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Oil, Arrogance and War Davidson Loehr SERMON: Oil, Arrogance and War I want to try and make a kind of sense of our coming wars, to put them
into a pattern that might create more light than heat - though some heat,
too. I think the patterns and the plans are now clear enough to be quite
certain about. I read former Attorney General Ramsey Clark's powerful
letter to the Secretary General of the UN, in which he said that President
Bush came into office determined to attack Iraq and change its government.
Clark is saying, as others have said, that the Bush administration is
not making it up as they go along, but following a plan. In some ways, we've known about this plan since his father was president.
Then, it was called the "New World Order." The Sunday Herald
of Glasgow, Scotland recently published a story about an important sketch
of the military dimensions of this plan, where details are spelled out
and very little reading between the lines is needed. I read that 80-page
paper, published in September 2000, before President Bush took office,
and want to read you some excerpts.
"At present the U.S. faces no global rival. America's grand strategy should aim to preserve and extend this advantageous position as far into the future as possible." "[This] requires a globally preeminent military capability both today and in the future. (p. i)" "[The goal of all this is to maintain] a global security order that
is uniquely friendly to American principles and prosperity. (v),
an international security environment conducive to American interests
and ideals…. (2), [that protects] American interests and principles.
(3)" (Emphasis added) We need to translate the underlined terms, because they're not straightforward.
"American principles" does not mean we want democratically-elected
governments in these countries. We have routinely helped dictators who
cooperated with our economic ambitions gain power. These men include a
long list of tyrants, including the Shah of Iran, Mobutu in the Congo,
Pinochet in Chile, all of whom replaced democratically elected heads of
government. "American principles, interests and prosperity" means a regime in which we dictate some or all economic terms, usually under the threat or presence of military power. That is the New World Order in a nutshell. The Military Plan "In broad terms," the authors write, "we saw the project as building upon the defense strategy outlined by the Cheney Defense Department in the waning days of the Bush Administration. (ii)" "Among our military goals are to:
"these constabulary missions demand American political leadership
rather than that of the UN…. Nor can the U.S. assume a ... stance
of neutrality; the preponderance of American power is so great and its
global interests so wide that it cannot pretend to be indifferent to the
political outcome in the Balkans, the Persian Gulf or even when it deploys
forces in Africa. Finally, these missions demand forces basically configured
for combat…. American troops, in particular, must be regarded as
part of an overwhelmingly powerful force. (11)" "The U.S. has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in
Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides
the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force
presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein….
(14)" "American armed forces stationed abroad and on rotational deployments
around the world … are the cavalry on the new American frontier.
(15)" "[We must keep and] increase the presence of American forces in
Southeast Asia, [giving us] Control of key sea lines of communication,
ensuring access to rapidly growing economies, ... (19)" "The U.S. should consider the Air Force presence in the Gulf region
a de facto permanent presence, even as it seeks ways to lessen Saudi,
Kuwaiti and regional concerns about U.S. presence." "[Also], the Air Force needs roughly to double its forces stationed
in East Asia. (35)" In addition to land forces, the report talks at some length about the
need to command and control both space and cyberspace. The vast majority
of military information, here and abroad, is received from commercial
space satellites. We need to be able to deny access to these satellites
to all we consider enemies. Likewise, we need to protect our computer
systems from hacking, viruses, etc., while developing methods of invading
