Cache; Crossing the Rubicon: U.S.A versus Europe
From Talk2000.NL
Canadian Dimension, May, 2003 by Antony Black
Antony Black Emeritus professor in the history of political thought, Department of Politics University of Dundee [1]
source: http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_go2020/is_200305/ai_n7542019
Contents |
[edit] Section: What Future For The United Nations?
[edit] Crossing the Rubicon: U.S.A versus Europe
[edit] Introduction
The four articles contained in this special section of Canadian Dimension offer a variety of perspectives on the United Nations in the light of the New Gulf War.
In "Crossing the Rubicon," Anthony Black puts forward a strong case for situating the "main thrust of the critique of U.S. 'policy'" within a "broader geo-strategic reality." Black identifies the outbreak of the war as a crucial moment in the plans of key players in the current Bush Administration for "a dramatic accentuation of American global hegemony" to "deter any challenger from ever dreaming of challenging the U.S. on the world stage."
Ken Hanly looks to the future of the United Nations. He underlines some of the reasons why the UN is currently faced with a crisis of legitimacy. "If the UN is to regain some credibility as an impartial arbiter and guarantor of international peace," he argues, "it is clear that it must begin to enforce some resolutions opposed to the policies of Israel and the U.S."
The final two articles offer a clash of opinions between Perry Anderson, editor of the London-based New Left Review, and James Petras, a member of the Canadian Dimension Editorial Collective. In "Casuistries of War and Peace," a shortened version of a longer article that originally appeared in the London Review of Books, Anderson offers what some readers may find a surprising point of view about the arms inspections/sanctions debate within the United Nations. In his reply, "What Makes Perry Run," Petras attempts to dissect Anderson's argument by exposing some of its conceptual incoherence. Both articles were written before the outbreak of hostilities and both make appeal to political realism and mass possibilities. Readers can judge for themselves which of the two better explains the massive outpouring of radical street consciousness, particularly in the Arab world, as well as the stubborn, broad-based resistance of the Iraqi people to the Bush/Blair attempt to impose a foreign imperial order on their country.
[edit] Crossing the Rubicon: U.S.A versus Europe
- "The propagandist will not accuse the enemy of just any misdeed; he will accuse him of the very intention that he himself has and of trying to commit the very crime that he himself is about to commit."
- — Jacques Ellul, French social theorist, Propaganda
Now, it doesn't take blinding insight to recognize in the case of "America vs. Iraq" a textbook example of this principle in action. Here is a nation of historically unparalleled power, bristling with more "weapons of mass destruction" than the rest of the world in toto, ready and willing to launch an unprovoked (second) assault on a nation that has little of the same. That the propaganda attending this latest incarnation of U.S. imperialism is so threadbare a child could see through it, has, alas, failed to quell the din of official punditry and apologia. Fortunately, a growing throng of ordinary citizenry around the world are beginning to peek outside the media box and see the emperor's new clothes for what they are. Indeed, in this awakening lies, all hyperbole aside, the future fate and hope of this world. Still, seeing things for "what they are" is a relative matter. Thus, while the main thrust of the critique of U.S. "policy" (i.e. oil) has been close to the mark, the broader geo-strategic reality remains, for many, somewhat obscure.
It needn't be. As far back as 1992, Paul Wolfowitz, then Dick Cheney's deputy at the Pentagon, wrote a classified report arguing precisely for a dramatic accentuation of American global hegemony, a sentiment echoed by Colin Powell, then chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who told the House Armed Services Committee that the U.S. should seek to be "the bully on the block" so as to, "deter any challenger from ever dreaming of challenging the U.S. on the world stage."
[edit] The Project for a New American Century
Though Wolfowitz's document (after having been leaked to the New York Times in March, 1992) was subsequently withdrawn to quell the resultant public uproar, the almost identical policy platform was then rearticulated in September, 2000, in a report entitled the Project for a New American Century (PNAC).
The report's contributors included Wolfowitz, now deputy of defence, the undersecretary of state for arms control, John Bolton, and Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis Libby — among several other key members of the Bush Administration.
The PNAC report is a truly frightening document as it is, essentially, a blueprint for world domination. It explicitly calls, for instance, for massive increases in military spending, for the large-scale militarization of domestic society, for a major redeployment of naval forces into the Pacific (to contain China), a major redeployment of ground forces from western to eastern Europe and central Asia (to surround Russia), for the military colonization of space — and for the U.S. to use overwhelming force to take control of the Gulf region.
It also prescribes, with remarkable candour and foresight, that what might be needed to implement such policies is, "some chilling and catalyzing event — like a new Pearl Harbour."
Moreover, much of the report's strategy was later repeated in Bush's September, 2002 National Security Strategy document (now known as the Bush Doctrine), which called for pre-emptive strikes and unilateral military action.
