December 11, 2006
Destructive Dreams of World Domination
"I'm
the decider, and I decide what's best."
George
W. Bush, 43rd President of the United States
"The president
has adopted a policy of 'anticipatory self-defense' that is alarmingly similar
to the policy that imperial Japan employed at Pearl Harbor, on a date which, as
an earlier American president said it would, live in infamy. Franklin D.
Roosevelt was right, but today it is we Americans who live in infamy."
Arthur
Schlesinger, American historian
"There
were not sufficient reasons to unleash a war against Iraq. To say nothing of
the fact that, given the new weapons that make possible destructions that go
beyond the combatant groups, today we should be asking ourselves if it is still
licit to admit the very existence of a 'just war'."
Pope
Benedict XVI
On
September 20, 2002, American President George W. Bush enthusiastically and officially embraced
a policy of world domination that his neoconservative advisors
had drafted for him. In fact, it was a retake on a discarded foreign policy
draft paper that Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz had written in 1992,
for then Defense Secretary Dick Cheney in the George H. Bush administration.
The new foreign
policy paper introduced by the White House in 2002 was entitled “The National Security Strategy of the United
States” and was dubbed by its authors the "Bush Doctrine" of
preventive wars and of international unilateralism and militarism. Indeed,
under the guise of spreading 'democracy', the new 'doctrine' called for the
United States to place itself above international law, ratified treaties and
international institutions, and initiate "preventive wars" each time
American interests or those of close allies such as Israel, are threatened. The
policy paper went even further and proclaimed that the "United States
has, and intends to keep, military strengths beyond challenge", with
the intent of preserving the United States' position as the world's sole
military superpower, not only on Earth, but also in Space. The Bush-Cheney
administration even declared its intention to keep the option of using nuclear
weapons—not only preemptively but even preventively, whenever and
wherever it saw fit to do so. The 'Bush Doctrine' could as well have been
called 'How to herald in an era of world anarchy' since it was consciously
throwing away more than half a century of efforts to build an international
system based on law and due process.
In the
20th Century, two other nations openly embarked upon a policy of world
domination, attempting to impose their will upon other countries through the
use of military power. First, Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler;
(1889-1945) and then the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin (1878-1953).
—Hitler wanted to make Berlin the 'capital of the world', while Stalin,
under the guise of spreading 'communism', hoped to create a world empire under
his command. Both attempts collapsed into abject failures. During the process,
however, the German and Russian peoples ended up paying dearly for their
leaders' pompous and grandiose schemes, while millions of innocent victims in
other countries suffered the dire consequences of insane government leaders
gone awry.
The problem with megalomaniac dreams of world
domination is that they inevitably lead to disasters. The reason is that such
mad dreams of conquest, to be successful even in the short run, require the
implementation of two dangerous and interrelated policies: first, the
repression of civil liberties at the center of the would-be empire in order to
crush dissent; and second, a policy of wars of aggression abroad against countries that resist
the new imperial vision. The end results are the loss of liberty at home for
most people, all but the top nomenklatura, and a string of costly wars abroad that
bankrupt both the state and its citizens. As former senator Barry Goldwater put it: "Now those who seek
absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are
simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth, and
let me remind you they are the very ones who always create the most hellish
tyranny."
The current
Bush-led imperial push around the world is contrary to the very principles upon
which the United States was established. Indeed, when the United States broke
away from the British empire, in 1776, its founders swore to establish a democratic republic that
would be the very opposite of an empire. They had a vision for "life,
liberty and happiness" for all people of the United States and of the world
and abhorred aggressive, despotic and oppressive empires which trampled on
peoples' rights and pursue narrow special interests at the expense of the
public good. In the words of Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826),
3rd U.S. President, "The issue today is the same as it has been
throughout all history, whether man shall be allowed to govern himself or be
ruled by a small elite." In other words, men have always had
to choose between despotism and democracy, and both cannot exist at the same
time. That is why a country cannot be a democracy
and an empire at the same time. It is because, first, running an empire
needs a strong central authority with centrally
concentrated powers. This is totally at variance with the democratic
constitutional order of decentralized and responsible public decision making.
And, second, maintaining an empire requires a situation of constant
mobilization and of unending wars.
