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Contributor: banquosghost
Date: 2003-02-26 23:17:44
http://www.newamericancentury.org/index.html explains what the name of the topic describes, an era of American global leadership, if not domination, from a distinctly right wing perspective.
We are seeing this new doctrine in action now as the US moves to further assure itself of sole superpower status.
Is autonomous national foreign policy becoming a relic of a bygone time?
Read and discuss.
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Contributor: jwitt
Date: 2003-02-27 16:24:11
It will take me a few days to give these documents some consideration, stay tuned..........
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Contributor: kn_aeshap
Date: 2003-02-27 18:30:40
I nearly wet myself when I read the almighty 'Statement of Principles'...what tripe, indeed.
Absolutely nothing was presented as proof to back up the claim that "American foreign and defense policy is adrift"...because it most likely isn't. Personally, I haven't noticed any drastic changes in American foreign policy for decades...not since before the second World War at least.
"The history of the 20th century should have taught us that it is important to shape circumstances before crises emerge..."
Why don't they just say: The goal of American foreign policy is to gain complete control of any and all doctrinal systems so that the winners and loosers of all situations are pre-decided...the winner always being America, and the looser always being someone else. That, it would seem, is the true goal of American foreign policy (and perhaps, to some extent, their domestic policy).
"The twentieth century has been characterized by three developments of great political importance: the growth of democracy; the growth of corporate power; and the growth of propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy." -Alex Carey, Parcel of Rogues
"Moreover, as America becomes an increasingly multi-cultural society it may find it more difficult to fashion a consensus on foreign policy issues; except in the circumstance of a truly massive and widely percieved, direct external threat." -Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and it's Geostrategic Imperatives
Wanting to be in complete control of any system that America is a part of is obviously to their advantage...so why would anybody claim that this is not what they are attempting to do?
"We seem to have forgotten the essential elements of the Reagan Administration's success..."
If anyone has truly 'forgotten' about the horrors of the Reagan Administration, there is probably a reason for it: because nobody wants to remember.
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Contributor: jwitt
Date: 2003-02-27 18:46:55
"If anyone has truly 'forgotten' about the horrors of the Reagan Administration, there is probably a reason for it: because nobody wants to remember." :)
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Contributor: banquosghost
Date: 2003-02-27 20:21:20
This was published in 1997 during the Clinton administration. If you examine the signatories at the bottom of the Principles page you'll notice the names of some *now* very high ranking US governmental types, VP Cheney, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, Dep. Sec of Defense Wolfowitz, Elliot Abrams who admitted lying to Congress vis a vis the Iran Contra affair is now in a top position in the National Security Council,Jeb Bush,Gov. of Florida and brother to current Pres. Bush. Google them yourselves if you want more.
This document's recommendations are now becoming official policy. The drive to ensure that there will be no competing superpower is a direct result of it. The drive into Iraq. The "whatever it takes" imperative to ensure alliances is a result. The "pre-emptive war" doctrine. Etcetera...
The ramifications of these quite radical changes in US policy are only just being understood in the world. For example, looking at the UN through the eyes of a new and more vigourous American hegemony one can see that the UN could quite easily be sensed as little more than a potential barrier to the implementation of US global policy . As the US proceeds with it's plans for Iraq and the Middle East and the UN continues to be spoken of by US officials as irrelevant to those plans, are we seeing a deliberate diminishment of the importance of the UN in service of "the New American Century"?
I find this document pretty odious myself (as do a great many American citizens I might add) but rather than using it as a jumping off point for rants about the US I'd prefer to use it as a jumping off point for examining our own natonal options in the realm of foreign policy and perhaps trade.
This is an emerging post Cold War new world order the like of which few imagined. Let's see if we can begin to imagine how Canada might deal creatively with it.
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Contributor: kn_aeshap
Date: 2003-02-28 13:33:39
I fail to see how this document is really anything new- since the end of World War 2 this has been normalcy for American foreign policy...Global control via complete military and corporate supremacy- control of the worlds doctrinal systems, natural resources and having the guns big enough to deter anyone who wants to step into the ring. It may not always work, but...
Anatol Lieven, of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace describes the actions of the Bush administration as "the classic-modern strategy of an endangered right-wing oligarchy, which is to divert mass discontent into nationalism, inspired by the fear of enemies about to destroy us." Hence, the the situation in Iraq...but this is not the first time that the world has seen such actions, and not the first time that the US Administration has adopted them.
"Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger." -Herman Goering (Hitler's second in command) at the Nuremberg Trials
As I've stated many times before and in my previous post, this is really nothing new. National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice has said of 9/11 and the efforts in Iraq: "I really think this period is analogous to 1945 to 1947 in that the events...started shifting the tectonic plates in international politics. And it's important to try to seize on that and position American interests and institutions before they harden again."
And yes I did notice that the familiar names at the bottom- but hopefully you noticed that this is not the first time that all of them have been involved at high levels in the US Administration; Dick Cheney and his work with the Iraqi oil fields; Donald Rumsfeld and his work as an envoy to Iraq in 1983, so on and so forth...
