James A. Stevenson :
© April 20, 2002
Gigantisme Militaire I: Policy, Purpose, and Contemporary Events
I recently had a class discussion in one of my U.S. history survey
classes in which there occurred a fairly intense debate about not only
current and future U.S. military spending but about its purpose as well.
The financial data that I presented in class came from the Center for Defense
Information (CDI), and those figures revealed that the current Bush Administration
has requested the following funding for the U.S. military in Fiscal Years
(FYs) 2002-2007: 2002 — $350.8 billion (b), 2003 -- $396.1 b., 2004
— $405.0 b., 2005 — $426.2 b., 2006 — $447.5 b., 2007 -- $469.6 b.
These amounts produce a total of over $2.495 trillion in military spending
in those six years. Yet, already, as of the smaller previous
FY 2002 Bush defense budget request of $343 billion, that smaller figure
represented 36% of the entire annual, global military expenditures.
And, as of the higher FY 2003 defense request of $396 billion, that amount
not only represents over 70% more than the combined annual military spending
of Russia, China and the seven so-called "likely adversaries" of the U.S.,
but it is 15% above average annual Cold War spending levels (i.e., $344.1
billion per year), and it is over 51.6% of all federal discretionary spending.
Now, in reaction to these findings, most students were a bit surprised,
a few, perhaps, were outraged at the enormity of the expenditures, and
one or two seemed pleased with the expenditures. Accordingly, one
of the latter said something like, "We have the best military force in
the world." To which another rejoined with something like, "But do
we need to spend so much, and aren't we just wasting much of that money?"
And, from there the debate raged over the efficiency and efficacy of military
spending, state and military-industrial complex motives, wasted resources,
alternative spending needs, numbers of jobs provided, and a government
administered national health care system. Yet, at the close of the
really never-ending debate about these important issues, the nagging questions
remained: In whose interest and for what purpose are those prodigious
military expenditures being made? And, in the wake of the 9/11 attacks,
are those enormous "defense" expenditures actually creating the "best military
force in the world" and, more importantly, one that can defend the homeland?
After all, the attacks on 9/11 occurred unimpeded by the U.S. military/intelligence
bureaucracies, despite the spending of over $19 trillion on those bureaucracies
from 1946 to 2002. Moreover, it appears that too many people
in the Congress and the Bush II Administration consider it unpatriotic
to ask some tough questions about how that attack could have occurred so
unimpeded. After all, as economist Richard DuBoff makes clear in
his critique of the Bush Administration's response to the events of 9/11,
there has been a series of attacks on U.S. targets (e.g., World Trade Center
in 1993, U.S. military personnel in Saudi Arabia in 1995 and 1996, two
U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998, and the suicide ramming of the U.S.S.
Cole in 2000) since 1993. But those warning signs and other
suggestions of impending danger are not receiving the kind of scrutiny
and official inquiries which followed that other historic disaster to which
9/11 is most frequently compared, Pearl Harbor. The reason for that
lack of inquiry, DuBoff points out, is because "To carry out this kind
of inquiry now would, unavoidably, bring into question the competence and
performance of the U.S. military, the FBI, and the CIA. Clearly,
this will not do in the post-9/11 era of 'USA triumphant' — the absolute
superiority of all U.S. institutions — and the drive to increase the military
budget."
Meanwhile, Bush Administration/Pentagon officials and all of the major
media pundits are proclaiming U.S. military success in Afghanistan.
Yet, just a few weeks ago, Newsweek's field reporters covering the fighting
in Shahikot valley and Tora Bora caves offered a cautionary analysis that
included the following observations: 1. Despite U.S. claims of up
to "700 enemy killed" in the Shahikot valley, "fewer than 10 corpses have
been found;" 2. "Leaflets known as shabnamas, night letters, have
[started appearing throughout eastern Afghanistan and they are] accusing
America of having killed tens of thousands of civilians;" 3. "Taliban
and Qaeda forces have begun to regroup [in 20-30 person fighting units]
on both sides of the [Afghanistan-Pakistan] border;" 4. "Resentment
[against the U.S. imposed government in Kabul] is growing across southern
Afghanistan;" 5. "Squabbling among warlords has revived respect for
the Taliban, who stamped out internecine fighting during their reign;"
6. The "eight American[s] and three Afghan[s]" who were killed in the most
recent ambush were lost, in part, due to advance warnings that allowed
the ambush to be set up; 7. Anti-American sentiment is apparently
emerging to the extent that some rural Afghans are not only assisting Al
Qaeda/Taliban guerrillas, but this sentiment might be epitomized in the
statement of one Afghan soldier who claimed to have been rewarded with
a pickup truck from the U.S. Special Forces for his assistance in helping
to "clear" the caves at Tora Bora. With the "handwriting on the wall"
that even American policy makers in Washington ought to be able to read,
he said, "My heart is still with Osama bin Laden. If anyone starts
fighting the Americans, I'll join tomorrow." So, if these observations
in Newsweek are accurate — and they are more likely to be so than the self-serving
official U.S government pronouncements — we can anticipate a growth of
anti-Americanism inside Afghanistan.
Those who are obtuse to that likelihood also are equally obtuse to
the fact that "one of history's few absolutes," as historian Thomas McCormick
observed, is that whenever an outside, stronger power extends its power
over a weaker one it, "inevitably" disrupts and causes changes in that
dominated people's "cultural attitudes . . . in class and social structures,
in political institutions and behavior, in technology and economics, in
education," in legal, moral and religious systems, and "such changes .