Jefferson's nemesis was Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton
(1755–1804) who, just as Vice President
Dick Cheney today, did not want a true democracy but a king-run presidency and
a life-long nominated senate. Only the House of representatives, in his
autocratic scheme of thought, would have had recurringly elected members and
some input in the working of the government. True power would have remained in
the hand of a property oligarchy. Even though Hamilton himself was opposed to
arbitrary government and strongly defended the fundamental right of Habeas Corpus, his
followers have been more openly inclined to favor the maximum concentration of
power in the Executive branch, at the expense of the checks and balances that
are required to preserve freedom and civil liberties.
Internationally, Hamilton's followers are now also
supreme in formulating American foreign policy. They are back in force in
Washington D.C., but this time they are called "Neocons". They
not only harbor the view of a near dictatorial executive branch, as Hamilton
did, but they have added the absurd and Jocobian pretentious twist that they
have received some divinely given right to govern the world. In their insane
and delusional brave new world, words do not mean anything and even reality is
a mirage to be adjusted according to their own interests or wishes. Indeed,
they have discovered within themselves a missionary zeal to spread
("export") American-style democracy and American-style capitalism to
the four corners of the globe, irrespective of international law or
international obligations under the United Nations Charter, and
despite whatever the lucky targeted people
think or wish.
For all these
reasons, it can be said that the Bush-Cheney administration is more Hamiltonian
in scope than Jeffersonian. President George W. Bush has begun to arrogate to
himself some of the powers of an absolute monarch, that is, the power to be
above the law and to modify unilaterally the democratically adopted laws by
Congress. Some of his handy men have
by necessity thus developed the theory that an American president can do just
about anything, if his intentions are to further national security. For
instance, George W. Bush has paved the way for exercising martial law powers,
first by de-facto repealing the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act that forbids
the deployment of soldiers on American soil for domestic law enforcement, and, second,
by signing last October the Military Commissions Act of
2006 (MCA: HR
6166). Through this act, the President granted
himself almost-dictatorial powers to arrest and detain indefinitely any American citizen without constitutional
protections. He can, indeed, suspend the right of Habeas Corpus of any person he designates as an "enemy
combatant", not only in the United States but also all around the world.
In
this neocon brave new world, the future is framed as some sort of a “Perpetual American-led War for a Lasting Peace.” It is a world in which the United
States can whimsically and preemptively, or even preventively, attack other
countries with its sophisticated military gear, anytime one of them refuses to
toe the line of American imperial interests. What is hallucinatory in all this
is the idea that the Neocons have discovered a new Americentric "theory of
the world", when in fact they have only stumbled upon a near exact replica
of the 19th Century Eurocentric world of empires and of gunboat diplomacy.
In fact, they are dreaming about a pre-1648-Westphalia world, where
national self-determination and national sovereignty become a privilege
reserved in exclusivity to those nations with the strongest armies. The
Neocons' brave new world is really a blueprint for a non-democratic American
empire, surrounded by puppet regimes all over the map. This could not be further
from the democratic ideal of governments of law, not of men. Since the
principles of the Peace of Westphalia date from 1648, it can be said that the
Neocons' sick obsession with world domination is only three centuries and a
half behind the times.
After Sept. 11 '01, when the rest
of the world was in deep sympathy with the United States, the Bush-Cheney
administration sould have done several things. –1. It should have worked
to reinforce international law, instead of attempting to undermine it. –2.
It should have been active in reforming the United Nations to make this
essential international body more democratic, more representative and more
efficient as a conflict solving mechanism, rather than shunning it aside.
–3. It should have adopted a policy of isolating the small violent
Islamist terrorists by assisting moderate and reformist elements in Muslim
countries, rather than throwing gas on the fire of religious extremism.
–4. It should have promoted a Helsinki Accords-like agreement in order to
remove fears of illegitimate foreign military interventions, rather than
whimsically invading sovereign nations. –5. It should have put forward an
international Marshall-like plan to raise education and health standards in
these countries, while facilitating productive investments and spuring economic
development. –6. And, above all, it should have given the example, in
behaving according to the fundamental humanist principles of non-aggression,
lawful conduct and international generosity.
That it did none of the above is a
tribute to its lack of vision and its lack of intellectual fortitude, not
counting its lack of basic public morality.
Rodrigue Tremblay lives in Montreal and can be reached at rodrigue.tremblay@yahoo.com
Also visit his blog site at www.thenewamericanempire.com/blog.
Author's Website: www.thenewamericanempire.com
_______________________________________________
Posted,
December 11, 2006, at 5:30 am
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