and infecting the computer systems of our enemies. This report is about plans for military forces sufficient to command and control the economic advantages the authors feel we should seize now that we are the lone superpower. Yet they talk about war almost as a video game, or an action movie, in which no one they love would ever die. This is the aspect that has made some critics call these people "chicken hawks." They - including Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney and many others on Bush's staff - dodged the draft when it was their turn, but have a passionate, almost rhapsodic, love for the idea of war. It's not worth our time to engage in name-calling, but as a veteran of the Vietnam War, I think I understand the point of referring to these men as chicken hawks, and think this is an important point. It means a detached, almost adolescent, view of war-as-video-game, a disconnection from the bloody effects and aftereffects of real wars. I found one extended passage in this position paper, talking about the future of war, that is exactly the "chicken hawk" tone I mean. It's written in almost breathless prose style, almost overcome with excitement, like an old WWII Movietone newsreel, or advertising hype for a new product:
Until the process of transformation is treated as an enduring military mission - worthy of a constant allocation of dollars and forces - it will remain stillborn. (60) The paper also notes, a little sadly, that ... the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event - like a new Pearl Harbor. (51, emphasis added) That's the gist of their military plan, with its sorrowful note that it will take a long time unless there were some catastrophic and catalyzing event. Let's look at the economic plan, to see whom it is designed to benefit, and who is left out. The Economic Plan Since about 1980, the American economy has shifted money, power and possibilities
from the lower sixty or eighty percent of our citizens to the top few
percent. Between 1981-1986, the income tax on America's wealthiest people
was reduced from 70% to 28% (Kevin Phillips, Wealth and Democracy,
p. 92). Twenty years earlier, it had been 91%. Taxes on corporations have
fallen as dramatically, some large corporations now pay almost nothing
in taxes. All this money has been taken instead from other parts of our
society. During the decade of the 1980s, the portion of our nation's wealth held
by the top 1% nearly doubled, from 22% to 39%, probably the most rapid
escalation in U.S. history. (Kevin Phillips, Wealth and Democracy,
p. 92) 42% of the stock market gains of the 1990s went to the top 1%.
(Kevin Phillips, p. 107) This isn't an economic plan to separate the upper and lower classes,
it is much more specific and restricted. It is a plan that will separate
the top 1% from all below them. This became more clear in the new "alternative
minimum tax." As experts study it, they have found that the law -
which was enacted to close the loopholes that let America's wealthiest
people escape anything like a fair share of tax - in fact protects
the wealthiest, the top 1%, leaving them at about a 5% tax rate. The higher
added taxes, up to 18%, apply to everyone making between about $75,000
and $500,000 a year. In other words, the people the New World Order is
to protect aren't just the "fairly rich," but only the millionaires,
as these new laws create a bigger gap between them and the more than 99%
of Americans below them. (This information came from an article, "Study
Says Middle Class to Lose Much of Bush Tax Cut's Benefit," by David
Cay Johnston. It was e-mailed to me, the apparent source was "America
Online.") During the past twenty years, we have heard some cynical, or comical,
talk about "trickle-down economics." But as many have noted
and tens of millions have experienced, almost nothing that trickles down
is fit to consume. Among the Western industrialized nations, we have the
highest percentage of poverty among those over 65, the highest level of
child poverty, the largest gap between richest and poorest, the lowest
percentage graduating from high school, and the highest youth homicide
rate. It has made many of our citizens angry, though their protests (like
the WTO protests) are barely covered by the media. Yet the economic disparities in the United States are nothing compared
with the conditions in Iraq, where our sanctions have cost the lives of
5,000 Iraqi citizens for every one of our citizens killed on 9-11 (from
Ramsey Clark letter to UN). It doesn't compare to other poor economies
being exploited by our corporations: the Asian workforce of young women
making our tennis shoes for about $500 a year, or the situation in areas
of China where the average wage is only 39¢ an hour, yet our Walmart
Corporation negotiated work contracts to make their goods at only 13¢
an hour. The last time the American economy was this badly out of balance was
in the post-WWI years up to the crash of 1929. And 81 years before 9-11,
in September of 1920, terrorists - American terrorists - exploded dynamite
outside the offices of financier J.P. Morgan, killing thirty-four and
wounding over two hundred. That too was an attack on symbols of economic
abuse, not a declaration of war on America. (Kevin Phillips, Wealth
and Democracy, p. xii) Today our economic domination is worldwide and our weapons are more destructive.
