.
American-led Empire’s Planned Global Military
Domination:
Pentagon reshuffle eminent. Targets to include
Azerbaijan, all of Central and South Asia, the Middle East and Korea.
By Craig Hulet
07/31/03: (InformationClearingHouse)
The last defense vestiges of the Cold, Korean and Iraq wars, the U.S.
military "footprint" now is heaviest in Germany, South Korea
and the Persian Gulf region. But with the Soviet Union finished, South
Korea more able to defend itself and Saddam Hussein’s antagonistic
regime supposedly crushed in Iraq, the U.S. military presence in all
three regions has largely become an anachronism,...wholesale changes in
the American-led empire''s military global presence are now under
consideration. "We are re-analyzing our footprint," Gen. James
Jones, commander of U.S. troops in Europe. The entire globe is the
strategic agenda now.
 As the world
grows more reluctant to follow Mr. Bush anywhere no matter what, fewer
and fewer people believe we have been told the truth about Iraq’s WMD,
and with Tony Blair now under full siege for misinforming the British
Parliament Mr. George W. Bush Junior seems unaffected while pursuing the
Oligarchy’s elite agenda for global hegemony. To his critics he simply
writes them off with his usual curt and trivial style saying "Well,
everyone is entitled to their opinion."
This author and analyst while being interviewed on such mainstream
national talk shows as the Jim Bohannon Show and Dave Ross was
criticized rather vociferously when it was proposed America had evolved
into an Empire-of-sorts. The argument placed against my thesis was that
America didn’t impose itself through placing troops on everyone’s
soil.
Regions:
But the announcement, Tuesday, April 29, 2003, that U.S. forces will
bail out of Saudi Arabia this summer marks the start of what likely will
be great changes in where America bases its troops worldwide. As was
recently reported:
Reflecting the last defense vestiges of the Cold, Korean and Iraq wars,
the U.S. military "footprint" now is heaviest in Germany,
South Korea and the Persian Gulf region. But with the Soviet Union
kaput, South Korea more able to defend itself and Saddam Hussein’s
antagonistic regime crushed in Iraq, the muscular U.S. military presence
in all three regions has largely become an anachronism, according to
defense experts in the Pentagon and at think tanks. Throw in a host of
touchy political realities - such as the anti-U.S. backlash in South
Korea following high-profile crimes committed by GIs, and Islamic
opposition to U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia - and wholesale changes in the
American military''s global presence are now under consideration.
"We are re-analyzing our footprint," Gen. James Jones,
commander of U.S. troops in Europe, said this week. (Hoffman)
Of the possible moves likely considered several surfaced in recent
months. Here’s a look at some of the most major ones being
contemplated as reported by Lisa Hoffman:
- Persian Gulf. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s announcement
Tuesday that the bulk of America’s 5,000 troops in Saudi Arabia will
leave the desert kingdom this summer sets in motion a major realignment
in the region. Though still in flux, the plan is for no more than 400
U.S. troops to remain in Saudi Arabia, while most of the rest will move
to the new state-of-the-art command complex built in the tiny Gulf
nation of Qatar, which, unlike Saudi Arabia, is thrilled to have a U.S.
presence within its borders.
- Another exodus already is under way in Turkey, where the 4,000 U.S.
troops based at the Incirlik air base are moving out now that the
12-year-long "Operation Northern Watch" air operation over
Iraq is over.
- Europe: Now that the Cold War is over, the need for more than 70,000
U.S. troops in Germany has largely evaporated, according to Rumsfeld and
Jones. In fact, they say, more than 20 percent of the 499 U.S. military
installations in Europe are not needed at all anymore. While Pentagon
officials maintain retribution for Germany’s opposition to the war in
Iraq is not playing a role, they say that the time is coming to
substantially cut the U.S. presence there. Under consideration is a plan
that would leave the sprawling Ramstein Air Base in place, but slash the
number of Army soldiers in the 1st Armored and 1st Infantry divisions
there from the current 30,000 to as few as 6,000. At the same time,
Rumsfeld is looking kindly on a plan to shift some Germany-based forces
to a number of smaller outposts in countries he has dubbed the "new
Europe" - former Soviet bloc nations such as Poland, Bulgaria and
Romania, that joined the Bush administration''s "coalition of the
willing" in the war in Iraq.