. . can and often do cause violent reaction against the intruding alien
powers." Or, as America's great writer Gore Vidal succinctly
expressed it from the left, "The first law of physics has not been annulled;
there is no action without reaction. You cannot attack other countries
. . . and then not expect them to strike back." Similarly,
Patrick J. Buchanan is one of the apparently rare conservatives on the
right who grasps this essential truth. In a "Salon" interview that
he gave last December, he pointed out that it is precisely "in countries
where the U.S. [has] intervened militarily" that terrorist groups have
emerged to strike back. As he said, "You take a look at all the places
the U.S. has been intervening since the end of the Cold War, and it's all
the same places where terrorism is coming out of." And, a few
months later, he is still hopelessly warning those U.S. policy makers
who are too far under the sway of "hubris and triumphalism" to listen,
that "we need to know the mind of those we expect to conquer and convert,
lest we find U.S. troops receiving the same reception in Baghdad as Israeli
troops get in Ramallah."
Simply put, the longer (and larger) that direct U.S. or Western military
presence is in Afghanistan and in the Middle East, the greater the likelihood
will be for the growth of anti-American sentiment. And, at a time when
America needs more friends and not more enemies in the Middle East, a continuing
war is likely to only exacerbate the hatred and desire to strike back.
What some U.S. policy makers appear not to fully understand is that they
are not simply up against an organized, finite, political body in the form
of Al Qaeda, or the Taliban, or Hizbullah, or Hamas, or Islamic Jihad,
or Wahhabism, or whatever. They are up against a larger and more
fluid social movement, and a social movement, generated from nationalism
or religious beliefs, is not likely to be destroyed by "decapitating" its
leadership or destroying its "infrastructure of terror." If that
is even accomplished, other leaders and groups are likely to fill in the
void, and they may be even more desperate and dangerous. In the perceptive
words of Israeli writer Uri Avnery, "When a whole people is seething with
rage, it becomes a dangerous enemy, because the rage does not obey orders.
[And] when this rage overflows, it creates suicide bombers — human bombs
fuelled by the power of anger, against whom there is no defense [because]
. . . when there are thousands of them, no military means will restore
security." Indeed, he goes on to state that the people who
make the claim that "'we have taught them a lesson' [or] 'we have destroyed
the infrastructure of terrorism' show an infantile lack of understanding
of what they are doing. Far from 'destroying the infrastructure of
terrorism,' they have built a hothouse for rearing suicide-bombers [who]
. . . are standing in line."
Already, the findings of a February 2002 Gallup poll show that public
opinion in nine Muslim countries overwhelmingly branded the U.S. as "aggressive
and [not only] biased against Islamic values," but, specifically, biased
against the Palestinians. Thus, while 67% of the Muslim respondents
thought that the 9/11 attacks on the U.S. were "morally unjustified," 77%
also said that "the U.S. military action in Afghanistan was morally unjustified"
and 58% of them had "unfavorable opinions" about George Bush.
Perhaps, Buchanan best described the dreary meaning of these findings when
he wrote: "Arabs and Muslims see us as the new Rome — a ruthless
and godless empire — not as a Godly republic or a shinning city on a hill."
Now, if Buchanan and the poll respondents are right on all counts, those
Muslim sentiments do not bode well for the future peace and security of
U.S. nationals either abroad or at home.
After all, Bush II's current popularity in the U.S. and U.S. public
opinion in favor of current U.S. military actions are of little weigh against
those driven to suicidal rage by a pervasive climate of opinion that is
rooted in continuing dispossession, humiliation, poverty, destruction,
injury and death. All of which are increasingly seen by a majority
of those in the Middle East as coming directly from the U.S. Again,
Buchanan displays a certain sensitivity to the basic problem when he writes
that Israel's "annexations of Arab land, its dispossession of the Palestinian
people, and its denial of their right to a homeland and state of their
own on land their fathers farmed for a thousand years are a principal cause
of this [Israeli-Palestinian] war and a primary reason why America's reputation
has been ravaged in the Arab world." And, when some Americans
not only say "who cares what the Arabs think?" but they also ignore those
root causes of Arab anger and the sense of injustice that those causes
generate among large bodies of religious people, they are flirting with
a danger from which even the most expensive nuclear missile shield will
not protect us or anyone.
Still, current policy U.S. makers are embarked upon spending
cavalcades of money on all sorts of weaponry. Apparently driven by
the ages-old arrogance of power, nationalist/patriotic hubris, and overreach,
these policy makers and their like-minded counterparts outside the government
now constitute what Buchanan has dubbed the "War Party." And
some of those War Party hawks include the writers and signatories of a
recent open letter to President Bush who warned him that if he "failed
to attack Iraq, he faced [in effect] a court-martial for surrender in the
War on Terror." Meanwhile, other right-wing thinkers are now
insouciantly preaching the virtues of limited nuclear war and trying to
rev-up public support for an open-ended and never-ending war against "evil"
by resurrecting the old Manichean view of the world that served U.S. policy
makers and propagandists so well during the Cold War. That was a
dichotomized view of the world which placed the "all evil" on one side
and "all good" on the other. Such a view distorted the U.S. people's
perception of geopolitical, social, and historical complexities for almost
50 years. It has been essentially resurrected in a new form as the
"axis of evil" versus the U.S.
