Years from now, the Bush Legacy will be clear and evident -- he broke the
superpower that was the United States of America; the mythology of our power
was even more potent than its actuality ... we cruised a long time on the
respect shown our might and resources -- now we're an international joke.
Here's great reads on Bush's faux-Empire, on oil prices, OPEC and the
devalued dollar, on the chaos theory and on the improbable but constant push
toward attack in Iran -- last bit, Colin Powell redeems himself from his
"white vial" performance by telling the truth about Iran's capabilities ...
but as crazy as it's all gotten, will we hear?
Jude
*Tomgram: John Brown, Invading Washington*
Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch
November 18,
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174864
Over the last seven years, it's often been said that George W. Bush exists
in a bubble.
When it comes to the cast of characters in his administration -- and the
Washington Consensus generally -- it turns out he isn't alone. The other
night I watched Harvard academic Joseph Nye and former Deputy Secretary of
State Richard Armitage discuss the crisis in Pakistan with talk-show host
Charlie Rose. The two of them had just finished co-chairing a Center for
Strategic and International Studies commission that produced a report,
clearly meant for the next administration, on wielding American "smart
power" in the world.
Nye is an exceedingly conventional American internationalist; Armitage is a
former "Vulcan" who, in the first years of the Bush administration, though
Colin Powell's deputy at the State Department, was close to the neocons of
the Pentagon, but may now be repositioning himself for a Democratic
administration. They could be said to represent the heartland of the present
Washington Consensus.
Yet when they talked of Pakistani autocrat Pervez Musharraf ("I mean,
Musharraf has been our boy, but we`ve not been able to do much with it..."),
of the Pakistani situation more generally ("I mean, after Musharraf, there
are other secular generals…"), and of the American role there ("Well, we
have to be working with both Benazir Bhutto and also with our contacts in
the army to make sure this doesn't turn into chaos…" "If you do anything to
help Benazir, it has to be done very quietly and behind the scenes…"), they
might as well have been discussing deploying federal "smart power" to
Maryland, or more appropriately, to the U.S. Territory of Guam.
Conceptually, they remain deep inside Washington's Pakistan, Washington's
dream of a controllable world.
The Bush administration, too, had its dreams of a controllable Pax Americana
to go along with a Washington-based Pax Republicana; but, as former diplomat
John Brown makes clear below, these were the most provincial of global
dreams, hatched at think-tanks inside the Washington Bubblesphere. The world
was reimagined as a kind of imperial dreamscape for a go-it-alone group of
armed imperial isolationists who, unlike most imperialists, couldn't even
imagine a way those elsewhere could join in their imperial project. As Brown
indicates, Bush and his top officials were the most bubblicious of
non-diplomats. In the language of another era, they were not just Ugly
Americans, but the ugliest of all -- and proud of it.
But perhaps they were only extremes of the Washington norm. Perhaps
Americans, even in their post-World War II high-imperial phase, were never
anything but powerful provincials with little grasp of the wider world: a
self-contained universe of Joseph Nyes and Richard Armitages. Perhaps if you
are singularly wealthy and powerful, as the United States was from 1945 into
the 1970s, the provincial blunders you make don't blow back on you for 20,
30, 40 years. Now, on the downside of hyperpowerdom, they seem to blowback
in about the time it takes to play your basic 30-second ad.
We also tend to ignore how much Americans actually take their bubble with
them into the world. Consider, for instance, this description from the
British Guardian's David Smith on his arrival at Camp Victory, one of the
monstrous "mega-bases" the Bush administration has built in Iraq. American
reporters often set foot in places like this, but almost never offer such
descriptions, perhaps because finding a Little America in the midst of chaos
and mayhem strikes them as nothing out of the ordinary.
*"I arrived at Camp Liberty, one of the main US bases, and found breakfast
in the 'morale area' where food facilities include a Burger King, Cinnabon,
Popeye's Chicken & Biscuits and Seattle's Best Coffee Iraq. It's a sort of
pre-fab American simulacrum, Disney World meets Platoon in the desert.
There's also Alterations & Embroidery, Barber, Beauty, Electronics, Gift
Shop, Jewelery, Magic Island Technologies, Rug Shop, Photo Processing and
even New Car Sales. I wandered around the Bazaar, which takes credit cards
but is closed on Fridays, and found kitsch mementos, hookah pipes, brass
ornaments, 'Operation Iraqi Freedom' rugs bearing the US and Iraqi flags and
a collection of Saddam portraits and clocks. A difficult purchase to explain
at customs, perhaps. "
*
So consider with Brown just how provincial the Bush imperial moment really
was.
Tom
*The Bush Administration: Too Parochial for Empire
The Bush Administration Conquers Washington*
John Brown, TomDispatch
Monday, November 19, 2007 by TomDispatch.com
As I write, on a cloudy Washington afternoon, my "Bush's Last Day Countdown
Keychain" tells me there are 433 days, 11 hrs, 50 minutes and 41.3 seconds
left before our 43rd president leaves office. Like other citizens concerned
about the fate of the Republic, I wonder what the Bush legacy will be.
Many commentators have written about how the domestic politics of this
administration have left the United States more divided than ever; or
perhaps the unsettled illegal immigration issue is what Bush will be most
remembered for — with an unfinished barrier across the U.S.-Mexican border
as the main monument to his eight years in office.
