James A. Stevenson :
© April 20, 2002
U.S. Gigantisme Militaire II: Policy, Purpose, and Contemporary Events
As explained in U.S. Gigantisme Militaire I, the present convergence
of events, economic interests, and institutional structures has brought
about some very real opportunities for some major business interests and
the primary beneficiaries of the energy industries and the U.S. military-industrial
complex. Indeed, some policy makers in the current Bush Administration
have apparently seized upon the moment to promote the idea that acceptance
of virtually all of their pre-9/11 policy proposals is an act of
national loyalty. Conversely, opposing such policies is portrayed
by some conservative partisans as unpatriotic. For a recent example,
one may observe how the once and always questionable pork of $20 billion
per year in U.S. farm subsidies (huge agribusinesses included) was okayed
by Congress partly because the Administration declared that the farmers'
subsidies were a matter of national security, and, thus, "beyond question
in public debate." So, while the domestic and foreign circumstances
may change, the Bush II Administration's answers remain much the same.
And to achieve their goals with the least possible resistance offered to
them, some of the Administration's policy makers and supporters hope to
make people to believe that anyone who criticizes Administration policies
must be somehow weak on terrorism, as they define it.
Yet, such self-serving approaches and policies do not favor most of
the U.S. population. After all, who but the "Bushies" and self-interested
weapons makers, politicians, and certain military brass has not noticed
that such costly weapon systems as the National Missile Defense (NMD) —
$42 billion to be spent by 2008 — could not have prevented the attacks
by suicidal, knife-wielding adversaries and/or some demented anthrax assassin(s)?
Look, even before 9/11, the highly respected Center for Defense Information
(CDI) had undertaken a rigorous study on overall U.S. military strategy
and reform that challenged the defensive value of the NMD. The study
made the irrefutable point that the NMD advocates have "'never satisfactorily
explained why an opponent would chose the expensive, technically difficult,
and suicidal method of delivering a weapon of mass destruction via missile
rather than via truck, boat, or plane.'"
Thus, U.S. middle and lower class citizens are left with a couple of
very important questions about the purpose and efficiency of the U.S. "Department
of Defense" (DoD) budget. First, are those proposed Bush Administration
defense expenditures of over $2.495 trillion in the next six years, Fiscal
Years (FYs) 2002-2007, actually creating a military force that can most
effectively defend the population within the U.S.? After all, as Ivan Eland,
the Director of the conservative Cato Institute's Defense Policy Studies,
points out, "Since the first responsibility of any government is to protect
its territory, citizens and way of life [read: the social order’s
status quo], threats to the homeland need to be ranked at the top."
Likewise, the Pentagon's latest 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review stated
that one aim of the Department of Defense (DoD) was to "'restore the defense
of the U.S. as the department's primary mission.'" Yet, while
the primacy of homeland defense is acknowledged by this document, the pattern
of those "defense" expenditures raises a second question. And that
question is: Are those enormous expenditures primarily designed to
benefit those business interests and elites who are vitally served by the
maintenance of a globally integrated, corporate dominated, "free market"
capitalism?
Part of the answer to those questions may be found in the fact that
the 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review went on to argue that the U.S. must
also "build forces capable of moving rapidly overseas." And,
of course, this shift of focus, from the domestic to the foreign, is in
keeping with the more expansionistic view of national defense that can
be traced at least as far back as Admiral Alfred T. Mahan's late 1800s
advocacy of what is termed "insular imperialism," i.e., seizing territories,
fueling stations, and outposts far from U.S. shores under the rubric of
the "doctrine of defense." Today, it is a view that is buttressed
by both the U.S. government's Commission on National Security/21st Century's
1999 report entitled New World Coming: American Security in the 21st
Century and the Pentagon's 2000 "Joint Vision 2020."
This latter document contains the blueprint and geopolitical strategy for
creating military "full spectrum dominance" in order to provide the means
for maintaining and/or enlarging what, almost fifty years ago, historian
William Appleman Williams was probably the first to described as the U.S.,
informal, open door empire.
Now, the aim of the 1998-1999 Commission on National Security/21st
Century was to outline "a strategy for the United States to 'remain the
principal military power in the world'" in the "coming century."
And the Commission's report not only concluded that the U.S. would become
"increasingly vulnerable to direct 'nontraditional' attacks" on its "information-technology
infrastructure, but the U.S., also, would "have to intervene abroad more
frequently to deal with state fragmentation or to insure an 'uninterrupted'
supply of oil from the Persian Gulf region or elsewhere." Moreover,
to insure a continuing U.S. dominance on earth and in space, this 1999
report concluded that "U.S. military spending will have to rise dramatically."
Meanwhile, in dovetail fashion, the Pentagon's official 2000 "Joint Vision
2020" document concluded that "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 world wide in order to
achieve full spectrum dominance." Of course, "attaining that
goal [with full spectrum dominance] requires the steady infusion of new
technology and modernization and replacement of equipment."
And that, in turn, means, to paraphrase the celebrated writer Gore Vidal,
perpetual preparation for perpetual war for perpetual peace and all the
profit that mostly goes to a few people by implementing it.
After all, such objectives require pouring Himalayas of U.S. tax monies
into the pockets of weapons makers and the Pentagon. Presumably,
this enormous spending spree is in order to be able to either preempt or
counterattack threats or possible threats across the whole range of challenges
stretching from thermonuclear war and missile launched biological/chemical
weapons of mass destruction down to the level of all categories of "asymmetrical
warfare" and "ambiguous situations residing between peace and war, such
as peacekeeping and peace enforcement operations. And, if the
past is any guide, this is to be done through the rapid detection and suppression
of terrorist or possibly anyone who might try to stir things up by promoting
demands for the downward — rather than the normally upward — redistribution
of the rewards and benefits of some part of the world's GDP. So,
in "Joint Vision 2020's" cry for more money for the military budget, the
Pentagon informs the up-scale vested interests in harmony with it that
"if our Armed Forces are to be faster, more lethal, and more precise in
2020 than they are today, we must continue to invest in and develop new
military capabilities."
In tandem, these two official documents on U.S. military strategy and
doctrine accelerate a dramatic trend toward a more full blown militarization
of U.S. foreign policy. Indeed, with the collapse of the Soviet Union,
they also reveal some U.S. policy makers' longstanding — and perpetually
denied — views that, while other nations' leaders and policy makers may
think in terms of "spheres of influence," certain U.S. policy makers have
long thought of the whole world as their sphere. Known by some historians
of the 19th and 20th centuries as "America's hegemonic project,"
the continuing construction any 21st century U.S. world order is not likely
to be very different than were its 19th and 20th century predecessors.
