| Number 165 | July 19, 2002 |
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This Week:
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Greetings, I was hoping to get my "big picture" analysis of the Bush Doctrine into one edition of the Notes, but I guess the "big picture" is too big! So, a couple more pieces will come your way next week, including a look at the IC ideology that animates the WAT?!, a look at the real "us" and the real "them," and my take on what the "real deal" is behind the "new reality" post 9/11. I wish I had room to fit it all in this week... This week's edition is coming to you a little bit early because I am already on my way to Lake Superior for some camping, so best not to write to me for a while. I expect to come into town for a day or two next week, put out the next edition of the Notes, and then take off for another week. I'll let you know for sure what is going on in next week's editor's note. I haven't had an actual "vacation" for a while, one that is not a "working vacation." I hope I remember how to do it! See you next week, sunburn and all, Nygaard |
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"Quote" #1:
"Quote" #2:
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An endless series of "Iraq Attack" scenarios have been playing out on the nation's front pages, despite the illegality of such a plan and massive international opposition. Perhaps all the talk is a way for the Bush administration to gauge the marketability of the so-called "Bush Doctrine," which I discuss elsewhere in this issue. Whatever the reason for all the press, it is important for each of us to contact the President, the Secretary of State, our Senators, our Representatives, and anyone else in a position to influence events, and tell them that an invasion of that long-suffering nation is wrong and should be stopped in its tracks. By way of assisting this effort, I present here a list of reasons to support the campaign to prevent yet another war. This list came to me courtesy of the Twin Cities Campaign to Lift Sanctions against Iraq. I thought it was such an excellent list I am reproducing it here verbatim. You can view the list yourself, along with much more information on how to support peace for the people of Iraq, on the website of the Campaign. Find it at http://www.justview.org/iraq.html. "Eight Reasons Why We Should Not Invade Iraq"
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Much remarked in the media of late is something called "The Bush Doctrine." Often such "doctrines" (the Monroe Doctrine, the Truman Doctrine, etc) assume their true form only in the implementation, and don't look exactly like the neat and tidy speeches that announce them. The Bush Doctrine will be no different, I imagine, but we do have a pretty good idea of what it is going to be. As it has evolved so far, I think it has four parts. Part One was enunciated back in September, when Bush pledged to "answer these attacks" and went on to make the ridiculous pledge to "rid the world of evil." No one dared laugh at this, so the "President" soon announced Part Two of his doctrine, that we would attack not only alleged "terrorists," but also any nation that "harbored" them. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz stressed the commitment of the Bush administration to "ending states who sponsor terrorism." (Usually such breathtaking expressions of imperial intent and lawlessness are kept from the press—not these days.) Part Three came forward in January, in Bush's State of the Union speech, where he "broadened the definition of the threat beyond the terrorists themselves and the states that harbor them to any rogue state that is developing weapons of mass destruction," as the Jerusalem Post put it. The final statement—Part Four—of what for now is known as the Bush Doctrine came early last month, in a speech by the "President" to the graduating class at West Point, when Bush said the United States would have to "confront the worst threats before they emerge." To do this, he reserved the right to carry out "preemptive solo action" against anyone we felt like might be a threat to "global liberty." Little remarked in the press was a private June 6th meeting between Secretary of War/Defense Donald Rumsfeld and NATO defense ministers in which not only did Rumsfeld claim for the U.S. a "licence to wage war on countries that harbour terrorists," as the Ottawa Citizen put it, but that "absolute proof cannot be a precondition for action." So there you have it. The U.S. can attack anyone, anywhere, anytime, without proof, and can call it "defense." This is the so-called "Bush Doctrine." |
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Last week I quoted New York Times editorialist Bob Herbert, speaking of the current warnings of imminent terror attacks, as saying "It's a peculiar leadership strategy that depends for its success on routinely scaring the heck out of the population." The following bit of history will show that the official, if secret, strategy of U.S. leaders throughout the "first" Cold War—I call the War Against Terror (the WAT?!) "The New Cold War"—was to scare the bejeebers out of the population. Our leaders understood then, as now, that fear is the most effective means of manipulating a peace-loving people to "support the measures which we must accordingly adopt," to quote the document I am about to discuss. NSC 68, April 7, 1950 Whether we know it or not, high-ranking officials in the U.S. government are always planning for the future, hatching schemes to keep the nation on the path that they think is right. Most of