Jmkeynes@SecularStagnation.Com
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Introduction
The 'Sharonization' of American Foreign Policy and Failing Globalization
Paralyzed American Opposition to the War on Iraq: Sharon as Bull Connor
Reagan and Sharon: From Sabra and Shatilla in 1982 to the Marine Barracks in 1983
Bush and Sharon: From the Marine Barracks in 1983 to Baghdad in 2003
Survival of the United States Democracy into 2004 ?
When and Where Does the War on the 'Axis of Evil' End ?
What is to be Done?
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For President Bush the combination of nuclear weapons, "rogue states"
and terrorists is the sum of all fears. In releasing the National Security Strategy
last fall, President Bush said, "America will act against such emerging
threats before they are fully formed."
It is fear of Iraq that will bring the American military to Iran's doorstep
in the Middle East, and it is likely that fear of Iran will keep them there
until the differences between Washington and Tehran are resolved by diplomacy
or war, whichever comes first.
'The Man Who Would Be President'
By Thomas Powers , The New York Times Web Site, March 15, 2003.
Thomas Powers is the author of "Intelligence Wars: American Secret History
From Hitler to Al Qaeda."
The Great Charter of English [Magna Carta] liberty granted (under considerable
duress) by King John at Runnymede on June 15, 1215 .
http://www.britannia.com/history/magna2.html
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Introduction
The United States faces the worst political crisis since the founding of the republic after the American Revolution in 1776. Bush's actions as president defy most normal descriptions of a leader of a democratic country and resemble increasingly those of King John of England, whose high-handed arrogance eventually led to the Magna Carta in 1215 and secondarily to the United States Constitution almost 800 years later. Increasingly, Bush's blurred historical understandings are leading him and the United States military into a largely unnecessary confrontation with the entire Islamic world. And increasingly the rest of the globe is seeing this disaster and is beginning to rebel against American leadership.
Such a global rebellion could well destroy the present role of the United States in directing much of the global system and send the globe reeling backwards towards political instability and economic Depression. If Bush keeps up his present policies, the rest of the globe may eventually present the United States with a new Magna Carta and permanently diminish our position on the world stage. This is not the political direction which even the majority of American people who voted for Mr. Bush in 2000 probably would have chosen.
The political roots of this looming disaster go back the early days of the New War on terror, compelled by the September 11, 2001 attack by Osama bin Laden and the Al Qaeda network. There was suspicion that Saddam might have had something to do with the 911 attack. Little evidence has appeared which would indicate that Saddam would have participated in the attack, much less have planned and directed the attack. Still the steady drum-beat from the Bush administration and its associated media attacks from the Fox Network, seem to have gradually convinced a large number of Americans that Saddam was in some way behind the September 11, 2001 attack. More accurately, the Bush party line seems to have so muddled the likely relationship of Saddam with bin Laden, that for many Americans who have depended upon Bush for the truth, the whole situation is a big muddle. After several conversations with Americans in the South, I was not able to discern a strong understanding of who actually planned and directed September 11, 2001- even a false understanding.
The 'Sharonization' of American Foreign Policy and Failing Globalization
About 250,000 American soldiers are sitting on the edge of Iraq, increasingly politically isolated with fewer and fewer non-American soldiers being committed, even for a post-Saddam Iraq cleanup and stabilization of Iraq. As this process of political isolation from all of the European countries for whom both soldiers and money for containing Iraq continues, American foreign policy is beginning to resemble nothing, so much as that of the Likud Party in Israel. In many ways, this present Iraqi war process could be described as the 'Sharonization' of American foreign policy in general, not simply that of the Middle East.
Increasingly the United States is isolated from the rest of the globe at all levels. It is not possible for this isolation to continue and for America to remain in the leadership of the global economy. Since no other country is capable of replacing the dollar in the global monetary system, this is very dangerous for the global economy. Globalization requires a nation capable of floating a global currency and a nation with a sufficiently strong military to maintain order, where a majority of nations see a problem. Bush's present Iraq policies are becoming the biggest threat to globalization since Adam Smith first developed a theoretical logic for capitalism.
Paralyzed American Opposition to the War on Iraq: Sharon as Bull Connor
Part of the inability of an American opposition to effectively question the move to war against Iraq, is that much of the prevailing American Jewish leadership establishment seems to be politically behind the war, apparently believing in the same fairy tales which have motivated Richard Perl and other hard-right Likudniks in the American political establishment. This elite direction needs to be clearly distinguished from the American Jewish population itself. Current polls show that the American Jewish population is deeply divided over Bush's policy and in most respects, mirrors the general American uncertainty over war. In this respect, Bush's America has again begun to resemble Ariel Sharon's Israel, where Israeli Jewish uncertainty over what to do about the Islamic terror in Israel has allowed Sharon to justify increasingly terroristic Israeli military responses, instead of seeking a political solution to the Palestinian crisis.