Likewise, playing the nuclear war card seems to be a favorite pastime
for those Dr. Strangelove types who have apparently reemerged at the Pentagon.
Indeed, recently, the ranks of such nuclear war hawks have been reinforced
by several of Bush II’s hard right appointees whom British Member of Parliament
Alice Mahon went so far as to term "'lunatics.'" Undertaking
what these people, no doubt, regard as tough-mindedness, they have created
a secret report called the "Nuclear Posture Review" which was signed into
effect by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and later given to Congress
on January 8, 2002. In early March, the report was purposely "leaked"
to the press and caused what was probably the desired consternation.
The plan directs the U.S. military to "prepare contingency plans to use
nuclear weapons . . . against China, Russia, Iraq, North Korea, Iran, Libya
and Syria [and] against targets able to withstand nonnuclear attack; in
retaliation for attack with nuclear, biological or chemical weapons; or
'in the event of surprising military developments.'" With the
report also directing the Pentagon to be "prepared to use nuclear weapons
in an Arab-Israeli conflict, in a war between China and Taiwan, or in an
attack from North Korea on the south" as well as "an attack by Iraq on
Israel or another neighbor," it means that the U.S. Strategic Command has
been directed to prepare a nuclear strategy and means that may one day
incinerate tens of thousands, perhaps millions, of innocent people in places
where most of them probably hate the man or men who dominate them more
than does President George W. Bush. And, most certainly, those ordinary
people have much less voice in influencing the policies and actions of
their leaders than we have in influencing ours. Also, keep in mind,
as U.S. writer Geov Parrish correctly points out, that this document was
put out for public consumption at a time when "countless scores of Muslims
have newly pledged themselves to martyrdom in an anti-American jihad, and
[with] any and all of us [as] targets. Bush," he adds, "has
. . . [thus unwisely] stripped away what ever few moral qualms such groups
might have about using mass, lethal weapons against you or me."
With such plans, Bush II's nuclear policy makers have probably
done a very stupid thing as far as national security is concerned.
In a particularly thoughtful analysis of the development and meaning of
the "Nuclear Posture Review" by Raffi Khatchadourian, he makes it clear
that this strategy for preemptively employing both small and large yield
nuclear weapons in battlefield areas is new. In fact, it breaches
the unwritten "firewall" which, for almost 60 years, has separated the
use of conventional and nuclear weapons by both moral and practical constraints.
But, now, seduced by the easy argument that "hard and buried targets,"
such as bunkers and tunnels located deep in mountains or underground, can
best be attacked by developing and using "new low-yield, earth-penetrating
nuclear weapons," the Bush II Administration's advocates of nuclear war
fighting are maneuvering to set aside a priceless six decades-long taboo
against using nuclear weapons. These people also are moving
to set aside a U.S. self-imposed nuclear testing moratorium and to resume
nuclear testing under the pretext of checking the safety and reliability
of the existing U.S. nuclear arsenal. All this, retired Rear Admiral
Eugene Carroll — one of America's most astute critics of military spending
and foolishness — has said is taking us down a slippery slope. He
noted that, in the past, we always said, '"nuclear weapons as now designed
and employed are essentially useless because you cannot cross this [nuclear]
threshold between conventional and nuclear [warfare] without being unequivocal
about it.'" But, now, "'people say,'" Carroll continues, "'Well,
this new weapon is so little, and we can apply it so precisely . . . that
nobody can believe that we're being irresponsible or careless or radical
in our use of such a wonderful little weapon.'" The "'truth,'" he
warns, "'is [that] the first use of nuclear explosives in warfare breaches
the firewall . . . and when we go on beyond that, we're put at the mercy
of the other side, which probably doesn't have such 'useful' or 'usable'
weapons.'"
Yet, those U.S. policy makers — many of them returnees from the Reagan/Bush
I Administrations — are unlikely to heed Admiral Carroll's warning because
they seem to be bent on unilateral, superpower purposes. And most
of them — including Vice President Dick Cheney and the current president
— are steadfast, ultra-patriotic believers in American "exceptionalism"
and unilateralism, or, perhaps, some version of a reincarnated 21st century
Manifest Destiny. This sort of outlook has become especially evident
as the fig leaf of U.S. multilateralism in amassing a coalition of sympathetic
powers after 9/11 has worn thinner. As U.S. policy makers clobber
Afghanistan with little loss of U.S. lives, their pride of power seems
to grow and their use for multilateralism lessens. At this point,
only the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, seems unaware of this political
reality. But even he might realize his true role when he reads in
the New York Times about President Bush II's "fuming" over what Bush called
"'weak-kneed European elites.'" Or, perhaps, it will
be when Blair finally realizes that the U.S.’s new Manichean division of
the world's nations virtually precludes true dialogue, real compromise,
and genuine partnership. At any rate, according to commentator Paul
Mcgeough, as Bush’s "axis of evil" speech "sinks in," the nations of the
world are getting the message "that the U.S. is multilateral only when
it suits its unilateral agenda." In the admiring words of the
head of the Center for Strategic Research in Moscow, Andrei Piontkovsky,
"'We are living in the age of a 'new Rome.'"
