By Matt for the TIB Network:
The WMD Mailbag Correspondent has sent me another doozy... Yes, that's the technical term for it. This one is a guest writer for the Asian Times in which multiple crazy vast conspiracy theories are thrown about wildly in an attempt to smear America, her President, his adminsitration, and the citizens of the United States.First up, is a bit about rhetoric.
In recent public speeches, President George W Bush and others in the US administration, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, have begun to make a significant shift in the rhetoric of war. A new "war on tyranny" is being groomed to replace the outmoded "war on terror". Far from being a semantic nuance, the shift is highly revealing of the next phase of Washington's global agenda.No, this change in rhetoric isn't symbolic or indicative of a Karl "Dr. Evil" Rove-ian sinister plot to take over the world by using a drilling machine to release the core's magma... What it is, quite simply, is a shift in rhetoric shaped by current events. American politics is shaped by what is happening right now not what has happened in the past or what might or will happen in some future. What works in America as smart public/media relations doesn't always come off as exactly what it is in other markets. Hence the shift in rhetoric is being misinterpreted abroad.
In his January 20 inaugural speech, Bush declared, "It is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world" (author's emphasis). Bush repeated the last formulation, "ending tyranny in our world", in the State of the Union address. In 1917 it was a "war to make the world safe for democracy", and in 1941 it was a "war to end all wars".
If I had actually read any Chomsky in my time, I imagine it would sound a little like this:
The use of tyranny as justification for US military intervention marks a dramatic new step in Washington's quest for global domination. "Washington", of course, today is shorthand for the policy domination by a private group of military and energy conglomerates, from Halliburton to McDonnell Douglas, from Bechtel to ExxonMobil and ChevronTexaco, not unlike that foreseen in president Dwight Eisenhower's 1961 speech warning of excessive control of government by a military-industrial complex.Okay, there are two topics contained in that outtake: the military-industrial complex nonsense and the coddling tyrants bit. Let's take them apart for some analysis.
Congress declared World War II after an aggressive Japanese attack on the US fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. While Washington stretched the limits of deception and fakery in Vietnam and elsewhere to justify its wars, up to now it has always at least justified the effort with the claim that another power had initiated aggression or hostile military acts against the United States of America. Tyranny has to do with the internal affairs of a nation: it has to do with how a leader and a people interact, not with its foreign policy. It has nothing to do with aggression against the United States or others.
Historically Washington has had no problem befriending some of the world's all-time tyrants, as long as they were "pro-Washington" tyrants, such as the military dictatorship of President General Pervez Musharraf in Pakistan, a paragon of oppression. We might name other befriended tyrants - Ilham Aliyev's Azerbaijan, or Islam Karimov's Uzbekistan, or the al-Sabahs' Kuwait, or Oman. Maybe Morocco, or Alvaro Uribe's Colombia. There is a long list of pro-Washington tyrants.
For obvious reasons, Washington is unlikely to turn against its "friends". The new anti-tyranny crusade would seem, then, to be directed against "anti-American" tyrants. The question is, which tyrants are on the radar screen for the Pentagon's awesome arsenal of smart bombs and covert-operations commandos? Rice dropped a hint in her Senate Foreign Relations Committee testimony two days prior to the Bush inauguration. The White House, of course, cleared her speech first.
The Military-Industrial Complex: From this, you would think the only worldwide business conglomerants were American. They aren't. The French have a few. The Japanese have a few. Everybody has a few. That's business in the information age... Singling out American companies to prove that there is some dark plot to take over the world is just silly.
Tyrants and Tyranny: As most things like this are, we're talking about the First Rule of International Relations. Notice the author doesn't talk about Egypt. Why? We're applying pressure on this nation to have free elections. Doesn't fit this guy's "thesis" so he ignores it. That doesn't mean it isn't happening though. Similarly, Pakistan is facing pressure to democratize...it just isn't on the front page of the New York Times so surely it isn't actually happening, right? You have to pick and choose your battles...in time each and every one of our less-than-ideal allies will get the "freedom tour" treatment.
The article sinks further and further in to the fever swamp after that. I have better things to do with my time than debunk this drivel...
Mark's Remarks
You know, this reminds me of all the drivel out there about how Bill Clinton is behind secret drug deals, yadda yadda yadda on the FAR, FAR right side of things. Give me a break, already. This is ridiculous drivel, and I would thank Matt not to include garbage like this on the blog again. This article is more example of the blind envy and hatred of the Left that this administration is getting things done in the MidEast, and we are seeking a REAL arms control process with North Korea, not the phony stuff of the 1990s.
