[casi-analysis] The meaning of war: A heterodox perspective

["Dirk Adriaensens" <dirk.adriaensens@DELETETHISskynet.be>]

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A brilliant analysis by James Petras. A must-read !

Dirk Adriaensens.

For the BRussells Tribunal organising committee.


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The meaning of war: A heterodox perspective

James Petras

Rebelión 14-03-2005
Introduction
This paper will discuss the social, political, economic, psychological and ideological causes and 
impacts of war in contemporary history. Obviously we cannot explore all of these dimensions in 
detail; instead we will focus on what we consider the most important dimensions of these general 
categories.

The first question that requires clarification is "what wars?" There are at least four kinds of war 
which have global significance. First and most significant in terms of the present and future 
configuration of inter-state relations are imperialist wars - such as the US invasion of 
Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq, leading to the forced imposition of direct or indirect colonial 
rule, military bases and appropriation of strategic resources and/or water or overland routes.

The second type of war is "separatist-ethnic conflicts" such as the Albanian seizure of Yugoslav 
Kosovo, or the Kurdish seizure of Northern Iraq. While separatist conflicts are played out within 
the larger Imperial strategic framework, the local participants bring their own "historical claims" 
to justify their war on the existing central government.

The third type of war is the "colonial-territorial" wars, best exemplified by the Israel expulsion 
of Palestinians, the arbitrary appropriation of land and resources, their denial of self-government 
and the settlement of Jews on Palestinian land seized through armed force.

The fourth type of war is "regional wars", found mainly in Africa and Asia, where aggressive 
regimes invade neighboring countries especially adjoining territory - usually containing precious 
metals. This is the issue in Southern Africa, where Rwanda has occupied a significant swathe of 
Eastern Zaire.

While each of these wars has its specificities - the question arises as to whether these wars are 
linked to the empire building projects of the US, European Union (EU) or other emerging imperial 
powers? The answer is complex and contingent on the level of analysis at which the problem is 
posed. Many of these conflicts predate current empire building efforts by the US; in many cases, 
local elites visualize war as a source of class, personal or national enrichment. We can speculate 
that conflicts of this sort will continue at some (distant) future in a "post-imperial" period, as 
local satraps attempt to seize 'fragments' of a declining world empire.

Nevertheless whatever the 'historical claims' and local interests involved, all these contemporary 
wars are linked in specific ways with the ongoing empire building of the US and the EU. The US has 
consistently supported separatist ethnic-based movements, like the Kosova Liberation Army or the 
Chechen terrorists to weaken national-states (Yugoslavia, Russia) which Washington targeted. As a 
consequence Washington secures a new client regime, major military bases and strategic geopolitical 
advantages while undermining an enemy to its uni-polar pretensions. The US provides arms and 
financial aid to Israeli colonial expansion and war against Palestinians and Arab countries. This 
has both weakened the Arab states opposed to US empire building and provoked greater mass popular 
resistance. The ideological influence and political and financial power of the pro-Israeli 
organizations and individuals inside and outside the government have reinforced the most bellicose 
and militarist wing of the US empire builders, especially in the Middle East, often times at the 
expense of US multi-national corporations seeking to enter in agreements with local regimes.

US imperialism has a contradictory relationship with the separatists and colonial states: on the 
one hand they undermine anti-imperialist nationalists and on the other hand, their territorial 
claims threaten to undermine imperial ties with client regimes (as in the case of Iraqi Kurdistan 
and the Republic of Turkey). Moreover the imperial strategy of supporting Islamic nationalists 
against secular leftists (as in the case of Afghanistan and Yugoslavia) has led to new violent 
confrontations between the empire and former Islamic 'allies' as Washington attempted to use and 
discard them for more docile neo-liberal puppet regimes.

Under conditions in which US and European empire building is driven by a doctrine of permanent 
wars, there are few if any regional, local or separatist wars which are purely local - in their 
causes or consequences.

