De Russische annexatie van de Krim en de permanente onrust in Oekraïne hebben in het Westen langzamerhand een begin van paniek doen ontstaan. Na de Koude Oorlog heeft wat we toen de Vrije Wereld noemden bij gebrek aan de volgende globale tegenstander haar defensie verwaarloosd. In het begin werd dat in dit deel van de wereld als een geweldig voordeel beschouwd.
H.J.A. Hofland. Provinciaal Europa. 2 april 2014
Tijdens wat soms de 'lange' negentiende eeuw wordt genoemd, vanaf de Franse Revolutie tot aan de Eerste Wereldoorlog, veranderden zowel West-Europa als Amerika van een agrarische samenleving in een industriële grootmacht. Deze Industriële Revolutie leidde tot een groot aantal andere revoluties. Nieuwe technologieën maakten voor het eerst de massaproductie van luxegoederen mogelijk: de binnenlandse politieke constellatie van samenlevingen veranderde terwijl ze hun koloniale gebieden overzee uitbreidden, waardoor grondstoffen en nieuwe afzetmarkten gegarandeerd waren. De technologische vooruitgang leidde ook tot een revolutie in het denken: het is nauwelijks overdreven om te zeggen dat het hele begrip tijd in de negentiende eeuw veranderde en bijgevolg ook ons idee over onszelf en ons begrip van de plaats van de mensheid in de geschiedenis.
Neil MacGregor. Een geschiedenis van de wereld in 100 voorwerpen. 2011
In diezelfde eeuw werd Benjamin Franklin's 'Time is Money' één van de belangrijkste dogma's van de zich snel ontwikkelende industriële maatschappij. Tijd was voor de fabrikant zowel als de zakenman een doorslaggevende factor in de gerationaliseerde samenleving waar geld de hoogste norm was. Alles dat niet efficient en nuttig was moest uit de werkelijkheid worden gefilterd. Daarbij speelt het begrip
opportunity cost a crucial part in ensuring that scarce resources are used efficiently. Thus, opportunity costs are not restricted to monetary or financial costs: the real cost of output forgone, lost time, pleasure or any other benefit that provides utility should also be considered opportunity costs. The concept seems a simple one, useful when applied to making everyday decisions about how best to spend limited time money.
Men mocht zijn tijd niet verlummelen, want die verspilde tijd kostte de werkgever geld. De arbeider had zijn tijd aan de werkgever verkocht en die bepaalde wat de werkgever in de door hem gekochte tijd moest doen. Het was het begin van wat heden ten dage 'Time Management' wordt genoemd en dat als volgt wordt gedefinieerd:
Time management is the act or process of planning and exercising conscious control over the amount of time spent on specific activities, especially to increase effectiveness, efficiency or productivity.
De Vooruitgangs-doctrine dwong de mens de tijd zo efficient mogelijk te spenderen, tijd werd een schaars goed. Het opmerkelijke is dat men twee tegenstrijdige ontwikkelingen ziet: de rationele technologische vooruitgang was vanaf het allereerste begin alleen mogelijk door een irrationale morele achteruitgang. Zonder de barbaarse onderdrukking en uitbuiting van de werkende klasse in Oost en West, Noord en Zuid en de plundering van grondstoffen elders, was de westerse 'beschaving,' zoals die nu is, nooit mogelijk geweest. Om het actueler te stellen: zonder de propaganda van opiniemakers als Henk Hofland had het huidige neoliberale systeem nooit zo machtig kunnen worden. Ander voorbeeld, eveneens uit de BBC-serie A History of the World in 100 Objects:
In het midden van de negentiende eeuw, aan het begin van de Industriële Revolutie, waren de industriële grootmachten, en met name Groot-Brittannië en de Verenigde Staten, agressief op zoek naar nieuwe bronnen voor grondstoffen en nieuwe markten voor hun producten. Voor deze vrijhandelaren was de wereld een oester die ze open wilden wrikken. Het leek hun onvoorstelbaar en ook ontoelaatbaar dat Japan zou weigeren om volledig mee te doen aan de mondiale economie. Maar Japan zag de noodzaak om handel te drijven met deze opdringerige partners in spe niet in. Het was heel tevreden met de bestaande situatie…
De Japanse heersers voelden niets voor verandering en de Amerikanen kwamen tot de conclusie dat vrijhandel met geweld moest worden afgedwongen.
Het gevolg was dat
commodore Matthew Perry van de Amerikaanse marine, die onuitgenodigd de baai van Tokio binnenvoer, eiste dat de Japanners handel gingen drijven met de Verenigde Staten. Hieronder een deel van de brief van de president van de VS, die Perry aan de Japanse keizer overhandigde:
'Een groot aantal van de grote oorlogsschepen die opstomen naar Japan, is nog niet in deze wateren aangekomen en ondergetekende heeft als bewijs van zijn vriendschappelijke bedoelingen slechts vier kleinere schepen gestuurd, met de overweging om zonodig in de komende lente terug te keren naar Edo met een veel grotere vloot.
Maar de verwachting is dat de regering van uwe koninklijke hoogheid een dergelijke terugkeer onnodig zal maken, door onmiddellijk toe te stemmen in de uiterst redelijke en vreedzame voorstellen die in de brief van de president staan…'
Dit was gewapende diplomatie volgens het boekje en het werkte. Het Japanse verzet smolt weg. In korte tijd omarmden de Japanners het nieuwe economische model…
Deze 'gewapende diplomatie' verschilt in niets van de hufterige praktijken van de eerste de beste criminele bende in elke willekeurige westerse metropool. De zogeheten 'vrijhandel' gold alleen voor de machtigen die hun eigen economie beschermden door talloze import-beperkingen. Omdat het hier een grootmacht betreft wordt het dreigen met geweld evenwel gekwalificeerd als 'diplomatie.' De jurist/journalist Geert Mak ging in zijn boek Reizen zonder John (2012) nog een stapje verder door te beweren dat de Amerikaanse elite rond 1900 'een begin van orde brachten in de mondiale politiek en economie,' en kwam woorden te kort om de Amerikaanse diplomatie te prijzen, aangezien 'de Amerikaanse diplomaten tot de beste ter wereld [horen].' Op zijn beurt vat Henk Hofland in De Groene Amsterdammer het blanke, christelijke geweld samen onder de noemer 'het vredestichtende Westen.' In werkelijkheid doet de macht in Washington en op Wall Street exact hetzelfde als de Europese elite deed tijdens het kolonialisme. En het Europa van 'Geen Jorwerd zonder Brussel,' verdedigt nog steeds met geweld zijn geopolitieke belangen, maar nu in NAVO-verband, onder aanvoering van de VS. In het interbellum verklaarde de toenmalige Commandant van het Amerikaanse Korps Mariniers, generaal-majoor Smedley Butler:
I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism… Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.
