It does appear to have dawned on Wilkerson that the U.S. hegomony isn’t viewed as quite such an execise in utilitarian benevolance by the rest of the world, but I’m not sure he understands exactly why this is. I think he puts far too much blame on the cabal’s shenanigans — although these admittedly have made things worse — and not enough on the fact that empires, even the practical, no nonsense type favored by the realists, are anachronisms in the modern world.
Back to Main
October 21, 2005
WB: Imperial Candor
Comments
Is it just me are is there a bit of a difference in these transcripts? The Financial Times transcript.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 21 2005 8:15 utc | 1
Those in Bush’s Fuehrer bunker and all thier hangers-on fail to percieve it but all the evidence is there to see … forget about rhetoric re ‘Axis of Evil’ and failed or rogue states … America is fast becoming (has become ?) a pariah state on the ‘street’ of world opinion, and the Murdoch’s corporate media and pals are’nt making much of a dent … Bush, the ‘Action Man’, the ‘War President’, has clarified over the last five years that ultimately: Action talks, Rhetoric walks.
And our governments actions are proving to make the rest of the world rather uncomfortable … part of a wider trend ?
U.S. out in cold in UNESCO diversity pact
PARIS — UNESCO’s member nations voted overwhelmingly Thursday to approve a pact on protecting cultural diversity after a bitter debate left the United States isolated in opposition to what it sees as a threat to sales of American movies and music.
— snip —
Calling the text “deeply flawed,” the U.S. delegation proposed 28 amendments to the draft, but all were rejected. Delegates voted 148-2 to approve the pact. The United States and Israel opposed it and four nations abstained.
or
Hollywood the loser as global culture plan backed
Not for the first time, the United States has found itself in almost total isolation in an international body, as the rest of the world adopts a convention which supporters say could help stop the “steamroller” of Hollywood globalisation…
Posted by: Outraged | Oct 21 2005 8:27 utc | 2
@ Uncle
Billmon’s link is more complete: what specifically did you note as differences?
At the risk of seeming monomaniacal I note that there
was no elephant in room whatsoever, the usual strange
absence, especially given the topics touched upon in detail.
It was indeed an interesting read.
Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Oct 21 2005 8:32 utc | 3
Kucinich introduces Resolution of Inquiry,demands documents from WHIG-Questions Iraq Reconstruction
Kucinich Uses Resolution Of Inquiry To Demand Documents From White House Group That Developed Strategy To “Sell” War To The Public And Press
Washington, Oct 20 – Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich (D-OH) today introduced a Resolution of Inquiry to demand the White House turn over all white papers, minutes, notes, emails or other communications kept by the White House Iraq Group (WHIG).
“This group, comprised of the President and Vice President’s top aides, was critical in selling the Administration’s case for war,” stated Kucinich. “We now know that the Administration hyped intelligence and misled the American public and Congress in their effort to ‘sell’ the war. After over 1,900 American troops have been killed in Iraq, it is long past time for this Congress to ask serious questions about WHIG and its role in the lead up to the war.”
A Resolution of Inquiry is a rare House procedure used to obtain documents from the Executive Branch. Under House rules, Kucinich’s resolution is referred to committee, and action must be taken in committee within 14 legislative days…
and
Kucinich Questions DOD Officials About Iraq Reconstruction At Hearing On Capitol Hill
Posted by: Outraged | Oct 21 2005 8:38 utc | 4
Wilkerson: We had a discussion in policy planning about actually mounting an operation to take the oilfields in the Middle East, internationalize them, put them under some sort of U.N. trusteeship and administer the revenues and the oil accordingly.
This idea has been floating around for a long time, although it is usually expressed in terms of UN control or ‘world government’ oversight (run by the ‘West’, or ‘all countries’, not just the US, of course.)
I have heard it expressed often and suspect that many on the left are for it, as it represents, in their eyes, the only possibility of rendering ressource use transparent, fair and ‘rational’. They are generally the same people who push for extending the reach of the International Tribunal, who approve of humanitarian interventions, who want to force some Gvmts. to actually pay their UN dues, etc. Their political coloring is often pale green tinged with pink.
The US, naturally enough, wants something similar, with the UN as a bright green figleaf.
The oil-for-food program in Iraq was a first step in this direction. Iraq lost the possibility of trading as it wished; however, the oil fields were still managed by the Iraqis, and that proved unacceptable to USuk.
Posted by: Noisette | Oct 21 2005 10:47 utc | 5
“we ought to merge the State and Defense Departments, that what we ought to have is an undersecretary for East Asia, an undersecretary for Europe and so forth, like we have assistant secretaries now – regional undersecretaries – and they ought to co-locate with the CINCs, the combatant commanders as we say today, the military proconsuls who are stationed around the world in Honolulu and other places, and make the undersecretary the boss and make the combatant commander his deputy, merge the State and Defense Departments.”
This guy is obviously smart and as close to being one of the good guys in Washington as its possible to get and yet he thinks this crazy idea has merit? Why would anyone think merging State and DoD is a good idea? Can’t he understand how other countries would percieve their local US diplomat also being the guy directly in charge of 30,000 troops? People in Washington seem to be working from a bunch of assumptions about how the world works and a set values that are so alien to the rest of us that its hard for for everyone else to understand them at all. And when I say everyone, I mean every person on Earth outside the beltway. What is so wrong with Washington that it makes even North Korea seem rational?
To illustrate the craziness consider this quote:
“To this day I still don’t know why we went to war in Iraq.”