II: Driving Force of War: Inter-Imperial Collaboration and Competition
The key to the accelerated pace of empire building over the past decade is the "open spaces" 
resulting from the demise of the collectivist states (USSR, Eastern Europe and Asia) and their 
overseas dependencies and allies in Africa and elsewhere. Both the US and the EU successfully 
incorporated these 'ex-collectivist' countries into their sphere of domination - militarily, 
economically and culturally. Europe gained control of strategic resources, cheap skilled labor and 
major industries, incorporating these countries as subordinates within the European Union. The US 
secured similar economic advantages but also established military bases and recruited mercenary 
military forces for its imperial invasions (in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq) and political 
supporters in the United Nations. Washington backed the illegal seizure of power by Yeltsin and 
then provided backing for his corrupt, destructive, oligarchic regime that literally destroyed the 
Russian economy and society. In the course of supporting Yeltsin, the US financial system received 
hundreds of billions of dollars in illegal transfers by US backed oligarchs. Europe and the US 
joined in partnership with the oligarchs to plunder Russia's oil and gas resources. The US secured 
world military supremacy and proceeded to construct an "arc of encirclement" around the weakened 
Russian state via its new client states incorporated into NATO. From the Baltic States through 
Central-Eastern Europe to the Balkans and across the Caucuses to Central and Southern Asia, 
Washington has established local armies and military bases under US command.

Europe, concentrating on economic dominance, penetrated these same regions, relying on aid and 
financing of their multi-nationals and the corruption of the new capitalist politicians.

The 'co-operative' joint conquest by the US and the EU of Eastern Europe, Balkans and Baltic 
countries was based on "shared decisions and shared division of the spoils of conquest". This 
re-division of the world between the US and the EU however came to an end with the most recent wave 
of imperial wars, beginning with the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Washington decided to 
act unilaterally in order to monopolize decision-making and the colonial occupation of these 
countries, relegating Europe to a subordinate role under US command and with few claims on the 
spoils of conquest. The two leading EU powers, France and Germany, conceded US supremacy in 
Afghanistan but balked over the US monopoly of Iraqi oil wealth. The US-EU conflict over Iraq 
illustrates inter-imperialist competition in the re-division of the world's wealth and 
neo-colonies. The EU imperial states, relying mostly on their economic instruments - banks, 
multi-national corporations, state-sponsored trade and investment agreements - was challenging US 
attempts to establish regional and world supremacy and subordination of Europe via a monopoly of 
energy resources.

In Iran, Iraq, Libya, Russia, the Caucasus and Latin America, EU multi-national oil and gas 
companies have secured long-term energy supplies via direct investments or state-to-state 
agreements. The architects of US global power decided to undercut stiff economic competition from 
the EU by relying on Washington's "comparative advantage" in military power - to unilaterally 
launch the Iraq invasion, to monopolize Iraq's oil wealth and to prepare for future oil wars in the 
Middle East (Iran and others) and elsewhere (Venezuela).

Washington's permanent war doctrine was in strategic opposition to the EU's doctrine of 'economic 
imperialism' and selective and limited military intervention. Despite the significant differences 
in the Middle East, both the EU and the US still find room to co-operate in imposing spheres of 
joint influence in several countries and regions, namely in Afghanistan, Haiti and in Africa. 
Co-operation and conflict between the great imperial powers in re-dividing the world into spheres 
of colonization, domination and influence are the key to understanding the meaning of war in the 
late 20th century and into the new millennium.

Erosion and "Reversal of Historical Memory
The re-emergence of colonial wars and colonial rule in the 21st century and the growth of national 
liberation movements and anti-colonial resistance reflects the erosion of historical memory in the 
imperial countries, among Western intellectuals as well as sectors of the masses (especially in the 
US) and the elites.

The "erosion of historical memory" was evident in Europe between the two world wars, as Germany 
re-armed and prepared to conquer and colonize Europe. Germany's pacifist, and even revolutionary, 
anti-military consciousness immediately following World War I lasted at most 15 years, after which 
the Nazis were able to launch Germany into a new frenzy of re-armament and territorial conquest. In 
the post-WWII period, US mass anti-war sentiment reflecting the horrors of death and disability 
have been of short duration: A brief 5-year period after World War II (1945-49) before launching 
war on the Korean peninsula (1950-53); followed by mass "anti-war" sentiment from 1953-1963; the US 
invasion of Indo-China and the 12-year war (1963-1975) led to the re-emergence of very extensive 
mass anti-war sentiment which continued for 15 years till the First Gulf War. During the 1990's, US 
anti-war sentiment temporarily re-emerged just prior to the Second Gulf War (January-February 2003) 
and then virtually disappeared, at least from the streets. "Mass historical memory", history 
teaches us, can be a temporarily powerful sentiment in imposing restraint on the militarist side of 
imperialist expansion, but history also demonstrates that "memory" can be eroded and overcome over 
time (shorter or longer) by determined imperial decision-makers and propagandists.

