BY NORM DIXON
In the week before the first anniversary of the devastating September
11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, TV networks aired
a seemingly never-ending string of “special events” featuring “exclusive”
or “never before seen” footage of the collapse of the twin towers of the
World Trade Center (WTC) and its aftermath. People around the world again
experienced the horror, anger and tragedy of that terrible day, when almost
3000 working people were murdered.
Culminating on the anniversary of the day itself, thousands of journalists
and TV presenters from across the globe will converge at “ground zero”
in New York for “remembrance and reflection”. Solemn ceremonies will be
telecast and patriotic speeches by top US politicians broadcast, restating
Washington's determination to pursue its “war on terrorism”.
But by the end of the 9/11 anniversary hoopla, after the thousands of
hours of TV time and the column-kilometres published in the world's newspapers
and magazines, you can be sure that the most glaring aspect of the post-9/11
period will have remained unmentionable by all but the most honest commentators:
that Washington's “war on terrorism” is a cynical fraud.
The most repeated 9/11 media cliche is that on that day “the world changed”.
However, few commentators have bothered to explain how.
September 11 did mark a change in the US and world politics — just how
permanent remains to be seen. On that day, the US rulers realised that
those awful acts of terrorism provided them with a golden opportunity to
achieve the US capitalist ruling class' long-held objective of world domination
— the “American century” it predicted was at hand at the end of World War
II.
Top officials in President George Bush junior's administration seized
that opportunity, coldly calculating that the traumatised US people would
now support significant military interventions by US ground troops abroad,
in the guise of fighting “terrorism”, even if there was a risk of large
numbers of US casualties — something they have refused to accept since
the end of the Vietnam War in 1975.
Before September 11, Washington had long labelled governments and political
movements it opposed as “terrorists”. The US State Department each year
publishes a list of countries that “support terrorism”; for years it has
included Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Sudan, North Korea and Cuba. Until September
11, that was not enough to convince the US people to support sustained
military operations against them.
Almost as soon as the smoke from the rubble of the WTC had cleared,
the Bush administration moved to take the focus of the “war on terrorism”
from the alleged perpetrators of the 9/11 atrocities — Osama bin Laden
and his al Qaeda network of religious reactionaries — to US-defined “terrorism”
and “evil” in general.
“From this day forward”, Bush told Congress on September 20, “any nation
that continues to harbour or support terrorism will be regarded … as a
hostile regime”. The “first war of the 21st Century” will not end, he declared,
“until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and
defeated”.
The bombing of Afghanistan began on October 7. On November 21, Bush
outlined what has become known as the “Bush doctrine”: “Afghanistan is
just the beginning of the war against terror. There are other terrorists
who threaten America and our friends, and there are other nations willing
to sponsor them. We will not be secure as a nation until all these threats
are defeated. Across the world, and across the years, we will fight these
evil ones, and we will win…
“America has a message for the nations of the world: if you harbour
terrorists, you're terrorists; if you train or arm a terrorist, you are
a terrorist; if you feed or fund a terrorist, you're a terrorist, and you
will be held accountable by the United States and our friends.”
On November 26, with Iraq now in his cross-hairs, Bush expanded the
scope of the “war on terrorism” further when he stated, “If they develop
weapons of mass destruction that will be used to terrorise nations, they
will be held accountable”.
The transformation was complete with Bush's January 29 State of the
Union speech. The next stage of Washington's “war on terrorism” was officially
delinked from the specific events of 9/11. Bush did not even mention bin
Laden or al Qaeda. Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had suddenly taken the
elusive Bin Laden's place as public enemy number one.
The “axis of evil” that now topped Washington's hit-list — Iraq, Iran
and North Korea — has no proven links with al Qaeda, bin Laden or the 9/11
attacks. Nor do three of the four organisations Bush cited by name — Hamas,
Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah — have a connection with al Qaeda; their “crime”
was to oppose Israel's illegal occupation of Palestine.
Bush also bluntly stated that the US had the right to unilaterally launch
military action against “terrorists” inside any country, and launch preemptive
military strikes against states that Washington suspected of developing
chemical, biological or nuclear weapons: “Some governments will be timid
in the face of terror. And make no mistake about it, if they do not act,
America will.”
Bush reminded the world that US vengeance has no geographic limits.
“Our armed forces [in Afghanistan] have delivered a message now clear to
every enemy of the United States: even 7000 miles away, across oceans and
continents, on mountain tops and in caves, you will not escape the justice
of this nation”, he warned.
In less than six months, Bush's “war on terrorism” had morphed seamlessly
from action directed at the alleged perpetrators and backers of the 9/11
mass murders into a war against any Third World state or political movement
that Washington considers too independent, too defiant or a hurdle to the
goal of US global hegemony.