Ook tegenwoordig wordt misdadige politiek verdedigd en toegejuicht door de Nederlandse 'politiek-literaire elite.' En 'als bewijs van' Washington's 'vriendschappelijke bedoelingen' dreigt de VS nog steeds de — in het jargon van Hofland — 'volgende globale tegenstander,' als hij niet doet wat de Amerikaanse politieke en economische elite eist. De 'Big Stick diplomacy,' wordt nog immer door opiniemakers aangeprezen als de 'soft power,' van de VS dat 'decennialang als ordebewaker en politieagent [fungeerde] – om maar te zwijgen van alle hulp die het uitdeelde,' aldus Neerlands populairste 'historicus,' Geert Mak zelve. Over het veroveren van grondstoffen en markten zwijgen de woordvoerders van de elite. Nadat de VS, met het oog op zijn economische en geopolitieke belangen, Japan succesrijk met geweld had gechanteerd, zorgde de VS voor een regime-change in Hawaii en voltrok zich de Amerikaanse genocidale verovering van de Filippijnen. Aldus werd een begin gemaakt met het overzees imperium van de VS, een feit dat door Geert Mak wordt verzwegen omdat het niet past in zijn simplistische versie van de geschiedenis, die het publiek vertelt dat 'de Amerikaanse politiek sterk antikolonialistisch' bleef 'totdat het anticommunisme de overhand kreeg.'
Wie de moeite neemt om rond het Iwo Jima-Memorial nabij de Arlington National Cemetery in Washington te lopen, ziet op het diep zwarte graniet in gouden letters de talloze oorlogen gebeiteld die de VS sinds zijn onafhankelijkheidsoorlog heeft uitgevochten. Bovenden kan men er de inscriptie 'In Honor And Memory Of The Men Of The United States Marine Corps Who Have Given Their Lives To Their Country Since 10 November 1775' lezen.
Vanaf de oprichting van de staat in 1776 tot nu heeft de VS slechts 21 jaar geen gewapend conflict gekend, de meeste oorlogen waren gericht op de uitbreiding van het eigen grondgebied of op het veroveren van grondstoffen en markten. Sinds het eind van de negentiende eeuw werd de Amerikaanse buitenlandse politiek bepaald door een beleid dat Amerikaanse academici van naam de ‘Open Door Imperialism’ noemen:
Open Door imperialism consisted of using U.S. political power to guarantee access to foreign markets and resources on terms favorable to American corporate interests, without relying on direct political rule. Its central goal was to obtain for U.S. merchandise, in each national market, treatment equal to that afforded any other industrial nation. Most importantly, this entailed active engagement by the U.S. government in breaking down the imperial powers' existing spheres of economic influence or preference. The result, in most cases, was to treat as hostile to U.S. security interests any large-scale attempt at autarky, or any other policy whose effect was to withdraw a major area from the disposal of U.S. corporations. When the power attempting such policies was an equal, like the British Empire, the U.S. reaction was merely one of measured coolness. When it was perceived as an inferior, like Japan, the U.S. resorted to more forceful measures, as events of the late 1930s indicate. And whatever the degree of equality between advanced nations in their access to Third World markets, it was clear that Third World nations were still to be subordinated to the industrialized West in a collective sense. Indeed, one think that Kautsky had the Open Door in mind in formulating his theory of ‘ultra-imperialism,’ in which the developed capitalist nations cooperated to exploit the Third World collectively.
This Open Door system was the direct ancestor of today's neoliberal system, which is falsely called ‘free trade’ in the apologetics of court intellectuals. It depended on active management of the world economy by dominant states, and continuing intervention to police the international economic order and enforce sanctions against states which did not cooperate. Woodrow Wilson, in a 1907 lecture at Columbia University, said:
'Since trade ignores national boundaries and the manufacturer insists on having the world as a market, the flag of his nation must follow him, and the doors of the nations which are closed must be battered down.... Concessions obtained by financiers must be safeguarded by ministers of state, even if the sovereignty of unwilling nations be outraged in the process. Colonies must be obtained or planted, in order that no useful corner of the world may be overlooked or left unused. Peace itself becomes a matter of conference and international combinations.'
Wilson warned during the 1912 election that ‘Our industries have expanded to such a point that they will burst their jackets if they cannot find a free [i.e., guaranteed by the state] outlet to the markets of the world.’
In a 1914 address to the National Foreign Trade Convention, Secretary of Commerce Redfield followed very nearly the same theme:
'we have learned the lesson now, that our factories are so large that their output at full time is greater than America's market can continuously absorb. We know now that if we will run full time all the time, we must do it by reason of the orders we take from lands beyond the sea. To do less than that means homes in America in which the husbands are without work; to do that means factories that are shut down part of the time.'
Under the Open Door system, the state and its loans were to play a central role in the export of capital. The primary purpose of foreign loans, historically, has been to finance the infrastructure which is a prerequisite for the establishment of enterprises in foreign countries. As Edward E. Pratt, chief of the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, said in 1914:
'we can never hope to realize the really big prizes in foreign trade until we are prepared to loan capital to foreign nations and to foreign enterprise. The big prizes... are the public and private developments of large proportions, ...the building of railroads, the construction of public-service plants, the improvement of harbors and docks, ...and many others which demand capital in large amounts.... It is commonly said that trade follows the flag. It is much more truly said that trade follows the investment or the loan.'
It was, however, beyond the resources of individual firms or venture capitalists, or of the decentralized banking system, to raise the sums necessary for these tasks. One purpose of creating a central banking system (the Federal Reserve Act, 1914) was to make possible the large-scale mobilization of investment capital for overseas ventures. Under the New Deal, the mobilization began to take the form of direct state loans. The state's financial policies, besides promoting the accumulation of capital for foreign investment, also underwrite foreign consumption of U.S. produce. As John Foster Dulles said in 1928, ‘We must finance our exports by loaning foreigners the where-with-all to pay for them....’ These two functions were perfected in the Bretton Woods system after WWII.
Uit zowel de uitspraken van Amerikaanse beleidsbepalers als de lange reeks gewelddadige Amerikaanse interventies blijkt dat Washington vanaf het allereerst begin expansionistisch en imperialistisch is geweest, meestal gedwongen door de kapitalistische economische wetmatigheid van de eeuwige groei. De ware redenen achter de woorden van de 'internationalist' Woodrow Wilson waren economische, het telkens terugkerende probleem van de overproductie. De toenmalige president McKinley verwoordde dit zonder omwegen toen hij tijdens de grote depressie in de VS aan het eind van de negentiende eeuw verklaarde: 'Wij hebben goed geld… maar wat we nodig hebben is nieuwe markten,’ omdat, zoals de invloedrijke voorzitter van de Senaats Commissie voor Buitenlandse Betrekkingen, Henry Cabot Lodge, hem nog eens duidelijk had gemaakt, de binnenlandse markten ‘niet voldoende zijn voor onze op volle toeren draaiende industrieën.’ Met het oog daarop verklaarde de invloedrijke Senator Albert Beveridge:
The Philippines are ours forever... and just beyond the Philippines are China's illimitable markets... The Pacific is ours.
