It’s finally out in the open. Naked, ugly and raring to re-shape the world - The National Security Strategy of the United States. Thomas Paine will turn in his grave, now that George Bush has spat on it. Paine wrote the Rights of Man, and Bush has drafted the rights of the White House, amounting to a moral annexation of Earth. The arrogance is breathtaking, the implication scary. The Bush manifesto seeks monetary and military dominance of the globe for all time, Amen. God Bless America, Goddamn the rest of us. Despite the President’s last minute “heavy editing” of the text to disguise its claws, the front page headline of the Sydney Morning Herald sums it up: “BUSH: HOW I’LL RULE THE WORLD”.
The editorial goes further, describing the manifesto as “aggressive and frighteningly naïve”. What a long time it’s taken for the penny to drop. This policy has been in play since Bush declared the War on Terror. (Maybe even before, as argued in Amerika Psycho). Still, Sydney’s conservative newspaper has now condemned the vision of Bush as “fearful and unfree”.
Exposed! The World’s Biggest Weapon of Mass Destruction Those who argue that globalisation has an ethical dimension, obliging nations to co-operate in matters of human rights, pollution, arms reductions, etc, will be startled by the bellicose affirmation of the Divine Right of US Citizens – free to ignore Kyoto, protected from the International Criminal Court, encouraged to change regimes, licensed to amass an arsenal in excess of the next nine countries combined.
US foreign policy is already a black comedy. While trying to bully the UN into its war with Iraq, it has long been furtively bombing over two-thirds of Iraqi countryside, “without any legal authority”, notes Professor Robert Jensen of the University of Texas, “bombing it frequently, and often hurting or killing civilians”. The professed motive is to eliminate weapons of mass destruction. But America itself is a weapon of mass destruction.
He Shook the Hand of Satan How did you like the facial expressions of the free world’s leaders when first informed that Iraq had accepted UN weapons inspectors? Perhaps you expected a smile – phew, war averted. Far from it. Bush and Powell were like cartoon villains caught in a dastardly act – curses, foiled again.
Arms-millionaire Donald Rumsfeld is apparently a national matinee idol. Almost 20 years ago he was sent by Ronald Reagan on a covert mission to Baghdad with a friendly note for Saddam Hussein. The matinee idol had probably prepared himself by viewing a notorious video of Hussein signalling out his political rivals, ordering them executed on the spot and filming the result. Rumsfeld reported that the Iraqi President seemed “vigorous & confident”.
Shortly after the handshake in Baghdad, as now confirmed by Newsweek, America shipped tanks and other instruments of oppression to Iraq: a computerised data base for the tracking of political prisoners, an extensive, high tech video surveillance network, “chemical analysis equipment” for Iraq’s Atomic Energy Commission and “numerous shipments of bacteria/ fungi/protozoa” for the concoction of an array biological weapons, including anthrax. (For details, see Newsweek, Sept 24/02)
At this time, the US was aware of Saddam having inflicted such weapons on the Iranians . So there we have it: the man who is today’s matinee idol once played a fleeting role in the foreign affairs version Dr Frankenstein – the making of Saddam Hussein.
Perhaps that’s why he’s worried about his offspring’s arsenal of horrors - Rumsfeld sold him the chemistry kit. In 1988, Saddam sprayed numerous Kurdish women and children with poison gas – the photos are blood curdling. Keep in mind that our self proclaimed rulers of the world have refused to sign the UN protocol against the use of bio-chemical weapons.
While Rumsfeld, like the original Dr Frankenstein, may yet erase the monster he helped create, will he be able to erase the memory of his own complicity? This story, which came in the wake of similar revelations on the web, is unfolded by Newsweek with an excruciating air of reluctance.
“No single policy maker or administration deserves blame for creating, or at least tolerating, a monster”, notes Newsweek. “Many of their decisions seemed reasonable at the time…. Americas past stumbles, while embarrassing, are not an argument for inaction in the future”. That’s the joy of being an Empire. Never having to say your sorry.
Be The First to Know Executive vice-president and general manager of CNN International, Rena Golden, has admitted censoring news of US actions in Afghanistan. “It wasn't a matter of government pressure”, she explained, “but a reluctance to criticize anything in a war that was obviously supported by the vast majority of the people.” Orwell weeps. One reason for the War Against Terror’s popularity is the exclusion of awkward facts and alternative views. Another CNN bigwig is arguing that to show footage of civilian casualties would be “perverse”. Yet to exclude them is to aid and abet war crimes. CNN’s current slogan is … be the first to know. Sure. And be the last to understand.
Quite by chance, as I was moving a few folders around the other day, a newspaper clipping fell to the floor. Dated September 2, 1998, it contained an eye catching headline: “US admits its excuses for missile attack are flawed”. This was an updated report of the previous month’s attack on the Shifa Pharmaceutical plant in the Sudan, demolished by cruise missiles. The report originated in the Los Angeles Times, its tone reflecting that bygone era Before the Censorship Began. Among its nuggets:
•”Officials acknowledged the US may have overstated evidence of Osama bin Laden’s ties to the factory”.
• “US officials were unaware that the plant produced human and vetinary medicines for the impoverished nation.”
•”Even so they stand by their claim that a single soil
sample was sufficient proof that the plant was used to manufacture the deadly nerve gas VX”.
However, the report quotes the German ambassador to Khartoum disputing such US assertions, stating that the plant had produced antibiotics, diarrhoeal drugs, intravenous fluids and veterinary medicines.
On top of this, even US experts were quoted as denying that the single soil sample of a chemical called EMPTA , a precursor ingredient in the production of VX gas, was proof that the Shifa factory was a poisons lab. Mike Hiskey, a chemist and explosive expert at the Los Alamos National Laboratories in New Mexico pointed out, “its fairly commonly known that these are used in pesticides and herbicides”.
This report is a symphonic overture of the major themes being played out before our eyes today. Exaggerated claims, bald faced lies, innocent victims. (The cessation of pharmaceutical supplies, led the cessation of countless lives).
At the time of the strike “US officials said they knew the plant had held an opening celebration to publicise it as a major source of medicines for the Sudan. But they did not believe the plant actually produced medicines”. Why? Because they “saw no evidence of such an output when they accessed its website.” I am not making this up. Such was the level of intelligence that launched the missiles. Such is the level of intelligence that shapes the new world order.