In fact, there are daily signs that, unless fundamental policy changes
are undertaken, we and our descendents may be in for a century as bloody
as the one that we left behind.
Already, by pursuing what has always been the chimera of peace through
war and the preparation for war, it appears that U.S. policy makers have
been squandering the fruits of global security and social progress that
could have accrued to all humanity after the end of the Cold War.
For example, instead of following the 1996 advice of former Air Force General
Lee Butler, Army General Andrew Goodpaster and five dozen other senior
military commanders from around the world who pushed for the total elimination
of all nuclear weapons on earth in a manner that is both gradual and "far
more ambitious than current treaties," the current U.S. policy makers
are developing plans and means — the "Nuclear Posture Review" — to employ
"limited" nuclear weapons on conventional battlefields. On the other
hand, Goodpaster and Butler and the 60 other like-minded senior officers,
who joined their appeal, had contended that, in the aftermath of the Gulf
War, U.S. and allied conventional forces were sufficiently powerful to
deter "rogue states" from any really serious aggressive acts. More
importantly, the world's existing nuclear arsenals of around 35,700 nuclear
weapons could be rapidly reduced to hundreds if "'only a fraction of the
ingenuity and resources as were devoted to their creation,'" were employed
to bury them, says Butler. In his words, "'the price already paid
[for keeping the weapons] is too dear, the [future] risks run too great.'"
By ignoring such post-Cold War advice from such highly qualified military
men, the current U.S. power elite policy makers are taking humanity
not only on a risky and costly journey, but they are also taking Americans
on one that is fraught with danger to our civil liberties. Already,
with certain provisions in the "U.S.A. Patriots Act," those policy
makers and allied Congresspeople have verified President John Quincy Adams's
prescient warning that Americans cannot hope to preserve our domestic freedoms
if we persist in going "'abroad seeking monsters to slay.'"
And, Adams noted, with still more relevance to the global policies being
considered by today's military-minded policy makers, that the U.S. "'might
become the dictatress of the world . . . [but she] would no longer be the
ruler of her own spirit.'" Likewise, for those ordinary Americans
who might think that the militarization of the U.S. is some sort of boon
to their egos, civil liberties or personal freedoms, Henry Clay — a far
wiser "war hawk" in his day than those currently calling for larger military
budgets and foreign conquests — warned that even "'a successful war . .
. creates a military influence and power, which I consider the greatest
danger of war.'" More recently and more graphically, President
Dwight D. Eisenhower put it succinctly when he issued his tragically unheeded
warning that the U.S. people "must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted
influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.
The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will
persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger
our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for
granted."
Yet, after the horrible events of 9/11 and its aftermath, such warnings
from the past are all but swept away. Now, it is shaping up to be
"business-as-usual" for the top beneficiaries of the military-industrial
complex. That is due to the fact that the crime of 9/11 seems to
have taken what had been a growing debate about a reorientation of U.S.
military spending on expensive weaponry and abruptly cut it off.
In other words, it apparently ended the debate over whether to continue
to purchase the types of weapon systems that had become traditional in
the Cold War era or to purchase a wholly new generation of 21st century,
futuristic weapons systems. Indeed, as it turned out, the Pentagon
appears to be able, as economist James M. Cypher writes, "'to have its
cake and eat it too.'"
But, before 9/11, that debate had specifically pitted the advocates
of what former Lt. Colonel Ralph Peters calls the "medium weight,"
highly mobile, high tech interventionist force of the future
against the proponents of "heavy weight," Cold War "legacy weapons"
interventionist force of the past. A forceful proponent of
using interventionist "raw [military] power" and of more spending on a
properly "reformed" military, Peters aligns himself with such other "medium
weight" or "new military" force advocates as Army Chief of Staff General
Eric Shinseki and former Colonel Doug MacGregor. These "futurist"
military men were coincidentally fortified in their argument by other prominent
critics of status quo military spending such as the non-militarist Director
of the Arms Trade Resource Center William D. Hartung, the Director of Defense
Policy Studies at the conservative Cato Institute Ivan Eland, presidential
candidate George W. Bush II, future Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld,
and the former military officers and civilian analysts at the Center for
Defense Information.
So, before September 11, 2001, the two opposing groups, as Cypher reveals
in his analysis "Return of the Iron Triangle: The New Military Buildup,"
were locked in a contentious debate over whether to continue to purchase
the huge, old-fashioned heavy-weapons systems of ships, planes, tanks,
and missiles of the Cold War model on which most "military officials" and
"weapons contractors" had "built their careers" and made their "fortunes,"
or to purchase the new "cyber-age" high-tech weapons systems of the Revolution
in Military Affairs (RMA) model (i.e., the cyber-age weapon systems such
as "communication networks, satellites, robot observation planes, smart
bombs, night vision instruments, highly mobile 'light' armor and global
positioning system (GPS)-equipped soldiers"). If, therefore,
the RMA model were adopted, it threatened to "marginalize" the "old military."
And when, in March 2001, President Bush II announced that the Administration
wanted $14 billion over the Clinton FY 2001 defense budget for the Bush
FY 2002 defense budget, it was presented as a move "into the RMA" model.
This, according to Cypher, set off alarm bells in the ranks of the powerful
beneficiaries of the "old military," and they began to fight to save such
enormously expensive weapons systems as the F-22 fighter, the V-22 Osprey
aircraft, heavy tanks, and various naval vessels as well as other Cold
War "legacy" weapon systems. In short order, Congressmen and weapons
makers were fighting Rumsfeld on base closings, reductions in manpower,
major weapons systems and the NMD.
And, then, came September 11, 2001. As Cypher explains, it is
now being exploited to accommodate not only the advocates who want to procure
all of the "military's heavy aircraft and tank forces," naval, and Cold
War legacy weapon systems, but, also, the advocates who want to purchase
all the high-tech weapon systems that are part of the new RMA strategy.