To some concerned with foreign affairs, the Bush era will be remembered most
for the acceleration of America's putative march to empire. Advocates of
such a view highlight the exorbitant sums the U.S. has sunk into its land
bases in the Middle East and Afghanistan, its massive sea power, and its
all-volunteer professional army; the inordinately expensive wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq (the latter being evidence that the U.S. is engaged in
a ruthless effort to control the world's oil resources); the threats of
possible military action against Iran (interpreted as a desire to control
the Middle East in collaboration with Israel); the growing tensions with
Russia, as well as the urge to maintain and expand its foothold in former
Soviet areas in Eastern Europe and Central Asia (seen as a reflection of
America's determination to remain the global hegemon); the increasing
frictions with China (proof that the U.S. will not tolerate a competitor in
Asia); the constant disagreements with the Europeans (a reminder on our part
that we — not they — are the boss).
Indeed, there is little doubt that the military, economic, and cultural
impact of the United States continues to be enormous. Calling this global
footprint "imperial" is certainly tempting. But for a nation to be an
empire, its leaders must have a plan or vision for how to deal with the rest
of the world — as, arguably, Theodore Roosevelt and his entourage did with
their "large policy" for American overseas dominance. Some historians cite
these schemes as the beginning of an American-style empire that led to "the
American century," a period that now seems so long ago and so far away. (Are
we not now, in fact, living in the Anti-American Century?)
*Bush and Visions of Empire*
The immense (but declining) global power of the United States
notwithstanding, the conceptual baggage required to engage in truly imperial
ambitions has simply not been a part of the Bush administration's mindset.
This remains so despite its assembly-line-style production of countless
"national security" reports on a vast range of global security matters —
committee-written, unreadable documents marked by a total lack of
intellectual coherence or clear direction. These can, if anything, be seen
as a collective "cover-up" for the administration's obvious lack of thought
beyond the here-and-now.
To be sure, no imperial plan is ever perfectly framed or implemented (as
Theodore Roosevelt himself realized), but the Bush administration's version
of such now appears to have been remarkably without rhyme or reason — on, in
fact, an automatic pilot, driven by a self-aggrandizing Pentagon budgetary
process and "priorities" strikingly determined by shifting domestic politics
(what Congressional district or crony corporation had put in the best, or
most influential, bid for a base, military-style activity, or war-production
plant). True, our generals remain engaged in the fearsome-sounding "Global
War on Terror" by order of the White House — but this has proven a
helter-skelter example of global confusion, regularly renamed by an
administration clueless about what its "war" really is.
Put another way, the Bush administration was never able to define, shape, or
direct in an "imperial" fashion the powerful forces, negative and positive,
stemming from various segments of American society that do so much to
determine the destiny of our planet. (This may have been inevitable, given
the contentious nature of American democracy.)
As for the once-dynamic duo who characterized much of this administration —
Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld (and
those clustered around their "offices") — the only "empire" that really
counted for them was the parochial world of Washington, DC, with its
lobbyists, bureaucrats, politicians, and assorted supporting think-tankers,
all absorbed in their petty turf-wars about who among them would get
government money for their minions and projects, overseas or at home. This
was the narcissistic province that the Vice President and Secretary of
Defense had the urge to dominate with their "unitary executive," "wartime,"
commander-in-chief presidency and the foreign wars that made it all
possible. Developments outside the U.S., however, mattered largely to the
extent that they helped in the aggrandizement of their own power, their
fiefdoms, and those of their cronies, on the banks of the Potomac.
*The President and His Diplomats
*
To make some sense of all this, let's start at the top. With his utter lack
of experience in foreign affairs and complete lack of curiosity about the
outside world (with the possible exception of Mexico), George W. Bush was
incapable of having a global vision himself, imperial or otherwise. In the
words of commentator William Pfaff, "Bush is happy deciding, even though he
knows nothing." The President's major foreign-policy decision — to invade
Iraq — was certainly not based on any understanding of the global
implications of what he was doing (including, conceivably, expanding an
empire). It was taken for reasons that still remain unclear, but may have
ranged from his tortuous relationship with his father to his desire to
portray himself as a decisive commander in chief to the American electorate.
Perhaps, to use his words, the former cheerleader frat boy just wanted to
"kick ass" overseas to show the media, voters, and possibly even himself,
that he was doing something other than sitting in the Oval Office preaching
the virtues of compassionate conservatism.
Kicking ass — playing cowboys and Indians with the world, as little boys
once did on playroom floors or in backyards — has remarkably little to do,
however, with anything that might once have been defined as imperial
planning or the knowledge necessary to implement such plans. For example, a
year after his "axis of evil" State of the Union Address, when informed by
Iraqi exiles that there were both Sunnis and Shiites in their country,
"emperor" Bush allegedly responded that he thought "the Iraqis were
Muslims." (No way, after all, that you can tell those Indian tribes apart!)
And what better summarizes George W. Bush's preparation for putative empire
building than the following nugget from the 2000 presidential campaign
season, as related by Elaine Sciolino of the New York Times:
*"When a writer for Glamour Magazine recently uttered the word 'Taliban' —
the regime in Afghanistan that follows an extreme and repressive version of
Islamic law — during a verbal Rorschach test, Mr. Bush could only shake his
head in silence. It was only after the writer gave him a hint ('repression
of women in Afghanistan') that Mr. Bush replied, 'Oh. I thought you said
some band. The Taliban in Afghanistan! Absolutely. Repressive.'"
