Future Wars Or Future Peace?
By James A. Lucas
30 August, 2010
Countercurrents.org
What will happen after the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are ended? Will there be more of the same? The answer is “Probably,” unless the American public eventually understands that both of the two major political parties, with a few individual exceptions, lead us into such tragic escapades and that we have been easily deceived by spurious excuses for deploying U.S. destructive power around the globe.
A first step toward preventing future wars would be for Americans to understand that our nation’s interventionist practices are designed to enlarge and solidify the American Empire. Many Americans either do not know, or do not want to know, about the vast extent of the U.S. presence around the world, with over 700 bases and an array of military and undercover U.S. activity.
Following is short description of a few of the disturbing actions recently taken by the U.S. that are possible steps toward more armed conflicts. I make no claim that this article covers all U.S. interventions.
We are now faced with the drums of war that are preparing us for possible attacks on Iran and North Korea, using the same discredited fear tactic of telling us that they may have nuclear weapons or the capability of developing them. This, of course, was given as the reason we attacked Iraq (the second time), but even after that charge was thoroughly discredited we continued on that bellicose path which was a supreme act of nation destruction. Apparently the U.S. had other reasons for that attack that it did not want to reveal.
The U.S. and/or Israel may attack Iran. If only Israel attacks it will be with the permission of the U.S.
The tensions between the US and North Korea and China were so strong recently that the U.S., in a show of force, deployed the nuclear powered aircraft carrier George Washington, 20 warships, 200 planes and 8,000 soldiers in naval exercises near North Korea after China and Russia watered down a UN Security Council statement which condemned the sinking of the Cheonan without naming North Korea as the culprit.
Other actions by the U.S. have received less press coverage, but they could eventually thrust us into other major international crises and at the same time would demonstrate to other peoples around the globe that we don’t want other countries to forget that we still are king of the hill and will use force to stay on top of that pinnacle. This becomes increasingly true as our economic power wanes and our leaders become desperate. Sadly, this is not the cooperative spirit others in the world hope for at this time when we collectively face such great common dangers.
During Barack Obama’s presidency there has been more than 100 drone attacks by the U.S. into Pakistan compared to 45 in the preceding 5 years, killing and maiming mostly civilians. According to Pakistan Body Count these attacks have killed 39 Al Qaeda, 1693 civilians and wounded 525 more civilians as of July 25, 2010.
According to United for Peace and Justice the Costa Rican legislature recently granted permission for U.S. naval patrols in their waters consisting of 46 warship, 200 helicopters, 10 AV-8B Harrier aircraft and 7,000 marines, as a move against trafficking of drugs. When was the last time you heard of a major effort within the U.S. to address the social causes for the demand for drugs within our borders? Maybe solving the drug problem in the U.S. by decreasing the demand would reduce the alleged legitimacy of deploying military forces to interdict the flow of drugs into our nation.
In Honduras, in the summer of 2009, the democratically elected president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, was overthrown by a coup. Despite repeated statements by U.S. officials supporting democracy in many hotspots around the world, in this case it registered at most a very muted disapproval. Could that be because a “leftist” government had been deposed? Since then a number of people there have been killed by death squads. This is reminiscent of government supported death squads in El Salvador not many years ago when the U.S. supported the government in a civil war. The Organization of American States (OAS) expelled Honduras from its membership shortly after the coup, but on July 30, 2010 U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton demanded that Honduras be readmitted.
The outgoing Uribe administration in Colombia offered the U.S. the use of 7 Colombian military bases in strategic parts of that nation which would enable the U.S. Southern Command’s to have air mobility reach in South America that would give it a capacity for counter-narcotics operations until the year 2029. The plan has not been fully implemented, at least temporarily, because of a court ruling in Colombia. The true reason behind this proposed plan by the U.S. is its uneasiness about the trend among South American nations toward greater unity and decision-making without first consulting Uncle Sam.
The Fellowship of Reconciliation reviewed data on over 3,000 exrajudicial executions in Colombia reportedly committed by their armed forces since 2002 along with lists of more than 500 military units assisted by the U.S. since 2000. The finding was that for many military units, reports of extrajudicial executions increased during and after the highest levels of U.S. assistance.
According to a June 4th article this year in the Washington Post, U.S. Special Operations forces are fighting a war against Al Qaeda and other radical groups in 75 countries, compared with about 60 at the beginning of last year. The U.S. has increased the budget for aid to such special operations forces to $6 billion in its 2010 budget. 9,000 Special Forces have killed hundreds, and maybe thousands, of civilians in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The U.S. Treasury has prohibited lawyers from defending accused terrorists pro bono without government permission, with violators being subject to up to 20 years imprisonment and fines up to $1 million. It is hard to tell where the war on terror ends and imperialist surges begin.
The Obama administration last month announced that the U.S. will begin a gradual, limited program of security cooperation activities with Kopassus, a 5,000-man Special Forces unit of the Indonesian military. Many members of that unit and others within the Indonesia military have been charged with human rights crimes, but have not been tried.
According to Dana Priest, writing in the Washington Post, U.S. military teams are deeply involved in secret joint operations with Yemeni troops that could result in the U.S. being involved in two complex civil wars. In December of last year a U.S. Tomahawk cruise missile attacked the village of al-Maajala in South Yemen, killing 55 people, most of them women and children. The Obama administration increased “security” funds for Yemen from $67 million to $150 million.
In Africa, the U.S. command, AFRICOM, was established under the Bush administration. Recently 600 U.S. Special Forces there participated along with the militaries of 10 African nations, in Operation Flintlock 2010. Nicole Lee, the executive director of Trans Africa, commented that “This (AFRICOM ) is nothing short of a sovereignty and resource grab.”
In effect, the U.S. is now in a state of permanent war that calls for a continuing and strengthened anti-war movement.
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