Bu-lat-lat (boo-lat-lat) verb: to search, probe, investigate, inquire; to unearth facts

Volume 3,  Number 14              May 11 - 17, 2003            Quezon City, Philippines


 





Outstanding, insightful, honest coverage...

 

Join the Bulatlat.com mailing list!

Powered by groups.yahoo.com

The New American Empire and the Rise 
of State Terrorism

The series of wars of aggression launched by the Bush regime show that the military-industrial complex – a danger that U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower warned about some 42 years ago – is not just lurking. It is now in effective control of the U.S. government and if freedom fighters in the United States don’t watch out they may yet see their country turned into a police state – the same terrorist structure whose net U.S. imperialism is spreading far and wide in the Philippines and other neocolonial countries.

By Bobby Tuazon
Bulatlat.com

Leaders and supporters of the ultra-right regime that is now in power in the United States – along with the financial oligarchy that they represent - are now basking with glory and triumphalism as they divide among themselves the spoils of the just-concluded war on Iraq. To them, their victory in what definitely was a one-sided and barbaric war has bolstered their claim about the power of unilateralism and pre-emptive strikes to change “rogue regimes” and disarm them of “weapons of mass destruction.”

Vanquished by the war, however, was not only the Iraqi people’s sovereignty and right to self-determination but also the rule of international law and multilateral institutions that many nations somehow uphold to check acts of aggression and interventionism particularly by a superpower. Yet no words of remorse could be heard from George W. Bush for the deaths of civilians and the devastation that his and Tony Blair’s lethal weapons have wrought on Iraq’s economy and civilization. They have even threatened to use harsh retaliatory measures against countries and groups alike who plan to bring American and British leaders before an international court for war crimes.

The 150,000 troops and the aircraft, warships, tanks and missiles that devastated Iraq several times more than Hiroshima and Nagasaki have become the American Empire’s cavalry or expeditionary force for its new colonialist crusade all over the world. As U.S. defense contractors and other corporate titans now take a predatory role in the colonial occupation of Iraq, the architects of war in the Bush regime are already aiming their guns on their next prey. In fact, even as the war against Iraq was still raging, acts of vilification and provocation have been started by Washington against other members of the so-called “axis of evil” – Iran, Syria, North Korea, Libya and Cuba – in a bid to justify new acts of aggression against them.

But all the hype about “terrorism” and the crusade of the “good” versus “evil” have been unmasked as nothing but baloney and only counts among those duped America’s client regimes and those who have received sham promises of business opportunities such as the Philippines’ Macapagal-Arroyo puppet regime. What has become clear is that this terrorist war is being carried out with all the arrogance and ferocity of the U.S. military as a means to expand and consolidate U.S. global hegemony in the midst of the crisis of imperialism.

Roots of the current acts of aggression

The current acts of aggression by U.S. imperialism take their roots in the re-ascendancy of the ultra-right elements of the American financial oligarchy. Their rise to power has been driven by the greed to reassert American supremacy after the debacle that U.S. imperialism suffered during the Indochina War of the 1960s-1970s – a war that also saw the start of the present crisis of imperialism. Some of the men who are now either inside or just outside the Bush regime belonged to this ultra-right movement, people who, during the administrations particularly of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, supported the rise to power of dictatorships, launched covert operations against sovereign states across the globe, threatened to eliminate socialist states, initiated the Star Wars program (now revived as the New Missile Defense system) and threatened to crush the Soviet Union through a pre-emptive nuclear strike.

From the ranks of this ultra-right movement also emerged the neo-liberal thinking that if monopoly capitalism is to rule government regulations should give way to the mobilization of state resources that support the financial oligarchy even at the expense of social welfare and that, likewise, “free trade” must be given a free ride. They sought more aggressive political and militarist solutions to make the world safe for monopoly capital and to rein in countries into the path of globalization by using the instruments of the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and the GATT to restructure the world economy under the aegis of monopoly capital.

