The New Bush: Diplomacy and Death Squads
The mass media in the US and Europe
has given prominence to the “new style” foreign policy approach of the
Bush Administration. Secretary of State Condeleeza Rice visits European
capitals and meets with European leaders declaring that a new era of
co-operation is at hand. Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld highlights the
need for greater transatlantic defense cooperation in a meeting with
European Defense Ministers. President Bush on his trip to Europe declares
the US-European Alliance is indivisible, the divisions a “thing of the
past”, and a new era of joint security activity as essential.
The language and tone of the Bush
Administration has certainly changed. There are no gratuitous insults
about “Old Europe”. There are no longer public threats and declarations
of unilateral military action. Only the Zionist neo-conservatives outside
government, like Kagan, Kristol and Frum, continue to rage against the
European negotiations with Iran and declare the “end of the Trans-Atlantic
affair” (Financial Times - Jan. 31, 2005). The New York Times and
the major columnists and television news commentators speak of a “new
turn” toward diplomacy and a politics of reconciliation, of the
re-emergence of diplomacy instead of militarism, of multilateralism
instead of unilateralism.
While it is true that the tone
has changed, the substance, the militarist-war policies, of the
Bush Administration has remained the same or has even hardened. This is
evident first and foremost in the new appointments to key positions in the
Administration as well as the top officials retained in office.
Condeleeza Rice, a strong advocate of Middle East warfare and Special
Forces operations was promoted to Secretary of State, in charge of US
foreign policy and titular head of the State Department.
Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Feith remain
number one, two and three in the Pentagon. They are the architects of the
Afghan and Iraq War and strong advocates and planners of new wars against
Iran and Syria. Moreover according to US journalist, Seymour Hersh, with
extensive ties among top officials in Washington, “Defense Department
civilians under the leadership of Douglas Feith, have been working with
Israeli planners and consultants to develop and refine potential (sic)
nuclear, chemical weapons and missile targets inside Iran” (New Yorker,
January 24-31, 2005).
Elliot Abrams, like Feith and
Wolfowitz, unconditional and unquestioning supporters of Israel, has been
promoted to Deputy of National Security adviser and continues as senior
adviser for the Middle East. The new appointees to the top power
positions in the expanding and far-reaching intelligence apparatus include
John Negroponte, to head the National Intelligence Agency.
Negroponte was the organizer of the
death squads in Honduras and the mercenary terror armies, “the Contras” in
Nicaragua. He largely oversaw the slaughter of thousands of Iraqis in
Fallujah and the running of torture and assassination chambers, during his
term as Ambassador of Occupied Iraq. He has close ties with Abrams from
the 1980’s when the latter was defending the massacres of hundreds of
thousands of Guatemalans under Rios Mont and over 70,000 Salvadorans under
the psychopathic Roberto D’Aubuisson.
The new head of the CIA, Porter Goss
made his reputation in Miami as field officer of the CIA, supporting and
promoting clandestine terror operations by Cuban exiles against
revolutionary Cuba.
The new head of Homeland Security is
Michael Chertoff, rabid Zionist (no less so than Abrams or Feith) who was
responsible for the arbitrary arrests of hundreds if not thousands of
innocent Arab and South Asian Muslim immigrants – simply because of their
country of origin or religion. They were held as “terrorism suspects” for
months; habeas corpus laws and all constitutional rights were denied.
Chertoff is the author of the infamous Patriot Act, which “legalizes” the
totalitarian practices which Chertoff applied to the immigrants and can
now extend against all Americans.
Marc Grossman retains his senior
position as Undersecretary of State for Latin American Affairs. He was
and is today in the forefront of US violent opposition to President Chavez
in Venezuela. Alberto Gonzales, who scorned international law, approved
terrorism and torture of Iraqi prisoners, who denies the validity and
relevance of the Geneva Accords has been promoted to Attorney General,
giving him power to arbitrarily arrest and prosecute whoever he deems a
‘threat’ to ‘national security’.
These appointments and promotions have
evoked few if any vocal opposition from the Democratic Party. Most of the
critical comments focus on their “professional competence” rather on their
murderous and criminal behavior. Progressives and critics have argued
that these new leaders do not have the “ethical standing” to administer US
foreign policy and that President Bush has committed egregious errors.
These criticisms fail to confront the
political basis of Bush’s appointments. These appointments and promotions
are the perfect and precise choices for a policy of continued war in Iraq,
sequential Middle Eastern Wars involving Iran and Syria, greater domestic
control and repression in the face of rising discontent over the cost of
multiple wars, and unquestioned support for Ariel Sharon’s consolidation
and expansion of Jewish control over the occupied West Bank and power in
the Middle East.
In direct contrast to the frivolous
media reports about Bush’s “overtures” to Europe, Bush and the new
appointees have tightened their hold over the military and secret police
apparatus, have greater power and monstrous budgets to engage in new
wars. All factual indications demonstrate that Bush’s Administration
“charm offensive” is a deliberate and provocative façade to divide and
conquer European leaders to back old and new wars.
