INCREMENTAL IMPERIALISM: HOW TO DUPE THE DEMOCRACY

Many good people were late in recognizing the neocon agenda for what it is. The following is from an interview of Joseph Wilson that appeared in the documentary Uncovered: The whole truth about the Iraq war.

WILSON: "(In)the first Gulf War, when I came out of Baghdad in 1991, I met with the president of the United States, I met with the senior leadership of both parties, and the one thing that sticks with me to this day is the extent to which each of them had to plumb their consciences to come to a decision on how to vote on the use of force authorization. It had been a moral decision on their part. It had been one that had kept them up at night as they thought their way through this. We owe our soldiers, our sailors, our airmen and our marines nothing less before we send them to battle."

The following outlines the claim to a more realistic interpretation:

-- Not unlike the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the first Gulf War was planned in the boardrooms long before the invasion of Kuwait.

-- The invasion of Kuwait itself was deliberately greenlighted to create the pretext for military force. It was done for power, influence, and to establish a larger U.S. military presence in the gulf region. It signaled a NEW POLICY: INCREMENTAL IMPERIALISM. A military force remained in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. A beachhead had been established.

-- During the Cold War, Reagan's actions were consciously measured, and in cases like Grenada, perhaps more symbolic than real. But Panama in the post Cold War period was a dry run for Iraq.

-- The end of the Cold War was not going to be a vindication of American values and constitutional principles. On the contrary, it was poised to start an attack on them, here and abroad, by neocon powerbrokers.

-- The divide between the two periods is called a paradigm shift. That great divide between the end of the Cold War and its demise should have introduced a world intent on building on the accomplishments of détente and undoing the proxy violence that had become a governing principle. Under the dominance of the Cold War narrative, the ability of smaller nations and their subnarratives to influence their own destinies was limited. The end of the Cold war was supposed to signal a relaxation in this rigid system (you could sink a fleet of battleships with the contradictions on both sides), one that institutionalized fear and violence in regions like Eastern Europe and Central America. Wholesale tyranny as policy was passe, and a restoration of constitutional principles and those of real human rights (beyond lip service) was held up as the standard.

Who would have thought it would be the United States to trample on its own values and forge an imperialist course?

-- After the success of the Gorbachev-Reagan détente, a short but chilling article appeared in the back pages of a major American newsmagazine. It was an interview with a senior, unnamed Pentagon official on the question of the U.S. military's need for a new mission now that détente had removed the Soviet Union as its traditional enemy. The official replied that they were conducting extensive research on weaponry and were looking seriously at Iraq. The clear inference was that Iraq made a good fit as a replacement enemy - not because of any demonstrated threat to the United States, but solely on the basis of the amount of its weaponry.* The article was not disturbing for any implications it posed about military overreach, but for what could happen in the hands of the politically unscrupulous who give the military its orders.

What happened here and how was it received? One interpretation is that military officials were engaging in their usual behaviors by tracking the weaponry of unstable regions and nations. A politician's interpretation is that they were scouting for a replacement enemy, crunched some numbers and looked at some indicators, and figured out they could sell it on Iraq.

It was America's first MBA WAR.

Change the brand name but keep the concept, subnarrative truths be damned. Sell it with groupthink. (They killed a few astronauts with that technique, too).

Some of us took an interest in ending the decade-long Iran-Iraq war, but the truth is that it only ended when it was no longer useful for the U.S., when the Reagan policy was replaced by the Gorbachev-Reagan détente. ...Or in other words, when it was convenient. So we give it a pass because it preceded the end of the Cold War. Things would be different now because the right values had won out and so much fire did not have to be fought with so much return fire.

Where were the diplomats then? Where were the overtures to both Iran and Iraq? Where were the apologies for the sins of the Cold War? For the policy of destroying fledgling democracies in the middle east, not saving them? Where was diplomacy period?

Does anyone really think that moral people will ever buy into the view that you can "create" an enemy for self-serving reasons, exploit it as an "ally" when convenient and self-serving, then exploit it as an "enemy" when convenient and self-serving? That the strategy of "wrong-footing" a leader is de facto a justifiable pretext for war? How moral was the active support for a horrific decade-long war between two neighbors? And so the first increment of imperialist intent was launched without so much as a care for the innocents who would suffer in a region where innocents had perpetually suffered. And for what? For the greater narrative of a mutually self-serving East-West policy.

(They'll welcome us as saviors? Throw flowers in our path? The same people who saddled them with their dictator? What kind of a fool narrative was that?)

The proponents of imperialism had to work so much harder to sell the 2003 Gulf War. For that they had to create a self-fulfilling prophecy, then sell the public on it before the prophecy became fact. The result is that now we have a hotbed of terrorism in Iraq. Now there are puny elements of al Qaeda in the country. And the innocents suffer beyond comprehension as imperialism seeks to crown itself as the dominant story and dominant truth that crushes all other stories and all other truths.

Mission accomplished… for the duped.

And as for all that alleged hand-wringing about voting for the first Gulf War? That question was posed to Mrs. Cheney regarding her husband, who at the time was serving as Secretary of Defense under Bush I. She responded that he slept fine at night.

That comes as no surprise. People who disdain accountability - even that for which they were elected - never lose sleep over their vicarious kills.

- end -

* This decision was an evil irony when you consider that Iraq was part of America's axis of capitalist blowback - its Middle East Contra - along with the Nicaraguan contras to fight the '79 Sandinista victory, and the Mujihadeen to fight the '79 Soviet Afghan invasion – all compliments of the U.S. Treasury. My suspicion is that Iraq's initiation of the Iran-Iraq war was actively greenlighted for the purpose of punishing Iran after its 1979 revolution, though I offer no evidence. Matters surrounding Iraq are shrouded, with some Brits disagreeing with American views on the extent of the latter's involvement in the 1963 overthrow of Kassem. It's interesting, though, to hear Wilson confirm that Hussein viewed his actions as allied with American interests. Maybe it's because Glaspie was very convincing, and it wasn't the first time.