Of Gods and Mortals and Empire
by
William Rivers Pitt
Dissident Voice
February 24, 2003
"To plunder, to slaughter, to steal, these things
they misname empire; and where they make a wilderness, they call it
peace."
-- Tacitus
It
sounded like two behemoth icebergs colliding in the North Atlantic, but you
needed the right kind of ears to hear it. Two immensely powerful forces crashed
into each other over the weekend of February 15th, and the resulting thunder
has set the world to trembling.
On one side were the people,
who took to the streets all across the world by the tens of millions to stand
against George W. Bush's push for pre-emptive war on Iraq. The numbers, and the
locations, were staggering. More than 100,000 people took to the streets of
Sydney, Australia, a nation that has been solidly in Bush's corner on this
matter. In Spain, another member of Bush's "Coalition of the
Willing," several million protesters took over Madrid, Barcelona and 55 other
cities. Italy, another Bush ally, saw over a million citizens take to the
streets of Rome. Britain, Bush's go/no go ally of allies, saw over a million
people protesting in London. Police there said it was the largest demonstration
in that nation's long history.
The Netherlands saw one
hundred thousand protesters, as did Belgium and Ireland. There were protesters
by the tens of thousands in Sweden, Switzerland, Scotland, Denmark, Austria,
Canada, South Africa, Mexico, Greece, Russia and Japan. 500,000 protesters demonstrated
in Germany, joined by three members of Gerhard Schroder's cabinet who defied
their Chancellor by being there. It was the largest demonstration ever in
post-war Germany. Another 500,000 people marched in Paris and 60 other French
cities.
The United States of America
saw protests from coast to coast in over 100 cities nationwide. New York City
was paralyzed by over a million marchers. San Francisco was taken over by well
over 200,000 protesters, and Los Angeles saw over 100,000 people take to the
streets. Thousands upon thousands joined them in Chicago, Philadelphia, Miami
and Seattle.
This was a gathering of
ordinary citizens who came together in the streets of the world in an organized
event that has no precedent in all of human history. They were brought together
by a global word-of-mouth activism rooted entirely in the Internet. Were it not
for this planetary connection, no such coordination could have ever taken
place. Once upon a time, the world wide web was a realm dominated by dreams of profit
and marketing. Those dreams have soured, leaving behind a marvelous network now
utilized by very average people who can, with the click of a button, bring
forth from all points on the compass a roaring deluge of humanity to stand
against craven injustice and ruinous war.
The weekend of February 15th
saw this force ram headlong into the will of men who walk in shadow, whose
hands wield lightning and steel, pestilence and famine. In their ranks stand
Presidents, Prime Ministers, corporate magnates, untouchable billionaires, and
the advisors who whisper to them of empire and domination. They are few in
number, but life and death flows from their fingertips in freshets and gouts.
These men control the armies and navies of great nations, nuclear and chemical
nightmares beyond measure, unassailable technological weapons and walls, the
financial cords which hold the package together, the water, the air, the oil,
the law, and a global media machine by which they can obscure their designs
with pleasing lies.
No mere citizen could do
what these men in one moment can do with the crooking of a little finger. With
a word, they can erase cities, deprive an entire populace of water and light,
unleash disease and famine, annihilate the economies of dozens of nations, and
imprison forever anyone who dares dissent. These men bleed, they sicken, they
die, but in their time of life they can punch holes in the sky large enough to
make Zeus wince with envy. Like the millions who marched, the gathering of such
fearful powers into the hands of so few is also without precedent in all of
human history.
There was, among the
millions who stormed the planet last weekend, a misconception that masked the
true reason for their presence in the streets. A great many people believe this
looming war with Iraq is about old grudges and oil. There is logic in this;
Iraq has the second largest proven stores of precious petroleum in the world,
and there is a definite history of malice between House Bush and House Hussein.
The truth of the matter is far more broad and deep, belittling all talk of
terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, and even oil. The men who pursue their
goals by way of this war have a great many desires on their minds, and once
more, they have the will to attain these goals by whatever means is required.
Were the protesters fully
aware of whom they faced, a good many of them may well have fled in terror to
cower in their homes. One does not lightly bait a bear with such terrible
claws.
Does this all sound like
some paranoid fantasy? If so, allow me to introduce The Project for the New
American Century.
The Project for the New
American Century, or PNAC, is a Washington-based think tank created in 1997.
