The Anti-Empire Report
August 10, 2007
by William Blum
www.killinghope.org
Separation of oil and state
A
reading of the policy papers issued by the neo-conservatives since the
demise of the Soviet Union makes it clear that these people will not
tolerate any other country or group of countries challenging the global
hegemony of the world's only superpower. A sample -- In 1992 they
wrote: "We must maintain the mechanisms for deterring potential
competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role."[1]
And in 2002, in the White House "National Security Strategy" paper:
"Our forces will be strong enough to dissuade potential adversaries
from pursuing a military build-up in hopes of surpassing, or equaling,
the power of the United States. ... America will act against such
emerging threats before they are fully formed. ... We must deter and
defend against the threat before it is unleashed. ... We cannot let our
enemies strike first. ... To forestall or prevent such hostile acts by
our adversaries, the United States will, if necessary, act
preemptively."
As the world has been learning in great sorrow, the neo-conservative world-dominators are not just (policy) paper tigers.
Japan and the European Union easily fall into the categories
of potential competitors or potential adversaries, economically
speaking. They both are crucially dependent upon oil imports. To one
extent or another so is most of the world. The Bush administration
doesn't need the approval of the oil companies to pursue its grandiose
agenda of world domination, using the vast Iraqi oil reserves as one
more of its weapons.
For those who would like to believe that
there's a limit to the neo-cons' imperial arrogance, that even the
likes of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Bolton, Wolfowitz, Rice, and the rest
of the gang would never treat Europe as anything like an enemy, I
suggest a look at a recent article by the former US ambassador to the
United Nations, John Bolton, which appeared in the Financial Times of
London. In it, the Cheney intimate and current senior fellow at the
neo-con citadel, American Enterprise Institute, berates British prime
minister Gordon Brown for implying that the UK could have a "special
relationship" with both the United States and the European Union (which
Bolton refers to as "the European porridge"). Like a hurt lover, Bolton
exclaims that Britain has been brought to "a clear decision point. ...
What London needs to know is that its answer will have consequences."
The article is entitled: "Britain Cannot Have Two Best Friends".
Bolton
goes on to ask: "Why does a 'union' with a common foreign and security
policy, and with the prospect of a real 'foreign minister' have two
permanent seats on the UN Security Council and often as many as three
non-permanent seats out of a total of 15 council members? France and
Britain may not relish the prospect of giving up their unique status,
but what is it that makes them different -- as members of the 'Union'
-- from Luxembourg or Malta? One Union, one seat. Mr Brown cannot have
it both ways (nor will President Nicolas Sarkozy)."
The Empire
has not yet made Europe an ODE (Officially Designated Enemy) like Iran,
but, Bolton declares, "If Mr Bush decides that the only way to stop
Iran is to use military force, where will Mr Brown come down?
Supporting the US or allowing Iran to goose-step towards nuclear
weapons?"[2]
Washington's exquisite imperial mentality, its
stated determination to "act against such emerging threats before they
are fully formed", sees "potential adversaries" in China and Russia as
well of course. The United States -- with hypocrisy breathtaking even
for the Bush administration -- regularly castigates China for its
expanding military budget; and tries to surround Russia with military
bases, missile shields, and countries with ties to Washington and NATO.
Moreover, the United States has been competing with Russia for
the vast oil and gas reserves of the land-locked Caspian Sea area since
the 1990s. The building and protection of pipelines in Afghanistan was
in all likelihood a major factor in the US invasion and occupation of
that country. And in this case we know that the American oil company
UNOCAL met with Taliban officials in Texas and in Afghanistan before
9-11 to discuss the pipelines.[3]
A license to lie that never expires
I
touched upon this a year ago, but our much-esteemed leader and his
equally-esteemed acolytes continue to use the same argument in order to
deflect attention from their deformed child, the War On Terror -- the
argument being that since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, US
counterterrorism policy has worked. How do they know? Because there
haven't been any terrorist attacks in the United States in the six
years since that infamous day.
Right, but there weren't any
terrorist attacks in the United States in the six years before Sept.
11, 2001 either, the last one being the Oklahoma City bombing of April
19, 1995, with no known connection to al Qaeda. The absence of
terrorist attacks in the US appears to be the norm, with or without a
War on Terror.
More significantly, in the six years since 9-11
the United States has been the target of terrorist attacks on scores of
occasions, not even counting anything in Iraq or Afghanistan -- attacks
on military, diplomatic, civilian, Christian, and other targets
associated with the United States, in the Middle East, South Asia and
the Pacific, more than a dozen times in Pakistan alone. The attacks
include the October 2002 bombings of two nightclubs in Bali, Indonesia,
which killed more than 200 people, almost all of them Americans and
citizens of their Australian and British war allies; the following year
brought the heavy bombing of the US-managed Marriott Hotel in Jakarta,
Indonesia, the site of diplomatic receptions and 4th of July
celebrations held by the American Embassy; and other horrendous attacks
in more recent years on US allies in Madrid and London because of the
war.