This was said by someone working in the heart of Washington. What chance do the rest of us have of making any sense of all of this.
Posted by: still working it out | Oct 21 2005 12:21 utc | 6
“what we ought to have is an undersecretary for East Asia, an undersecretary for Europe and so forth, like we have assistant secretaries now – regional undersecretaries – and they ought to co-locate with the CINCs, the combatant commanders as we say today, the military proconsuls who are stationed around the world”
At least the Romans acknowledged they had an empire and military governors for the provinces… And the conquered provinces knew they were conquered.
I think some people will have a serious shock when they realise most of the world does NOT agree that they’re conquered provinces.
Posted by: CluelessJoe | Oct 21 2005 12:41 utc | 7
The other thing that he said that caught my attention was his thinking on the WMD threat prior to the war. There are five paragrahps in the middle where he says everyone really thought Saddam had WMD’s. Maybe he is lying, and he has reason to do so, but if he is telling the truth then the entire Intelligence community really believed Iraq had WMD’s with the exception of nuclear weapons. This is a piece of the puzzle that does not seem to fit the conventional wisdom that the WMD intelligence was hugely exagerated. Was the entire intelligence community really convinced he had them? And if so how could they be so wrong? Was it a huge case of groupthink?
I know that the Bushies did not put a lot of time and effort into securing WMD’s after the war which is taken as proof that the Bushies did not think the WMD threat was real, but maybe the conventional wisdom is wrong on this. What if
1) the Bushies believed they would find WMD so easily they would not need to make any special effort to locate and secure the WMD’s
2) the Bushies assumed that when the Saddam went whoever replaced him would still be in control of the weapons and happily hand them over to the US when they quickly and quietly surrendered. Its how they believed they would fix everything else.
After all, the Bushies really did expect this to be a cakewalk and they did not plan for ANYTHING after the fall of Saddam. So failing to secure a few missing WMD’s could in fact really just be par for the course from an administration that is so bad it did not notice an entire American city being wiped off the map.
Posted by: still working it out | Oct 21 2005 12:45 utc | 8
Billmon — Take a look at Wilkerson’s remarks at the Security and Terrorism conference also hosted by Steve Clemons – a couple of weeks ago. Its clear that the planning for a post-nuclear attack on the US is all out martial law lasting decades. I know that’s been rumored, but to have him say it is significant.
Posted by: Anne | Oct 21 2005 12:45 utc | 9
“Why would anyone think merging State and DoD is a good idea?”
It think it’s a reflection of the passion for “jointness” that’s been a fetish among the military intellectuals since the end of the Vietnam War. Wilkerson wants to extend it to the civilian side of the foreign policy establishment — to create a true MiniPax. But the motivation is reactionary, not totalitarian. He’s looking for a bureaucratic fix to reverse the imperial rot that’s set into the federal government and the military industrial complex, which the cabal amd its cronies have only exacerbated.
The reality, of course, is that merging the State Department with the Defense Department would simply formalize the existing process by which the Pentagon has become the only power that matters — the REAL executive branch of the federal government. The Foreign Service would simply cease to exist as an independent entity, and U.S. diplomacy (such as it is) would become purely an extension of military strategy.
For all Wilkerson’s yammering about the cabal, he’s talking about creating a system in which future cabals (presidentially authorized or not) can thrive.
Posted by: Billmon | Oct 21 2005 13:03 utc | 10
Colin Powell is the very definition of a tragic figure. His sense of duty was unshaken by the chimera of loyalty. I suspect he’s going to make an excellent character study for any future Shakespeare.
Posted by: sarge | Oct 21 2005 13:39 utc | 11
I guess from a bureaucratic point of view the efficiency is obvious and that is as far as he wanted to think about it. And increasingly, non-Americans are realising that the real US Consul in a lot of countries already is the head of the local US military base. So its not as if the current set up is fooling everyone. But its just hard to understand what it is about these guys that stops them putting their head above the trees at least once in while and thinking to themselves “this really is crazy.” And its not as though he is not aware of the problems. He does a long thoughtful speech hitting on most of them but then refuses to think about their real ultimate cause.
Maybe it really is just a widely shared conviction in the Goodness of America that causes this kind of thinking. The seriousness with which Americans talk about the Founding Father’s and all that is a bit strange to an outsider, especially when you see how flawed American democracy is today. But ultimately that may be the source of what I now believe is America’s curse: An unshakable faith in American Exceptionalism.
Posted by: still working it out | Oct 21 2005 13:56 utc | 12
still working it out
I too find his comments on the UN presentation and the intelligence on WMD behind it strange. “everybody thought he had them”, then “everybody was an idiot”. Certainly Hans Blix and Scott Ritter (to name two informed people) did not think he had them in any meaningful sense. I think he is covering up the ineptitude of himself and his boss to try to protect reputations. It is impossible to square this with his statement that he does not know why the invasion was undertaken.
The UN presentation was the low point of American diplomacy. Sort of the antithesis of Adlai Stevenson.
Posted by: ed_finnerty | Oct 21 2005 14:11 utc | 13
“America’s curse: An unshakable faith in American Exceptionalism”
Yeah, well, such blind arrogance and pseudo-religious self-righteousness is right up there with throwaway lines like ‘It’s not easy being the worlds sole remaining superpower’ or more to the point, ‘Zee new Master Race’ …
Posted by: Outraged | Oct 21 2005 14:13 utc | 14
Orwell referred to the service middle class as “blimps”.