The fall of the revisionist Soviet Union and its satellite states in Eastern Europe in the late 1980s was used by elements of the ultra-right to bolster their claim about the supremacy of capitalism over socialism and that threats to “democracy” like communism and those not subscribing to the capitalist dogma can be reduced to irrelevance solely through the assertion of American power. Indeed, many of the ideologues of the American ultra-right today believe that had not the Carter administration, through then National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski engineered the USSR’s own “Vietnam War” in Afghanistan long before Soviet troops occupied that country in 1979 and, had not Ronald Reagan escalated the arms race with Moscow by initiating the costly Star Wars that in turn provoked the Soviet Union into increasing its defense expenditures and left its state capitalism a shambles, the “communist” threat in Europe would still be alive today. Definitely there were bigger reasons that would explain the fall of Soviet revisionism as there were also reasons why the USSR was forced to abandon Afghanistan after several years of occupation.

Having emerged as the only imperial power following the fall of Soviet revisionism, U.S. imperialism had all the opportunity and the superficial claim to high political and moral ground as would justify the expansion and consolidation of its hegemony across the globe. The expansion and consolidation of U.S. imperialist domination called for tougher measures to restructure and globalize the world economy and the formalization of the World Trade Organization that would police world trade. It also called for the unilateral use of American power, through a partnership with Great Britain, to make the world secure for monopoly capital.

The goal to make the world under the grips of imperialist domination also called for establishing U.S. hegemony and supremacy in vast areas that had been coveted by U.S. imperialism through 70 years of rivalry with the Soviet power – particularly in Eurasia which encompasses Central Asia, central and eastern Europe, the Balkans, Caspian Region and other territories – as well as consolidating U.S. hegemony in regions that, in the eyes of U.S. imperialism, remain threatened by recalcitrant states and liberation movements that refuse to be subjugated by U.S. imperialism. It is no coincidence that these vast territories contain rich oil, gas and other natural resources and markets that have been long lusted for by the American financial oligarchy including giant oil and energy-related corporations and the powerful military-industrial complex.

According to Michel Chossudovsky, the broader Middle East-Central Asian region alone encompasses more than 70 percent of the world’s reserves of oil and natural gas. Citing the U.S. Central Command itself, he also said “the purpose of U.S. engagement…is to protect U.S. vital interest in the region – uninterrupted, secure U.S./Allied access to Gulf Oil.”

The 12 years following the fall of Soviet revisionism saw the launching of a series of wars of aggression and genocidal attacks such as the 1991 Gulf War against Iraq as well as in Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, the Philippines and again in Iraq. Records show that the U.S. became involved in 29 armed aggressions in so many countries between 1989-2001. Yugoslavia was carved up into several states now under U.S. protectorate in order to weaken it and establish U.S. imperialist foothold in central Europe that would extend it toward the Balkans and the oil-rich Caspian region which, in turn, is contiguous to Central Asia, the Middle East and elsewhere.

Afghanistan, which is also now a U.S. protectorate run by a client regime, was attacked in order to finish a decade-long oil pipeline project as well as to create a pressure point from where U.S. imperialism can either wage new wars of aggression or intimidate neighboring countries like Iran, Syria and other Middle East countries and submit themselves to full-spectrum U.S. subjugation.

Iraq was attacked of course not only to privatize its 110 billion barrels of oil– said to be the world’s second largest reserve - but also as a means of consolidating U.S. hegemony in the Middle East in tandem with its junior ally, Israel. In truth, the U.S. economy is actually not too reliant on the Persian Gulf oil as huge amounts of its energy requirements are supplied from Latin America, equatorial Africa and other regions. But the control of oil resources in the Persian Gulf and elsewhere means power; the control of world oil resources supports U.S. imperialism’s supremacist ambitions over potential power competitors such as the EU countries, Japan, Russia and China.

Military – chief instrument of U.S. global supremacy

At the core of these wars of aggression and genocidal attacks were influential elements of the Republican Party-based faction of the ultra-right who, even during the Clinton presidency and its predecessors, had called for the use of the military as the chief instrument for U.S. global supremacy. The likes of Dick Cheney, who served as Bush Sr.’s defense secretary and who became chief architect of the first Gulf War of 1991, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle were then – and now - the leading advocates for U.S. unilateralism and exceptionalism, for the use of pre-emptive strikes including nuclear weapons against America’s “security threats,” for stronger military interventionism in Asia and elsewhere, and so on. They also sought the redrawing of the Middle East map that would include eliminating “rogue regimes” and pre-empting the revival of pan-Arab nationalism in order to ensure imperialist control of the region’s oil resources with Israel serving as its junior hegemon.