Anyway, in the words of an analyst from the prestigious London-based
Jane's Foreign Report, U.S. policy makers ambitions in the oil rich "'Causasus
and Central Asia'" are now "'in line with the doctrine of 'full-spectrum
dominance' that now seems to govern American foreign policy.'"
As detailed by the U.S. Department of Defense's Joint Vision 2020, "full
spectrum dominance" seems nothing short of the military means (with allied
and civilian agency assistance where necessary) for maintaining and enlarging
the U.S. led global, free market. In its words: "The ultimate
goal of our military force is to accomplish the objectives directed by
the National Command Authorities. For the joint force of the future
[i.e., Air Force, Navy, Army and Marine Corps], this goal will be achieved
through full spectrum dominance — the ability of US forces, operating unilaterally
or in combination with multinational and interagency partners, to defeat
any adversary and control any situation across the full range of military
operations. . . . Additionally, given the global nature of our interests
and obligations, the United States must maintain its overseas presence
forces and the ability to rapidly project power worldwide in order to achieve
full spectrum dominance" because "the global interests and responsibilities
of the United States will endure, and there is no indication that threats
to those interests . . . will disappear." Bluntly stated, this
means, as Vidal has entitled his latest iconoclastic book, "perpetual war
for perpetual peace" in the interest of those whom the great economist
Thorstein Veblen called the "vested interests." Full spectrum dominance
is simply the latest military means for meeting their global needs.
And, with the major media's avoidance or obfuscation of its real meaning
and underlying causes, it is George Orwell's 1984 come to life about 20
years behind schedule.
No surprise, then, that the pre-9/11 Bush II-facilitated plans
and discussions with the Taliban leaders to construct an oil pipeline through
Afghanistan are "being dusted off." Only, now, in their revised
form, they include two pipelines and possible Russian involvement in supplying
natural gas from their huge holdings. Yet, such an objective
in Afghanistan is merely small potatoes compared to what the U.S. State
Department long ago described as "'one of the greatest material prizes
in world history,'" i.e., oil. As expressed by an April 1944
State Department memorandum entitled "'Petroleum Policy of the United States,'"
the U.S. sought "'the preservation of the absolute position presently obtaining
[in the Western hemisphere], and therefore vigilant protection of existing
concessions in United States hands coupled with insistence upon the Open
Door principle of equal opportunity for United States companies in new
areas.'" So, with what scholar David Painter described as "'the
idea that the United States had a preemptive right to the world's oil resources
[having been] well entrenched by World War II,'" some U.S. policy
makers seemed fully prepared to take advantage of the Middle East opportunities
offered to them by the tragedy of 9/11.
Indeed, economist James M. Cypher points out in one of his recent analyses
that the oil and natural gas reserves in that northern region of the Caucasus
and central Asia may be part of a grander scheme that requires a huge military
buildup to consolidate the U.S. "position as the only superpower."
And that consolidation, in turn, requires "continued control of the world's
most important traded commodity — energy," again, oil. So,
with no more than 5% of the world's population, the U.S. "imports 52% of
the oil . . . that it consumes," which is 25% of the world's production.
But, most importantly, writes Cypher, the profits of huge oil/natural gas
corporations "like Shell, Exxon/Mobil, and Chevron/Texaco come from their
global control of oil and gas reserves. Securing this control," emphasizes
Cypher, "is one of the major functions of the U.S. military."
Cypher, then, not only agrees with author Michael Klare's contention in
Resource Wars that "U.S. foreign policy will focus increasingly on securing
global resources," but he points out that the "Pentagon and other centers
of U.S. power" have long demonstrated that "Middle East energy resources"
are a "'vital interest'" to them by supplying U.S. "client regimes" in
the region with "top level weapons" and $42 billion of arms between 1990
and 1997.
And, unsurprisingly, some analysts think that, under the Bush
II Administration, the "focus on the oil-exporting regions will only rise."
After all, according to Cypher, the "Bushes . . . tilt toward 'big energy'
is unmistakable." For example, the now defunct Enron energy
trading corporation was President George W. Bush's "number-one corporate
donor," and, before becoming Vice President, Cheney made his riches as
CEO of Halliburton oil services corporation while the current National
Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice is a former director of the Chevron corporation.
Such facts probably help explain why, shortly after the U.S. began bombing
Afghanistan, a U.S. representative to Pakistan, Wendy Chamberlain, met
with Pakistan's Federal Minister of Petroleum and Natural Resources, Usman
Aminuddin, to talk about the "'proposed Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan
gas pipeline project . . . in light of recent geopolitical developments
in the region.'" Indeed, as early as November 2001, President
Bush II had praised the opening of the "first new pipeline by the Caspian
Pipeline Consortium" (CPC), which included Russian, Kazakhstan, Oman and
British Petroleum Amoco interests, by saying: "'The CPC project advances
my administration's National Energy Policy.'" Thus, only the
most naive would be surprised to learn that the U.S.-installed head of
the new interim Afghan government, Hamid Karzai, is a former Unocal oil
company executive. And, covering all the bases, within nine
days of Karzai's installation, the Bush Administration sent, as the U.S.
"special envoy" to Karzai's government, a former Unocal aide, Zalmay Khalilzad.
Khalilzad not only reports to Rice, but he was a participant in "Unocal's
talks with the Taliban" about building an oil pipeline through Afghanistan
as early as 1997.