Telkens weer was het argument tijdens het debat in het Congres over de annexatie van de Filippijnen dat dit land als de 'stepping-stones to China' moest functioneren, een potentiële markt van destijds 400 miljoen consumenten. Natuurlijk werd deze noodzaak met nobel klinkende propaganda aan de man gebracht. De VS had de plicht om het christendom en de blanke beschaving te verspreiden onder wat Beveridge noemde 'savage and senile peoples.' In feite ging het natuurlijk om goedkope vitale grondstoffen voor de Amerikaanse fabrieken en om nieuwe afzetmarkten voor Amerikaanse producten. Dat was de ‘orde’ die toen heerste, en dat is de ‘orde’ die nog steeds heerst, en nu machtiger is dan ooit tevoren, en ook vandaag de dag wordt deze meedogenloze wanorde door de spreekbuizen van de macht verkocht als het cultiveren van 'de volgende tegenstander' via ‘responsibility to protect’ of ‘humanitaire interventies,’ of ‘regime change’ of ‘nation building,’ etc. Maar de rode draad in dit geweld blijft altijd de westerse terreur, het massaal schenden van mensenrechten, bloedbaden van honderdduizenden tot miljoenen burgerdoden, het op grote schaal vernietigen van de infra-structuur, het aan de macht helpen en houden van gangsterregimes, kortom het terroriseren van de mensheid. Maar aangezien de feiten niet passen in het ideologische verhaal van de mainstream-opiniemakers worden die verzwegen en wordt daarvoor in de plaats een leugen gepresenteerd, zoals de volgende van Geert Mak in Reizen zonder John. Op zoek naar Amerika (2012):
Het waren Amerikaanse presidenten, Wilson en Roosevelt, die de aanzet gaven tot een hele reeks internationale instituten die, ondanks alle problemen, een begin van orde brachten in de mondiale politiek en economie.
Nu de werkelijkheid:
Nu de werkelijkheid:
From Boston to Pakistan, Pentagon Officials Claim Entire World is a Battlefield
Pentagon officials today claimed President Obama and future presidents have the power to send troops anywhere in the world to fight groups linked to al-Qaeda, based in part on the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), passed by Congress days after the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. Speaking at the first Senate hearing on rewriting the AUMF, Pentagon officials specifically said troops could be sent to Syria, Yemen and the Congo without new congressional authorization. Michael Sheehan, the assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, predicted the war against al-Qaeda would last at least 10 to 20 more years. Senator Angus King (I-Maine) challenged the Pentagon’s interpretation of the Constitution and that the entire world is a battlefield. ‘This is the most astounding and most astoundingly disturbing hearing I’ve been to since I’ve been here. You guys have essentially rewritten the Constitution here today,’ King said. ‘You guys have invented this term 'associated forces' that’s nowhere in this document. ... It’s the justification for everything, and it renders the war powers of Congress null and void.’
This excerpt of the hearing includes Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC); Robert Taylor, acting general counsel, Department of Defense; Michael Sheehan, assistant secretary of defense for special operations/low-intensity conflict, Department of Defense; and Sen. Angus King (I-Maine).
TRANSCRIPT
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM: Do you agree with me, the war against radical Islam, or terror, whatever description you like to provide, will go on after the second term of President Obama?
MICHAEL SHEEHAN: Senator, in my judgment, this is going to go on for quite a while, and, yes, beyond the second term of the president.
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM: And beyond this term of Congress?
MICHAEL SHEEHAN: Yes, sir. I think it’s at least 10 to 20 years.
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM: So, from your point of view, you have all of the authorization and legal authorities necessary to conduct a drone strike against terrorist organizations in Yemen without changing the AUMF.
MICHAEL SHEEHAN: Yes, sir, I do believe that.
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM: You agree with that, General?
BRIG. GEN. RICHARD GROSS: I do, sir.
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM: General, do you agree with that?
GEN. MICHAEL NAGATA: I do, sir.
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM: OK. Could we send military members into Yemen to strike against one of these organizations? Does the president have that authority to put boots on the ground in Yemen?
ROBERT TAYLOR: As I mentioned before, there’s domestic authority and international law authority. At the moment, the basis for putting boots on the ground in Yemen, we respect the sovereignty of Yemen, and it would—
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM: I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about: Does he have the legal authority under our law to do that?
ROBERT TAYLOR: Under domestic authority, he would have that authority.
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM: I hope that Congress is OK with that. I’m OK with that. Does he have authority to put boots on the ground in the Congo?
MICHAEL SHEEHAN: Yes, sir, he does.
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM: OK. Do you agree with me that when it comes to international terrorism, we’re talking about a worldwide struggle?
MICHAEL SHEEHAN: Absolutely, sir. [inaudible]
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM: Would you agree with me the battlefield is wherever the enemy chooses to make it?
MICHAEL SHEEHAN: Yes, sir, from Boston to the FATA [the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan].
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM: I couldn’t agree with you more. We’re in a—do you agree with that, General?
BRIG. GEN. RICHARD GROSS: Yes, sir. I agree that the enemy decides where the battlefield is.
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM: And it could be anyplace on the planet, and we have to be aware and able to act. And do you have the ability to act, and are you aware of the threats?
MICHAEL SHEEHAN: Yes, sir. We do have the ability to react, and we are tracking threats globally.
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM: From my point of view, I think your analysis is correct, and I appreciate all of your service to our country.
SEN. CARL LEVIN: Senator King.
SEN. ANGUS KING: Gentlemen, I’ve only been here five months, but this is the most astounding and most astoundingly disturbing hearing that I’ve been to since I’ve been here. You guys have essentially rewritten the Constitution here today. The Constitution, Article I, Section 8, Clause 11, clearly says that the Congress has the power to declare war. This—this authorization, the AUMF, is very limited. And you keep using the term ‘associated forces.’ You use it 13 times in your statement. That is not in the AUMF. And you said at one point, ‘It suits us very well.’ I assume it does suit you very well, because you’re reading it to cover everything and anything. And then you said, at another point, ‘So, even if the AUMF doesn’t apply, the general law of war applies, and we can take these actions.’ So, my question is: How do you possibly square this with the requirement of the Constitution that the Congress has the power to declare war?
This is one of the most fundamental divisions in our constitutional scheme, that the Congress has the power to declare war; the president is the commander-in-chief and prosecutes the war. But you’re reading this AUMF in such a way as to apply clearly outside of what it says. Senator McCain was absolutely right: It refers to the people who planned, authorized, committed or aided the terrorist attacks on September 11. That’s a date. That’s a date. It doesn’t go into the future. And then it says, ‘or harbored such organizations’—past tense—‘or persons in order to prevent any future acts by such nations, organizations or persons.’ It established a date.
I don’t disagree that we need to fight terrorism. But we need to do it in a constitutionally sound way. Now, I’m just a little, old lawyer from Brunswick, Maine, but I don’t see how you can possibly read this to be in comport with the Constitution and authorize any acts by the president. You had testified to Senator Graham that you believe that you could put boots on the ground in Yemen now under this—under this document. That makes the war powers a nullity. I’m sorry to ask such a long question, but my question is: What’s your response to this? Anybody?
