Lust for Empire

Iraq is just the first salvo in Bush's push toward U.S. global hegemony.

By: Jill Nelson

It would be funny if the stakes weren't so high. Saddam Hussein challenges George W. Bush to debate. Turkey balks at a multibillion-dollar aid package - also known as a bribe - offered by the United States in return for permission to deploy upwards of 60,000 American troops along its border with Iraq; it demands not only more money but a share in the Iraqi oilfields that many believe, more than weapons of mass destruction or toppling a dictator, are the real reasons for war. Bush dismisses millions of anti-war demonstrators at home and abroad as merely a "focus group", as if the war is a product being test-marketed. A few days later, he declares that even if Saddam dismantles missiles as instructed by U.N. weapons inspectors, it's just the tip of the iceberg, and may be too little, too late to prevent an American attack.

Meanwhile, America's self-important and much-ballyhooed free press continues to function as an arm of administration policy, presenting war as a justified fait accompli and speculating about a post-war Iraq. I've no doubt that there's a run on flak jackets, military helmets, and resume services as opportunistic journalists prepare for war, the next big story of their careers, and as visions of the front page, more air time, and lofty promotions dance in their heads.

Meanwhile, the rest of us, both those who support an attack on Iraq and those who were part of one of those gigantic anti-war focus groups on Feb. 15, wait for the other shoe to drop, apparently helpless to do anything about it.

If anything has become clear over the past months it is that the Bush administration is determined to go to war. Whether the American people want it or not. With or without the support of our traditional allies. In spite of the will of the members of the U.N. Security Council. Regardless of what people around the world, from California to Capetown, South Africa, think about it.

Global Hegemony

The truth is, in the past few months it's become clear that this war is about far more than toppling the head of one of the nations in George W. Bush's self-defined "axis of evil" in order to liberate the people of Iraq, and even far more than a war for oil - which it clearly is. What the Bush administration is hell-bent on initiating in Iraq is the first salvo in a war for empire. Iraq is just the first step by an administration committed to global hegemony, the creation of a United States to which all other nations are made subservient through bludgeoning, bribery, or the threat of American-made terror.

The Bush administration attempts to justify war with Iraq as a reasonable and effective measure in its war against terror, but who among us really believes this? How can we convince ourselves that entering into a war that neither our traditional allies like France and Germany nor damn near anyone else besides Britain, Spain, and Bulgaria support, will do anything but increase terrorism?

Do we really believe members of Arab states in the region and around the world will rejoice when the United States of Iraq is suddenly forced into their midst? Will anyone? Haven't we learned by now that war, violence, and arrogance does not end terror, but spawns it? And that in the end, righteous rhetoric is always overwhelmed by the terrors of war and occupation?

Breeding Fear

Wherever he is, I'm convinced that Osama bin Laden has more to celebrate today than he did on Sept. 11, 2001. And why not? His work is being done for him by the President of the United States and the President's Cabinet, aided and abetted by a gutless Senate and House of Representatives, millions of terrified Americans, and a bevy of international opportunists. Bin Laden does not have to lift a finger or issue another statement. The administration has done the work of creating legions of people who hate and fear America, who have or will soon be profoundly hurt by this country, who see the United States as greedy, rapacious and violent. A perfect formula for creating new and probably better terrorists, all under the guise of making the world safe for... whom?

I cannot accept that we are so terrified of terror that we are willing to sanction our government to ignore the will of the American people and the international community in order to go wreak terror on others, as if fighting terrorism is merely an adult version of hot potato, the objective being to pass it on to someone else before the music stops.

Raising Voices

Surely, whatever side of the fence we're on, we can agree that pre-emptively attacking another nation when most of the world does not support us is not a wise move. Is it that we are so terrified that we will accept any actions that might decrease our own fears, at home and abroad? Our collective silence on the steady curtailment of our civil rights here at home by John Ashcroft's in-Justice Department suggests that we are willing to trade our freedoms for the modern equivalent of a snake-oil elixir to wash away our fears.

A recent poll by the Pew Research Center found that 57% of Americans did not think the United States should go to war without a new resolution by the U.N. Security Council. One suspects that the President and his advisers dismiss this as just another irrelevant focus group. What horrendous new norm is being created if, in this alleged democracy, the will of the people is dismissed as merely bad product feedback? Now, before the first bombs fall on Baghdad, is the time to raise our voices against an administration whose lust for empire endangers us all.