foundations of this ‘New Imperial Order’ in the works of Robert Kaplan, Robert Kagan, Paul Wolfowitz, Francis Fukuyama, Samuel Huntington, and others. It is necessary to expose the foundations of the new concept of “full spectrum dominance”[1]. The change American policy has undergone is dramatic and alarming. The transition from multilateralism to unilateralism is not innocent. The “benevolent hegemony”[2] Robert Kagan and William Kristol, founding members of PNAC, were arguing for in 1996, has become ‘malevolent’. The “American exceptionalism” they were advocating is heading towards a ‘State of Exception’. Sovereignty has always been the right to declare the state of exception (according to Carl Schmitt[3]), and it seems that the new American policy is cumulating this policy of exception:
all this points clearly to the fact that the "American exceptionalism" is heading towards a dangerous 'State of Exception' (also within the United States itself). Conclusion: Why a Brussels Tribunal? It took years for the opposition to the Vietnam War to develop into a mass movement. The current situation is different. Even before the start of the Iraq War the American-British invasion was globally rejected and condemned. The sole aim of the Commission of Inquiry in Brussels, and indeed of the entire process up to the final Istanbul Tribunal, cannot actually be to bring the unlawful character of this war under public attention. It has already been largely acknowledged and debated. What then are the real goals? Why set up this tribunal? Because it is extremely important for the future of the planet to resist the tendency to present the current situation as normal, which is exactly what is happening and what the Bush administration is trying to do. Because it is important not to accept this “fait accompli” under the heading of “Realpolitik”, as some politicians and journalists in Europe are inclined to do. Because it is important to make this point explicitly, even if it is already well-known, and to state “this is a crime” and “this is a violation of international law.” Because it is important to keep up the spirit. Most governments, including the Belgian, are inclined to give in and to bow to the American pressure. We, the civil society, the people, need to raise our voice. Because it is important to defend fundamental human dignity, justice and above all World Peace. The war in Iraq is only a step, a stage in the attempt to impose a “Pax Americana” through multiple and simultaneous wars – for more wars are bound to follow. The stronger the resistance is from the start, the bigger the chances are that we can turn this imperial tide. We are on the brink of disaster. Breaking the will to resist is the cornerstone of the Bush administration's policy. Capitulating to this course will only lead to more capricious, frantic and aggressive interventions. The treaty of Munich that paved the way for the Second World War should be kept in mind as a serious historical precedent. The most ardent interventionists have already mapped out a string of preventive interventions: Iran, Syria, North Korea, Libya and even China. The Pax Americana is a New World Order designed in the interest of a handful of American corporations. Under the banner of ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom’ the new global economy appears as a source of poverty for many countries in the developing world. It can only result in endless resistance from the have-nots. The Pax Americana can only endure through discord and, hence, war. In order to mobilize the necessary political forces the Bush administration stirs up all possible tensions and contradictions in the world: the opposition between the Western world and Islam, the opposition between ‘New Europe’ and ‘Old Europe’, the opposition between different developing countries. It also goes to work inside these countries by encouraging leanings such as nationalism, tribalism and fanaticism. The Bush administration follows more plainly than ever the imperial motto: “divide et impera” and intensifies or creates potential conflicts all oveb the world. To guard the Pax Amermca and impose “full spectrum dominance” the Bush administration is developing a new generation of nuclear weapons. These warheads will have the capability of penetrating the armored protection of underground command centers or weapons sites. The project threadens to blur the line between nuclear an` conventional abms. In the hawkc' eyes these “ucable nuclear arms” will restore the credibility of US nuclear power. As a result of this policy the nuclear threshold will be lowered and the risks of a nuclear nightmare will be heightened, even beyond the most threatening episodes of the Cold War. In a short statement written for the International Tribunal Initiative of Istanbul John Berger states: “The records have to be kept and, by definition, the perpetrators, far from keeping records, try to destroy them. They are killers of the innocent and of memory. The records are required to inspire still further the mounting opposition to the new global tyranny. The new tyrants, incomparably over-armed, can win every war - both military and economic. Yet they are losing the war (this is how they call it) of communication. They are not winning the support of world public opinion. More and more people are saying NO. Finally this will be the tyranny's undoing. But after how many more tragedies, invasions and collateral disasters? After how much more of the new poverty the tyranny engenders? Hence the urgency of keeping records, of remembering, of assembling the evidence, so that the accusations become unforgettable, and proverbial on every continent. More and more people are going to say NO, for this is the precondition today for saying YES to all we are determined to save and everything we love.” (John Berger, 18.06.2003, Paris - Mieussy) Therefore, we conclude that there are urgent and sufficient reasons to hold a hearing against this New Imperial policy – as a successful outcome of any legal action is highly improbable – and to investigate both the theory and practice of this policy. That is why we have chosen ‘The Project for the New American Century’ as our focal point. We are convinced that it is the duty of the people of planet Earth to protest against this dangerous, immoral and, in fact, criminal policy: The People vs. Total War Incorporated. For further information on PNAC: See www.newamericancentury.org ; an excellent file on PNAC was compiled by www.moveon.org, see also www.pnac.info. This platform text and more links are available on our website www.brusselstribunal.org Contact: Lieven De Cauter e-mail: lieven.decauter@asro.kuleuven.ac.be; Patrick Deboosere e-mail: patrick.deboosere@vub.ac.be; postal adress: Fabienne Aucant, Halles de Schaerbeek, Rue de la Constitution 20, 1030 Brussels, phone +32 2/219 4290 fax +32 2/219 4290. Endnotes: [1]
Key concept in “Joint Vision 2020”, the blueprint for the U.S.
military for the next decades, defined as the ability of U.S. forces to
defeat any adversary and control any situation across the range of military
operations. CREDITS/SOURCES: |
||||||
|
||||
|
||||