CHAPTER VIII
The American Empire
We are on the verge of global
transformation. All we need is the right major crisis and the
nations will accept the New World Order.
David Rockefeller
Statement to the United Nations
Business Council, 1994
War Without Borders
In the aftermath of September 11, 2001, the world is at an important
crossroads in its history. The “campaign against terrorism”
constitutes a “war of conquest” with devastating consequences for
the future of humanity.
America’s New War is not confined to Central Asia. Using the “war on
terrorism” as a pretext, the Bush administration had announced
already in 2001, the extension of US military operations into new
frontiers, including Iraq, Iran and North Korea. While accusing
these countries of developing “weapons of mass destruction”,
Washington has not excluded itself from using nuclear weapons as
part of the “war on terrorism”.
Moreover, Israel, which now possesses an arsenal of at least 200
thermonuclear weapons with a sophisticated delivery system, “has
made countless veiled nuclear threats against the Arab nations”.1
The ongoing war waged by Israel against the Palestinian people is
part and parcel of America’s New War strategy. The 2003 invasion of
Iraq could trigger a broader war throughout the Middle East in which
Israel would be aligned with the Anglo-American military axis.
In 2001, military planners at the Pentagon had drawn up a “blueprint
for a two-pronged invasion of Iraq involving up to 100,000 US
troops”.2 Gun boats were on standby in the Gulf of Oman. “Military
contingency plans [were] being refined for Somalia, Sudan, Iraq,
Indonesia and Yemen. … Special forces and US intelligence agencies
are active overtly and covertly in all of these countries with local
militias or militaries.”3 Meanwhile, Britain had been asked by the
US “to help prepare military strikes against Somalia in the next
phase of the global campaign against Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda”.4
The War on Afghanistan was Illegal
In launching the war on Afghanistan in October 2001, the Bush
administration—with the full support and military backing of
Britain, and with the prior consent of member governments of the
Western military alliance—is in blatant violation of international
law:
This war is illegal because it is a
flagrant violation of the express words of the Charter of the
United Nations. … In fact, it is not only illegal, it’s
criminal. It is what the Nuremberg Tribunal called “the supreme
crime”, the crime against peace.5
In turn, these same political leaders,
responsible for thousands of civilian deaths in Afghanistan, have
launched a process within their respective countries, which
recasts—in the framework of the “anti-terrorist legislation”—the
legal definition of “terrorism” and “war crimes”.
In other words, the actual protagonists of state terrorism— namely,
our elected politicians—can now arbitrarily decide, through their
“legally constituted” secret tribunals, “who are the war criminals”
and “who are the terrorists”. Ironically, the “elite war crimi-nals”—using
the powers of high office—decide who can be prosecuted. Moreover, by
derogating the Rule of Law and setting up kangaroo courts, their own
“hands are clean”—i.e., they will not be prosecuted on charges of
war crimes: they cannot be blamed since these military tribunals
will ultimately decide if an accused person should be executed.
The American Empire
The onslaught of the US-led war also coincides with a worldwide
depression, leading to the impoverishment of millions of people.
While the civilian economy plummets, extensive financial resources
are funneled towards America’s war machine. The most advanced
weapons systems are being developed by America’s military-industrial
complex with a view to achieving a position of global military and
economic dominance, not only in relation to China and Russia, but
also in relation to the European Union, which Washington considers
as an encroachment upon America’s global hegemony.
Behind America’s “war on terrorism” is the militarization of vast
regions of the world, leading to the consolidation of what is best
described as the “American Empire”. Since the 1999 war in
Yugoslavia, an Anglo-American military axis has developed, based on
a close coordination between Britain and the US in defense, foreign
policy and intelligence. Israel is the launch pad of the
Anglo-American axis in the Middle East. The objective behind this
war is to “re-colonize” not only China and the countries of the
former Soviet block, but also Iran, Iraq and the Indian peninsula.
War and globalization go hand in hand. The powers of the Wall Street
financial establishment, the Anglo-American oil giants and the US-U.K.
defense contractors are undeniably behind this process, which
consists in extending the frontiers of the global market system.
Ultimately, the purpose of “America’s New War” is to transform
sovereign nations into open territories (or “free trade areas”),
both through “military means”, as well as through the imposition of
deadly “free market” reforms.
