Conghaileach
20th March 2003, 20:23
Disobey
by John Pilger
Dissident Voice
March 13, 2003
How have we got to this point, where two western governments take us
into an illegal and immoral war against a stricken nation with whom
we have no quarrel and who offer us no threat: an act of aggression
opposed by almost everybody and whose charade is transparent? How
can they attack, in our name, a country already crushed by more than
12 years of an embargo aimed mostly at the civilian population, of
whom 42 per cent are children - a medieval siege that has taken the
lives of at least half a million children and is described as
genocidal by the former United Nations humanitarian coordinator for
Iraq?
How can those claiming to be "liberals" disguise their embarrassment,
and shame, while justifying their support for George Bush's proposed
launch of 800 missiles in two days as a "liberation"? How can they
ignore two United Nations studies which reveal that some 500,000
people will be at risk? Do they not hear their own echo in the words
of the American general who said famously of a Vietnamese town he had
just levelled: "We had to destroy it in order to save it?"
"Few of us," Arthur Miller once wrote, "can easily surrender our
belief that society must somehow make sense. The thought that the
State has lost its mind and is punishing so many innocent people is
intolerable. And so the evidence has to be internally denied." These
days, Miller's astuteness applies to a minority of warmongers and
apologists. Since 11 September 2001, the consciousness of the majority
has soared. The word "imperialism" has been rescued from agitprop and
returned to common usage. America's and Britain's planned theft of
the Iraqi oilfields, following historical precedent, is well
understood. The false choices of the cold war are redundant, and
people are once again stirring in their millions. More and more of
them now glimpse American power, as Mark Twain wrote, "with its
banner of the Prince of Peace in one hand and its loot-basket and its
butcher-knife in the other".
What is heartening is the apparent demise of "anti-Americanism" as a
respectable means of stifling recognition and analysis of American
Imperialism. Intellectual loyalty oaths, similar to those rife during
the Third Reich, when the abusive "anti-German" was enough to silence
dissent, no longer work. In America itself, there are too many anti-
Americans filling the streets now: those whom Martha Gellhorn called
"that life-saving minority who judge their government in moral terms,
who are the people with a wakeful conscience and can be counted
upon".
Perhaps for the first time since the late 1940s, Americanism as an
ideology is being identified in the same terms as any rapacious power
structure; and we can thank Bush and Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld
and Condoleezza Rice for that, even though their acts of
international violence have yet to exceed those of the "liberal" Bill
Clinton. "My guess," wrote Norman Mailer recently, "is that, like it
or not, or want it or not, we are going to go to war because that is
the only solution Bush and his people can see. The dire prospect that
opens, therefore, is that America is going to become a mega-banana
republic where the army will have more and more importance in our
lives. And, before it is all over, democracy, noble and delicate as it
is, may give way . . . Indeed, democracy is the special condition
that we will be called upon to defend in the coming years. That will
be enormously difficult because the combination of the corporation,
the military and the complete investiture of the flag with mass
spectator sports has set up a pre-fascist atmosphere in America
already."
In the military plutocracy that is the American state, with its
unelected president, venal Supreme Court, silent Congress, gutted Bill
of Rights and compliant media, Mailer's "pre-fascist atmosphere"
makes common sense. The dissident American writer William Rivers Pitt
pursues this further. "Critics of the Bush administration," he wrote,
"like to bandy about the word 'fascist' when speaking of George. The
image that word conjures is of Nazi storm troopers marching in unison
towards Hitler's Final Solution. This does not at all fit. It is
better, in this matter, to view the Bush administration through the
eyes of Benito Mussolini. Dubbed 'the father of fascism', Mussolini
defined the word in a far more pertinent fashion. 'Fascism,' he said,
'should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger
of state and corporate power.'
" Bush himself offered an understanding of this on 26 February when
he addressed the annual dinner of the American Enterprise Institute.