In short, the Bush II Administration has apparently done a flip-flop on
the issue. It, now, is taking advantage of the new historical circumstances
to push for costly weapons systems that range from those of apparently
great value and efficacy for possible future asymmetric warfare to those
that are seen by some as weapons for global intimidation — like the NMD
— to those that are of virtually no use at all. Simultaneously, the
majority of congresspeople seem almost foolishly eager to "spend almost
endlessly for anything that falls under the rubric of homeland defense,'
or 'economic stimulus'" lest they appear unpatriotic or be accused
of being weak on terrorism or lose out on the taxpayer bonanza now gushing
toward the military-industrial complex. Thus, "the current Pentagon
budget slows some programs, but doesn't eliminate any controversial big-ticket
items." Indeed, with much of the weight of any need for
economic restraint lifted from his shoulders, the "dyed-in-the-wool hawk"
Rumsfeld can apparently satisfy his every weapon procurement desire.
With the staggering sum of over $2.495 trillion to be spent on the Pentagon
over FY 2002-2007, he and the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff,
General Richard Myers, want the defense budget "to increase at an even
faster rate."
In fact, the U.S. military behemoth has already reached such proportions
vis-a-vis the rest of the world that the French, with their marvelous appreciation
for wit and wisdom, have taken to describing its size as "an organism grown
so large" that it has morphed into a pathological condition known as gigantisme
militaire. But, utilizing the U.S. public's sense of "powerlessness"
and anger in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the Bush II Administration
is apparently moving to gratify some military contractors with huge expenditures
on "obsolete cold war weapons systems," on new high tech weapons systems,
and on military pork to certain Congressional districts.
Worst yet, in the view of some thoughtful military analysts, some of
the most unnecessary weapons systems are likely to be a dangerous diversion
of tremendous amounts of money that could be vital for U.S.A. homeland
protection. And if state agencies and local governments are denied
the federal funds that they need because those funds are being diverted
into "advanced" weapon system designed for offensive use instead of being
used to beef up domestic security and preparedness, it could mean disaster.
Meanwhile, the claim of a complete "victory" in Afghanistan and the prospect
of conquering Iraq and/or destroying the Al Qaida cells scattered throughout
the world is apparently encouraging some U.S. policy makers to accelerate
their move toward another objective. And that objective, according
to various analysts, has nothing to do with real homeland defense.
They argue that the "‘war on terrorism,’" as Bradford University's Department
of Peace Studies' Paul Rogers states, "'is simply a euphemism for extending
U.S. control in the world.'" So, could it be, as military analyst
Peter Beaumont and Ed Vulliamy write, that what the Bush II Administration
"is spending its [big] money on is mostly irrelevant against the knives
use to carry out 11 September" and homeland defense?
That particular indictment of the Bush Administration's military and
homeland defense spending practices has been powerfully backed up by the
findings which economist Richard Du Boff's has presented regarding the
Bush Administration's claims to be protecting the domestic U.S. population
with their "war on terrorism" and their accompanying tremendous boost in
military spending. Contrasting appearance with reality in a hard-hitting
expose, Du Boff makes the following observations: First, although
Attorney General Ashcroft had publicly stated on May 9, July 11, and August
9, 2001, that "'our number 1 priority is the prevention of terrorist attacks
. . . [and that] the threat of terrorism here at home is a serious and
growing challenge,'" Ashcroft "made no mention of terrorism," in an internal
"May 10 letter to department heads setting out the [four main goals of
the] Bush policy agenda" for the Justice Department. Second,
"on August 9, a chart entitled 'Strategic Plan-Attorney General Priorities'
was distributed inside the Justice Department." It contained the
same goals as the May 10 letter and, while adding "36 objectives under
them," only "one of 36 referred to intelligence concerning terrorists,"
and even it was not among the thirteen that were "highlighted in yellow
as [the highest priority] 'Highlight-AG Goal.'" Third, as a
result of these priorities—- devoid of virtually any reference to the potentiality
of terrorism within the U.S. — on September 10, 2001, Ashcroft submitted
the Justice Department's FY 2003 final budget request after eliminating
"FBI requests for $58 million for 149 new counterterrorism field agents,
200 intelligence analysts, and 54 additional translators."
Indeed, Ashcroft "proposed reductions in 14 such programs," including a
cut of $65 million "for state and local governments for counterterrorism
equipment." Well, that was all before 9/11, but, as noted by
Du Boff, "after September" Ashcroft still "would not . . . set aside right
wing priorities in favor of anti-terrorism measures." So, finally,
when, "on September 16 the FBI began checking a list of 186 suspect people
against federal gun purchase records" and got two "'hit'" on individuals
who were "suspect" and, yet, still had purchased guns, Ashcroft's Assistant
Attorney General Viet Dinh waded in with a ruling on September 17 that
the "continued use of the records was against the law." Ashcroft
not only confirmed this action but "another "request by the FBI in October
to check 1,200 names was refused." In Du Boff’s opinion, Ashcroft
and neoconservatives in the Bush Administration have seized upon the disasters
of 9/11 "to promote a hard right-wing political and economic agenda at
home and abroad."
Meanwhile, the Middle East is exploding in ways that are likely to
create more fanatical enemies for any and all people — Christian, Muslim,
Hindu, Buddhist, agnostic, atheist, infidel, you name it, the bombs and
biological and chemical agents don't care. The suicide attackers
of 9/11 certainly didn't discriminate as to their victims. Against
people who are determined, desperate, and suicidal, the expensive U.S.
military apparatus is not only likely to be wasting gobs of money "at the
expense of alternatives that would actually make America more secure,"
but it is provoking a likely "blow-back" that needlessly jeopardizes people
in the U.S. and abroad. It seems that just as some U.S. policy makers
may care little about the lost of the foreign innocent lives that their
military actions are causing, their zealous and opposing counterparts think
no differently. And that unites all the rest of humanity in the fate
of being the actual or potential victims of those policy makers' mutual
fanaticism, paranoia, and ambitions. Meanwhile, current U.S. foreign
policy and military activities may be generating new enemies on almost
a daily basis.
Already, Newsweek reports, for example, that Palestinian despair and
rage in the Palestinian territories is so great that Palestinian support
for suicide-bombing has risen from 20 percent in 1995 and 1996, to 80 percent
today. And, as I noted when I cited the recent Gallop poll
figures in U.S. Gigantisme Militaire I, the pool of anti-U.S. policy among
Muslims in the Middle East is apparently growing to tidal wave proportions.
So, what Americans need now is fundamental policy changes in the Middle
East and not more war and the preparation for war that is being advocated
by those whom columnist Georgie Anne Geyer describes as "either combative
neoconservatives, fervent Israeli supporters or Christian conservatives"
as well as all those other pundits, publishers, preachers, and policy makers
who are in what Patrick J. Buchanan terms the "War Party."