But the big questions in regard to oil resources for the vast
majority of Americans who have little or no investments in the oil and/or
natural gas energy companies are: Aren't U.S. policy makers doing
these things to keep our U.S. gas prices low? And isn't the current
U.S. policy makers' ambition for huge military budgets and "full spectrum
dominance" as well as securing firmer control of the world’s oil and gas
reserves in all Americans' interest? And the answer is not really.
However, it is clearly in the interest of the major investors in the military-industrial
complex, in those huge, private, transnational energy conglomerates, and
their elite counterparts in those energy-rich societies. As the ones
who own or control the private and public funnels through which their energy
products flow to U.S. consumers, those investors and their allies want
to continue reaping the profits that accrue to them by virtue of their
economic possessions. Yet, given the fact that, to garner necessary
income, the people within the raw energy producing regions of the world
would still have to sell their energy resources to world wide consumers,
even in the absence of private oil companies, there is no reason why that
process cannot be conducted through other funnels than private ones.
Nationalized or publicly owned or controlled energy firms have existed
and do exist. But U.S. policy makers tend to have a real big
problem with any non-private means of producing and selling energy.
The problem with such non-private firms — like Iraq's government owned
Iraq Oil Company (IOC) — is that they close the "open door" and, thereby,
block off private investment and profit making. And, don’t forget
that Iraq is second only to Saudi Arabia in supplying the world's consumers
with Mideast oil. So, it would be foolish to overlook
U.S. business and policy makers' interests in getting a firm grip on Iraqi
oil reserves.
Meanwhile, to this date there is virtually no evidence that Saddam
Hussein or anyone in Iraq had or has any connection with the 9/11 attacks
or the anthrax letters or Al Qaeda terrorists and refugees. Even
the evidence of Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction is lacking.
And, if such evidence materializes, so what? While Hussein has frequently
behaved like the most brutal and murderous of dictators, he has never displayed
suicidal tendencies. And, facing overwhelming U.S. fire power, he
would most likely use any such weapons in self-defense rather than agression.
And, if that is the case and as the CIA has noted, a U.S. attack could
well provoke him to use any and all of the weapons that he has in his arsenal
because he'll know that he has nothing to lose. Pushed into a corner,
he'll likely react in keeping with the "mad dog" syndrome. He may
bite.
Yet, political pundit Chris Matthews points out that the neoconservative
war hawks, who are calling for an invasion of Iraq, are "backed by
oil patchers George W. Bush and Dick Cheney" who, in turn, "share a sense
of entitlement about the world's oil reserves regardless of what flag flies
above them." Could it be that such policy makers are likely
to use any plausible pretext that they possibly can to justify an attack
on Iraq? Call me cynical, but their interest in "protecting" the
U.S. people with such an attack is not overwhelming clear. "Oil,"
Matthews bluntly states, "is a much more powerful motive" for an invasion
and conquest of Iraq. Once that conquest has been accomplished,
we should watch to see if, under one guise or another, the IOC will be
privatized for the enrichment of a few elite Iraqi collaborators of the
U.S. and outside investors.
Still, many ordinary U.S. citizens seem more than willing to go along
with this possible war and the certain deaths of those as innocent as those
who perished in New York on 9/11. And that is probably because that
many in the U.S. have become convinced that such a military action is either
part of a just war on terrorism or that Middle Eastern oil is vital for
U.S. national well being and security. For some people, it seems,
the upcoming military venture is worth whatever loss of lives that U.S.
policy makers may deem necessary. Yet, for those who care more about
the loss of human life than for the potential profits of some wealthy investors,
a thoughtful pause is in order.
According to very interesting 1999 studies published and cited by the
conservative Cato Institute and contrary to the conventional wisdom that
we've been long fed, neither "the Korean peninsula nor the Persian Gulf
is of vital strategic interest to the United States." Citing
two other studies in support of his findings, Ivan Eland, the head of Cato
Institute's Defense Policy Studies, described a scenario of the "worst
case imaginable." In it, Iraq conquers and occupies Kuwait,
the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia. Now, since Saudi Arabia
holds 25% of the world's proven oil reserves, Iraq's conquest of it and
those other countries means that Iraq would "increase its market power"
due to its control of "about 20 percent of the world's oil production."
But, adds Eland, citing economist David Henderson, formally of President
Reagan's Council of Economic Advisers, if Iraq raised its prices and pushed
up the "world price of oil," that "would also cause an increase in oil
production from other sources" and the competition would, then, "allow
for only a slight increase in the oil price." Other economists,
"from across the political spectrum," such as James Tobin, Milton Friedman
and William Niskanen, agreed with Henderson's analysis that the price increase
"would amount to one-half of 1 percent [.5%] of the U.S. GDP," and they
concluded that increase "did not justify a war."
In conclusion, "It's time," states Matthews, "for us to realize that
American principles have precious little to do with this costly [upcoming]
military campaign." Six months ago, most of the world's people
were horrified by the attacks of 9/11, but, now, writer Geov Parrish says,
people need to consider if the military doctrine of full spectrum dominance
is "an [apparent] aggressive desire for military domination of the world[?]"
