Why the Bush administration wants war
Statement of the WSWS Editorial Board
14 September 2001
In the midst of the hysterical war mongering of the US
government and a
state-controlled media that knows no shame, it is more
than ever necessary
to retain not only one's composure, but also one's ability
to think,
analyze, and reason. It is surely appropriate to mourn
the terrible loss of
life on September 11. But sympathy for the victims, their
families and
friends should not blind anyone to the fact that powerful
sections of the
US ruling elite view this tragedy as a welcome opportunity
to implement a
militaristic agenda that has been in the works for more
than a decade.
Modern wars require a pretext, a casus belli that can
be packaged to the
public as a sufficient justification for the resort to
arms. Every major
war in which the United States has been involved since
its emergence as an
imperialist world power-from the Spanish-American War
of 1898 to the
BalkanWar of 1999-has required a catalytic event that
inflamed public opinion.
But whatever the nature of such trigger events, they never
proved, in the
light of sober historical analysis, to be the real cause
of the wars that
followed. Rather, the actual decision to go to war-while
facilitated by the
change in public opinion produced by the casus belli-flowed
in each
instance from more essential considerations rooted in
the strategic political and economic interests of the
ruling elite.
"War," said von Clausewitz in his oft-quoted aphorism,
"is the continuation
of politics by other means." This means, in essence,
that war is a means by
which governments seek to secure political ends they
could not achieve
peacefully. There is no reason to believe that this profound
truth does not
apply to the events that are now unfolding in the aftermath
of Tuesday's
hijackings and bombings.
The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon
have been seized on
as an opportunity to implement a far-reaching political
agenda for which
the most right-wing elements in the ruling elite have
been clamoring for
years. Within a day of the attack, before any light had
been shed on the
source of the assault or the dimensions of the plot,
the government and the
media had launched a coordinated campaign to declare
that America was at war
& the American people had to accept all the consequences
of wartime existence.
The policies that are now being advanced-an open-ended
expansion of US
military action abroad and a crackdown on dissent at
home-have long been in
preparation. The US ruling elite has been hampered in
implementing such
policies by the lack of any significant support within
the American
population and resistance from its imperialist rivals
in Europe and Asia.
Now the Bush administration has decided to exploit the
public mood of shock
and revulsion over the events of September 11 to advance
the global
economic and strategic aims of American imperialism.
He has the full
support of a debased media and a Democratic Party that
is more than happy
to end any pretense of opposition to the Republican right.
On Thursday Bush all but admitted as much, declaring that
the atrocity
carried out two days before had provided "an opportunity
to wage war
against terrorism." He went on to say that the conduct
of this war would be
the focus of his entire administration. Such a declaration
of unabashed
militarism would have been unthinkable prior to September
11. But the
assault on the World Trade Center had, in the parlance
of imperialist real politik, created new facts.
Without having begun to seriously investigate, let alone
explain, the very
strange circumstances surrounding the terrorist attacks
on New York and
Washington, the Bush administration and the media have
declared that
all-out war is the only possible response to these events.
This is before
the government has even established the political identity
of the
terrorists, or answered troubling questions about how
such an elaborate
plot-apparently involving dozens of conspirators operating
within the
United States-could have gone completely undetected by
the FBI, CIA and
associated intelligence agencies.
Nor have the Federal Aviation Administration, the Air
Force or the FBI
explained the failure to issue an alert or attempt to
intercept the
hijacked airliners as they swerved off course and made
for the nerve
centers of the US financial and military establishment.
For all the claims of sorrow and sympathy, there could
not have been a more
timely or fortuitous event for the Bush administration
than the attack on
the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
When George W. Bush awoke on September 11,
he presided over an administration in deep crisis.
Having come to power on the basis of fraud
and the suppression of votes, his government was seen
by millions both in the US and around the world as illegitimate.
The very narrow social base of support his administration
had in the
beginning was rapidly eroding in the face of a deepening
economic slump in
the US and around the world. Unable to advance any solution
to the growth
of unemployment and catastrophic losses on the stock
market, facing
criticism over the evaporation of the budget surplus
and the reversal of
its pledge not to spend Social Security funds, the administration
was
showing signs of internal dissension and disarray.
