People's Democracy

Imperial Grand Strategy And Media Collusion

N M Sundaram

THE National Security Strategy of the USA proclaimed on September 17, 2002 (http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.html) is a brazen exposition of a new and hitherto unheard of doctrine of applying force against other countries on pretexts of danger to its security perceived or imagined. This document propounds an altogether new and outrageous policy declaration that spurns all that is civilized and legal. It runs tangent to all tenets of international law and is beyond any stretched interpretation of the UN Charter. The world hitherto knew of the doctrine of ‘preemptive war’. However that itself taxed the credulity of decent nations and people but nevertheless was brought vilely within an extremely improbable interpretation of the UN Charter.

This is part of America’s imperial grand strategy to dominate the world. If this document of National Security Strategy is carefully read and understood, it would reveal that America’s imperial ambitions have reached extreme proportions. What is propounded in the document is not just ‘preemptive war’ but ‘preventive war’. What is worse is that it is already being implemented.

Iraq is not the only theater, it is the latest. Iran and certain other countries too like Venezuela, Bolivia and North Korea are on the crosshair. Perhaps, the boycott of the recent elections that gave Hugo Chavez a renewed and resounding mandate, by the opposition in Venezuela, on the prodding of the US, is a precursor to this. The opposition, which controls the media and all propaganda apparatus, has already started crying foul with the full orchestration of the US. In Bolivia too there are moves to frustrate people’s mandate and keep away from power the newly elected President Morales.

LATIN AMERICA IN THE EYE OF A STORM

Closely following Uruguay, where the leftist Tabare Vazquez took office in March 2005 and Venezuela, in Bolivia too, Evo Morales, the leader of Movement to Socialism (MAS) has secured 51 per cent of the popular votes in the election for president, held on December 18, and is awaiting ratification by the Congress. Morales, who belongs to the indigenous Aymara tribes, tells the Bolivian people often: “We shouldn’t be poor.” And he is so right. Bolivia has considerable oil reserves and, far more crucially, has the second-largest proven reserves of natural gas in South America after Venezuela - some 54 trillion cubic feet. Bolivians have started realising that globalisation and neoliberalism have failed completely in delivering the promised prosperity. (New York Times - November 20, 2005) This experience of what havoc the US and international financial institutions could cause in Bolivia in the name of neoliberal globalisation and its free markets, applies equally to all Third World countries in Latin America and elsewhere. This realisation after all, is dangerous and the people’s belief must be blunted somehow, anyhow. Here comes the media’s conniving role.

Many observers in the know of things have expressed surprise that it took so long for the people to realise the truth and get radicalised. The people are increasingly enraged and attribute their plight to international financial agencies and multinational corporations that have come to have a strangle hold on the country’s economy. The gap between Bolivia’s natural resources and poverty of its people is just incredible.

Evo Morales asserts that Bolivia was in his blood. He claims proudly: “I studied at the best school, the university of poverty, exclusion, marginalisation, hate. We too have rights. And this is the proposal we put forward, that Bolivia can be changed, there can be a democratic and cultural revolution.” (Interview by Dan Glaister in Guardian Newspapers as reproduced in The Hindu – December 9, 2005) That is enough to set the US in a mad course of planning intervention to prevent his election.

Political opponents within and outside Bolivia have started echoing what has been orchestrated by the US, accusing Morales of being in the pay of narco-traffickers. No concrete proof has however, been provided; and for the US no proof is needed. It thinks the accusation is sufficient to do its dirty work. It also links him to Latin America’s two popular leaders Hugo Chavez and crime of all crimes, Fidel Castro. That should be enough for American imperialism to intervene one way or the other.

Rogelio (Roger) Pardo-Maurer IV, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence for Western Hemisphere affairs and a senior adviser to Donald Rumsfeld, on Latin America, has already gone on record saying in a talk at the Hudson Institute in Washington: “You have a revolution going on in Bolivia, a revolution that potentially could have consequences as far-reaching as the Cuban revolution of 1959." What is going on in Bolivia today, he told his audience, “could have repercussions in Latin America and elsewhere that you could be dealing with for the rest of your lives." And, he added, in Bolivia, “Che Guevara sought to ignite a war based on igniting a peasant revolution…. This project is back." This time, Pardo-Maurer concluded, "urban rage and ethnic resentments have combined into a force that is seeking to change Bolivia….” Article in The New York Times - November 20, 2005, under the heading: “Che’s Second coming”. David Reiff who wrote that article further nailed the truth saying: “A joke you hear often in Bolivia these days sarcastically describes the country's political system as a coalition between the government, the international financial institutions, multinational corporations and la embajada - the US Embassy….” (At the Point of a Gun: Democratic Dreams and Armed Intervention’ by David Reiff).