Defined under Washington’s 1999 SRS, America’s war is intent upon
destroying an entire region, which, in the course of history, was
the cradle of ancient civilizations linking Western Europe to the
Far East. In turn, covert support to Islamic insurgencies (channeled
by the CIA through Pakistan’s ISI) in the former Soviet Union, the
Middle East, China and India has been used by Washington as an
instrument of conquest—ie. by deliberately destabilizing national
societies and fostering ethnic and social divisions.
More generally, war and “free market” reforms destroy civilization
by forcing national societies into abysmal poverty.
America’s NATO Partners
While significant divisions have emerged within the Western military
alliance, America’s NATO partners including Germany, France and
Italy, have nonetheless endorsed the 2001 US-U.K.-led military
operation into Afghanistan. Despite their differences, Europe and
America appear to be united in the planned “re-colonization” and
“partition” of a broad geographic area extending from Eastern Europe
and the Balkans to China’s Western frontier.
Within this broad region, “spheres of influence” have nonetheless
been agreed upon largely between Germany and America. This
“partition” must be understood in historical terms. It is, in some
regards, similar to the agreement reached between the European
powers at the Berlin Conference pertaining to the partition and
territorial conquest of Africa in the late 19th century. Similarly,
colonial policy in China’s treaty ports in the years leading up to
the First World War was carefully coordinated and agreed upon by the
same imperialist powers.
The Military-Intelligence Apparatus
While civilian state institutions increasingly assume the role of a
façade, elected politicians in most Western “democracies” (including
the US, Britain and Canada) increasingly play a nominal role in
decision-making. Under this evolving totalitarian system, the
institutions of civilian government are being superseded by the
military-intelligence-police apparatus (see Chapter XXI). In the US,
the CIA has come to play the role of a de facto “parallel
government” in charge of formulating and implementing US foreign
policy.
Moreover, the intelligence apparatus in the US has been integrated
into the workings of the financial system. Senior military and
intelligence officials in the US have become full-fledged “partners”
in a number of lucrative business undertakings.
As mentioned earlier, the CIA’s official budget is in excess of $30
billion a year. This colossal amount does not include the
multi-billion dollar revenues and proceeds of CIA covert operations.
Documented by Alfred McCoy, the CIA has, since the Vietnam war, used
the flow of dirty money from the drug trade to finance its covert
operations conducted in the context of Washington’s foreign policy
initiatives.6
In other words, the extensive accumulation of money wealth from the
proceeds of the drug trade has transformed the CIA into a powerful
financial entity. The latter operates through a web of corporate
shells, banks and financial institutions wielding tremendous power
and influence.
These CIA-sponsored “corporations” have, over time, been meshed into
the mainstay of the business and corporate establishment, not only
in weapons production and the oil business, but also in banking and
financial services, real estate, etc. In turn, billions of narco-dollars
are channeled—with the support of the CIA—into the spheres of
“legitimate” banking, where they are used to finance bona fide
investments in a variety of economic activities.
In other words, CIA covert activities play a crucial undercover role
in ensuring the appropriation of drug money by powerful financial
and banking interests. In this regard, Afghanistan is strategic
because it is the world’s largest producer of heroin. The Taliban
government was crushed on the orders of the Bush administration
because it had (under United Nations guidance) curbed opium
production by more than 90 per cent. (See Chapter XVI.)
The bombing of Afghanistan served to
restore the multi-billion dollar drug trade, which is protected by
the CIA. Immediately following the installation of the US puppet
government, under President Hamid Karzai, opium production soared,
regaining its historic levels. (See Chapter XVI.)
War: A Money Making Operation
The military-intelligence community has also developed its own
money-making operations in the areas of mercenaries services,
defense procurement, intelligence, etc. Key individuals in the Bush
administration, including Vice-President Dick Cheney through his
company, Haliburton, have links to these various business
undertakings.
Under the New World Order, the pursuit of profit hinges upon
political “manipulations”, the bribing of officials and the routine
exercise of covert intelligence operations on behalf of powerful
corporate interests. The US-sponsored paramilitary armies in
different parts of the world are trained and equipped by private
mercenary outfits on contract to the Pentagon.
Ultimately, the conduct of war, rather than being controlled by the
state, is subordinated to the pursuit of private economic interests.
While interfacing with Wall Street, intelligence agencies, including
the CIA, have also developed undercover ties with powerful criminal
syndicates involved in the drug trade. These syndicates, through the
process of money laundering, have also invested heavily in
legitimate business undertakings.