After all, some of those people seem to be the type of people who, it may
be inferred from Geyer, like to play with people's lives as if they were
pawns in a geopolitical chest game. But, what Americans
now need, as Du Boff notes that Mark Steel in the London Independent states,
are not policies based on a form of infantile "'revenge against anyone
who's caused the United States embarrassment'" in foreign lands, but "serious
and constructive policies to stop terrorism."
And, given President Bush II's Rose Garden speech of April 4,
2002, there seemed to be an opportunity for some sanity. After all,
despite being surrounded by some war hawks and "quasi-fascists," as political
thinker Noam Chomsky has termed some of those in the current Administration,
Bush may sense the danger of turning virtually the entire Arab and Muslim
world against the U.S. But Bush's many calls — albeit unheeded —
for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to withdraw his troops and tanks
from Palestinian territories and Bush's dictate that "'the [35 year illegal]
occupation [of Palestinian territories] must end through withdrawal to
secure and recognized boundaries consistent with United Nations Resolution
242 and 338'" have evoked strident criticism from the conservative
hawks and Sharon supporters in both major political parties as well as
from "his own advisors." So, Bush may well surrender his better
judgement of April 4 to those assertive advisors. But the path to
creating less and not more "terrorism" and to creating more and not less
security for every individual — American and foreigner — is the route away
from more state violence and war in the Middle East and toward fundamental
U.S. policy changes and peace.
There is nothing naive in this proposal. After all, Sharon's
repression of the Palestinians shows no sign of doing anything but backfiring,
and unless he and his policy makers are prepared to engage in a genocidal
slaughter or "ethnic cleansing" of Palestinians from their territories,
his repressive policies will probably fail to do anything but create more
enemies and more resistance. So, if Sharon continues, with widely
perceived U.S. policy maker support, his pursuit of gaining "security"
through military action against a beleaguered people, ordinary Americas
may be at risk. Instead of allowing that to happen to Americans and
for the world's security, Americans must help stop the killing in the Middle
East, and they must heed the findings and homeland security recommendation
of the 1997 Defense Science Board.
As reported by the Director of Defense Studies at the Cato Institute,
Ivan Eland, the Defense Science Board's comprehensive study on terrorism,
entitled The Defense Science Board 1997 Summer Study Task Force on DoD
[Department of Defense] Responses to Transnational Threats, found that
"‘historical data show a strong correlation between U.S. involvement in
international situations and terrorist attacks against the United States.’"
Eland went on to anticipate the deadly "change" or reality that everyone
now knows is true: "Once regarded as pinprick by great powers, attacks
by terrorist groups can now be catastrophic for the American homeland."
The Defense Science Board, he points out, "concluded that terrorists can
now more rapidly obtain the technology for weapons of mass terror and have
fewer qualms about using them to cause enormous casualties."
More importantly, he observes that it "will be extremely difficult to deter,
prevent, detect, or mitigate the effects of such [nuclear, biological,
chemical] attacks." Thus, the Director of Cato Institute's
Defense Policy Studies wisely concludes: "There is a way to significantly
reduce the chances of an attack on the American home land by terrorists
using weapons of mass terror. . . . [The U.S. must cease] provocative overseas
intervention . . . [and] should adopt a policy of military restraint.
That policy entails intervening only as a last resort . . ."
In keeping with that conclusion, if President Bush is serious about
protecting all the people of his nation from the anger of suicidal foes,
he can best do so by adhering to international law, and, so, fight terrorism
with fundamental policy changes that are in keeping with the principles
embodied in the U.N. Charter and International Court of Justice decisions.
Above all, he must reverse the accelerating militarization of U.S. foreign
policy and society. And if he does those things but begins to falter
under the impact of events, powerful economic interests, and the weight
of pressure from hard right partisans at home and abroad, everyone should
support the "better angels of his nature" to uphold international law and
work toward ending the growing likelihood of more unnecessary bloodshed.
Already, there is an emerging movement of anti-war, U.S. college students
calling for non-violence, justice, and peace in the Middle East.
In their ranks are anti-Zionist Jews, anti-terrorist Palestinians, Muslims,
Christians, secularists, and people of all faiths, classes and nationalities.
With their explicit recognition of the brotherhood and sisterhood of all
humanity and their non-violent protests for a just peace in the Middle
East, they are actually buttressing President Bush's April 4, 2002 call
for adherence to international law. After all, they, and not a few
war-loving policy makers who try to keep Americans in perpetual fear and
hatred of some "other," are showing everyone the way to a better future
of peace, security, and justice for the unitary and forever human family.
(E)
PAGE 8
PAGE 8
Notes to U.S. Gigantisme Militaire II: Policy, Purpose, and Contemporary Events
These entail cutting taxes to disproportionately benefit the
wealthy, pushing defense expenditures to astronomical heights, spending
at least $42 billion on a National Missile Defense (NMD) Maginot line through
2007, beginning the "Enroning" of Social Security through a privatization
process that brings benefits to U.S. bankers and stock brokers, exploiting
oil and natural resources with greater abandon than in the past, and ignoring
vital environmental protections. As Newsweek's best economic/business
analyst, Allan Sloan recently observed about the mess that, earlier, extraordinarily
reckless speculation and, later, rapidly falling stock values and
Bush II tax cuts has created: "Thanks largely to the Bush tax cuts
there's no money left in the federal budget to shore up Social Security
. . . So, now with your [stock] portfolio trashed and Social Security looking
insecure, you may . . . not [be] able to retire until six years after you've
died." See Allan Sloan, "The New Rules of Retirement," Newsweek,
1 April 2002, 58. Sloan is one of the few business analysts who consistently
displays good sense. See, also, Center for Defense Information (CDI), "Fiscal
Year 2003 Budget: Funding Request for Ballistic Missile Defense,"
4 February 2002, 1-2, HYPERLINK http://www.cdi.org/issues/budget/FY03bmd-pr.cfm;
www.cdi.org/issues/budget/FY03bmd-pr.cfm; CDI, "Fiscal Year
2003 Budget: Highlights of the FY'03 Budget Request," 4 February
2002, 1, HYPERLINK http://www.cdi.org?issues/budget/FY03Highlights-pr.cfm
www.cdi.org?issues/budget/FY03Highlights-pr.cfm .