"Historical memory" plays a positive role in limiting imperial wars under certain conditions and 
within a limited time frame. Memory of large scale deaths and casualties among imperial soldiers, 
deep economic crises resulting from military spending and loss of commercial markets, profound 
internal political conflicts and instability, demoralization and discontent among soldiers impose 
serious, but time-bound, constraints on imperial war-making capacity. The mass anti-war syndrome is 
anathema to imperialist ideologues, policymakers and international corporations. As a consequence, 
a conscious deliberate process of erosion is set in place. "Historical Memory" is modified by a 
cumulative set of events, ambiguous ideological pronouncements and small-scale military actions 
which over time lead to the resurgence of pro-war mass sentiment and the eclipse of historical 
memory.

"Historical memory" is strongest among those who most closely experienced and lived through the 
devastating consequences of a 'losing imperialist war'. The high point of "memory" is the moment 
immediately following a destructive, costly, imperial war. Subsequently, the memory erodes over 
time, as a new generation emerges and ideology overcomes experiences and beliefs transmitted 
between generations.

The US experience following the imperial defeat in the Indo-Chinese war is illustrative of the 
mechanisms of "memory erosion".

The first steps toward erosion took place right after the end of the Vietnam War during the 
presidency of James Carter (1976-80). Carter developed the doctrine of human rights intervention - 
selectively applying "humanitarian" rhetoric to attempt to re-legitimate US 'intervention' at a 
time in which mass consciousness was deeply opposed to new imperialist wars but responsive to 
appeals for human rights. Secondly Carter financed and backed a series of surrogate terrorist 
movements and regimes in Central America (Nicaragua, Southern Africa and Afghanistan) which allowed 
Washington to continue its quest for empire building. Thirdly Carter provoked a major confrontation 
with Iran by providing asylum to the deposed and despised Shah - leading to the seizure of the US 
Embassy. Carter used the incident to reverse the decline in military spending. Fourthly, the Carter 
Administration, with financial backing from Saudi Arabia and logistical support from Pakistan, 
recruited and armed tens of thousands of Islamic fundamentalists to join forces with indigenous 
Afghan landlords, warlords and mullahs in an attack on the secular, reform-minded pro-Soviet Afghan 
regime. The Carter regime's purpose was to provoke large-scale Soviet military assistance to the 
beleaguered Afghan regime, as a pretext for re-launching a "Second Cold War" - and accelerate the 
re-militarization of the US Empire. Through propaganda moves and indirect military engagement, 
Carter began the gradual process of gaining adherents for imperial wars and foremost eroding the 
powerful 'historical memory' of opposition to war.

President Reagan extended and deepened this process by accelerating the arms build-up, engaging in 
a mercenary war against Nicaragua, and deepening the surrogate wars in Afghanistan and Southern 
Africa. Under Reagan and subsequently Bush (father) the US launched imperial wars against Grenada 
and Panama - weak, small countries - which Washington succeeded in conquering with a minimum of 
casualties. Given the 'low costs' in US lives lost and the rapid and successful outcomes, mass 
historical consciousness was 'modified'-to accept or acquiesce once more in the use of war to 
establish US power, in specific circumstances. Yet historical memory was still a majoritarian 
sentiment in the lead up to the first Gulf War: most of the US public was opposed to the Gulf War 
in 1990 until it began. Once again the overwhelming military triumph and the minimum loss of US 
lives led to a dramatic shift toward mass support for the war.

President Clinton continued the aerial war against Iraq and the military occupation of Northern 
Iraq. Historical memory was eroding. Clinton faced no opposition to the aerial war but when he sent 
US troops to Somalia and nearly two-dozen US soldiers were killed, "memories" re-emerged and 
Clinton quickly withdrew forces.

One of the greatest blows to 'historical memory' and an event which cleared the way for the 
subsequent imperial wars against Afghanistan and Iraq, was Clinton's war against Yugoslavia. 
Clinton, aided by a massive falsification propaganda campaign, declared that the Yugoslav 
government was practicing genocide against the Bosnian Moslems and the Kosovo Albanians. Hence the 
imperialist war was transformed into a "humanitarian war". Cities, hospitals, factories, radio 
stations and civilian population centers were bombed and the US/NATO alliance broke up Yugoslavia 
into client mini-states. Once again there was mass public support, as humanitarian" imperialism, 
the small number of US casualties and an early quick victory eroded the last traces of historical 
memory. The ideological and political basis for mass-backed imperialist policies were in place - 
but lacked a "trigger event".