In 1992, then Defense Secretary Dick Cheney together with Paul Wolfowitz (now deputy secretary of defense) and I. Lewis Libby (now Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff), came up with a top secret blueprint for world domination, called the “Defense Policy Guidance” (DPG). DPG envisioned a world that is dominated by the unilateral and pre-emptive use of U.S. military power and the preservation of Pax Americana that will remain unchallenged in its supremacy through the 21st century. The DPG also stressed that America will not be bound to its partners and to international laws and institutions. This secret document also recommended the launching of a “war on terrorism” against America’s enemies, a war that would be treated as a “façade” and part of a bigger strategy of projecting U.S. military power around the world.

Five years later, these Republican hawks along with Rumsfeld (the current U.S. defense chief), Condoleezza Rice (the current national security adviser of Bush Jr.), Zalmay Khalilzad (an Afghan-born CIA asset who rose to become a director of the National Security Council and now special envoy cum powerbroker for Afghanistan and Iraq) and many others put up the Project for a New American Century (PNAC). The objective of PNAC was to translate into operative policies the 1992 DPG so that by the year 2000 – an election year in the U.S. – this elite group of Republican hawks would author candidate George W. Bush Jr.’s security policy, under the heading “Rebuilding America’s Defenses – Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century.”

The “Rebuilding” policy paper advocated, among others, the following objectives: maintain America’s nuclear strategic superiority globally; increase the active-duty strength of the U.S. military force from 1.4 million to 1.6 million; reposition U.S. forces by shifting permanently-based forces to Southeast Europe and Southeast Asia and by changing naval deployment patterns to reflect growing U.S. strategic interests in East Asia; develop and deploy global missile defenses in order to provide a secure basis for U.S. power projection around the world; control the new “international commons” of space and “cyberspace” and pave the way for the creation of a new military service – U.S. Space Forces – with the mission of space control; increase defense spending gradually to a minimum level of 3.5 to 3.8 percent of GDP, adding $15-$20 billion to total defense spending annually.

Specifically, “Rebuilding” also called for: a much larger military presence spread over more areas of the globe, in addition to the roughly 140 nations in which U.S. troops are already deployed; more permanent military bases in the Middle East, Southeast Europe, Latin America and in Southeast Asia (where in the year 2000, no such bases existed); and the development of biological weapons.

Mincing no words, the paper also saw the launching of a second war against Iraq as just the beginning, a pretext for a wider conflict in the Middle East with the end-goal of making the region secure for America’s oil requirements and arms exports. It also pinpointed, aside from Iraq, the countries of North Korea, Libya, Syria and Iran as “dangerous regimes.”

Let me just add that some of the founders of PNAC – which is considered the “brains” of the Bush regime today - were linked to a clandestine group called “Friends of the Democratic Center in Central America” which supported the CIA’s bloody covert operations in Nicaragua and El Salvador in the early 1980s. For these war crimes, the United States was convicted by the International Court of Justice for terrorism and was ordered to pay $13.2 billion damages to the Sandinista government which were never paid. This only shows that the Bush regime’s policy-makers and military architects today include not only war criminals but also non-believers in the primacy of international law.

Takeover by the military-industrial complex

By January 2001, these hawks from the ultra-right wing of the U.S. financial oligarchy had the opportunity – and an unprecedented fortune – to translate their global strategy for the American Empire into operative policies by occupying powerful positions in the Bush administration. Themselves representatives or top executives of giant oil corporations, defense contractors and other business interests, they thus were in a position to make sure that the corporate greed of the financial oligarchy became a major determinant of the Bush regime’s global strategies and policies particularly its wars of aggression. Under the Bush regime, the military-industrial complex – a danger that U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower had warned about some 42 years ago – is not just lurking. It is now in effective control of the U.S. government.

