The One-Note Superpower

Before there was the “empire of bases” there was classical imperialism with its empire of colonies. Some of the US elite (political, cultural, and financial), from the Mugwumps to Mark Twain to billionaire (in current dollars) Andrew Carnegie, energetically lobbied for the rejection of this policy.

How long will today’s elite tolerate a policy of corporatist military kleptocracy?

Eleven days ago VP Cheney, speaking at a World Affairs Council event in Los Angeles, described the Bushies’ plan to expand the empire of bases in preparation for decades of war. Cheney claimed that this is necessary due to the war on terrorism, but it’s actually the same plan that he and other Bushies signed on to in 1997, when the US was still aiding international jihad. Yesterday at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland he presented a “conciliatory” version of the speech but, in the word’s of Newsweek‘s Fareed Zakaria, “the speech fell flat”:

“You see, a funny thing has happened around the world over the past two years. While the war on terrorism has dominated headlines, the great engine of globalization has kept moving, rewarding some, punishing others, but always keeping up the pressure by increasing human contact, communication and competition. For almost every country today, its primary struggle centers on globalization issues—growth, poverty eradication, disease prevention, education, urbanization, the preservation of identity.

“On all these, America is now largely silent. ‘It’s not that we don’t worry about terrorism,’ a head of government (of a pro-American country) said to me. But for him, as for other leaders, it’s not how he sees the world: ‘I have to grapple with a different set of issues. And I have the feeling that the United States has gone off into its own universe and cannot hear or say anything to me about my problems.’ There is a disconnect between America and the world.

“Of all the leaders who attended this meeting, no one could be more concerned with terrorists than President Musharraf of Pakistan. They have, after all, repeatedly threatened his life. Yet his schedule of private meetings, which were mainly with businessmen, reveal his priorities: investment, growth and development. Turkey has recently suffered terrorist attacks. But Prime Minister Erdogan wanted to impress on his audience Turkey’s determination to meet the European Union’s criteria for membership. Both leaders are showing flexibility on longstanding political disputes (Kashmir and Cyprus) because they realize that these are obstacles to their most important goal: modernization. …

“Developing nations that once feared globalization are beginning to learn how to use it to their advantage—sometimes ganging up during trade negotiations. Others cleverly combine populist measures with pro-growth policies. Thus Vladimir Putin jails oligarchs, yet opens up parts of Russia’s economy. Brazil’s Lula and Thailand’s Thaksin speak of solidarity with the people even as they liberalize the economy. Most important, China is gaming the global capitalist system to its benefit—devoting immense resources and brainpower to its negotiations on trade, commerce and business law.

“While Washington worries about traditional problems of empire—disorder on the periphery—there is a new globalizing world slowly taking shape, in search of leadership.”

At the same meeting, billionaire George Soros said, “Under the pretence of waging a war on terror, Bush embarked on forcing US supremacy on the world,” and promised to add to the $US12.5 million he’s already spent on the anti-Bush campaign.

Changing the Game

The rise of the movable type printing press – “the tyrant’s foe and the people’s friend” – curiously coincided with the fall of slavery, and technological progress continues to change politics, from Antiwar.com to Move On’s national video parties. The cutting edge now is the video-gaming industry.

“[Sony] … has just launched the PSX, a home-entertainment device that combines a PlayStation 2 with a DVD recorder, a hard-disk based video recorder, satellite and analogue TV tuners, and photo-album and music playback features. As well as cutting down on spaghetti-like wiring behind the TV, this jack-of-all-trades is the first example of Sony’s new strategy to combine its games consoles with other consumer-electronics devices. By throwing in PlayStation 2 functionality with other devices at a small premium—made easier by Sony’s recent cramming of a PlayStation 2 on to a single chip—it hopes to broaden the market and appeal to people who would not normally dream of buying a stand-alone games console. ‘Once they get it down to a single chip, then economies of scale come in, and the potential for integrated devices becomes very real,’ says Nick Gibson of Games Investor Consulting.”

Where it stops no one knows.

Read more.

