Neo-con or
Just Plain Ol'
Imperialism Unleashed?
By William Bowles
williambowles.info
16 October, 2003
What is a neo-con and what are the objectives
of the so-called neo-conservative agenda? Most importantly, do their
policies represent a radical departure from previous US strategy and
if so, how and why?
There is no simple
answer to this question as it is intimately connected to the vast changes
that have taken place since the collapse of the Soviet empire
in 1990. Indeed, one could say that it was the collapse of the Soviet
Union that unleashed the neo-cons on the world,
for without a counterbalance to the US, forces long held in check by
real politik, were freed from the constraints of détente and
the (relative) balance of power achieved in the post-WWII period.
Based on the assumption
that through its overwhelming military superiority facilitated by the
IT revolution, the neo-con agenda seeks to do what the US
has always tried to do and that is impose the free market
on the entire world and in doing so, take control of the resources and
markets needed to feed the insatiable appetite of the US economy and
its investors. Its the methods and the strategy used that singles
out the neo-cons philosophy from those who previously
had to deal with a different world. A world where the use of force and
the threat of the use of force, was more proscribed.
Underpinning the
entire project is energy, that with its junior partner the
UK, since the end of WWII the US has controlled OPEC notwithstanding.
Without control of oil through the dollar, and through the dollar, the
worlds economy, the US would be unable bankroll its vast deficit,
now over $7 trillion. The urgency of the project is made all the more
important because of a number of additional elements: climate change
and the fact that energy sources appear to have 'peaked', at least as
far as the needs of the US economy is concerned.
Moreover, the contradictions
that have always been inherent in the capitalist mode of production,
have reasserted themselves with renewed vigour as the effects of automation
(quantum leaps in the efficiency of production, coupled to the export
of manufacturing to cheap labour markets) and increasing reliance on
financial speculation as a source of profit have combined to produce
a crisis, a crisis of global proportions. Vast amounts of over-valued
dollars are sloshing about, many of them held overseas by equally fragile
economies, especially Japans's. The entire system, balanced on a knife-edge
has very little room for manouver.
It is only by continuous
expansion into new markets, that permits the capitalist system to continue.
To stop is impossible, its like a runaway train. The forces that
drive it, are only understood in the narrow mathematical
sense, all else is driven by specific interests that try to control
processes that they barely comprehend. The important factor is what
sectors of the economy dominate at any given moment in history?
Since the end of
WWII the US has had an essentially war-based economy with enormous investment
through subsidies by the state into the IT/weapons sector
which has itself propelled the IT revolution.
The problem with
weapons investment is that its all inputs and no outputs as far
as building an economy that can support an entire culture. Its
like pouring money down the drain. As rich as the US is, without any
outputs, such as teachers, hospitals or whatever, sooner or later the
state is going go bankrupt, or have to change its ways. Or go to war.
The neo-con
clique, entrenched in key sectors of government represents the vested
interests of oil/energy, electronics/IT, weapons, influential segments
of the media and communications sector (with its connection to weapons
through cross-ownership of the IT industry) and elements of the banking
and financial sector. To this heady mix we have to add the loose cannon
of Israeli imperialism with its commensurate connection back into weapons
and oil, via the vast arms subsidies the US gives Israel because of
its strategic position as a wedge driven deep into the heart of the
oil-rich Middle East.
A conspiracy
of the powerful
The following names
are those most closely associated with the label 'neo-conservative',
along with many others not listed here whose connections extend into
the more 'traditional' networks of power that run America.
