US Imperialism

In The Independent of 3/9/11 there appeared an article based on secret files that the paper had unearthed. We are reprinting here substantial extracts from that article. The Independent says that they “reveal the astonishingly close links that existed between British and American governments and Muammar Gaddafi.”

In less than a month at the time of writing, a second border clash left at least 14 dead and scores of wounded as Israeli troops opened fire on a crowd of Palestinian protesters trying to break into the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights from Syria. Barely one month before, hundreds of people broke through a border fence and clashed with thousands of Israeli troops mobilized in anticipation of possible unrest as Palestinians prepared to protest the anniversary of the Arab defeat in the 1967 Mideast war. This is just a ‘skirmish’ compared to the history of violence and bloodletting that stains the region...

Since March 19th, there has been no let- up in the military intervention in Libya under the dual banner of the UN and NATO. But we needn’t worry: the last G8 summit has reaffirmed that the members of the coalition, putting their differences to one side, are 'determined to finish the job', having called on the Libyan leader to relinquish power because he has 'lost all legitimacy'.

 This contribution is based largely on the book The Politics of Heroin (CIA Complicity in the Global Drugs Trade) by Alfred W. McCoy. It deals with the period around World War II, the US state’s use of the Mafia domestically, its use in the invasion of Italy and the subsequent explosion of heroin production up to the late 1950s.

On February 17, 2010, Defense Secretary Robert Gates approved in a memo to Central Command head David Petraeus the rebranding of the American mission in Iraq. He stressed that “Operation Iraqi Freedom,” the US Military’s name for the 2003 invasion and seven-year occupation of that country, “has ended and our forces are operating under a new mission.” Six months later, on August 19, the last American ‘combat’ brigades crossed the Iraqi border into Kuwait, and twelve days after that—over seven years after President Bush made a similar announcement—President Obama announced “the end of our combat mission in Iraq.” 

Two years after Obama’s “historical election,” the excitement in the region about the new US administration had quieted down. Obama’s promises of “change” to the discredited foreign policy of the Bush administration, that helped him get elected as the representative of American capitalism, have come up short of satisfying the illusions that his demagogic propaganda generated around the world. In essence, the imperialist foreign policy of the US has not changed in Latin America. Rather than a “hands off” approach on what America considers its exclusive sphere of influence (which some of his supporters wanted), what is driving Obama’s policy toward Latin America is an urgency to win back terrain lost in the region during the previous decades.

It now appears that the policies of engagement, cooperation and diplomacy trumpeted by Obama have, if they ever existed, given way to policies more like those of the Bush team, but further extended and refined to meet the increasingly dangerous demands of the world situation.

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In March relations between the US and Israel reached a 30 year low. US Vice President Joe Biden was in Israel trying to push forward the ‘Israel/Palestine peace process', but the announcement of the building of another 1600 homes for Jewish settlers in East Jerusalem led to the withdrawal of the Palestinian Authority.

After 8 years in Afghanistan, the international force led by the USA is sending in more troops. Far from a blow for democracy or the ‘war on terror', this conflict is turning the region into an ever worsening hell.

Chaos

This article is available here

The decision by the US to reverse part of its missile shield deployment has been hailed as a "welcome U-turn" (The Guardian 18/9/9), a "bold" move, evidence of a ‘listening Obama' compared with the intransigence of President Bush, even as a move towards peace. It is none of these things.

On 4 June, in Cairo, the US president made a speech which all the main western capitals described as historic. In short, he presented the US as a friend of the Palestinians. He called on Hamas to recognise the State of Israel but he did not describe this organisation as terrorist. Even more remarkable is that he compared the struggle of the Palestinians with that of the slaves in America or the blacks of South Africa in the time of apartheid.

The arrival of the Democrat Barak Obama to the head of the world's leading power has given rise to all kinds of illusions about a possible change in the strategic orientations of the USA, a change opening up an ‘era of peace'.

Since NATO was founded the world has moved on and global imperialist relations have profoundly changed. However, NATO is still there. And what's more a growing number of countries are asking to join it. So what function does it serve today?

This article will be published here shortly...

There is an accelerating slide into chaos in Pakistan. The US has a real fear of the consequences of a collapse of the civil administration. In particular there is the question of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal. The US has belligerently asserted that it would invade to secure the bases, if it felt it served its interests.

Faced with this weakening of American leadership, where it has to negotiate with North Korea and recognise China as a player in Asia, where its policies are contested by all and sundry, including its previously loyal allies, there is a need for an adjustment in policy to better defend its interests.

Within four days of his inauguration speech Barack Obama had authorised the bombing of targets in Pakistan.

Wednesday 18 April was an ordinary day in Baghdad. Like virtually every other day of the week, there were bombs. These killed over 190 people, many of them women and children. As so often before, the main target was a market, al-Sadriyah, very close to a building site employing workers who were risking their lives to earn a miserable wage to help their families survive. These attacks, among the most bloody since the fall of Saddam in 2003, were carried out in the same market which was hit on 3 February, killing 130 people. The aim of those who perpetrate such crimes is to kill as many people as they can. The purpose is destruction, the annihilation of human beings whose very existence makes them enemies. This is the rule of bestial hatred; this is a society in profound decomposition.

The collapse of Stalinism in 1989 and, in its wake, the disappearance of the system of imperialist military blocs that had dominated the world imperialist arena since the end of WWII, left the US as the world hegemonic imperialist power. However this historical moment of glory, the zenith of American imperialism, also had a downside. US imperialism found itself with no place to go but down and facing a crisis of historical proportions.

“I don’t know how many times the president, secretary Rice and I have had to repeat that we have no intention of attacking Iran” (Guardian 10/2/07). These were the words of US Defence Secretary Gates in February a few days after President Bush threatened Iran with retaliation for its involvement in Iraq and as a US fleet of some 50 ships, including two aircraft carriers and others with cruise missiles, moved within striking distance of Iran...

The concerted efforts of the dominant fraction of the U.S. ruling class to force a readjustment of imperialist policy in Iraq has run into fierce resistance from hardline stalwarts in the Bush administration. Since the failure to change the ruling team in the 2004 elections, the administration has been under pressure to modify its failed policies...

In his address to the nation on January 10th, Pres. George Bush completely rejected the central recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, ignored the political meaning of the Republican electoral defeat in November, and escalated the war in Iraq by sending more troops and threatening hostilities against Iran and Syria...

The dominant fraction of the U.S. ruling class has utilized the November election as a means to adjust the implementation of imperialist policy, to force a recalcitrant Bush administration to make a much needed midcourse correction in Iraq. By last winter a consensus had emerged within the dominant fraction that the situation in Iraq was an absolute mess, a quagmire that jeopardized the long range, global interests of American imperialism. The U.S. military was clearly stretched so thin by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that it was incapable of responding to threats in other parts of the world. This was an intolerable situation because the exercise of military might abroad is an absolute necessity for American imperialism in a period in which its hegemony is under increasing challenge. To make matters worse, the Bush administration’s bungling of the war in Iraq had completely squandered the ideological gains the U.S. ruling class had made in manipulating popular acceptance of its overseas imperialist adventures in the aftermath of 9/11. 

The collapse of the Russian superpower in 1989 and with it the disappearance of the system of imperialist blocs that dominated world affairs since the end of World War II, left the US as the dominant imperialist power.  After more than a decade and half, in spite of a relentless questioning of this hegemony, the US has been able to maintain its economic, political and particularly its military global supremacy.