In Defense of the Candidate Selector

Thanks to Matt for bringing the Select Smart 2004 Presidential Candidate Selector to our attention. It’s true that looking down the preference hierarchy list creates absurdities, like my own Sharptonite Libertarianism. But in defense of the candidate selector I have to point out that the carefully-hidden result analysis instructions (found only on the “Your ideal theoretical candidate” page) resolve the absurdity:

“If your top candidate scores in the 90’s or the high 80’s then you’ll be very pleased with this candidates positions. If your top candidate scores in the low 80’s or less, retake the selector…”

No need to vote Democrat just yet.

Extraordinary Jingocon Delusions & the Madness of Nationalist-Statists

“Observe good faith and justice towards all Nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and Morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be, that good policy does not equally enjoin it? … Who can doubt, that, in the course of time and things, the fruits of such a plan would richly repay any temporary advantages, which might be lost by a steady adherence to it? Can it be that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a Nation with its Virtue? The experiment, at least, is recommended by every sentiment which ennobles human nature. Alas! is it rendered impossible by its vices?”

George Washington, 1796

Matthew linked to the neocon show trial of conservative PATRIOT Act opponent Grover Norquist, that is, the FrontPageMag.com article “A Troubling Influence,” by former Reagan Defense official Frank J. Gaffney Jr. To me, the really interesting thing about this article is its illogic. For example, in his introduction to Gaffney’s piece, editor David Horowitz praises Norquist for being in the forefront of conservative efforts to get the Reagan Administration to support the mujahideen in Afghanistan, while he (Horowitz) was part of a “Communist Fifth Column network”; roles have reversed, however, and Norquist is now part of an Islamist Fifth Column network in “our war against Islamo-fascism” and Horowitz is a valiant defender of the American way. Horowitz writes:

“America is no longer protected by geographical barriers or by its unsurpassed military technologies. Today terrorists who can penetrate our borders with the help of Fifth Column networks will have access to weapons of mass destruction that can cause hundreds of thousands of American deaths.”

But, of course, US support for the mujahideen empowered bin Laden (at least through Saudi matching funds) in Afghanistan and led to US support for jihad in the Balkans. Throw in the attack-attracting guarantee of security for the Saudi monarchy and the permanent stationing of troops in Saudi Arabia and you’ve got a foreign policy mess. To then allow jihad-training, recruiting, and fundraising in the US brings the problem home. Gaffney claims that supporters of anti-American terrorism have had access to and influence upon President Bush, yet in the same article supports the PATRIOT Act, which allows the White House to imprison Americans without trial.

Gaffney and the jingo-cons must know that US government jihad-support inspired and allowed terrorist infiltration, since, in the footnotes to his FrontPageMag article, Gaffney suggests that we read US News and World Report‘s article “The Saudi Connection, which alleges that:

“U.S. intelligence officials knew about Saudi Arabia’s role in funding terrorism by 1996, yet for years Washington did almost nothing to stop it. Examining the Saudi role in terrorism, a senior intelligence analyst says, was ‘virtually taboo.’ Even after the embassy bombings in Africa, moves by counterterrorism officials to act against the Saudis were repeatedly rebuffed by senior staff at the State Department and elsewhere….

“…[I]n many of the jihad struggles, Washington was neutral, as in Kashmir, or even supportive, as in Bosnia. When Saudi money began financing jihadists headed to Chechnya, Washington responded with ‘a wink and a nod,’ as one analyst put it.

“- On the subject of Saudi ties to terrorism, the word came back: There was simply no interest. The result, says a CIA veteran, was ‘a virtual embargo.’

“- The G-men found the source of the cash curious: a Saudi charity…, which had funneled the money through the Saudi Embassy. Senior Justice Department officials expressed concerns about ‘national security,’ and the case, eventually, was dropped.