- South Korea: For the past several years, popular opposition to the
presence of some 37,000 U.S. forces in South Korea has been escalating,
reaching a crescendo last year after the rape and killing of several
South Korean girls by U.S. troops. At the same time, the Pentagon has
calculated that South Korea is increasingly capable of defending itself
in any clash with North Korea. Couple those factors with the enormous
leaps in technology that now allow U.S. forces to wage a pounding fight
far from the front lines, and the need for all the soldiers and Marines
now in South Korea is diminished. Already, Maj. Gen. James Soligan,
deputy chief of staff of U.S. Forces Korea (cq), has told South Korea
that a "large portion" of those American troops will be moved
from current positions close to the North Korean border to other bases
far south of the capital, Seoul.
-Worldwide: Aware of the inevitability of complaints from host countries
about the conduct or presence of U.S. forces, and the increasing expense
of foreign basing, Pentagon planners are toying with the idea of
creating offshore platforms that could serve as forward bases. Dubbed
"lily pads," these floating bases would function as a sort of
cross between a land base and an aircraft carrier. (Sources: Cato
Institute; kcandassociates.org; U.S. military eyes major reshuffling of
global presence By Lisa Hoffman, Scripps Howard News Service April 29,
2003)
Azerbaijan:
In a more recent article which appeared in the English language
Pravda, the headline read as follows: US Troops To Be Deployed in
Azerbaijan (06/18/2003 12:46) If it happens, Americans will have to deal
with all the problems of the region which this author has repeatedly
pointed out in press releases and my recent book "The Hydra of
Carnage." Azerbaijan is key to understanding everything Mr. Bush
has set out to do since 9/11. Afghanistan was the beginning and Iraq is
but the middle of what this analyst would describe as a fundamental
shift from Cold War military occupation to an Empire-based corporate
occupation of regions considered vital to, first, America’s National
Security Energy Strategy, and secondly, the force projection in specific
regions where this strategic doctrine might be challenged.
As was reported in the recent issue of Pravda: "The presidential
election is to take place in the republic of Azerbaijan on October 15th.
The closer the date, the stronger the intrigue. At first it was rumored
that incumbent Azeri President Geydar Aliyev was going to refuse to
participate in the election and nominate his son, Ilkham Aliyev.
However, the president has recently announced that he is strongly
determined to run for the presidency."
In fact, the 80-year-old president of Azerbaijan does not have any
serious opponents at the election. But the intrigue has not vanished
yet, the report argued going on to add this important note reported in
the Azeri press:
Azeri mass media have recently reported that 15,000 American servicemen
might soon be deployed from Germany to Azerbaijan. The corps, newspapers
wrote, would be stationed in the country on a permanent basis. The
Nezavisimaya Gazeta wrote with reference to Wall Street Journal that
American military men would guard the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline
and take part in the struggle with the international terrorism. These
goals are not really clear. Pipeline perspectives are rather vague at
present, although it has been said and written a lot about this project
lately. The struggle with the international terrorism is not clear
either, because Azerbaijan has not been listed as a country, where
terrorists exercised their activities.
The neighboring republic of Georgia has been mentioned in this
connection instead, but it has not been reported yet that American
troops were going to be deployed there. It was said, though, that
American instructors would train Georgian servicemen. What stops the
Pentagon from doing the same in Azerbaijan, the reported questioned?
There is an opinion that the deployment of the American military
contingent will pursue another objective - to guarantee the stability of
the current political regime in Azerbaijan. It is very important for the
American administration both from the political and economic point of
view - the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline and the access to the Caspian
oil.
