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Friday, December 6, 2013

The ‘Axis of Evil’ Returns


IN THESE TIMES

WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL



General explaining how to dismantle an inert B61 nuclear bomb–one of the primary weapons in the U.S. Enduring Stockpile. So far, the U.S. has been the only country to use nuclear weapons in warfare. (US Air Force/Wikimedia Commons)

The ‘Axis of Evil’ Returns

The hypocritical U.S. policy towards Iran.



BY Noam Chomsky
 
The United States can be held to lead the international community only if that community is defined as the U.S. and whoever happens to go along with it, often through intimidation, as is sometimes tacitly conceded.

An interim agreement on Iran's nuclear policies that will provide a six-month period for substantive negotiations was announced on November 24.

Michael Gordon, a reporter for the New York Times, wrote, “It was the first time in nearly a decade, American officials said, that an international agreement had been reached to halt much of Iran's nuclear program and roll some elements of it back.”

The United States moved at once to impose severe penalties on a Swiss firm that had violated U.S.-imposed sanctions. “The timing of the announcement seemed to be partly intended to send a signal that the Obama administration still considers Iran subject to economic isolation,” Rick Gladstone explained in The Times.

The “landmark accord” indeed includes significant Iranian concessions–though nothing comparable from the United States, which merely agreed to temporarily limit its punishment of Iran.

It's easy to imagine possible U.S. concessions. To mention just one: The United States is the only country directly violating the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (and more severely, the United Nations Charter) by maintaining its threat of force against Iran. The United States could also insist that its Israeli client refrain from this severe violation of international law–which is just one of many.

In mainstream discourse, it is considered natural that Iran alone should make concessions. After all, the United States is the White Knight, leading the international community in its efforts to contain Iran–which is held to be the gravest threat to world peace–and to compel it to refrain from its aggression, terror and other crimes.

There is a different perspective, little heard, though it might be worth at least a mention. It begins by rejecting the American assertion that the accord breaks 10 years of unwillingness on Iran's part to address this alleged nuclear threat.

Ten years ago Iran offered to resolve its differences with the United States over nuclear programs, along with all other issues. The Bush administration rejected the offer angrily and reprimanded the Swiss diplomat who conveyed it.

The European Union and Iran then sought an arrangement under which Iran would suspend uranium enrichment while the EU would provide assurances that the U.S. would not attack. As Selig Harrison reported in the Financial Times, “the EU, held back by the U.S. … refused to discuss security issues,” and the effort died.

In 2010, Iran accepted a proposal by Turkey and Brazil to ship its enriched uranium to Turkey for storage. In return, the West would provide isotopes for Iran's medical research reactors. President Obama furiously denounced Brazil and Turkey for breaking ranks, and quickly imposed harsher sanctions. Irritated, Brazil released a letter from Obama in which he had proposed this arrangement, presumably assuming that Iran would reject it. The incident quickly disappeared from view.

Also in 2010, the NPT members called for an international conference to carry forward a long-standing Arab initiative to establish a zone free of weapons of mass destruction in the region, to be held in Helsinki in December 2012. Israel refused to attend. Iran agreed to do so, unconditionally.

The U.S. then announced that the conference was canceled, reiterating Israel's objections. The Arab states, the European Parliament and Russia called for a rapid reconvening of the conference, while the U.N. General Assembly voted 174-6 to call on Israel to join the NPT and open its facilities to inspection. Voting “no” were the United States, Israel, Canada, Marshall Islands, Micronesia and Palau—a result that suggests another possible U.S. concession today.

Such isolation of the United States in the international arena is quite normal, on a wide range of issues.

In contrast, the non-aligned movement (most of the world), at its meeting last year in Tehran, once again vigorously supported Iran's right, as a signer of the NPT, to enrich uranium. The U.S. rejects that argument, claiming that the right is conditional on a clean bill of health from inspectors, but there is no such wording in the treaty.

A large majority of Arabs support Iran's right to pursue its nuclear program. Arabs are hostile to Iran, but overwhelmingly regard the United States and Israel as the primary threats they face, as Shibley Telhami reported again in his recent comprehensive review of Arab opinion.

“Western officials appear flummoxed” by Iran's refusal to abandon the right to enrich uranium, Frank Rose observes in the New York Times, offering a psychological explanation. Others come to mind if we step slightly out of the box.

The United States can be held to lead the international community only if that community is defined as the U.S. and whoever happens to go along with it, often through intimidation, as is sometimes tacitly conceded.

Critics of the new accord, as David E. Sanger and Jodi Rudoren report in The New York Times, warn that “wily middlemen, Chinese eager for energy sources and Europeans looking for a way back to the old days, when Iran was a major source of trade, will see their chance to leap the barriers.” In short, they currently accept American orders only because of fear. And in fact China, India and many others have sought their own ways to evade U.S. sanctions on Iran.

The alternative perspective challenges the rest of the standard U.S. version. It does not overlook the fact that for 60 years, without a break, the United States has been torturing Iranians. That punishment began in 1953 with the CIA-run coup that overthrew Iran's parliamentary government and installed the Shah, a tyrant who regularly compiled one of the worst human rights records in the world as an American ally.
When the Shah was himself overthrown in 1979, the U.S. turned at once to supporting Saddam Hussein's murderous invasion of Iran, finally joining directly by reflagging Iraq ally Kuwait's ships so that they could break an Iranian blockade. In 1988 a U.S. naval vessel also shot down an Iranian airliner in commercial airspace, killing 290 people, then received presidential honors upon returning home.

After Iran was forced to capitulate, the United States renewed its support for its friend Saddam, even inviting Iraqi nuclear engineers to the U.S. for advanced training in weapons production. The Clinton administration then imposed sanctions on Iran, which have become much harsher in recent years.

There are in fact two rogue states operating in the region, resorting to aggression and terror and violating international law at will: the United States and its Israeli client. Iran has indeed carried out an act of aggression: conquering three Arab islands under the U.S.-backed Shah. But any terror credibly attributed to Iran pales in comparison with that of the rogue states.

It is understandable that those rogue states should strenuously object to a deterrent in the region, and should lead a campaign to free themselves from any such constraints.

Just how far will the lesser rogue state go to eliminate the feared deterrent on the pretext of an “existential threat”? Some fear that it will go very far. Micah Zenko of the Council on Foreign Relations warns in Foreign Policy that Israel might resort to nuclear war. Foreign policy analyst Zbigniew Brzezinski urges Washington to make it clear to Israel that the U.S. Air Force will stop them if they try to bomb.

Which of these conflicting perspectives is closer to reality? To answer the question is more than just a useful exercise. Significant global consequences turn on the answer.
Noam Chomsky is Institute Professor & Professor of Linguistics (Emeritus) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the author of dozens of books on U.S. foreign policy. He writes a monthly column for The New York Times News Service/Syndicate.
More information about Noam Chomsky

Sunday, November 17, 2013

The Logic behind Mass Spying: Empire and Cyber Imperialism


Dissident Voice: a radical newsletter in the struggle for peace and social justice

The Logic behind Mass Spying: Empire and Cyber Imperialism

Revelations about the long-term global, intrusive spying by the US National Security Agency (NSA) and other allied intelligence apparatuses have provoked widespread protests and indignation and threatened ties between erstwhile imperial allies.

Allied regimes have uniformly condemned NSA espionage as a violation of trust and sovereignty, a threat to their national and economic security and to their citizens’ privacy.

In contrast, the Washington has responded in a contradictory manner: on the one hand, US officials and intelligence chiefs have acknowledged ‘some excesses and mistakes’, on the other hand, they defend the entire surveillance program as necessary for US national security.

Interpretations vary about the US global spy apparatus – how it was built and why it was launched against hundreds of millions of people. ‘Subjective’ and ‘objective’ explanations abound, evoking psychological, social, economic, strategic and political considerations.

A multi-factorial explanation is required.

