A global fascism in the guise of democracy?
by /./
5:29am Fri Oct 3 '03
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last month, copies began oozing out of Washington of a remarkable document the Bush Administration plans to submit shortly to Congress. The document, entitled "The National Security Strategy of the United States," is an overview of policies, most of them apparent or previously announced, that the White House sees as relevant to the nation's security. It should be required reading for any person who still believes the United States represents an unambiguous force for good in world affairs.
Bush's "strategy" is nothing less than a declaration of war against the world. For those of us who want to believe that our government reflects the ideals of our country and the good-heartedness of the American people, it is truly a repellant masterpiece. And while some aspects of the Bush strategy have been strains in American foreign policy for decades, give Bush points for honesty: as never before, he lays it all out, in one place, in 28 pages of arrogance that answer better than Osama himself ever could the question of Why They Hate Us. (The New York Times published the document in its entirety on Sept. 20. Go to www.nytimes.com and search for ""Bush's National Security Strategy.")
The White House strategy document is thick with rhetorical touches, hammering away at what a lesser propagandist, Mao Zedong, might have called the "Four Frees." America's foreign policy, we are repeatedly told, is based on a commitment to "freedom, democracy, free enterprise, and free markets." These are laid out in the very first sentence as the "single sustainable model for national success."
Why, you might ask, should it matter, in a national security document, what the "single sustainable model for national success" might be for the world's other 200 countries? Because -- as the next 28 pages lay out in excruciating detail -- the United States' official foreign policy is that it will now invade any country and replace any government that does not adhere to Bush's entirely self-serving interpretation of that model.
So much for democracy -- which rests not on the presence of more than one name on the ballot, but on the premise that ordinary citizens can have a say in what their government does. How can ordinary citizens in any other country have a say in their government, when that government itself has no say in what it is allowed, at the whim of the United States, to do?
While Mao's, er, Dubya's Four Frees are hardly equal -- neoliberal markets are an economic policy, not a fundamental human right -- the United States is tight with any number of countries that have, say, free markets but no freedom (Pakistan), or freedom with high tariffs (Sweden). And on every one of those scores -- questionable elections and limited choice of candidates and policies (democracy), civil liberties (freedom), corporate welfare (free enterprise), and free markets (farm subsidies, steel tariffs, et al.) -- the United States itself is moving demonstrably backwards. Perhaps we should invade ourselves.
Oddly, for what is advertised as a comprehensive overview of policy, Bush's document omits the single most obvious foreign security threat to you and I -- the sorts of small bands of terrorists and terrorist cells that struck last September. Instead, aside from a nod toward cracking down on the financing of terror networks, almost the entire document is focused on nation-states -- a peculiar sort of Cold War-era thinking for a document that purports to address a radically new security environment. But the focus on nation-states makes perfect sense if the priority is not defense or even military, but economic.
But never mind the big picture. America -- which is to say, the United States government -- which is to say, the Bush Administration -- reserves to itself in this report to Congress the right to determine the course of events in each and every of the world's countries in staggering detail. On page 15, for example, we learn that among the global threats to America are countries who don't practice policies that help "us" make money -- and, it is later asserted against all evidence, that will also lift the rest of the world out of poverty.
These particular global threats and potential adversaries are the ones that don't practice "Pro-growth legal and regulatory policies to encourage business investment, innovation, and entrepreneurial activity; Tax policies -- particularly lower marginal tax rates -- that improve incentives for work and investment;...Strong financial systems that allow capital to be put to its most efficient use; Sound fiscal policies to support business activity;...and free trade that provides new avenues for growth and fosters the diffusion of technologies and ideas that increase productivity and opportunity."
Strike those regulations! Slash taxes! Tie your currency to ours! And don't you dare preserve that wetland! And on page 16: "We are committed to policies that will help emerging markets achieve access to larger capital flows at lower cost."
Sort of like letting Honduras having access to United Fruit Company, or, in this context, threatening to go to war for United Fruit Company. So much for democracy.
And If They Disobey...
Technology, as stated repeatedly, is something America is to encourage around the world -- we've certainly outsourced enough of it lately -- but not when it's applied to any other country's military. Another remarkable component of the Bush plan is the explicit intent to "...dissuade potential adversaries from pursuing a military buildup in hopes of surpassing, or equalling, the power of the United States." Since every country is a "potential adversary," this is nothing less than saying we'll go to war to prevent you from catching up.