Meanwhile, the new Bush defense budget for fiscal years (FY) 2002-2007
will be paid for by new deficits, cuts to all other federal spending programs
and tax breaks that heavily favor those Americans in the upper income brackets
who will likely use that windfall of cash to buy U.S. government bonds
to acquire a taxpayer paid interest on the money that those same rich should
have paid as taxes for the weapons that the government will buy from some
of their own relatives, friends and acquaintances in their social class.
As economist James M. Cypher summarized the Bush II Administration plan,
"Bush justified his mammoth June 2001 tax cut partially as a measure to
reverse the economic downturn [and in] October 2001, he proposed further
tax cuts as an 'economic stimulus package." Then, too, as Cypher
notes "most" of the $60 billion in additional military spending that Bush
requested in the wake of 9/11 for 2002, "will go to civilian suppliers"
while "most of the June tax cut will go to people with high incomes."
Beyond that, the "'stimulus' program . . . includes a clause allowing businesses
a bigger write-off for equipment as it decreases in value . . . [and] eliminates
. . . the corporate 'alternative minimum tax' which had set a tax 'floor'"
that had obliged corporations to pay at least some tax "no matter how many
deductions they could claim." So, as Cypher says, "Corporations will
use these windfalls to pay off debts or to invest outside of the United
States." Meanwhile most ordinary American taxpayers, below the top
10 or 20 percent income strata, will be left financing the "war on terrorism"
by paying more taxes to cover the interest payments which will be due those
wealthy few who may very well acquire financially safe U.S. bonds with
their tax break windfall. Meanwhile, the other Americans will likely
pay for the "war on terrorism" with the cuts in future health, social security,
education and other social programs. See James M. Cypher, "Return
of the Iron Triangle: The New Military Buildup," Dollars and Sense,
2002, 5, HYPERLINK http://www.dollarsand www.dollarsand
sense.org/2002/ cypher0102.htm. (Cited as Cypher, "Return.").
In the context of the "war on terrorism" Noam Chomsky, better than
anyone, has tied this whole practice together with these words: "It's
very important for the Bush administration to get people here frightened.
The last thing they want is for people in the United States to pay attention
to what the Bush administration is doing to them . . . [i.e.] a very substantial
transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich [,] . . . destroying the environmental
protection system [,] . . . undermin[ing] what remains of welfare programs,
Medicaid Social Security, and so on. . . . They certainly don't want
people to be paying attention to that or to the Enron scandal and Cheney's
dealings with oil companies . . . so the best way to prevent that and to
carry through this agenda, which is what's really important to them, is
to get people to be frightened. . . . They have to keep . . . having
scares come [to] make it look as if they're doing something bold and courageous
to defend the American people from international terrorism." See
Nicholas Holt, "Interview With Chomsky," Asheville Global Report, 8 March
2002, on ZNet, Terror War Watch, HYPERLINK http://www.zmag.org/content/TerrorWar/agr_chomsky.cfm
www.zmag.org/content/TerrorWar/agr_chomsky.cfm . (Cited as Holt,
"Interview.").
Paul Mcgeough, "The Lone Ranger," Sydney Morning Herald, 9 March
2002, 2, email.
I first noticed this term when used by Allan Sloan. See
Allan Sloan, ""Lucky Timing Is Good (Big Time)," Newsweek, 18 March 2002,
43.
CDI, "Issue Brief: Reshaping the Military for Asymmetric
Warfare," 5 October 2001, 10, HYPERLINK http://www.cdi.org/press/press-releases/2001/terrorism100501-pr.cfm
www.cdi.org/press/press-releases/2001/terrorism100501-pr.cfm .
Ivan Eland, "Tilting at Windmills: Post-Cold War Military
Threats to U.S. Security," Policy Analysis, No. 332, February 8, 1999,
34, HYPERLINK http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-332es.html
www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-332es.html (Cited as Eland, "Tilting.").
Cypher, "Return," 2.
Ibid., 2.
As accurately described by Cypher, the commission that "convened
in October 1998" was composed of a "who's who . . . of the country's power
elite" from "industry, government and [the] military." Those on it
included former Senators Warren Rudman (R), — the Commission's chairman
— and Gary Hart (D), as well as the former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich
(R). It also included such powerful military-industrial complex figures
as the CEO of the then existing Martin Marietta, Norman Augustine, and
some 29 "'study group members' came from top universities like MIT and
Princeton" and the mainly conservative or ultra conservative think tanks
of the RAND Corporation, the Cato Institute as well as the more liberal
Brookings Institution. "The Commission," Cypher adds, "also enjoyed
the cooperation of the Department of Defense and State, as well as top
intelligence agencies like the CIA and the National Security Agency (NSA)."
See Cypher, "Return," 1.
Department of Defense (DoD), "Joint Vision 2020," Approval Authority:
General Henry H. Shelton, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Office
of Primary Responsibility: Director for Strategic Plans and Policy,
J5; Strategy Division, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing
Office, June 2000, 1-7, 20. (Cited as "Joint Vision."). See
further explanation from Stevenson, U.S. Gigantisme Militaire I, April
20, 2002, 6, www.u-grenoble3.fr/ciesimsa.
See, especially, Williams’s works: The Contours of American
History (1961), The Roots of the Modern American Empire (1969), and The
Tragedy of American Diplomacy (1959). Almost 45 years after the U.S.
historian William Appleman Williams first analyzed the origin, nature,
and operations of the U.S., informal, open door empire, writer/political
commentator Richard Reeves reported that the "New York Times, a little
behind the times, officially declared the United States an empire last
Sunday [i.e., March 31, 2002]." The Times, said Reeves, made the
acknowledgement in the newspaper's Week in Review section when writer Emily
Eakin wrote: "'Today . . . America is no mere superpower or hegemon
but a full-blown empire in the Roman and British sense.'" Calling that
comment "something of an understatement," Reeves wrote, "The United States
is, in fact, now the greatest empire, militarily, economically, technologically
and culturally, that the world has ever seen. We have the power,
and are using it, to force other countries to adopt . . . our ideas of
market capitalism and political democracy [read: elite governance
with plenty of democratic forms]. That, after all, is what words
like 'globalization' really mean." Of course, while Reeves acknowledged
that U.S. power means that "our president declares the right to send American
troops and drop American bombs anywhere we damn please," neither he nor
the Times called U.S. presidents or policy makers imperialists. But
is it unreasonable to suppose that the existence of an empire presupposes
the existence of imperialism and that logic dictates that one is an imperialist
if one supports obtaining and maintaining an empire? See Richard
Reeves, "The American Empire's Provincial Press," 4 April 2002, 1, at Richardreeves.com,
wysiwyg:// 17/http://richardreeves.com/.