this planning is done in secret, so we only find out what they had in mind for us 20 or 30 years after the fact, if and when the classified documents ever come out. (If George W. has his way, such documents may never see the light of day, but that's another story.) Back in January of 1950, President Truman directed the National Security Council to take a look at "the present world crisis" and come up with some "strategic plans, in the light of the probable fission bomb capability and possible thermonuclear bomb capability of the Soviet Union." On April 7th his planners came back to him with top-secret National Security Memorandum Number 68: "United States Objectives and Programs for National Security." Since its declassification in 1975, NSC 68 has come to be seen by many as part of the "blueprint" for the U.S. side of the Cold War. NSC 68 is a lengthy document, based on the idea that "Our overall policy at the present time [1950] may be described as one designed to foster a world environment in which the American system can survive and flourish." (The "American system" being a market-based, capitalist system.) In case anyone anywhere in the world might have other ideas, the planners noted that "It was and continues to be cardinal in this policy that we possess superior overall power in ourselves or in dependable combination with other like-minded nations. One of the most important ingredients of power is military strength." It wasn't that the Soviet Union was really a military threat. As the planners admitted, "[P]resent estimates indicate that the Soviet leaders probably do not intend deliberate armed action involving the United States at this time..." Still, warned the planners, "the possibility of such deliberate resort to war cannot be ruled out." The planners went on to say that any Soviet success, "whether achieved by armed aggression or by political...means, would be strategically and politically unacceptable to the United States." The ruling out of the option of nations choosing something other than "American-style" capitalism was expressed clearly in the early 1970s by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who said, alluding to then-secret U.S. efforts to overthrow the democratically-elected Chilean socialist president Salvador Allende, "I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go Communist due to the irresponsibility of its people." Typically, no distinction was made between "Communist" and Socialist, crucial though it is.) Free elections, you see, are one of the "political means" by which nations whose people are not "like-minded" might choose a path not in accord with U.S. plans. Despite this expressed intention to subvert democracy, the "American system" was described then, as now, as nothing more nor less than "freedom and democracy." One obstacle to the buildup of our needed "superior power" was that it "will be costly and will involve significant domestic financial and economic adjustments." Planners knew that the build-up could be accomplished, but not without some propagandizing of the relevant populations, both here and abroad. They pointed out that "Even Western Europe [with its war-ravaged economies] could afford to assign a substantially larger proportion of its resources to defense, if the necessary foundation in public understanding and will could be laid, and if the assistance needed to meet its dollar deficit were provided [by the U.S." The report stated that "The capability of the American economy to support a build-up of economic and military strength at home...is limited not...so much by the ability to produce as by the decision on the proper allocation of resources to this and other purposes." Since the U.S. has a democratic structure, such an unpopular "decision" to permanently militarize the domestic economy would require that the government assure that the citizenry consent to it before they carried it out. Therefore, "the United States" would be "required" to "keep the U.S. public fully informed and cognizant of the threats to our national security so that it will be prepared to support the measures which we must accordingly adopt." Notice that, in the planners' eyes, the insiders operating in secret are "we" or "the United States," and the rest of us ("the U.S. public") are seen as the targets of their propaganda. And they couldn't just target "the U.S. public," planners knew, stressing the need to "consolidat[e] popular opinion in the free world in support of the measures necessary to sustain the build-up." In summary, then, post-war U.S. planners:
Thus was born the first "Cold War," the National Security State, and forty years of propaganda geared toward manufacturing popular consent in support of "the measures necessary to sustain the build-up" of the U.S. as the world's only superpower, the reality we see today. The eery resemblance of the First Cold War to The New Cold War—a.k.a. the War Against Terrorism (the WAT?!)—is underlined when we look at the section of NSC 68 that warns of "internal developments" that would "severely weaken...the capability of the United States either in peace or in the event of war to cope with threats to its security or to gain its objectives." "Important among" these developments were "Internal political and social disunity," "Inadequate armament expenditures or excessive foreign aid expenditures," "An excessive or wasteful usage of our resources," or a "lessening of U.S. prestige and influence through vacillation of appeasement or lack of skill and imagination in the conduct of its foreign policy or by shirking world responsibilities." To be continued... |