Most recently, an American woman was crushed to death beneath an Israeli bulldozer, as she sat trying to protest yet another housing demolition. Had Bull Connor bulldozed a civil rights protestor to death in the 1960s in Alabama, the liberal media would have gone into apoplexy. Now as Sharon's death machine grinds up even pacifist Americans, little seems to be heard from the major national liberal media outlets. I am waiting to hear if one of my favorite song writers will pen a new song called 'West Bank Man', as he so aptly wrote of the South back in the 1970s.
Reagan and Sharon: From Sabra and Shatilla in 1982 to the Marine Barracks in 1983
Sharon has followed a confrontational approach with the Islamic world throughout his career. After a number of problems on Israel's northern border in the early 1980s, Sharon invaded Lebanon and took the Israeli Defense Force all the way to Beirut and laid siege to Yassir Arafat. In September 1982, Sharon either allowed a Syrian Christian militia into a Palestinian refugee camp or actually ordered it. As a result several hundred civilians were killed. It caused such a stir in Israel, that Sharon's political future was held back for many years. It was a shock to many Israelis when Sharon made a comeback and because prime minister recently.
In the final analysis, Sharon's military confrontation with Arafat was so deeply destabilizing to the American position in the Middle East, that President Ronald Reagan committed troops directly into Lebanon, for the first time since Dwight Eisenhower had during the late 1950s, [ see http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/documents/abnops/tabd.htm for an Army account of the event]. One contingent of these American forces committed by President Reagan, a group of Marines, was destroyed in a bombing of their barracks on October 23, 1983, resulting in the deaths of 241 Americans:
http://www.beirut-memorial.org
:
Initially, the U.S. Forces, along with French and Italian Forces provided
a measure of stability; however, as diplomatic efforts failed to achieve a basis
for a lasting settlement, the Moslem factions came to perceive the Marines as
enemies. This led to artillery, mortar, and small arms fires being directed
at the Marine Corps positions - with appropriate, measured response being taken
against identified targets. In the early morning of October 23, 1983, the First
Battalion, 8th Marines Headquarters building was destroyed by a non-Lebanese,
terrorist-driven truck, laden with compressed gas-enhanced explosives. Many
of the victims of this atrocity were residents of Jacksonville North Carolina…
The community was stunned over the loss of these fine men. [my emphasis from
this quoted material]
http://www.beirut-memorial.org/history/brochure.html
jhamman@earthlink.net
Bush and Sharon: From the Marine Barracks in 1983 to Baghdad in 2003
Bush at this point is using American uncertainly over the actual sources of the September 11, 2001 event to guide America into a similar confrontation with the Islamic world, led by the same Israeli politician which helped drag America into Beirut in 1983, Ariel Sharon. Since Mr. Bush has a major advisor from the Israeli government of recent former Likud Israeli prime minister Bebe Netanyahu, it should not be surprising that Bush would be following the trail of right-wing Israeli politicians into confrontation with Islam. What is surprising is that older members of the Republican Party have not been able to warn Mr. Bush of this prior history of Mr. Sharon.
The Likud fantasy is that Israel may be made safer, if only Saddam were removed from power. Unfortunately, they seem to ignore the fact that with Saddam's removal, the primary current political force in the Middle East against Islamic fundamentalism, Baathism, may suffer a fatal blow, allowing even Iraq to become a new haven for Al Qaeda, something which it is not true today. Baathism is a Middle Eastern version of secular modernization, with strong similarities to socialism and probably some weak charateristics of Turkey's secular state. Baathism has been a very mixed blessing to the Middle East.
American supporters of Israel need to understand that it is not up to the United States to militarily bail out the ill-conceived policies of Ariel Sharon on the West Bank, nor to pay for them. Mr. Sharon has asked the Congress for an additional $12 billion to try to revive the Israeli economy, which has been heavily damaged by the ongoing Palestinian intifada and suicide bombing. It is up to the Israeli democracy to either come to grips with this policy, or to continue to suffer these disastrous consequences.
Survival of the United States Democracy into 2004 ?
Since Woodrow Wilson first helped develop the idea of a world council to preserve world stability, America has worked within such a framework, albeit more after the failure of the first attempt, after the rejection of the League of Nations, by the American Congress. President George W. Bush's stand now threatens to destroy again that which the American Congress nullified after World War l. Only this time, the rest of the world is likely to begin banning together to oppose the United States, using the very United Nations we helped build.