George Orwell: Rudyard Kipling
Kipling spent the later part of his life in sulking, and no doubt it was political disappointment rather than literary vanity that account for this. Somehow history had not gone according to plan. After the greatest victory she had ever known, Britain was a lesser world power than before, and Kipling was quite acute enough to see this. The virtue had gone out of the classes he idealized, the young were hedonistic or disaffected, the desire to paint the map red had evaporated. He could not understand what was happening, because he had never had any grasp of the economic forces underlying imperial expansion. It is notable that Kipling does not seem to realize, any more than the average soldier or colonial administrator, that an empire is primarily a money-making concern. Imperialism as he sees it is a sort of forcible evangelizing. You turn a Gatling gun on a mob of unarmed ‘natives’, and then you establish ‘the Law’, which includes roads, railways and a court-house. He could not foresee, therefore, that the same motives which brought the Empire into existence would end by destroying it.”
Posted by: ~ | Oct 21 2005 14:45 utc | 15
The easiest explaination is that he is lying to cover his own ineptitude. It just seems odd that in a speech where he happily lays into the Bush administration on just about everything that he would not also expose the WMD scam. Probably he is covering his ass, but it doesn’t feel like that is the case.
I am reminded of a story (I’m pulling this from memory and I am not even sure its true) that the closest that we ever came to nuclear war was in 1981 when the Soviet Senior command convinced themselves the US was about to attack. Nothing of the sort was going to happen, but somehow the Soviets worked themselves up into a frenzy by simply referring to each others fears and suspicions. It was an amazing case of groupthink.
I wonder if something similar may have happened in the lead up to the Iraq war in the American Intelligence Community.
And if the American Intelligence Community really did go through a case of groupthink so bad they convinced themselves Saddam had nukes its a scary thought. The greatest military power in the world with a paranoid intelligence arm that convinces itself of things that are not true. Nixon’s madman act, without the faking. That’s a really scary thought.
Posted by: still working it out | Oct 21 2005 14:48 utc | 16
SWIT
I think groupthink was part of it.
I think there was an element of Kool Kidz belongingness and careerism
I think there was a reflexive anger of embarrassment over 911.
Some of it was just the natural human tendency to see things where they do not exist. A kind of self-delusion. “I wouldn’t have seen it if I hadn’t believed it” mentality
Posted by: ed_finnerty | Oct 21 2005 15:04 utc | 17
And don’t forget stupidity and lack of military sense.
Perhaps the stupidest quote on strategy ever, “The road to Jerusalem runs through Bagdad”
huh ?
Posted by: ed_finnerty | Oct 21 2005 15:07 utc | 18
Yeah. When you put it that way it sounds like a better explaination than what I have come up with.
Posted by: still working it out | Oct 21 2005 15:08 utc | 19
To say that combining intelligence agencies was a bad idea then to say combining defense and state a good idea ….
Posted by: ken melvin | Oct 21 2005 15:53 utc | 20
@sarge –
Colin Powell got his start up the political ladder by helping to cover up the My Lai massacre. He has always been a bagman for militaristic reactionaries. If you’d like to establish him as a classic tragic figure, go ahead, but I have no sympathy for him whatsoever.
Posted by: Rowan | Oct 21 2005 16:42 utc | 21
The Colonel’s speech is a reflection of a Lifer’s realization that something fundamental has gone wrong in the governance of the United States.
On NewsHour last night Dr. Raymond Seed, a civil engineer for the University of California at Berkeley, discussing the failure of the New Orleans levees said “FEMA has been attrited and under-funded. Their capabilities have been reduced, and now we’re all angry because they didn’t do a good job responding in the first week or so after Katrina. Corps of Engineers has been attrited and their capabilities have been reduced and I don’t think it’s appropriate for us to be making scapegoats out of organizations which against their own will, have had their support and their capabilities reduced. I think what we need to think about is perhaps refurbishing these organizations and getting them back up to the kind of strength which would perhaps be a better investment for the country”
Scooter Libby in his letter to his operative Judy Miller explicitly reiterated their roots together and that the Special Counsel identified all the reporters he talked to in July 2003 including her. Explicitly trying to suborn a witness to not discuss their earlier meetings. Scooter Libby couldn’t comprehend that records are kept of all arrivals and departures at the Old Executive Office Building, they could be supeoned and they would document he met with Judy in June. Judy fell into a perjury trap and is spinning as fast as she can to keep her ass out Alexandria Detention Center, again.
A monumental hubris runs through the White House. They are radicals openly contemptuous of lawyers and government workers. They are so divorced from reality that they are fated for failure.
To date, the officer corps has either drunk the neo-con KoolAid or if they spoke out against Rumsfeld were silenced by charges of sexual misconduct or loss of contractor’s jobs. But, 25% of GWOT veterans have physical or mental illness. Marine Corps grunts are into their third tour in the never ending Holy War in the Middle East.
I saw on DC’s Metro the other day something that I hadn’t seen since Vietnam. An unofficial SOP there was to tie one of your dog tags in your combat boots in case you were blown to smithereens. The boot usually stays intact. They then could identify you and wouldn’t be MIA. A Marine Major in fatigues on his way to the Pentagon had tied a dog tag in his boot. For the Major the war is on going here in America.
If the American military rebels, it will not be pleasant and may not be suppressed like the French Paratroopers revolt in 1961 over Algeria.
Posted by: Jim S | Oct 21 2005 16:46 utc | 22
and not enough on the fact that empires, even the practical, no nonsense type favored by the realists, are anachronisms in the modern world.
