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4 November 2006.
Yesterday, the Asian Times took the unusual step for this journal of publishing a leader (editorial) entitled Iraq: Bush has a plan, and it's working, the object of which seems to be to counter that self-serving commonplace of mass media spin (not merely in the US, but here in Europe as well), which maintains that the motives of US foreign policy are basically benevolent, but that implementation, as in all human endeavours, can sometimes leave something to be desired - the «bumbling benevolent giant» view of US foreign policy. To the editors of the A-Times, the wellsprings of US policy in Iraq have little to do with the pure water of democracy, but with another and more viscous liquid :A strategy of fomenting chaos makes perfect sense in a twisted sort of way: a stable, autonomous Iraq means oil will be pumped, bringing down international crude prices, and that's the last thing the Bush administration's backers want. Who are the administration's backers, and who has a hotline to the presidency, via Vice President Dick Cheney? Big Oil.
«Consider», the paper asks its readers, «these well-known facts»:
- Cheney was formerly chief executive officer of oil-services company Halliburton, which, incidentally, was found by a 2003 Pentagon audit to have overcharged the US government by US$61 million for delivering gasoline to Iraq.
- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sat on Chevron's board of directors from 1991 to 2001, and Chevron named an oil tanker after her.
- James A Baker III, secretary of state for Bush's father and now "fixer" for the Bush family, has been appointed co-chair of the Iraq Study Group, charged with advising Bush Jr on future Iraq policy. His law firm, Baker Botts, was ranked by Who's Who Legal last year as "Global Oil and Gas Law Firm of the Year". His clients include the royal family of Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries kingpin Saudi Arabia.
- Bush himself was a Texas oilman, though not a very successful one. Ever heard of Bush's company, Arbusto? Probably not. Arbusto was going busto before it eventually ended up in the hands of Harken Energy in 1986. Harken gave Bush a seat on the board, some stock options and a $120,000 consulting contract. The energy industry pumped $2.8 million into Bush's 2000 campaign.
As the A-Times points out, these facts are «well-known», and should come as a surprise to no one whose knowledge of US politics is not limited to Fox News or newspaper headlines. But aside from the obvious economic benefits to the «decider» and his courtiers of US policy in Iraq, which has been less than «benevolent» to those Iraqis who made up the over half a million «excess deaths» which more than three years of warfare have brought to their country, there are other considerations, both foreign and domestic, which, in my judgement, certainly played vital roles in the decision to pursue an illegal and unnecessary war. Below, my response to the leader, in a letter to the A-Times (which, nota bene, has a new address for such correspondence - writeto@atimes.com) - which I took the liberty of copying to StumbleUpon :
To the editor :
Whether or not the present plan, which the A-Times leader describes in some detail, is Plan A or Plan B, the fact of the matter is that those who determine US policy profit from it immensely, not only economically, as there pointed out, but also politically, as the war - and in particular the «failure» in the war - «justifies» ever more extensive limitations on the liberties of not only foreigners (who as «enemy combatants» have «no rights which the white man was bound to respect»), but also to citizens of the United States itself. The right of habeas corpus is no longer a given, and the vast domestic prison industry - a «growth industry» whose staying power makes IT development look like a bubble and which incarcerates nearly one per cent of the US population - is shadowed by a secret chain of foreign detention centres, in which, presumably (we are not allowed to know), private enterprise plays, as it does at home, an ever more important role. Admittedly, the Bush regime has not succeeded in bring democracy to Iraq, but it must be recognised that has done a brilliant job of exporting it from the United States. All this, not to mention the benefit to the Imperial power (a k a the «Unitary Executive») of a classic divide et impera strategy which, in dividing not Gallia but Mesopotamia in partes tres, removes a hinder to the rule of the chosen regional satrap, Israel, and makes possible a move against the one remaining obstacle to total dominance, Iran....
19 October 2006.
- Beware empires in decline, Professor Michael T Klare warns us, in a thought-provoking article published in today's Asia Times. Using the example of the egregious - and egregiously stupid - reaction of Britain and France to Egypt's decision to nationalise the Suez Canal (which he contrasts to US president Jimmy Carter's decision in 1977 to negotiate a turn over of the Panama Canal - it doesn't require much imagination to realise what Bush/Cheney would have done in this situation), Professor Klare points out the hubris which almost inevitably (with Mr Carter as an honourable exception, at least on this occasion) afflicts the decision makers of an empire on the decline :
The decline of an empire can be a hard and painful thing for the affected imperial elites. Those who are used to commanding subservience and respect from their subjects and from lesser powers are often ill-prepared to deal with their indifference and contempt. Even harder is overcoming the long-inbred assumption that one's vassals are inferior - mentally, morally and otherwise.
The first malady makes the declining elites extraordinarily sensitive to perceived slights or insults from their former subjects; the second often leads elites to overestimate their own capabilities and to underestimate those of their former subjects - an often fatal error. The two misjudgments often combine to produce an extreme readiness to strike back when a perceived insult coincides with a (possibly deceptive) military superiority.
