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By Prem Misir Ph.D.
In a ‘Stop the war’ statement,
U.S. Congressman Dennis Kucinich a Democrat of Ohio Congressional
10th District, said in part on the floor of the House of Representatives
on April 1, “Stop the war now. This war has been advanced
on lie upon lie. Iraq was not responsible for 9/11. Iraq was
not responsible for any role al-Qaeda may have had in 9/11.
Iraq was not responsible for the anthrax attacks on this country.
Iraq did not try to acquire nuclear weapons technology from
Niger. The war is built on falsehood…It is illegal.”
If this statement is true and given some
UN Security Council member’s reluctance to endorse this
invasion of Iraq, then the coalition forces have no business
in Iraq. But then again, the U.S. has had a history of international
unilateralism, including usurping the role of the UN. In the
cold war years, the U.S. refused to support the notion of
collective security under the jurisdiction of the UN; the
U.S. refused to internationalize the atom bomb under UN supervision;
the U.S. disrupted the UN Relief and Rehabilitation Administration
after World War II, to facilitate its replacement by the U.S.
Marshall Plan; the U.S. now refuses to support a comprehensive
UN role in post-war Iraq, as enunciated by the U.S. National
Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice.
The US Administration has had a tradition of military interventions
and other forms of external aggression around the world producing
the ‘Age of Imperialism’ in the late 1800s and
early 1900s. In fact, 32 U.S. interventions took place in
Latin America alone from 1902 through 1954. Today, this situation
has intensified. The problem of periodic capitalist crises,
the hunt for more markets and increasing profits, and the
call for a relief valve to stem the pressure and conflict
generated by the unemployed and the poor, have all produced
an increased tendency by advanced nations to exploit the developing
world.
Rationale for imperialist adventures
The rationale for this kind of imperialism was well articulated
by Senator Albert Beveridge in 1898, thus: “American
factories are making more than the American people can use.
American soil is producing more than they can consume. Fate
has written our policy for us; the trade of the world must
and shall be ours…We will establish trading posts throughout
the world as distributing posts for American products. We
will cover the ocean with our merchant marine. We will build
a navy to the measure of our greatness. Great colonies, governing
themselves, flying our flag and trading with us, will grow
about our posts of trade…And American law, American
order, American civilization, and the American flag will plant
themselves on shores hitherto bloody and benighted…”
(Greene, p.105).
Former American President Woodrow Wilson
promoted the idea of imperialism, too, thus: “…Concessions
obtained by financiers must be safeguarded by ministers of
state, even if the sovereignty of unwilling nations be outraged
in the process. Colonies must be obtained or planted, in order
that no useful corner of the world may be overlooked or left
unused” (Parenti, p.40).
Old world interventionism
The attempt at US domination was based on the old world order
interventionism which comprised the polarity between the US
and the Soviet Union, on the one hand, and Pax Americana,
on the other hand. Pax Americana demonstrates the ascendancy
of the US in expansionism, military strength, world politics,
science, and industrialization. The Soviet-US dichotomy reinforced
Pax Americana because this dichotomy was manipulated as a
gambit to mobilize support for US Third World policies. An
example of this ploy was when the US falsely charged that
there was a conspiracy to overrun Guatemala by the Soviet
Union. Accusation of Soviet expansionism enabled the US to
gain political and economic grounds in vital Third World terrain.
An important component of the old world order interventionism,
according to Kloby, is the sustained expansion of the capitalist
world economy into all parts of the world, piloted by US capital
through the patronage of the world’s political and financial
institutions, and indeed, supported by threat or actual use
of military force.
Some people may argue that this injection
of U.S. capital worldwide is in itself a good and is a significant
part of the globalization framework. But we need to understand
the motivations behind globalization. Globalization is stimulated
by the overaccumulation of capital in advanced capitalist
countries. Corporations in those countries are unable to seek
out increased profitable ventures for their investment within
their own countries. Complex communications systems, with
the assistance of computer and satellite technology, and an
improved growth of air and sea transportation, have all enhanced
globalization activities.
U.S. corporate success depends on its transnational
activities in Third World countries. The investment return
on U.S.-based multinationals is 50% higher in Third World
countries. Between 1985 and 1990, U.S. corporate foreign investment
increased by 84% and this percentage continues to grow even
bigger. About 400 of the 37,000 U.S. transnationals control
about 80% of capital assets in the global market. The top
100 U.S. transnationals acquire about 50% of their income
from outside the U.S. These statistics are sourced from Kloby’s
work. Clearly, U.S. interventionism is highly motivated to
continue apace.