The events of September 11, 2001 provided the Second Bush Administration, composed of extremists 
civilian militarists and Zionist fanatics, the pretext to launch the first in a series of wars in 
Afghanistan and Iraq, and to enunciate the totalitarian doctrines of permanent wars, preventive 
wars and the extraterritoriality of US imperial laws. The best evidence available suggests that the 
Bush Administration was deeply complicit in the 9/11 events leading up to the final destruction of 
historical memory.

However unlike other recent imperialist wars, the Iraq War is a prolonged peoples war (there are no 
quick and easy victories) resulting in large-scale death and casualties of US soldiers and out of 
control spending with no end in sight. A new "historical memory" may be in the making based on the 
new realities in Iraq.

IV - War: Political Institutions and Social Movements
Historical consciousness is embodied by activists sustained by political organizations. Based on 
historical experience, we can say that social movements have great capacity to 'create' the memory 
in the course of dynamic mobilizations and memorable mass meeting, but it is political institutions 
which will sustain or erode that historical memory.

The principle political institutions (particularly in the United States), including the mass media, 
have consistently worked to dissolve historical consciousness of the death and destruction caused 
by imperialist wars. While they claim to "honor the dead soldiers" they do so only in so far as 
they served the empire, their "heroism" is praised in sacrificing their lives to further the global 
reach of imperial institutions. The electoral process is not used to advance an anti-militarist 
agenda but to eliminate independent mass mobilizations which act directly against the instruments 
of imperial wars.

As anti-war activity moves toward electoral politics, it is absorbed by the established electoral 
parties and politicians, who opportunistically tip their hat to anti-war sentiment in exchange for 
diluting anti-war consciousness. The electoral process involves anti-war social movements making 
deep compromises with the pro-war financiers of campaigns, with politicians articulating ambiguous 
and inconsistent positions and with political parties having long-time, large-scale allegiances to 
imperial policies and interests. Such is the experience in the US and elsewhere: Established 
political institutions bend sufficiently to question an unpopular war in order to attract the mass 
opposition, and once capturing their allegiance, return to re-building the military capacity for 
imperial wars. The moment in which the movements dissolve into established political parties, 
competing in electoral campaigns through "dissident" politicians, "historical consciousness" is 
severely eroded.

The original impetus for organizing mass anti-war movements came precisely through the recognition 
that existing political parties and 'normal political processes' are deeply immersed and corrupted 
by their structural ties to imperial interests. By returning to these institutions, with new 
personalities and slogans, mass consciousness lost sight of its historical insights into the nature 
of imperial power.

In contrast "historical consciousness" emerged with great power when masses of people moved into 
direct collective action, taking local initiatives and linking the economic and political 
institutions directing imperial wars. Action and knowledge grew into collective anti-militarist 
consciousness which over time evolved from awareness of everyday present-day destruction 
("empirical consciousness") into "historical consciousness", understanding of the systemic pillage 
by imperialism over time and space.

Direct action movements bypass the distorting influence of the "political guardians" (conventional 
politicians, accepted ideologues and media pundits) and directly articulate the anti-war ideas and 
anti-militarist interests of the mass of the people. Movements acted directly against the 
militarist policies which negatively impacted on the populations - conscription, forced and 
extended war duties - and against the policy-makers who sent hundreds of thousands to death and 
disability.

In this conflict between the anti-war movements and pro-war political institutions, the 
pre-eminence of the former was most evident in time of imperial defeat, soldier discontent, and 
political leaders in disgrace for lies and broken promises. These are crucial moments, but they are 
short-lived. Pro-war political institutions, that outlive and/or overcome the crisis of imperial 
war, re-group, absorb the 'best' of their adversaries in the anti-war opposition and return to 
pursue the policy of imperial war - until the next crisis -- ultimately asserting a dominant 
position. Historical consciousness becomes a "footnote" to conventional history of "Great Wars".

"Historical consciousness" of anti-imperialist wars retains continuity when it leads to a 
large-scale, long-term transformation of the political institutions. The continued process of 
struggle links generations, and the transmission of anti-militarist ideas. This continual renewal 
of historical consciousness depends on, in part, the active role of anti-imperialist intellectuals.

