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http://www.dailystar.com.lb/opinion/09_10_02_a.htm The Daily Star (Lebanon) October 9, 2002 Editorial Bush’s democracy: What’s in a word? -Many of the building blocks for their strategy, at least as it applies to Central Asia, have already been put in place by the war in Afghanistan. US bases, for example, now lie athwart key lines of communications and along the path that a pipeline from the Caspian Basin might follow. -[T]he Bush administration’s recently promulgated National Security Strategy is nothing but a watered-down version of the Project for a New American Century report. Its language is designed to be more palatable, but its goals are every bit as offensive and dangerous. -...Sept. 11 has taken on the appearance of a convenient pretext for what the White House had wanted to do all along. The Bush administration has gone to great lengths to couch its foreign policy in the language of “spreading democracy.” To fully understand what Washington is really up to, though, one must take into account the views of the people who have this president’s ear. Once that has been done, much of what might otherwise seem aimless and amateurish takes on a more sinister flavor. It is no secret that George W. Bush’s presidency has thus far built its foreign policy around a strategy of sidelining the professional diplomats at the State Department in favor of a hawkish cabal that runs the Defense Department. The dangers of such an approach should be manifest to anyone who understands international relations and/or the basics of picking the right person for the right job. Donald Rumsfeld is one of the most qualified defense secretaries of the past half-century, more than qualified to provide expert civilian leadership for the Pentagon and help shape its procurement and training strategies for the future. But in the Bush formula, his voice is given free rein, escaping the bonds established by law and tradition to shape US foreign policy. The last American secretary of state to be so badly undermined by his president was William Rogers, hired by Richard Nixon to make public pronouncements that were often obsolete even before he uttered them because then-National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger was calling the shots behind the scenes. Nixon’s presidency was diseased in more ways than one, but this manifestation was especially onerous, producing and/or exacerbating debacles in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and South America. The evidence this time around suggests that a far more systematic strategy is being pursued, one that threatens to destabilize literally dozens of global hotspots by attempting to bend various governments to Washington’s will. In September 2000, the Project for a New American Century, a conservative think tank, released a report entitled Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century. As outlined in an op-ed piece last month by Jay Bookman, deputy editorial page editor for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the document carried a series of recommendations envisioning US hegemony over vast swaths of the globe. It was broadly based on a 1992 Defense Department study whose “findings” were repudiated by George Bush the elder. Then the son came to power, and with him several figures who were instrumental in the 2000 document and/or its 1992 inspiration: Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, John Bolton, Stephen Cambone, Donald Kagan, Eliot Cohen, Devon Cross, and Dov Zakheim. Many of the building blocks for their strategy, at least as it applies to Central Asia, have already been put in place by the war in Afghanistan. US bases, for example, now lie athwart key lines of communications and along the path that a pipeline from the Caspian Basin might follow. More to the point, the Bush administration’s recently promulgated National Security Strategy is nothing but a watered-down version of the Project for a New American Century report. Its language is designed to be more palatable, but its goals are every bit as offensive and dangerous. No one doubted that the crimes of Sept. 11, 2001, would result in a more muscular American foreign policy. Few countries on Earth would take such a blow lying down, let alone a superpower. The more the world sees of Bush’s plans, though, the less they seem to have anything to do with the hijacked planes crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a Pennsylvania field. In fact, Sept. 11 has taken on the appearance of a convenient pretext for what the White House had wanted to do all along. __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Faith Hill - Exclusive Performances, Videos & More http://faith.yahoo.com --------------------------- ANTI-NATO INFORMATION LIST ==^================================================================ This email was sent to: archive@jab.org EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.bacIlu Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