He paid tribute to "some of the finest minds of our nation [who] are
at work on some of the greatest challenges to our nation. You do such
good work that my administration has borrowed 20 such minds. I want to
thank them for their service." The "20 such minds" are crypto-
fascists who fit the definition of William Pitt Rivers. The institute
is America's biggest, most important and wealthiest "think-tank". A
typical member is John Bolton, under-secretary for arms control, the
Bush official most responsible for dismantling the 1972 Anti-Ballistic
Missile Treaty, arguably the most important arms control agreement of
the late 20th century. The institute's strongest ties are with
extreme Zionism and the regime of Ariel Sharon. Last month, Bolton was
in Tel Aviv to hear Sharon's view on which country in the region
should be next after Iraq. For the expansionists running Israel, the
prize is not so much the conquest of Iraq but Iran. A significant
proportion of the Israeli air force is already based in Turkey with
Iran in its sights, waiting for an American attack.
Richard Perle is the institute's star. Perle is chairman of the
powerful Defence Policy Board at the Pentagon, the author of the
insane policies of "total war" and "creative destruction". The latter
is designed to subjugate finally the Middle East, beginning with the
$90bn invasion of Iraq. Perle helped to set up another crypto-fascist
group, the Project for the New American
Century.[http://www.newamericancentury.org/] Other founders include
Vice-President Cheney, the defence secretary Rumsfeld and deputy
defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz. The institute's "mission report",
Rebuilding America's Defences: strategy, forces and resources for a
new century, is an unabashed blueprint for world conquest. Before
Bush came to power, it recommended an increase in arms spending by
$48bn so that America "can fight and win multiple, simultaneous major
theatre wars". This has come true.
It said that nuclear war-fighting should be given the priority it
deserved. This has come true. It said that Iraq should be a primary
target. And so it is. And it dismissed the issue of Saddam Hussein's
"weapons of mass destruction" as a convenient excuse, which it is.
Written by Wolfowitz, this guide to world domination puts the onus on
the Pentagon to establish a "new order" in the Middle East under
unchallenged US authority. A "liberated" Iraq, the centrepiece of the
new order, will be divided and ruled, probably by three American
generals; and after a horrific onslaught, known as Shock and Awe.
Vladimir Slipchenko, one of the world's leading military analysts,
says the testing of new weapons is a "main purpose" of the attack on
Iraq. "Nobody is saying anything about it," he said last month. "In
May 2001, in his first presidential address, Bush spoke about the need
for preparation for future wars. He emphasised that the armed forces
needed to be completely high-tech, capable of conducting hostilities
by the no-contact method. After a series of live experiments - in
Iraq in 1991, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan - many corporations achieved
huge profits. Now the bottom line is $50-60bn a year."
He says that, apart from new types of cluster bombs and cruise
missiles, the Americans will use their untested pulse bomb, known
also as a microwave bomb. Each discharges two megawatts of radiation
which instantly puts out of action all communications, computers,
radios, even hearing aids and heart pacemakers. "Imagine, your heart
explodes!" he said. In the future, this Pax Americana will be policed
with nuclear, biological and chemical weapons used "pre-emptively",
even in conflicts that do not directly engage US interests. In August,
the Bush administration will convene a secret meeting in Omaha,
Nebraska, to discuss the construction of a new generation of nuclear
weapons, including "mini nukes", "bunker busters" and neutron bombs.
Generals, government officials and nuclear scientists will also
discuss the appropriate propaganda to convince the American public
that the new weapons are necessary.
Such is Mailer's pre-fascist state. If appeasement has any meaning
today, it has little to do with a regional dictator and everything to
do with the demonstrably dangerous men in Washington. It is vitally
important that we understand their goals and the degree of their
ruthlessness. One example: General Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani
dictator, was last year deliberately allowed by Washington to come
within an ace of starting a nuclear war with India - and to continue
supplying North Korea with nuclear technology because he agreed to
hand over al-Qaeda operatives. The other day, John Howard, the
Australian prime minister and Washington mouthpiece, praised
Musharraf, the man who almost blew up west Asia, for his "personal
courage and outstanding leadership".