War and Intellectuals
Left intellectuals have been fervent critics of war in general, until they face the reality of 
their country engaging in war - and then opposition gives way to evasive statements, ambiguous 
moral temporizing and, among the most "courageous", a condemnation of the violence of the aggressor 
and as well as the victim. Even worst, many left and progressive intellectuals have argued for, 
defended and propagated the doctrine of "humanitarian intervention (imperialism)". This moral 
betrayal was evident during the US invasion and destruction of Yugoslavia, and support for the 
terrorist Kosovo Liberation (sic) Army and the "ethnic cleansing" of hundreds of thousands of Serbs 
from Kosovo, Croatia and elsewhere. US progressive intellectuals were conspicuously silent. The 
"progressive intellectuals" repeated their performance: providing tendentious political 
justifications for the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq -- though in the latter case, up until the 
start of the war, a minority of intellectuals condemned the war and the victimized regime. Even 
those progressive intellectuals, who criticized the imperialist wars, refused to support the 
anti-colonial resistance and many opposed the immediate withdrawal of the colonial armies.

The question of war and peace is a momentous issue. In the events leading up to an imperialist war, 
all the propaganda machinery is set in motion, the mass media dramatize the righteousness of the 
imperial cause and the evil of the country which is to be invaded. Repressive legislation 
("security measures") is enacted by large congressional majorities. Publicists, religious notables, 
demagogues, statesmen, and respectable leaders of civil society find lofty moral purposes to laud 
"this war". The latent chauvinist "instincts" of the masses are aroused. The progressive 
intellectuals become fearful; the repressive legislation may ruin a career and undermine everyday 
routines - their classes, seminars and completion of their latest article or book. Their 
professional colleagues eye them with suspicion unless they openly pledge allegiance - "beyond any 
criticism in other times, in time of our survival, we must join forces" - with the military 
invaders. It is not merely fear of material losses or disruption of everyday routines which causes 
our progressive intellectuals to embrace the war or remain silent or (in the case of the most 
courageous minority) to condemn both sides, but the sense of being left out of national history, of 
being shunned by neighbors and colleagues, of having to accept the consequences of living in a 
savage imperial civilization that thrives on war, especially a successful war. The progressive 
intellectuals respond far more often to the pressures of their milieu than to the suffering of the 
colonized people.

The commitment of the progressive intellectual is not fixed in stone - they change with the 
conditions of their milieu and the strength and fortunes of the imperial government. With the 
colonial occupation, and the graphic visuals of death and destruction of the colonized countries, 
the progressive intellectuals argue for a humanitarian mission, to correct the excesses of the war. 
They even raise their voices a few decibels before the abuse and torture of certain prisoners in 
certain prisons. But rarely do progressive intellectuals dare to transgress the colonial frontiers 
to publicly support the anti-colonial resistance. They claim that to commit to the resistance would 
call into question their "moral credentials" with the moderate imperial institutional power 
wielders.

Since the end of the Vietnam War, Western intellectuals have not expressed solidarity with the 
popular resistance to any of the imperialist invasions. Grenada, Panama, Somalia, Yugoslavia, 
Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon, the imperial wars are numerous, but the list of committed 
intellectuals is short.

The principle reason that many of the intellectuals oppose prolonged imperialist wars is because of 
the casualties to US soldiers and the cost to the US treasury. There is a kind of political 
narcissism in the slogan "Bring our boys home" in which the center of attention is on the invading 
troops not on the anti-colonial resistance. Even in "opposition" the Western intellectuals derive 
their politics from an ethno-centric view of the world.

At a deeper level this political narcissism is also a way of making concessions to the chauvinist 
fever which grips much of their countrymen: "We too share you concern, for our imperialist country 
- but lets not spend "our boys" lives on this". Of course if and when the imperial rulers recruit 
mercenaries, client regimes and local collaborators to murder resistance fighters - nothing will be 
said of any consequence because "our boys" will be home safe.

