By Hazel Henderson
author of Beyond Globalization, Building a Win-Win World and other books.
October 4, 2002
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Popular US comedian Jon Stewart announced recently on his mock news show’s headlines, that there were plans for a regime change in Florida. After another botched election, Florida had become an embarrassment to the nation. Bombing would begin with targeting the city of Pensacola. On a more serious note, politics and elections in democracies are always about regime change.
How far will the Bush II Administration go with its new preemptive strike policy, now officially spelled out in the latest White House document? Few have any doubts about the Bushies’ go-it-alone unilateralism, since the US President’s September 12th speech at the United Nations. It is now clear that Mr. Bush sees his role as “Globocop” and the USA as the world’s self-appointed policeman. Wherever Mr. Bush sees the need for regime change in other countries or preemptive strikes to prevent terrorism, the US will act &endash; with or without the UN.
Needless to say, such policies reverse a good part of US history of isolationism and reluctance to assume the role of world policeman. Polls over the past decade show the US public firmly opposed by 68% to 70% (Roper Center, University of Connecticut).
Domestic opposition is currently muted by the Administration’s media blitz of fear and war mongering. The US public is now facing a $200 billion deficit in 2002 and a bill for the proposed war on Iraq of another $200 billion. The economy is a mess. Even the Democrats &endash; who are supposed to be campaigning for a US regime change in the upcoming mid-term elections &endash; have rolled over under the media onslaught.
Democrats’ issues are drowned out: the tanking US economy; the corporate crime wave and its undermining of US style capitalism; soaring domestic and trade deficits; Bush’s budget-busting tax cuts for the rich; unemployment hovering near 6%; rising corporate and personal bankruptcies. The Republicans may win if they can keep the focus on terrorism and the war. Such familiar political strategies are age-old. But stakes are higher than in the past, when princes feuded over territory.
Today, we live in a globalized world. Transmission belts of shocks include $1.5 trillion daily currency trading; media-amplified market-movements; globe-girdling technologies: jet travel, computer networks and satellites. Reckless talk and intemperate policies can rock oil and currency markets, affect elections in distant countries and destabilize even well run democratic regimes.
Bush “preventive,” preemptive strike polices are already being cited by Russia’s Vladimir Putin as his justification for sending troops into Georgia to clean up terrorists there. How long before India uses the same rationale for similar action against Pakistan &endash; both nuclear powers? Not only is the US poised on these slippery slopes &endash; but it could take many other countries with it. Meanwhile, the US public is confused, 40% say they are not Republican or Democrat &endash; but independent. The two-party system is stalemated. Many call them “Republicrats” &endash; two football teams owned by the same corporate owners. Former SEC chief, Arthur Levitt describes the corruption in his expose, Taking on Wall Street.
Deeper moral critiques of the oil-driven Bush polices struggle for a hearing in small journals. University of Maryland professor, William Galston cites the dire consequences of preemptive war &endash; on Iraq or any other nation in The American Prospect. Richard Falk and David Krieger of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation add that a preemptive strike on Iraq is not President Bush’s decision to make. These reminders that such a strike preempts international law, flouts the UN charter and the US Constitution, appeared in Japan’s Asahi Shimbun and in the International Herald Tribune.
Meanwhile US mainstream media, including top news shows in 2001, were found to use biased sources: 90% interviewed or quoted were white, 85% were male and where party affiliations were identified, 75% were Republican. Sixty-two percent of all partisan sources were administration officials. President Bush alone accounted for 33% of this total. Third party or independent sources accounted for 1% (www.fair.org).
The Christian Science Monitor, September 6, 2002, showed how truth is the first casualty of war. In 1991, George Bush I claimed that up to 250,000 Iraqi troops and 1,500 tanks were massed on Iraq’s border with Saudi Arabia. The St. Petersburg Times, Florida, countered Bush’s top-secret Pentagon satellite images by showing 2 commercial Russian satellite images of the same area, which showed only empty desert. John MacArthur, publisher of Harper’s and author of “Second Front: Censorship and Propaganda in the Gulf War” says that considering the number of officials shared by the Bush I and Bush II administrations, the American people should bear in mind these lessons of Gulf War propaganda.
Dick Cheney, Colin Powell and many other top officials in both Bush administrations are today citing “top secret” evidence of Iraq’s buildup of weapons of mass destruction. Meanwhile, former UN inspector Scott Ritter challenges Bush to produce the evidence, he says is non-existent. Ritter battles on talk shows against administration “hawks” who challenge his reputation, motives and integrity. Ritter responds that he is now a warrior for peace, who experienced the horrors of war in military service &endash; and has “maxed out” his credit cards and received funds from US peace groups in his campaign to get UN inspectors back into Iraq.
Many US baby-boomers remember the infamous Gulf of Tonkin Resolution President Johnson used to get Congressional support during the Vietnam War. In 2001, the Pentagon secretly created an “Office of Strategic Influence” &endash; since closed down after a chorus of opposition. The Christian Science Monitor recalls that public relations firm Hill and Knowlton, was hired by Kuwait for $10 million to make the case for the Gulf War in 1991.
Despite the mounting media spin, oil politics and lack of evidence that only a return to Iraq of US inspectors can provide &endash; Vice President Cheney is still saying, as he did with Gulf War disinformation: “Trust us”. Bush II’s arguments that terrorism must be prevented &endash; by war when necessary to keep the US safe &endash; will likely have the opposite effect, and provoke more terrorist attacks.
The race for peace now focuses on how fast the UN can get inspectors back into Iraq under the new unconditional terms &endash; versus how fast Globocop Bush can stampede his war resolution through Congress. If Bush succeeds before the November 5th mid-term elections, the world may be headed for open-ended war for a long time to come.