*
Given the tabula rasa in Bush's mind regarding the world outside "the
homeland" (a word his administration has regrettably contributed to the
American language), it is hardly surprising that he selected as his main
foreign policy advisers two people with very limited global visions of their
own: Condoleezza Rice as National Security Advisor and, as Secretary of
State, Colin Powell. (Rice herself admitted in 2000 that, as a
"Europeanist," "I've been pressed to understand parts of the world that have
not been part of my scope"; and Powell's qualifications were based on his
military savvy — and loyalty — not his geopolitical perspectives. The
general, as Bill Keller of the New York Times reported in 2001, was "a
problem solver, not a visionary."
As became clear after the horror of 9/11 — a foreign policy failure of the
first order, if ever there was one, that no "empire" in its right mind would
have allowed — Rice and Powell essentially became talking-point briefers on
day-to-day events they had not foreseen and did not control. Compare them to
Henry Kissinger, who held each of their positions at some point in his White
House career. A cynical maneuverer who may not have been to everyone's
liking, he nonetheless worked in the realm of global strategy. In the way he
attempted to play off the Soviet Union against China in relation to the
Vietnam War, he was an imperial planner of the first order (if not always
with the greatest success).
Contrast his meaty books on Metternich and on nuclear weapons to the sole
tome that Rice authored by herself — a bland monograph on the relationship
between the Soviet Union and the Czechoslovak Army, 1948-1983, excoriated by
the scholarly American Historical Review in 1985. What her sad little
historical "study" demonstrated, if anything at all, was that Rice was, from
scratch, anything but a geopolitician of Soviet — or any other — affairs.
Had Rice and Powell been capable of a global imperial vision — or even of
grasping essential global cause and effect — they doubtless would have
advised their president that his much-desired Mesopotamian (mis)adventure
was bound to be a bloody, costly imperial mess. With certain down-to-earth
military smarts, Powell may have sensed this, but evidently he lacked the
nerve (or was it intellectual inclination?) to ask the simple questions at
White House meetings that would have been the key to any imperial
decision-making process: "Why exactly are we doing this?" "Is it really in
our interests to invade a third-world country thousands of miles from our
shores?" Or, put another way: "How does this invasion preserve or expand the
American empire"?
*All the President's Men: Cheney and Rumsfeld*
According to some commentators, when it came to the American ascendancy
abroad, the real powers behind (or in) the White House were Vice President
Cheney and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, who had been collaborators ever
since the distant Ford administration. Some argue that they — and their
neocon poodle and second-in-command at the Defense Department, Paul
Wolfowitz, as well assorted neocons once linked to the Likud party in Israel
and the Christian right in the U.S. — were the true framers of a Bush
empire.
To be sure, Rumsfeld was an early member of the Project for the New American
Century and no doubt had ideas — or perhaps simply fantasies masquerading as
ideas — about a more aggressive use of American military strength throughout
the world.
Cheney's former position as CEO of Halliburton and his connections with
large corporations certainly made him the prime imperial candidate for
considering global energy flows and eyeing Iraq as one vast oil field just
waiting to be seized, one more country with must-have natural resources for
the American imperium.
Even if the duo were eager indeed to expand U.S. influence and resources
overseas, as veterans of countless Washington partisan and personal battles,
what really got their aged blood flowing was the sleazy, vindictive
inside-the-Beltway world of Washington, DC. Rumsfeld's utter inability to
focus on post-invasion planning in Iraq was in itself strong evidence that
what happened there ("events" which he so often simply made up) was of
secondary concern. Iraq — or success in that country — was indeed important
but mainly to the extent that it heightened his profile as a monster player
in Washington.
For both Cheney and Rumsfeld, it was the imperial capital, not the empire
itself that really mattered. There, "war" would mean the loosing of a
commander-in-chief presidency unchecked by Congress, courts, anything —
which meant power in the only world that mattered to them. War in the
provinces was their ticket to renewed prominence within DC's self-absorbed
biosphere, a kind of lost space station far removed from Mother Earth, and a
place where they had longstanding, unfinished accounts — both personal and
political — to settle. "Foreign policy," in other words, was an excuse for
war in a far-off country that 63% of American youth between the ages of 18
and 24 could not, according to a National Geographic survey, find on a map
of the Middle East. That, in turn, would make both the Vice President and
Secretary of Defense (for a while) little Caesars in the only place that
mattered, Washington, DC.
If Saddam and assorted terrorists were enemies, they weren't the ones who
really mattered. In the realest war of all, the one on the banks of the
Potomac, Cheney and Rumsfeld were, above all, targeting those symbols of
American internationalism that they had grown to despise in their previous
Washington stays — the State Department and the CIA — perhaps because those
organizations, at their best, aspired to see how the world looked at the
United States, and not just how the United States could dismiss the world.
Just as Bush "kicked ass" in Iraq, so Cheney and Rumsfeld used Iraq to "kick
ass" among the striped-pants weenies at Foggy Bottom and the eggheads in the
Intelligence Community. (Consider Cheney's treatment of Ambassador Joseph
Wilson, who questioned the validity of the administration's claim about
Saddam Hussein's search for uranium yellowcake in Niger in the late 1990s.)