MICHAEL SHEEHAN: Senator, let me take the first response. I’m not a constitutional lawyer or a lawyer of any kind. But let me talk to you a little—take a brief statement about al-Qaeda and the organization that attacked us on September 11, 2001. In the two years prior to that, Senator King, that organization attacked us in East Africa and killed 17 Americans in our embassy in Nairobi, with loosely affiliated groups of people in East Africa. A year prior to 9/11, that same organization, with its affiliates in Yemen, almost sunk a U.S. ship, the U.S.S. Cole, a billion-dollar warship, killed 17 sailors in the port of Aden. The organization that attacked us on 9/11 already had its tentacles in—around the world with associated groups. That was the nature of the organization then; it is the nature of the organization now. In order to attack that organization, we have to attack it with those affiliates that are its operational arm that have previously attacked and killed Americans, and at high-level interests, and continue to try to do that.
SEN. ANGUS KING: That’s fine, but that’s not what the AUMF says. You can—you can—what I’m saying is, we may need new authority, but don’t—if you expand this to the extent that you have, it’s meaningless, and the limitation in the war power is meaningless. I’m not disagreeing that we need to attack terrorism wherever it comes from and whoever is doing it. But what I’m saying is, let’s do it in a constitutional way, not by putting a gloss on a document that clearly won’t support it. It just—it just doesn’t—it just doesn’t work. I’m just reading the words. It’s all focused on September 11 and who was involved, and you guys have invented this term ‘associated forces’ that’s nowhere in this document. As I mentioned, in your written statement, you use that—that’s the key term. You use it 13 times. It’s the justification for everything. And it renders the war powers of the Congress null and void. I don’t understand. I mean, I do understand you’re saying we don’t need any change, because the way you read it, you can—you could do anything. But why not say—come back to us and say, ‘Yes, you’re correct that this is an overbroad reading that renders the war powers of the Congress a nullity; therefore, we need new authorization to respond to the new situation’? I don’t understand why—I mean, I do understand it, because the way you read it, there’s no limit. But that’s not what the Constitution contemplates.
RELATED DEMOCRACY NOW! COVERAGE
De wereld is een slagveld geworden en oorlogen worden bepaald door het Amerikaans militair-industrieel complex. Dat de VS geen democratie meer is, mag tevens blijken uit de woorden van de Amerikaanse onafhankelijke senator Angus King die zijn collega's verzoekt de Grondwet niet te schenden zodra ze weer een nieuwe oorlog goedkeuren: 'I’m not disagreeing that we need to attack terrorism wherever it comes from and whoever is doing it. But what I’m saying is, let’s do it in a constitutional way.'
Nu volgens Hofland 'de Vrije Wereld' bij 'gebrek aan de volgende globale tegenstander haar defensie [heeft] verwaarloosd' en de NAVO door Rusland in 'paniek' zou zijn geraakt, kan natuurlijk de conclusie alleen maar zijn dat het Westen snel moet herbewapenen, ten koste van onderwijs, wetenschappen, kunst, cultuur, volkshuisvesting, gezondheidszorg, etc. De resultaten daarvan zien we aan de ineenstorting van de Amerikaanse middenklasse. De politiek die Hofland propageert gaat ten koste van alles dat een beschaving vorm en inhoud geeft. Deze opiniemaker heeft nog een paar jaar te gaan, maar gaat er kennelijk vanuit: après moi le déluge. De 'politiek-literaire elite' in de polder is een zichzelf bevredigend monster. Naar de hel met haar.
Nuclear War threatens human existence
If 1% of the nuclear weapons now ready for war were detonated in large cities, they would utterly devastate the environment, climate, ecosystems and inhabitants of Earth. A war fought with thousands of strategic nuclear weapons would leave the Earth uninhabitable.
US Military “Commemorates” Its Iraq Massacre. “Tell Them It’s the Sound of Freedom.”
Global Research, April 23, 2014
Url of this article:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/
http://www.globalresearch.ca/
“We gather tonight knowing that this generation of heroes has made the United States safer and more respected round the world.” (President Barack Obama, State of the Union address, 24th January 2012.)
As Easter was celebrated in the US and UK with, for believers, the message of hope, Fallujah, the region and much of the country is again under siege, not this time by US mass murderers, but by the US proxy government’s militias armed with US delivered weapons.
In 2003, a month into the invasion, Easter Day fell on the same day as this year, 20th April, as Iraqis of all denominations and none, died were incarcerated, tortured, found with their heads drilled, or no heads, thrown on garbage piles.
Easter Day the following year, 2004 fell on Sunday 11th April and was marked by Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt confirming again his total disregard for human life. In the words of former USCENTOCOM Commander General Tommy Franks who led the Iraq invasion in March 2003, “it is not productive to count Iraqi deaths”.
The carnage of the first siege of Fallujah was underway. At the daily press briefing (1) General Kimmitt assured the media:
A comment from one as either deluded or unfamiliar with the truth as General Kimmitt, a Lt-Col Pete Newell, stated that US Forces wanted:
Less than a month after Kimmitt’s channel changing advice, General Taguba released his Report on what “democracy was all about” at the hands of the US military at Abu Ghraib prison, a short distance from Fallujah. It still chills and should shame for all time. Just a few of his findings include:
Baghdad, formerly, as Kurt Nimmo writes, the most advanced city in the Middle East, has now been designated in a recent survey (5) the world’s worst city: “a dangerous ruin, stricken by sectarian and religious violence, corruption, crime, unemployment, pollution and numerous other problems.”
Mark Kimmitt is now retired and “is an advisor to US firms in the Middle East”(6) presumably profiting from US destabilization and industrial scale murder and destruction, ongoing in Iraq, after eleven years, at an average of one thousand souls a month.
It has to be wondered if, on the tenth anniversary of his massive Easter Day mistruths, he reflected on his words, Iraq’s ongoing carnage – and that when a journalist had asked him what he would say to Iraq’s children, traumatized by the noise of America’s war ‘planes and bombs, he replied: “Tell them it’s the sound of freedom.”
Notes
1. http://transcripts.cnn.com/
2. http://flag.blackened.net/
3. http://www.globalresearch.ca/
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
5. http://www.thetruthseeker.co.
6. http://www.mei.edu/profile/
As Easter was celebrated in the US and UK with, for believers, the message of hope, Fallujah, the region and much of the country is again under siege, not this time by US mass murderers, but by the US proxy government’s militias armed with US delivered weapons.
In 2003, a month into the invasion, Easter Day fell on the same day as this year, 20th April, as Iraqis of all denominations and none, died were incarcerated, tortured, found with their heads drilled, or no heads, thrown on garbage piles.
