Posted on 25-9-2002
Wanted:
Regime Change In USA
by Hazel Henderson* www.hazelhenderson.com
Popular US comedian Jon Stewart announced recently on his mock
news show's
headlines, that there were plans for a regime change in Florida.
After
another botched election, Florida had become an embarrassment
to the
nation. Bombing would begin with targeting the city of Pensacola.
On a
more serious note, politics and elections in democracies are
always about
regime change.
How far will the Bush II Administration go with its new preemptive
strike
policy, now officially spelled out in the latest White House
document? Few
have any doubts about the Bushies' go-it-alone unilateralism,
since the US
President's September 12th speech at the United Nations. It
is now clear
that Mr. Bush sees his role as "Globocop" and the USA as the
world's
self-appointed policeman. Wherever Mr. Bush sees the need for
regime
change in other countries or preemptive strikes to prevent terrorism,
the
US will act - with or without the UN.
Needless to say, such policies reverse a good part of US history
of
isolationism and reluctance to assume the role of world policeman.
Polls
over the past decade show the US public firmly opposed by 68%
to 70% (Roper
Center, University of Connecticut). Domestic opposition is currently
muted
by the Administration's media blitz of fear and war mongering.
The US
public is now facing a $200 billion deficit in 2002 and a bill
for the
proposed war on Iraq of another $200 billion. The economy is
a mess. Even
the Democrats - who are supposed to be campaigning for a US
regime change
in the upcoming mid-term elections - have rolled over under
the media
onslaught.
Democrats' issues are drowned out: the tanking US economy; the
corporate
crime wave and its undermining of US style capitalism; soaring
domestic and
trade deficits; Bush's budget-busting tax cuts for the rich;
unemployment
hovering near 6%; rising corporate and personal bankruptcies.
The
Republicans may win if they can keep the focus on terrorism
and the war.
Such familiar political strategies are age-old. But stakes are
higher than
in the past, when princes feuded over territory.
Today, we live in a globalized world. Transmission belts of
shocks include
$1.5 trillion daily currency trading; media-amplified market-movements;
globe-girdling technologies: jet travel, computer networks and
satellites.
Reckless talk and intemperate policies can rock oil and currency
markets,
affect elections in distant countries and destabilize even well
run
democratic regimes.
Bush "preventive," preemptive strike polices are already being
cited by
Russia's Vladimir Putin as his justification for sending troops
into
Georgia to clean up terrorists there. How long before India
uses the same
rationale for similar action against Pakistan - both nuclear
powers? Not
only is the US poised on these slippery slopes - but it could
take many
other countries with it. Meanwhile, the US public is confused,
40% say
they are not Republican or Democrat - but independent. The two-party
system is stalemated. Many call them "Republicrats" - two football
teams
owned by the same corporate owners. Former SEC chief, Arthur
Levitt
describes the corruption in his expose, Taking on Wall Street.
Deeper moral critiques of the oil-driven Bush polices struggle
for a
hearing in small journals. University of Maryland professor,
William
Galston cites the dire consequences of preemptive war - on Iraq
or any
other nation in The American Prospect. Richard Falk and David
Krieger of
the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation add that a preemptive strike
on Iraq is
not President Bush's decision to make. These reminders that
such a strike
preempts international law, flouts the UN charter and the US
Constitution,
appeared in Japan's Asahi Shimbun and in the International Herald
Tribune.
Meanwhile US mainstream media, including top news shows in 2001,
were found
to use biased sources: 90% interviewed or quoted were white,
85% were male
and where party affiliations were identified, 75% were Republican.
Sixty-two percent of all partisan sources were administration
officials.
President Bush alone accounted for 33% of this total. Third
party or
independent sources accounted for 1% (ww.fair.org).
The Christian Science Monitor, September 6, 2002, showed how
truth is the
first casualty of war. In 1991, George Bush I claimed that up
to 250,000
Iraqi troops and 1,500 tanks were massed on Iraq's border with
Saudi
Arabia. The St. Petersburg Times, Florida, countered Bush's
top-secret
Pentagon satellite images by showing 2 commercial Russian satellite
images
of the same area, which showed only empty desert. John MacArthur,
publisher of Harper's and author of "Second Front: Censorship
and
Propaganda in the Gulf War" says that considering the number
of officials
shared by the Bush I and Bush II administrations, the American
people
should bear in mind these lessons of Gulf War propaganda.
Dick Cheney, Colin Powell and many other top officials in both
Bush
administrations are today citing "top secret" evidence of Iraq's
buildup of
weapons of mass destruction. Meanwhile, former UN inspector
Scott Ritter
challenges Bush to produce the evidence, he says is non-existent.
Ritter
battles on talk shows against administration "hawks" who challenge
his
reputation, motives and integrity. Ritter responds that he is
now a
warrior for peace, who experienced the horrors of war in military
service -
and has "maxed out" his credit cards and received funds from
US peace
groups in his campaign to get UN inspectors back into Iraq.
Many US baby-boomers remember the infamous Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
President Johnson used to get Congressional support during the
Vietnam War.
In 2001, the Pentagon secretly created an "Office of Strategic
Influence" -
since closed down after a chorus of opposition. The Christian
Science
Monitor recalls that public relations firm Hill and Knowlton,
was hired by
Kuwait for $10 million to make the case for the Gulf War in
1991. Despite
the mounting media spin, oil politics and lack of evidence that
only a
return to Iraq of US inspectors can provide - Vice President
Cheney is
still saying, as he did with Gulf War disinformation: "Trust
us". Bush
II's arguments that terrorism must be prevented - by war when
necessary to
keep the US safe - will likely have the opposite effect, and
provoke more
terrorist attacks.
The race for peace now focuses on how fast the UN can get inspectors
back
into Iraq under the new unconditional terms - versus how fast
Globocop Bush
can stampede his war resolution through Congress. If Bush succeeds
before
the November 5th mid-term elections, the world may be headed
for open-ended
war for a long time to come.
* Hazel Henderson is author of Beyond Globalization, Building
a Win-Win
World and other books.
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