In toppling Iraq, the "imperial" aim of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, their
foreign policy "experts" and their acolytes was to raise the flag of their
own power high above Washington, DC, while discrediting and humiliating
those in the foreign-policy profession interested in the outside world for
itself, those willing to consider how it related to actual U.S. national
interests, not fantasy ones, and who therefore dared to question the goals
and intentions of the dynamic duo.
To see how Washington-centered this cast of characters actually was, just
recall the Secretary of Defense's self-glorifying press conferences in his
post-invasion heyday, when he played the strutting comedian. In that period,
Rumsfeld, venerated by, among others, aging neocon Midge Decter in a
swooning biography, was the king of the heap and visibly loving every second
of it. Front-page headlines in the imperial capital were what counted, never
the reality of Iraq — any more than it did when George W. Bush strutted that
aircraft-carrier deck in his military get-up for his "mission accomplished"
moment, launching (against a picturesque backdrop of sailors and war)
Campaign 2004 at home. Poor Iraq. It was the butt of the imperial joke, as
was — for a while — the rest of the outside world.
Political theorist Benjamin Barber caught the Bush foreign-policy moment
perfectly. The U.S., he wrote, made "foreign policy to indulge a host of
domestic concerns and self-celebratory varieties of hide-bound insularity.
The United States remains a hegemonic global superpower sporting the narrow
outlook of mini-states like Monaco and Lichtenstein."
In the end, the Bush administration is likely to be remembered not for a
failed imperialism, but a failed parochialism, an inability to perceive a
world beyond the Washington of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, beyond
George W. Bush's national security "homeland." That may be the President's
ultimate legacy. ++
*John Brown, a former Foreign Service officer who resigned from the State
Department over the planned war in Iraq, compiles a near-daily Public
Diplomacy Press and Blog Review, available free by requesting it at
johnhbrow...@hotmail.com.*
*Critics Assail Weak Dollar at OPEC Event
"The Fall of the Dollar is Not the Fall of the Dollar — It's the Fall of the
American Empire."
*JAD MOUAWAD, New York Times
November 19, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/19/business/19opec.html
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, Nov. 18 — A rare meeting of the heads of state of the
OPEC countries ended here today on a political note, with two leaders —
President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran
— blaming the weakness of the United States dollar for high oil prices.
Despite the best efforts of the host country, Saudi Arabia, to steer the
meeting away from politics and promote OPEC's environmental concerns, the
leaders of Venezuela and Iran let loose some show-stealing statements.
"The dollar is in free fall, everyone should be worried about it," Mr.
Chávez told reporters here. "The fall of the dollar is not the fall of the
dollar — it's the fall of the American empire."
During a news conference after the meeting, Mr. Ahmadinejad added: "The U.S.
dollar has no economic value."
Mr. Ahmadinejad said that oil, which was hovering last week at close to $100
a barrel, was being sold currently for a "paltry sum." And Mr. Chávez
predicted that prices would rise to $200 a barrel if the United States were
"crazy enough" to strike at Iran, or even at his own country.
Normally, meetings of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries
are tepid affairs where ministers leave politics at the door and talk about
oil inventory and supply and demand. This unusual meeting, held amid the
pomp and glitter of the Saudi royal court, had been planned since last
December but happened to fall at a time of renewed concern over record oil
prices and the shrinking value of the dollar.
At the summit's opening ceremony on Saturday, Mr. Chávez sought to bring
OPEC back to its militant and revolutionary roots.
"OPEC should set itself up as an active political agent," Mr. Chávez said,
addressing about 1,000 guests in a conference center by the royal quarters.
While Mr. Chávez's 23-minute statement was brief by his own standards, it
drew a gentle rebuke from King Abdullah, the Saudi monarch, who chided him
for talking longer than the time allotted by royal protocol. He also turned
down Mr. Chávez's plea, saying:
"Those who want OPEC to take advantage of its position are forgetting that
OPEC has always acted moderately and wisely."
It is only the third time in OPEC's 47-year history that such a high-level
meeting has taken place. The first was in Algiers, in 1975, at the height of
OPEC's nationalist period; the second was in 2000, when the oil cartel met
in Venezuela to devise a strategy to increase prices after they had
collapsed to about $10 a barrel in the late 1990s.
This meeting, which lasted less than 24 hours, was supposed to focus on
long-term issues like the security of supplies and environmental policy. The
Saudis in particular sought to reassure the world that OPEC was a reliable
oil supplier.
"OPEC has made a point, from its establishment, to work for the stability of
the oil markets," said the Saudi foreign minister, Prince Faisal, at a news
conference after the close of the summit on Sunday. "Oil should be a tool of
construction and development, not one of dispute."
Saudi Arabia also wanted to highlight a new emphasis on protecting the
environment by announcing the establishment of a $750 million fund to reduce
carbon emissions. The kingdom will contribute $300 million for research into
technology that captures carbon spewed by power plants or refineries and
stores it underground. In addition, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, and
Qatar will provide $150 million each.
Oil producers see climate policies that focus on oil consumption as an
unfair way to curb the use of fossil fuels worldwide. By financing research
into carbon emissions, Saudi Arabia says it is seeking ways to extend the
use of petroleum resources at a time when global warming could lead to
changes in consumer behavior in Western countries.