The Integrated Hypothesis of the Global Police State


One of the essential components of a police state is an all-pervasive spy apparatus operating independently of any legal or constitutional constraints. Spy operations include: 1) massive surveillance over text, video and audio communications and 2) the capacity to secretly record, store and use information secretly collected. This information strengthens political and economic leaders who, in turn, appoint and direct the spy chiefs. The political and economic rulers control the spy-lords by setting the goals, means and targets of the surveillance state. The US global spy apparatus is neither ‘self-starting nor self-perpetuating’. It did not arise in a vacuum and it has virtually no strategic autonomy. While there may be intra-bureaucratic conflicts and rivalries, the institutions and groups function within the overall ‘paradigm’ established and directed by the political and economic elite.

The Global Spy Structure


The growth and expansion of the US spy apparatus has deep roots in its history and is related to the colonial need to control subjugated native and enslaved peoples. However, the global operations emerged after the Second World War when the US replaced Europe as the center of world imperialism. The US assumed the principal role in preventing the spread of revolutionary and anti-colonial movements from the Soviet Union, China, Korea, Vietnam, and Cuba to war and crisis-burdened countries of Europe, North and Southeast Asia, and Latin America. When the collectivist states fell apart in the 1990’s the US became the sole superpower and a unipolar world emerged.

For the United States, ‘unipolarity’ meant (1) an impetus toward total global domination; (2) a world-wide network of military bases; (3) the subordination of capitalist competitors in other industrial countries, (4) the destruction of nationalist adversaries and (6) the unfettered pillage of resources from the former collectivist regimes as they became vassal states. The last condition meant the complete dismantling of the collectivist state and its public institutions – education, health care and worker rights.

The opportunities for immense profits and supreme control over this vast new empire were boundless while the risks seemed puny, at least during the ‘golden period’, defined by the years immediately after (1) the capitalist takeover of the ex-Soviet bloc, (2) the Chinese transition to capitalism and (3) the conversion of many former African and Asian nationalist regimes, parties and movements to ‘free-market’ capitalism.
Dazzled by their vision of a ‘new world to conquer’ the United States set up an international state apparatus in order to exploit this world-historical opportunity. Most top political leaders, intelligence strategists, military officials and business elites quickly realized that these easy initial conquests and the complicity of pliable and kleptocratic post-Communist vassal rulers would not last. The societies would eventually react and the lucrative plunder of resources was not sustainable. Nationalist adversaries were bound to arise and demand their own spheres of influence. The White House feared their own capitalist allies would take on the role of imperialist competitors seeking to grab ‘their share’ of the booty, taking over and exploiting resources, public enterprises and cheap labor.

The new ‘unipolar world’ meant the shredding of the fabric of social and political life. In the ‘transition’ to free market capitalism, stable employment, access to health care, security, education and civilized living standards disappeared. In the place of once complex, advanced social systems, local tribal and ethnic wars erupted. It would be ‘divide and conquer’ in an orgy of pillage for the empire. But the vast majority of the people of the world suffered from chaos and regression when the multi-polar world of collectivist, nationalist, and imperialist regimes gave way to the unipolar empire.

For US imperialist strategists and their academic apologists the transition to a unipolar imperial world was exhilarating and they dubbed their unchallenged domination the New World Order (NWO). The US imperial state then had the right and duty to maintain and police its ‘New World Order’ – by any means. Francis Fukiyama, among other academic apologists celebrated the ‘end of history’ in a paroxysm of imperial fever. Liberal-imperial academics, like Immanuel Wallerstein, sensed the emerging challenges to the US Empire and advanced the view of a Manichean world of ‘unipolarity’ (meaning ‘order’) versus ‘multipolar chaos’ – as if the hundreds of millions of lives in scores of countries devastated by the rise of the post-collectivist US empire did not have a stake in liberating themselves from the yoke of a unipolar world.

By the end of its first decade, the unipolar empire exhibited cracks and fissures. It had to confront adversarial nationalist regimes in resource-rich countries, including Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, Bashar Assad in Syria, Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Khamenei in Iran. They challenged US supremacy in North Africa and the Middle East. The Taliban in Afghanistan and nationalist Islamist movements questioned US influence over the vassal rulers of Muslim countries – especially the puppet monarchs in the Persian Gulf.

On the other side of the imperial coin, the domestic economic foundations of the NWO were weakened by a series of speculative crises undermining the support of the US public as well as sectors of the elite. Meanwhile European and Japanese allies, as well as emerging Chinese capitalists, were beginning to compete for markets.

Within the US an ultra-militarist group of political ideologues, public officials and policy advisers, embracing a doctrine combining a domestic police state with foreign military intervention, took power in Washington. ‘Conservatives’ in the Bush, Sr. regime, ‘liberals’ in the Clinton administration and ‘neo-conservatives’ in the Bush, Jr. administration all sought and secured the power to launch wars in the Persian Gulf and the Balkans, to expand and consolidate the unipolar empire.

Maintaining and expanding the unipolar empire became the trigger for the White House’s global police state apparatus. As new regimes were added to Washington’s orbit, more and more surveillance was needed to make sure they did not drift into a competitor’s sphere of influence.
The year 2000 was critical for the global police state. First there was the dot-com crash in the financial sector. The speculative collapse caused massive but unorganized disaffection among the domestic population. Arab resistance re-emerged in the Middle East. The cosmically corrupt Boris Yeltsin vassal state fell and a nationalist, Russian President Vladimir Putin took power. The willing accomplices to the disintegration of the former USSR had taken their billions and fled to New York, London and Israel. Russia was on the road to recovery as a unified nuclear-armed nation state with regional ambitions. The period of unchallenged unipolar imperial expansion had ended.

The election of President Bush Jr., opened the executive branch to police state ideologues and civilian warlords, many linked to the state of Israel, who were determined to destroy secular Arab nationalist and Muslim adversaries in the Middle East. The steady growth of the global police state had been ‘too slow’ for them. The newly ascendant warlords and the proponents of the global police state wanted to take advantage of their golden opportunity to make US/Israeli supremacy in the Middle East irreversible and unquestioned via the application of overwhelming force (‘shock and awe’).

Their primary political problem in expanding global military power was the lack of a fully dominant domestic police state capable of demobilizing American public opinion largely opposed to any new wars. ‘Disaster ideologues’ like Phillip Zelikow and Condoleezza Rice understood the need for a new Pearl Harbor to occur and threaten domestic security and thereby terrify the public into war. They lamented the fact that no credible regimes were left in the Middle East to cast as the ‘armed aggressor’ and as a threat to US national security. Such an enemy was vital to the launching of new wars. And new wars were necessary to justify the scale and scope of the new global spy apparatus and emergency police state edicts the warlords and neoconservatives had in mind. Absent a credible ‘state-based adversary’, the militarists settled for an act of terror (or the appearance of one) to ‘shock and awe’ the US public into accepting its project for imperial wars, the imposition of a domestic police state and the establishment of a vast global spy apparatus.

The September 11, 2001 explosions at the World Trade Center in New York City and the plane crash into a wing (mostly vacant for repairs) of the Pentagon in Washington, DC were the triggers for a vast political and bureaucratic transformation of the US imperial state. The entire state apparatus became a police state operation. All constitutional guarantees were suspended. The neo-conservatives seized power, the civilian warlords ruled. A huge body of police state legislation suddenly appeared, as if from nowhere, the Patriot Act. The Zionists in office set the objectives and influenced military policies to focus on Israel’s regional interests and the destruction of Israel’s Arab adversaries who had opposed its annexation of Palestine. War was declared against Afghanistan without any evidence that the ruling Taliban was involved or aware of the September 11 attack of the US. Despite massive civilian and even some military dissent, the civilian warlords and Zionist officials blatantly fabricated a series of pretexts to justify an unprovoked war against the secular nationalist regime in Iraq, the most advanced of all Arab countries. Europe was divided over the war. Countries in Asia and Latin America joined Germany and France in refusing to support the invasion. The United Kingdom, under a ‘Labor’ government, eagerly joined forces with the US hoping to regain some of its former colonial holdings in the Gulf.