“In his recent book Sleeping With the Devil … former CIA operative Bob Baer calls it ‘Washington’s 401(k) Plan.’ ‘The Saudis put out the message,’ Baer wrote. ‘You play the game–keep your mouth shut about the kingdom–and we’ll take care of you.’ The list of beneficiaries is impressive: former cabinet secretaries, ambassadors, and CIA station chiefs. Washington lobbyists, P.R. firms, and lawyers have also supped at the Saudi table, as have nonprofits from the Kennedy Center to presidential libraries. The high-flying Carlyle Group has made fortunes doing deals with the Saudis. Among Carlyle’s top advisers have been former President George H.W. Bush; James Baker, his secretary of state; and Frank Carlucci, a former secretary of defense.

“- Official inquiries about bin Laden went unanswered by Riyadh. … [T]he CIA instructed officials at its Riyadh station not to collect intelligence on Islamic extremists–even after the bombing….

“Frustrated with Riyadh, Newcomb’s Office of Foreign Assets Control at Treasury began submitting the names of Saudi charities and businessmen for sanctions. But imposing sanctions required approval from an interagency committee, and that never came.

“- As part of a still-classified report, he wrote a cable instructing U.S. ambassadors to insist that host governments crack down on the groups. But some at State argued that the charities were doing important work and fought to kill Sheehan’s initiative. The cable was deep-sixed.

“- At the Saudi High Commission in Bosnia, which coordinated local aid among Saudi charities, police found before-and-after photos of the World Trade Center, files on pesticides and crop dusters, and information on how to counterfeit State Department badges.

“- For two years, investigators have followed the money to offshore trusts and obscure charities which … they believe are tied to Hamas, al Qaeda, and other terrorist groups. To date, no groups have been indicted.”

This is the government that Gaffney and the anti-Saudi anti-Islamofascists encourage to undermine the Constitution and ignore the foreign policy advice of the founding fathers. This is the government that they support when it overthrows a Muslim-majority secular state and places a Saudi agent in charge of negotiations involving tens of billions of dollars of its wealth.

The Roots of Global Terror

The current issue of U.S. News & World Report features an informative article, “The Saudi Connection: How billions in oil money spawned a global terror network,” based on five months of research, “a review of thousands of pages of court records, U.S. and foreign intelligence reports, and other documents,” and in-depth interviews with “more than three dozen current and former counterterrorism officers, as well as government officials and outside experts in Riyadh.” It’s ten pages long, so here are some highlights:

– U.S. intelligence officials knew about Saudi Arabia’s role in funding terrorism by 1996, yet for years Washington did almost nothing to stop it. Examining the Saudi role in terrorism, a senior intelligence analyst says, was “virtually taboo.” Even after the embassy bombings in Africa, moves by counterterrorism officials to act against the Saudis were repeatedly rebuffed by senior staff at the State Department and elsewhere….

The Saudi funding program … is “the largest worldwide propaganda campaign ever mounted”–dwarfing the Soviets’ propaganda efforts at the height of the Cold War.

– Saudi donors sent $150 million through Islamic aid organizations to Bosnia in 1994 alone…. A CIA investigation found that a third of the Islamic charities in the Balkans … had “facilitated the activities of Islamic groups that engage in terrorism,” including plots to kidnap or kill U.S. personnel.

– The agency identified over 50 Islamic charities engaged in international aid and found that, as in the Balkans, fully a third of them were tied to terrorist groups. … “Even high-ranking members of the collecting or monitoring agencies in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Pakistan–such as the Saudi High Commission–are involved in illicit activities, including support for terrorists.”

– The CIA found that the IIRO was funding “six militant training camps in Afghanistan,” where Riyadh was backing a then obscure sect called the Taliban….

– They receive substantial funds from the government and members of the royal family and make use of the Islamic affairs offices of Saudi embassies abroad.

– Electronic intercepts of conversations implicated members of the royal family in backing not only al Qaeda but also other terrorist groups….

…[I]n many of the jihad struggles, Washington was neutral, as in Kashmir, or even supportive, as in Bosnia. When Saudi money began financing jihadists headed to Chechnya, Washington responded with “a wink and a nod,” as one analyst put it. Continue reading “The Roots of Global Terror”