Easter Day the following year, 2004 fell on Sunday 11th April and was marked by Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt confirming again his total disregard for human life. In the words of former USCENTOCOM Commander General Tommy Franks who led the Iraq invasion in March 2003, “it is not productive to count Iraqi deaths”.
The carnage of the first siege of Fallujah was underway. At the daily press briefing (1) General Kimmitt assured the media:
“The Marines remain ready, willing and able at any time to provide any level of humanitarian assistance.General Kimmitt. was then asked:
“Outside the city of Fallujah, I understand they’ve already set up facilities for any displaced persons that come out of the city that need assistance.
“That is something that the Marine Corps is expert in, the whole notion of assistance, rendering assistance to any town in the world at anytime.” Then as now, it is impossible to know whether to laugh or weep.
“From here, from this podium, you talk about a clean war in Fallujah. But the Iraqis have an image through television from what is happening in Fallujah (including) killing children. Is there a way that you could convince Iraqis by your point of view that you have (only) utilized force against terrorists? “With his hallmark contempt for humanity, or anything to do with “rendering assistance”, he replied:
“With regards to the solution on the images of Americans and coalition soldiers killing innocent civilians, my solution is quite simple: change the channel. Change the channel to a legitimate, authoritative, honest news station.Jonathan Steel of the Guardian persisted:
“The stations that are showing Americans intentionally killing women and children are not legitimate news sources. That is propaganda, and that is lies. So you want a solution? Change the channel.”
“General Kimmitt, you talk about changing channels, but what is your reply to people like (politician) Adnan Pachachi, who have accused the coalition forces of using collective punishment on the city of Fallujah? Have you got a reply a little bit more nuanced and subtle than just to tell Mr. Pachachi to change channels?”Without shame, the General responded to the situation in the town which has become known as “Iraq’s Guernica” with:
“In this case, we can disagree without being disagreeable, but it is not the practice of the coalition forces, any of the coalition nations, to exercise collective punishment or collective action on a city. That is just not done. It is not practiced. And it violates international law. And we don’t believe at this point that coalition can be shown any proof to suggest that it is in violation of international law or the laws of land warfare.”The town was in fact, treated as a “free fire zone”, two hospitals were demolished including a recently built emergency centre and at the General Hospital, patients and doctors were initially handcuffed, the “liberators’ regarding it as “a centre of propaganda”, since the staff talked, then as now, of the numbers of dead and wounded they were treating. The “non-American wounded were, in essence left to die”, as a result.
A comment from one as either deluded or unfamiliar with the truth as General Kimmitt, a Lt-Col Pete Newell, stated that US Forces wanted:
“ Fallujah to understand what democracy is all about.”Colonel Ralph Peters, ever in pursuit of his vision of eternal war, said of this vision of democracy
“We must not be afraid to make an example of Fallujah. We need to demonstrate that the United States military cannot be deterred or defeated. If that means widespread destruction, we must accept the price . . . Even if Fallujah has to go the way of Carthage, reduced to shards, the price will be worth it.” (2)Now it is known definitively what a pack of lies were Kimmitt’s assurances, with the General having confirmed his knowledge of violations of international law – even before the second decimation of Fallujah later in the year, perhaps someone should surely visit him and Colonel Peters with a view to including them in an upcoming historic class action law suit which has been filed in the US. (3)
Less than a month after Kimmitt’s channel changing advice, General Taguba released his Report on what “democracy was all about” at the hands of the US military at Abu Ghraib prison, a short distance from Fallujah. It still chills and should shame for all time. Just a few of his findings include:
“…that the intentional abuse of detainees by military police personnel included the following acts:Did the General not know of what was happening at the hands of US troops throughout the region? His knowledge of Iraq, however, was such that in the press conference cited above, he referred to Baghdad, of which journalists, he thought, would be “familiar”, as a “town”, this ancientest city of seven million people.
*Punching, slapping, and kicking detainees; jumping on their naked feet. *Videotaping and photographing naked male and female detainees
*Forcibly arranging detainees in various sexually explicit positions for photographing
*Forcing detainees to remove their clothing and keeping them naked for several days at a time
*Forcing naked male detainees to wear women’s underwear
*Forcing groups of male detainees to masturbate themselves while being photographed and videotaped
*Arranging naked male detainees in a pile and then jumping on them *Positioning a naked detainee on a MRE Box, with a sandbag on his head, and attaching wires to his fingers, toes, and penis to simulate electric torture
*Writing “I am a Rapest” (sic) on the leg of a detainee alleged to have forcibly raped a 15-year old fellow detainee, and then photographing him naked
*Placing a dog chain or strap around a naked detainee’s neck and having a female Soldier pose for a picture
*A male MP guard having sex with a female detainee
*Taking photographs of dead Iraqi detainees.
*Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees
*Threatening detainees with a charged 9mm pistol
*Pouring cold water on naked detainees
*Beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair
*Threatening male detainees with rape
*Allowing a military police guard to stitch the wound of a detainee who was injured after being slammed against the wall in his cell
* Sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick._h.
*Using military working dogs to frighten and intimidate detainees with threats of attack, and in one instance actually biting a detainee. (4)
Baghdad, formerly, as Kurt Nimmo writes, the most advanced city in the Middle East, has now been designated in a recent survey (5) the world’s worst city: “a dangerous ruin, stricken by sectarian and religious violence, corruption, crime, unemployment, pollution and numerous other problems.”
Mark Kimmitt is now retired and “is an advisor to US firms in the Middle East”(6) presumably profiting from US destabilization and industrial scale murder and destruction, ongoing in Iraq, after eleven years, at an average of one thousand souls a month.
It has to be wondered if, on the tenth anniversary of his massive Easter Day mistruths, he reflected on his words, Iraq’s ongoing carnage – and that when a journalist had asked him what he would say to Iraq’s children, traumatized by the noise of America’s war ‘planes and bombs, he replied: “Tell them it’s the sound of freedom.”
Notes
1. http://transcripts.cnn.com/
2. http://flag.blackened.net/
3. http://www.globalresearch.ca/
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
5. http://www.thetruthseeker.co.
6. http://www.mei.edu/profile/
Copyright © 2014 Global Research
The private prison population in the US has rocketed 17-fold over the last two decades mostly on the shoulders of the deep-pocketed prison lobby, and the business continues to thrive.
Obama: “Remaking the Middle East”: The American Gulag
Global Research, April 22, 2014
Url of this article:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/obama-remaking-the-middle-east-the-american-gulag/5378634
http://www.globalresearch.ca/obama-remaking-the-middle-east-the-american-gulag/5378634
During the beginning of his first term in office President Obama promised “to remake the Middle East into a region of prosperity and freedom”. Six years later the reality is totally the contrary: the Middle East is ruled by despotic regimes whose jails are overflowing with political prisoners. The vast majority of pro-democracy activists who have been incarcerated, have been subject to harsh torture and are serving long prison sentences. The rulers lack legitimacy, having seized power and maintained their rule through a centralized police state and military repression.Direct US military and CIA intervention, massive shipments of arms,military bases, training missions and Special Forces are decisive in the construction of the Gulag chain from North Africa to the Gulf States.