At home, hundreds of billions of tax dollars were diverted from social programs to fund a vast army of police state operatives. The ideologues of war and the legal eagles for torture and the police state shifted into high gear. Those who opposed the wars were identified, monitored and the details of their lives were ‘filed away’ in a vast database. Soon millions came to be labeled as ‘persons of interest’ if they were connected in any way to anyone who was ‘suspect’, i.e. opposed to the Global War on Terror. Eventually even more tenuous links were made to everyone…family members, classmates and employers.

Over 1.5 million ‘security cleared’ monitors were contracted by the government to spy on hundreds of millions of citizens. The spy state spread domestically and internationally. For a global empire, based on a unipolar state, the best defense was judged to be a massive global surveillance apparatus operating independently of any other government – including the closest allies.

The slogan, Global War on Terror became an open-ended formula for the civilian warlords, militarists and Zionists to expand the scope and duration of overt and covert warfare and espionage. ‘Homeland Security’ departments, operating at both the Federal and State levels, were consolidated and expanded with massive budgets for incarceration and repression. Constitutional protections and the Writ of Habeas Corpus were ‘rendered quaint vestiges of history’. The National Security Agency doubled its personnel and budget with a mandate to distrust and monitor allies and vassal states. The targets piled upon targets, far beyond traditional adversaries, sweeping up the public and private communications of all political, military and economic leaders , institutions, and citizenry.

The Global War on Terror provided the ideological framework for a police state based on the totalitarian conception that ‘everybody and everything is connected to each other’ in a ‘global system’ threatening the state. This ‘totalistic view’ informs the logic of the expanded NSA, linking enemies, adversaries, competitors and allies. ‘Enemies’ were defined as anti-imperialist states or regimes with consistently critical independent foreign and domestic policies. ‘Adversaries’ occasionally sided with ‘enemies’, or tolerated policymakers who would not always conform to imperial policies. ‘Competitors’ supported the empire but had the capacity and opportunity to make lucrative trade deals with adversaries or enemies – Allies were states and leaders who generally supported imperial wars but might provide a forum condemning imperial war crimes (torture and drone attacks). In addition allies could undermine US imperial market shares and accumulate favorable trade balances.

The logic of the NSA required spying on the allies to root out any links, trade, cultural or scientific relations with adversaries and enemies, which might have spillover consequences. The NSA feared that associations in one sphere might ‘overlap’ with adversaries operating in strategic policy areas and undermine ally loyalty to the empire.

The spy logic had a multiplier effect – who gets to ‘spy on the spies?’ The NSA might collaborate with overseas allied intelligence agencies and officials – but American spymasters would always question their reliability, their inclination to withhold vital information, the potential for shifting loyalties. ‘Do our allies spy on us? How do we know our own spies are not colluding with allied spies who might then be colluding with adversarial spies?’ This justified the establishment of a huge national vacuum cleaner to suck up all transactions and communications – justified by the notion that a wide net scooping up everything might catch that big fish!

The NSA regards all ‘threats to the unipolar empire’ as national security threats. No country or agency within or without the reach of the empire was excluded as a ‘potential threat’.

The ‘lead imperial state’ requires the most efficient and overarching spy technology with the furthest and deepest reach. Overseas allies appear relatively inefficient, vulnerable to infiltration, infected with the residua of a long-standing suspect ‘leftist culture’ and unable to confront the threat of new dangerous adversaries. The imperial logic regards surveillance of ‘allies’ as ‘protecting allied interests’ because the allies lack the will and capacity to deal with enemy infiltration.

There is a circular logic to the surveillance state. When an allied leader starts to question how imperial espionage protects allied interest, it is time to intensify spying on the ally. Any foreign ally who questions NSA surveillance over its citizens raises deep suspicions. Washington believes that questioning imperial surveillance undermines political loyalties.

Secret Police Spying as a “Process of Accumulation”


Like capitalism, which needs to constantly expand and accumulate capital, secret police bureaucracies require more spies to discover new areas, institutions and people to monitor. Leaders, followers, citizens, immigrants, members of ethnic, religious, civic and political groups and individuals – all are subject to surveillance. This requires vast armies of data managers and analysts, operatives, programmers, software developers and supervisors – an empire of IT. The ever-advancing technology needs an ever-expanding base of operation.

The spy-masters move from local to regional to global operations. Facing exposure and condemnation of its global chain of spying, the NSA calls for a new ‘defensive ideology’. To formulate the ideology, a small army of academic hacks is trotted out to announce the phony alternatives of a ‘unipolar police state or terror and chaos’. The public is presented with a fabricated choice of its perpetual, ‘well-managed and hi-tech’, imperial wars versus the fragmentation and collapse of the entire world into a global war of ‘all against all’. Academic ideologues studiously avoid mentioning that small wars by small powers end more quickly and have fewer casualties.

The ever-expanding technology of spying strengthens the police state. The list of targets is endless and bizarre. Nothing and no one will be missed!

As under capitalism, the growth of the spy state triggers crisis. With the inevitable rise of opposition, whistleblowers come forward to denounce the surveillance state. At its peak, spy-state over-reach leads to exposure, public scandals and threats from allies, competitors and adversaries. The rise of cyber-imperialism raises the specter of cyber-anti-imperialism. New conceptions of inter-state relations and global configurations are debated and considered. World public opinion increasingly rejects the ‘necessity’ of police states. Popular disgust and reason exposes the evil logic of the spy-state based on empire and promotes a plural world of peaceful rival countries, functioning under co-operative policies – systems without empire, without spymasters and spies.


James Petras, a former Professor of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York, owns a 50-year membership in the class struggle, is an adviser to the landless and jobless in Brazil and Argentina, and is co-author of Globalization Unmasked (Zed Books). Petras’ most recent book is The Arab Revolt and the Imperialist Counterattack. He can be reached at: jpetras@binghamton.edu. Read other articles by James, or visit James's website.

Thursday, October 24, 2013

How Obama's Foreign Policy Is Run on Mafia Principles


  World  

      

How Obama's Foreign Policy Is Run on Mafia Principles

Defiance can't be tolerated.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
On August 21, the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad was accused of using chemical weapons on its own population, prompting Western countries - led by the United States - to declare their intention to bomb Syria to somehow save it from itself. The reasons for the declared intention of launching air strikes on Syria was to punish the Syrian government, to uphold international law, and to act on the 'humanitarian' values which the West presumably holds so dear.

George Orwell discussed this in his 1946 essay, Politics and the English Language, written two years prior to the publication of 1984. In his essay, Orwell wrote that, "the English language is in a bad way" and that language is ultimately "an instrument which we shape for our own purposes." The decline of language, noted Orwell, "must ultimately have political and economic causes... It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts." Still, Orwell suggested, "the process is reversible."[1] To reverse the process, however, we must first understand its application and development.

When it comes to words like "democracy," Orwell wrote: "It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using that word if it were tied down to any one meaning. Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different."[2]

In our time, wrote Orwell, "political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of political parties." Thus, he noted, "political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness." Orwell provided some examples: "Defenseless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification." This type of "phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them."[3] Today, we use words like counterinsurgency andcounterterrorism to describe virtually the same processes.