Above all else, PNAC desires and demands one thing: The establishment of a
global American empire to bend the will of all nations. They chafe at the idea
that the United States, the last remaining superpower, does not do more by way
of economic and military force to bring the rest of the world under the
umbrella of a new socio-economic Pax Americana.
The fundamental essence of
PNAC's ideology can be found in a White Paper produced in September of 2000
entitled "Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources
for a New Century." In it, PNAC outlines what is required of America to
create the global empire they envision. According to PNAC, America must:
* Reposition permanently
based forces to Southern Europe, Southeast Asia and the Middle East;
* Modernize U.S. forces,
including enhancing our fighter aircraft, submarine and surface fleet
capabilities;
* Develop and deploy a
global missile defense system, and develop a strategic dominance of space;
* Control the
"International Commons" of cyberspace;
* Increase defense spending
to a minimum of 3.8 percent of gross domestic product, up from the 3 percent
currently spent.
Most ominously, this PNAC
document described four "Core Missions" for the American military.
The two central requirements are for American forces to "fight and
decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars," and to
"perform the 'constabulary' duties associated with shaping the security
environment in critical regions." Note well that PNAC does not want
America to be prepared to fight simultaneous major wars. That is old school. In
order to bring this plan to fruition, the military must fight these wars one
way or the other to establish American dominance for all to see.
Why is this important? After
all, wacky think tanks are a cottage industry in Washington, DC. They are a dime
a dozen. In what way does PNAC stand above the other groups that would set
American foreign policy if they could?
Two events brought PNAC into
the mainstream of American government: the disputed election of George W. Bush,
and the attacks of September 11th. When Bush assumed the Presidency, the men
who created and nurtured the imperial dreams of PNAC became the men who run the
Pentagon, the Defense Department and the White House. When the Towers came
down, these men saw, at long last, their chance to turn their White Papers into
substantive policy.
Vice President Dick Cheney
is a founding member of PNAC, along with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and
Defense Policy Board chairman Richard Perle. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul
Wolfowitz is the ideological father of the group. Bruce Jackson, a PNAC director,
served as a Pentagon official for Ronald Reagan before leaving government
service to take a leading position with the weapons manufacturer Lockheed
Martin.
PNAC is staffed by men who
previously served with groups like Friends of the Democratic Center in Central
America, which supported America's bloody gamesmanship in Nicaragua and El
Salvador, and with groups like The Committee for the Present Danger, which
spent years advocating that a nuclear war with the Soviet Union was
"winnable."
PNAC has recently given
birth to a new group, The Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, which met with
National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice in order to formulate a plan to
"educate" the American populace about the need for war in Iraq. CLI
has funneled millions of taxpayer dollars to support the Iraqi National
Congress and the Iraqi heir presumptive, Ahmed Chalabi. Chalabi was sentenced
in absentia by a Jordanian court in 1992 to 22 years in prison for bank fraud
after the collapse of Petra Bank, which he founded in 1977. Chalabi has not set
foot in Iraq since 1956, but his Enron-like business credentials apparently
make him a good match for the Bush administration's plans.
PNAC's "Rebuilding
America's Defenses" report is the institutionalization of plans and
ideologies that have been formulated for decades by the men currently running
American government. The PNAC Statement of Principles is signed by Cheney,
Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld, as well as by Eliot Abrams, Jeb Bush, Bush's special
envoy to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad, and many others. William Kristol, famed
conservative writer for the Weekly Standard, is also a co-founder of the group.
The Weekly Standard is owned by Ruppert Murdoch, who also owns international
media giant Fox News
The desire for these freshly
empowered PNAC men to extend American hegemony by force of arms across the
globe has been there since day one of the Bush administration, and is in no
small part a central reason for the Florida electoral battle in 2000. Note that
while many have said that Gore and Bush are ideologically identical, Mr. Gore
had no ties whatsoever to the fellows at PNAC. George W. Bush had to win that
election by any means necessary, and PNAC signatory Jeb Bush was in the perfect
position to ensure the rise to prominence of his fellow imperialists. Desire
for such action, however, is by no means translatable into workable policy.
Americans enjoy their comforts, but don't cotton to the idea of being some sort
of Neo-Rome.
On September 11th, the
fellows from PNAC saw a door of opportunity open wide before them, and stormed
right through it.
Bush released on September
20th 2001 the "National Security Strategy of the United States of
America." It is an ideological match to PNAC's "Rebuilding America's
Defenses" report issued a year earlier. In many places, it uses exactly
the same language to describe America's new place in the world. Recall that
PNAC demanded an increase in defense spending to at least 3.8% of GDP. Bush's
proposed budget for next year asks for $379 billion in defense spending, almost
exactly 3.8% of GDP.
