Charles,
I have come to believe that there's a wide pro-status-quo conspiracy of sorts going on.... I mean, in the U.S., several highly conservative business leagues didn't like at all the so-called "Clinton doctrine" inasmuch as it challenged the current Triad Alliance between the U.S., Japan, and Western Europe. Actually, as I've been hinting at all along, the Atlantic link between the U.S. and Europe is the most vulnerable, and if any specific issue is to be singled out as the Euro-American partnership's Achilles' heel, it undoubtedly is Africa.
Such a troubling deterioration of the economic --and ultimately political-- relationship between America and Europe is not to soothe both US and European vested interests in transatlantic trade. That's why the Clinton administration's trumpetted claim to redirect US intelligence's focus toward economic espionage and corrupt business practices (allegedly carried out by foreign countries) has been so harshly criticized by the conservative lobby, including the Cato Institute, as revealed in the following paper:
Cato Policy Analysis No. 265 December 12, 1996
Policy Analysis
WHY SPY?
The Uses and Misuses of Intelligence
by Stanley Kober
Stanley Kober is a research fellow in foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute.
cato.org
Excerpt:
To improve the effectiveness of the intelligence agencies, two things will be necessary. First, the intelligence agencies should focus on genuine threats to national security, such as terrorism, and not on trade negotiations. Not only do such diversions represent a misuse of resources, the espionage spats between the United States and other democratic countries undermine their ability to deal with the dangers that confront them all.
Second, at the political level, the president and his advisers should view the intelligence agencies as institutions that are most valuable when they bring into question the premises of existing policy. That is, admittedly, a hard thing to do, but history demonstrates the consequences of refusing to believe intelligence that contradicts the views of the political leadership. Already, the intelligence agencies are flashing warning signals about some of the administration's (and, it must be said, the Republican opposition's) policies.
At the same time, the CIA has effectively disputed the administration's main rationales for economic espionage, arguing that "government-orchestrated theft of U.S. corporate S&T data," not bribery, is "the type of espionage that poses the greatest threat to U.S. economic competitiveness." And even then, "only about a half dozen governments . . . have extensively engaged" in it: those of France, Israel, China, Russia, Iran, and Cuba. None of those countries poses much of an economic threat to the United States.
The secrets of corporate America should be protected by the appropriate agencies of the U.S. government. But the intelligence agencies should focus on their main mission: safeguarding the security of the American people.
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Bluntly put, the above proposal for prioritizing US intelligence's missions would be, Why alienating our loaded European partners for the sake of a bunch of African wogs?
So, the conservatives' reactionary message goes like this: Hell! get off France/Israel's back as you find out that a couple of their industries are pinching a few secrets from American corporations.... Hey, wait a minute! those brave Israeli crooks and those uppity Frogs are no threat!! They're our faithful allies, our Western brothers!
And if you still don't get the message.... well, then somebody might have an accident (like that hard-nosed Ronnie).... Uh-oh! Some villainous Arab terrorist might even go on blowing up a couple of US embassies --in Africa, right where you wanted us to splurge!! If the message doesn't go through, then double-agent John Deutch might help pull it up from inside....
Hence the twisted account by the US right wing: they want us believe that there are plenty of dangerous, barbaric, anti-US, rogue states out there that want to tear down the geopolitical status quo --by all manner of (violent) means. But the truth is that the U.S., through progressive administrations such as Clinton's, is potentially the strongest challenger to the so-called status quo!
In the future, it will be more and more inescapable for US capitalism not to involve itself in Africa --to the detriment of Europe. And all the dirty tricks Europe and its unexpected Israeli ally will pull on the U.S. won't be enough to foil it.
Gus. |