Thus, noted Orwell: "The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms... All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia... But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. A bad usage can be spread by tradition and imitation even among people who should and do know better." Political language, wrote Orwell, "is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."[4]

These critiques are arguably more valid today than when Orwell wrote them some 67 years ago. Today, we not only use political language to discuss 'democracy' and 'liberty,' but to justify war and atrocities based upon our 'humanitarian' interests and 'values.' I have previously discussed the uses and abuses of political language in the context of the European debt crisis, using words like 'austerity,' 'structural reform,' 'labour flexibility' and 'economic growth' to obfuscate the reality of the power interests and effects of the policies put in place, spreading poverty, misery and committing 'social genocide.'[5]

When it comes to empire, language is equally - if not more - deceptive; hiding immoral, ruthless and destructive interests and actions behind the veil of empty words, undefined concepts, and make-believe 'values.' I firmly believe that in order to understand the world - that is, to gain a more realistic understanding and view of how the global social, political and economic order actually functions - we need to speak more plainly, directly, and honestly to describe and dissent against this system. If we truly want a world without war, destruction, empire and tyranny, we must speak honestly and openly about these concepts. If we adopt the language of deception to describe that which we are given no accurate words to describe, we run a fool's errand.

In other words, if you are against war and empire in principle, yet engage in the concocted debates surrounding whatever current war is being pushed for, debating the merits of the one of usually two positions fed to the populace through the media, punditry and pageantry of modern political life, then you simply reinforce that which your own personal values may find so repulsive. If you are not given a language with which to understand issues and the world in a meaningful way, then you are curtailed in your ability to think of the world in a non-superficial way, let alone articulate meaningful positions. By simply adopting the political language which makes up the 'discourse of empire' - allowing for politicians, pundits, intellectuals and the media to justify and disagree to various degrees on the objectives and actions of empire - your thoughts and words become an extension of that discourse, and perpetuate its perverse purposes.

In the recent context of Syria, for example, those who are 'in principle' against war, and hold personal values akin to those 'humanitarian' values which are articulated by the political elites in the name of justifying war, may then be succumbed into the false debate over - "what is the best course of action?" - "to bomb or not to bomb?" - and while the horror of chemical weapons use may trigger an impulse to want to end such usage, the media and political classes have framed the debate as such: should we let Syria get away with using chemical weapons? Should provide more support to the 'rebels'? How should we try to end the conflict in Syria?

This is a false debate and empty, for it poses answers as questions instead of questions looking for answers. In other words, the question is not - " what can we do to help Syria?" - the question is: "what have we done in Syria?" When you ask that question, the answer is not appealing, as the strategy of the West - and specifically the United States - has been to prolong the civil war, not stop it. Thus, when you have asked the right questions, and sought more meaningful answers, then you can ask - "what can we do to help Syria?" - and the answer becomes simpler: stop supporting civil war. But one must first learn to ask the right questions instead of choosing from one among many pre-packaged "solutions."

Mark Twain once wrote, "If you don't read the newspaper, you're uniformed. If you read the newspaper, you're misinformed." If you view yourself as 'politically conscious' or 'engaged,' and yet, you engage only with thoughts and words presented to you by the corporate-owned media and politicians - who allow for a very limited spectrum of variation in views - you're not "politically conscious," but rather, politically comatose. Though your own personal values, interests and intentions may be honourable and sincere, they are made superficial by adopting superficial language and thoughts.

To rectify this, we must speak and think honestly about empire. To think and speak honestly, we must look at the world for what it is, not to see what we want to see, that which supports our pre-conceived notions and biases, but to see what we want to change. We have at our fingertips more access to information than ever before in human history. We have the ability to gather, examine and draw explanations from this information to create a more coherent understanding of the world than that which we are presented with through the media and political pandering. In establishing a more accurate - and ever-evolving - understanding of the world, we are able to reveal the lies and hypocrisy of those individuals, institutions and ideologies that uphold and direct the world we live in. The hypocrisy of our self-declared values and intentions is exposed through looking at the real actions and effects of the policies we pursue under the guise of political language.

If the effects of our actions do not conform to the values we articulate as we undertake them, and yet, neither the language nor the policies and effects change to remedy these inconsistencies, we can come to one of two general conclusions. One, is that our political leaders are simply insane, as Einstein defined it - "doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results" - or; they are liars an deceivers, using words for which they hold personal definitions which are not articulated to the populace, attempting to justify the indefensible, to promote the perverse and serve interests which the general population may find deplorable. While I think that - in many cases - it would be presumptive to rule out insanity altogether, it strikes me as more plausible that it is the latter.
Put in different terms, politicians - if they rise high enough to be in positions in which they become advocates and actors in the propagation of empire - are high-functioning sociopaths: they deceive and manipulate for their own selfish interests, hold no hesitations to act immorally and knowingly cause the suffering and destruction of others. Imagine what our world would look like if serial killers were running countries, corporations, banks and other dominant institutions. I imagine that our world would look exactly at it is, for those who run it have the same claims to moral superiority as your average serial killer; they simply chose another path, and one which leads to the deaths of far more people than any serial killer has ever - or could ever - achieve.

So, let's talk about Empire.

Mafia Principles and Western 'Values'

Renowned linguist, scholar and dissident Noam Chomsky has aptly articulated Western - and notably American - foreign policy as being based upon 'Mafia Principles' in which "defiance cannot be tolerated." Thus, nations, people and institutions which "defy" the American-Western Empire must be "punished," lest other nations and peoples openly defy the empire. This principle holds that if a smaller, seemingly more insignificant global actor is able to "successfully defy" the empire, then anyone could, and others would likely follow.[6]

Thus, for the empire to maintain its 'hegemony' - or global influence - it must punish those who detract from its diktats, so that others would not dare defy the empire. As Chomsky has suggested, this is akin to the way the Mafia would punish even the smallest of vendors who did not pay their dues, not because of financial loss to the 'Godfather,' but because it sends a message to all who observe: if you defy the Godfather, you will be punished.

Extending this analogy to 'international relations,' we can conclude that the United States is the 'Godfather' and the other major Western states - notably Britain, France, and Germany - are akin to the Mafia 'capos' (high-level bosses). Then you have China and Russia, who are significant crime bosses in their own right, though far from holding anywhere near the same weight of influence as the 'Godfather.' Think of them as separate crime families; usually working with the Godfather, as there is a relationship of co-dependency between them all: the Godfather needs their support, and they need the Godfather's support in order for all parties to have a significant influence in their criminal racketeering and illicit markets.

As with any crime families, however, cooperation is often coupled with competition. When the Godfather steps on the personal turf of the other crime families - such as Syria in relation to Russia and China - then the other families push back, seeking to maintain their own turf and thus, maintain their leverage when it comes to power and profits.

Now, for those who believe American and Western political leaders when they discuss 'values' that they uphold, such as 'democracy', 'liberty', the 'rule of law', or any other 'humanitarian' notions of life, justice and peace, I have two words for you: grow up. The Western world has no precedent for upholding values or acting on the basis of 'morality.' One of the central issues we face when dealing with modern empire is that we have very little means - or practice - in communicating honestly about the nature of the world, or our role within it. Language is undermined and inverted, even destroyed altogether. Waging war in the name of 'peace' undermines any meaningful concept of peace which we may hold. Supporting coups in the name of democracy reveals an empty and inverted concept of what we may typically think of as democracy. Yet, this is common practice for the West.

When Cuba had its revolution in 1959, brining Castro to power on a little island just south of the United States, overthrowing the previous American-supported dictator, the U.S. implemented a policy of covert, military and economic warfare against the tiny and desperately poor nation. The main reasoning was not necessarily that Cuba had become 'Communist', per se, but rather, as a 1960 U.S. National Intelligence Estimate noted, Cuba had provided "a highly exploitable example of revolutionary achievement and successful defiance of the U.S."[7] For the 'Godfather,' such an example of "successful defiance" could spur other nations to attempt to defy the U.S. Thus, Cuba had to be made an example of.

When the Eisenhower administration imposed economic sanctions upon Cuba (which have been extended through every subsequent administration to present day), the objective was articulated within internal government documents of the National Security Council (NSC) and other U.S. agencies responsible for the maintenance and expansion of American imperialism (such as the State Department, CIA, Pentagon, etc.).