The historical shift of intellectuals from opposition to pro-war politics and support of imperial 
candidates is not simply a "pragmatic choice" of the lesser evil against the greater evil. The 
transformation is the result of fear, fear of those in power -- even as they face no real threat to 
their lives, careers or living standards. But intellectuals imagine a threat, and they concoct wild 
scenarios of "fascist" repression to hide their moral cowardice. This imagined fear is magnified by 
the possible threat to personal safety, security, and property if the imperial force is defeated 
and the rulers "take their revenge" against internal critics. Supporting the war or "opposing both 
sides" as the moral hypocrites prefer it, is insurance for the future. In the black fantasy world 
of intellectuals, when the imagined state investigation takes place, they can always present as 
evidence in their favor, their articles and speeches condemning the "moral barbarians" who attacked 
"our boys".

But if there is one universal truth about our progressive intellectuals it is that they do no 
"stand in one place" - they move with the times - they gauge the changing winds of political 
fortune.

When those suffering the war, the "average people" turn against the war, when the imperial regime 
is split with elite conflicts, when the soldiers question their orders, their officers, the war, 
the president and the generals, then our moral intellectuals concoct a new set of moral 
imperatives, adding their voices to the multitudes who question the war. Once it is safe, once the 
ravages of a losing imperial war have torn asunder the tissues of official lies, out bold 
progressive intellectuals step up, seize the center stage and proclaim their opposition to war. 
Intellectuals never sell-out, they are rented to the strongest party, the rising new political 
configuration. As opposition to the imperial war grows our progressive intellectuals become bolder.

In the war of words, the ideological warfare in the cultural sphere, our progressive intellectuals 
take on the neo-conservatives, they expose the lies of the mass media, they become the 
self-promoted "face of the opposition" to the outside world, even if their claims have little merit.

Even as the intellectuals diagnose the sources of wars, they overlook the specific and concrete 
configurations of power in favor of focusing on easy targets, ones which offer no threats to their 
professional careers and intellectual acceptance.

War and Oil
Let us turn to a specific imperialist war, the US invasion and colonial occupation of Iraq to 
illustrate how the progressive intellectual opposition to the war is profoundly influenced by a 
unique set of political allegiances.

Conventional wisdom among progressive intellectuals argues that the US invasion of Iraq is driven 
by US multinational oil companies seeking to control that country's oil resources. A more 
sophisticated version of this hypothesis argues that the war is directed by a strategic policy to 
monopolize oil as a weapon and hence dominate its imperial rivals in Europe and Asia. In both 
cases, the economic and strategic hypothesis, fail to take account of the political loyalties of 
the specific policymakers who designed the war, propagandized in favor of the war and became its 
most fanatical and influential executioners. Few if any of the progressive intellectuals examined 
the political loyalties of the key militarist policymakers.

The hypothesis that "oil" and the US petroleum multinationals were the main force behind the Iraq 
war fails every empirical test. If we examine the policy statements of the major oil companies and 
their public spokespeople in the five years leading up to the war we find no systematic political 
and propaganda campaign in favor of war. One looks in vain through all the major financial and 
specialized petroleum journals for evidence of organized pro-war politics. The reason is that the 
major oil companies were doing quite well with the status quo: profits and prices were reasonably 
high, investments were relatively secure, anti-imperialist sentiment was extensive but not intense 
and, most of all, opportunities for important new investments were opening in Saudi Arabia, Iran, 
Libya and possibly (via third parties) in Iraq.

The US war in Iraq and Afghanistan reversed the picture creating a very hostile environment, 
increasing dangers of destructive attacks, insecurity of Western personnel, and augmenting the 
power of OPEC against the major private US companies. Only a very few oil-related companies can be 
said to have benefited from the war - Haliburton, for example -most of which had direct ties to 
Vice President Cheney. They are the exception that proves the rule. The oil industry as an 
investor, producer and seller have not really benefited from the war. Even after the colonial 
occupation of Iraq, (and even after the illegal privatization of Iraq's state oil companies) the 
predominant sentiment among oil companies is at best ambivalent: while future opportunities may 
have increased so have the present threats to supply and transport.

The war has created greater volatility, favoring speculators over long-term oil investors. 
Moreover, rising prices prejudice the overall performance of the imperialist economies, adding 
costs, increasing trade imbalances and making the oil companies conspicuous targets of public ire. 
Moreover the unconditional support for Israel within the Bush Administration in the context of the 
Iraq war, has created a difficult climate for high level negotiations between the petroleum CEO's 
and the oil-rich Arab leaders.

In summary, there is no empirical evidence that the major oil companies drove US war policy either 
before or after the colonial occupation.

