There's really only one area in which the President of the United States has sole responsibility and that's in formulating our foreign policy. So it seems just a little strange, at least in retrospect, that the candidates for this office have been permitted to omit any serious consideration of our relations with other nations from their campaigns.
I'm not even sure when it became an accepted truth that it would be detrimental to the national interest and perhaps give our enemies an advantage, if our foreign policy were debated in an open forum. Must have been during the cold war.
In any event, this strategy of not revealing any particulars of our intent towards other nations obviously proved to be a ringing success since it has now been adopted in relation to domestic issues, as well. Which probably accounts for the increasing reliance on the politics of personality and personal destruction. If foreign relations are off the table and domestic issues are divisive, then there's really nothing left to differentiate the candidates but their individual foibles and the predilections of their families.
But the practical up-shot of this pattern of focusing on and targeting individuals is that more and more public policy is actually set and carried out in secret, while those who would expose it to the light of day are ruthlessly destroyed. Thus, at the moment, we have the saga of Karl Rove and Joseph Wilson's spouse, Valerie Plame, whose career was ruined because the Bush administration didn't like what he had to say.
Of course, one ruined career isn't all that bad. If that were all that's at stake, we could shrug it off. But it isn't about one career and it isn't even about what Joseph Wilson reported about the ingredients for weapons of mass destruction that Saddam Hussein, another uncooperative fellow targeted for destruction, didn't have. Indeed, it's not even about the on-going aggression in Iraq. It's really about what can only be referred to as the Bush Conspiracy, an agenda that has been followed now for decades, without ever being discussed, to position the United States as the ruler of a global empire, not by default, but by crushing all those who might dissent.
To be fair, Bush the Elder did make his intention to set up a "New World Order" known. But, since it wasn't addressed during his campaign for re-election, even those who were paying attention probably missed the true meaning of that phrase--not that global relations would henceforth be based on trade and co-operation, but that the New World would take over from the Old World and tell everyone what to do. And, since it wasn't discussed during the campaign for re-election, there was no opportunity for this interpretation to be rejected.
Indeed, although there was much carping that President Clinton's recommendations for investment in "Rebuilding America's Defenses," as the Project for a New American Century framed the issue, were not enough, there was really no substantive change in the strategy for extending American rule. While the pressure on Iraq to bring it to accepting a permanent American presence on its soil went on a bit longer than the planners obviously preferred, the accession of George the Lesser got it all back on track.
There's an old German saying which seems apt in this case. "Kommst Du nicht willig, dann brauch ich Gewalt." Since the Iraq of Saddam Hussein was unwilling to welcome a US presence, force will be used until the population gives in. And since all the Bush Conspiracy calls for is a permanent location for the military forces that will keep China and India and perhaps even Russia in check, the demise of the Iraqi people is no more a concern than the exterminations in Kosovo, Somalia, Congo or anywhere else. No more than was shown for the people of Central and South America in prior decades.
The participants in the Bush Conspiracy aim to rule the world. A few million more or less don't really matter.
Posted by Hannah at July 11, 2005 04:49 PM