Noting that the sanctions "would have a serious effect on the Cuban people," denying them medical equipment, food, goods and necessities, President Eisenhower explained that the "primary objective" of the sanctions was "to establish conditions which bring home to the Cuban people the cost of Castro's policies," and that, if Cubans were left hungry, "they will throw Castro out." Under the Kennedy administration, a top State Department official stated that, "every possible means should be undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of Cuba... to bring about hunger, desperation and [the] overthrow of the government."[8]

In other words, the intentions of sanctions are to punish populations in order to undermine support for regimes that "successfully defy" the empire. No concerns are paid to the actual suffering of human beings, though, as these policies are articulated by the political class - and their supporters in the media and intellectual establishment - they were justified on the basis of a grand struggle between the "democratic" West and the "threat" of totalitarian Communism, of upholding "values" and supporting "freedom" of peoples everywhere.

Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of State and National Security Advisor, was appointed by President Reagan in the early 1980s to chair the National Bipartisan Commission on Central America (known as the 'Kissinger Commission') which was created to assess the strategic threat and interests to the United States in Central America, as many nations had been experiencing revolutions, leftist insurgencies against U.S.-backed dictators, and large social movements. The Reagan administration's response was to undertake a massive war of terror in Central America, killing hundreds of thousands and decimating the region for decades. Kissinger provided the imperial justification for the U.S. to punish the tiny Central American countries for their "defiance" of the Godfather, when he wrote in 1983, "If we cannot manage Central America... it will be impossible to convince threatened nations in the Persian Gulf and in other places that we know how to manage the global equilibrium."[9] In other words, if the Empire could not control a tiny little region just south of its border, how could it be expected to wield influence elsewhere in the world?

Henry Kissinger and former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski co-chaired President Reagan's U.S. National Security Council-Defense Department Commission on Integrated Long-Term Strategy, outlining U.S. imperial strategy and interests over the long term, publishing the report,Discriminate Deterrence, in 1988. They wrote that the U.S. would continue to have to intervene in conflicts across much of the Third World, because they "have had and will have an adverse cumulative effect on U.S. access to critical regions," and if such effects cannot be managed, "it will gradually undermine America's ability to defend its interest in the most vital regions, such as the Persian Gulf, the Mediterranean and the Western Pacific."[10]

Noting that most Third World conflicts were "insurgencies, organized terrorism, [and] paramilitary crime," which included "guerrilla forces" and "armed subversives," referring to revolutionary and resistance movements, the U.S. would have to acknowledge that within such "low intensity conflicts," the "enemy" is essentially "omnipresent," meaning that the U.S.-designated enemy is essentially the population itself, or a significant portion of it, and thus, "unlikely ever to surrender." But it would be necessary for the U.S. to intervene in such wars, the report noted, because if they did not do so, "we will surely lose the support of many Third World countries that want to believe the United States can protect its friends, not to mention its own interests."[11]

In other words, if the U.S. does not intervene to crush insurgencies, uprisings, rebellions or generally steer the direction of 'internal conflicts' of Third World nations, then its proxy-puppet governments around the world will lose faith in the ability of the Godfather/Empire to support them in maintaining their dictatorships and rule over their own populations if they ever get into trouble. It would also damage the 'faith' that the Godfather's 'capos' (or Western imperial allies like France and Britain) would have in the U.S.'s ability to serve their imperial interests. If client states or imperial allies lose faith in the Godfather, then the U.S. likely won't remain the Godfather for long.

An internal assessment of national security policy undertaken by the Bush administration in 1991 was leaked to the media, which quoted the report's analysis of U.S. imperial policy for the future: "In cases where the U.S. confronts much weaker enemies, our challenge will be not simply to defeat them, but to defeat them decisively and rapidly... For small countries hostile to us, bleeding our forces in protracted or indecisive conflict or embarrassing us by inflicting damage on some conspicuous element of our forces may be victory enough, and could undercut political support for U.S. efforts against them."[12] In other words, the weaker the "enemy," the more "decisive and rapid" must be their defeat, so as not to "embarrass" the empire and undermine its reputation for maintaining power and punishing those who defy its power. Imagine a small-time crook standing up to the Godfather in defiance: his punishment must not only be quick, but it must be severe, as this sends a message to others.

It has since been acknowledged by top imperial strategists and government agencies that the Cold War was little more than a rhetorical battle between two behemoths to advance their own imperial interests around the world. Samuel Huntington, one of the most influential political scientists of the latter 20th century, closely tied to the American imperial establishment and served in high-level government positions related to the running of foreign policy, commented in a 1981 discussion, when reflecting upon the "lessons of Vietnam," that "an additional problem" for strategists when they decide that there is a conflict in which "you have to intervene or take some action," he noted, "you may have to sell it in such a way as to create the misimpression that it is the Soviet Union that you are fighting... That is what the United States has been doing ever since the Truman Doctrine [of 1947]."[13]

In other words, the concern of the 'Cold War' was not really the Soviet Union, it was the populations across the 'Third World' who were seeking independence and an end to imperialism. However, to intervene in wars where the interests were about repressing popular uprisings, revolutions, crushing independence movements, maintaining imperial domination and subjugation, one cannot - if you proclaim to be a 'free' and 'democratic' society upholding grand 'values' - articulate accurately these interests or the reasons for intervening. Thus, as Huntington noted, the United States would "create the misimpression that it is the Soviet Union that you are fighting." So long as the domestic population was made to fear some outside malevolent enemy - formerly the Soviet Union and today 'terrorism' - then strategists manage to justify and undertake all sorts of atrocities in the name of fighting "communism" or now "terrorism."

When the Cold War was coming to an official end and the Soviet Union was collapsing in on itself, President George H.W. Bush's administration released the National Security Strategy of the United States in 1990 in which it was acknowledged that following decades of justifying military intervention in the Middle East on the basis of a Cold War struggle between democracy and communism, the actual reasons for intervention "were in response to threats to U.S. interests that could not be laid at the Kremlin's door." Further, while the Soviet Union collapses, "American strategic concerns remain" and "the necessity to defend our interests will continue."[14]
In 1992, Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote an article for the establishment journal, Foreign Affairs, in which he bluntly assessed the reality of the 'Cold War' battle between America and the USSR - between the causes of democratic 'liberation' versus totalitarian communism - writing: "The policy of liberation was a strategic sham, designed to a significant degree for domestic political reasons... the policy was basically rhetorical, at most tactical."[15]
America's imperial interests had long been established within internal government documents. In a 1948 State Department Policy Planning document, it was acknowledged that at the time the United States controlled half the world's wealth with only 6.3% of the world's population, and that this disparity would create "envy and resentment." The task for American in the world, then, was "to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming," and instead focus "on our immediate national objectives," which were defined as managing foreign policy in such a way as "to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security." With such an objective in mind, noted the report, "We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford today the luxury of altruism and world-benefaction."[16]

In other words, to maintain the "disparity" between America's wealth and that of the rest of the world, there was no point in pretending that their interests were anything otherwise. Imperial planners were direct in suggesting that "we need not deceive ourselves" about their objectives, but this did not imply that they did not have to deceive the American population, for whom internal documents were not meant to be read.

In the Middle East, imperial interests were bluntly articulated by the Roosevelt and Truman administrations, who defined the region as "an area in which the United States has a vital interest." The oil wealth of Saudi Arabia and the region as a whole was said to "constitute a stupendous source of strategic power, and one of the greatest material prizes in world history," and that controlling the oil would imply "substantial control of the world."[17]

Threats to these interests were quick to arise in the form of Arab Nationalism - or "independent nationalism" - most effectively represented by Gamal Abdul Nasser in Egypt, where nations sought to pursue a policy both foreign and domestic in their own interests, to more closely address the concerns of their own populations rather than the interests of the Godfather, and to take a 'neutral' stance in the Cold War struggle between the US and USSR.