Bush's State of the Union speech was the formal announcement that Washington
is unashamedly seeking world domination. As the February 1 New York
Times editorial noted: “The application of power and intimidation has
returned to the forefront of American foreign policy… Not since America's
humiliating withdrawal from Vietnam more than a quarter-century ago has
US foreign policy relied so heavily on non-nuclear military force, or the
threat of it, to defend American interests around the world.”
Since the end of World War II, the US ruling class' overarching strategic
goal has been the maintenance of overwhelming military, economic and political
dominance and the prevention of the emergence of other powers — great or
regional — that could challenge that position. This goal was dubbed the
“American century” at the end of World War II.
However, Washington's expectations of total world domination were frustrated
for nearly 50 years by the industrial and military strength of the Soviet
Union and the national liberation struggles, beginning with the victory
of the Chinese revolution in 1949 and the Cuban revolution in 1959, followed
by the wave of successful independence struggles in Africa and Asia throughout
the 1960s that culminated in the historic defeat of US forces in Vietnam
in 1975.
Washington's defeat in Vietnam was a political defeat as well as a military
one. Over time, with the assistance of a growing anti-war movement, the
US people had come to realise that the US rulers had cynically lied when
they proclaimed the bloody war against the people of Vietnam as a fight
for democracy — at the cost of 50,000 young US soldiers' lives and the
deaths of millions of Vietnamese — when in fact it was an unjust, imperialist
war of aggression.
The “Vietnam syndrome” was born, and for more than 25 years, it made
it politically impossible for Washington to deploy large numbers of ground
troops in “hot” wars overseas.
Militarily and politically hamstrung by the Vietnam syndrome, US imperialism
suffered further setbacks in the late 1970s with the victories of the independence
struggles in Angola and Mozambique, a revolution in Ethiopia in 1977, the
1978 Afghan revolution, and the revolutionary processes begun in Nicaragua
and Grenada in 1979.
The overthrow of the pro-US Shah of Iran in 1979 was also a serious
threat to US imperialism's hold on the strategic oil-rich Persian Gulf.
Under President Ronald Reagan, who came to power in 1980, the US ruling
class launched a counter-attack against what it dishonestly dubbed “Soviet
expansionism”. Washington massively funded and armed counter-revolutionary
bandits and terrorists, such as RENAMO in Mozambique, UNITA in Angola,
the contras in Nicaragua and the mujaheddin in Afghanistan. Reagan also
boosted US support to the apartheid regime in South Africa and dictatorial
regimes like those in Pakistan, Indonesia and Chile.
However, Reagan's strategy was also specifically engineered to avoid
putting US troops in harm's way. When Reagan ordered US troops to invade
Grenada in 1983 (and when George Bush senior ordered the invasion of Panama
in 1989), the operation relied on massive firepower before elite US troops
entered and then left as quickly as possible.
However, Reagan massively boosted US war spending across the board,
including on the “star wars” missile defence system. The goal of this fanciful
project was to achieve the ability to launch a first-strike nuclear attack
on the USSR without fear of retaliation. Attempts to match these massive
military expenditures played a role in “bleeding” the Soviet Union, hastening
its collapse.
With the demise of the USSR in 1991, the US rulers hoped that the “American
century” was again on the horizon. George Bush senior hailed the US victory
over Iraq in the 1990-91 Gulf War as also marking the “end of the Vietnam
syndrome” and declared that Washington would now oversee a “New World Order”.
However, he spoke too soon. Bush senior had been not prepared to test
the Vietnam syndrome. The US military had relied on the use of its overwhelming
air superiority and its massive technological edge to avoid significant
ground operations. Fear of the Vietnam syndrome in part deterred Bush from
sending US troops into Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein.
Throughout the 1990s, this was the pattern of US military operations.
The Vietnam syndrome was shown to be alive and kicking with the public
outcry in the US to the deaths of 18 soldiers during Washington's “humanitarian”
intervention in Somalia.
The Bush senior and the Clinton administrations clothed their military
actions in the guise of defending human rights, halting “ethnic cleansing”
or providing humanitarian assistance. They were conducted under the cover
of regional or UN “peacekeeping” operations and were generally conditional
on winning multilateral endorsement.
The American people's hopes that the end of the Cold War would result
in much reduced military spending and a “peace dividend” also frustrated
US ruling class demands for the maintenance of military spending at Cold
War levels.
With 9/11, the dominant wing in Bush junior's administration clearly
believes the Vietnam syndrome has finally been put to rest.
The claim that the attacks on the WTC “changed the world” are part of
a myth that is being carefully crafted: that the launch of the “war on
terrorism” was simply a response to the terrible events of one day.