We will proceed by documenting the scale and scope of political repression in each US backed police state. We will then describe the scale and scope of US military aid buttressing the “remaking of the Middle East” into a chain of political prisons run by and for the US Empire.
The countries and regimes include Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Iraq, Yemen, Jordan and Turkey . . . all of which promote and defend US imperial interests against the pro-democracy majority, represented by their independent social-political movements.
Egypt: Strategic Vassal State
A longtime vassal state and the largest Arab country in the Middle East, Egypt’s current military dictatorship, product of a coup in July 2013, launched a savage wave of repression
subsequent to seizing power. According to the Egyptian Center for Social and Economic Rights, between July and December 2013, 21,317 pro-democracy demonstrators were arrested. As of April 2014, over 16,000 political prisoners are incarcerated. Most have been tortured. The summary trials, by kangaroo courts, have resulted in death sentences for hundreds and long prison terms for most. The Obama regime has refused to call the military’s overthrow of the democratically elected Morsi government a coup in order to continue providing military aid to the junta.In exchange the military dictatorship continues to back the Israeli blockade of Gaza and support US military operations throughout the Middle East.
Israel: The Region’s Biggest Jailer
Israel, whose supporters in the US dub it the “only democracy in the Middle East”, is in fact the largest jailer in the region.
According to the Israeli human rights group B’Tselm, between 1967 and December 2012, 800,000 Palestinians have been imprisoned at some point, over 20% of the population. Over 100,000 have been held in “administrative detention” without charges or trial. Almost all have been tortured and brutalized. Currently Israel has 4,881 political prisoners in jail. What makes the Jewish state God’s chosen... premier jailer, however, is the holding of 1.82 million Palestinians living in Gaza in a virtual open air prison. Israel restricts travel, trade, fishing, building , manufacturing and farming through air, sea and ground policing and blockades. In addition, 2.7 million Palestinians in the Occupied Territories (West Bank) are surrounded by prison-like walls, subject to daily military incursions, arbitrary arrests and violent assaults by the Israeli armed forces and Jewish vigilante settlers engaged in perpetual dispossession of Palestinian inhabitants.
Saudi Arabia: Absolutist Monarchy
According to President Obama’s ‘remaking of Middle East’ Saudi Arabia stands as Washington’s “staunchest ally in the Arab world”. As a loyal vassal state, its jails overflow with pro-democracy dissidents incarcerated for seeking free elections, civil liberties and an end to misogynist policies. According to the Islamic Human Rights Commission the Saudis are holding 30,000 political prisoners, most arbitrarily detained without charges or trial.
The Saudi dictatorship plays a major role bankrolling police state regimes throughout the region. They have poured $15 billion into the coffers of the Egyptian junta subsequent to the military coup, as a reward for its massive bloody purge of elected officials and their pro-democracy supporters. Saudi Arabia plays a big role in sustaining Washington’s dominance, by financing and arming ‘jailer-regimes’ in Pakistan, Yemen, Bahrain, Jordan and Egypt.
Bahrain: Small Country – Many Jails
According to the local respected Center for Human Rights, Bahrain has the dubious distinction of being the “top country globally in the number of political prisoners per capita”. According to the Economist (4/2/14) Bahrain has 4,000 political prisoners out of a population of 750,000. According to the Pentagon, Bahrain’s absolutist dictatorship plays a vital role in providing the US with air and maritime bases, for attacking Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan. The majority of pro-democracy dissidents are jailed for seeking to end vassalage , autocracy, and servility to US imperial interest and the Saudi dictatorship.
Iraq: Abu Ghraib with Arab Characters
Beginning with the US invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003 and continuing under its proxy vassal Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki, tens of thousands of Iraqi citizens have been tortured, jailed and murdered. Iraq’s ruling junta, has continued to rely on US military and Special Forces and to engage in the same kinds of military and police ‘sweeps’ which eviscerate any democratic pretensions. Al-Maliki relies on special branches of his secret police, the notorious Brigade 56, to assault opposition communities and dissident strongholds. Both the Shi’a regime and Sunni opposition engage in ongoing terror-warfare. Both have served as close collaborators with Washington at different moments.
The weekly death toll runs in the hundreds. The Al-Maliki regime has taken over the torture centers (including Abu Ghraib), techniques and jails previously headed and run by the US and have retained US ‘Special Forces’ advisers, overseeing the round-up of human rights critics, trade unionists and democratic dissidents.
Yemen:A Joint US-Saudi Satellite
Yemen has been ruled by US-Saudi client dictators for decades. The autocratic rule of Ali Abdullah Saleh was accompanied by the jailing and torture of thousands of pro-democracy activists, secular and religious, as well as serving as a clandestine torture center for political dissidents kidnapped and transported by the CIA under its so-called “rendition” program. In 2011 despite prolonged and violent repression by the US backed Saleh regime, a mass rebellion exploded threatening the existence of the state and its ties to the US and Saudi regimes. In order to preserve their dominance and ties to the military, Washington and Saudi orchestrated a ‘reshuffle’ of the regime: rigged elections were held and one Abdo Rabbo Mansour Hadi, a loyal crony of Saleh and servant of Washington, took power. Hadi continued where Saleh left off: kidnapping, torturing, killing pro-democracy protestors... Washington chose to call Hadi’s rule “a transition to democracy”. According to the Yemen Times (4/5/14) over 3,000 political prisoners fill the Yemen prisons. “Jailhouse democracy” serves to consolidate the US military presence in the Arabian Peninsula.
Jordan: A Client Police State of Longstanding Duration
For over a half century, three generations of reigning Jordanian absolutist monarchs have been on the CIA payroll and have served US interests in the Middle East. Jordan’s vassal rulers savage Arab nationalists and Palestinian resistance movements; signed off on a so-called “peace agreement” with Israel to repress any cross-border support for Palestine; provide military bases in support of US, Saudi and EU training, arming and financing of mercenaries invading Syria.
The corrupt monarchy and its crony oligarchy oversee an economy perpetually dependent on foreign subsidies to keep it afloat: unemployment is running over 25% and half the population is subsisting in poverty. The regime has jailed thousands of peaceful protestors. According to a recent Amnesty International Report (Jordan 2013), King Abdullah’s dictatorship “has detained thousands without charges”. The jailhouse monarchy plays a central role in buttressing US empire-building in the Middle East and facilitating Israeli land grabbing in Palestine.
Turkey: NATO Bulwark and Jailhouse Democracy
Under the reign of the self-styled “Justice and Development Party” led by Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey has evolved into a major military operational base for the NATO backed invasion of Syria. Erdoğan has had his differences with the US; especially Turkey’s cooling relations with Israel over the latters’ seizure of a Turkish ship in international waters and the slaughter of nine unarmed Turkish humanitarian activists. But as Turkey has turned toward greater dependence on international capital flows and integration into NATO’s international wars, Erdoğan has become more authoritarian. Facing large scale public challenges to his arbitrary privatization of public spaces and dispossession of households in working class neighborhoods, Erdoğan launched a purge of civil society ,class based movements and state institutions. In the face of large scale pro-democracy demonstrations in the summer of 2013, Erdoğan launched a savage assault on the dissidents. According to human rights groups over 5,000 were arrested and 8,000 were injured during the Gezi Park protests.