A 1958 National Security Council report noted that, "In the eyes of the majority of Arabs the United States appears to be opposed to the realization of the goals of Arab nationalism," and rather, that the US was simply "seeking to protect its interests in Near East oil by supporting the status quo" of strong-armed ruthless dictators ruling over repressed populations. This, the report noted, was an accurate view that Arab peoples held of the U.S., stating that, "our economic and cultural interests in the area have led not unnaturally to close U.S. relations with elements in the Arab world whose primary interest lies in the maintenance of relations with the West and the status quo in their countries." Further, because the U.S. was so closely allied with the traditional colonial powers of the region - France and Britain - "it is impossible for us to avoid some identification" with colonialism, noted the report, especially since "we cannot exclude the possibility of having to use force in an attempt to maintain our position in the area."[18]

Thus, a key strategy for the U.S. should be to publicly proclaim "support for the ideal of Arab unity," but to quietly "encourage a strengthening of the ties among Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Iraq," all ruthless tyrants, in order to "counterbalance Egypt's preponderant position of leadership in the Arab world." Another strategy to "combat radical Arab nationalism and to hold Persian Gulf oil by force if necessary" would be "to support Israel as the only strong pro-West power."[19]

In Latin America, long considered by U.S. imperial planners as America's 'backyard,' the "threat" was very similar to that posed by Arab nationalism. A 1953 National Security Council memo noted that there was "a trend in Latin America toward nationalistic regimes maintained in large part by appeals to the masses of the population," and that, "there is an increasing popular demand for immediate improvement in the low living standards of the masses." For the U.S., it would be "essential to arrest the drift in the area toward radical and nationalistic regimes" which was "facilitated by historic anti-U.S. prejudices and exploited by Communists." To handle this "threat," the NSC recommended that the United States support "the development of indigenous military forces and local bases" to encourage "individual and collective action against internal subversive activities by communists and other anti-U.S. elements." In other words: the U.S. must support repression of foreign populations.[20]

American strategy thus sought to oppose "radical and nationalistic regimes" - defined as those who successfully defy the U.S. and its Mafia capos - and to "maintain the disparity" between America's wealth and that of the rest of the world, as well as to continue to control strategically important resources and regions, such as oil and energy sources. America was not alone in this struggle for global domination, as it had its trusted Mafia capo "allies" like Britain, France, Germany, and to a lesser extent, Japan, at its side. Concurrently, other large powers like Russia and China would engage in bouts of cooperation and competition for extending and maintaining influence in the world, with occasional conflicts arising between them.

The International Peace Research Institute (IPRI) in Oslo, Norway, compiled a dataset for assessing armed conflict in the world between 1946 and 2001. For this time period, IPRI's research identified 225 conflicts, 163 of which were internal conflicts, though with "external participants" in 32 of those internal conflicts. The number of conflicts in the world rose through the Cold War, and accelerated afterward.[21] The majority of conflicts have been fought in three expansive regions: from Central America and the Caribbean into South America, from East Central Europe through the Balkans, Middle East and India to Indonesia, and the entire continent of Africa.[22]

Another data set was published in 2009 that revealed much larger numbers accounting for "military interventions." During the Cold War era of 1946 to 1989 - a period of 44 years - there were a recorded 690 interventions, while the 16-year period from 1990 and 2005 had recorded 425 military interventions. Intervention rates thus "increased in the post-Cold War era." As the researchers noted, roughly 16 foreign military interventions took place every year during the Cold War, compared to an average of 26 military interventions per year in the post-Cold War period.[23]

Interventions by "major powers" (the US, UK, France, Soviet Union/Russia, and China) increased from an average of 4.3 per year during the Cold War to 5.6 per year in the post-Cold War period. Most of these interventions were accounted for by the United States and France, with France's numbers coming almost exclusively from its interventions in sub-Saharan Africa. During the Cold War period, the five major powers accounted for almost 28% of all military interventions, with the United States in the lead at 74, followed by the U.K. with 38, France with 35, the Soviet Union with 25, and China with 21.[24]

In the post-Cold War period (1990-2005), the major powers accounted for 21.2% of total military interventions, with the United States in the lead at 35, followed by France with 31, the U.K. with 13, Russia with 10, and China with 1. Interventions by Western European states increased markedly in the post-Cold War period, "as former colonial powers increased their involvement in Sub-Saharan Africa," not only by France, but also Belgium and Britain.[25]

Meanwhile, America's actual share of global wealth has been in almost continuous decline since the end of World War II. By 2012, the United States controlled roughly 25% of the world's wealth, compared with roughly 50% in 1948.[26] The rich countries of the world - largely represented by the G7 nations of the U.S., Japan, Germany, the UK, France, Italy and Canada - had for roughly 200 years controlled the majority of the world's wealth.[27] In 2013, the 34 "advanced economies" of the world (including the G7, the euro area nations, and Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea) were surpassed for the first time by the other 150 nations of the world referred to as "emerging" or "developing" economies.[28]

Thus, while the American-Western Empire may be more globally expansive - or technologically advanced - than ever before, the world has itself become much more complicated to rule, with the 'rise' of the East (namely, China and India), and increased unrest across the globe. As Zbigniew Brzezinski noted in 2009, the world's most powerful states "face a novel reality: while the lethality of their military might is greater than ever, their capacity to impose control over the politically awakened masses of the world is at a historic low. To put it bluntly: in earlier times, it was easier to control one million people than to physically kill one million people; today, it is infinitely easier to kill one million people than to control one million people."[29]


Notes
[1] George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language," 1946.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Andrew Gavin Marshall, "Austerity, Adjustment, and Social Genocide: Political Language and the European Debt Crisis," Andrewgavinmarshall.com, 24 July 2012:
http://andrewgavinmarshall.com/2012/07/24/austerity-adjustment-and-social-genocide-political-language-and-the-european-debt-crisis/
[6] Seumas Milne, "'US foreign policy is straight out of the mafia'," The Guardian, 7 November 2009:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/nov/07/noam-chomsky-us-foreign-policy
[7] Andrew Gavin Marshall, "Economic Warfare and Strangling Sanctions: Punishing Iran for its "Defiance" of the United States," Andrewgavinmarshall.com, 6 March 2012:
http://andrewgavinmarshall.com/2012/03/06/economic-warfare-and-strangling-sanctions-punishing-iran-for-its-defiance-of-the-united-states/
[8] Ibid.
[9] Edward Cuddy, "America's Cuban Obsession: A Case Study in Diplomacy and Psycho-History,"The Americas (Vol. 43, No. 2, October 1986), page 192.
[10] Fred IklĂ© and Albert Wohlstetter, Discriminate Deterrence (Report of the Commission on Integrated Long-Term Strategy), January 1988, page 13.
[11] Ibid, page 14.
[12] Maureen Dowd, "WAR IN THE GULF: White House Memo; Bush Moves to Control War's Endgame," The New York Times, 23 February 1991:
http://www.nytimes.com/1991/02/23/world/war-in-the-gulf-white-house-memo-bush-moves-to-control-war-s-endgame.html?src=pm
[13] Stanley Hoffmann, Samuel Huntington, et. al., "Vietnam Reappraised," International Security (Vol. 6, No. 1, Summer 1981), page 14.
[14] National Security Strategy of the United States (The White House, March 1990), page 13.
[15] Zbigniew Brzezinski, "The Cold War and its Aftermath," Foreign Affairs (Vol. 71, No. 4, Fall 1992), page 37.
[16] George F. Kennan, "Review of Current Trends U.S. Foreign Policy," Report by the Policy Planning Staff, 24 February 1948.
[17] Andrew Gavin Marshall, "The U.S. Strategy to Control Middle Eastern Oil: "One of the Greatest Material Prizes in World History"," Andrewgavinmarshall.com, 2 March 2012:
http://andrewgavinmarshall.com/2012/03/02/the-u-s-strategy-to-control-middle-eastern-oil-one-of-the-greatest-material-prizes-in-world-history/
[18] Andrew Gavin Marsha, "Egypt Under Empire, Part 2: The 'Threat' of Arab Nationalism," The Hampton Institute, 23 July 2013:
http://www.hamptoninstitution.org/egyptunderempireparttwo.html#.UjTzKbxQ0bd
[19] Ibid.
[20] Andrew Gavin Marshall, "The American Empire in Latin America: "Democracy" is a Threat to "National Security"," Andrewgavinmarshall.com, 14 December 2011:
http://andrewgavinmarshall.com/2011/12/14/the-american-empire-in-latin-america-democracy-is-a-threat-to-national-security/
[21] Nils Petter Gleditsch, Peter Wallensteen, Mikael Eriksson, Maragreta Sollenberg, and Havard Strand, "Armed Conflict 1946-2001: A New Dataset," Journal of Peace Research (Vol. 39, No. 5, September 2002), page 620.
[22] Ibid, page 624.
[23] Jeffrey Pickering and Emizet F. Kisangani, "The International Military Intervention Dataset: An Updated Resource for Conflict Scholars," Journal of Peace Research (Vol. 46, No. 4, July 2009), pages 596-598.
[24] Ibid.
[25] Ibid.
[26] Robert Kagan, "US share is still about a quarter of global GDP," The Financial Times, 7 February 2012:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d655dd52-4e9f-11e1-ada2-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2euUZAiCV
[27] Chris Giles and Kate Allen, "Southeastern shift: The new leaders of global economic growth," The Financial Times, 4 June 2013:
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/b0bd38b0-ccfc-11e2-9efe-00144feab7de.html?siteedition=intl#axzz2euUZAiCV
[28] David Yanofsky, "For The First Time Ever, Combined GDP Of Poor Countries Exceeds That Of Rich Ones," The Huffington Post, 29 August 2013:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/28/gdp-poor-countries_n_3830396.html
[29] Zbigniew Brzezinski, "Major Foreign Policy Challenges for the Next US President," International Affairs, 85: 1, (2009), page 54.
Andrew Gavin Marshall is an independent researcher and writer based in Montreal, Canada. He is project manager of The People’s Book Project, and he hosts a weekly podcast, “Empire, Power, and People,” on BoilingFrogsPost.com.