This is not only the view of technocrats but of many Americans. Once on top the fear what would happen if the Empire was “lost” not realizing that while building an Empire its easy, mainatining it is not.
Posted by: Rafael | Oct 21 2005 16:58 utc | 23
Colin Powell is a murderer as are the rest of these sykophants. He may regret his role, justifying it as a ‘reluctant warrior’, but he has had blood on his hands for decades. His choices can not be rationalized away as far as I’m concerned.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 21 2005 18:01 utc | 24
Colin Powell got his start up the political ladder by helping to cover up the My Lai massacre. He has always been a bagman for militaristic reactionaries- Rowan
I wasn’t aware of that. Even though Vietnam was way before my time, the culture at large was starting to come to terms with that conflict during my adolesence. It’s just disturbing to see those lessons go ignored by the very people who were formed by them. I feel strangely like time is being reversed and everything is the inverse of what came before-I used to have a running list of evidence (Miller/Bernstein being just one of many) but I have since forgotten them all. In anycase I am in need of a myth that tells me things didn’ have to turn out the way they did.
Posted by: sarge | Oct 21 2005 18:59 utc | 25
larry o’donnell interview by john amato of crooks and liars has a segment on colin powel. his assessment, powel as unbeatable republican candidate for president.
Posted by: annie | Oct 21 2005 19:12 utc | 26
What rank do you have to have to get your own car and driver. Do officers ride the metro? In fatigues?
Posted by: eftsoons | Oct 21 2005 19:33 utc | 27
Rowan, I completely agree. If he’d learned anything from his My Lai cover-up fiasco, he’d have resigned long ago rather than wait til given the option of resign or be fired. Loyal, my ass. He’s a docile opportunist of predictable mediocrity, a reliable instrument of Elite Power. At Best, he is deserving of Zero Respect.
Posted by: jj | Oct 21 2005 19:36 utc | 28
working it out,
But ultimately that may be the source of what I now believe is America’s curse: An unshakable faith in American Exceptionalism.
………………………………….
Well said & I agree this is the black heart beating away within most of whats the matter with america.
This is exemplified well in the WMD story in that, they were so goddamned sure they were right, that they had all the evidence, that what they knew was the intubitable truth — So convinced they were that, and typical of all exceptionalism — the greatist single threat is not so much factual truth, but from the crititism itself ( which plays into another exceptionalist characteristic, victimization). If they believed so much in the WMD proposition, why then all the radical measures taken to channel only the facts that were sympathetic to their viewpoint? Why then to go to the extent of violating real national security (plame) to silence a critic? Are they not as convinced themselves as they expect others to be, that they have to lash out irrationally, to shore up to themselves first and formost, their own convictions? Or could it be that their convictions are held up by their own voracity and commitment to the extent that they are able to, and are expected to — trump the truth itself.
Posted by: anna missed | Oct 21 2005 19:44 utc | 29
Rowan, I completely agree. If he’d learned anything from his My Lai cover-up fiasco, he’d have resigned long ago rather than wait til given the option of resign or be fired. Loyal, my ass. He’s a docile opportunist of predictable mediocrity, a reliable instrument of Elite Power. At Best, he is deserving of Zero Respect.
Posted by: jj | Oct 21, 2005 3:36:29 PM | #
The My-Lai cover-up was a success; a few bad apples you know.
He’s not an opportunist, he truly believes in not just the power of the national security state but the ultimate moral good of its actions: like his lackey Wilkerson.
To a hammer everything looks like a nail, to a Pentagon bureaucrat everything looks like a chance to re-work the organizational chart; the very definition of a tool.
Posted by: geos | Oct 21 2005 20:10 utc | 30
He is an opportunist, otherwise he would have resigned when he was reduced to a mere figurehead @State & forced to give legitimacy to a policy he supposedly opposed. He stayed, although he had neither power nor influence, because he got off on being “Sec. of State”. It helps not being terribly bright either.
Posted by: jj | Oct 21 2005 20:24 utc | 31
Imperial Candor in Architecture w/exc. analysis by J.H. Kunstler. (Gehry updates Herr Speer)
Posted by: jj | Oct 21 2005 20:31 utc | 32
I’ve found that my own experiences, climbing the organizational ladder, help keep these issues in a ‘more real’ perspective:
Many times I’d witnessed situations/decisions that I didn’t fully support, and
Many times I kept my internal struggle to myself, and
Many times folks who worked with me/for me grumbled about the decisions that were made above our level, and
Many times I attempted to explain/excuse the reality and encouraged the team to “keep it together”… this will pass, and
Many times I elevated our concerns to the “HMFWIC” only to be rebuffed, and
A few times I attempted to address the problems by working “outside” the organization, and
Several times it came back to bite me in the ass, and
A couple times I resigned, quit, reversed course (career path) which, in the end, only hurt me!!!!
Do I regret it, now looking back???? NO! Would I have been better off (career wise) if I had just rolled with it and have been like most of the others???? Yeah!
This is not a Colin Powell, GWB, Military, Civil Service, Private Industry, Corporate America, “The Apprentice” reality. Duh!
