PART III
[Video of specter gunship engaging the Taliban coming soon. Please check back later]
[For an example of what we are talking about here, please see the attached video which depicts an ACTUAL engagement by U.S. forces of an Afghan (Taliban) military unit ensconced in a mountainous fortress which otherwise would have been impervious to attack (and which today would remain pretty much immune to attack by the militaries of any other nation on earth). The attack is carried out by a Specter gunship (which only the U.S. possesses) circling thousands and thousands of feet above the battlefield. The Taliban is very evidently taken totally by surprise. Note carefully how the Specter is able to engage even the smallest of targets at night using infra-red - even to the point of engaging single individuals; note also the cold-blooded, matter-of-fact way in which each target is engaged and destroyed, and then ask yourself with all those "who worship the dragon" (Rev. 13:4): "Who is like unto the BEAST? who is able to make war with him?" (Rev. 13:4). So much for those who think they can hide in jungle sanctuaries or rely on the isolation of mountain or desert strongholds: it's no longer possible. (It should be noted that this video reached the "public domain" quite by accident; only a part of this video was supposed to be released to the public - that portion which depicted the ability of the Specter to so direct its fire as to miss hitting a mosque - a two minute portion of the nine minute video that was ultimately released. Instead , the entire blood-curdling video was released.)]
GULLIVER'S TRAVELS
Given the gap between the American military and the militaries of Europe, there is simply no way the Europeans could possibly hope to compete with the Americans in their ability to make war. Obviously, then, for the Europeans to be successful in the very chancy and dangerous "game" they were playing with the Americans, they had to "INVALIDATE" the use of military power in the "modern world" - at least the use of military power without the sanction of the U.N. Security Council. What the Europeans hoped to do here was PRECISELY what the Lilliputians did to Gulliver in Gulliver's Travels: tie down the American giant using U.N. Security Council sanctions (where the Europeans could annul the use by America of its own military using the French veto) as the chords to do so.
Of course, success in this "game" was dependent on U.S. willingness to allow itself to be tied down by these sanctions, or - put another way - to "play by the rules," and it is PRECISELY here that the Europeans underestimated on a massive scale the contempt by George Bush and his followers in the Political Right (e.g., "new-cons" like Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney, Michael Ladeen, Richard Perle, Elliot Abrams, etc.) and the Religious Right (e.g., people like D. James Kennedy, Charles Stanley, James Dobson, Franklin Graham, Tim LaHaye, etc.) for the "rules of the game" (and the "multilateral institutions like the U.N. and NATO who champion them) that the Europeans had based the success of their "game plan" on.
Take, for example, the attitude of John Bolton, a "card-carrying" member of this cabal, who summed up his opinion of the United Nations when he said:
"There is no such thing as the United Nations. There is an international community that can be led by the only real power left in the world, and that is the United States, when it suits our interests ..."
And one should understand something here - THIS CONTEMPT IS FOR REAL! For example, when the Bush administration ran into a series of conflicts with the European Union over the Kyoto protocol, the missile defense (ABM) treaty, and U.S. opposition to the International Criminal Court, the U.S. simply withdrew from the applicable agreements and protocols, and in effect told the Europeans to "go to hell."
UNDERESTIMATING U.S. CONTEMPT
FOR THE "RULES OF THE GAME"
THE EUROPEANS SHOULD HAVE TAKEN ALL THIS AS AN INDICATION THAT THE U.S. WAS NOT ABOUT TO LET ITSELF BE TIED DOWN BY THE "RULES OF THE GAME" - RULES THAT LIMITED ITS ABILITY TO WIELD ITS OWN MILITARY IN A MANNER THAT SUITED ITS OWN PURPOSES RATHER THAN THE PURPOSES OF WHAT IT CONSIDERED TO BE A CLIQUE OF EFFETE, MORALLY SPENT, PHYSICALLY WORN-OUT LILLIPUTIAN NATIONS IN WESTERN EUROPE. After all, the underlying scorn felt by Bush and his coterie of right-wing religious and political zealots for the opinions of Europe was plain enough to see. Take just one recent example: some brash comments made by Richard Perle, who, as an unpaid adviser to the administration, could afford to be indiscreet. Asked about whether the U.S. needed E.U. backing to overthrow Hussein, he replied:
"The same phenomenon that leads the Europeans to tolerate Saddam Hussein - that is they accept whoever is in power - will lead them to support the successor regime to Saddam. They will change quickly ... They'll do what is in their own interest. I mean, they're jamming the hotels in Baghdad now (i.e., before the U.S. invasion of Iraq) to sign contracts that will take effect when the sanctions are lifted. THEY'LL BE IN THE SAME HOTELS LOOKING FOR THE SAME CONTRACTS WITH THE NEXT REGIME (i.e., when the Americans take over)."
In other words, according to Perle, the European powers are nothing more than jackals to the American lion. When the U.S. is finished devouring what it wants insofar as Iraq is concerned, and walks away from "the kill," the Europeans will jump on what's left like the "bloodsuckers," "freeloaders" and "parasites" they really are.
SCORN TURNS INTO HOSTILITY
The loathing that Perle evinces here for the Europeans fairly drips with acid - and this loathing is only a hair's-breadth away from open hostility. And there is plenty of that among the "Bushites!" Take, for instance, the malice that Anatol Lieven, a British journalist well-connected to the Republican Right, observed at a recent dinner party in New York to which he had been invited, a party attended by many of Bush's right-wing religious and political ideologues; Lieven writes:
"I was invited to a glamorous restaurant in New York by a group of editors and writers from an influential American right-wing broadsheet. The food and wine were extremely expensive, the decor luxurious but discreet, the clientele beautifully dressed, and much of the conversation more than mildly INSANE. WITH REGARD TO THE GREATER PART OF THE WORLD OUTSIDE AMERICA, MY HOSTS' ATTITUDE WAS A COMBINATION OF LOATHING, CONTEMPT (AND) DISTRUST ... not only towards Arabs, Russians, Chinese ... and others, but TOWARDS EUROPEANS AS WELL ... THIS WENT WITH A STRONG DESIRE ... TO TAKE MILITARY ACTION AGAINST ... (ALL OF THEM)."