Now, while the Bush Doctrine has been, for the most part, painted by the mass media as some sort of noble crusade against "terror," its explicitly aggressive and expansionist stance has not been lost on the geopolitical strategists in France, Germany, Russia and China, whose business it is, after all, to be rather more clear minded about such things. Thus, though the present rift in the Security Council is ostensibly about Iraq, at a deeper level it is a reflection of the growing military and economic rivalry of its member states.
[edit] The Battle for Control over Oil Reserves
Naturally no clearer example can be had of this rivalry than the contest over Iraq itself. Representing the second-largest reservoir on earth, Iraqi oil is easily accessible and of high quality, and has bountiful excess capacity that allows production to be ramped up at a moment's notice. Presently the Anglo-American oil giants (BP, Exxon-Mobil, Shell and Chevron-Texaco) are all missing-in-action from Iraq and Iran, which have, instead, negotiated oil contracts with France, Germany, Italy, Russia and China.
The U.S., though wanting to horn in on this market, has no need of the oil per se; it is more than able to fill its domestic needs from elsewhere. That is understood. But by gaining control of Iraq's oil supply the Bush Administration will gain a lever of inestimable value in checking the ambitions of its main competitors.
Europe and Japan are almost totally dependent on Middle East oil. The Russian economy, having only recently bounced back from the abyss, is extremely sensitive to oil prices, since close to 90 per cent of its recent GDP growth has been linked to oil and gas. And China's economy is growing so fast it is expected to more than double its oil consumption over the next 20 years.
Both European and Russian analysts expect that, once in command of Iraq, the U.S. will sharply increase (at least temporarily) the flow of oil to send prices plummeting. This will not only devastate the Russian economy, but will also undermine OPEC, a long-desired objective on Washington's geo-strategic wish list. In addition, it will strike a vital blow at the heart of Iran's economy, which has for many years suffered from the double-whammy of falling oil production and a rocketing population increase. Overturning the 1979 revolution is, of course, another major item on the wish list.
The Battle between the Euro and the Dollar Apart from these oil-related concerns, the rivalry between the Security Council states extends to many other strategic manoeuvrings. Chief among these is the competition between two global currencies: the Euro and the U.S. dollar.
The U.S. dollar has been for decades the global reserve or "fiat" currency to which the rest of the world has been enjoined (by virtue of both American military and economic strength) as an international medium and standard of exchange. In essence, this has meant that the U.S. has been able to run a massive yearly trade deficit (that is, receive actual "stuff") paid for with mere "paper" — paper everyone needs and accepts in pursuance of their transactions with everyone else. Much of the so-called "productivity" of the U.S. and, indeed, the continuation of its high standard of living, is, in fact, directly dependent on this global tribute.
Control over money creation and credit is, thus, ultimately a means of economic conquest and colonization. It is precisely all this that is threatened by the newly emergent Euro. Already a global realignment is occurring as, for example, the Euro becomes legal and/or proxy tender in the Balkans, the Baltic states and eastern Europe, while the dollar gains pre-eminence in the Caucasus and central Asia.
It is not simply accidental, then, that Britain has chosen not to adopt the Euro. It is, instead, entirely consistent with its overall integration into an Anglo-American alliance extending from financial and banking interests right through to the oil industry and weapons production. In response to the latter there has arisen a Franco-German integration of aerospace and defence production.
Meanwhile, these economic and weapons-production ties have been matched on the diplomatic front by a whole series of "discussions," "agreements" and "understandings" between France and Germany, on the one hand, and Russia, on the other. Russia also in 1998 signed a "long-term military co-operation agreement" with India, which India then appended with a formal defence agreement with France. The U.S., of course, has "sponsored" Pakistan more or less since its inception in 1947 (and through which it funnelled aid to the Taliban and al-Qaeda during the 1980s).
France and the U.S., then, are clearly on opposite sides of the volatile Pakistan-India conflict.
Finally, in response to Washington's "Star Wars" program, Russia has developed and begun deploying its new lightweight, highly mobile Topol M intercontinental ballistic missiles. The arms race is afoot once more. Taking in all the foregoing at a glance, one is led ineluctably to the thought that those who believe the ongoing "war on terror" is either genuine or some sort of boon to the world are sadly deluded. For what is taking place under the cover of this present "humanitarian" adventure is without a shadow of a doubt simple, old-style imperialism. And, accompanying it, like fleas to a rat, are, unfortunately, the old-style rationalizations, the age-old #apologetics of those who just happen so happily to find themselves historically situated on the right side, the safe side, of hostilities.
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[edit] glossary English - Dutch
[edit] boon
boon [bu:n] (telbaar zelfstandig naamwoord)
1 zegen gerief, weldaad, hulp, gemak 2 (formeel) gunst geschenk, gave
[edit] apologetics
a·pol·o·get·ics [f'pylf'dketiks, f'pllf'dkeTiks] (meervoud; werkwoord voornamelijk enkelvoud) (voornamelijk religie)
1 apologetiek leer van de geloofsverdediging 2 apologie verdedigings(rede), verweerschrift