Under the New World Order, the demarcation between “organized
capital” and “organized crime” is blurred. In other words, the
restructuring of global trade and finance tends to favor the
concurrent “globalization” of the criminal economy, which is
intricately tied into the corporate establishment. In turn, the
state apparatus is criminalized. Amply documented, senior
policy-makers in the Bush administration in charge of foreign policy
have links to various drug cartels.7
Dollarization and the Big Picture
While securing corporate control over extensive oil reserves and
pipeline routes along the Eurasian corridor on behalf of the
Anglo-American oil giants, Washington’s ultimate objective is to
eventually destabilize and then colonize both China and Russia. This
means the takeover of their national financial systems and the
control over monetary policy, leading eventually to the imposition
of the US dollar as the national currency. This objective has, in
part, already been achieved in parts of the former Soviet Union
where the US dollar has become a de facto national currency.
While the US has established a permanent military presence on
China’s Western frontier, China’s banking system has also been
“opened up” to Western banks and financial institutions following
China’s accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in October
2001. The tendency in China is towards the demise of the state
banking system, which provides credit to thousands of industrial
enterprises and agricultural producers. Ironically, the system of
state credit has sustained China’s role as the West’s largest
“industrial colony”, producer of cheap labour-manufactured goods for
the European and American markets.
This deregulation of state credit has triggered a deadly wave of
bankruptcies, which in all likelihood will devastate China’s
economic landscape. In turn, the restructuring of China’s financial
institutions could lead, within a matter of years, to the
destabilization of its national currency, the Renminbi, through
speculative assaults, opening the door to a broader process of
economic and political “colonization” by Western capital.
In other words, the outright manipulation of currency markets by
“institutional speculators”, similar to that of the 1997 Asian
crisis, also constitutes a powerful instrument, which contributes to
the fracturing of national economies. In this regard, financial
warfare applies complex speculative instruments encompassing the
gamut of derivative trade, forward foreign exchange transactions,
currency options, hedge funds, index funds, etc.
Speculative instruments have been used
with the ultimate purpose of capturing financial wealth and
acquiring control over productive assets. In the words of Malaysia’s
former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad:
“This deliberate devaluation of the
currency of a country by currency traders purely for profit is a
serious denial of the rights of independent nations.”8
TEXT BOX 8.1
Financial Warfare: An Instrument of
Conquest
In Korea, Indonesia and Thailand the vaults of the central banks
were pillaged by institutional speculators, while the monetary
authorities sought, in vain, to prop up their ailing currencies. The
speculative assaults waged against these countries constitute a
“dress rehearsal” for the application of a similar process directed
against China’s national currency, the Renminbi.
In 1997, more than $100 billion of Asia’s hard currency reserves
were confiscated and transferred (in a matter of months) into
private financial hands. In the wake of the currency devaluations,
real earnings and employment plummeted virtually overnight, leading
to mass poverty in countries which had, in the post-war period,
registered significant economic and social progress.
The financial scam in the foreign exchange market had destabilized
national economies, thereby creating the preconditions for the
subsequent plunder of the Asian countries’ productive assets by
“vulture foreign investors”.
The Demise of Central Banking
This worldwide crisis marks the demise of central banking, meaning
the derogation of national economic sovereignty and the inability of
the national state to control money creation on behalf of society.
In other words, privately held money reserves in the hands of
“institutional speculators” far exceed the limited capabilities of
the world’s central banks. The latter, acting individually or
collectively, are no longer able to fight the tide of speculative
activity.
Monetary policy is in the hands of private creditors who have the
ability to freeze state budgets, paralyze the payments process,
thwart the regular disbursement of wages to millions of workers (as
in the former Soviet Union) and precipitate the collapse of
production and social programs. As the crisis deepens, speculative
raids on central banks are extending into China, Latin America and
the Middle East with devastating economic and social consequences.9
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Together with the liberalization of trade and the deregulation of
agriculture and industry (in accordance with WTO rules), China is
heading towards massive unemployment and social unrest. In turn, the
US-sponsored covert operations in Tibet and the Xinjiang-Uigur
Autonomous Region, in support of secessionist movements, contribute
to fostering political instability, which in turn tends to support
the “dollarization” process.