Posted by: Soandso | Oct 21 2005 20:43 utc | 33
I would like to request that you send the link or video to your other links. The full spectrum of information is too important to miss. The video can be downloaded or viewed from http://www.newamerica.net/index.cfm?pg=event&EveID=520
Thanks for the transcript. I would hope that more people would read the entire transcript and/or watch the entire speech. I thought I knew something about this government until I watched the entire speech and it scared the hell out of me. It should be required to read, watch and make notes. The fact that Wilkerson states that the last person to follow the National Security Act was Eisenhower and his evidence of how corrupt administrations have become following him has turned the US closer to a dictatorship. It wasn’t exactly a “clean” organization with Eisenhower either, with imperial foreign policy being the reason for putting the Shah of Iran in power for oil companies, the Guatemalan government democracy based upon FDR being turned back into a banana republic for the American Fruit Company (Dole), … In the current administration, with the National Security Council being accountable only to the president, and Rice being the top advisor (sycophant?), among a group of PNAC “republicans” in both the Administration and Pentagon, we face the most secretive government since FDR, but one that is far more sinister in it’s motives.
It is good that he didn’t stop there but continued with the entire government organization of one that works for corporations through lobbyists and back door agreements on which company will get what projects. I’m sure, just as Pavlov’s dogs, that the Congressmen and Senators come out for handouts from their favorite lobbyists every time a vote is coming on the defense budget, highway budget …
There is so much more too, just as you said. Again, this should be required reading as the dumbed down versions don’t come close to what kind of picture Wilkerson was painting.
Posted by: Jim Reinhart | Oct 21 2005 20:59 utc | 34
They were all lying. Straight up, nudge nudge, wink, but keep a straight face!
Everyone knew Saddam had no WMD – after all what he had he bought from the West. They knew exactly what they had sold, and that Saddam could do nothing with it.
The West sold Saddam eveything at inflated prices, from lousy WMD components to sweetly dressed Barbie dolls. It was coercion, commercial scam, pure and simple. Waiting for the end game. Bombing the water facilities. Cool.
Saddam having WMD was an in joke. The only interesting thing about it is who said what when to whom…So the Germans and French preffered to maintain the status quo; but the Americans finally lost patience.
Since when is having WMD a crime? The US, Israel and Pooty Poot, not to menton Pakistan, have plenty.
Posted by: Noisette | Oct 21 2005 21:06 utc | 35
“Free nations don’t develop weapons of mass destruction.” G-Dub.
You can’t buy that level of ironic self-awareness. Well, unless you go to the indie record store and get Pavement on vinyl.
Posted by: Rowan | Oct 21 2005 21:33 utc | 36
Lack of imperial candor?
France orders positive spin on colonialism
Don’t ask “What did the Romans / British / French / Americans etc. ever do for us?” Forget torture, clandestine killings, Vietnam and all that passé stuff. It’s only negative reporting that gets you hooked on the ‘bad news’angle, see? You’ve got to get your minds right, that’s all.
Posted by: clip | Oct 21 2005 21:59 utc | 37
Can anyone tell me what was the thinking process when the Cheney-Bush-Rumsfeld cabal bullshitted the country into a war? My thought: They must have thought it was a great cover for what they wanted to do — control midest oil.
Would corporate America have a problem with this? Or even the Democratic Party?
Posted by: Dr Wu -I’m just an ordinary guy | Oct 21 2005 23:13 utc | 38
The best argument I’ve seen for why there was even lukewarm Democratic opposition to the war is that the PNAC crowd makes imperialism explicit with their hardcore neoconservativism, and that they might lose the war. The Democrats, on the other hand, tend to prefer the softer, friendlier imperialism of neoliberalism, and of course, they’d win the war.
Posted by: Rowan | Oct 21 2005 23:53 utc | 39
Wilkerson decries ‘secrecy,’ when it’s perfectly clear that all we did Out In The Open was as vile as it could be.
Wilkerson proves the adage: “Victory has many fathers, but defeat is always an orphan.”
He’s just another a**h*le trying to put some daylight between himself and “W’s war.” And for all the wrong reasons. He’s grotesque.
Posted by: Too Kind By Half | Oct 22 2005 0:03 utc | 40
WRT Powell. I had forgotten about this little incident with his MINDER. Not sure where I found the link.
Posted by: eftsoons | Oct 22 2005 0:03 utc | 41
Arrrggghhh! catharsis rain o’er me!
I had a quick look at the link about French colonialism and it had all the usual platitudes about imperialism and post-imperialism and that’s what got me. The mainstream attitude that this is all history. That Algeria or Nigeria are independent states, free from the bonds of their colonial masters.
Is this what Arabs around oil can look forward to? A pretense that they are free to do what they are told?
Somehow I just can’t see it. Arab culture doesn’t have a history of aquiesence. The Roman pro-consuls used to come unstuck as well. In fact so did the Greeks see Anabasis of Xenophon . Yes the conflict was with the Persians not the Arabs BUT the wandering and harrassment was in Mesopotamia .
I can’t help but wonder if any of these neo-cons (and I include Powell and his lackey in this) truly knew much about where they were going. I suspect that most of them got their history outta the old testament in which everything is seen from a Judeo POV. Since that mob were pretty busy with their own resistance to colonialism at the time awareness of other middle eastern resistance to enslavement is negligible.
Lastly no one can consider themselves to be completely aware of the charms of anabasis until they have studied the anabasis The Good Soldier Svejk . There used to be an ebook on the net which I can no longer find. But Svejk the Malingerer gives a good flavour and if one wants to read of the actual anabasis, the book can be bought here .