EUROPEAN IDIOCY
Again, the idiocy of the Europeans not to take all this to heart in constructing their "game plan" to reach parity with the United States by creating a "Euro Sphere" in the Middle East at the expense of the American dollar is appalling. To think that the Americans would go "willingly into that good night" is as ridiculous as it is naive. It's as ridiculous as thinking that someone who possessed a colt 45 wouldn't use it if he considered himself to be in danger of being robbed of all he possessed, and maybe even brutalized in the process.
THE BUSH WHITE HOUSE, AFTER ALL, ISN'T THE CLINTON WHITE HOUSE, AND THE POLITICAL CONSTITUENCY TO WHICH BUSH IS BEHOLDEN (i.e., the Christian evangelicals) ISN'T AS SQUEAMISH ABOUT WAR AS ARE THE LIBERAL YUPPIE ELITES TO WHICH THE CLINTON ADMINISTRATION WAS BEHOLDEN.
CHOOSING NOT TO "PLAY BY THE RULES"
And so the Americans chose NOT to "play by the rules," and instead to go to war with Iraq without securing the "permission" (so-called) of the U.N. Security Council. And they did so not just to secure the oil of the Middle East for themselves, but also to preclude the Europeans from establishing a "Euro Sphere" in the Middle East, thereby relegating the Europeans to permanent "FLUNKY STATUS" in the American New World Order System.
The War in Iraq serves to demonstrate in unmistakable terms to the Europeans the breathtaking military prowess of the United States while at the same time highlighting the humiliating military IMPOTENCE of Europe. Attached to this "demonstration" is a warning that, according to Alex Callinicos, reads:
"... if overwhelming U.S. force ... (can remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq), THEN WASHINGTON'S (OTHER RIVALS) ... HAD BETTER WATCH THEIR STEPS."
FEAR WILL KEEP THEM IN LINE
Yes! - Washington's other rivals (specifically, the Europeans) had better watch out! Indeed, Robert Parry compares what Bush has done to Iraq to what Death Star commander Tarkin did to the planet Alderaan in the movie Star Wars: use it as a demonstration of the awesome power of the Death Star. "FEAR WILL KEEP THE LOCAL SYSTEMS IN LINE, FEAR OF THIS BATTLE STATION," explained Tarkin. "NO STAR SYSTEM WILL DARE OPPOSE THE EMPIRE NOW."
Parry continues:
"Similarly, the slaughter of the ... Iraqi military is meant to send a message to other countries that might try to resist ... (the empire's) dictates. At a Central Command briefing, Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks took note of this awesome power on display as he described the decimation ... of Iraqi forces south of Baghdad: "They're in serious trouble ... THEY REMAIN IN CONTACT NOW WITH THE MOST POWERFUL FORCE ON EARTH."
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to get the message here. The reality is, the opinion of America today towards the rest of the world (including Europe) is the same attitude evinced by the Roman emperor Caligula when he said: "oderint dum metuant" which means, "LET THEM HATE SO LONG AS THEY FEAR."
And it's not just "left-wingers" like Callinicos and Parry who recognize the "handwriting on the wall," but mainline newspapers in Europe like the French paper Le Monde which - in surveying the results of America's victory in Iraq - laments that American military power is now "UNCHALLENGEABLE" by any other nation or combination of nations on earth.
FODDER FOR UNIVERSAL RESENTMENT
Le Monde goes on to say that this cannot help but result in "imbalance and FODDER FOR UNIVERSAL RESENTMENT." Yes! - that's true; BUT THE U.S. DOESN'T SEEM TO CARE much about that anymore. The sad fact of the matter - sad at least insofar as the Europeans are concerned - is that the United States is no longer inclined to put up with the feeble charade of European equality with America in the New World Order System that it has been constructing for itself over the past fifty years.
The U.S. was willing to put up with this sham so long as the old Soviet Union existed as a viable military competitor; but now that it is gone, it's easier for the U.S. to shrug off the myth of European equality in running the world than it is to suffer sharing power with countries who in reality have no power, at least any real power, i.e., the kind of power that flows out of the barrel of a gun - which is, after all, THE ONLY KIND OF POWER THAT COUNTS IN THIS WORLD.
Callinicos says this augurs ill for Europe (duh!) and especially for any European government that gets in America's way, specifically France, Germany and Belgium - governments that refuse to "toe the line" as obedient "toadies" and "boot-lickers" (fawners like Great Britain and "yes-men" like Tony Blair) in America's New World Order System. [Please see our articles, "The Third World as a Model for the New World Order" and "The New American Imperialism."]
A MORAL CRUSADE
This fight with Europe has been a long time coming - and it is being pursued with a RELIGIOUS FERVOR by Bush and his evangelical Christian followers who see in Europe's weakness and America's strength PROOF of God's blessing on the United States (and George Bush), and His concomitant displeasure with Europe and the rest of the world - a belief that grows stronger with every new battlefield victory America wins, and every new defeat America's enemies suffer. This is a dynamic analogous to what happened in Germany seventy years ago as Germany went from one victory to another (the Rhineland, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Denmark, Norway, Holland, Belgium and France), producing in the German people an unshakable belief in the invincibility of German arms, and a concomitant conviction that God was on their side (Gott mit uns). |