More generally, the deregulation of national banking institutions
has created havoc worldwide. Washington’s foreign policy agenda
consists in eventually encroaching upon the Euro and imposing the US
dollar as a “global currency” (in overt confrontation with the
powerful banking interests behind the European currency
system).“Militarization” of vast regions of the world (e.g., where
the dollar and the Euro are competing) tends to support the
“dollarization” process.
In other words, “dollarization” and
“free trade”—supported by US militarization—constitute two essential
pillars of the American Empire.
Militarization and Dollarization of the
Western Hemisphere
In the Western hemisphere, Wall Street has already extended its
control by displacing or taking over existing national financial
institutions. With the help of the IMF, Washington is also bullying
Latin American countries into accepting the US dollar as their
national currency. The greenback has already been imposed on five
Latin American countries including Ecuador, Argentina, Panama, El
Salvador and Guatemala.
The economic and social consequences of “dollarization” have been
devastating. In these countries, Wall Street and the US Federal
Reserve system directly control monetary policy. The entire
structure of public expenditure is controlled by US creditors.
“Militarization” and “dollarization” are the essential building
blocks of the American Empire. In this regard, “Plan Colombia”,
financed by US military aid, constitutes the basis for militarizing
the Andean region of South America in support of “free trade” and “dollarization”.
Meanwhile, the same Anglo-American oil companies (Chevron-Texaco,
BP, Exxon-Mobil), which are vying for control over the oil wealth of
the former Soviet Union, are also present in the Andean region of
South America. Under the disguise of the “war on drugs” or the “war
on terrorism”, US foreign policy has led to the militarization of
both of these regions. The hidden agenda is to protect both the oil
pipelines and the powerful financial interests behind the
multibillion dollar drug trade. In Colombia, many of the
paramilitary groups “responsible for hundreds of murders and
thousands of disappearances” are financed by US military assistance
under Plan Colombia.10
In turn, Plan Colombia is implemented in close liaison with the
imposition of IMF “guidelines”. In Colombia, for example, the IMF’s
economic medicine has led to the destruction of domestic industry
and agriculture. More generally, the militarization of the continent
is an integral part of the “Free Trade” Agenda. The Free Trade Area
of the Americas (FTAA) initiative is being negotiated alongside a
“parallel” military cooperation protocol signed by 27 countries of
the Americas (the Declaration of Manaus), which virtually puts the
entire hemisphere under the military control of the US.
Already in Latin America, the economic and social consequences of
“dollarization” have been devastating. The current economic and
social crisis in Argentina is the direct result of “dollarization”
imposed by Wall Street and the US Federal Reserve system, which
directly control monetary policy. The entire structure of
Argentinean public expenditure is controlled by US creditors.
Real wages have collapsed, social programs have been destroyed and
large sectors of the population have been driven into abysmal
poverty. The Argentinean pattern, engineered by Wall Street, will
undoubtedly be replicated elsewhere as the “invisible fist” of the
American Empire extends its reach to other regions of the world.
Notes
1. John Steinbach, “Israeli Weapons
of Mass Destruction: A Threat to Peace”, DC Iraq Coalition,
March 2002, Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG),
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/STE203A.html, 3 March
2002.
2. Iain Bruce, “Pentagon Draws up Plans for Invasion of Iraq”,
The Herald (Scotland) January 31, 2002.
3. Florida Times-Union, Jacksonville, 17 February 2002.
4. Deirdre Griswold, “Will Somalia be next? US targets another
Poor Country”, Workers World , December 2001, Centre for
Research on Globalization (CRG),
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/GRI112A.html, 13 December
2001.
5. Michael Mandel,“This War is Illegal and Immoral: It will not
Prevent Terrorism”, Science Peace Forum & Teach-In, December 9,
2001, Centre for Research on Globalization,
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/MAN112A.html, Dec. 2001.
6. Alfred McCoy, op. cit.
7. For further details see Michel Chossudovsky, “Globalization
and the Criminalization of Economic Activity”, Covert Action
Quarterly, No. 58, Fall 1996; Michel Chossudovsky, “Financial
Scams and the Bush Family”, Centre for Research on Globalization
(CRG),
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO202C.html, 18
February 2002.
8. Quoted in Michel Chossudovsky, “Financial Warfare”, Third
World Network, Penang,
http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/trig-cn.htm. 1999.
9. Michel Chossudovsky, “Financial Warfare”, op. cit.
10. See Kim Alphandary,“Colombia War: ‘Highest Priority’”,
Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG),
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/ALP204A.html, 5 April
2002.
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