Posted by: Debs is dead | Oct 22 2005 0:30 utc | 42
sadly debs i’m becoming like oblomov through the thuds of an empire gone around the twist
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Oct 22 2005 1:11 utc | 43
Oh Oblomov, well try and stir yourself occasionally. For some reason I started to think of the chap who had a turtle/tortoise bedecked with jewels, but that wasn’t oblomov today I can’t remember who it was more likely french than russian maybe belgique.
You may feel like oblomov giap but you show no sign of behaving like him.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Oct 22 2005 1:28 utc | 44
What is old is new again? Or is it that the franchise got spanded? From the words of one Smedley D. Butler, General, Marine Corps.
“I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purifly Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-12. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras “right” for American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested… . Looking back on it, I feel I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three city districts. We Marines operated on three continents.”
Or Maximus:
Quintus: People should know when they’re conquered.
Maximus: Would you, Quintus? Would I?
Would you….
Posted by: Rafael | Oct 22 2005 1:49 utc | 45
jj-
Kunstler’s ruminations on Architecture are even more insightful than his on energy (I’m always struck that a great foe of suburbia lives in a rural area which necessitates even greater energy consumption. Move to a stinking little apartment in Buffalo if you feel so strongly about energy). But the point of my post is that August’s example is even funnier than October’s, if that is posssible. WARNING: DO NOT VISIT THIS SITE WITH LIQUID IN YOUR MOUTH! When he comes out with the requisite coffee table book I will run to buy it.
“Maximus: Would you, Quintus? Would I?”
So many pro-war, supposedly pro-military commentators miss this, when at least in theory they’d be the last to give up using any tool against a foreign invader.
That’s in theory.
Posted by: cc | Oct 22 2005 2:40 utc | 47
Well, it reminds us that many of the outrageously extreme demands of the imperial Germany in WWI were brought up by the “good” Germans, the bureaucrats and diplomats, not the militarists like Ludendorff. Like Wilkerson today, they saw German victory as a fact on ground–why not? they controlled the ground–and felt that Germany should at least keep what they already had in their hands….
Posted by: kao_hsien_chih | Oct 22 2005 2:40 utc | 48
Seymour Hersh and Scott Ritter on Iraq, WMDs and the Role of the Clinton Administration in the 1990s
The United States needed to find a vehicle to continue to contain Saddam, because the C.I.A. said, “All we have to do is wait six months, and Saddam’s going to collapse on his own volition.” That vehicle is sanctions. They needed a justification. The justification was disarmament, but understand that a Chapter 7 resolution of the United Nations Security Council calling for the disarmament of Iraq and saying in Paragraph 14 that if Iraq complies, sanctions will be lifted. Within months of this resolution being passed – and the United States was a drafter and voted in favor of this resolution – within months, the President, George Herbert Walker Bush, and his Secretary of State James Baker were saying publicly, not privately, publicly, that even if Iraq complies with its obligation to disarm, economic sanctions will be maintained until which time Saddam Hussein is removed from power. That is proof positive that disarmament was only useful insofar as it contained, through the maintenance of sanctions, and facilitated regime change.
And we knew that while we couldn’t account for everything that the Iraqis said they had destroyed, we could only account for ninety to ninety-five percent, we knew that: (a) We had no evidence of a retained capability and, (b) No evidence that Iraq as reconstituting. And furthermore, the C.I.A. knew this. The British intelligence knew this, Israeli intelligence knew this, German intelligence. The whole world knew this. They weren’t going to say that Iraq was disarmed, because nobody could say that. But they definitely knew that the Iraqi capability regarding W.M.D. had been reduced to as near to zero as you could bring it and that Iraq represented a threat to no one when it came to weapons of mass destruction.
Maybe George W Bush believed in the WMD. Maybe he believed in Santa Claus or in Voices of Direct Revelation. He is the least interesting character in the whole equation. He has the least degree of freedom. He does what he’s told to do. Or what he happens to be feeling one day with no reason. The people who told him what to do knew that Sadam was not a threat, just a target.
Posted by: John Francis Lee | Oct 22 2005 4:54 utc | 49
eftsoons
I’ve seen full bird colonels on Metro, probably a one star. DOD has lots of buildings rented in Northern Virginia and the military uses Metro to get back and forth to the Pentagon and for commuting home. As the GWOT drags into its third year, full dressed uniforms are becoming rare in DC. The military is now in a constant rotation either coming or going to the Middle East. Peacetime dress uniforms are an anachronism to troopers constantly at war.
Condoleezza Rice and her cabal have no understanding of the profound suffering they are causing nor how delusional they are to think the Iraq occupation can continue forever. If the occupation continues, the current 25% casualty rate will decimate the military and it will cease to function in a few short years. If rational civilians ever retake control of the USA and start the withdrawal, the military could well take matters into their own hands. There is no worse guilt than to know your buddies died for nothing. The longer the GWOT continues the more likely the Middle East will be turned into glass.
Unfortunately the best case scenario is that the USA economy collapses sometime before 2008 thanks to China, Japan and the EU cashing in their treasury bills and America is forced to pull out of the Middle East. After the 2004 election, I cannot envision Americans electing a Congress in 2006 that will pull the plug on the war.