As for the possible desire to establish firmer control over Middle East
oil, it’s time, as well, to realize that those whose patriotism is primarily
directed toward power, privileges, and profit simply have a black hole
where a moral universe ought to exist. Perhaps, such people would
do well to ponder the words of Matthew 16:26 before they doom more innocent
people to injury and death: "For what is a man profited, if he shall
gain the whole world, and lose his own soul." (E)
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Notes to U.S. Gigantisme Militaire I: Policy, Purpose, and Contemporary Events
Center for Defense Information (CDI), "Fiscal Year 2003 Pentagon
Budget Request, Budget Authority," February 4, 2002, 1 HYPERLINK
http://www.cdi.org/issues/budget/FY03topline-pr.cfm www.cdi.org/issues/budget/FY03topline-pr.cfm
. CDI noted that the figures included "Defense Emergency Response
Funds (FY 2002-2007)" and the total figure for FY 2002 "includes
$3.2 billion for 'Civilian accrual' which in the other years is included
in the actual DoD budget. Totals may not add up due to rounding."
CDI, "World Military Expenditures, US Vs World," 2,
HYPERLINK http://www.cdi.org/issues/wme/ www.cdi.org/issues/wme/
.
Ibid., 1-2. The U.S. State and Defense Department identifies
the seven so-called "likely adversaries" or "rouge states" as: Cuba,
Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria.
CDI, "Fiscal Year 2003 Budget, Highlights of the FY '03 Budget
Request," 1 HYPERLINK http://www.cdi.org/issues/budget/FY03Highlights-pr.cfm;
www.cdi.org/issues/budget/FY03Highlights-pr.cfm; CDI, "Fiscal
Year 2003 Budget, Discretionary Budget," 1, www.cdi.org/issues/budget/FY03Discretionary-pr-cfm.
In FY 2002 dollars, the cost of U.S. military spending in the Cold War,
1946-1991, was almost $15.830 trillion ($15,829,900,000,000). See
CDI,, 2001-2002 Military Almanac, Washington, D.C.: CDI, 2002, 35.
(Cited as CDI, Almanac).
CDI, Almanac, 35.
Richard DuBoff, "Stopping Terrorism VS. Promoting the Right:
No Contest," ZNET Daily Commentaries, 26 March 2002, 1, HYPERLINK
http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2002-03/26duboff.cfm
www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2002-03/26duboff.cfm .
DuBoff, 3.
"Periscope, After Anaconda: Al Qaeda Regroups," Newsweek,
25 March 2002, 6.
Thomas McCormick, The China Market: America’s Quest for
Informal Empire, 1893-1901, Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1990, 155.
Gore Vidal in an Interview with Barnes & Noble.com, no date,
1, wysiwyg://26http:// shop.barnesandnoble....n=156025405X&displayonly=authorInterview.
Interview of Pat Buchanan by Jake Tapper, "Pat Buchanan:
America first," Salon Interview, 3, HYPERLINK http://www.salon.com/people/feature/2001/12/04/buchanan/print.html
www.salon.com/people/feature/2001/12/04/buchanan/print.html .
Patrick J. Buchanan, "Why does Islam hate America?" WorldNetDaily,
5 March 2002, 2, HYPERLINK http://www.wnd.com/news/printer-friendly.asp?ARTICLE_ID=26706
www.wnd.com/news/printer-friendly.asp?ARTICLE_ID=26706 (Cited as
Buchanan, "Why?").
Uri Avnery, "A Queue of Bombers," 23 March 2002, 2,
HYPERLINK http://www.gush-shalom.org/archives/article187.html
www.gush-shalom.org/ archives/article187.html .
Ibid.
The poll data came from "face-to-face interviews with 9,924
residents of Pakistan, Iran, Indonesia, Turkey, Lebanon, Morocco, Kuwait,
Jordan, and Saudi Arabia" where "about half of the world's Muslim population
lives." Afghanistan public opinion was not polled, but it would be
surprising if Afghan sentiments would greatly vary from those polled in
the other Muslim countries. The same goes for Iraqi and Iranian sentiments.
See CNN.com, "Poll: Muslims call U.S. 'ruthless, arrogant,'" 26 February
2002, 1, CNN.com - poll: Muslims call U.S. ...ess, arrogant - February
26wysiwyg://21http:// cnn.unnews.prin...980681523&partnerID=2004&expire=-1
(Cited as CNN.com).
Ibid.
Ibid.
Buchanan, "Why," 2.
Buchanan, "Bush-bashing by Bill Bennett," WorldNetDaily, 22
March 2002, 2 HYPERLINK http://www.wnd.com/news/printer-friendly.asp?ARTICLE_ID=26929
www.wnd.com/news/printer-friendly.asp?ARTICLE_ID=26929 .
Buchanan, "Why the War Party may fail," WorldNetDaily, 16 November
2001, 2-3, HYPERLINK http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=25354
www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=25354 (Cited as Buchanan,
"War Party"). Chris Matthews lists the most vociferous of these neo-conservative,
war hawks as Bill Kristol (editor of Weekly Standard), Robert Kegan (columnist
for Washington Post), Frank Gaffney Jr. (columnist for Washington Times,
William Safire (columnist for New York Times), David Frum (the neo-conservative
Canadian speech writer who wrote Bush's "axis of evil" address), Joseph
Shattan (speech writer who replaced Frum), Paul Wolfowitz (Deputy Secretary
of Defense), Doug Feith (Undersecretary of Defense), I. Lewis "Scooter"
Libby (Cheney's Chief of staff), Richard Perle (head of the Defense Policy
Board, a Pentagon advisory group), William Luti (Deputy Assistant Secretary
of Defense for Near East and South Asian Affairs), and Andrew Marshall
(head of the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment). See Chris Matthews,
"The road to Baghdad," San Francisco Chronicle, 24 March 2002, SFGate,
1, HYPERLINK http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archiev/2002/03/24/IN164155.DTL
www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/ chronicle/archiev/2002/03/24/IN164155.DTL
; Seymour M. Hersh, "The Debate Within," New Yorker, March 11,2002,
34; Ken Silverstein, "The Man of ONA," The Nation, no date, 1,
HYPERLINK http://www.thenation.com/docPrint.mhtml?i=archive&s=19991025silverstein2
www.thenation.com/docPrint.mhtml?i=archive&s=19991025silverstein2 .