This myth-making is exemplified by a melodramatic September 5, 2002,
article by Associated Press White House correspondent Ron Fournier: “In
a cramped nuclear shelter deep beneath the White House, President Bush
stared across a spare wooden table and told his national security team,
`Get the troops ready'. Twelve hours after the terrorist strikes, moments
after his nationally televised address, Bush was preparing for a war that
would transform and define his presidency … `This is a time for self defence',
he told his war council. `This is our time'.”
The truth is more straightforward. In the 12 months following 9/11,
Bush junior's administration has cynically seized upon and exploited the
terror attacks to launch a drive to achieve the US ruling class dream of
an “American century” or “New World Order”— an unchallenged global US military,
political and economic empire.
The power behind the throne of George Bush junior's regime is vice president
Dick Cheney and a warmongering team made up of veterans of the Reagan and
Bush senior administrations.
Throughout the 1990s, these “hawks” organised for their return to power,
formulated their programs for unchallenged US hegemony and advocated the
unbridled use of US military power through a network of tightly interlocked
right-wing ruling-class think-tanks — the Project for the New American
Century (PNAC), the American Enterprise Institute, Americans for Victory
over Terrorism and the Center for Security Policy. The Murdoch-owned Weekly
Standard and the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal
championed their views (and continue to do so).
The lessons of the Bush senior and Clinton administration, the new “centurions”
constantly claimed, was that US power should not be constrained by attempts
to balance US interests with those of its European or other allies. Alliances,
international organisations or multilateral treaties must not get in the
way of the unfettered exercise of US military or economic power.
Other key planks pushed by the hawks have been unconditional military
and political support for Israel — Washington's key ally in the Middle
East — and implacable opposition to any regimes in that region that could
pose a threat to US domination of the strategic, oil-rich Persian Gulf.
As a result, a trademark of the centurions has been extreme hostility towards
the regimes in Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya and even Lebanon, as well as cheering
every move made by Tel Aviv to crush the national liberation movement in
occupied Palestine.
In 1997, the PNAC was established to promote “American global leadership”.
Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld (now US defence secretary), Paul Wolfowitz (now
deputy defence secretary) and Jeb Bush (Bush junior's brother) were signatories
to the PNAC's founding “statement of principle”. It stated bluntly: “[Conservatives]
seem to have forgotten the essential elements of the Reagan administration's
success: a military that is strong and ready to meet both present and future
challenges; a foreign policy that boldly and purposely promotes American
principles abroad; and a national leadership that accepts the United States'
global responsibilities…
“America has a role in maintaining peace and security in Europe, Asia
and the Middle East. If we shirk our responsibilities, we invite challenges
to our fundamental interests. 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.”
The PNAC argued that the US must “increase defense spending significantly”
and “modernize our armed forces … if we are to carry out our global responsibilities
today” ; “strengthen our ties to democratic allies and to challenge regimes
hostile to our interests and values”; “promote the cause of political and
economic freedom abroad”; and “accept responsibility for America's unique
role in preserving and extending an international order friendly to our
security, our prosperity, and our principles”.
“Such a Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity may
not be fashionable today”, the PNAC conceded. “But it is necessary if the
United States is to build on the successes of this past century and to
ensure our security and our greatness in the next.”
In September 2000, the PNAC fleshed out its imperial vision with the
release of a report, Rebuilding America's defenses: Strategy, Forces
and Resources for a New Century. The project's participants included
Wolfowitz, Lewis Libby (now Cheney's chief of staff) and Weekly Standard
editor William Kristol.
The report's introduction noted that the US “is the world's only superpower,
combining preeminent military power, global technological leadership and
the world's largest economy… At present the US faces no global rival. America's
grand strategy should aim to preserve and extend this advantageous position
as far into the future as possible”. To preserve this “desirable strategic
situation”, the report stated, the US “requires a globally preeminent military
capability both today and in the future”.
The report's authors admitted that they had built upon the 1992 draft
of the Pentagon's Defense Planning Guidance (DPG), which was prepared for
Cheney, who was then US defence secretary in the Bush senior administration,
Wolfowitz and Libby.
This document stated bluntly that the US must continue to “discourage
... advanced industrial nations from challenging our leadership or ...
even aspiring to a larger regional or global role ... [To achieve this,
the US] must retain the preeminent responsibility for addressing ... those
wrongs which threaten not only our interests, but those of our allies or
friends, or which seriously unsettle international relations.”