"We want to continue using fossil fuels while protecting the environment,"
said Mohammad al-Sabban, a senior Saudi government adviser on climate
change. "What we are worried about is for industrialized countries to use
climate policy as a pretext to discriminate against oil."
Other ministers also expressed the more moderate views that typically emerge
from an OPEC meeting. Despite Mr. Ahmadinejad's statement about oil prices
being paltry, officials from several other countries — including the United
Arab Emirates, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia — said that prices were too high.
"We are going down uncharted territory, and everyone should be cautious,"
said Odein Ajumogobia, Nigeria's oil minister, referring to the current
prices.
The weakness of the dollar proved to be even more controversial here and
created frictions among members of the group. Iran — with the backing of
Venezuela and OPEC's newest member, Ecuador — worked hard to persuade the
group that it should mention the falling dollar in the summit's final
declaration.
But Saudi Arabia rejected Iran's proposal, saying that such a move might
provoke a "collapse" of the dollar. During a closed session on Friday that
was mistakenly broadcast on an internal television circuit, Prince Saud
al-Faisal said the issue was too delicate to be included in a statement.
In the end, the Saudis were forced to yield a little. The final statement,
while making no mention of the dollar, said OPEC would "study ways and means
of enhancing financial cooperation among OPEC member countries."
According to Iran, OPEC will also look for ways to establish a currency
basket to offset the declining value of the dollar. But Saudi Arabia and
other Persian Gulf countries are opposed to this old idea, and few analysts
believe it has any chance of succeeding.
It is too early to say whether the views expressed by Mr. Chávez and Mr.
Ahmadinejad signaled a rift in the exceptional consensus that has sustained
OPEC's success in recent years, or whether they were merely an example of
conference theatrics by countries at odds with the American government. In
the end, it fell to Ali al-Naimi, the Saudi oil minister, and the main
architect of OPEC's focus on business fundamentals in recent years, to
underline the conference's main message.
"Everyone knows that OPEC has renounced the principle of controlling oil
prices since the 1980s," Mr. Naimi said at a news conference on Sunday.
"Since then, the price has been determined by the market. The fluctuations
you are witnessing today have nothing to do with OPEC actions."
The meeting was held in a conference center that was a gaudy mix of the
palace at Versailles and Greek Revival style, with some rococo touches. It
also displayed the whole range of Saudi extravagance: blue marble floors,
gold-plated fixtures, and dozens of crystal chandeliers, some bigger than
trucks.
Vera de Ladoucette, an energy analyst with the Cambridge Energy Research
Associates who was here to observe the summit, said: "This shows a new
dimension to OPEC, which is the environment. This could be a defensive
stance to improve their image. But also, a way of acting against anything
that might reduce demand for oil." ++
*American empire, going, going ...
Great empires were extraordinarily pluralistic, argues Amy Chua, until they
frayed into xenophobia and decline. Can the U.S. steer another course?*
Andrew O'Hehir, Salon Book Review
Nov. 19, 2007
http://www.salon.com/books/review/2007/11/19/chua/print.html
*Say it isn't so!*
Wagenvoord, Smirking Chimp
Nov 19 2007
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/11105
I am not a conspiracy buff. I have yet to meet a conspiracy that I have not
greeted with skepticism and disbelief. It has to do with my understanding of
human nature. Although successful conspiracies need absolute secrecy,
self-inflation remains a basic human need. So I am sure some underling
somewhere blabbing to his wife or mistress just to impress her would
eventually compromise any conspiracy. Or, there might be one of those rare
individuals with the ethics and morality to deliberately leak details of the
conspiracy to the press. Between these two, no conspiracy stands a chance.
At least, that is what I believed until now. Not that I am buying into any
conspiracies, but I am getting a little nervous.
The cause of my unrest is Naomi Klein's book, Shock Doctrine. The key
passage in the book is a quote by Milton Friedman who said, "Only a
crisis—actual or perceived—produces real change. When that crisis occurs,
the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That,
I believe, is our [The Chicago School of Economics] basic function: to
develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available
until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable"
Klein uses the overthrow of Chile's Allende to illustrate how this
philosophy works.
Beginning in the 1950s, bright, young Chilean students were brought to the
University of Chicago where they were thoroughly indoctrinated in the
Friedman Doctrine of Utopian Free Markets. When Pinochet overthrew Allende,
he gave these Chicago graduates the responsibility of converting Chile to a
free-market economy, which they did brutally. The idea of shock therapy is
to wait until a major crisis, such as a coup or a natural disaster occurs,
and under the cover of the chaos the disaster creates, institute brutal and
draconian changes all at once while the public is still in shock.
After reading about that, I had a rather frightening epiphany. For years,
sane people have been carrying on about how insane the Bush administration
is. Their every policy flies in the face of common sense and never fails to
produce a negative feedback that makes the situation even worse. Their
policies all seemed bizarre on the surface, from gutting the Iraqi army that
morphed into the insurgency, to ignoring Afghanistan and allowing the
Taliban to reassert control, to allowing to deficit to reach an astronomical
high.
Now, I wonder if they are that stupid. The idea of an attack on Iran is
insane. If we did so, Iran would block the Straits of Hormuz, oil would
spike to $200 a barrel, we would be saddled with a worldwide depression, and
we could well be looking at World Ware III or IV, bur who in the hell is
counting anymore.
