War For World Dominance
by Karen Talbot
Dissident Voice
February 5, 2003
George Bush's
recent State of the Union speech should alarm the people of our country and the
entire planet about the perils facing us all-and they are not the ones he spoke
of with arrogance, lies, and threats. The true significance of his words is yet
to be fully comprehended by many of us.
The real reasons for a war against Iraq
Bush, and the ruling Wall Street elite he
represents, are desperately seeking to cope with a growing economic crisis
attributable to fundamental contradictions in the very system over which they
reign. As in the past, war is seen as the answer. Today, they want to go to war
to grab the vast untapped oil riches of Iraq and the Persian Gulf. More
importantly, they want to literally rule the world because they think it will
rescue them from the deepening economic morass and bring a cornucopia of super
profits. They are also massively shifting the burden of the crisis to the
workers, poor, and middle strata in the United States and in every corner of
the world. In the process they intend to siphon off even more wealth to the
minuscule top one percent of society. Such were the undercurrents beneath
Bush's State of the Union rhetoric.
There is no
question, Bush and the oil interests he and his cohorts represent, aim to seize
the "black gold" reserves of Iraq, second only to those of Saudi
Arabia-easily extractible, easily refined, high quality, and therefore highly
profitable petroleum, the possession of which would allow U.S. oil companies
also to undermine OPEC and thus control prices. They are driven by the fact
that Iraq is strategically located near other oil-rich nations of the Middle
East, critical waterways, and key pipeline routes from Central Asia. They are
also driven by the reality that the world's hydro-carbon reserves are being
depleted rapidly, yet the oil wells of Iraq will continue to produce after most
others run dry.
To take over
these oil reserves, they need to occupy Iraq and stave off companies from rival
powers like France, Russia, and China, all of which have been granted
concessions by the Iraqi regime to develop a considerable portion of those
riches.
Equally
important: they need to control the people of Iraq. After all, from the time
oil was discovered in their country, the mass of Iraqi people waged bitter
struggles for nationalization of their natural resources against brutal
imperialist domination by Britain and the United States who were acting on
behalf of the giant oil corporations. This was also the experience of the
Iranian people when the CIA deposed their democratically-elected leader,
Mohammad Mossadegh, in 1953, because he nationalized Iran's oil. The same
dynamics are being echoed today in Venezuela.
Moreover, a war
against Iraq will generate even greater profits for the armaments industry.
What better way to stuff their coffers than to build weapons and then blow them
up- perfect "built-in obsolescence." There are built-in consumers, as
well-the taxpaying public which has dished out trillions of dollars to the
Pentagon in recent years while basic social programs have been undermined or
eliminated. And now, more than ever, there is the lucrative sale of U.S.
weaponry to the new NATO members from Eastern Europe who are being prevailed
upon to update their military and vastly increase their armaments budgets to
the tremendous detriment of their own social programs.
World dominance
These are key
reasons for the current war frenzy. But there is something qualitatively more
dangerous underway. There is an overriding long-planned agenda being
orchestrated and directed by the Bush regime for total world
dominance-economically and militarily. Such dominance is sought in order to
wield full control over the governments and peoples of the poorer nations, but
also over the European Union, Japan, and the other imperial rivals. Bloody wars
have been waged in the past among such competitors seeking control over global
markets and resources. It would be a mistake to assume we are beyond such
confrontations today.
Attacking Iraq
is the lynchpin in the scheme for world dominance. Bush, Colin Powell, and
others in the administration have said the assault will begin within the next
few weeks, no matter what the UN does. In fact, it probably will work to
Washington's advantage to act without the UN as this will eliminate the
necessity of making deals with France and Russia for sharing the spoils in
order to win their votes in the Security Council. Nevertheless, it is possible
that on the eve of an actual attack, these nations will capitulate, perhaps
even voting at the last minute for a new enabling resolution in a desperate
attempt to latch onto at least some of the booty.
Leading up to
this critical turning point, we have seen the alarming growth in clout of the
military-industrial complex, about which President Eisenhower sounded a dire
warning. We have seen the advent of new military doctrines projecting
"full spectrum dominance," "pre-emptive" nuclear strike,
and the "war against terrorism." We have heard the U.S. Space Command
speak openly about "dominating space to dominate Earth" in order to
protect U.S. investments. We have witnessed the moves to weaponize and
nuclearize space and to build destabilizing anti-ballistic missiles, while
scrapping the ABM Treaty . We have seen the rapid eastward expansion of NATO
with the U.S. at the helm. We have seen a significant increase in the huge
number of globe-encircling U.S. military bases. These new installations are
strategically located near oil fields and pipeline routes, particularly in
Central Asia, Georgia, Afghanistan, and the former Yugoslavia. We have seen the
use in Iraq, Yugoslavia, and Afghanistan, of ever-more powerful and illegal
weapons, including fuel-air explosives, cluster bombs, radioactive depleted
uranium- tipped armaments and "bunker busting" bombs, all of which
have killed thousands of civilians. Are these not weapons of mass destruction?