When the Bush administration argues that the absence of
terrorist attacks in the US since 9-11 means that its war on terrorism
has created a safer world for Americans ... why do I doubt this?
The past is unpredictable
As
the call for withdrawal of American forces from Iraq grows louder,
those who support the war are rewriting history to paint a scary
picture of what happened in Vietnam after the United States military
left in March 1973.
They speak of invasions by the North
Vietnamese communists, but fail to point out that a two-decades-long
civil war had simply continued after the Americans left, minus a good
deal of the horror which US bombs and chemical weapons had been
causing.
They speak of the "bloodbath" that followed the
American withdrawal, a term that implies killing of large numbers of
civilians who didn't support the communists. But this never happened.
If it had taken place the anti-communists in the United States who
supported the war in Vietnam would have been more than happy to
publicize a "commie bloodbath". It would have made big headlines all
over the world. The fact that you can't find anything of the sort is
indicative of the fact that nothing like a bloodbath took place. It
would be difficult to otherwise disprove this negative.
"Some 600,000 Vietnamese drowned in the
South China Sea attempting to escape."[4] Has anyone not confined to a
right-wing happy farm ever heard of this before?
They mix Vietnam and Cambodia together in the same thought,
leaving the impression that the horrors of Pol Pot included Vietnam.
This is the conservative National Review Online: "Six weeks later, the
last Americans lifted off in helicopters from the roof of the U.S.
embassy in Saigon, leaving hundreds of panicked South Vietnamese
immediately behind and an entire region to the mercy of the communists.
The scene was similar in Phnom Penh [Cambodia]. The torture and murder
spree that followed left millions of corpses."[5]
And here's
dear old Fox News, July 26, reporters Sean Hannity and Alan Colmes,
with their guest, actor Jon Voight. Voight says "Right now, we're
having a lot of people who don't know a whole lot of things crying for
us pulling out of Iraq. This -- there was a bloodbath when we pulled
out of Vietnam, 2.5 million people in Cambodia and Vietnam -- South
Vietnam were slaughtered."
Alan Colmes' response, in its
entirety: "Yes, sir." Hannity said nothing. The many devoted listeners
of Fox News could only nod their heads sagely.
In actuality,
instead of a bloodbath of those who had collaborated with the enemy,
the Vietnamese sent them to "re-education" camps, a more civilized
treatment than in post-World War Two Europe where many of those who had
collaborated with the Germans were publicly paraded, shaven bald,
humiliated in other ways, and/or hung from the nearest tree. But some
conservatives today would have you believe that the Vietnamese camps
were virtually little Auschwitzes.[6]
Has the conservative view of Vietnam
post-US withdrawal already hardened into historical concrete? "The
agreed-upon historical record", to use Gore Vidal's term?
The way of all flesh, the way of all wars
In
1967 and '68 I was writing a column of a type very similar to this
report, only it wasn't online of course; it was for the Washington Free
Press, part of the so-called "underground press". In looking over those
old columns recently I found three items whose relevance has not been
dimmed by time at all:
(1) [From the Washington Post, 1968]:
"It has never been clearer that the Marines are fighting for their own
pride, from their own fear and for their buddies who have already died.
No American in Hue is fighting for Vietnam, for the Vietnamese, or
against Communism."[7]
[Make the obvious
substitutions and we have: No American in Baghdad is fighting for Iraq,
for the Iraqi people, or against terrorism. And how many of today's
warriors can look around at what is happening in Iraq and convince
themselves that they're fighting for something called freedom and
democracy?]
(2) Arthur Sylvester, Assistant Secretary of
Defense for Public Affairs, was the man most responsible for "giving,
controlling and managing the war news from Vietnam". One day in July
1965, Sylvester told American journalists that they had a patriotic
duty to disseminate only information that made the United States look
good. When one of the newsmen exclaimed: "Surely, Arthur, you don't
expect the American press to be handmaidens of government," Sylvester
replied, "That's exactly what I expect," adding: "Look, if you think
any American official is going to tell you the truth, then you're
stupid. Did you hear that? -- stupid." And when a correspondent for a
New York paper began a question, he was interrupted by Sylvester who
said: "Aw, come on. What does someone in New York care about the war in
Vietnam?"[8]
(3) The US recently completed an operation in the
III Corps area of South Vietnam called "Resolved to Win". Now, a new
operation is being planned for the same area. This one is called
"Complete Victory", which should give you an idea of how successful
"Resolved to Win" was. I expect that the only operation standing a
chance of success will be the one called "Total Withdrawal."