Donald Rumsfeld,
secretary of defence
Richard Cheney,
vice-president
Elliott Abrams,
chief Middle East aide on the National Security Council
Richard Armitage,
Douglas Feith, Under-secretary
of Defense for Policy
Paula Dobriansky,
Under-secretary of State for Global Affairs
Michael Rubin &
David Wurmser, senior consultants to the State Department and the Pentagon
on Iraq policy
Richard Perle, former
chairman of the Defense Policy Board
Jeanne Kirkpatrick,
former United Nations ambassador
Frank Gaffney, head
of the Center for Defense Policy
Michael Ledeen,
American Enterprise Institute
David Steinmann,
Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs
Daniel Pipes, US
Institute for Peace and the Middle East Peace Forum
Otto Reich, Wsetern
Hemisphere Affairs
Colonel Oliver North,
Middle Eastern Affairs
Reps. Eliot Engel,
sponsor of the recently passed Syria Accountability andLebanese
Sovereignty Restoration Act
Paul Wolfowitz,
Deputy Secretary of State
James Woolsey, former
director of the Central Intelligence Agency
Robert Kagan, Project
for the New American Century
Philip Bobbitt,
former nuclear arms adviser to Bill Clinton and formulator of pre-emptive
war
William Kristal,
publisher and arch right-winger with strong connections to the Israeli
right
Its not surprising
that many view this cabal as part of a conspiracy, but this assumes
that the neo-cons, plotting and planning from offices on
Pennsylvania Avenue exist in splendid isolation, when nothing could
be further from the truth.
Some of the above
go back to Nixon days and the Vietnam War and even earlier. All hold
views formed during the Cold War period deeply anti-communist
and pro-Zionist views. Some were involved in the formulation of the
policy known during the Reagan period as 'low intensity warfare'. Some
were directly involved in supporting terrorist groups, assassinations,
drug smuggling, gun running and money laundering operations under Reagan.
As a group they represent the most virulent and aggressive voice of
US imperialism, motivated as much by ideology as by purely economic
interests though the confluence of interests and ideology are inseparable.
But even US capitalism
rampant has its limitations. It is constrained, more or less, by many
factors, not the least of which is its inability to act rationally.
It will even act against the best interests of the nation even as it
asserts through propaganda, the patriotic to justify its policies. And
of course, capitalism rarely does act as a nation unless directly threatened,
but essentially in the interests of those who run the state and of those
they represent, a small segment of society with enormous amounts of
power and money at their disposal and the networks that link it all
together.
Networks of Power
These networks are
mediated by marriage, inheritance and the interconnections formed between
key sectors of the economy, built over the generations but especially
through education, the transmission line that maintains ideological
control and continuity.
"The great
and evil minds that direct politics from their university cathedra are
infinitely more important to our future than the rich but feeble-minded
bastards. Indeed, their takeover of American universities, so clearly
presented by Saul Bellow in his Ravelstein was the paramount event of
the last thirty years. Whoever controls universities, controls the media;
who controls media, controls government. Or, in Biblical terms, Leo
Strauss begat Wolfowitz, Wolfowitz begat Iraqi War. Milton Friedman
begat IMF, IMF begat world poverty. Bernard Lewis begat Samuel Huntington,
Samuel Huntington begat the War on Islam. Bernard-Henri Levy begat Andre
Sacharov, and the Soviet Union was privatised by Marc Rich and Vladimir
Gusinsky."
Israel Shamir, The Wise Raven is Dead
Currently, the most
virulent and ideologically driven sector of the power elite has dominance
but as recent events demonstrate, they by no means have hegemonic control
and, as their Middle East strategy demonstrates, they have been forced
to shift the 'burden' of empire building to Israel, even if it is a
temporary measure. In part this has been determined by the fact that
the military strategy promulgated by Rumsfeld and co is more wishful
thinking than realism and secondly, by the cost of the enterprise. Rumsfeld's
fantasy of conquering the world with robots reveals a fundamental lack
of understanding not only of the role of technology in waging war, but
perhaps just as importantly, blinded by their supremacist racist ideology,
they simply do not understand. After all, it's not so long ago that
the same people were pinning their hopes on defeating the Viet Minh
through the overwhelming force of Western technology.
The myopia of the
neo-con ideologues, has proved their undoing as the rapidly unravelling
situation in Iraq demonstrates and this may well prove their undoing.
But, and this is the important issue, the overall objective of US imperialism
will not alter, merely its tactics. We may well have to wait until the
next US election to see which faction gains the ascendency. In the meantime,
the realities of a bankrupt economy may well determine the direction
US imperialism takes. It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that
the more extreme and desperate elements of the US elite may well 'take
the plunge' and expand the 'war on terror' in a direct alliance with
Israel. The attack on the US mission in the occupied territories today
(15/10/03) or something similar, may well be our 21st century Sarejevo.
Indeed, it's not beyond the bounds of possibility that today's attack
was a deliberate provocation by Israel designed to drag the US more
directly into the conflict.