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Rights Groups to World: Hold U.S. to Account for Possible Drone 'War Crimes'

 CommonDreams.org

Published on Tuesday, October 22, 2013 by Common Dreams

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch join forces to indict globe-wide drone killing program as affront to international law and human rights

 
- Jon Queally, staff writer
 




Nabeela, eight-year-old granddaughter of Pakistan drone strike victim Mamana Bibi. The US appears to be exploiting the lawless and remote nature of the region to evade accountability for its drone program, including killings that may constitute extrajudicial executions or war crimes, say human rights groups. (Image: Amnesty International)The growing and largely unchallenged use of armed drones by the United States to carry out extrajudicial assassinations and bombing campaigns across the globe amount to possible war crimes and need to be stopped.

That's the message from two of the world's most prominent human rights groups, who on Tuesday demanded an end to the secrecy and unaccountable nature of the US drone wars in Pakistan, Yemen, and elsewhere.


Click to download full report (pdf).

Bolstered by new reports from each group, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch held a joint news conference to present their research and called on the international community to come together in opposition to the 'unlawful' and woefully destructive trend of cross-border US drone attacks—"some of which could even amount to war crimes"—that have killed countless civilians in recent years and done more to promote terrorism across the world than suppress it.

Amnesty says its report, “'Will I Be Next?' US Drone Strikes in Pakistan,” is one of the most comprehensive studies to date of the US drone program from a human rights perspective and focuses on the area where the highest percentage of the US drone bombing campaign has occurred, the tribal areas in Pakistan along the Afghan border.

And Human Rights Watch's report,  "'Between a Drone and Al-Qaeda': The Civilian Cost of US Targeted Killings in Yemen," focuses on covert action in Yemen, including six targeted assassinations that took place there, one in 2009 and the rest from 2012-2013.
As Rolling Stone's John Knefel points out:
While there have been reports on the drone and so-called targeted killing programs before, this is the first time that major NGOs have made such a dramatic statement about specific U.S. strikes. It's also the first time organizations of this size have done their own fieldwork and research, allowing them to make such clear accusations. 
Both reports stress that until the legal and policy frameworks are declassified, it is impossible to assess the legality of individual strikes or the programs at large. At the center of the debate is the ambiguity over whether the U.S. is operating in a law of war context (also known as international humanitarian law) or a human rights law framework, which covers a state's obligations in peacetime and is more restrictive than the law of war.
Taken together, the reports paint a harrowing picture of family members who lost love ones from US attacks and the communities which live under constant threat and fear from the buzz of drones overhead or the missiles that come seemingly from out of nowhere. In that context, the reports attempt to explain why the lawless nature of the killings and aerial bombardments have been so deeply destabilizing to these already fragile regions.


.Click to download full report (pdf).

“The US says it is taking all possible precautions during targeted killings, but it has unlawfully killed civilians and struck questionable military targets in Yemen,” said Letta Tayler, senior terrorism and counterterrorism researcher at Human Rights Watch and the lead author of her group's report. “Yemenis told us that these strikes make them fear the US as much as they fear Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.”

Both reports say the US drone program has been allowed to metastasize without any oversight from the international community and argue that the US has staked out deeply troubling legal arguments in claiming that the "world is a battlefield" when it comes to fighting al-Qaeda or other perceived terrorist threats.

“Secrecy surrounding the drones program gives the US administration a license to kill beyond the reach of the courts or basic standards of international law," said Mustafa Qadri, Amnesty International’s Pakistan Researcher. "It’s time for the USA to come clean about the drones program and hold those responsible for these violations to account.”
According to Amnesty:
This secrecy has enabled the USA to act with impunity and block victims from receiving justice or compensation. As far as Amnesty International is aware, no US official has ever been held to account for unlawful killings by drones in Pakistan.
In addition to the threat of US drone strikes, people in North Waziristan are frequently caught between attacks by armed groups and Pakistan’s armed forces. The local population lives under constant fear of inescapable violence by all sides.
The US drone program has added to local suffering, with people in the region now also living in terror of death from US drones hovering in the skies day and night.
“The tragedy is that drone aircraft deployed by the USA over Pakistan now instill the same kind of fear in the people of the tribal areas that was once associated only with al-Qa’ida and the Taliban,” said Qadri.

In looking at specific drone attacks in Yemen, where the US claims a legitimate battle between itself and al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (or AQAP), HRW found that none of drone attacks they investigated met even the "US policy guidelines for targeted killings that Obama disclosed publicly in May 2013". From the report:
Obama said the US conducts strikes only against individuals who pose an “imminent threat to the American people,” when there is a “near-certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured,” and when capture is not feasible. The strikes investigated by Human Rights Watch pre-date Obama’s disclosure of the policy guidelines, but the White House has said the rules either were either “already in place” or being “transitioned into place.” [...] 
However, the hostilities between the US and these groups do not appear to meet the intensity required under the laws of war to amount to an armed conflict.
According to HRW, the US government has carried out hundreds of targeted killings in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia since 2001. In Yemen, the US is estimated to have conducted 81 targeted killing operations, one in 2002 and the rest since 2009. Research groups report that at least 473 people have been killed in these strikes, the majority of them combatants but many of them civilians.