What if this is what they want?
What if their every move is carefully calculated? What if they are making a
deliberate attempt to generate a crisis of such proportions that Bush could
use the chaos that ensued to declare martial law and assume dictatorial
powers over the country? Think of the possibilities. While Americans were
reeling from the shock of total war and another Great Depression, the
administration could eliminate Social Security and Medicare, along with
whatever remains of our shredded social net. With the stroke of a pen,
America would become a totalized Corporatist State and her citizens would be
mere employees of the State with all of the rights that corporate employees
lack.
The would explain why Bush does things other politicians would consider
suicidal, like vetoing a health and education bill because it was too
expensive and, in the same breath, approving an increase in military
spending. Bush can get away with it because he is not a politician, he is a
CEO.
Many people believe that another Great Depression would usher in another New
Deal. I had always thought so too. However, we forget that when the Great
Depression struck, the only ideas lying around were those of John Maynard
Keynes. Today, the only ideas lying around are those of Milton Friedman.
Do the math.
You see, my usual distrust of conspiracies has always been the inability of
people to keep a secret. What frightens me about this one is that it is not
a secret. All the details are out there for anyone to see; the lines
connecting the dots are penciled in, but nobody seems to be looking at the
page.
I hope to hell that I am wrong about this. However, if I am not, then the
only antidote to this pending shock therapy is the immediate impeachment of
both Bush and Cheney. Without that, we may be lost.
It is too bad our congress is a corporate employee. ++
*Bush-Cheney Really Are Planning to Attack Iran!
Bush & Buckshot are riding their little stick horses, demonizing another
Muslim nation -- and the Dems are supporting it. We've got to shut them
down.*
Jim Hightower, Hightower Lowdown
November 17, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/68064/?page=entire
Look out -- here they come again! Bush & Buckshot are riding their little
stick horses, waving the bloody flag of 9/11, demonizing another Muslim
nation, shouting warnings about weapons of mass destruction, bellowing for
regime change, and generally trying to whoop up a new war. Having done so
well in Iraq, George W and Cheney are pushing feverishly to hype up a
national-security threat and commit our nation, our bedraggled military, our
depleted treasury, and our country's already-tarnished name to another of
their fantasyland, neocon, preemptive invasions of a sovereign people who
are doing no harm to us. Their target this time: Iran.
You might be thinking, oh, come on, Hightower, surely not. You're paranoid
-- even the Bushites aren't that crazy. I wish.
*The drums of war*
For such leading neocon zealots as Norman Podhoretz, bombing and even
invading Iran are about protecting "our" Mideastern oil, strengthening
Israel's regional power, and continuing Western control of the restive
Muslim majority in the Middle East. Podhoretz and other true believers
assert that there's an urgent need for Israel and the West to crush Iran's
Muslim government now, frantically wailing that it intends to destroy
America and control the world. Even though Iran has made no threats to the
U.S., the neocons see regime change there as the key to winning "World War
IV" (they insist that the Cold War was World War III) against what they have
dubbed "Islamofacism."
How nutty are they? Podhoretz concedes that by attacking such an influential
Islamic nation, Bush would "unleash a wave of anti-Americanism all over the
world that will make the anti-Americanism we've experienced so far look like
a lovefest." Yet this Dr. Strangelove maniacally declares, "I pray with all
my heart that he will." Now there's a prayer to a truly fiendish god!
George W, who is so besotted by Podhoretz that he has bestowed the
Presidential Medal of Freedom on him, has bought into this guy's insanity.
Adopting Podhoretz's inflamed doomsday stance, Bush recently accused Iran of
preparing for global war (though W only ranks it as WW III), and Bush's
bombastic sidekick, Cheney, has now threatened that Tehran will suffer
"serious consequences" if it doesn't do what Washington wants. Just as they
did in the run-up to their 2003 Iraq attack, the Bushites are now pounding
out a drumbeat of propaganda to soften up the public, enlist the compliant
media, and cow soft-spined Democratic leaders. You'll recognize some
familiar themes (a.k.a. lies) in BushCheney's rationale for a "preventive"
war of aggression against Iran:
*Claim:* Iran is in cahoots with al Qaeda, the demons who crashbombed
America on 9/11. Actually, no. Iran is a Shiite nation that has long been in
opposition to the Sunni-exclusive Islam preached by al Qaeda. Indeed, even
before al Qaeda's attacks on America, Iran's leaders vehemently opposed the
terrorist group's presence in neighboring Afghanistan, and Iran was one of
the first Muslim countries to condemn the 9/11 assault. Iran also has
willingly turned over al Qaeda suspects to the U.S.
*Claim:* WMDs! Iran is on the brink of making a nuclear bomb, thus posing an
imminent threat to America and to our national interests. Not so. Iran has
no nuclear weapons and is nowhere near having the ability to build one. As a
signer of the Nuclear NonProliferation Treaty, Iran has the right to enrich
uranium to make electrical power (something our own country does every day).
