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OpEd Submission, Bangor Daily News, 4/7/03, "American Shame"
During the Clinton Administration the government ran a surplus budget,
coordinated with other countries on perilous environmental problems, and
generally led a peaceful, prosperous society, even establishing fruitful
relations with North Korea. Today we witness tax cuts for the
ultra-rich while the economy crumbles, a massive fracturing of
cooperation with traditional allies, and the subjugation of social and
environmental issues to a hell-bent focus on pre-emptive war against a
target that does not present an imminent threat. By "hell-bent" I mean
that silo-rattling has taken its place alongside saber-rattling again.
Military strategists have placed nuclear weapons on the table, raising
the fear factor throughout the world, and setting a poor example to
other countries that pack megatonnage. North Korea, for example, is no
longer seeking to establish friendlier ties but threatening its own
mini-version of Armageddon.
In just two and a half years of Bush leadership, a tremendous reversal
of fortune has taken place. Even more sadly, future historians will not
vindicate us but rather vilify one of the most shameful moments in US
history. Yes, 9/11 was tragically destabilizing, but it doesn't help
that reactionary policies turned the resultant global sympathy into
widespread disapproval if not outright hatred. It doesn't help that we
claim to champion democracy while making a mockery out of the democratic
process, ignoring the majority of the United Nations and the global
community of citizens. Epitomizing our glaring contempt for pubic will
is the $15 billion bribe offered to Turkey so we could use its land as
an attack base against Iraq, a bribe rejected by the Turkish parliament.
If this hypocrisy isn't enough, add to the indictment a major dosage of
Orwellian deceit. In a scenario chillingly reminiscent of the Gulf of
Tonkin, CIA analysts have remarked they feel pressured to promote the
executive branch's version of events, even though some documents used to
link Saddam Hussein to Al Qaeda were forgeries. And while the mass
media trumpets Hussein as the world's number one villain, it is
conveniently overlooked that he was our ally in the 1980's, the
recipient of both nuclear and chemical weapon components. Sleeping with
the devil, the US looked the other way while the vicious tyrant gassed
his own citizens.
If you smell a profit motive, you're not alone. The New York Times
reports that government contract officers, without the blessings of
Congress, intend to give American corporations tens of billions of
tax-payer dollars to rebuild Iraq (3/23/03). Is this more manna from
Bush for the rich? If political connections are the touchstone, the
answer is yes. Halliburton, which Dick Cheney ran from 1995-2000, has
already been granted one contract. Others in the waiting line include
Bechtel, whose members include "several Republican cabinet alumni," and
Fluor, which has links to "several former top government intelligence
and Pentagon procurement officials." If this isn't enough
circumstantial evidence to taint our moral pretensions with the odor of
greed, consider this: Iraq has the second largest oil reserves in the
world, and plans to rebuild the country already dwarf efforts put into
asset-poor Afghanistan. In fact, the reconstruction of Iraq could be
the largest such project since the Marshall Plan. Cliché it may be,
but Bush and his father both have oil in their veins, and the
connections to prove it. If you think the oil in Iraq isn't a factor in
all this attention to Baghdad and our erstwhile ally Hussein, you should
at least be puzzled by the amazing coincidences.
Perhaps saddest of all in this debacle of hypocrisy, deceit and greed is
the re-emergence of the empire mentality. We all know what happens to
empires: they develop big muscles, arrogantly expand and then after an
orgy of power and feast, splinter into corruption and political
turmoil. Although it's fashionable in some circles to speak of the US
as an empire, neither the world nor the American people can afford it.
In an era of super-deadly weapons, we can't brook the fear, the hatred,
or the instability brought about when violence is used to make one
country's will supreme. Unless we suddenly find ourselves on the road
to Damascus, we may be on the road to depravity.
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