Taking Brazil and Argentina already over three-quarters of South America has shifted to the left. The results of ensuing elections starting with Chile, where the socialist President Michelle Bachelet, is expected to win the runoff in January 2006 with larger popular support, could take Latin America further to the left than it already is. This shift considered dangerous for its interests by the US has a good chance of spreading to Ecuador and after some time, north of the Panama Canal as well. In Nicaragua, the Sandinistas, led by Daniel Ortega, are expected to come back to power. In Mexico too, according to opinion polls, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, another leftist is expected to replace America’s ally Vincent Fox.

All this provide sufficient nightmare for the US right at its back door. This is apart from the tinderbox situation that has developed in the Middle East, where it is virtually caught in a quagmire in Iraq.

EAST ASIAN COUNTRIES FLOCK TOGETHER

Then there is North East Asia that is flexing its economic muscle what with Russia and China joining the ‘tea party’. North East Asia, which is building bridges with South East Asia, is threatening to become one of the fastest growing economic regions rivaling Europe and the US, which cannot be to imperialism’s liking. Right on the heels of the ‘Shanghai Cooperation’ between China and Russia, the recent ‘East Asia Summit’ in Kuala Lumpur with participation by India, China and Russia (as an invitee of the host country) along with ASEAN countries, is an important step in this direction of growing regional cooperation. The Kuala Lumpur Declaration made on December 14, 2005, describing the EAS as a forum for dialogue on political, economic issues to promote peace, stability and prosperity in East Asia, cannot be to Washington’s liking.

KEEP THE BARBARIANS FROM COMING TOGETHER

It is this combining together of nations for common good that is frightening to the US. So never allow them to come together. This dictum was eloquently explained by Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security Advisor under President Jimmy Carter thus: “…the three grand imperatives of [US] imperial geostrategy are to prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and to keep the barbarians from coming together.” (‘The Grand Chessboard’ -1998)

The US succeeded in implementing this policy meticulously much before Brzezinski, who was only restressing its importance. When this strategy gets thwarted as seems to be happening in Latin America and Asia, the US is more than disturbed.

MORE AGGRESSION AND SUBVERSION ON THE CARD

All these developments around the globe are sufficient to set off American imperialism’s already bellicose tenor and ruffle its anxieties further, prompting it to take recourse to the extreme doctrine as enunciated by its National Security Strategy (NSS). That means more aggression and subversion than before. The NSS simply means that the US is determined to dominate and rule the world not just with its coercive economic might alone but with its military might too.

All that is required is to invent an enemy and a perceived threat to security, then the US will have the right to challenge before the threat becomes manifest. That is how the US has been militarily and economically intervening in many countries.

I AM THE STRONGEST – MUST REMAIN THE STRONGEST

As is well known, the US has openly declared that it would not allow any other country to reach a stage of comparable economic and military strength that could be perceived as a challenge to its security and dominant position. It is also known that it spends more than the combined expenditure of all other countries on its military and armaments. A small fraction of what the US spends on its military and weaponry would be sufficient to eradicate poverty in the world altogether. But the US with all the sanctimonious talk of democracy and human rights, has opted out of this noble choice but instead is busy building and sharpening its aggressive war machine further

Jeffrey Sachs in his ‘The End of Poverty’ (2005) candidly wrote: “Since September 11, 2001, the United States has launched a war on terror, but has neglected the deeper causes of global instability. The $450 billion that the United States will spend this year (2005) on the military will never buy peace if it continues to spend around one thirtieth of that, just $15 billion, to address the plight of the poor, whose societies are destabilized by extreme poverty and thereby become havens of unrest, violence and even global terrorism.”

“…That $15 billion represents a tiny percentage of US income, just 15 cents on every $100 of US gross national product, GNP….” (Sachs is Special advisor to the UN Secretary General and according to New York Times, “probably the most important economist in the world”)

OWNERSHIP OF SPACE

Another of the US policy proclamations made almost simultaneously with the notorious NSS, is what the Air Force Space Command, released as its policy projection for the next several years. The Command controls the advanced space-age nuclear and other weaponry. Under this programme, the US would shift from its known position of ‘control of space’ to ‘ownership of space’ (Air Force Space Command, “Strategic Master Plan (SMP) FY04 and Beyond” – November 5, 2002). This means that no potential challenge to US control of space would be tolerated. If any country attempted this, it would be destroyed. This implies putting space platforms not only to keep close surveillance on countries and movements but also equipping these with destructive weapons including nuclear and laser ones. The whole world and everything in it would come under surveillance and under the eye of the American imperialism controlled trigger. No more forward bases would be required; anyone and anything can be targeted from a command post in the mountains of Colorado or Montana. (Sources: Articles in Los Angeles Times, July 14, 2002, The Guardian, July 14, 2003 & Associated Press, July 1, 2003)

FRIGHTENING THE PEOPLE INTO SUPPORTING

The tragedy is that somehow, America has been able by and large to carry its people along despite the protests. How is it able to do it? How is it able to convince its own people? The trick is simple: by frightening the people out of their wits that their welfare and security are threatened. The terrorist attack of 9/11, has come in handy to snare the people into a state of mute stupor of silence if not support.

(To be continued)