The Bush National Security Strategy: Analysis of a Fraud

by John Swomley

In the "Introduction" section to his national security strategy paper of September 20, 2002, President George W. Bush claims to offer "a model for national success: freedom, democracy and free enterprise." He pays tribute to the idea that people want "to choose who will govern...own property, and enjoy the fruits of their labor." The content of this introduction, however, is pure hypocrisy, cloaked in such noble goals as freedom, justice, and peace.

For example, President Bush asserts, "In keeping with our heritage and principles, we do not use our strength to press for unilateral advantage." The statement passes over quite a bit. It ignores the record of the United States in determining how Guatemala, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic and other countries in Latin America long had to be governed - in effect, by regimes the US supported. It ignores our military bases and troops in Okinawa, Puerto Rico, Japan, Germany, South Korea and other countries conquered in past wars. It ignores the current US anger against Germany because its Chancellor opposes a US invasion of Iraq.

Bush's national security plan then adds, "We favor human freedom; conditions in which all nations and all societies can choose for themselves the rewards and challenges of political and economic liberty." It would be indiscreet if it mentioned Bush's selection of a former Unocal Oil Company employee as the new President of Afghanistan. And perhaps it is understandable that the President does not refer to his father's cynical invasion of Panama in 1989, or his support for the death squads in El Salvador, or that General Colin Powell, his Secretary of State, was in charge of the invasion and bombing of Panama at that time.

But at all points, President Bush's national security strategy is hard to distinguish from the views of his closest colleagues. These uniformly represent what is sometimes called the military-industrial complex. The foundation of their position is the conviction that the United States must be the one dominant nation in the entire world, not only militarily but industrially, economically, and politically as well. And to be dominant politically requires being the most influential nation in alliances, in the United Nations, and in regional groups. As the plan puts it, "The U.S. national security strategy will be based on a distinctly American internationalism that reflects the union of our values and national interests." So much for forswearing unilateral advantage.

This entire Bush strategy is based on one operational assumption: in the immediate future, the US will defend the world "against threats from terrorists and tyrants." These are not named, but Bush broadly describes them as "enemies" who have "openly declared that they are seeking weapons of mass destruction, and evidence indicates that they are doing so with determination." This implies that the United States now accepts as members of our exclusive club the nations that presently have nuclear weapons. For the US will not include in its strategy any effort to seek an international ban or limit on existing nuclear weapons of mass destruction. Rather, the plan states, "We will build defenses against ballistic missiles and other means of delivery."

A second key aspect of the strategy dictates that "America will act against such emerging threats before they are fully formed." This means that if the international community does not support US aggression, "we will not hesitate to act alone, if necessary, to exercise our right of self-defense by acting preemptively against such terrorists...."In other words, Bush's strategy permits him to decide, well before there is any action or the threat of action against the US, to make war against any nation he doesn't like.

Moreover, while paying lip service to the United Nations, Bush ignores it at crucial points. For example, Palestinians along with other nations have sought a United Nations peacekeeping force to intervene in the current struggle with Israel. Instead, Bush used vetoes in the United Nations Security Council to prevent any such action.

The Bush plan also says, "We will preserve the peace by building good relations among the great powers." This, however, certainly does not mean abandoning US control of outer space or sharing access to it with other nations. Even on the ground, the US not only keeps bases in the Pacific near China, but has warned China it will defend Taiwan against her. Bush authorized ballistic missile tests over the Pacific rim. This is no way to "build good relations" with China, which is certainly one of the great powers.

Is India a great power? The US has a working alliance with Pakistan, its enemy. Is Russia a great power? Then why maintain military bases in former Soviet countries on her southern border, and bring into NATO further countries formerly under Moscow surveillance and control? Evidently, Bush's idea of cooperation has its limits.

Bush further stated in his national security strategy document, "We will also continue to lead the world in a effort to reduce the terrible toll of AIDS and other infectious diseases." Here again Bush avoids truth. He has accepted Vatican bans on anything that interferes with its dogma against condoms or other birth control devices and prohibits any such preventive aids. According to a Catholic periodical, Conscience (Autumn, 2001), "67% of HIV-positive people in sub-Saharan Africa between the ages of 15-24 are women and girls, most of whom contracted the virus through heterosexual intercourse," and therefore the absence of condoms has put "10 million lives at risk." The same periodical reported "millions of deaths each year." (World Watch Institute reported the "number of deaths from AIDS in 1999 at 2.6 million" and the cumulative death toll at 16 million.)

In the last three pages of his strategy paper, Bush and his advisors deal with specific conflicts. In the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, they choose to blame the Palestinians. "If Palestinians embrace democracy and the role of law, confront corruption and firmly reject terror, they can count on American support for the creation of a Palestinian state." Bush treats Israel with kid gloves, simply encouraging it to "seek a just and comprehensive settlement to the conflict." While suggesting that Israeli forces "withdraw fully to positions they held prior to September 2000" he says merely that "lasting peace can only come when Israelis and Palestinians resolve the issues and end the conflict between them." In other words, the US offers no strategy to stop the killing, yet billions of dollars in military and other US aid will continue to flow to Israel.

Likewise, in the India-Pakistan dispute, Bush's strategy simply calls for "concrete steps" by these countries "that can help defuse the military confrontation." He shows a similar lack of knowledge about Africa and speaks vaguely of strengthening "Africa's capable reforming states and sub-regional organizations as the primary means to address transnational threats."

Bush is certainly not knowledgeable about vast areas of the world, or about foreign policy in general. One of the plan's paragraphs returns to the problem of "rogue states. " The Korean war ended in an armistice on July 7, 1953, in which the US agreed to formalize relations with a treaty within a few months - a fact the US has steadily ignored since. Now instead of concluding the much-postponed peace treaty with North Korea and recognizing it with an embassy and serious negotiations, Bush prefers to talk of the danger "of an imminent attack" and "the option of preventive actions."

