Corporations, War, You
by Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
Dissident Voice
February 9, 2003
One thing is
clear about the Bush administration's current rush to war: It has nothing to do
with protecting U.S. security.
There is no
evidence nor reason to believe that Iraq possesses nuclear weapons. The Iraqi
military is among the weakest in the Middle East. And the CIA says that Iraq
does not pose a terrorist threat to the United States -- although it might, the
CIA warns, if the United States launches an attack.
What is much
less clear is the actual reason for war, especially because it poses real risks
to U.S. corporate and geopolitical interests.
There are
material interests served by war and the run-up to war, of course.
Big Oil: It
should go without saying that the Bush administration, like administrations
before it, obsesses about the Persian Gulf because it sits atop the world's
largest oil reserves. The Washington, D.C.-based Sustainable Energy and Economy
Network's Steve Kretzmann argues that central to the U.S. industry interest in
Iraq is its potential role as a counterbalance to Saudi Arabia, which possesses
the world's largest oil reserves by far.
The
Military-Industrial Think Tank Complex I: A network of defense industry-backed
think tanks have been instrumental in cooking up the rationale for invasion of
Iraq, developing concepts such as "preemptive war." Many of the staff
at these think tanks are now part of the Bush administration. Former defense
company executives and consultants are also extremely well represented in the
administration, and wield enormous influence. For the industry, war and hyped
threats to national security mean greater expenditures on their weaponry. The
Defense budget is set to hit $380 billion this year, rising over the next five
years to a approach a staggering $500 billion.
The Ideology of
Empire: The ideology and geopolitical strategy of the war-mongering extremist
networks is, in a word, empire. They hope to demonstrate how awesome and
dominant is U.S. military force, and that the United States is willing to use
it routinely on whatever pretext it chooses. Their intended message: Cross the
empire at your peril.
But more is
going on here than just a corporate agenda.
There is no
escaping the pathetic fact that a major impulse for war is the desire of
President Bush and many of the key actors who served in his father's
administration to "redeem" the failure of the first Bush regime to
depose Saddam Hussein.
And there is the
narrow political calculus that must have been undertaken prior to the 2002
election by Karl Rove and other White House strategists. They realized that the
post September-11 boost for the president was rapidly fading and that the
administration was losing control of the national agenda as the Enron, WorldCom
and other financial scandals dominated the headlines. They ran the election on
the war and, with the Democrats offering no coherent opposition, this proved a
successful strategy.
Still, while
these propulsions to war can be identified, there are substantial
countervailing factors at play. A war brings with it enormous uncertainty.
While few doubt that the United States will prevail quickly on the battlefield,
there is the potential of U.S. soldiers suffering non-negligible casualties if
there ends up being house-to-house fighting in Baghdad. There is the real risk
of spurring new terrorist acts, either in the United States or against U.S.
citizens abroad, whether these acts come from Iraq, al-Qaeda or others. (And if
Saddam Hussein is as evil as President Bush suggests, and if his regime is
collapsing, isn't it likely that he will lash out at the United States through
any means possible?) There is the possibility that the U.S. invasion will
generate political instability in other countries. There is the enormous
uncertainty about how Iraq will be governed after Saddam is deposed.
These are not
just concerns for common sense-minded citizens. They involve the uncertainties
that intensely disturb corporations, which is presumably the reason the Dow
falls as the drums of war beat louder. They even pose potential risks to the
oil companies. (They may also pose risks to George Bush's re-election, which is
why the last, best hope of averting war perhaps is that the White House
political strategists pull the country back from the brink.)
But the
administration appears to have shunted aside these countervailing concerns. The
momentum for war -- fueled by a combination of corporate interest, ideology,
personal pique and political expedience -- combined with the arrogance of power
of the most hawkish wing of the administration, appear to have steamrolled
saner voices urging caution.
President Bush
is on the verge of launching a war that will kill untold thousands of Iraqis,
and turn an already tempestuous world into a much more dangerous place. Every
person in the United States should do everything and anything they can to stop
this lunacy.
Here are four
things to do for those in the United States:
1. Attend the
massive demonstration against war in New York City on February 15, or in San
Francisco on February 16. For more information, see: http://www.unitedforpeace.org.
2. Call your
senators (1-800-839-5276 or 202-224-3121), and urge them to support Senate
Resolution 32, which calls for another Congressional vote before the United
States commences a war. (To see the text of the resolution, go to http://thomas.loc.gov and type in "SRes
32" (no quotes) in the box for the bill number.)
3. Make sure
your city council has passed a resolution supporting peace. 67 cities,
including Chicago, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Detroit and Washington, D.C.,
already have. Check out http://www.citiesforpeace.org.
4. Give a day's
worth of time to stop the war. If you're not sure what to do, sign up with
Moveon.org (go to: http://moveon.org/giveaday)
and they will supply you with plenty of ideas.
Russell Mokhiber is editor of the
Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Crime Reporter. Robert Weissman is editor of
the Washington, D.C.-based Multinational Monitor. They are co-authors of Corporate Predators: The Hunt
for MegaProfits and the Attack on Democracy (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage
Press, 1999; http://www.corporatepredators.org).