With Iraq, the US has not moved toward
Europe – it has increased its war funding and fighting troops and demands.
Europe provide money and training officers to prepare the Iraqi colonial
army to buttress the US occupation. The US talks of multilateral policy
with European partners, but rejects joining the “partners” diplomatic
negotiations with Iran. With Israel, the US Defense Department pursues
the Zionists plan of a massive unilateral or bilateral bombing of Iran.
Europe improved relations with Cuba
and Venezuela. Goss, Grossman and Rice increase military threats, arm
Colombia as a surrogate aggressor and plan new destabilization efforts and
assassination plots. Europe proposes to increase its trade and investments
with China, including military exports, while Goss describes China as a
military threat to US supremacy in Asia and defends the policy of military
encirclement. Rice and Rumsfeld secure a new military security treaty
with Japan, clearly aimed not only at North Korea, but China, as the
Chinese clearly recognize.
As is evident, there is little
substance and no changes between the Old and New Bush regimes. If Europe
moves ‘closer’ to the Bush Administration, it will be because the
Europeans have retreated from their diplomatic policies and have adapted
to US militarism. So far, apart from rhetorical, diplomatic language,
European leaders have only sought to play down their real differences with
the Bush Administration not to renounce them. Europe will probably agree
to provide some funding (not very much) and a few advisers to train Iraqi
military and police officials, but only a token number, up to now less
than 10% of what was agreed a year ago.
At a time when US’ European clients
like the Ukraine, Poland, Hungary and Bulgaria are reducing their small
military contingents in Iraq it is hardly likely that the Western European
powers will commit resources, especially when there is so much to gain by
having the US spend itself into bankruptcy and un-competitiveness over an
un-winnable colonial war. Likewise US aggression against Venezuela, China
and Russia has led to greater efforts at military defense, trade
diversification and monetary decisions which weaken the US dollar and
destabilize the financial architecture of imperial wars.
Why has the US “reached out to Europe”
if it is intent on pursuing the same unilateral military policies? Why
the diplomatic trips to Europe and the adoption of a conciliatory style if
the purpose is to continue to play the war card in the Middle East and to
stand unconditionally with Sharon’s resettlement of Gaza settlers in the
Palestinian West Bank? There are several hypotheses:
The “diplomatic offensive” is a public
relations campaign to influence the US public and to secure support for
vulnerable European allies like Britain’s Tony Blair and Italy’s Silvio
Berlosconi. Washington can subsequently pursue its military agenda,
claiming they “gave diplomacy a chance” but the Europeans failed to grasp
that “hard power” (military aggression) is a necessary accompaniment of
“soft power” (diplomacy). This is clearly the case with the Middle East,
where the powerful Zionist policymakers and ideologues, who have been
unsurprisingly absent from the European trips, have already “predicted”
the Europeans will fail to act (militarily) against Iran and Syria when
the negotiations “fail” (in terms of US and Israeli military
interests).
The second hypothesis is that the
prolonged war in Iraq and the growing deficits and costs have forced the
US to seek, via diplomatic gestures, to secure European financial aid and
assistance in the building up of the Iraqi colonial army and state
apparatus. The European overtures are directed toward bringing in Europe
as a “partner” in the construction of a neo-colonial state in which Iraqis
pay for the war and provide the soldiers, while the US retains ultimate
control.
The third hypothesis is that the
Europeans are “turning right”. In this line, Washington may think that
with the colonial run elections in Iraq, Sharon’s resettlement from Gaza
to the West Bank (so-called “withdrawal”) and feigned “openness” to
European reconciliation, it may be able to convince Europe to join Bush’s
unlimited crusade for “democracy and freedom”.
It is extremely doubtful that
Washington will secure any lasting agreement with Europe on any basic
question. The reason is simple, the civilian militarists who run US
foreign policy, the newly appointed and promoted, are profoundly enamored
with the military route to world power. Their biographies and their
immediate pronouncements and actions are convincing proof that they are
incapable of any open negotiations, compromise or diplomatic settlements.
European leaders will have to choose
between pursuing their divergent path of global power via trade, diplomacy
and selective coercion or capitulate to a regime dominated by
civilian-militarist extremists driven by an irrational desire to
militarily confront China, intervene in Venezuela, destroy the Middle East
adversaries of Israel and provoke Russia.
It is abundantly clear that the
organizers of death squads, terrorist planners and global militarists are
ill equipped for quiet diplomacy. They are best suited for hysterical
diatribes about democracy while engaging in imperial wars which slaughter
the real flesh and blood of democrats. Posted by
Bulatlat
BACK TO TOP ■
PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION ■
COMMENT
© 2004 Bulatlat
■ Alipato Publications
Permission is granted to reprint or redistribute this article, provided its author/s and Bulatlat are properly credited and notified.