The Iranian government regularly allows inspectors from the International
Atomic Energy Agency access to its nuclear facilities, and this UN agency
(which is the one that turned out to be right about the lack of WMDs in
Iraq) has found no evidence that Iran is trying to make a bomb. Even if it
were, it would be years away from having one. There certainly is no imminent
threat of an Iranian nuclear assault on any country, including our own,
which is 7,000 miles away. Plus, Bush's own former top commander in Iraq,
Gen. John Abizaid, points out that the U.S. lived with a nuclear Soviet
Union throughout the Cold War and now lives with a number of nuclear
nations, including China and Pakistan, so "there are ways to live with a
nuclear Iran." It's simply a lie that the Bushites must rush to war to keep
us from being nuked.
*Claim:* Those dastardly Iranians are meddling in our war in Iraq by
supplying weapons to our enemies and by sending intelligence agents to
undermine Iraq's government. Not likely. While some Iranianmade weapons have
turned up in Iraq, there've been no findings of a large or regular influx
and no evidence that the Iranian government itself is even tacitly behind
it. Remember that Iran's leaders are Shiites who do not like al Qaeda and do
not support the Sunni insurgency, so the only Iraqi force that Tehran would
want to help is the Shiite majority that Bush himself has put in charge. As
for Iranian "operatives" in Iraq, the two countries share long familial and
cultural relationships, so there are a lot of Iranians in Iraq all the time.
In fact, Iraq's Shiite-led government is pro-Iranian and has many economic
and even military agreements with Tehran. Indeed, when U.S. troops
"captured" a group of Iranians in a Baghdad hotel this summer, they turned
out to be energy experts invited to Iraq by Prime Minister Maliki, who had
them released.
On the warpath
Not that Iran's military/political/ theocratic leaders are a bunch of
sweethearts, by any means. That country's loudmouth, Holocaust-denying
president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, makes himself an easy target for Bushite
demonization, and all peace-seeking governments must be vigilant toward
Iran's potential for belligerence. This requires steady engagement, smart
diplomacy, military subtlety, and careful consideration of the complexities
embodied within Iran's rich, proud, 6,000-year-old culture.
Unfortunately, BushCheney doesn't do engagement, diplomacy, subtlety, or
complexity. If there's an international need to shell a pecan, the Bushites
go at it with a sledgehammer, blissfully ignorant of their own ignorance. Do
you think, for example, that George W is even aware that President
Ahmadinejad can rant and rave all he wants, but he is not in charge of his
country's foreign policy, which is in the firm grip of Iran's supreme
leader, Ayatollah Khamenei?
But realities did not deter Bush and the neocons from miring our country in
Iraq, and now they are aggressively putting us on a path to war with Iran.
In August, Bush announced, "I have authorized our military commanders in
Iraq to confront Teheran's murderous activities."
Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh revealed last month that Cheney has
instructed the Joint Chiefs of Staff to draw up plans for attacking Iran.
Hersh added that the bombing would be accompanied by selected "incursions"
into Iran by U.S. Special Forces units.
The London Telegraph reported in September that the Pentagon has developed a
list of some 2,000 bombing targets in Iran.
There are plans for both a limited "surgical" bombing of the Iranian
military's training sites and a broad bombing that would include
nuclear-power facilities and other targets.
Two aircraft carriers, a flotilla of U.S. Navy warships, and numerous cruise
missiles have been put in place at the Strait of Hormuz, on Iran's southern
shore. In fact, half of our navy's warships now sit within striking distance
of Iran.
The Pentagon has suddenly started building a new U.S. military base near the
Iraqi town of Badrah, right up against Iran's border.
In September, Israel launched a preemptive raid in Syria to destroy a
construction site that Israelis claim might have been the beginning of a
nuclear reactor -- even though Syria has no nuclear-weapons program and
could legally build a reactor for electric power. Cheney gave U.S. approval
for Israel's strike only after leaders there refused his pleas that they
bomb Iran's nuclear-power plant instead.
Yes, the U.S. Air Force and Navy have the razzle-dazzle firepower to destroy
2,000 Iranian targets in short order (not to mention thousands of Iranian
civilians, for many of the targets are in populated places). But what
happens the next day? Remember those neocon promises, just before the
bombing of Iraq in 2003, that our troops would be showered with rose petals
by a grateful public? Here we go again. Still intoxicated with the same
ideological delusions, the neocons offer nothing but vague assurances that
the Iranian masses will greet our forces as liberators and spontaneously
overthrow the Tehran regime. In fact, opposition leaders inside Iran say
that even the talk of a U.S. military attack is disastrous for their
movement, for such reports strengthen hardliners in Iran and weaken those
who want to reach out to the West. Iranians are Iranians first, and when a
foreign power threatens to bomb or invade their country, they unite.
On Day Two (as well as on Days Three, Four, and so on), Iran most certainly
will respond, and the results could be truly hellish for America. That
furious wave of anti-Americanism that Podhoretz gleefully predicts would
have explosive results in Iraq (further endangering our besieged troops), in
such neighboring countries as Saudi Arabia, in the cities of Europe, and
right here in the States, where our own citizens could become retaliatory
targets.
Then there's oil. Iran and its allies could block the narrow Strait of
Hormuz, which connects all of the oil-producing Persian Gulf states to their
foreign markets. Up to twenty-five percent of the world's oil must pass
through this strategic waterway, and shutting it down would cause prices to
zoom astronomically, creating havoc for our oil-soaked economy.
What to do?