"Shock and Awe"
All of that will
pale by comparison with what's ahead. When Bush gives the word, "the full
force and might of the U.S. military" will be unleashed in an unprovoked
assault against a nation of 22 million people who already have suffered immeasurably
from brutal war and economic sanctions-a country which ironically is the
"cradle of civilization."
Even as Bush
spoke before the joint session of Congress, the Pentagon leaked reports that
the U.S. will hit Iraq with up to 800 cruise missiles in two days-more than
twice the number of missiles launched during the entire 40 days of the 1991
Gulf War. The intent is to shatter Iraq "physically, emotionally and
psychologically." The objective is to "shock and awe."
The "Shock
and Awe" scheme was concocted by military strategist Harlan Ullman who
said "you have this simultaneous effect-rather like the nuclear weapons at
Hiroshima-not taking days or weeks but minutes."* A Pentagon official told
CBS News following a briefing on the plan: "The sheer size of this has
never been seen before, never been contemplated before."
A senior Bush
official confirmed that "Shock and Awe" is the concept on which the
war plan is based," according to CBS News.
"Shock and
Awe" is aimed at demonstrating what Armageddon would look like. It is
aimed at trying to terrify the people and nations of the world-any who might
dare challenge U.S. dominance or stand in the way of conquest and plunder. Bush
and his entourage have repeatedly stressed that Iraq will be just the beginning
of an unprecedented ongoing war. Add this his threat to use nuclear weapons in
a pre-emptive first strike. Any country he labels part of the "axis of
evil" is fair game. Zbigniew Bzrezinski in his book, "The Grand
Chessboard" dubs this as a "new kind of hegemony," a
"benevolent" imperialism.
Bush exhibits
absolutely no glimmer of human concern for the tens of thousands of Iraqi
civilians who will die horrible deaths. Almost half of the Iraqi people are
under age 14, so a high percentage of civilian deaths will be children. This is
on top of the more than 500,000 children who have died from the sanctions
according to UNICEF. And what of the additional hundreds of thousands who will
suffer injuries, illness, hunger, and total disruption of their lives.
There's barely a
murmur of concern for the likely casualties among U.S. troops, or the
probability that many of them, as with veterans of the 1991 Gulf War, will be
stricken by "Gulf War Syndrome" caused by radioactive depleted
uranium and other toxins.
What of the
United Nations?
Bush, Colin
Powell, and other administration insiders have made it clear the U.S. will
carry out the assault on Iraq with or without the authority of the United
Nations. Joining Bush's war will be junior partner Britain, dragged into the
fray by Prime Minister Tony Blair, who is totally disregarding the overwhelming
opposition of the British public. After-all, Britain is keen to restore at
least some of its previous imperialist status in the region.
They will carry
out his war in defiance of the UN Charter and international law, and with
disdain for the pleas for peace of tens of millions of people the world over.
This includes the protest of what has certainly become a wide-ranging majority
of people in the U.S. They will proceed with the assault without "smoking
gun" evidence, merely resorting to presenting more circumstantial
"proof" before the Security Council as the hour of the attack nears.
But then, Washington really feels it doesn't need to convince the UN because they
have decided to wage war no matter what happens.
There is a
growing worldwide demand that there should be no legitimization of this war
through capitulation of UN Security Council members to bribes and threats. Such
a development would not only violate every tenet of international law but it
would it would undermine the United Nations itself.
Despite Bush
administration's obvious disdain for the rest of the world, the economic
turmoil spreading in the U.S. ironically has been partially staved off by a
massive inflow of capital from Europe, Asia, Middle East oiligarchies and
elsewhere, which has furthered the extravagant accumulation of wealth by the
super-rich. Borrowing from abroad has amounted to $2 billion a day. But the
abrupt decline of the dollar in recent weeks threatens to undermine confidence
which could interrupt that massive influx of capital and lead to a dramatic
further decline in the economy. Meanwhile, joblessness grows, the stock market
keeps diving, the Federal government is piling up a huge deficit, budget
deficits of state and local governments are unprecedented in scope, and there
are record corporate losses including the recent nearly 100 billion record loss
by AOL.
Not only are
Bush and his Wall Street backers motivated by the notion that war and world
imperial hegemony will solve such daunting systemic economic troubles. They
also want to divert the attention of the people from the social and economic
daily problems they face at home.
In today's
world, bristling with arsenals of nuclear weapons, resort to war must end once
and for all. Fundamental societal changes are required in order create the
conditions for redirecting the trillions of dollars flushed down the drain of
military spending to feed the hungry, create jobs, provide quality housing,
healthcare and education, in the U.S. and worldwide. This is also the way to
end terrorism. Only massive democratic actions by the people can stop the drive
to war and ultimately accomplish these other essential changes. Therefore, it
is more vital than ever in history to turn out in our tens millions for the
upcoming worldwide anti-war demonstrations on February 15 and 16. These
challenges can and must be met for the sake of humankind's very survival.
*Ullman's
book "Shock and Awe: Achieving Rapid Dominance," is posted on the
site of the Command and Control Research Program (CCRP) of the U.S. Department
of Defense.
Karen Talbot is an activist and writer with
the International Council For Peace
and Justice. Email: icpj@igc.org