Cypher, "Return," 1.
Ibid. Near the very end of U.S. Gigantisme Militaire I,
I addressed the fallacy of fighting a war for Persian Gulf oil as being
in our "national interest" with my reference to the Cato Institute's findings
that such a war is wholly unnecessary and not in the "national interest."
Cypher, "Return," 1.
"Joint Vision," 6.
Ibid., 3.
Ibid., 6.
Ibid., 1.
Better than many, historian Thomas McCormick explains that the
"era known as the Cold War . . . is merely a subplot, part of a larger
story that some historians call America's hegemonic project." And,
while the embryonic origins of this "project," may stretch back to the
1898, Cuban-U.S. Spanish War, McCormick points out that the immediate impetus
for the "project" lay with the World War II and post World War II "architects
of American global dominance [such as Dean Acheson, George Kennan, Averall
Harriman, James Forrestal, Paul Nitze, Harry Truman, George Marshall, etc]."
These men "viewed nationalism as the bane of the 20th century — the underlying
cause of both world wars, the Great Depression of the 1930s, and the epic
revolutions in Russia, China and Mexico." They had hope, however,
for "the abandonment of economic nationalism"(resulting in protectionist
tariffs, colonialism, autarkic or command economies, imperialism, revolution
and war) and the creation of "a single, integrated, free world market,
organized around principles of [free trade], comparative advantage and
economies of scale" which could "realize capitalism's full capacity [and]
. . . where there would be only winners and no losers." But, that
"free [market] world . . . could only be achieved if political and military
power was organized globally." See Thomas McCormick, America's Half
Century: United States Foreign Policy in the Cold War and After,
2nd ed., Baltimore: John Hopkins UP, 1995, xiii-xiv.
Steven Komarow, "Ex-generals declare war on nukes," USA Today,
5 December 1996, 3A. General Lee Butler served under former Joint
Chief of Staff Chairman Colin Powell as his strategic war planner, and
Butler also spent 27 of his 37 years in the Air Force maintaining nuclear
weapons and planning for nuclear war. When he retired in 1994, he
was the head of the U.S. Strategic command that "oversees nuclear bombers
and missiles." General Goodpaster was one of NATO's top commanders during
the Cold War.
Komarow, 3A. The U.S. taxpayers presently incur an annual
expense of $33 billion in order to maintain our nuclear weapons arsenal
so that our nuclear weapons targeteers will have the capacity to launch
a nuclear strike anywhere in the world. As of November 1999, the
U.S. had "about 6,500 strategic warheads and the Russians [had] 7,000.
About 3,000 of theirs and 2,5000 of ours are on 'hair trigger' alert, ready
to fire at a moment's notice." See CDI, Letters to donors, December
23, 1997, and November 1999.
David Cole, "National Security State," The Nation, 17 December
2001, 1-2, HYPERLINK http://www.thenation.com/docPrint.mhtml?i=200111217&s=cole
www.thenation.com/docPrint.mhtml?i=200111217&s=cole . According
to Cole, the USA Patriot Act is "an omnibus law of 342 pages enacted under
in terrorem threats from Attorney General John Ashcroft . . . [And] the
nuts and bolts of the law were worked out in a couple all-night sessions
and approved by large majorities the day they were introduced, even though
members could not possibly have read the bill before casting their votes."
Among other thing this law, according to Cole, contains the following provisions:
1. Immigrants can be deported "for wholly innocent nonviolent associational
activity on behalf of any organization blacklisted as terrorist by the
Secretary of State." 2. "Any group of two or more that has used or
threatened to use force can be designated as terrorist." 3. The Attorney
General has the power to "lock up aliens, potentially indefinitely, on
mere suspicion, without any hearing and without any obligation to establish
to a court that the detention is necessary to forestall flight or danger
to the community." 4. "Criminal proceedings are governed by gag orders
— themselves secret — preventing defendants or their lawyers from saying
anything to the public about their predicament." 5. The Act
"authorizes never-disclosed wiretaps and secret searches in criminal investigations
without probable cause of a crime." 6. The law authorizes police
officials to "'interview'" immigrants based solely on their age, gender
and country of origin."
When, earlier, Nation reporter David Corn covered the appearance of
Ashcroft before the Senate Judiciary Committee, he observed that Ashcroft
intimidated the few Democrats who weakly dared to question the wisdom of
giving too much power to the government and, thereby, eroding civil liberties
protections. But Ashcroft silenced them by declaring that those making
such criticisms "'aid terrorists . . . erode our national unity and diminish
our resolve.'" The chastised Democrats "barely pushed back," and
the elated Wall Street Journal editorialists described Ashcroft's victory
as a "'political rout'" of his Congressional critics. See David Corn,
"Up Against Ashcroft," The Nation, 11 December 2001, 1, HYPERLINK
http://www.thnation.com/docPrint.mhtml?i=special&s=corn20011211
www.thnation. com/ docPrint.mhtml?i=special&s=corn20011211 .
Likewise, in economist Richard Du Boff's expose of the deceptions of the
Bush Administration's "war on terrorism" to defend the homeland, he points
out that the "'loyal opposition party' is scared witless and mute except
for a rare outburst, by Barbara Lee (D-CA), the only member of Congress
to vote against the war resolution last fall, and Dennis Kucinich (D-OH),
who gave a powerful anti-war speech in Los Angeles in February [2002].
See Du Boff, "Stopping Terrorism VS. Promoting the Right: No Contest,"
Znet Daily Commentaries, 26 March 2002, 4, HYPERLINK http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2002-03/26duboff.cfm
www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2002-03/26duboff.cfm . In an email
detailing his sources for his findings and facts in his article, Du Boff
listed: Adam Clymer, New York Times, 28 February 2002 ("on Ashcroft
and Justice Dept. budgets"); Barbara Crossette, New York Times, 2 March
2002 (on "U.S. in UN, Annan, etc"); CNN 6 March 2002 ("on phony plot to
smuggle nukes into NY City"); Peter Slevin, Washington Post, 7 December
2001, and Eric Lichtblau, Los Angles Times, 14 February 2002 ("on Ashcroft
denying permission to FBI to inspect gun list").