In 1946, Justice Robert Jackson, chief prosecutor at the Nuremberg
trials, said: "The very essence of the Nuremberg charter is that
individuals have international duties which transcend national
obligations of obedience imposed by the state." With an attack on
Iraq almost a certainty, the millions who filled London and other
capitals on the weekend of 15-16 February, and the millions who
cheered them on, now have these transcendent duties. The Bush gang, and
Tony Blair, cannot be allowed to hold the rest of us captive to their
obsessions and war plans. Speculation on Blair's political future is
trivial he and the robotic Jack Straw and Geoff Hoon must be stopped
now, for the reasons long argued in these pages and on hundreds of
platforms.
And, incidentally, no one should be distracted by the latest
opportunistic antics of Clare Short, whose routine hints of
"rebellion", followed by her predictable inaction, have helped to
give Blair the time he wants to subvert the UN. There is only one
form of opposition now: it is civil disobedience leading to what the
police call civil unrest. The latter is feared by undemocratic
governments of all stripes.
The revolt has already begun. In January, Scottish train drivers
refused to move munitions. In Italy, people have been blocking dozens
of trains carrying American weapons and personnel, and dockers have
refused to load arms shipments. US military bases have been blockaded
in Germany, and thousands have demonstrated at Shannon which, despite
Ireland's neutrality, is being used by the US military to refuel its
planes en route to Iraq. "We have become a threat, but can we
deliver?" asked Jessica Azulay and Brian Dominick of the American
resistance movement. "Policy-makers are debating right now whether or
not they have to heed our dissent. Now we must make it clear to them
that there will be political and economic consequences if they decide
to ignore us."
My own view is that if the protest movement sees itself as a world
power, as an expression of true internationalism, then success need
not be a dream. That depends on how far people are prepared to go. The
young female employee of the Gloucestershire-based top-secret
Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), who was charged this
month with leaking information about America's dirty tricks operation
on members of the Security Council, shows us the courage required.
In the meantime, the new Mussolinis are on their balconies, with
their virtuoso rants and impassioned insincerity. Reduced to wagging
their fingers in a futile attempt to silence us, they see millions of
us for the first time, knowing and fearing that we cannot be silenced.
John Pilger is an internationally renowned investigative journalist
and documentary filmmaker. His latest book is The New Rulers of the
World (Verso, 2002). Visit John Pilger s website at:
http://www.johnpilger.com
by John Pilger
Dissident Voice
March 13, 2003
How have we got to this point, where two western governments take us
into an illegal and immoral war against a stricken nation with whom
we have no quarrel and who offer us no threat: an act of aggression
opposed by almost everybody and whose charade is transparent? How
can they attack, in our name, a country already crushed by more than
12 years of an embargo aimed mostly at the civilian population, of
whom 42 per cent are children - a medieval siege that has taken the
lives of at least half a million children and is described as
genocidal by the former United Nations humanitarian coordinator for
Iraq?
How can those claiming to be "liberals" disguise their embarrassment,
and shame, while justifying their support for George Bush's proposed
launch of 800 missiles in two days as a "liberation"? How can they
ignore two United Nations studies which reveal that some 500,000
people will be at risk? Do they not hear their own echo in the words
of the American general who said famously of a Vietnamese town he had
just levelled: "We had to destroy it in order to save it?"
"Few of us," Arthur Miller once wrote, "can easily surrender our
belief that society must somehow make sense. The thought that the
State has lost its mind and is punishing so many innocent people is
intolerable. And so the evidence has to be internally denied." These
days, Miller's astuteness applies to a minority of warmongers and
apologists. Since 11 September 2001, the consciousness of the majority
has soared. The word "imperialism" has been rescued from agitprop and
returned to common usage. America's and Britain's planned theft of
the Iraqi oilfields, following historical precedent, is well
understood. The false choices of the cold war are redundant, and
people are once again stirring in their millions. More and more of
them now glimpse American power, as Mark Twain wrote, "with its
banner of the Prince of Peace in one hand and its loot-basket and its
butcher-knife in the other".
What is heartening is the apparent demise of "anti-Americanism" as a
respectable means of stifling recognition and analysis of American
Imperialism. Intellectual loyalty oaths, similar to those rife during
the Third Reich, when the abusive "anti-German" was enough to silence
dissent, no longer work. In America itself, there are too many anti-
Americans filling the streets now: those whom Martha Gellhorn called
"that life-saving minority who judge their government in moral terms,
who are the people with a wakeful conscience and can be counted
upon".