This was an admission that the massive build-up of US military might
in Europe, Asia and the Middle East after 1945 was not simply directed
at containing “Soviet expansionism”, crushing Third World revolutions and
controlling natural resources such as Middle Eastern oil — as vital to
US interests as they were. It was also aimed at enmeshing its potential
capitalist rivals — Britain, France, Germany and Japan — within US-dominated
military alliances designed to prevent them developing independent armed
forces.
The PNAC report endorsed the DPG's “blueprint for maintaining US preeminence,
precluding the rise of a great power rival, and shaping the international
security order in line with American principles and interests... The basic
tenets of the DPG, in our judgment, remain sound.”
The PNAC report recommended that the US turn around the 1990s “decade
of defence neglect” and boost war spending to a minimum of 3.5-3.8% of
GDP (up from around 3%) by adding US$15 billion to US$20 billion annually;
increase the numbers of active-duty military personnel from 1.4 million
to 1.6 million; and “reposition US forces ... by shifting permanently based
forces to southeast Europe [the Balkans] and Southeast Asia [preferably
the Philippines and/or Australia], and by changing naval deployment patterns
to reflect growing US strategic concerns in East Asia [meaning the `containment'
of China and the `defence' of Taiwan]”.
The report also urged Washington to develop the capability to “fight
and win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars” and at the same time
“perform the `constabulary' duties associated with shaping the security
environment in critical regions”; maintain “nuclear strategic superiority”
by developing smaller “bunker-buster” nuclear weapons and resuming nuclear
testing; develop the “star wars” global “missile defence system”; and “control
the new `international commons' of space and `cyberspace' and pave the
way for the creation of a new military service — US Space Forces — with
the mission of space control[!]”.
As all the above indicates, the Cheney-Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz cabal have
had a long-standing program for the expansion of US hegemony. What it lacked
was the “trigger” to implement it or the existence of a serious enough
“threat” that would convince the US people to abandon their desire for
a “peace dividend” and their opposition to US war casualties abroad.
Which is why the 9/11 attacks were a godsend for the Bush gang. Washington
immediately recognised the opportunity with which it was presented. As
Bush junior's national security adviser Condoleezza Rice admitted: “I really
think this period is analogous to 1945 to 1947 in that the events ... started
shifting the tectonic plates in international politics. And it's important
to try to seize on that and position American interests and institutions
before they harden again.”
Since 9/11, Bush's new centurions have fast-tracked the implementation
of their agenda in case the “window of opportunity” closes. They have won
a massive increase in military spending of US$48 billion, to US$379.3 billion,
in 2002-2003. Adding non-Pentagon military spending, mostly by the energy
department for the nuclear weapons program, total military spending will
be US$396.1 billion.
A further US$38 billion is to be spent on “homeland defence” — mainly
for the plethora of US police agencies. Washington has projected that the
war budget will steadily increase to more that US$451 billion by 2007,
a 30% increase.
Washington has signalled — with its repudiation of the Kyoto Protocol
on greenhouse gas emissions, the war crimes provisions of the International
Criminal Court and the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty — that US military,
economic and political power will not be subject to any form of international
constraint.
It has been revealed that the US has plans to use nuclear weapons against
non-nuclear states under guise of eliminating the threat of “weapons of
mass destruction”. There have also been reports that US special forces
will soon be authorised to kill or capture “terrorists” anywhere in the
world, whenever the opportunity arises, without having to obtain permission
from the relevant government.
As a result of its war to overthrow the Taliban, Washington has secured
a permanent military bases and stationed tens of thousands of troops for
the first time in the increasingly strategic Central Asian region. From
these bases, the US can more easily “contain” Russia and China, control
the emerging oil and gas resources of the Caspian Sea region, strengthen
its hold over the Persian Gulf and increase further its military stranglehold
on most of the world's vital energy resources.
Using the cover of the “war on terrorism”, Washington has increased
or resumed military funding for notoriously repressive regimes — including
as Yemen, Georgia, Indonesia, Pakistan, the Philippines, Colombia and the
former Soviet Central Asian republics — as well as sending thousands of
troops and military advisers to help them crush anti-government movements.
Washington has given the green light for Russia to continue its brutal
campaign against the Chechen freedom struggle and the Chinese government's
repression of separatists in Xinjiang.
The September 11 attacks and the subsequent US “war on terrorism” has
presented the US ruling-class warmongers with their biggest opportunity
yet to “cure” the Vietnam syndrome. The greatest test of this will be the
coming US invasion of Iraq.
Anti-war activists need to organise and mobilise in massive numbers
to stop this war and to revive as rapidly as possible the seemingly dormant
anti-war consciousness of the US people. Solidarity must be offered to
the inevitable resistance to the imperialist warmongers that will develop
throughout the US empire.
From Green Left Weekly, September 11, 2002.
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