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.