T.D. Allman, Unmanifest Destiny, Garden City, New York:
Doubleday, 1984, 160.
Ibid. In his rejection of the proposals that President
Monroe intervene in Latin America in 1821, Adams clearly forecast not only
the danger but some of the motive force that is likely behind the direction
that our current policy makers are taking us. He states, "'[America]
goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. . . . She well
knows . . . she would involve herself beyond the powers of extrication,
in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy,
and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom.
. . .[Her] brow would no longer beam with . . . Freedom and Independence;
but . . . an Imperial Diadem, flashing in false and tarnished luster the
murky radiance of dominion and power.'" See Allman, frontpiece.
Allman, 159.
Dwight D. Eisenhower, "Farewell Address," January 17, 1961,
1, www.usd.edu/~ sbucklin/primary/ikefarewell.htm.
Cypher, "Return," 2.
Ralph Peters retired from the Army after over 20 years of service.
"He served as a special assistant for strategic planning in the White House
drug policy office." He also worked in "Military Intelligence and
served as a foreign area officer for Eurasia." He is the author of
Fighting for the Future: Will America Triumph? and "dozens of articles
on military theory, strategy" and the changing nature of conflict.
He has written ten best selling novels. See "The role of Naval
Forces in Twenty-first Century Operations, About the Contributors," Institute
for Foreign Policy Analysis (IFPA), no date, 4. Peters sharply criticizes
those military men who advocate the "heavy weight" Cold War "legacy" weapons
systems and strategies as being those suffering from "institutional inertia,"
being "extra-ordinarily conservative and often myopic," "organization men,"
"dull and often dull-whited people," ones who are "clinging to their jobs
with the best spirit of Tyrannosaurus Rex," and ones who compose a general
and admiral officer corps who are "the most mediocre in the past century."
So, in calling for an end to the "gold-plated twentieth century legacy
systems" like the F-22 fighter, the Crusader heavy howitzer artillery system,
heavy tanks, and so on, Peters' attacks the military-industrial complex
right were it lives. He notes, "Increasingly our national defense
is a business, and its business is not primarily defense. . . . There has
always been corruption . . . But at this point there's so much lobbying
power — PAC contributions and revolving doors of generals and admirals
getting out and getting these tremendously lucrative defense industry do-nothing
jobs . . . [it] is horrendous. . . . It's a defense-industrial-congressional
complex, congress buys ships the navy doesn't want, and buys aircraft the
air force doesn't want. . . . We have come to a point where . . .
we are wasting hundreds of billions of dollars on yesterday's aircraft,
on utterly unnecessary ships, on artillery systems that are not deployable."
And to this caustic critique Peters adds this telling point about the entire
defense budget, "We can beat the Russians. We sure could have beat
the Serbs [in a ground war]. We could go to Sierra Leone and . .
. rip apart the rough rebels. But we can't beat Lockheed Martin."
"We need," he concludes in this prior to 9/11 interview, "somewhat larger
defense budgets. And yet I am loathe to increase them today, because
you're giving Scotch to an alcoholic." Indeed, Peters declares, "What
we have, sadly, is a mediocre Department of Defense . . ." See Ralph
Peters, Interview by Frontline, no date, 1, 6, 8, 15, 12, 13, 14
HYPERLINK http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/future/interviews/peters.html
www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/ frontline/shows/future/interviews/peters.html .(Cited
as Peters, "Interview").
These are lighter, wheeled, and high tech equipped forces.
These are the "new military" or "futurists" or the "faster and
lighter" war advocates.
These are the large ship, tank, fighter aircraft, and
missile equipped forces.
These are the "old military," or "barons," or "heavy weight,"
or the "big war" advocates. For much of the information found in this commentary's
notes 29-32, see Peters, "Interview," 1, 5-6, 8, 17; John Barry and
Evan Thomas, "Not Your Father's Army," Newsweek, 22 November 1999, 49,
52.
Doug MacGregor is the author of a military strategy book called
Breaking the Phalanx.
William D. Hartung noted in his analysis entitled "Gold-Plating
the Pentagon," that the Bill Clinton Administration's 2000 defense budget
request would have provided $17.4 billion for seven major weapons programs
that were over $1 billion or more — National Missile Defense ("Star Wars"),
C-17 transport planes, F-18 and F-22 fighters, LPD-17 landing ship, the
V-22 Osprey aircraft, and the Virginia attack submarine — and that
these "costly cold war weapons will be of little value against the most
pressing threats to international security: terrorism, weapons proliferation
and ethnic and territorial conflict. The main beneficiaries," he
adds, "will be . . . the 'Iron Triangle' — the Pentagon, the arms conglomerates
and members of Congress from defense-dependent states." When Cato
Institute's Ivan Eland, likewise, criticized the purchase of such "relics
of the Cold War" as "the F-22 fighter, the V-22 vertical take-off and landing
transport aircraft, the Comanche helicopter, the CVN-77 aircraft carrier
and the New Attack Submarine," he went on to call for a 37% reduction in
the defense budget because the "desired spending increase [called for by
the Clinton regime] is merely an attempt by the defense bureaucracy to
'get it while the gettin's good.'" As for George Bush, Newsweek reports
that, unlike his presidential rivals John McCain, Al Gore, and Bill Bradley,
Bush called for radical reforms in U.S. defense spending. He proposed
that the Army stop buying "World War II-era" weapon systems like "heavy
tanks," and, instead, '''skip a generation' of technology and invest
in futuristic high-tech systems that can be quickly deployed." Shortly
after taking the presidency, by virtue of Supreme Court intercession and
a lack of vigorous Democratic Party protests, Bush ordered Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld to start contemplating his desired military transformation.