"This document's recommendations are now becoming official policy. The drive to ensure that there will be no competing superpower is a direct result of it. The drive into Iraq. The "whatever it takes" imperative to ensure alliances is a result."
Could you provide some proof of this please? The "recommendations" that this document brings forward are once again, nothing new, and have been (in one form or another) goals for some time- the drive into Iraq has been happening for the same reason all along...a way to have control in the Arab region as well as stability and control of oil supplies.
France was expelled from control after the second World War under the pretext that they were an 'enemy state', having once been occupied by Germany. From there, America took over, England as their junior partner...In 1945 the State Department called the second largest oil fields in the world (in Iraq) "a stupendous source of strategic power and one of the greatest material prizes in world history". Like I said before...
"The ramifications of these quite radical changes in US policy are only just being understood in the world...are we seeing a deliberate diminishment of the importance of the UN in service of "the New American Century"?"
Once again, I don't see how there have been any radical changes in US foreign policy, and I don't see how the world is just understanding them...could you please provide some proof for these claims?
Going outside of the UN is nothing new either- it has happened in the past and it was done perfectly well when George W. Bush started bombing Afghanistan, committing him, Tony Blair, Jean Chretien and others as war criminals under international law.
And you'll notice that the US Administration attempted to gain immunity from the International Criminal Court by removing their signature from the treaty...But does it really matter? To them and a lot of the world, it would seem not. When the UN and all other international bodies don't serve the interests of the US, they are pushed aside. For example, on December 13, 2001 the US Administration announced that they were pulling out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty...Vladimir Putin of Russia really did nothing about this- and why?
In an article for the Washington Post, Robert Kagan describes US foreign policy and thier unilateral actions: "It's the unilateralist iron fist inside the multilateralist velvet glove...Maybe it won't be quite the principled multilateralism Europeans and Kofi Annan prefer. In an age of American hegemony, it will be multilateralism, American style." I believe the proper slogan would read "DO WHAT WE SAY, NOT DO WHAT WE DO."
"but rather than using it as a jumping off point for rants about the US I'd prefer to use it as a jumping off point for examining our own natonal options in the realm of foreign policy and perhaps trade."
How then do you suppose we should consider our "national options", "foreign policy" and "trade"? Have we not already made choices in those matters...we seem to follow the US when they go somewhere- does that not make our decisions pre-decided? I seriously hope not...
"This is an emerging post Cold War new world order the like of which few imagined."
You're right when you say that...there were only a few people, considering the masses, that wanted world order to head in this direction. But I'm afraid US hegemony has been this flavour for some time now...
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Contributor: banquosghost
Date: 2003-03-10 20:07:30
This was translated from Der Spiegel and published in English here: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/03/07/1046826528748.html
This war came from a think tank
by Jochen Boelsche, spiegel
It was in no way a conspiracy. As far back as 1998, ultra right US think tanks had developed and published plans for an era of US world domination, sidelining the UN and attacking Iraq. These people were not taken seriously. But now they are calling the tune.
...
There are real models for this. They were already under development by far right Think Tanks in the 1990s, organisations in which cold-war warriors from the inner circle of the secret services, from evangelical churches, from weapons corporations and oil companies forged shocking plans for a new world order.
In the plans of these hawks a doctrine of "might is right" would operate, and the mightiest of course would be the last superpower, America.
...
For a long time these schemes were shrugged off as fantasy produced by intellectual mavericks - arch-conservative relics of the Reagan era, the coldest of cold-war warriors, hibernating in backwaters of academia and lobby groups.
There's more...
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Contributor: Fleabag
Date: 2003-02-27 21:26:32
Democracy has it's ups and downs. In Israel, a major focus of Ariel Sharon's new gov't is to attract and/or convert more Jews to Israel. The unsaid focal point is that if the Jews become outnumbered in their own country, democracy will be their downfall. An Arab majority could vote to dissolve Israel. For now, they have to play the democratic numbers game. Eventually, however, if the numbers favour the Goyim, immigration of the goyim will be restricted or cut off, and after that, they will be forced to abandon democracy. That would be a blow to their prestige in the US, to be sure, but a forgivable one.
To be in control is the name of the game since the fall of Adam and Eve. In corporate America, life is a big game of monopoly. It's just that you aren't allowed to win. Most peculiar.
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Contributor: kn_aeshap
Date: 2003-02-28 13:41:09
"To be in control is the name of the game since the fall of Adam and Eve. In corporate America, life is a big game of monopoly. It's just that you aren't allowed to win. Most peculiar."
Most peculiar indeed...perhaps we are just waiting for a time when the apple bites us back- maybe then things will start to change ;)
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Contributor: jwitt
Date: 2003-02-28 17:21:42
In fact, immigration of non-Jews to Israel already is severely restricted, to the point of being virtually cut off. The truly determined could skirt this by conversion, which is quite easy, and would then be entitled to automatic citizenship.
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