This national strategy paper wants us to believe that the US "will build a world where great powers compete in peace instead of continually prepare for war." Yet it is obvious that Bush's expanded military, huge armed forces, and stockpiling of weapons are all preparing for war. America's past history and current foreign policy repeatedly belie Bush's claims.

And the Bush strategy of expansion is not confined to military operations. "We will actively work to bring the hope of democracy, development, free markets and free trade to every corner of the world," he writes. Here "freedom" and "democracy" are identified with unbridled or unregulated capitalism. Bush justifies this view with the claim that free trade and free markets have "proven their ability to lift whole societies out of poverty. " Exactly the opposite is true.

Mexico is an example. About thirty years ago, many US-owned businesses moved to the Mexican border where maquiladora factories in industries like electronics, automotive parts, textiles, garments, cosmetics, computer parts, and pharmaceuticals operate. They pay Mexican workers as little as $10 a day for an average of ten hours a day, six days a week. Ninety percent of maquiladora workers are girls and women. After only four or five years, many cannot stand the pace and pressure and leave, either sick or with emotional disabilities. Cheap labor, absence of labor unions, and few if any environmental laws maximize corporate profits. US corporations under the Overseas Private Investment Corporation law are insured against natural and political disasters such as expropriation. In a typical year, 1986, these foreign companies took out of Mexico more than $440 million in profits. Only $185 million was invested in Mexico. (The Maquiladoras: The Ethics of Manufacturing in Low Wage Areas, by Joseph J. Fahey, PhD.)

The result of this corporate transfer of operations to Mexico, in what Bush calls "free trade," is not only a loss to Mexico's economy, but a loss to American workers. In a two-year period, over 15,000 looms in the textile industry were lost—ninety-five percent of them in Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina; 444 steel related facilities have been closed (Ibid.). Laid-off workers, if they could find jobs, suffered an annual income loss of $4,400. (The Nafta Scam, October 2002 feature of Unite at www.uniteunion.org)

The new president of Brazil has not only said that a free trade deal "would be tantamount to an annexation of Brazil by the United States." He has also insisted that any overall agreement must include Cuba, which is now excluded from Bush's trade plan.

Bush speaks of ensuring that the benefits of free trade do not come at the expense of American workers. At no place does he acknowledge the existence of labor unions. He does mention "working with energy producers" - in other words, oil companies - in the Western Hemisphere, Africa, Central Asia, and the Caspian region, where US oil companies predominate. Significantly, his strategy refers to "global efforts to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations" that interfere "with the global climate." However, unlike other countries that require changes, he opposes legislation to aid the process, but relies on "free trade" and opposes "the heavy hand of government" to require corporations to act.

The Bush strategy makes numerous other comments about free trade, the value of the World Bank and other capitalist and corporate resources, before turning again to military security. It chastises China for "pursuing advanced military capabilities that can threaten its neighbors" and says, "China is following an outdated path that, in the end, will hamper its own pursuit of national greatness." Yet this is the path the US followed in the Western Hemisphere for years and is now following on a world level.

Bush, in the last several pages of his strategy says, "It is time to reaffirm the essential role of American military strength. We must build and maintain our defenses beyond challenge." This means that we must "dissuade future military competition."

"The presence of American forces overseas is one of the most profound symbols of the U.S. commitments to allies and require bases and stations within and beyond Western Europe and Northeast Asia," he goes on to say, "as well as temporary access arrangements for the long-distance deployment of U.S. forces." This means we must "ensure U.S. access to distant theaters, and protect critical U.S. infrastructure and assets in outer space." Of course he never once mentions the word imperialism.

Here the paper adds an important premise relating to dominant military force: "Our forces will be strong enough to dissuade potential adversaries from pursuing a military build-up in hopes of surpassing or equaling the power of the United States."

Nowhere does the President speak of the cost of such overwhelming militarization. What is the price tag on being the unchallengeable world power? How long it can such a position be sustained?

President Bush does speak about a battle for the future of the Muslim world in terms of a "struggle of ideas as an area where America must excel." This could be a positive note. So why not start with Iraq, instead of treating it as an enemy? But there is simply no consistency in US foreign policy. In the name of an offensive against "terror and tyrants," Bush is threatening war against Iraq, which has no history of harboring terrorists. Yet he remains very friendly with Saudi Arabia, where terrorists have abounded and where the regime has maintained as tight a control over its people as Hussein has in Iraq. This is not a good start for a "struggle of ideas."

In one of the concluding paragraphs of the paper, Bush objects to investigation, inquiry, or prosecution by the International Court, whose jurisdiction does not extend to America and which we do not accept. In other words, what American presidents, generals, corporate leaders and lower levels of the military do is beyond the law. For how can a nation flex its military and corporate muscle if it must conform to civilized law?

Bush's entire strategy takes no thought for poverty-stricken peoples or weak nations that suffer from corporate or other forms of exploitation. That means it tacitly encourages militant objectors without armies to engage in terrorist acts. Bush's strategies are not recipes for peace, but for revenge. And that revenge will cause suffering among American civilians, even if not on the scale of the World Trade Center.

 

John M. Swomley was FOR executive secretary from 1950-1969; director of the National Council Against Conscription from 1944-1954; professor of Social Ethics at Saint Paul School of Theology in Kansas City from 1960-1984, and is author of The Military Establishment and ten other books. His newsletter, Facts for Action, is available for $15 a year (6148 NW Wales Rd, Kansas City, MO 64151-2854).