Libertarians: an eccentric blend of anarchy and runaway capitalism
What
is it about libertarians? Their philosophy, in theory and in practice,
seems to amount to little more than: "If the government is doing it,
it's oppressive and we're against it." Corporations, however, tend to
get free passes. Perhaps the most prominent libertarian today is Texas
Congressman Ron Paul, who ran as the Libertarian Party's candidate for
president in 1988 and is running now for the same office as a
Republican. He's against the war in Iraq, in no uncertain terms, but if
the war were officially being fought by, for, and in the name of a
consortium of Lockheed Martin, Halliburton, Bechtel, and some other
giant American corporations, would he have the same attitude? And one
could of course argue that the war is indeed being fought for such a
consortium. So is it simply the idea or the image of "a government
operation" that bothers him and other libertarians?
Paul recently said: "The government is too bureaucratic, it spends too much money, they waste the money."[9]
Does the man think that corporations are not bureaucratic? Do
libertarians think that any large institution is not overbearingly
bureaucratic? Is it not the nature of the beast? Who amongst us has not
had the frustrating experience with a corporation trying to correct an
erroneous billing or trying to get a faulty product repaired or
replaced? Can not a case be made that corporations spend too much (of
our) money? What do libertarians think of the exceedingly obscene
salaries paid to corporate executives? Or of two dozen varieties of
corporate theft and corruption? Did someone mention Enron?
Ron
Paul and other libertarians are against social security. Do they
believe that it's better for elderly people to live in a homeless
shelter than to be dependent on government "handouts"? That's exactly
what it would come down to with many senior citizens if not for their
social security. Most libertarians I'm sure are not racists, but Paul
certainly sounds like one. Here are a couple of comments from his
newsletter:
"Opinion polls consistently show that only
about 5 percent of blacks have sensible political opinions, i.e.
support the free market, individual liberty and the end of welfare and
affirmative action."
"Given the inefficiencies of what D.C.
laughingly calls the 'criminal justice system,' I think we can safely
assume that 95 percent of the black males in that city are
semi-criminal or entirely criminal."[10]
Author Ellen Willis has written that "the fundamental fallacy
of right libertarianism is that the state is the only source of
coercive power." They don't recognize "that the corporations that
control most economic resources, and therefore most people's access to
the necessities of life, have far more power than government to dictate
our behavior and the day-to-day terms of our existence."[11]
NOTES
[1] "Defense Planning Guidance for the Fiscal Years 1994-1999", New York Times, March 8, 1992, p.14, emphasis added
[2] Financial Times (London), August 2, 2007
[3] BBC News, December 4, 1997, "Taleban in Texas for talks on gas pipeline"
[4]
Joseph Farah, editor of the conservative WorldNetDaily
(worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=56769), August 6, 2007
[5] Mona Charen, National Review Online, July 20, 2007
[6] Search Google News: <bloodbath iraq vietnam> for more examples
[7] Washington Post, February 20, 1968, article by Lee Lescaze
[8]
Congressional Record (House of Representatives), May 12, 1966, pp.
9977-78, reprint of an article by Morley Safer of CBS News
[9] National Public Radio, Morning Edition, August 9, 2007
[10] Atlanta Progressive News, June 3, 2007 (www.atlantaprogressivenews.com/views/0024-views.html)
As
far as I can determine, Paul does not deny that these remarks, and
others equally racist, appeared in his newsletter, but he claims that a
staff member of his is the author of those remarks.
[11] Ellen Willis, Dissent magazine, Fall 1997
William Blum is the author of:
Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War 2
Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower
West-Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Memoir
Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire
Portions of the books can be read, and signed copies purchased, at
Previous Anti-Empire Reports can be read at this website at "essays".
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Writings 
On several occasions I've been presented with the argument that
contrary to widespread opinion in the anti-war movement and on the
left, oil was not really a factor in the the United States invasion and
occupation of Iraq. The argument's key, perhaps sole, point is that the
oil companies did not push for the war. 
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You are correct that at the same time they blame our pull out of Vietnam for Cambodia's millions of deaths. So since we had already gone in for the wrong reasons in both places we were stuck until we made it better. There is something wrong with this logic IF we really can NOT make it better. How about we throw money out of the military vehicles as we are leaving? And give $10 billion a year for 10 years to the government that quits killing. It might be cheaper and save LOTS of lives.
My only real quibble is that a blind hatred of government or business is just as silly as a blind love of government or business. Power is always to be feared as it becomes concentrated. It needs to be balanced with opposing powers (for example three independent branches of government) or bad things happen, humans being what they are.
One of the real problems in modern times is that business and government have joined forces and there is no one to oppose the combination. We try to keep religion weak and the press (mainstream) has been bought or bribed by BOTH big business and big governement.
That leaves the internet and google. I would be very afraid if google were the sole source of access to the internet. We need some other developing powers. Maybe stronger states. Maybe a President who wanted to weaken the ability of government to be co-opted by big business. Maybe laws that did not require businesses to be gigantic to be successful. I am thinking of drug companies and telephone/cell phone companies. Something!
So much of what we do in the name of fairness and helping control big business and government is in reality reinforcing their control. I have in mind campaign finance reform and moving of the primaries up sooner so that grass root campaigns do not have time to develop through the internet.
Interesting times for folks who know the status quo needs changing and NEED time to do it.