To: Mao II who wrote (53049 ) 10/18/2002 8:29:46 PM From: Karen Lawrence Read Replies (3) | Respond to Under the guise of National Missile Defense, the Administration - or elements within it - even dreams of extending US military hegemony beyond the bounds of the Earth itself (an ambition clearly indicated in the official paper on Defense Planning Guidance for the 2004-09 Fiscal Years, issued this year by Rumsfeld's office). And while this web of ambition is megalomaniac, it is not simply fantasy. Given America's overwhelming superiority, it might well work for decades until a mixture of terrorism and the unbearable social, political and environmental costs of US economic domination put paid to the present order of the world. On Iraq and the war against terrorism, its approach seems to be to avoid at all costs seeming 'unpatriotic'. If they can avoid being hammered by the Republicans on the charge of 'weakness' and lack of patriotism, then they can still hope to win the 2004 elections on the basis of economic discontent. Calling people who disagree with them "unpatriotic, traitors and unAmerican" has been the domain of rightwingers who are threatened by facts and the vanishing oasis of their hopes of war. They've said it way too many times for anyone with common sense to buy it.The Cold War led to the creation of governmental, economic and intellectual structures in the US which require for their survival a belief in the existence of powerful national enemies - not just terrorists, but enemy states. As a result, in their analyses and propaganda they instinctively generate the necessary image of an enemy. Once again, however, it would be unwise to see this as a conscious process. For the Cold War also continued, fostered and legitimised a very old discourse of nationalist hatred in the US, ostensibly directed against the Communists and their allies but usually with a very strong colouring of ethnic chauvinism yep, and now anyone Muslim, Islamic, Arabic looking is a pariah in this country. And Bush et al are doing more to promote than dissipate this race hatred. What we see now is the tragedy of a great country, with noble impulses, successful institutions, magnificent historical achievements and immense energies, which has become a menace to itself and to mankind. I don't believe this because I feel that ultimately the spirit ofthis country and vision of its forebears will triumph over the greed and avarice of current politics.