A war against Iraq at this time, will not only begin to tear apart the Unites Nations and most of the alliances created over the last 80 years by the United States, but will begin to tear apart the very political fabric of the United States itself. The initial legitimacy of the Bush presidency was not settled for several weeks, and frankly, if this same situation had occurred in some Third World country, with the son of a former president assuming office only after direct intervention by the highest court in the land and with at the very least electoral support by that country's military; we in the United States might well have seen that new leader as less than a democratically-elected leader. The standard by which Vladimir Putin was initially judged as leader of Russia was a far tougher standard than which George W. Bush was judged in 2000.
All this aside for the moment, the present issue is what are the possible and likely results of Mr. Bush's war policy. First it needs to be said that Bush has allowed the cart to get ahead of the horse. War is now the driving force behind his political policy, not the normal democratic system by which political discourse is defined by some constitutional limits. At this time, George W. Bush is now basically the defacto dictator of the United States and is trying to assume that role for the entire globe. However much we in the United States are prepared to accept this abrogation of our 200 year old democracy, it seems clear that the rest of the globe has rejected Mr. Bush's leadership. The only real question now is whether by our future actions in Iraq, that the rest of the global political structure, representing about 95% of the globe's population, begins to form an organized political structure to counter what they perceive as an arrogant and incompetent American government.
Such a move is now in motion within the very United Nations which the United States helped found almost 60 years ago. In the largest most important financial city on the globe, where less than 24 months ago, the United States was directly attacked by Islamic terrorists and where the Bush himself received warm glows in the United Nations; there is or will soon be an organized move to begin to 'clip the wings' of the United States politically.
Instead of the United States receiving more support after an Iraqi intervention, we may receive even less. It is possible for the rest of the globe to begin something close to a 'boycott' of the United States. Bush's policy towards the rest of the globe replicates that of his 'policy' towards former Republican senator Jim Jeffords. Jeffords had been a moderate Republican and during the first year of the Bush administration, had been a crucial vote in several instances, but was seen as not voting 'right' for Bush often enough, i.e, all the time. Jeffords started being snubbed and humiliated by the Bush administration and after a while, Senator Jeffords had a belly full of this dictatorial high-hat and switched to being an Independent in the Senate. This in turn gave the Democrats a one vote majority in the senate until the 2002 fall elections.
When and Where Does the War on the 'Axis of Evil ' End ?
A major part of Sharon's policy has been to attack the more modernist sector of the Palestinian society, each time the religious fundamentalist terrorists attack Israel. This has had the effect of weakening the secular, modernist sector of the Palestinian society and strengthening the Islamic fundamentalist sector, and making a peace settlement that much more difficult to achieve. As Bush moves to destroy one wing of the Baathist movement in Iraq, the other wing in Syria must be asking itself how much longer before Bush starts war upon it. And so must Iran and obviously so must the leadership of North Korea. The question must be asked in America as to just how far Bush intends to send our overstretched military and how he intends to try to build some international support for that military. At this time, Bush has done nothing whatever to assist the military and much of what he has done has damaged the international position of the American military. An ancillary question is how much this open-ended war of Mr. Bush's is going to cost and who among the rich are going to pay the taxes for the war.
What lies at the heart of the problem is George Bush's ignorance of history and his inability to formulate analogies appropriate even to his limited historical understanding. It is the role of a major international leader to know enough prior history to be able to interpret existing events as they unfold and to guide the nation through problems as they evolve. Bush has not the historical background to perform this task and is too arrogant to listen to those both in and out of the administration who could perform such a task. The world's leading nation is being led by a man largely ignorant of history and unwilling to listen to those who do know at least some history. The United States may be facing its most significant challenge since 1861, maybe since 1789; with the poorest presidential leadership ever. As Bush begins what may be the final push into chaos, the American political system has never been in worse shape and the modern global economy has never been closer to Depression.
What is to be Done?
First, America's forces must immediately stand down from immediate invasion status. How this is accomplished remains to be seen. While I have never favored direct military intervention in the American political process and do not favor it now, normal political alternatives are disappearing fast. Because of a defacto alliance between much of the leadership of secular left-wing of the Democratic Party and the Christian fundamentalist religious leadership on the future of Israel, the 'normal' counter-action of the left-wing against perceived unnecessary American military intervention, has been paralyzed in the Congress. Bush basically faces no organized political opposition within the United States at his time on his Iraq war aims.
Secondly, the Republican Party itself needs to have a serious rethinking of this war, and let Mr. Bush know of its concerns. Lastly, the secular left-wing of the Democratic Party needs to get a better view of how most of the Democratic Party feels about this war and begin to exert a slowing influence.