*
The economic crisis compounded a host of foreign policy
dilemmas
confronting the Bush administration. Washington's policy
in Iraq was in a
shambles, with sanctions crumbling and the US facing
open opposition from
France, Germany, Russia and China to its plans for maintaining
sanctions
and intensifying its vendetta against Saddam Hussein.
On this and other
major issues the US was finding itself unable to get
resolutions through
the United Nations Security Council and other international
bodies. On a
whole host of issues-missile defense, global warming,
an international
criminal court-the US was in open conflict with most
of its nominal allies.
The growth of social protest and anti-capitalist sentiment
was expressed in
the wave of "anti-globalization" demonstrations, which
revealed the extreme
isolation of the governments of all the major powers
and rising popular
discontent over their right-wing policies, seen to be
embodied above all in
the Bush administration.
But in the aftermath of the September 11 terror attack
the Bush administration,
aided by a cynical and sophisticated media campaign,
has been working
to whip up a patriotic war fever that will enable it
to overcome,
at least temporarily, its immediate problems, while creating
the conditions
for profound and lasting changes on both the foreign
and domestic front.
The Washington Post spoke for the liberal establishment
in a September 14
editorial calling for the curtailment of democratic and
civil rights.
Entitled "New Rules," the editorial declared: "[I]f replying
to that attack
is truly to become an organizing principle of US policy,
as we believe it
should-if the United States is to undertake the difficult
and sustained
campaign against those who threaten it-then neither politics
nor diplomacy
can return to where they were.... This is most of all
true as Congress and
others discuss the possible need to sacrifice privacy,
freedom of movement
or other liberties to the needs of domestic security."
Tens of billions of dollars will be pumped into the economy
in the form of
military and security spending, and to rebuild the devastated
sections of
New York City. The viability of what remains of the social
safety
net-Medicare and Social Security-will not be allowed
to stand in the way of
pursuing the twilight struggle of good versus evil
proclaimed by the White House and Congress.
Every restriction on the exercise of US military might
and the
counterrevolutionary activities of the CIA will be lifted.
For years the
most reactionary sections of the ruling elite, in the
editorial pages of
the Wall Street Journal and the publications of right-wing
think tanks,
have been agitating for an end to the "Vietnam syndrome"
and calling for
the unbridled use of military force to secure the interests
of US imperialism.
Now they see the opportunity to realize their agenda.
Already leading spokesmen of both parties are demanding
the rescinding of
the presidential order banning the use of assassinations
as a tool of
foreign policy. The Democrats have agreed to vote for
a resolution giving
the White House virtually unlimited authority to go to
war against any
nation that it claims is aiding or encouraging terrorists.
There is little
doubt that one of the first targets for a massive bombing
campaign,
combined with a ground invasion, will be Iraq.
But other countries are certain to follow.
As one military officer said on Wednesday,
"The constraints have been lifted." Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld
said the contemplated military action will
"not be restricted to a single entity, state or non-state
entity."
Georgia Democrat Zell Miller was more blunt in expressing
the bloodlust
that prevails in government circles: "Bomb the hell out
of them.
If there's collateral damage, so be it."
Senator John McCain said the US should
"not rule out any force short of nuclear weapons."
New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, in a piece
entitled
"World War III," refused to make such a caveat, writing
that while
the September 11 attack "may have been the first major
battle of World War III,
it may be the last one that involves only conventional,
non-nuclear weapons."
The American people, at a moment of enormous grief and
anxiety, are being
told they must accept the prospect of having their sons
and daughters sent to
distant parts to kill and be killed, to fight an enemy
or enemies yet to be named, and at the same time acquiesce to the
gutting of their democratic rights.
What they are not being told is that the American corporate
and financial elite,
in the name of a holy war against terrorism, intends
to rain death
and destruction on countless thousands of people in order
to realize global
aims it has long harbored. Can there be any doubt that
this crusade for
"peace" and "stability" will become the occasion for
the US to tighten its
grip over the oil and natural gas resources of the Middle
East,
the Persian Gulf and the Caspian?
Behind the pious and patriotic declarations of politicians
and media commentators stand the long-cherished
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