The military-industrial complex has a commanding presence in the Bush administration not only through the Cabinet but also through small powerful circles – such as the highly-secretive Defense Policy Board (DPB) - that actually run the Pentagon and the state department, where wars of aggression, covert operations, coercive diplomacy and other types of armed intervention in at least 60 countries today are planned. The DPB is supposed to be an advisory group but it actually serves as the inner core of the military-industrial complex in that it merges the interests of the military elite, the financial and corporate elite and defense contractors. Among the 30 members of the DPB are former or active officials of America’s largest arms manufacturers and other major corporations, former members of the U.S. armed forces’ joint chiefs of staff, former CIA chiefs and executives of top neo-conservative think tanks such as the Rand Corporation. The Board is a key player in the allocation of defense contracts and has a strong influence in the drafting of the Pentagon’s Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) which also serves as the basis for defense budget allocations.

Linked to the military-industrial complex are war strategists and policy consultants from neo-conservative think tanks such as the pro-Israel American Enterprise Institute, Rand Corporation, PNAC, the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, Council for Foreign Relations and others.

Richard Stubbings, in his book The Defense Game (1986), says of the military-industrial complex: “…Not only is the defense budget the vehicle by which our nation plans how to fight the battles of tomorrow, but it is also a battleground itself, where politicians, corporations, and military officers seek to serve their personal and parochial interests.”

In broad strokes, the Bush regime is sometimes called the “Bush Incorporated” because it is a merger of oil executives, arms manufacturers, chemical and agribusiness promoters of genetically-engineered crops such as Monsanto, media moguls, Jewish and pro-Israel interests, neo-conservative think tanks, Christian fundamentalists – all bound together by a right-wing agenda, i.e., to rule the world. Supposedly, they also represent the one percent wealthiest in America.

Proof that the war agenda of the military-industrial complex anticipates a bonanza of profits is the fact that, after reaping the spoils in the wars in Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan and other countries in recent past they are also first in the list of beneficiaries in the form of billions-worth of contracts for the post-war colonial occupation, “reconstruction,” and the privatization of the oil industry of Iraq.

To name a few, the major corporations and defense contractors who have won – or are expected to clinch – lucrative contracts in Iraq are Halliburton, the world’s largest oil-service company represented by its former chief executive officer, Dick Cheney; Carlyle Group, an investment firm and arms producer represented by Bush Sr. and also the Philippines’ Fidel V. Ramos; the top construction company Bechtel Group, represented by former state secretary George Shultz and ex-Marine Corps Gen. Jack Sheehan (both of whom sit in the PNAC and DPB, respectively); Global Crossing (represented by Richard Perle, former chair and still member of DPB); and SYColeman, a defense contractor for the Middle East which is represented by retired Army Lt. Gen. Jay Garner, the appointed military governor of Iraq.

Even in the midst of the crisis of imperialism, war means profits; it brings immediate profits to the war industry of the ruling oligarchy and all its agents and instruments. It also reinforces the illusion that today, war is a means of giving relief to the decades-long crisis of imperialism even if it overburdens American taxpayers, robs them of their right to decent wages, to social welfare and democratic rights and further brings under colonial and neocolonial bondage millions of people all over the world. The U.S. military is the advanced cavalry of U.S. imperialism that is piloted by corporate greed and is out to conquer nations striving to secure their independence, sovereignty and economy.

Prof. Ed Villegas, in his article “The U.S. Military-Industrial Complex: The Bane of Humanity” (Unmasking the War on Terror, November 2002, CAIS, Philippines), comments on the military-industrial complex: “The highest social structure at present of the American monopoly bourgeoisie or monopoly capitalism is the U.S. military-industrial complex…War and threat of war have always been good business for U.S. monopoly capitalism or imperialism. This is the reason why U.S. monopoly capitalism has established a firm foothold in Washington and closely influences the direction of U.S. domestic and foreign policies.”

Wars of aggression and globalization

Today, the military strategy of U.S. imperialism is to launch wars of aggression and genocidal attacks using the pretext of “war against terrorism,” occupy vanquished states as colonial or neocolonial protectorates, install client regimes and build new military bases. These territories, including more recently Afghanistan and Iraq, are then brought under the aegis of globalization paradigms such as privatization and free trade. The political and military structures having been placed, new wars of aggression are then launched against other countries, and so on.