Examples of U.S. aggression
U.S. interventionism and other forms of aggression against
the developing world are well documented. Some of this documentation
follow: the overthrow of Premier Mohammad Mosaddeq of Iran
and installing Shah Moammad Reza Pahlavi (Shah of Iran) in
1960; the CIA’s Council of Generals’ military
coup in Indonesia toppling President Sukarno in 1965; the
killing of President Allende of Chile in 1973; President Johnson
in 1965 sent 25,000 Marines to the Dominican republic to prevent
the return to office of the elected Juan Bosch; Prince Sihanouk
was removed by the army led by CIA-trained General Lon Nol;
the CIA’s Counter Terror Teams and the Provincial Reconnaissance
Units, used techniques of terror, assassination, physical
abuse and intimidation in Vietnam; U.S. Marines supported
a conservative party revolt against a nationalist government
and where they remained for 20 years in Nicaragua; the Marines
set up a National Guard under Somoza who later headed a dictatorship;
and the invasion of Grenada in 1983. These are just a few
examples of both overt and covert U.S. interventions in the
developing world.
Why the war on Iraq?
Against this background of U.S. intervention and external
aggression, it should be clear as to why mainly U.S. and British
coalition forces are pounding Iraq with full artillery and
superior air power as we speak. But before we address today’s
war on Iraq, let’s review the reasons for the Gulf War
12 years ago. The reasons are: boosting George Bush’s
popularity that was at its lowest point in 1990; at the end
of the Gulf War, his approval rating increased to 88%. Another
reason was to reassert U.S. dominance in the Middle East.
A final reason was to destroy the Vietnam Syndrome, providing
a signal to the world that the U.S. is willing and able to
pursue military action on any important global issue. In essence,
the U.S. is continuing to persist with its old interventionist
policies. Former President Bill Clinton, at the University
of Florida’s O’Connell Center, in describing the
Bush Administration’s plans in international politics,
said, “We got the power. We got the juice. We shall
do the job.” Clinton disagrees with this kind of thinking.
Persisting old intervention and external
aggression policies bring us face-to-face with the current
war on Iraq. Why the war on Iraq? Some people argue that oil
is not the issue. Well, let’s examine the assertion.
At this time, only 14 countries around the world have oil
supplies in excess of 10 billion barrels. In fact, in terms
of oil reserves in billions of barrels of crude oil, Saudi
Arabia tops the list with 265.3 billion barrels closely followed
by Iraq with 115.0 billion barrels. About 90% of Iraq is unexplored
for oil, as there are deep oil-bearing formations largely
in the Western Desert region; this area has the potential
for producing an additional 100 billion barrels. Iraq also
has the lowest oil production costs in the world. Today, Iraq
has about 110 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
Clearly, American oil companies have not
lost sight of these proven reserves of 115 billion barrels
of crude oil, as many of them have not had much of a relationship
in Iraq since the late 1980s. An oil industry analyst noted
“There’s not an oil company out there that wouldn’t
be interested in Iraq.” An opposition leader of the
Iraqi National Congress said, “American companies will
have a big shot at Iraqi oil.”
A political change in Iraq will herald the
reemergence of especially American oil companies on a larger
scale than we have seen in Iran when the Shah replaced Mossadeq.
At that time in Iran, the Shah facilitated a new oil agreement
that gave 40% share of Iran’s oil to Gulf Oil, Standard
Oil, Socony-Mobil, and Texaco. In fact in 1960, Kim Roosevelt,
the grandson of former President Theodore Roosevelt, became
a Vice President of Gulf Oil. Indeed, after the war on Iraq,
there will most definitely be a scramble for oil from several
countries’ oil companies.
If the war on Iraq is not about oil, then
what is it about? Is it about weapons of mass destruction?
According to Charles Pena of the Cato Institute, the Defense
Department maintains that 12 nations with nuclear weapons
programs, 13 with biological weapons, 16 with chemical weapons,
and 28 with ballistic missiles, are menacing threats to the
U.S. But it is only Iraq among those countries that holds
the world’s second largest oil reserves and is the only
country being invaded by the coalition forces.
Washington Post and the British Press reported
on March 31 that before Bush declared war on Iraq, special
operations teams from the U.S., Britain and Australia entered
Iraq’s western desert to take four highest-priority
targets. The coalition team found no weapons of mass destruction.
In fact, there were no missiles, no TELS, no chemical warheads,
or chemicals. The U.S. forces now have tested 10 sites that
were considered to be their top intelligence clues, and have
found no weapons of mass destruction. A Joint Staff Officer
of the Defense Intelligence Agency informed the Washington
Post, “The munitions that have been found have all been
conventional.” Where are the weapons of mass destruction
in Iraq? Or are the attractions of Iraq’s 115 billion
barrels of crude oil and the unexplored possibilities of an
additional 100 billion barrels, plus a further attraction
of the coalition forces’ seemingly divine right to defend
and control Persian Gulf oil interests, determining factors
for the war on Iraq? Whatever happens, the Middle East by
earlier remaining silent during the period of Bush and Blair’s
ceaseless political rhetoric against Iraq and only now rediscovering
its voice, may have prepared the way for an age of imperialism
on its own doorstep.
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