As I have reported often and on a number of radio and TV talk shows
Azerbaijan is the key, always has been to the entire region. It is an
open secret that Azerbaijan takes an extremely important strategic
position in the region - it borders on Iran. Nevertheless, as the Pravda
article pointed out correctly "all Caucasian republics can boast of
their strategic positions, but it does not mean that American army bases
will be situated on their territories. There are a lot of problems and
conflict zones in the region, both internal and foreign ones: Karabakh,
Abkhazia, South Osetia. If the American administration is seriously
interested in the U.S. military presence in the Caucasus, it means that
American military men will have to deal with those issues sooner or
later."
Pravda asks the right question: "Is the game worth the
candle?" The US ambassador to Baku Ross Wilson stated that the
American administration did not have any plans to deploy troops in the
republic. To all appearance, Washington does not have all the answers
yet. I would argue more forcefully that this deployment is most
necessary and must come-about. (Source: Read the original in Russian:
Vasily Bubnov
"http://world.pravda.ru/world/2003/5/73/400/11368_Baku.html"
(Translated by: Dimitri Sudokov for the English Edition)
Afghanistan:
In the most recent CNA all-inclusive newsline of /13:44 20.06.2003/
it was announced that a 2-day conference on the proposed project of
laying a gas pipe line between Turkmenistan and Pakistan via Afghanistan
is scheduled on June 25-26, 2003 at Ashgabat. The press account is
quoted in full here:
Islamabad, June 20, 2003. (CNA). A 2-day conference on proposed project
of laying gas pipe line between Turkmenistan and Pakistan via
Afghanistan is scheduled on June 25-26 at Ashgabat. Pakistan`s Minister
for Petroleum and Natural Resources Nauraiz Shakoor Khan will leave for
Ashgabat, Turkmenistan on June 23 to attend the conference. The
conference will review the progress of the project, PPI reports.
The gas pipeline project would give boost to trade, industrial and human
resource development, regional cooperation. The minister said
construction of the 1600- km pipeline from Turkmenistan to Pakistan via
Afghanistan could start as early as next year. If India does not
participate, even then this pipeline is going to come to Pakistan, he
added. Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan are the three important
participants in the project.
''''We formally invited India during TAP conference held in Manila in
April to join the project, but India is still silent and did not respond
to the proposal,'''' he said. The project is expected to cost $ 2-2.5
billion and take three years time to complete. The companies interested
in investing in the pipeline had completed their pre-qualification and
the groundwork could start in the first quarter next year, he added. The
pipeline will carry up to 30 billion cubic meters of natural gas per
year from Turkmenistan, Daulatabad fields. It is intended to supply
northern India, Pakistan and Afghanistan as well as Pakistan''s Sea
ports for shipment to other Asian markets. (Source: credit Caspian News
Agency "CNA/www.caspian.ru")
This is the second pipeline deal being struck with the Harmid Karzai
regime. (Karzai was a Unocal consultant through 1996 negotiating these
very pipeline deals prior to his appointment as commissar of Afghanistan’s
American occupying forces.) This is now clearly one of the unstated
political objectives of Mr. Bush & Co. for removing the recalcitrant
Taliban regime, who had rejected the Unocal/U.S. proposals because they
would not allow the multilateral American-led institutions like the
World Bank, IMF and WTO to dictate their economic structure; it was
never because they wouldn‘t get rid of Usamah bin Laden. That myth
doesn’t fly any longer for many reasons I have belabored too long, not
the least of which bin Laden is in Eastern Afghanistan at this moment.
The same scenario will play out as was pointed out above where other
pipelines must be protected by U.S. military personnel. Indeed, this has
been the case for decades, from Columbia to Saudi Arabia, it is just
very rare Americans hear this news. (See my "Record of Terror"
white paper and supplement, May/June 2003)
South Korea:
Currently in South Korea, most U.S. troops are deployed in the
northern part of the country, between the capital, Seoul, and the
Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) that separates South Korea from communist North
Korea. Now there is change afoot. During a recent visit to South Korea,
U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz announced Washington’s
intention to "reposition" some of its military forces
stationed in South Korea. The redeployment would entail moving those
forces farther south.