And Rumsfeld himself, having "questioned the value of some major weapons,"
seemed to be preparing to reorient the Pentagon toward an emphasis on high-tech
weapons systems, especially in space. And, finally, the folks at
CDI published a major study as part of their "Military Reform Project"
in September 2001, entitled Reforging the Sword: Forces for a 21st
Century Security Strategy. In it, they focused on restructuring the
military to "'successfully undertake fourth-generation warfare against
asymmetric threats," and they argued that the U.S. forces "should be enhanced
by creating lighter, smaller and more mobile units.'" And, later
— on January 31, 2002 — they called for a defense budget savings cut of
at least "147 billion over the next 10 years" by either the cancellation
or by significantly re-shaping the Pentagon's weapons purchases, including
the F-22, C-17, B-1B Lancer Bomber, Trident Ballistic Submarine, D-5 Missile,
F/A-18E/F fighter, V-22 Osprey Tiltrotor Aircraft, Virginia-class Attack
Submarine, DD-X Destroyer, Aircraft Carriers, Crusader Artillery Vehicle,
Comanche Helicopter, M1 Abrams Tank, and Missile Defense. See William
D. Hartung, "Gold-Plating the Pentagon," The Nation, 1 March 1999, 1, at
Arms Trade Resource Center, HYPERLINK http://www.worldpolicy.org/projects/arms/links/gold.html
www.worldpolicy.org/projects/arms/links/gold.html ; Ivan Eland, "Hike
Military Funding? Lining the Pockets of the Defense Bureaucracy,"
Cato "Today's Commentary," 23 September 1998, 2-3 HYPERLINK
http://www.cato.org/dailys/9-23-98.html www.cato.org/dailys/9-23-98.html
. (Cited as Eland, "Hike."); John Barry and Evan Thomas, "Not Your
Father's Army," Newsweek, 22 November 1999, 49, 52; Michael T. Klare, "Rumsfeld:
Star Warrior Returns," The Nation, 29 January 2001, 3, HYPERLINK
http://www.the www.the nation.com/docPrint.mhtml?i= 20010129&s=klare;
Brad Knickerbocker, "Return of the 'Military-Industrial Complex'?"
The Christian Science Monitor, 13 February 2002, 2, HYPERLINK
http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0213/p02s03-uspo.html; www.csmonitor.com/2002/0213/p02s03-uspo.html;
CDI, "Issue Brief: Reshaping the Military for Asymmetric Warfare,"
5 October 2001, 1, HYPERLINK http://www.cdi.org/press/press_releases/2001/terrorism1000501-pr.cfm;
www.cdi.org/press/press_releases/2001/ terrorism1000501-pr.cfm;
Daniel M. Smith, Marcus Corbin, Christopher Hellman, Reforging the Sword:
Forces for a 21st Century Security Strategy, Washington, D.C.: Center for
Defense Information, September 2001, available online at HYPERLINK
http://www.cdi.org/mrp; www.cdi.org/mrp; CDI, "Military
Reform Project, U.S. Military Transformation: Not Just More Spending,
But Better Spending," 31 January 2002, 2, 2-11, www.cdi.org/mrp/transformation-pr.cfm.
Cypher, "Return," 2-3.
Ibid.
Ibid., 3-4.
Ibid.
Allan Sloan, "Pork Barrel or A Kick-Start?" Newsweek,
15 October 2001, 65.
Knickerbocker, 2.
John Nichols, "The Online Beat: Give Rumsfeld a hard time,"
The Nation, 10 January 2001, 4, HYPERLINK http://www.thenation.com/thebeat/
www.thenation.com/thebeat/ .
Peter Beaumont and Ed Vulliamy, "Armed to the Teeth," The Observer,
10 February 2002, Observer Worldview, HYPERLINK http://www.observer.couk/Print/03858.4353414,00.html
www.observer.co.uk/Print/03858.4353414,00.html .
Ibid., 1.
Ibid. "The Pentagon Spending Spree," New York Times, 6
February 2002, 1, HYPERLINK http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/06/opinion/_06WED1.html?ex=1014015992&ei=/&en=82ce018498f1/ed1
www.nytimes.com/2002/02/06/opinion/_06WED1.html?ex=1014015992&ei=/&en=82ce018498f1/ed1
.
Ibid., 3. Some of those policy makers backing this possible
agenda were brought into high Pentagon office by like-minded Secretary
of Defense Rumsfeld. They have been described as a "tight group of
. . . firm believers in unilateral, American military power." See
Ibid.
Beaumont, 2.
As quoted by Du Boff, Ashcroft's four goals were: 1. "'securing
the rights of victims of crimes,'" 2. "'securing the nation's borders and
cutting the immigration backlog,'" 3. "'reducing gun violence and drug
trafficking,'" and 4. "'reducing overcrowding and drug use in prisons.'"
See Du Boff, 2.
Du Boff., 2.
Ibid., 1. Du Boff noted that the Attorney General "did
find $8,000 to spare for a cape to cover the exposed breast of the female
guarding of law statue in the lobby of the Justice Department." He,
thus, profaned a classic statue in the eyes of art critics, artists, political
satirists and many reasonable people everywhere. See Du Boff, 2.
Ibid., 1.
Ibid., 2.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid., 1.
"The Pentagon Spending Spree," New York Times, 6 February 2002,
1, at HYPERLINK http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/06/opinion/_06WED1.html?ex=1014015992ei=1&en=82ce018498flled1
www.nytimes.com/2002/02/06/opinion/_06WED1.html?ex=1014015992ei=1&en=82ce018498flled1
.
Christopher Dickey with Dan Ephron, John Barry, Mark Hosenball
and Michael Isikoff, "Inside Suicide, Inc., Newsweek, 15 April m2002, 32.
Georgie Anne Geyer, "President Pushed to Escalate War in Israel
and Beyond," Uexpress.com, 9 April 2002, 1, HYPERLINK http://www.uexpress.com/pri...1_date=20020409&uc_daction=X&uc_comic=gg
www.uexpress.com/pri...1_date=20020409&uc _daction=X&uc_comic=gg
. (Cited as Geyer, "President."); Patrick J. 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 .
Geyer points out, as have many other observers, that many of
the most hawkish of principal policy makers and their supporters in the
Bush II Administration "have never served in the military." Some of these
people include: Vice President Dick Cheney, Deputy Defense Secretary
Paul Wolfowitz, and Defense Policy Board head Richard Perle, among numerous
others. Geyer, "President," 1.
Du Boff, 1.
Nicholas Holt, "Interview With Chomsky," Asheville Global Report,
8 March 2002, on ZNet, Terror War Watch, 4, www.zmag.org/content/TerrorWar/agr_chomsky.cfm.
George W. Bush, "Speech announcing Secretary of State Colin
Powell's mission to the Middle East," April 4, 2002, 4, Full Text, A News
Hour with Jim Lehrer, PBS Online News Hour.
Geyer, "President," 2.
Ivan Eland, "Tilting," 43, 33.
Ibid., 33.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid., 34.