We are stationing our military forces in the Persian Gulf and all over
the world and installing puppet governments who will help us command and
control the economies and peoples of the world. That has angered many
people around the world. And that is why our World Trade Center and Pentagon buildings
were attacked on September 11, 2001. It was not an attack on "America"
any more than the bombing in 1920 was. It was an attack by angry and murderous
people against symbolic buildings in a country whose military they perceive
to be employed in the service of its economic ambitions, and whose economic
arrogance and greed are grinding billions of humans into the ground. Spinmasters have played bad word games here, by identifying "America"
as the victim of the 9-11 attacks. No: the victims were the roughly three
thousand innocent citizens who happened to work in highly symbolic buildings.
"America's" role was as the country whose long-term economic
and military arrogance brought the murderous actions of the terrorists
- crimes for which those responsible should be brought to international
justice. What the terrorists didn't understand, however, was that the attacks
of 9-11 became the "catastrophic and cataclysmic event" that
would let the Bush administration push through the aggressive military
takeover of world markets and world freedoms. But the Bush administration
saw the opportunity, and took advantage of it immediately and, it must
be admitted, brilliantly. 9-11 was the "Pearl Harbor" event
that would permit rapid transformation of our society and the military
expansion needed to establish the "New World Order." Still, Pearl Harbor wasn't really the right historical precedent for 9-11 and its aftermath. That precedent, as many have noted, was the Reichstag fire of 1933. Please understand that I will not compare our President with Hitler. I think the comparisons are inaccurate, off-base and vulgar. But I will compare, as others have, the tactics both administrations used to transform a terrorist attack into a means of taking authoritarian control of their citizens. The Reichstag Fire On January 30, 1933, Adolph Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany,
though his party did not have a majority in the Parlaiment. Four weeks
later, on February 27th, the government building the Reichstag was burned
in Berlin. Hitler immediately declared it was an attack on their country by the
Communists, and arrested 4,000 Communists that night. The next day, President Hindenburg and Hitler suspended virtually all
civil liberties in the name of national emergency. A supplemental decree created the SA (Storm Troops) and SS (Special Security)
Federal police agencies. Within the next few days, 40,000 of his political opponents were arrested,
marking the end of democracy and the rise of fascism in Germany. The rest,
as we know, is history. (All information taken from various sources
on the worldwide web under "Reichstag Fire.") It mustn't seem coincidental that individual rights were the first things
restricted by both the Nazis in 1933 and our government in September of
2001. The "New World Order" is a command and control empire,
in which those to be commanded must be disempowered. Nor may we believe
it's a coincidence that the Homeland Security Force resembles the SS,
in its sole allegiance to the leader, with no protection for whistle-blowers.
Our rights must be removed for the same reason that this New World Order
requires massive military might all over the world: because no free people
would allow themselves to be controlled in this way for the benefit of
so very few. Here's another way to define the New World Order: it is "a system
of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically
through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent
nationalism." Aldous Huxley might have called it the "Brave
New World Order." But that definition, "a system of government
that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through
the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent
nationalism," is given in the 1983 American Heritage Dictionary as
the definition of fascism. To many in America today, it feels chillingly
familiar. Iraqi Oil Articles are appearing in this and other countries showing a US lust
for control of Iraq's estimated 112 billion barrel oil reserves as key
motives for attacking Iraq. (The following information on Iraq's oil
is taken from the article "In Iraqi War Scenario, Oil is Key Issue:
U.S. Drillers Eye Huge Petroleum Pool," by Dan Morgan and David B.
Ottaway, which appeared in the Washington Post on September 15, 2002,
page A01.) The importance of Iraq's oil has made it potentially one of the administration's
biggest bargaining chips in negotiations to win backing from the U.N.
Security Council and Western allies for President Bush's call for tough
international action against Hussein. All five permanent members of the
Security Council -- the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China
-- have international oil companies with major stakes in a change of leadership
in Baghdad. "It's pretty straightforward," said former CIA director R.