The Asia Times noted that Wolfowitz "offered only a vague
justification for such a move, contending that repositioning forces
would make them more effective in meeting the threat posed by North
Korea." Given the heightened rhetoric emanating from the North
Korean regime and Bush’s Axis of Evil misstep of the SitRep, that is a
very odd argument to be making. Since the end of the Korean War in 1953,
the principal rationale for stationing the troops near the DMZ has been
that they would serve as "a tripwire in case of a North Korean
attack, guaranteeing U.S. involvement in any conflict. North Korea,
knowing that it would then face war not only with South Korea but also
with the United States, would be deterred from taking such a reckless
gamble." according to the Asia Times article. That this is
obviously true needs little elaboration.
Why is the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush Junior
proposing to abandon the long-standing tripwire function of U.S. forces
in South Korea? There is one unsettling possibility according to analyst
Ted Galen Carpenter:
The administration is considering a preemptive military attack on North
Korea’s nuclear installations and wants to move U.S. troops out of
harm’s way. Even the most hawkish U.S. experts on Korea concede that
if the United States did launch such an attack, the North would likely
respond with an intense artillery and missile barrage of the Seoul
metropolitan area and, possibly, with a ground attack through the DMZ.
U.S. troops stationed between Seoul and the DMZ could easily end up
being dead tripwire forces.
I had argued before the March 2003 offensive against Iraq that there was
a difference between what Bush was saying and what he was doing over the
threat from North Korea and what he was prepared to do with Iraq. That
Bush was prepared to attack Iraq with enormous military force and yet
utilize diplomacy (at that time) regarding what seemed a greater threat
from North Korea argued, at least to my humble way of thinking about
such things, that it was proof Iraq did not have WMD capability of
threatening any level of serious American interests. In other words: If
Iraq had WMD we wouldn’t attack, only if we knew Iraq "did not
have the capability" would we be willing to do so. I went so far on
KING 5 Television to state it thusly: "Nobody wants to say this
president is lying or exaggerating." (Robert Mak, KING 5 Up-Front,
see transcript on their site)
Even so, Carpenter is right in pointing out that "True, Bush
administration officials have stated that they want to solve through
diplomacy the crisis created by North Korea’s resumption of its
nuclear-weapons program. But those same officials have stressed that all
options, including the use of military force, remain on the table. When
South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun went to the United States in May, he
sought an assurance that the controversial doctrine of preemptive war
embedded in the administration’s national-security strategy would not
apply to North Korea. U.S. officials rebuffed his request." What
this means, well it seems to me at least, is that with the (wrong)
perception of easy victories in both Afghanistan and Iraq (both
boiling-over with renewed guerrilla activity taking American lives every
week now since May1st through June/July 2003), the administration’s
more hawkish members, fresh with a blood-lust flush on their cheeks, may
think it time to push yet another third-world nationalistic leader down.
Indeed, the national-security strategy document approved in September
2002, noted in the above piece by carpenter, clearly would seem to apply
to the North Korean situation. "We must be prepared to stop rogue
states and their terrorist clients before they are able to threaten or
use weapons of mass destruction against the United States and our allies
and friends," the document affirmed. The administration’s policy
on combating weapons of mass destruction, adopted in December 2002,
stated the point even more succinctly, emphasizing that the United
States would not "permit the world’s more dangerous regimes"
to pose a threat "with the world’s most destructive
weapons." Nuclear weapons in the hands of secretive, Stalinist
North Korea would fill that category according to Carpenter. This would
seem less likely should both Great Britain’s Parliament and the U.S.
Congress each pursue intelligence enquiries into "what they knew
and when did they know it"? regarding both Bush and Blair. But I
think Carpenter is still correct to point out this strange redeployment
of U.S. troops. Why? Because Mr. Bush seems immune to criticism of any
nature, often remarking trivially in response to fully serious questions
from his own recently retired seasoned counter-terrorism analysts that
Bush exaggerated the claims for WMD against all sound intelligence data
from both CIA and the Pentagon’s DIA; and then with often a rather
flippant "They are entitled to their opinion."