But as Amnesty's Qadri asks: “What hope for redress can there be for victims of drone attacks and their families when the USA won’t even acknowledge its responsibility for particular strikes?”
And looking at specific strike accounts in Pakistan, Amnesty found that government reports over who or who was not "a combatant" often misapplied the term, reporting:
Contrary to official claims that those killed were “terrorists”, Amnesty International’s research indicates that the victims of these attacks were not involved in fighting and posed no threat to life.  
“We cannot find any justification for these killings. There are genuine threats to the USA and its allies in the region, and drone strikes may be lawful in some circumstances. But it is hard to believe that a group of labourers, or an elderly woman surrounded by her grandchildren, were endangering anyone at all, let alone posing an imminent threat to the United States,” said Qadri. 
International law prohibits arbitrary killing and limits the lawful use of intentional lethal force to exceptional situations. In armed conflict, only combatants and people directly participating in hostilities may be directly targeted. Outside armed conflict, intentional lethal force is lawful only when strictly unavoidable to protect against an imminent threat to life . In some circumstances arbitrary killing can amount to a war crime or extrajudicial execution, which are crimes under international law.
The two human rights groups are demanding that the US and international bodies take up their research in order to launch their own investigations into possible war crimes, breaches of international law, or human rights abuses. In addition, Amnesty released this specific list of demands, calling on:
The US authorities to:
  • Publicly disclose the facts and legal basis for drone strikes carried out in Pakistan and information about any investigation into killings by US drones.
  • Ensure prompt, thorough, independent and impartial investigations into all cases where there are reasonable grounds to believe that drone strikes resulted in unlawful killings. 
  • Bring those responsible for unlawful drone strikes to justice in public and fair trials without recourse to the death penalty. 
  • Ensure that victims of unlawful drone strikes, including family members of victims of unlawful killings, have effective access to justice, compensation and other remedies. 
The Pakistani authorities to:
  • Provide adequate access to justice and reparations for victims of US drone strikes and attacks by Pakistan forces, and seek reparations and other remedies for drone strikes from the US authorities.
  • Bring to justice, in fair trials without recourse to the death penalty, individuals responsible for unlawful killings and other human rights abuses in North Waziristan. This should include US drone strikes, attacks by the Pakistan armed forces, or groups like the Taliban and al-Qa’ida.
  • Publicly disclose information on all US drone strikes that the Pakistani authorities are aware of, including casualties and all assistance provided to victims.
The international community to:
  • Oppose US drone strikes and other killings that violate international law and urge the USA and Pakistan to take the measures outlined above. States should officially protest and pursue remedies under international law when lethal force is unlawfully used by the USA or other states.
  • Refrain from participating in any way in US drone strikes that violate international law, including by sharing intelligence or facilities.
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Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Chomsky: For Almost 70 Years the U.S. Has Been the World Leader in Spreading Destruction and Misery Across the Planet


  World  


 
 

Despite Obama's noble words, America has imposed vicious dictatorships and supported horrendous crime

 
 
 
 
 
The recent Obama-Putin tiff over American exceptionalism reignited an ongoing debate over the Obama Doctrine: Is the president veering toward isolationism? Or will he proudly carry the banner of exceptionalism?

The debate is narrower than it may seem. There is considerable common ground between the two positions, as was expressed clearly by Hans Morgenthau, the founder of the now dominant no-sentimentality "realist" school of international relations.

Throughout his work, Morgenthau describes America as unique among all powers past and present in that it has a "transcendent purpose" that it "must defend and promote" throughout the world: "the establishment of equality in freedom."

The competing concepts "exceptionalism" and "isolationism" both accept this doctrine and its various elaborations but differ with regard to its application.
One extreme was vigorously defended by President Obama in his Sept. 10 address to the nation: "What makes America different," he declared, "what makes us exceptional," is that we are dedicated to act, "with humility, but with resolve," when we detect violations somewhere.

"For nearly seven decades the United States has been the anchor of global security," a role that "has meant more than forging international agreements; it has meant enforcing them."

The competing doctrine, isolationism, holds that we can no longer afford to carry out the noble mission of racing to put out the fires lit by others. It takes seriously a cautionary note sounded 20 years ago by the New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman that "granting idealism a near exclusive hold on our foreign policy" may lead us to neglect our own interests in our devotion to the needs of others.

Between these extremes, the debate over foreign policy rages.

At the fringes, some observers reject the shared assumptions, bringing up the historical record: for example, the fact that "for nearly seven decades" the United States has led the world in aggression and subversion - overthrowing elected governments and imposing vicious dictatorships, supporting horrendous crimes, undermining international agreements and leaving trails of blood, destruction and misery.

To these misguided creatures, Morgenthau provided an answer. A serious scholar, he recognized that America has consistently violated its "transcendent purpose."

But to bring up this objection, he explains, is to commit "the error of atheism, which denies the validity of religion on similar grounds." It is the transcendent purpose of America that is "reality"; the actual historical record is merely "the abuse of reality."

In short, "American exceptionalism" and "isolationism" are generally understood to be tactical variants of a secular religion, with a grip that is quite extraordinary, going beyond normal religious orthodoxy in that it can barely even be perceived. Since no alternative is thinkable, this faith is adopted reflexively.

Others express the doctrine more crudely. One of President Reagan's U.N. ambassadors, Jeane Kirkpatrick, devised a new method to deflect criticism of state crimes. Those unwilling to dismiss them as mere "blunders" or "innocent naivete" can be charged with "moral equivalence" - of claiming that the U.S. is no different from Nazi Germany, or whoever the current demon may be. The device has since been widely used to protect power from scrutiny.

Even serious scholarship conforms. Thus in the current issue of the journal Diplomatic History, scholar Jeffrey A. Engel reflects on the significance of history for policy makers.

Engel cites Vietnam, where, "depending on one's political persuasion," the lesson is either "avoidance of the quicksand of escalating intervention [isolationism] or the need to provide military commanders free rein to operate devoid of political pressure" - as we carried out our mission to bring stability, equality and freedom by destroying three countries and leaving millions of corpses.

The Vietnam death toll continues to mount into the present because of the chemical warfare that President Kennedy initiated there - even as he escalated American support for a murderous dictatorship to all-out attack, the worst case of aggression during Obama's "seven decades."

Another "political persuasion" is imaginable: the outrage Americans adopt when Russia invades Afghanistan or Saddam Hussein invades Kuwait. But the secular religion bars us from seeing ourselves through a similar lens.

One mechanism of self-protection is to lament the consequences of our failure to act. Thus New York Times columnist David Brooks, ruminating on the drift of Syria to "Rwanda-like" horror, concludes that the deeper issue is the Sunni-Shiite violence tearing the region asunder.

That violence is a testimony to the failure "of the recent American strategy of light-footprint withdrawal" and the loss of what former foreign service officer Gary Grappo calls the "moderating influence of American forces."
Those still deluded by "abuse of reality" - that is, fact - might recall that the Sunni-Shiite violence resulted from the worst crime of aggression of the new millennium, the U.S. invasion of Iraq. And those burdened with richer memories might recall that the Nuremberg Trials sentenced Nazi criminals to hanging because, according to the Tribunal's judgment, aggression is "the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole."

The same lament is the topic of a celebrated study by Samantha Power, the new U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. In "A Problem from Hell: America in the Age of Genocide," Power writes about the crimes of others and our inadequate response.

She devotes a sentence to one of the few cases during the seven decades that might truly rank as genocide: the Indonesian invasion of East Timor in 1975. Tragically, the United States "looked away," Power reports.

Daniel Patrick Moynihan, her predecessor as U.N. ambassador at the time of the invasion, saw the matter differently. In his book "A Dangerous Place," he described with great pride how he rendered the U.N. "utterly ineffective in whatever measures it undertook" to end the aggression, because "the United States wished things to turn out as they did."

And indeed, far from looking away, Washington gave a green light to the Indonesian invaders and immediately provided them with lethal military equipment. The U.S. prevented the U.N. Security Council from acting and continued to lend firm support to the aggressors and their genocidal actions, including the atrocities of 1999, until President Clinton called a halt - as could have happened anytime during the previous 25 years.
But that is mere abuse of reality.

It is all too easy to continue, but also pointless. Brooks is right to insist that we should go beyond the terrible events before our eyes and reflect about the deeper processes and their lessons.

Among these, no task is more urgent than to free ourselves from the religious doctrines that consign the actual events of history to oblivion and thereby reinforce our basis for further "abuses of reality."

© 2013 Noam Chomsky -- Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate
Noam Chomsky is a professor of linguistics and philosophy at MIT.