Posted by: Jim S | Oct 22 2005 5:12 utc | 50
Concerning the question regarding when Wilkerson might have made the comments concerning planning for a US takeover of Middle East oilfields, given his biography, it is certainly logical that it occured within the years 2000-2002:
(from the Department of State web site):
“BIOGRAPHY
Lawrence B. Wilkerson
Chief of Staff,
Term of Appointment: 08/01/2002 to 01/26/2005
Colonel, U.S. Army (Retired) Larry Wilkerson joined General Colin L. Powell in March 1989 at the U.S. Army’s Forces Command in Atlanta, Georgia as his Deputy Executive Officer. He followed the General to his next position as Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, serving as his special assistant. Upon Powell’s retirement from active service in 1993, Colonel Wilkerson served as the Deputy Director and Director of the U.S. Marine Corps War College at Quantico, Virginia. Upon Wilkerson’s retirement from active service in 1997, he began working for General Powell in a private capacity as a consultant and advisor.
In December 2000, Secretary of State-designate Powell asked Wilkerson to join him in the Transition Office at the U.S. State Department and, later, upon his confirmation as Secretary of State, Secretary Powell moved Wilkerson to his POLICY PLANNING Staff with responsibilities for East Asia and the Pacific, and legislative and political-military affairs. In June of 2002, the Director for POLCY PLANNING, Ambassador Richard Haass, made Wilkerson the associate director. In August of 2002, Secretary Powell moved Wilkerson to the position of Chief of Staff of the Department.”
http://www.state.gov/outofdate/bios/w/26731.htm
Now compare to the remarks:
We had a discussion in POLICY PLANNING about actually mounting an operation to take the oilfields in the Middle East, internationalize them
Posted by: Anon | Oct 22 2005 6:04 utc | 51
Mr. Wilkerson did spend a sentence buried toward the end of the
session offering us a choice. We consume 60% of the world’s resources
to maintain 60% of the world’s economy. (His figures, not necessarily
accurate anymore). Either we reconfigure our economy and resource
use, or we have to maintain that empire. He implied, for those
daring to think it, that we COULD shrink our economy down to a size
small enough that we no longer need to maintain an empire of any sort.
And we could. Is every American reading this blog and posting a
comment willing to shrink his/her standard of living down to, say,
$30,000 a year? (Which is still vast wealth in most of the world).
Is every American reading this blog ready to pay a $4.00-per-gallon
Federal Tax on gas or diesel, above the price of the gas or diesel,
in order to have that $4.00 per gallon used to restore America’s
missing mass transit system? So we can travel on a fraction of
the oil we currently use to travel on?
And etc? And etc?
Posted by: Different Clue | Oct 22 2005 7:05 utc | 52
Different Clue :
I saw the 60% consumption figure. I did not see the 60% production figure. My feeling is that consumption and production are not in an inelastic linear relation.
My feeling is that “we” consume more than we produce. Especially since China seems to be making most of what we consume. Although we may well produce 60%, or more, of the world’s promissory notes.
How do you measure that?
Posted by: John Francis Lee | Oct 22 2005 10:13 utc | 53
On one level rather witty and amusing … on another, somewhat depressing, as we are shown a mirrored reflection of what we truly are and represent beyond these shores …
Let’s Go Shopping!
Amr Al-Faisal: ArabNews
Recently there has been a rumor that our dear friends and allies, the Americans, have been pressuring their friends in the Gulf to purchase hundreds of billions of dollars in US government securities.
The idea behind this is to use the vast windfall profits reaped by the Gulf oil producing states to prop up the tottering US economy.
The subtext to this is the possibility of the forces of freedom paying an unfriendly visit to anyone reluctant to comply.
This is a familiar concept to the people of this region as we are used to have similar arrangements with marauding Mongol armies.
I would like to suggest an alternative strategy — one that is more effective in the long run and definitely cheaper…
Posted by: Outraged | Oct 22 2005 10:41 utc | 54
“(T)he idea that the imperial system he serves might have paved the way for the evils he abhors — that “the cabal” might be the natural result of the role America has staked out in the world — apparently hasn’t occurred to him.
“Like Richard Clarke, Wilkerson strikes me as reasonably representative of the technicians who actually run the empire — and his assumptions largely appear to reflect those of his class. American supremecy is a taken as a given, requiring no legal or moral justification. Not because America has any grand historical mission to spread the blessings of democracy to the heathen, but because American power maintains the world order and keeps the peace, or at least something approximating it. It also keeps the sea lanes open and the oil flowing and the wheels of industry turning, not just here but around the world.
“It does appear to have dawned on Wilkerson that the U.S. hegomony isn’t viewed as quite such an execise in utilitarian benevolance by the rest of the world, but I’m not sure he understands exactly why this is. I think he puts far too much blame on the cabal’s shenanigans — although these admittedly have made things worse — and not enough on the fact that empires, even the practical, no nonsense type favored by the realists, are anachronisms in the modern world.”
Well said. It is only dismaying that there are too few saying anything like it.
Cato’s Ted Galen Carpenter back in 1992:
A Defense Policy for a Republic, Not an Empire
A policy of strategic independence is based on a more modest and sustainable security role for the United States and a realistic assessment of the post-Cold War international system. It takes into account the fundamental changes that have occurred in the world in recent years and seeks to position the United States to benefit from an emerging multipolar political, economic, and military environment. Those who advocate perpetuating Washington’s Cold War era alliances and conceive of grandiose missions to implement a “new world order” fail to comprehend the significance of the changes in the international system and seem to regard the preservation of U.S. political and military dominance as an end in itself. They show little inclination to ask how a promiscuously interventionist strategy actually benefits the American people.