Earlier Erdoğan established “Special Authorized Courts” which organized political show trials based on falsified evidence which facilitated the arrest and imprisonment of hundreds of military officers, party activists, trade unionists, human rights lawyers and journalists, particularly those critical of his support for the war against Syria. Despite conciliatory rhetoric, Erdogan’s jails contain several thousand Kurdish dissidents, including electoral activists and legislators (Global Views 10/17/12).
While Erdoğan has served as an able and loyal Islamist anchor against popular democratic and nationalist movements in the Middle East, his pursuit of greater Turkish influence in the region, has led the US to deepen its political ties with the more submissive and pro-Washington , pro-Israel Gulenist movement embedded in the state apparatus ,business and education. The latter has adopted a permeationist-strategy: purging adversaries in its quiet march to power from within the state. The US still relies on Erdoğan’s “jailhouse democracy” to repress anti-imperialist movements in Turkey; to serve as a military anchor for the war against Syria; to back sanctions against Iran and to support the pro-NATO Maliki regime in Iraq.
The Middle East Gulag and US Military Aid
The police state regimes and the long-term authoritarian political culture in the Arab world is a product of long-term US military support for despotic rulers. The absence of democracy is a necessary condition for expanding and advancing the US imperial military presence in the region.
A small army of US Islamophobic academics, “experts”, journalists and media pundits totally ignore the role of the US in promoting, sustaining and strengthening the ruling dictators and repressing the profoundly democratic mass movements which have erupted over a prolonged period of time. Spearheaded by long-time pro-Israel Middle East scribes and scholars, in Ivy League universities, these propagandists, claim that Arab dictatorships are a product of “Islamic culture”,or the “authoritarian personality of Arabs” in search of a ‘strongman’ to guide and rule them. Ignoring or distorting the history of working class struggles, pro-democracy protests and affirmations, in all of the major Arab countries, these scholars justify the US ties to the dictatorships as “realistic policies” given the “available options”.
Wherever real democracy begins to emerge, where political rights begin to be exercised, Washington provokes coups and intervenes to bolster the repressive apparatus of the state (Bahrain 2011-14, Yemen 2011 to 2014, Egypt 2013, Jordan 2012 among numerous other cases). While the bulk of the Middle East “experts” blame the Arab citizens for authoritarian rule, they completely ignore and cover-up Israel’s racist majority which solidly backs the incarceration and torture of hundreds of thousands of pro-democracy Palestinians.
To understand the Middle East gulag requires a discussion of US ‘aid policy’ which is central to sustaining the ‘jailhouse regimes’.
US Aid to Egypt: Billions for Dictators
The Egyptian police state anchors the US ‘arc of empire’ from North Africa to the Middle East. Egypt has been actively engaged in destabilizing Libya, Sudan, Lebanon, Syria and collaborating with Israel’s dispossession of Palestinians. The Mubarak dictatorship received $2 billion dollars a year from Washington – nearly $65 billion for its imperial services. US aid strengthened its capacity to jail, and torture pro-democracy and trade union activists. Washington continued its military support of dictatorial rule after the military coup against Egypt’s first democratically elected government, to the tune of $1.55 billion dollars for 2014 .
Despite “expressions of concern” over the murder of thousands of pro-democracy protestors by the new military strongman General Abdul Fattah al-Sisi, there was no cut in funding for so-called “counter-terrorism” and “security”. To continue funding the dictatorship under US Congressional legislation, Washington refused to characterize the violent seizure of power as a coup . . . referring to it as a “transition to democracy”. The key role of Egypt in US foreign policy is to protect Israel’s ‘eastern flank’. US aid to Egypt is product of the pressure and influence of the Zionist power configuration in Congress and the White House: US aid is conditioned on Egypt’s ‘policing’ of the Gaza border, ensuring that Israel’s blockade is effective. The White House supports Cairo’s repression of the majority of nationalist, anti-colonial Egyptians opposed to Tel Aviv’s dispossession of the Palestinians. Insofar as Israel’s interests’define US Middle East policy, Washington’s financing of Egypt’s jailhouse dictatorship is in accord with Zionist Washington’s strategy.
Israel: The US “Pivot” in the Middle East
Most independent and knowledgeable experts agree that US Middle East policy is largely dictated by a multitude of Zionist loyalists occupying key policymaking positions in Treasury, State Department, the Pentagon and Commerce as well as Congressional dominance by the Presidents of the 52 Major American Jewish Organizations and their 171,000 full time paid activists. While there is some truth in what some critics cite as the divergence of the ‘real’ US ‘national interest’ from Israel’s colonial ambitions, the fact is that US leaders in Washington perceive a convergence between imperial dominance and Israeli militarism. In point of fact a submissive Egypt serves wider US imperial and Israeli colonial interests.
Israel’s war on Lebanon against the anti-imperialist Hezbollah movement served US efforts to install a docile client as well as Israeli’s effort to destroy a partisan of Palestinian self-determination. Washington’s divergence with Israel over Israel’s dispossession of all Palestine does run counter to Washington’s interest in a Palestinian mini-state run by neo-colonial Arab officials. As a result of Zionist influence, Israel is the biggest per-capita US aid recipient in the world, despite having a higher standard of living than 60% of US citizens. Between 1985-2014, Israel received over $100 billion dollars, of which 70% was military, including the most advance high technology weaponry. Israel ,the country which has the world record for political prisoners and military attacks on its neighbors over the past forty years, holds the record for US military aid. Israel as the premier ‘jailhouse democracy’ is a key link in the chain of gulags extending from North Africa to the Gulf States.
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia competes with Israel as an incarceration center of pro-democracy dissidents; the Saudi’s recycle hundreds of billions of petro-rents through Wall Street, enriching local Saudi despots and overseas pro-Israel investment bankers. The Saudi-US-Israeli convergence is more than incidental. They share military interests in warring against pro-independence, pro-democracy Arab movements throughout the Middle East. Saudi houses the major US military base and the biggest intelligence operations in the Gulf. It backed the US invasion of Iraq. It finances thousands of Islamic mercenaries in the US-NATO proxy war against Syria. It invaded Bahrain to smash the pro-democracy movement. It intervenes with Washington in support of the Yemen police state. It is the biggest and most lucrative market for the US military-industrial complex. US military sales between 1951 – 2006 totaled $80 billion. In October 2010 it signed off on a $60.5 billion purchase of US arms and services.