Even if other interventionist wars and covert operations are being launched in other regions such as South America and Africa, the current center of wars of aggression and military build-up appears to be in Central Asia and the Middle East, east and central Europe as well as in the Far East. In eastern and central Europe, Poland, Rumania, Bulgaria and Hungary and the former Soviet republics of Georgia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are being co-opted economically and, militarily, by integrating them into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato) and establishing U.S. military installations inside their own territories.

As the British daily, Guardian, reported recently, “The past two years have seen a rapid extension of American military deployments across thousands of miles stretching from the Balkans to the Chinese border and taking in the Caucasus, Central Asia, the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent…Thirteen new bases in nine countries ringing Afghanistan were rapidly established as Russia’s underbelly in Central Asia became an American theater for the first time.”

 “The new bases in central Asia, the Middle East and the Balkans,” the Guardian went on, “mean that the U.S. military now girds the globe as no power has done before, from the frozen wastes of Greenland to the deserts of southern Afghanistan.”

U.S. military hegemony throughout the world is maintained by five global military commands, overseas military bases in more than 60 countries, more than a million men and women at arms on four continents, carrier battle groups on watch in every ocean, 31 defense treaties and access agreements with 51 countries, forward deployments in the guise of war exercises and humanitarian missions in more than 150 countries, and a yearly defense budget of almost $400 billion.

Ideologues

Providing the ideological façade to U.S. imperialism’s wars of aggression are ultra-right thinkers and ideologues from the American corporate media, neo-conservative think tanks, mercenary academic institutions as well as Christian fundamentalists and pro-Israel foundations. Some critical reports say that these ideological crusaders – many of whom are actually paid hacks and propagandists of the financial oligarchy – are reviving 19th century moralisms of new imperialism and racism, assuming that America is pre-ordained to dominate the world. They advocate the revival of colonialism in territories that the American Empire lost in the post-World War II period of strong national liberation struggles.

Colonialism also appeals to the necessity of changing “rogue regimes” as well as “failed states” where civil disruptions and conflicts have ensued for reason that they have not done enough to embrace fully the free market paradigms and other American values which the ideologues consider as universal. In Iraq, the advocates of revived colonialism believe that the only way to ensure the intake of Iraqi oil is to involve the U.S. in the political, economic and military affairs of the “newly-liberated” country. Hence the plan to establish a colonial administration in Iraq and manage its oil economy as a corporation.

The Bush regime’s ideological crusaders also try to deodorize the modern-day American Empire by describing it as “benign” and “enlightened” – as if it was so essentially unlike the older empires that thrived on the slaughter of whole populations, the destruction of indigenous societies, and the plunder of their resources. To them, American soldiers who respond to the call of duty are “heroes” while those who oppose invasions are either “unpatriotic” or “terrorist.”

These apologists of U.S. imperialism are essentially believers in the primacy of monopoly capital and in the elimination of federal taxation of private capital even as they loath social welfare and labor rights. They believe in the primacy of American constitutionalism and “moral legitimacy” over and above international laws and institutions that, to them, constrain America’s right to use unilateral power against perceived world security threats.

The “war on terrorism” has also given the apologists of American Empire new ammunition to call for the establishment of a strong republic – viewed by many critics as actually a totalitarian state – precisely because they admit that “democracy” is vulnerable to all types of terrorism, tyranny and “rogue regimes.” This has given rise to the homeland security doctrine in the United States that calls for giving up civil liberties in favor of a police state. Outside the United States, the ideological underpinnings of American militarism and wars of aggression have given rise to garrison states, client regimes and authoritarian rule in more and more countries where U.S. hegemonic interests are particularly strong. Following the Bush doctrine of “either you’re with us or you’re with terrorism,” states that fail to smash patriotic movements whether in Central Asia, Latin America or the Far East will either have to shape up or face “regime change.”