This is not the only declaration of war:
"We will not hesitate to act alone, if necessary, to exercise our right of self-defense by acting preemptively." (p.7)
"Our best defense is a good offense." [p. 7)
"When violence erupts and states falter, the United States will work with friends and partners to alleviate suffering and restore stability." (p. 9)
"We cannot let our enemies strike first." (p. 13)
"To forestall or prevent...hostile acts by our adversaries, the United States will, if necessary, act preemptively." (p. 14)
All these parameters will be applied selectively, just as they are in domestic policies which, read literally, criminalize nearly everyone (except the biggest criminals of all), but leave the state free to pick and choose its victims. Similarly, we'll pick and choose international obligations -- which, we learn on page three, "are to be taken seriously" (as opposed to honored).
The idea is to threaten and bluster, and mount invasions here and there, in the (unlikely) hope that the rest of the world will be cowed into (our) line. Imperial America will still choose its battles; otherwise, by the terms laid out here, we will be not just threatening but actively invading each of the world's countries. But the points that seem non-negotiable aren't stuff like freedom and all that; if there is a legitimate grievance against power, for example (e.g., a dictatorship), Bush virtually guarantees that the United States will side with power, so as to "restore stability" -- as opposed to, say, decide that America should use its power to promote freedom or democracy. It's money that matters.
As such, the entire document boils down to a four-word threat to the world: "Play ball, or else."
Countries are also to play ball by handing over their resources --especially, and not surprisingly, oil. Hence, we learn on page 18, "We will strengthen our own energy security and the shared prosperity of the global economy by working with our allies, trading partners, and energy producers to expand the sources and types of global energy supplied, especially in the Western Hemisphere, Africa, Central Asia, and the Caspian region." (They left out "Antarctica.")
Why, you might ask? Why is it the United States' business what the marginal tax rates of Sri Lanka might be, or which countries have manganese? Well, rest assured; we learn right up front, on page one, that America "does not use [its] strength to press for unilateral advantage."
Technically, this might be true -- not because, as our White House propagandists would have it, America is extending the glories of the Four Frees to all of the world's citizens, but because our "security" policies are only likely intended to benefit the richest fraction of America, not the whole country. Most Americans are, as a consequence of two decades of such policies domestically, working harder, with less job security, less access to health care and good schools, fewer civil liberties, and no meaningful political representation. The benefits of American Empire are accruing not to America, but to its elites, and secondarily to elites elsewhere in the world and to isolated fragments of our middle and upper middle classes. And most of us don't have secure locations to be whisked off to when American arrogance and theft of the world's wealth inflames anti-American hatred around the globe.
If U.S. policy were genuinely predicated on the beliefs claimed by the Dubya Cabal, the past failures of these policies would be open to examination: the widening gap, at home and globally, between rich and poor; America's persistent alliances with and military and economic support for some of the world's most brutal and dictatorial regimes; the steady increase in America's prison population; and on, and on. But far from being examined -- let alone disavowed -- the policies behind these developments are being redoubled. They are being redoubled not because they promote global free free free, but because they benefit the handful of people at the top.
This is been the case for every global empire in the history of the world; as the most successful of these empires ever (though not the longest-lived), there is no reason to believe we behave differently. Each of those empires has also eventually fallen, undone not by catastrophe or technological advances or a stronger enemy, but by their own arrogance and overextension.
Bush is travelling the same path. And while the benefits of empire have accrued primarily to families like the Bushes, the hardships associated with America's comeuppance -- an inevitability, if a "strategy" like this is inflicted on the world for any meaningful length of time -- will mostly be borne by the Americans least able to cope.
In many ways, this"National Security Strategy" reads like a traditional domestic policy document from the Republican party: neo-liberalism, free trade, fewer regulations, law taxes, more military; all it's missing is references to preborn children. In the document's conclusion, this similarity is even tacitly acknowledged: "The distinction between domestic and foreign affairs is diminishing."
But it's one thing to impose a CEO's wet dreams on American voters, who at least nominally have the choice to replace our political leaders. It's quite another to threaten war against any country, anywhere in the world, that does not adopt such a regimen. That's not a security strategy -- it's a security nightmare, and perhaps the most profound threat the United States (and the world) faces today.
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