You might hope that cooler heads will prevail. Republican political
operatives, for example, are aghast at the possible '08 fallout ("Every
Republican is going to be defeated," cried one). Also, the generals don't
want this -- they know that they don't have the manpower for a real war with
Iran. Nor will Bush have a "coalition of the willing" this time -- even the
doggishly loyal British government thinks attacking Iran is madness.
Then there's Putin of Russia, who pointedly traveled to Iran last month to
declare that no one should "even think of making use of force in this
region."
However, as a former Bush official told Hersh, "Cheney doesn't give a rat's
ass" about any of that, "and neither does the president." The chickenhawks
are screeching for war, and they are immune to sanity.
Well, surely, you say, the Democrats will finally stand up to these
knuckleheads. After all, Congress has all the power it needs to say no [see
last month's Lowdown], and the time for saying it is now, before the
shooting starts, before the Bushites start hiding behind the rhetorical
cloak of "support the troops."
But the Democrats' congressional leadership is already waffling, and some of
their presidential candidates are joining Bush in rattling our sabers at
Iran, hoping to appear commander-in-chiefish. Astonishingly, the Senate
passed a resolution on September 26 by a 76-22 vote that endorses Bush's
confrontation with Tehran! The Kyl-Lieberman amendment buys into the Bushite
myths about Iran, calls for the entire Iranian military to be designated
"Global Terrorists" under a Bush executive order, and states that it should
be U.S. policy to use all instruments of our national power (specifically
including "military instruments") to confront the "destabilizing influence"
of Iran.
Democrats -- especially Sen. Hillary Clinton -- are now trying to deny that
their vote for this resolution gave Bush a free pass to go after Iran,
claiming that the resolution was only meant to apply to Iranian interference
in Iraq. Intentions are nice, but Bush is not.
The amendment's language plainly allows plenty of wiggle room, and the
Bushites have shown that they will interpret even an errant sneeze as
permission to do whatever they want. Besides, why the hell would Democrats
pass anything involving the expansion of this horrible war? Voters put them
in charge of Congress to go the opposite way, not to buck up Bush with a new
piece of warmongering that Sen. Jim Webb has called "Cheney's fondest pipe
dream."
We the People have to be the leaders. More than ever, we have to get noisy.
We can't just wring our hands -- there are things we can do:
*First,* connect with our allies in Congress, including the 22 senators who
voted against the Kyl-Lieberman surrender to Bush (list available here). Let
antiwar lawmakers know you're behind them, ask them to get still noisier on
this, and ask that they develop an inside-outside strategy to rally and
focus our national outrage against expanding Bush's Iraq disaster into Iran.
*Second,* demand that your Congress critters (whatever their stripe) use all
their congressional powers (to control spending, launch investigations,
declare war, etc.) to say that the president can take no preemptive military
action against Iran without a full, constitutionally mandated declaration of
war by Congress.
*Third,* connect with any and all of the savvy grassroots groups in this
issue's "Do Something" box. Use their information, sign all of their
petitions, spread their materials, and join their actions.
*Fourth,* talk, talk, talk, and talk some more -- in church, at school, with
your neighbors and coworkers, at town hall meetings, in family phone calls
or visits, on talk radio, at candidate forums, in supermarket check-out
lines... wherever you can find an ear. The vast majority of Americans have
not heard what Bush is up to, and they won't like it. The most effective way
to reach them and activate them is by personal contact -- i.e., you. Talk to
someone about it every day.
*Fifth,* don't let Democrats waffle. Iraq was Bush's war (and his political
debacle), but Iran would be a product of a Democratic-controlled Congress,
and they will be responsible either for allowing it...or for stopping it.
*Sixth,* come up with your own action idea, and let the rest of us know how
we can support and spread it.
*Be brave. Be loud. Your country needs you.* ++
*Powell: Iran Far From Nuclear Weapon*
DIANA ELIAS, AP
November 19, 2007
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20071119/powell-iran/
KUWAIT CITY — Iran is far from acquiring a nuclear weapon, and despite U.S.
fears about its atomic intentions, an American military strike against the
Islamic Republic is unlikely, former Secretary of State Colin Powell said
Sunday.
Tehran rejects claims by the United States and some European Union countries
that its nuclear program is aimed at secretly producing weapons, insisting
it is for peaceful purposes only.
"I think Iran is a long way from having anything that could be anything like
a nuclear weapon," said Powell, who was invited by the National Bank of
Kuwait to speak on economic opportunity and crisis in the Middle East.
A recent report by the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog found Iran has been generally
truthful in the information it has provided the agency about aspects of its
past nuclear activities.
But the International Atomic Energy Agency said it could not rule out that
Iran had a secret weapons program because of restrictions Tehran placed on
its inspectors two years ago.
Asked if he sees a U.S. war on Iran coming, the retired U.S. general said
although no American official will say the option was "off the table," he
did not see prospects of a military conflict.
There is no base of support among Americans for such an action, Powell said,
adding that the U.S. military already has enough on its hands in Iraq and
Afghanistan.
Powell was the secretary of state under President Bush from 2001 to 2005. In
September 2004, Powell said Iran's nuclear program was a growing threat and
he called
for international sanctions. ++
*"So keep fightin' for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don't you forget
to have fun doin' it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous,
ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can
produce. And when you get through kickin' ass and celebratin' the sheer joy
of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was."
*
~ Molly Ivins, 1944 - 2007
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included information for research and educational purposes.
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