But U.S. imperialism’s wars of aggression and armed interventionism against any country it unilaterally targets have become the most heinous acts of terrorism known to mankind. As early as 1987, the Geneva Declaration on Terrorism indirectly pointed to the United States, among other states, as dangerously treading on terrorism. The Geneva declaration stated that, “terrorism originates from the statist system of structural violence and domination that denies the right of self-determination to peoples; that inflicts a gross and consistent pattern of violations of fundamental human rights upon its own citizens; or that perpetrates military aggression and overt or covert intervention directed against the territorial integrity or political independence of other states.”

State terrorism

Inevitably, therefore, U.S. imperialist terrorism is leading to the spread or tightening of state terrorism in many countries. In countries that came under attack and later, under U.S. colonial occupation, garrison states have arisen propped up by the presence of new U.S. military installations. Elsewhere, the U.S. homeland security doctrine has become a model of sorts while in many other countries the “war on terror” has been used to suppress democratic movements and legitimate dissent.

This is evident in the Philippines where the Macapagal-Arroyo regime, upon instructions by its master Bush Jr., has used its “strong republic” centerpiece program to impose draconian measures against its critics particularly the national democratic movement.

Emboldened by Bush Jr.’s show of support and the presence of U.S. armed forces in the country, the puppet Macapagal-Arroyo regime has waged its terrorist war with three-pronged attacks: politically, by demonizing the legitimate armed struggles of the New People’s Army and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) as “terrorist”; militarily, by launching new military offensives that victimize both suspected NPA sympathizers in the countryside and legal activists; and legally, by initiating anti-terrorism bills whose objective is to suppress legitimate dissent and smother the constitutional bill of rights. U.S. imperialism supports state terrorism in the Philippines by propping up the Armed Forces through military aid pledges and, prospectively in the coming 2004 presidential elections, by either supporting the candidacy of Defense Secretary Angelo Reyes or another “winnable” but pro-American candidate.

To keep the Philippines as the epicenter of U.S. power hegemony in Southeast Asia, it is important for U.S. imperialism to support its puppet regime in the country and use it to suppress the growing anti-imperialist struggle in the Philippines and the Marxist armed revolutionary movement that has a strong anti-imperialist plank. This is the reason why the U.S.-backed regime’s terrorist war against the progressive movement has heightened not only in the form of an increasing number of human rights violations and the anti-terror bills but also by attacking the militant labor movement through death threats, intimidation, attacks on militant union activities and threats to impose an industry-wide strike moratorium.

Summary

In conclusion, it is clear how U.S. imperialism’s global strategy to dominate the world is being applied in Asia and across the globe and I, personally and humbly speaking, do not foresee any change coming even if Bush is no longer president of the United States. U.S. imperialism is increasingly and steadily deploying its forces, rebuilding its military bases, securing stronger and more reliable military alliances and security partnerships, gaining more access to ports, airfields and airspaces.

To peoples of the world, the main threat to their independence and security is and will always be U.S. imperialism which has been asserting itself for over a century. The independence, sovereignty, freedom, self-determination and economic growth of many nations are always threatened because of U.S. imperialism. Tensions and instabilities in many so-called hot spots of the world are heightened because of U.S. armed interventionism.

But, just as the previous world wars had led to the rise of independence and liberationist movements throughout the world, the U.S. terrorist war has led to the reawakening of millions of people to the real threat to humanity. More and more people are standing up against U.S. imperialism. The more U.S. imperialism displays its arrogance and military power, the greater resistance it will generate.

George W. Bush, Jr. has declared a “war against terrorism” – a “war without border” and without time limit. This, he said, is America’s “war of the century.” I say, let us instead turn America’s “war of the century” into the “Century’s People’s War Against U.S. Imperialism.” Posted by Bulatlat.com

Bobby Tuazon is with the Center for Anti-Imperialist Studies (CAIS) which recently published a book, Unmasking the War on Terror: U.S. Imperialist Hegemony and Crisis.” He is also the executive editor of Bulatlat.com and teaches international politics at the University of the Philippines in Manila.

This resource paper was read at the 19th International Solidarity Affair of the Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU – May 1st Movement) and the International League of Peoples’ Struggle (ILPS) on May 7-9 in Manila, Philippines.

Back to top


We want to know what you think of this article.