The authors and signers were "William Bennett, Gary Bauer, Jean
Kirkpatrick and 38 other ex-Republican officials and foreign-policy scholars."
And those people, Buchanan notes, were led and followed by the "chattering
classes" and conservative "scribblers," editorialists on T.V., in conservative
think-tanks, the Wall Street Journal, The Weekly Standard, National Review
and the New Republic as well as fellow traveling columnist on the op-ed
pages of Washington and New York papers. See Buchanan, "War Party,"
2.
Alexandra Williams and Bob Roberts, "Bush's Nuclear Madness,"
Daily Mirror, 11 March 2002, at Common Dreams News-Center, 1
HYPERLINK http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0311-02.htm
www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0311-02.htm . Echoing Mahon's sentiments,
British Minister of Parliament, Donald Anderson, chairman of the House
of Commons foreign affairs select committee, said, "I think there are reckless
elements in the Pentagon who are on a roll because of Afghanistan." See
Williams, 3.
Paul Richter, "U.S. Works Up Plan for Using Nuclear Arms," Los
Angeles Times, 9 March 2002, at latimes.com, 1-2, www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/1a-030902bomb.story.
Geov Parrish, "The doomsday regime," WorkingForChange, 4,
HYPERLINK http://www.workingforchange.com/printilem.cfm?itemid=12949
www.workingforchange. com/printilem.cfm?itemid=12949 .
The moral constraint was neither that of U.S. policy making
pledges not to engage in the "first use" of nuclear weapons nor that of
not threatening to use such weapons. U.S. policy makers have always
asserted their right to be the first to use nuclear weapons, and U.S. presidents
have frequently threatened to use them. But, until "Nuclear Posture
Review" was promulgated, the active and serious planning of nuclear first
strikes (an exception was Iraq) was invariably against nuclear states or
their proxies. The practical constraint was that of not having made
many or the type of sophisticated small-yield nuclear weaponry that could
be employed on the conventional battlefield. See Parrish, 1;
Khatchadourian, 3.
Khatchadourian, 3. On the basis of previous underground nuclear
explosions at the Nevada Test Site, nuclear weapons specialist Robert Nelson
of the Federation of American Scientists argues that even if an earth-penetration
nuclear bomb had a yield that was only 1% of the 15 kiloton Hiroshima bomb,
it would not be able to penetrate to sufficient depth (about 650 feet)
and explode without creating the likelihood of a fire ball that "would
blast through the earth's surface, carrying a cloud of radioactive dirt
and debris" unknown distances. See Khatchadourian, 4.
I bid.
Ibid.
Paul Mcgeough, "The Lone Ranger," Sydney Morning Herald, 9 March
2002, 2, forwarded email.
Idid., 3. Buchanan maintains that Bush's "bellicose wordsmiths
of the War Party" "have pushed him out on a limb . . . from which he is
already visibly trying to crawl back." See Buchanan, "The War Party
and the 'Axis of Evil,'" WorldNetDaily, 5 February 2002, 2,
HYPERLINK http://www.wnd.com/new/printer-friendly.asp?ARTICLE_ID=26329
www.wnd.com/news/ printer-friendly.asp?ARTICLE_ID=26329 . Four days
earlier, Buchanan, still with all due deference to power, put more of the
onus on Bush when he asked these questions about the "axis of evil" rhetoric:
"Has Bush been carried away by his triumphs and his polls? What happened
to the Bush's pre-election promise of humility walking hand-in-hand with
American power?" See Buchanan, "American Caesar," WorldNetDaily,
1 February 2002, 2, HYPERLINK http://www.wnd.com/news/printer-friendly.asp?ARTICLE_ID=26289
www.wnd.com/news/printer-friendly.asp?ARTICLE_ID=26289 .