King George and his courtiers, enamoured as they are of «faith-based» reality, are not slow to perceive slights and to react to them with military action, even if or perhaps more correctly (that pesky cognitive dissonance again !), especially if they result from their own provocations (the present situation on the Korean peninsula being an excellent case in point). And, as I maintain in my posting to StumbleUpon, infra, there are other factors in addition to perceived lèse-majesté that act to impel the King George and his court in the direction of military adventure against Iran - and just possibly North Korea - in the coming two weeks. I wonder what Euripedes would have made of this drama ?...
*Ever the gentleman, Professor Klare politely refrains from pointing out another obvious factor which would tend to lead the present US administration - like its imperial predecessors but even more so - toward such desperate acts of insanity as nuclear attacks on Iran and/or North Korea : the desire to use a new and better war to force US voters to rally round the flag, thus making the manipulations that are scheduled for the upcoming Congressional elections less immediately obvious. But his main point is well taken :
So I believe that the common wisdom in Washington regarding military action against Iran is wrong. Just because American forces are bogged down in Iraq, and Rice appears to enjoy a bit more authority these days, does not mean that "realism" will prevail at the White House. I suspect that the response of declining British and French imperial elites when faced with provocative acts by a former subject power in 1956 is a far more accurate gauge of what to expect from the Bush administration today.
The impulse to strike back must be formidable. Soon, I fear, it will prove irresistible.
We are cursed with living in interesting times....
*Note that this article was first published six days ago in Foreign Policy in Focus....
29 September 2006.
- In a perceptive and informed article entitled War in October, Geov Parrish published an analysis yesterday on his Working for Change website of the US regime's latest moves in the burgeoning «Iran crisis» which it has worked so hard to manufacture. In addition to exposing the falsity of the rhetoric that King George's speech writers have brought to bear on the issue :
Bush purportedly spoke "directly" to the Iranian people, another favorite rhetorical device of war-conscious American presidents. Bush, in this case, assured all Iranians that their leader was betraying their trust by pursuing weapons of mass destruction, and, like them, all Bush wants is peace and democracy and freedom blah blah blah. It all sounded dreadfully familiar. (How's that peace and democracy and freedom workin' out for ya, Iraqis?) Iranians, of course, generally don't share the religious fundamentalism of Ahmadinejad and the other hardliners now running things in Tehran, but they are wildly supportive of the country's nuclear program. So Bush's real audience was not Iranians (or Iraqis or Afghans, who he also "addressed"), but us. You and me. Americans. And his message to us: when I launch this war, it is only to give Iranians what they all crave.
Iranians, apparently, have a unique affection for having cluster bombs dropped on them.
Bush also, in his U.N. speech, pledged himself as determined to find a negotiated way to end the problem. That's actually another bad sign. When Bush gets around to talking about negotiations, it usually means he's arrived at the point where the formality of intentionally futile diplomatic gestures must be deployed prior to attack. That message was exactly what Bush was saying for months in 2002-03, well after he'd determined to invade Iraq. It was a lie then, and, judging by the actions of his own military, it's a lie now.
Mr Parrish also points out concrete measures which indicate, behind the rhetoric, what the court may really be planning :
The second, disturbing report to surface last week is that, as Dave Lindorff of The Nation writes,
"...the Bush Administration and the Pentagon have moved up the deployment of a major "strike group" of ships, including the nuclear aircraft carrier Eisenhower as well as a cruiser, destroyer, frigate, submarine escort and supply ship, to head for the Persian Gulf, just off Iran's western coast. This information follows a report in the current issue of Time magazine, both online and in print, that a group of ships capable of mining harbors has received orders to be ready to sail for the Persian Gulf by October 1."
The Eisenhower Strike Group has been ordered to leave next week, at least a month ahead of schedule, after having been docked for refurbishment for several years. It will take a week to reach Iran's western coast, heavily fortified with Silkworm antiship missiles. That in itself indicates the Eisenhower group's deployment is not simply a provocation or bluff. You don't put such valuable vessels within range of enemy fire unless you're there for a reason. Bush would surely love to have the Iranians fire first, but even if Tehran doesn't take the bait, all signs are that Bush is giving himself the option of launching a military strike against Iran in October.