Perhaps for the first time since the late 1940s, Americanism as an
ideology is being identified in the same terms as any rapacious power
structure; and we can thank Bush and Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld
and Condoleezza Rice for that, even though their acts of
international violence have yet to exceed those of the "liberal" Bill
Clinton. "My guess," wrote Norman Mailer recently, "is that, like it
or not, or want it or not, we are going to go to war because that is
the only solution Bush and his people can see. The dire prospect that
opens, therefore, is that America is going to become a mega-banana
republic where the army will have more and more importance in our
lives. And, before it is all over, democracy, noble and delicate as it
is, may give way . . . Indeed, democracy is the special condition
that we will be called upon to defend in the coming years. That will
be enormously difficult because the combination of the corporation,
the military and the complete investiture of the flag with mass
spectator sports has set up a pre-fascist atmosphere in America
already."
In the military plutocracy that is the American state, with its
unelected president, venal Supreme Court, silent Congress, gutted Bill
of Rights and compliant media, Mailer's "pre-fascist atmosphere"
makes common sense. The dissident American writer William Rivers Pitt
pursues this further. "Critics of the Bush administration," he wrote,
"like to bandy about the word 'fascist' when speaking of George. The
image that word conjures is of Nazi storm troopers marching in unison
towards Hitler's Final Solution. This does not at all fit. It is
better, in this matter, to view the Bush administration through the
eyes of Benito Mussolini. Dubbed 'the father of fascism', Mussolini
defined the word in a far more pertinent fashion. 'Fascism,' he said,
'should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger
of state and corporate power.'
" Bush himself offered an understanding of this on 26 February when
he addressed the annual dinner of the American Enterprise Institute.
He paid tribute to "some of the finest minds of our nation [who] are
at work on some of the greatest challenges to our nation. You do such
good work that my administration has borrowed 20 such minds. I want to
thank them for their service." The "20 such minds" are crypto-
fascists who fit the definition of William Pitt Rivers. The institute
is America's biggest, most important and wealthiest "think-tank". A
typical member is John Bolton, under-secretary for arms control, the
Bush official most responsible for dismantling the 1972 Anti-Ballistic
Missile Treaty, arguably the most important arms control agreement of
the late 20th century. The institute's strongest ties are with
extreme Zionism and the regime of Ariel Sharon. Last month, Bolton was
in Tel Aviv to hear Sharon's view on which country in the region
should be next after Iraq. For the expansionists running Israel, the
prize is not so much the conquest of Iraq but Iran. A significant
proportion of the Israeli air force is already based in Turkey with
Iran in its sights, waiting for an American attack.
Richard Perle is the institute's star. Perle is chairman of the
powerful Defence Policy Board at the Pentagon, the author of the
insane policies of "total war" and "creative destruction". The latter
is designed to subjugate finally the Middle East, beginning with the
$90bn invasion of Iraq. Perle helped to set up another crypto-fascist
group, the Project for the New American
Century.[http://www.newamericancentury.org/] Other founders include
Vice-President Cheney, the defence secretary Rumsfeld and deputy
defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz. The institute's "mission report",
Rebuilding America's Defences: strategy, forces and resources for a
new century, is an unabashed blueprint for world conquest. Before
Bush came to power, it recommended an increase in arms spending by
$48bn so that America "can fight and win multiple, simultaneous major
theatre wars". This has come true.
It said that nuclear war-fighting should be given the priority it
deserved. This has come true. It said that Iraq should be a primary
target. And so it is. And it dismissed the issue of Saddam Hussein's
"weapons of mass destruction" as a convenient excuse, which it is.
Written by Wolfowitz, this guide to world domination puts the onus on
the Pentagon to establish a "new order" in the Middle East under
unchallenged US authority. A "liberated" Iraq, the centrepiece of the
new order, will be divided and ruled, probably by three American
generals; and after a horrific onslaught, known as Shock and Awe.