In August of 2002, Defense
Policy Board chairman and PNAC member Richard Perle heard a policy briefing
from a think tank associated with the Rand Corporation. According to the
Washington Post and The Nation, the final slide of this presentation described
"Iraq as the tactical pivot, Saudi Arabia as the strategic pivot, and
Egypt as the prize" in a war that would purportedly be about ridding the
world of Saddam Hussein's weapons. Bush has deployed massive forces into the
Mideast region, while simultaneously engaging American forces in the
Philippines and playing nuclear chicken with North Korea. Somewhere in all this
lurks at least one of the "major theater wars" desired by the
September 2000 PNAC report.
Iraq is but the beginning, a
pretense for a wider conflict. Donald Kagan, a central member of PNAC, sees
America establishing permanent military bases in Iraq after the war. This is
purportedly a measure to defend the peace in the Middle East, and to make sure
the oil flows. The nations in that region, however, will see this for what it
is: a jump-off point for American forces to invade any nation in that region
they choose to. The American people, anxiously awaiting some sort of exit plan
after America defeats Iraq, will see too late that no exit is planned.
All of the horses are
traveling together at speed here. The defense contractors who sup on American
tax revenue will be handsomely paid for arming this new American empire. The
corporations that own the news media will sell this eternal war at a profit, as
viewership goes through the stratosphere when there is combat to be shown.
Those within the administration who believe that the defense of Israel is
contingent upon laying waste to every possible aggressor in the region will
have their dreams fulfilled. The PNAC men who wish for a global Pax Americana
at gunpoint will see their plans unfold. Through it all, the bankrollers from
the WTO and the IMF will be able to dictate financial terms to the entire
planet. This last aspect of the plan is pivotal, and is best described in the
newly revised version of Greg Palast's masterpiece, "The Best Democracy
Money Can Buy."
There will be adverse side
effects. The siege mentality average Americans are suffering as they smother
behind yards of plastic sheeting and duct tape will increase by orders of
magnitude as our aggressions bring forth new terrorist attacks against the
homeland. These attacks will require the implementation of the newly drafted
Patriot Act II, an augmentation of the previous Act that has profoundly sharper
teeth. The sun will set on the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
The American economy will be
ravaged by the need for increased defense spending, and by the aforementioned
"constabulary" duties in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Former
allies will turn on us. Germany, France and the other nations resisting this
Iraq war are fully aware of this game plan. They are not acting out of
cowardice or because they love Saddam Hussein, but because they mean to resist
this rising American empire, lest they face economic and military serfdom at
the hands of George W. Bush. Richard Perle has already stated that France is no
longer an American ally. As the eagle spreads its wings, our rhetoric and their
resistance will become more agitated and dangerous.
Many people, of course, will
die. They will die from war and from want, from famine and disease. At home,
the social fabric will be torn in ways that make the Reagan nightmares of crack
addiction, homelessness and AIDS seem tame by comparison.
This is the price to be paid
for empire, and the men of PNAC who now control the fate and future of America
are more than willing to pay it. For them, the benefits far outweigh the
liabilities.
The plan was running
smoothly until those two icebergs collided. Millions and millions of ordinary
people are making it very difficult for Bush's international allies to keep to
the script. PNAC may have designs for the control of the "International
Commons" of the internet, but for now it is the staging ground for a
movement that would see empire take a back seat to a wise peace, human rights,
equal protection under the law, and the preponderance of a justice that will,
if properly applied, do away forever with the anger and hatred that gives birth
to terrorism in the first place.
Tommaso Palladini of Milan
perhaps said it best as he marched with his countrymen in Rome. "You fight
terrorism," he said, "by creating more justice in the world."
The People versus the
Powerful is the oldest story in human history. At no point in history have the
Powerful wielded so much control. At no point in history has the active and
informed involvement of the People, all of them, been more absolutely required.
The tide can be stopped, and the men who desire empire by the sword can be
thwarted. It has already begun, but it must not cease. These are men of will,
and they do not intend to fail.
William Rivers Pitt is a teacher from Boston, MA. He is the author of War On Iraq:
What Team Bush Doesn’t Want You To Know (Context Books, 2002) with Scott
Ritter, and The Greatest Sedition is Silence which will be published in
May by Pluto Press. Scott Lowery contributed research to this report.