None of us, including King George himself (Mr Cheney might have an idea), knows, of course, exactly what the month of October will bring to Iran, the USA, and the rest of the world, but here below is the response to Mr Parrish's article I posted to StumbleUpon :
The ability to fool fellow members of one's own species would seem to be much older than H sapiens sapiens - in addition to ourselves, it is found, so ethologists tell us, in our cousins, P troglodytes. Smart as we are, we have found certain algorithms to use in attempting to discern our fellows' deceit : «Follow the money !», «Cherchez la femme !», and not least, «Observe how the military (or the police or the gang members) have been deployed !» The fact that the Eisenhower Strike Group has been ordered to the Persian Gulf is not a hopeful sign, for all King George's protestations of a desire to work through diplomacy ; while it may, of course, be an attempt to bluff the Iranians to abjure their rights under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty - to which both they and the United States are parties - it may also, given the sinking prospects of the Republican Party with regard to the fall elections in the US, be the first element of that old Republican favourite, the October Surprise. After all, King George's courtiers have, through the use of military means succeeded in their project to destroy Iraq ; all that now stands in their way (they seem to believe) to complete hegemony over Southwest Asia's (with the Israeli state in the role of proconsul) oil and gas resources - and thereby control over potential rivals, such as China - is Iran. The temptation to go to war to obtain this objective, at the same time that they thereby (they think) save themselves from an electoral debacle at home, must be very strong, indeed ! How far these people are willing to go is impossible for outsiders to determine, but one fact is clear, the more informed and aroused the people of the United States are, the greater the costs to the neo-con clique of attempting to realise their dream of a «New American Century». Don't expect any help from us Euro-weenies in stopping this madness ; as the pitiful example of the egregious Mr Blair shows, our so-called «leaders» will always, to greater or lesser degree, follow the US, no matter which madman is in charge - they don't possess the imagination to conceive of another world....
20 September 2006.
Robert Parry has just published an article entitled Bush's empty words to the UN on his invaluable Consortiumnews, which analyses the discrepancy (surprise ! surprise !) between the words uttered by George W Bush in his recent speech at the United Nation's Organisation (where, perhaps to the surprise of his ambassador - appointed without the advice and consent of the US Senate - the top ten floors have not yet disappeared) and his actions during his reign. In closing, Parry inquires as to the reasons for the discrepancy and attempts to answer his own question :
So, why would Bush invoke the Universal Declaration of Human Rights when he is flouting many of its core principles?
There would seem to be two possible explanations for Bush’s chutzpah: either he’s just reading a script without regard to the words or he’s confident that he can speak the opposite of the truth knowing that few people of consequence will call him on it.
Either way, Bush’s cavalier attitude in hailing human rights while simultaneously trashing human rights represents another classic case of Bush’s hubris, which is becoming the defining characteristic of his presidency.
Whether Bush's attitude is better characterised as «chutzpah» or as «hubris» is perhaps a moot point (I vote for the former), but here below, at any rate, the response I posted to StumbleUpon after reading Mr Parry's article :
As Robert Parry points out here, King George's spin doctors' proclivity to invoke the most high-flying rhetoric and principles to justify the most despicable policies and activities is well known. But to my mind, his willingness to refer to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the violation of which is the one of the ground pillars of his court, before an audience which, unlike many in the US, must be fully aware of the discrepancy between his words and his actions, shows the degree to which Bush and his courtiers hold the United Nations Organisations - and the countries which comprise it - in contempt. Given that most of these countries - with a few honourable exceptions - are unwilling to directly challenge these actions and point out these contradictions, mayhap this contempt is deserved ?...
13 September 2006.
Under the title An inconvenient truth: beware the politician in fleece clothing, Jonathan Freedland reviews Al Gore's recently released film An Inconvenient Truth in a lengthy comment in the commentisfree section of today's Guardian. Essentially, Mr Freedland is both sobered and aroused by the film :
I am ashamed to say it took a movie to make me realise what, above all others, is surely the greatest political question of our time. An hour and 40 minutes in the cinema watching Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, which opens in Britain this weekend, is what finally did it. Sure, I had heard the warnings and read the reports: for two decades environmental activists have been sounding the alarm. But, I confess, none of it had really sunk in the way it did after seeing An Inconvenient Truth. I can think of few films of greater political power.
But his essential message - note the obligatory kick at Ralph Nader - is contained in the following passages :
The film leaves a more direct political thought. You watch and you curse the single vote on the US supreme court that denied this man - passionate, well-informed and right - the presidency of the United States in favour of George W Bush. You realise what a different world we would live in now if just a few hundred votes had gone to Al Gore (rather than, say, Ralph Nader) that fateful day. But you also remember what that election turned on. The conventional wisdom held that Gore and Bush were so similar on policy - Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee, the pundits said - that the election was about personality. On that measure, Bush had the edge. Sure, he couldn't name any world leader, but the polls gave him a higher likeability rating. If you had to have a beer with one of them, who would you choose? Americans said Bush, every time. Even that was not enough to give Bush a greater number of votes: remember, Gore got more of those. But it got him closer than he should have been. And the world has been living with the consequences ever since.
It is followed by an exhortation to his fellow Britons not to vote for the presumably more personable David Cameron rather than the allegedly dour Gordon Brown in the next UK general election - perhaps a non sequitor, but one for which I must confess a certain sympathy, given the two leading candidates for Prime Minister in the soon to be decided general election here in Sweden. Below, at any rate, my letter to commentisfree :
So long as men like Jonathan Freedland refuse to realise that the US presidential election of 2000, like that of 2004, was stolen by Mr Bush's consiglieri - or rather, so long as they and other in the media who are well aware of the fact refuse to act upon it for fear of losing their well-paid positions and becoming non-persons - so long will the destruction of the environment in the interests of corporate and personal profit continue unabated. The environmental struggle is mirrored by the political struggle, and the same techniques of the Big Lie and intimidation used in the one are used in the other....