For those who are serious about preserving the values of a free society, the latter consideration is especially important. The lives, freedoms, and financial resources of the American people are not – or at least should not be – available for whatever foreign policy objectives suit the whims of the national polical leaders. The U.S. government has a fiduciary responsibility to protect the security and liberty of the American republic. It does not have a moral or constitutional writ to implement the political elite’s conception of good deeds internationally…
It is time for Americans to insist on a more rigorous and rational definition of the republic’s vital security interests and to reserve the use of U.S. mlitary power for the defense of those interests. American lives and resources are too precious to waste in search for new enemies to justify old policies.
*********************************
I’d like to add one thing: “(T)he preservation of U.S. political and military dominance as an end in itself” was the founding idea of PNAC, though PNAC is not by any means alone in its belief that this end in itself is morally legitimate and politically appropriate to the United States. The idea still is without serious controversy. Witness the most common concern related to the Iraq debacle: that America’s ability to project power and influence abroad has suffered an unfortunate blow – a serious, if temporary, setback for U.S. hegemony. And why? Because we’ve failed to win.
So next time – and there most certainly will be a next time – don’t look for any occupation at all. We do learn some lessons, just before we forget them.
Posted by: Pat | Oct 22 2005 13:46 utc | 55
“The U.S. government has a fiduciary responsibility to protect the security and liberty of the American republic.”
This “responsibility,” for anybody at Cato or any libertarian or any congenial apologist for “the American Way of life,” is oriented to preservation of mass-consumption, devoted to keep the consumer treadmill turning in order to assure capitalist accumulation (the deceitful euphemism for accumulation: “growth”), no matter what. That’s what “values of freedom” means, really. This is why the Bush Doctrine, stripped of its messianic bullshit about “democratization,” is “rational.” All we’re doing now, and what any self-respecting dem or repub leadership will ever do, is “securing” the world’s resources for first-world consumption.
The way to delay ignominious collapse of empire while preserving the pace of accumulation, seems to be fascism. Lievan, who I would describe as a foreign policy realist, makes a similar claim in his book America Right or Wrong. The problem for elites is legitimation: how do you keep the “middle-class” in line while incomes decline?:
If the middle classes continue to crumble, they may therefore take with them one of the essential pillars of American political stability and moderation. As in European countries in the past, such a development would create the perfect breeding ground for radical nationalist groups and for even wilder dreams of “taking back” America at home and restoring the old moral, cultural and possibly racial order. Such developments might lead to unrestrained strikes against America’s enemies abroad, or they might lead to isolationism. Or, if past patterns are anything to go by, they might lead to first the one and then the other. This would be a dangerous scenario for America and for the world as can easily be imagined.
Lievan thinks the horrors of Texas style fascism can be averted by a new FDR. I think for a number of reasons this is unlikely, first and foremost, capitalism doesn’t need a New New Deal for reasons too numerous to describe here.
I write all this to emphasize the problems/solutions are not so complex once the mystifications of “freedom” “liberty” etc. are elided from analysis.
Posted by: slothrop | Oct 22 2005 16:01 utc | 56
1. It is a pleasure to see again another analysis here that addresses what is going on, and frustrating to again see it go off the rails. America has a problem of State as a source of power, when American power is not, never has been, and never can be, from the State. Nor, is marxist analysis any good for coming up with the cure. Traditional anglo american analysis is, but that is another topic.
2.
The reality, of course, is that merging the State Department with the Defense Department would simply formalize the existing process by which the Pentagon has become the only power that matters — the REAL executive branch of the federal government. The Foreign Service would simply cease to exist as an independent entity, and U.S. diplomacy (such as it is) would become purely an extension of military strategy.
Come on. This doesn’t help. The civilian leadership that took over the Pentagon, like the new overseerer, got this latest Iraq war against the desire of the uniformed military. In terms of analysis of State, the problem is not the pentagon. The problem is the informal political patronage network that gives untested, unaccountable, unchecked, yahoos who study procounsuls for how to use the American State to control a unified world (which is insane and anti American) control over the uniformed military and the American taxpayers to fund their procounsul (Latin lovers have become a sign these days of the reactionary enemy, a european virus at last successfully injected into AMErica – see, Opus Dei) fantasies, and the struggling American lower middle class to provide the bodies to carry out the procounsuls fantasies.
The State is not the source of power. The Pentagon is not the source of power. The military is not equipped to accomplish political missions like transform Iraq into an American right wing jews dreasm. America is based on the idea the State should not be allowed to engage in such adventures.
3. American exceptionalism is real. Doubters need only read this thread. What you all talking about? America this that and the other thing. Blah blah blah. And what you are talking about is not exceptional. Yeah. Right. Whatever.
4. The George Orwell quote is great. And look at the success of one hundred and sixy years of imperialism: China. It took twelve or so generations, the end of an imperial system, the invasion of the dwarf barbarians imperial army to secure the Greater Co East Asian Prosperity Sphere for Nipponse lebensraum (since the nips got on line in only four generations) a mass murder detour courtsey of the imperial infleunces of the marxist strain of occidentialism, but, the chinese culture seems to be on line at last.
The idea that any American procounsul
(or canadian or whatever – whoever has such fantasies is drawn to America, where the Republican party is so desperate for intellectuals it will take the dgres of the world)
to shallow to grasp the Ozymandias moral considered appropriate for average high school sophomores not that long ago,
can control a world with China and India on line, using the American State and the Pentagon,
well,
the real problem is intellectual failure isn’t it? All the way around. This State procounsul Rule fantasy is just fucking stupid. That it needs to be debated is sign of intellectual rot.
Posted by: Anonymous | Oct 22 2005 17:13 utc | 57