James Woolsey, who has been one of the leading advocates of forcing Hussein
from power. "France and Russia have oil companies and interests in
Iraq. They should be told that if they are of assistance in moving Iraq
toward decent government, we'll do the best we can to ensure that the
new government and American companies work closely with them." But he added: "If they throw in their lot with Saddam, it will be
difficult to the point of impossible to persuade the new Iraqi government
to work with them." Since the Persian Gulf War in 1991, companies from more than a dozen
nations, including France, Russia, China, India, Italy, Vietnam and Algeria,
have either reached or sought to reach agreements in principle to develop
Iraqi oil fields, refurbish existing facilities or explore undeveloped
tracts. Most of the deals are on hold until the lifting of U.N. sanctions. But Iraqi opposition officials made clear in interviews last week that
they will not be bound by any of the deals, and said the Iraqi oil policies
will be determined by the new government after the U.S. invades and conquers
Iraq. In early October, U.S. and Russian officials are to hold an energy summit
in Houston, at which more than 100 Russian and American energy companies
are expected. Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.) said Bush is keenly aware of Russia's economic
interests in Iraq, stemming from a $7 billion to $8 billion debt that
Iraq ran up with Moscow before the Gulf War. Weldon, who has cultivated
close ties to Putin and Russian parliamentarians, said he believed the
Russian leader will support U.S. action in Iraq if he can get private
assurances from Bush that Russia "will be made whole" financially.
Since George Bush proclaimed his 'war on terrorism,' other countries
have claimed the right to strike first. India and Pakistan brought the
earth and their own people closer to nuclear conflict than at any time
since October 1962 as a direct consequence of claims by the U.S. of the
unrestricted right to pursue and kill terrorists, or attack nations protecting
them, based on a unilateral decision without consulting the United Nations,
a trial, or revealing any clear factual basis for claiming its targets
are terrorists and confined to them. (Information from Ramsey Clark
letter to the UN.) There is already a near epidemic of nations proclaiming the right to
attack other nations or intensify violations of human rights of their
own people on the basis of George Bush's assertions of power in the war
against terrorism. And during the past year, both 9-11 and the President's demand that he be allowed to declare war on anyone he chooses - these diversions are now serving as magician's tactics of misdirection, to direct attention away from several other important issues. They're being used
The Coming Wars Tens or hundreds of thousands of the world's innocent civilians will
be slaughtered for these dreams of economic and military control. And
thousands or tens of thousands of our own soldiers will be killed, disfigured
or scarred for life to serve, not freedom or democracy, but arrogance,
greed, and a fantasy of world domination that is simply insane. I hesitate to quote from Al Gore's speech, but found one part compelling
and precisely correct. His speechwriter wrote: "If what America represents
to the world is leadership in a commonwealth of equals, then our friends
are legion; if what we represent to the world is empire, then it is our
enemies who will be legion." If and when this doomsday scenario unfolds, thoughts and sermons like
this will be seen as un-American. But they are not un-American. They are among the most patriotic, intelligent
and sane responses we can make to these Dr. Strangelove plans for world
domination that are on the verge of plunging us into unimaginable terror,
a war debt of perhaps $200 billion or more that will drain our social
security reserves, exaggerate even further the gap between the richest
and the rest, and which seem likely, in the long run, to give America
the character of a once-great nation whose arrogance and maniacal bloodlust
may mark us for generations to come as a malevolent people, lacking both
healthy principles and principled courage. It was faith and patriotism of this high caliber that inspired the best of our nation's founders. And it will only be the courage to return to these higher and more commanding ideals that might still rescue us at this late hour. (Many data are not footnoted here. Much of the economic data comes from Kevin Phillips' book Wealth and Democracy. Other articles and general news releases provided the rest.)
Rev. Davidson Loehr Back to Responding to the Threat of War & Additional Resources | |
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