Bahrain: A US Aircraft Carrier called a Country
Bahrain serves as the naval base for the US Fifth fleet – and an operative base for attacking Iran. It has been servicing the occupation of Afghanistan and US control of oil shipping routes. The Al-Khalifa dictatorship is extremely isolated, highly unpopular and faces constant pressure from the pro-democracy majority. To bolster their vassal rulers, Washington has increased its military sales to the tiny statelet from $400 million between 1993-2000 to $1.4 billion in the subsequent decade. Washington has increased its sales and military training program in direct proportion to the growth of democratic discontent, resulting in the geometrical growth of political prisoners.
Iraq: War, Occupation,and the Killing Fields of a Jailhouse Democracy
The US invasion and occupation of Iraq led to the slaughter of nearly 1.5 million Iraqis (mostly civilians, non-combatants) at a cost of $1.5 trillion dollars and 4,801 US military deaths. In 2006 the US engineered ‘elections’ led to the installation of the Maliki regime, buttressed by US arms, mercenaries, advisers and bases. According to a recent study for the Congressional Research Office (February 2014), by Kenneth Kilzman, there are 16,000 US military personnel and “contractors” currently in Iraq. Over 3,500 US military contractors in the Office of Security Cooperation bolster the corrupt Maliki police state. The jailhouse democracy has been supplied with US missiles and drones and over $10 billion dollars in military assistance :this includes $2.5 billion in aid and $7.9 billion sales between 2005 – 2013. For 2014 -2015 Malaki has requested $15 billion in weapons, including 36 US F-16 combat aircraft and scores of Apache attack helicopters. In 2013 the Malaki regime registered 8,000 political deaths resulting from its internal war.
Iraq is a crucial center for US control of oil, the Gulf and as a launch pad to attack Iran. While Maliki makes ‘gestures’ toward Iran, its role as an advanced link in the US imperial gulag defines its real ‘function’ in the Gulf region.
Yemen: The Desert Military Outpost for the American Gulag
Yemen is a costly military outpost for Saudi despotism and US power on the Arabian Peninsula. According to a study, Yemen: Background and US Relations by Jeremy Sharp for the Congressional Research Service (2014), the US has supplied $1.3 billion in military aid to Yemen between 2009-2014. Saudi Arabia donated $3.2 billion in 2012 to bolster the Saleh dictatorship in the face of a mass popular anti-dictatorial uprising. Washington engineered a transfer of power from Saleh to “President” Hadi and ensured his continuity by doubling military aid to keep the jails full and the resistance in check. According to the New York Times (6/31/13) Hadi was “a carry-over of dictator Saleh”. The continuity of a jailhouse democracy in Yemen is a crucial link between the Egypt-Israel-Jordan axis and the Saudi-Bahrain imperial gulag.
Jordan: Eternal Vassal and Mendicant Monarchy
Jordan’s despotic monarchy has been on the US payroll for over a half century. Recently it has served as a torture center for kidnapped victims seized by US Special Forces engaged in the “rendition” program. Jordan has collaborated with Israel in assaulting and arresting Palestinians in Jordan engaged in the freedom struggle. Currently Jordan along with Turkey serves as a training and weapons depot for NATO backed mercenary terrorists invading Syria. For its collaboration with Israel, Washington and NATO, the corrupt jailhouse monarchy receives large scale long-term military and economic aid. The monarchy and its extended network of cronies, jailers and family, skim tens of millions of dollars in foreign aid, laundered in overseas accounts in London, Switzerland, Dubai and New York. According to a Congressional Research Service Report (January 27, 2014), US aid to the Jordanian royal dictatorship amounts to $660 million per year. An additional $150 million for military aid was channeled to the regime with the onset of the NATO intervention in Syria. The fund was directed to build-up the infrastructure around the Jordan-Syria border. In addition, Jordan serves as a major conduit for arms to terrorists attacking Syria: $340 million destined for “overseas contingencies” probably is channeled through Amman to arm the terrorists invading Syria. In October 2012, Jordan signed agreements with the US allowing a large contingent of Special Forces to establish airfields and bases to supply and train terrorists.
Turkey: A Loyal Vassal State with Regional Ambitions
As the southern military bulwark of NATO, on Russia’s frontier, Turkey has been on the US payroll for over 66 years. According to a recent study by James Zanotti Turkey – US Defense Co-Operation: Prospects and Challenges (Congressional Research Service, April 8, 2011) in exchange for bolstering the military power of Turkey’s “jailhouse democracy”, the US secured a major military presence including a huge air base in Incirlik a major operational center housing 1,800 US military personnel. Turkey collaborated with the US invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and supported the NATO bombing of Libya. Today Turkey is the most important military operational center for jihadist terrorists invading Syria. Despite President Erdoğan’s periodic demagogic nationalist bombast, the US empire builders continue to have access to Turkish bases and transport corridors for its wars, occupations and interventions in the Middle East and South and Central Asia. In exchange the US has stationed missile defense systems and vastly increased arms sales, so-called “security assistance”. Between 2006 – 2009 US military sales exceeded $22 billion dollars. In 2013-14, tensions between Turkey and the US increased as Erdoğan moved to purge the state of the Gulenists, a US backed fifth column, which permeated the Turkish state and used its position to support closer collaboration with Israel and US military interests.
Conclusion
The expansion of the US Empire throughout North Africa and the Middle East has been built around arming and financing vassal states to serve as military outposts of the empire. These vassal regimes, ruled by dictatorial monarchies, and authoritarian military and civilian rulers, rely on force and violence to sustain their rule. The US has supplied the weapons, advisers, and financing allowing them to rule. The US arc of imperial military bases stretching from Egypt through Israel, Turkey, Jordan, Yemen, Iraq , Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, is protected by a chain of prison camps containing tens of thousands of political prisoners.
The US engagement, its pervasive presence throughout the region, is accompanied by a chain of jailhouse democracies and dictatorships. Contrary to liberal and conservative policy pundits and academics, US policy for over 50 years has actively sought out, installed and protected bloody tyrants who have pillaged the public treasury, concentrated wealth, surrendered sovereignty and underdeveloped their economies.
Pro-Israel academics at prestigious US universities have systematically distorted the structural bases of violence, authoritarianism and corruption in the Islamic world: blaming the victims, the Turkish and Arab people, and ignoring the role of US empire builders in financing and arming the authoritarian civilian and military rulers and absolutist monarchies and their corrupt military, judicial and police officials.
Contrary to the mendacious tomes published by the prestigious University presses and written mostly by highly respected pro-Israel political propagandists, the remaking of the Middle East depends on the strength of the democratic currents in Islamic society. They are found in the student movements, among the trade unionists and unemployed, the nationalist intellectuals and Islamic and secular forces who oppose the US Empire for very practical and obvious reasons. Along with Israel the US is the main organizer of the vast chain of political prison camps that destroy the most creative and dynamic forces in the region. Greater Arab vassalage provokes the periodic explosion of a vibrant democratic culture and movement; unfortunately it also results in greater US military aid and presence. The real clash of civilizations is between the democratic aspirations of the Eastern popular classes and the deeply embedded authoritarianism of Euro-American- Israeli imperialism
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten