Posted on 27-4-2003

Nicky Hager in Napier

The Hawkes Bay branch of the Alliance brought Nicky Hager to speak at a public meeting in Napier on "The war, the Bush Administration, and the future of the NZ-US relationship" on Sunday, April 13^th. Hawkes Bay Today reporter Peter de Graaf attended that meeting, and wrote the following feature article, which was published in Hawke's Bay Today on Saturday, April 18^th 2003.

Now is the perfect time for New Zealand to rethink its relationship with the rest of the world - and especially with the US, says controversial researcher Nicky Hager.

About 80 people squeezed into Napier's Clive Square Hall last weekend to hear Hager put his views on the nature of modern warfare, New Zealand-US ties, the Iraqi conflict - and the odd reference to goats. In New Zealand, Hager is often dismissed as a conspiracy theorist, but his first book, Secret Power, caused a storm in European intelligence circles with its revelations of a spy network linking the US, Britain, Australia and New Zealand.

The EU is investigating claims that the Echelon network, which includes the Waihopai spy base near Blenheim, is used to intercept European communications and advantage US companies. His second book, Secrets and Lies, exposed a covert anti-environmental PR campaign, and a third, Seeds of Distrust, rocked last year's election campaign with allegations of a GE-corn coverup.

After studying physics and philosophy, Hager's first job 20 years ago was as a forest ecology
researcher for the then DSIR. Later he researched the military for public-interest groups, and from 1990 he has been a fulltime independent researcher. Hager told last weekend's meeting, organised by the Hawke's Bay branch of the Alliance, that there was a lot to be learnt from the war in Iraq.

Some of the lessons were depressing, but others were extremely positive.


Modern warfare in a one-superpower world was very different to World War 2 or the Iran-Iraq war, Hager told his audience. `

"There was a lot of talk about the Republican Guard and whether the US would get bogged down in a new Vietnam. It was completely unrealistic, and we need to understand how militarily powerful the US is today.''


The new, clinical type of war trialled in Afghanistan was fought almost entirely from the air, by intelligence officers at screens and satellite maps.

"The whole war consisted of bombs. Bombs made for humans, bombs for buildings, bombs for bunkers.''


The only soldiers needed on the ground were special forces, like New Zealand's SAS, who hid in the mountains and helped direct the bombing by marking targets with infra-red beams. Afghani forces were then moved forward to check whether anyone was still alive. The only problem with applying the same methods in Iraq was the lack of an "indigenous ally'' to occupy deserted ground, so American, British and Australian soldiers were used instead. It was not a war in the usual sense; more of an invasion that was all but unopposed.

"We're seeing a country that is so militarily powerful, it's like shooting mice in a bucket. The US military talks about `example value' - that people will see this and realise there is no point resisting,'' Hager said.

 

Hand-in-hand with precision weapons and minimising body bags on your own side, one of the principles of modern warfare was carefully managed public relations.

"So the way they do wars nowadays is do them fast, tightly control the media, have stunts like Saddam Hussein's statue, and then get out again. By the time the peace movement's had its first meeting the war's over.''


But this war had run into unprecedented opposition and scepticism about the arguments for invading. By comparison, it took almost a decade for opposition to build up against the Vietnam war.

Another positive development was the split between the US and Europe, Hager said.

"In the past people said you're either with the US, or with some nutty anti-democratic model where they lock their women up. The US-Europe split means having more models to choose from.''

And by not sending soldiers to the Gulf, New Zealand had made a break with history that should not be underestimated, he said.

"New Zealanders always go to American wars - even the Canadians didn't go to Vietnam. We should give Helen Clark and the Government credit for sticking up for the UN, and not believing the excuses that were given.''

The US had few land borders, was not threatened militarily, and had not been invaded - so why did it need a military bigger than most others put together?


The most rational explanation was that the US, with a small proportion of the world's population, used a large proportion of the world's resources, Hager said. He made a comparison with Rome 2000 years ago, when a small territory dominated the resources of the known world. To achieve that it needed a huge military and an extensive administration system, the equivalent of today's trading systems.

"You had resources siphoned back to one part of world, which became hugely wealthy, and at the same time the environment and fertility of the Middle East and North Africa was destroyed. A lot of it now is just stones and goats,'' he said.

A logical place to look for an understanding of the current conflict was the Bush administration's energy plan, which predicted strong growth in oil use while US reserves diminished.

"If we try to see the war in terms of weapons of mass destruction, or a clash of civilisations, we're completely missing the point.'' The war on Iraq had at least been educational for the world, Hager said. George Bush's policies were not hugely different to those of the Clinton administration, but they were more blatant and more easily seen for what they were. When older New Zealanders thought of the US, they remembered the country's role in World War 2; younger people thought of pop culture, liberal ideas and human rights.

But the widely admired country New Zealand forged close links with more than 50 years ago was disappearing, Hager said. "What we're seeing instead is a very repressive, intolerant society that's being built up.''


As a researcher, Hager said one of the things he loved about America was its freedom of information laws. But those laws were now being reversed, as was the country's equal opportunities legislation. Within the US there had been an immense shift in votes, funding and power, and "some really nasty developments'' in the way the US related to the rest of world.

"More and more, the country that holds out against international agreements on environmental and human rights issues is the US. In parts of its history, the constitution and democracy have prevailed - but recently the more narrow-minded, insular, racist political forces have won the upper hand. Liberalism has crashed in the US.''


A point will come, Hager said, when New Zealand is forced to cool its relationship with the US, and align itself with countries more in tune with its character, beliefs and interests.

"The question is: How bad does it have to get? How unsavoury and undesirable does our most favoured partner in world affairs have to become before New Zealand looks elsewhere?''

But first New Zealand had to face up to its relationship with the US, which was defended by the fiction that those ties had been weak since the demise of Anzus. Far from being marginalised, New Zealand was still closely integrated into American defence and intelligence, Hager said. The US-Europe split was an opportunity to change that.

"In the one-superpower world there was a fear that if you stuffed up your relationship with the superpower you had nowhere to go - this is the ideal time for New Zealand to start shifting its allegiances.'' Hager envisaged closer links to Europe in diplomacy and foreign relations, and a "proliferation of relationships'' in trade. He doubted exports would suffer from a cooling of US ties, saying it was a fallacy that trade and politics were inseparable.

"New Zealand went through the Cold War selling stuff to the Soviet Union, and we sell our produce to the Middle East - I think that's fear rather than reality. There are moments when countries can be rewarded, bribed or punished, as happened with this war, but mostly commerce goes on independent of governments.'' The surprise was not that New Zealand's traditional alliances were showing cracks, but that they had lasted so long.

"Our security relationships date from World War 2, they were remodelled for the Cold War and
sustained well beyond their real foundations. It's become a kind of Anglo-Saxon club as opposed to having a shared world view. Either we don't have our own foreign policy and we don't decide things in New Zealand, or we have to be able to take our own direction.

"You take your pick.''