As Carpenter is not remiss in addressing "Even if one takes the
Bush administration at its word that it wants to settle the crisis
through diplomacy, it begs a crucial question: What does the United
States do if diplomacy (or diplomacy combined with economic pressure)
fails to induce North Korea to abandon its nuclear program? Is the
administration prepared to live with a North Korea armed with nuclear
weapons? The statement issued by Bush and Japanese Prime Minister
Junichiro Koizumi after their recent summit suggests otherwise. The two
leaders stated bluntly that they "would not tolerate a
nuclear-armed North Korea." (Ibid.)
If diplomacy fails, it is not clear how that result can be prevented
except through military force. The Bush administration may not be
committed to such a course yet, but in deciding to move U.S. forces away
from the DMZ and South, "it is creating a precondition for pursuing
that option. South Koreans, who know how horribly their country would
suffer if the United States launched preemptive strikes on the North,
now have reason to be very, very nervous..." as Carpenter is again
correct to point out.
(Sources: 06/12/03: Asia Times; KING 5 "Up-Front" with Robert
Mak; Record of Terror www.kcandassociates.org ; and Ted Galen Carpenter
(vice president for defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato
Institute) Author of Peace & Freedom: Foreign Policy for a
Constitutional Republic. This article is republished with the permission
of the "http://www.cato.org/".)
The Globe:
But these particular regions are not alone and not the only ones of
importance. As it did in its seemingly quick but still clearly
unfinished military campaign in Iraq, as in Afghanistan, the Pentagon is
hastily planning to re-deploy U.S. forces and equipment around the world
in ways that will permit Washington to play "GloboCop,"
according to another well-thought-out piece in the American analytical
field. It is now being more openly argued by analysts who know these
issues well that while "preparing sharp reductions in forces in
Germany, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, military planners are talking about
establishing semi-permanent or permanent bases along a giant swathe of
global territory – increasingly referred to as "the arc of
instability" – from the Caribbean Basin through Africa to South
and Central Asia and across to North Korea. The latest details were
disclosed by the Wall Street Journal on June 10, 2003 and include plans
to increase U.S. forces in "Djibouti on the Horn of Africa across
the Red Sea from Yemen, set up semi-permanent ‘forward bases’ in
Algeria, Morocco and possibly Tunisia, and establish smaller facilities
in Senegal, Ghana and Mali that could be used to intervene in oil-rich
West African countries, particularly Nigeria." (Source Wall Street
Journal, 6/10/03)
Similar bases – or what some call "lily pads" – are now
being sought or expanded in northern Australia, Thailand (whose prime
minister Thaksin Shinawatra was here for talks the week of 6/10/03),
Singapore, the Philippines, Kenya, Georgia; also throughout Central
Asia, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Qatar, Vietnam and Iraq. Azerbaijan was
mentioned in the same article again.
‘We are in the process of taking a fundamental look at our military
posture worldwide, including in the United States,’ said Deputy
Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz on a recent visit to Singapore, where
he met with military chiefs and defense ministers from throughout East
Asia about U.S. plans there. ‘We’re facing a very different threat
than any one we’ve faced historically.’ (Ibid.)
Those plans represent a major triumph for Wolfowitz, who 12 years ago
argued in a controversial draft "Defense Planning Guidance" (DPG)
for realigning U.S. forces globally so as to "retain pre-eminent
responsibility for addressing selectively those wrongs which threaten
not only our own interests, but those of our allies or friends, or which
could seriously unsettle international relations." (Source: Jim
Lobe, Inter Press Service June 13, 2003)
The same draft, also argued for "a unilateral U.S. defense
guarantee" to Eastern Europe "preferably in co-operation with
other NATO states," and the use of pre-emptive force against
nations suspected of having weapons of mass destruction – both of
which views are now codified as U.S. strategic doctrine.
The draft DPG also argued that U.S. military intervention should become
a "constant fixture" of the new world order. It is precisely
that capability towards which the Pentagon’s force realignments appear
to be directed. Interestingly the very same draft was largely repudiated
by the first Bush administration after it was leaked to the New York
Times. But that isn’t so strange upon some reflection as Bush the
Senior had the diplomatic skill and power (two very different things) to
bring a coalition together with the simple use of the telephone,
something the Bush the Younger lacks in both skill and power to achieve
today.
Empire argues for such a global "footprint" and Bush Junior is
setting the course for, no matter what Republican talk-show hosts would
rather choose to believe. This is empire-building of the rawest kind.
But not empire the way most on the Left see it and not how the far Right
envision it. It is not America as America but American-led and
corporate. But it shall look rather reminiscent of Rome "[W]ith
forward bases located all along the so-called "arc of
instability," (where) Washington can pre-position equipment and
military personnel that would permit it to intervene with force within
hours of the outbreak of any crisis.... In that respect, the new global
strategy would be similar to the U.S. position beginning in the 19th
century vis-à-vis Latin America, where the U.S. has frequently
intervened to protect its interests from real or perceived
threats...." according to the well-informed Mr. Lobe (Ibid.) As he
wrote and I must quote it here for the younger generations with little
concern for current history which has nothing to do with the
acronymic-age of MTV, ESPN, etc.:
Nearby countries so involved included Cuba, Mexico, Nicaragua, Haiti and
several others. The interventions were usually followed by long
occupations and the establishment of friendly but authoritarian regimes,
like those of Batista, Somoza and "Papa Doc" Duvalier. The
U.S. Contra war against the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua in the 1980s
might be considered a sequel to the earlier action. America’s
increasing role in Colombia’s current civil war also fits the
pattern....On a grander scale, the U.S. has assisted military takeovers
in larger countries like Chile, Brazil, and Argentina, with the usual
bloody results. (Ibid., Lobe)
According to Max Boot, a neo-conservative writer at the Council on
Foreign Relations, Wolfowitz’s 1992 draft – now mostly codified in
the September 2002 National Security Strategy of the USA – is not all
that different from the 1903 Theodore Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe
Doctrine. The Monroe Doctrine asserted Washington’s
"international police power" to intervene against
"chronic wrongdoing, or an impotence which results in a general
loosening of the ties of civilized society." The new and proposed
deployments are being justified by similar rhetoric. Just substitute
"globalization" for "civilization."
The emerging Pentagon doctrine, founded mainly on the work of retired
Admiral Arthur Cebrowski, chief of the Pentagon’s Office of Force
Transformation, and Thomas Barnett of the U.S. Naval War College, argues
that it is precisely countries and regions that are
"disconnected" from the prevailing trends of economic
globalization that posed the greatest dangers. "Disconnectedness is
one of the great danger signs around the world," Cebrowski told an
audience at the Heritage Foundation last month in an update of the
"general loosening of the ties of civilized society" formula
of a century ago. (Ibid.)
This seems to make the ideas not just acceptable but a simple evolution
of what we have always done in the past. But I would argue that while
the progressive Left "needs" to believe this (which makes
their standard [Howard} Zinnian approach seem the more valid: i.e.,
America has always been a Rich-White-Man’s-State), but they are wrong;
the radical Right does so too, as these poor saps actually think (now
anyways) that this empire, if it exists, is likened unto Rome and in
some cases they believe that as Romans, therefore it shall benefit them
personally as Rome did Romans. The two extreme sides are both wrong.
This empire is, while seemingly familiar in many past regards, a
"corporate empire" to benefit the monopoly corporation’s
elite, stock holders, outright majority owners and the "banking
fraternity" inextricably intertwined within Corporatism’s circle
of friends. That they see threats that concern their interests does not
mean their interests are yours or mine; their interests do not in fact
interest me at all, nor should they you if you understand what this all
means. But the corporate-state’s interests are the same as the elite’s,
as Lobe points out well:
Barnett’s term for areas of greatest threat is "the Gap,"
places where "globalization is thinning or just plain absent."
Such regions are typically "plagued by politically repressive
regimes, widespread poverty and disease, routine mass murder, and –
most important – the chronic conflicts that incubate the next
generation of terrorists."..."If we map out U.S. military
responses since the end of the Cold War, we find an overwhelming
concentration of activity in the regions of the world that are excluded
from globalization''s growing Core – namely the Caribbean Rim,
virtually all of Africa, the Balkans, the Caucasus, Central Asia, the
Middle East and Southwest Asia, and much of Southeast Asia,"
Barnett wrote in Esquire magazine earlier this year. (Ibid., Lobe)
The challenge in fighting terrorist networks is both to "get them
where they live" in the arc of instability and prevent them from
spreading their influence into what Barnett calls "seam
states" located between the Gap and the Core. According to Lobe
again, "Such seam states, he says, include Mexico, Brazil, South
Africa, Morocco, Algeria, Greece, Turkey, Pakistan, Thailand, Malaysia,
the Philippines and Indonesia. Those nations, the logic goes, should
play critical roles, presumably including providing forward bases, for
interventions into the Gap."
At the same time, if states "loosen their ties" to the global
economy, "bloodshed will follow. If you are lucky," according
to Barnett, "so will American troops." Lucky? Lucky for whom?
I had argued years ago during Persian Gulf I that what Bush the Senior
was "about" was something very different than what most
perceived. I stated categorically that the states that remained
"outside of the emerging global interdependence," outside of
the process of globalization," would be seen as exercising their
"nationalism" and would no longer be tolerated. If one was
"outside the process of GATT, the WTO, NAFTA and the host of
international governing organizations (IGOs)" one would be
"outside of The Law," that is to say: "An Outlaw." I
gave the name to it of "Global Triage," and "they"
would "decide who lives and dies as a regime." (See my Global
Triage: Imperium in Imperio, Artful Nuance Publishing, 1999; and see
also www.kcandassociates.org for audio/video tapes of lectures and
interviews. 1988-1999)
On the eve of the war in Iraq, which has been followed by an occupation
increasingly under siege, Barnett predicted that taking Baghdad would
not be about settling old scores or enforcing the disarmament of those
famous weapons of mass destruction, yet to be found. Rather, he wrote,
and this is very important: [it] "will mark a historic tipping
point – the moment when Washington takes real ownership of strategic
security in the age of globalization." And some would still dare
argue this is not empire building? This is not a familiar empire but it
certainly is Empire. Barnett’s arc corresponds perfectly to regions of
oil, gas and mineral wealth, which Lobe is quick to concede is also
"a reminder again of Wolfowitz’s 1992 draft study." It
asserted then that the key objective of U.S. strategy should be "to
prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources
would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global
power." Any "other" nation-state from challenging
American hegemony in other words; any region forming any alliance of
states which could offer resistance to American preponderance.
But understand what is missing in these above very good analyst’s
works: This empire is not, I must repeat, a simple Roman model, but a
corporate model which leaves America as a nation-state a simple cog in
the wheel, and Americans simple subjects to the corporate dictate; which
may well leave American’s scrambling for jobs in far off lands;
scrambling for work and food here at home; scrambling for understanding
why they were so duped. And so easily it would seem.
(Further sources: Wall Street Journal 6/10/03; KC& Associates’
thirty press releases from March through May 29, 2003; Pentagon Dreams
of Playing ‘GloboCop’ By Jim Lobe, Inter Press Service June 13,
2003: Jim Lobe writes on U.S. foreign policy for IPS, Foreign Policy in
Focus, TomPaine.com and Alternet. [Republished with the permission of
the "http://www.cato.org/] )
________________________________________
Mr. Craig B Hulet; Security, Military Affairs & International
Relations Expert (Author: The Hydra of Carnage: Bush’s Imperial
War-making and the Rule of Law: An Analysis of the Objectives and
Delusions of Empire. Available @ www.kcandassociates.org); Hulet was
Special Assistant to Congressman Jack Metcalf (Ret.).
www.craigbhulet.com cali@localaccess.com
Copyright The Artful Nuance and Craig B Hulet
Join our Daily News Headlines
Email Digest
|
|
Information
Clearing House
Daily News Headlines
Digest
|
HOME
COPYRIGHT NOTICE
|
