"HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION" IS THE LATEST BRAND NAME OF IMPERIALISM AS
IT BEGINS A RETURN TO RESPECTABILITY
by John Pilger
The New Statesman
June 28, 1999
In Newsweek last week Tony Blair described the "new moral crusade" that
is to follow NATO's attack on Yugoslavia. "We now have a chance to
build a new internationalism based on values and the rule of law," he
wrote. George Robertson was more blunt. The "Rubicon has been crossed,"
he said, paving the way for the end of the UN charter that protects the
sovereignty of nations. Robin Cook chimed in, making threats
towards "governments using aggression against their own people." This
warning did not apply to the government of Turkey, a NATO member,
whose aggression against its own people has left 3,000 Kurdish villages
ethnically cleansed, 30,000 people dead and three million refugees.
Atrocities committed by the authorities in Indonesia, Israel, Colombia
and other countries where western "interests" are in safe hands will
also be exempt.
Those who recognize the standard hypocrisy will easily translate the
euphemisms. In these days of political disorientation, translation is
all important; for imperialism is not part of the modern lexicon in the
wset. In the best Stalinist tradition, it no longer exists. What western
power does is always benevolent. Blair can spout his breathtaking
drivel about internationalism and morality while zealously enforcing
genocidal sanctions that kill 4,000 Iraqi infants every month, and the
connection is seldom made. NATO's aggressive expansion into eastern
Europe, the Balkans and the oil-rich Caucasus, attended by a $22 billion
Anglo-American arms bazaar, is unworthy of mainstream discussion. This
is understandable. Since fascism expounded its notions of racial
superiority, the imperial "civilizing mission" has had a bad name.
Since the end of the cold war, however, the economic and political
crises in the developing world, precipitated by debt and the disarray
of the liberation movements, have served as retrospective justification
for imperialism. Although the word remains unspeakable, the old
imperial project's return journey to respectability has begun.
New brand names have been market tested. "Humanitarian intervention" is
the latest to satisfy the criterion of doing what you like where you
like, as long as you are strong enough. The killing or maiming of
10,000 civilians in Serbia and Kosovo by a bombing-machine representing
two-thirds of the world's military power and the clear provocation of
the "entirely predictable" Serb atrocities - all of it avoidable, since
Slobodan Milosevic had agreed in effect to give up Kosovo six weeks
before the bombing began - is called a "moral victory." George Orwell
could not better it.
The ideological climate and disorientation among those on the liberal
left, created by the western powers' hijacking of "human rights," is
especially dangerous. The other day Mikhail Gorbachev sought to
interrupt the victory celebrations with a speech in which he warned that
NATO's assault on Yugoslavia had given impetus to a new global nuclear
arms race. He said: "Smaller countries - among them the 31 'threshold'
states capable of developing nuclear weapons - are looking to their own
security with growing trepidation. They are thinking they must have
absolute weapons to be able to defend themselves, or to retaliate if
they ae subjected to similar treatment.'
Under Blair's "internationalism" any country can be declared a "rogue
state" and attacked by the U.S. and Britain, with or without NATO. Read
the NATO and U.S. planning literature; it is all on the record. There
is a Pentagon strategy called "offensive counter-proliferation," which
means that, if the Americans cannot prevent a "rogue" country
developing and building types of weapons of which they disapprove, they
may well nuke them. North Korea is a likely candidate, allowing
Washington to settle a historical score. The Russians fully understand
the dangers.
The defense ministry in Moscow has already announced plans to deploy
new tactical nuclear weapons near Russia's western border. Russia's
National Security Council has quietly dropped its long-standing
doctrine of "no first use" of nuclear weapons. In the U.S., Clinton has
sent to Congress a nuclear weapons rebuilding program unmatched since
the early Reagan years. If we are to speak of truly "rogue" powers, the
U.S. leads the pack.
Blair's reference to the new "rule of law" is quite obscene. One of the
world's nuclear flashpoints is the Indian subcontinent, where India and
Pakistan, both nuclear powers, are on the edge of all-out war over
Kashmir. In the first year after coming to power, Blair and his
government approved 500 licenses for the export of weapons to the two
countries - they also approved 92 licenses for arms shipments to the
Indonesian military, which is currently arming and training death
squads to prevent East Timor achieving its independence.
New Labour's fake internationalism is part of "economic globalization,"
a project as old as gunboats. The gathering assault on the principle of
the sovereignty of nations, however, marks a new phase in the global
war against democracy. Blair, essentially an opportunist, and his
spinners trust that his cold-war-style belligerence will invoke the
Thatcher factor and ensure him a long reign. There are important
differences. In the midst of the 1982 Falklands war, Thatcher did well
in local elections. In striking contrast, Blair has just been crushed
in the Euro elections by a lame-duck Tory leader. More significant,
Labour voters stayed at home in record numbers, just as they did in the
Scottish and Welsh devolutionary polls. They are not apathetic, as
reported. They are on to him at last; and their growing awareness is
crucial as he aspires to lead us across the Rubicon.
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