Scott Peterson, "Terror war and oil expand U.S. sphere of influence,"
Christian Science Monitor, 19 March 2002, 2, HYPERLINK http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0319/p01s04-wosc.html
www.csmonitor.com/2002/0319/p01s04-wosc.html . Some of the most influential
of the war hawks are Paul Wolfowitz (Deputy Secretary of Defense), Doug
Feith (Undersecretary of Defense), I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby (Cheney's Chief
of staff), Richard Perle (head of the Defense Policy Board, a Pentagon
advisory group), William Luti (Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for
Near East and South Asian Affairs), and Andrew Marshall (head of the Pentagon's
Office of Net Assessment). See Chris Matthews, "The road to Baghdad,"
San Francisco Chronicle, 24 March 2002, SFGate, 1, HYPERLINK
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archiev/2002/03/24/IN164155.DTL
www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/ chronicle/archiev/2002/03/24/IN164155.DTL
; Seymour M. Hersh, "The Debate Within," New Yorker, March 11,2002,
34; Ken Silverstein, "The Man of ONA," The Nation, no date, 1,
HYPERLINK http://www.thenation.com/docPrint.mhtml?i=archive&s=19991025silverstein2
www.thenation.com/docPrint. mhtml?i=archive&s=19991025silverstein2
. Some insight into the attitude of the most important and hawkish
of these policy makers may be gained by observing that neither Wolfowitz
nor Perle nor Cheney ever served in the military and each of them is demanding
a war against Iraq while also backing Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's
use of force and mass reprisals to crush "terrorism." See Robert
Novak, Chicago Sun Times, 31 March 2002, 2, HYPERLINK http://www.suntimes.com/cgi-bin/print.cgi
www.suntimes. com/cgi-bin/print.cgi . In a recent interview, described
in the San Francisco Chronicle, Wolfowitz explained his logic for pressing
so hard for a war against Saddam Hussein's regime. His reasoning was that
the "amount [of evidence that Hussein is covertly working on nuclear weapons]
that we don't know is much larger than the amount we do know." See
"Soft cry of a hard hawk," San Francisco Chronicle, 1 March 2002, SF Gate,
2, HYPERLINK http://www.sfgate.com/cgi/article.cg.../chronicle/archive/2002/03/01/ED4317.DTL
www.sfgate.com/cgi/article.cg.../chronicle/archive/2002/03/01/ED4317.DTL
.
Ibid. Full-spectrum dominance is a military doctrine (last
expressed in U.S. Department of Defense document Joint Vision 2020) which
"means the ability of U.S. forces, operating alone or with allies, to defeat
any adversary and control any situation across the range of military operations"
stretching "from nuclear war to major theater wars to smaller-scale contingencies."
See Jim Garamone, "Joint Vision 2020 Emphasizes Full-spectrum Dominance,"
American Forces Information Service News Articles at DefenseLINK News,
U.S. Department of Defense. Actually, full-spectrum dominance is
nothing new. It is merely the modernized high tech equivalent of
"flexible response" which was introduced to U.S. military strategists and
"open door" protectors by Maxwell Taylor's book Uncertain Trumpet in 1959.
Adopted by the John F. Kennedy Administration and all subsequent Administrations,
the strategy of "flexible response" called (and calls) for the U.S. military
and police apparatus to be able to respond to the whole spectrum of "threats"
that it could face from thermal nuclear war to small-scale guerrilla war
to mere political subversion anywhere in the world. Clearly, "flexible
response" and "full spectrum dominance" are not only variants of each other,
but they are the means through which global objectives claims may be implemented.
U.S. Department of Defense, General Henry H. Shelton, Chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Office of Primary Responsibility: Director
for Strategic Plans and Policy, J5; Strategy Division, Joint Vision 2020,
Washington, D.C.: US Government Printing Office, June 2000, 6.
Ibid., 1.
Gore Vidal, Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace: How We
Got To Be So Hated, New York: Thunder's Mouth P., 2002.
Peterson, 2-3.
Ibid., 3.
Noam Chomsky, World Orders Old and New, New York: Columbia
UP, 1994, 190.
Ibid., 190-191.
Ibid., 222.
James M. Cypher, "Return of the Iron Triangle: The New
Military Buildup," Dollars and Sense, 2002, 7, HYPERLINK http://www.dollarsandsense.org/2002/cypher0102.htm
www.dollarsandsense.org/2002/cypher0102.htm .
Ibid.
Ibid.
Chris Matthews, "The road to Baghdad," San Francisco Chronicle,
24 March 2002, SF Gate, 2, HYPERLINK http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/03/24/IN164155.DTL
www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/03/24/IN164155.DTL
.
Cypher.
Ibid.
Cypher, 7.
Ibid.
Ibid., 7-8.
Larry Chin, "A rigged chessboard: Bridas, Unocal and the
Afghanistan pipeline," 11 March 2002, 4, HYPERLINK http://www.smirkingchimp.com/article.php?sid=5646&mode=thread&order=0
www.smirkingchimp.com/article.php?sid=5646&mode=thread&order=0
.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid. Zalmay Khalilzad has served in the Ronald Reagan
Administration State Department where he helped arm the mujahadeen (with
whom Osama bin Laden served) during the 1980s. He was an undersecretary
of defense in the Bush I Administration, and, later, he worked at the always
"hawkish Rand Corporation." See Ibid., 4-5.
Matthews, 2.
Matthews lists the most vociferous of these neo-conservative,
war hawks as Bill Kristol (editor of Weekly Standard), Robert Kegan (columnist
for Washington Post), Frank Gaffney Jr. (columnist for Washington Times,
William Safire (columnist for New York Times), David Frum (the neo-conservative
Canadian speech writer who wrote Bush's "axis of evil" address), Joseph
Shattan (speech writer who replaced Frum), Paul Wolfowitz (Deputy Secretary
of Defense), Doug Feith (Undersecretary of Defense), and I. Lewis "Scooter"
Libby (Cheney's Chief of staff). See Matthews, 1.
Ibid., 1-2.
Ibid., 2.
Ivan Eland, "Tilting at Windmills: Post-Cold War Military Threats
to U.S. Security," Policy Analysis, No. 332 (8 February 1999), 14, www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-332es.html.
Ibid., 10.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Matthews, 2.
Parrish, 3.