Vladimir Slipchenko, one of the world's leading military analysts,
says the testing of new weapons is a "main purpose" of the attack on
Iraq. "Nobody is saying anything about it," he said last month. "In
May 2001, in his first presidential address, Bush spoke about the need
for preparation for future wars. He emphasised that the armed forces
needed to be completely high-tech, capable of conducting hostilities
by the no-contact method. After a series of live experiments - in
Iraq in 1991, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan - many corporations achieved
huge profits. Now the bottom line is $50-60bn a year."
He says that, apart from new types of cluster bombs and cruise
missiles, the Americans will use their untested pulse bomb, known
also as a microwave bomb. Each discharges two megawatts of radiation
which instantly puts out of action all communications, computers,
radios, even hearing aids and heart pacemakers. "Imagine, your heart
explodes!" he said. In the future, this Pax Americana will be policed
with nuclear, biological and chemical weapons used "pre-emptively",
even in conflicts that do not directly engage US interests. In August,
the Bush administration will convene a secret meeting in Omaha,
Nebraska, to discuss the construction of a new generation of nuclear
weapons, including "mini nukes", "bunker busters" and neutron bombs.
Generals, government officials and nuclear scientists will also
discuss the appropriate propaganda to convince the American public
that the new weapons are necessary.
Such is Mailer's pre-fascist state. If appeasement has any meaning
today, it has little to do with a regional dictator and everything to
do with the demonstrably dangerous men in Washington. It is vitally
important that we understand their goals and the degree of their
ruthlessness. One example: General Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani
dictator, was last year deliberately allowed by Washington to come
within an ace of starting a nuclear war with India - and to continue
supplying North Korea with nuclear technology because he agreed to
hand over al-Qaeda operatives. The other day, John Howard, the
Australian prime minister and Washington mouthpiece, praised
Musharraf, the man who almost blew up west Asia, for his "personal
courage and outstanding leadership".
In 1946, Justice Robert Jackson, chief prosecutor at the Nuremberg
trials, said: "The very essence of the Nuremberg charter is that
individuals have international duties which transcend national
obligations of obedience imposed by the state." With an attack on
Iraq almost a certainty, the millions who filled London and other
capitals on the weekend of 15-16 February, and the millions who
cheered them on, now have these transcendent duties. The Bush gang, and
Tony Blair, cannot be allowed to hold the rest of us captive to their
obsessions and war plans. Speculation on Blair's political future is
trivial he and the robotic Jack Straw and Geoff Hoon must be stopped
now, for the reasons long argued in these pages and on hundreds of
platforms.
And, incidentally, no one should be distracted by the latest
opportunistic antics of Clare Short, whose routine hints of
"rebellion", followed by her predictable inaction, have helped to
give Blair the time he wants to subvert the UN. There is only one
form of opposition now: it is civil disobedience leading to what the
police call civil unrest. The latter is feared by undemocratic
governments of all stripes.
The revolt has already begun. In January, Scottish train drivers
refused to move munitions. In Italy, people have been blocking dozens
of trains carrying American weapons and personnel, and dockers have
refused to load arms shipments. US military bases have been blockaded
in Germany, and thousands have demonstrated at Shannon which, despite
Ireland's neutrality, is being used by the US military to refuel its
planes en route to Iraq. "We have become a threat, but can we
deliver?" asked Jessica Azulay and Brian Dominick of the American
resistance movement. "Policy-makers are debating right now whether or
not they have to heed our dissent. Now we must make it clear to them
that there will be political and economic consequences if they decide
to ignore us."
My own view is that if the protest movement sees itself as a world
power, as an expression of true internationalism, then success need
not be a dream. That depends on how far people are prepared to go. The
young female employee of the Gloucestershire-based top-secret
Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), who was charged this
month with leaking information about America's dirty tricks operation
on members of the Security Council, shows us the courage required.
In the meantime, the new Mussolinis are on their balconies, with
their virtuoso rants and impassioned insincerity. Reduced to wagging
their fingers in a futile attempt to silence us, they see millions of
us for the first time, knowing and fearing that we cannot be silenced.
John Pilger is an internationally renowned investigative journalist
and documentary filmmaker. His latest book is The New Rulers of the
World (Verso, 2002). Visit John Pilger s website at:
http://www.johnpilger.com