The second hypothesis argues that the war was part of a strategic policy to monopolize oil supply 
toward establishing the US as the undisputed world power, and subordinating Europe and Asia to its 
command. A corollary to this argument is that in the recent past US political and military 
triumphs, had been accompanied by a policy of sharing the spoils of imperial victories with their 
European and Japanese allies. The new US military doctrine of unilateral offensive wars 
(euphemistically referred to as "preventive wars") was designed to seize strategic advantage and 
claim exclusive control over the spoils of war: petroleum, military bases and trade routes. 
Imperialist strategic planners miscalculated, presuming an easy military victory over "the Arabs" 
and a rapid seizure and privatization of public enterprises and unhindered exploitation of oil 
wealth.

This hypothesis has a lot of merit in explaining some of the motivations - especially by focusing 
on the importance of the political decision-makers within the imperial state apparatus. However 
there are several important weaknesses in this hypothesis. For one, there was and is sharp 
differences between different power centers in the imperial state apparatus and even within each 
"center". For example, many of the top professional military commanders were opposed to the war, as 
were members of the State Department. CIA analysts did not share the assumptions that the colonized 
people would welcome the imperial armies. Numerous former high military, CIA officials, and United 
Nations weapons inspectors challenged the pretext put forth by the pro-war sectors of the US 
imperial state, that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and posed a threat to the United 
States.

If the imperial state itself was divided and some sectors were not convinced of the need to go to 
war, which group was able to overcome that resistance, by-pass established intelligence channels 
(and create its own circuit), fabricate its own "intelligence and successfully lead the US to war? 
If war was not promoted by and in the interests of the US oil companies, and contrary to military 
doctrine of fighting two wars simultaneously, in whose geo-political interests was the war?

The War and the Israel-Zionist Hypothesis
The hypothesis which most fits the data is the Israel hypothesis - specifically that the principal 
architects and theoreticians of US world supremacy and the principal promoters of sequential wars, 
particularly in the Middle East, were influential Zionists in the top echelons of the Pentagon, 
National Security Council and in well-connected research centers "advising" the government while 
acting on behalf of the expansionist interests of the State of Israel.

The key author of the strategic doctrine of undisputed US world power was Wolfowitz, back in the 
first Bush Administration (1991). He joined with other influential Zionists like Richard Perle, 
Douglas Feith and a host of pro-Israel extremists to prepare a strategy paper for the Israeli state 
(1996) in which the Palestinians were to be physically driven from all of Palestine and Israel 
would become the regional power in the Middle East. Both Feith and Wolfowitz, early in their public 
careers were accused and chastised for turning US government documents over to the Israeli 
government. For at least twenty years they have been actively collaborating over Israeli policy 
and, in and out of government, they have worked intimately with Israeli officials in the United 
States and Israel.

The Zionist influentials, even before securing high positions in the Pentagon and State Department, 
were strong proponents of US military attacks against Israel's Middle East adversaries, which 
included Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia and, of course, Iraq. Their militarist advocacy was 
independent of how such wars would affect US oil interests, regional stability, relations with 
Europe, the Muslim countries or the rest of the world. The Pentagon Zionists were among the first 
to link Iraq with the events of 9/11 in an attempt to manipulate US public anger against the 
secular Iraqi state. They were responsible for fabricating the story that Iraq was importing 
uranium from Niger for the purposes of developing nuclear weapons. Wolfowitz admitted that he 
promoted the false pretext that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction to create a "consensus" 
to go to war - and every major Zionist writer and 'expert' pushed the same line.

The principal pro-Israeli lobby in the US, AIPEC, worked intensely and closely with the State of 
Israel, and the key Zionists in the Pentagon and their advisory groups in pushing for the US 
invasion of Iraq. Major Jewish organizations and influential propagandists in the mass media 
promoted the war, demonizing Iraq and fabricating stories of imminent threats.

The only major beneficiary of the US war in Iraq is the State of Israel: The war destroyed a major 
supporter of the Palestinian Intifada and Israel got a free hand in its terror and territorial 
colonization Palestinian land.

The US, isolated from almost all the major European powers and Islamic countries, because of its 
pro-Israel agenda, took on the pariah status of the Israeli clerical colonial regime. All the 
predictions and assumptions of the pro-war, anti-Arab Zionists were proven false. The Iraqi Arabs 
did not submit to the US occupation - they formed a potent resistance which engages the US in an 
increasingly prolonged war of attrition. The US intervention did not secure an oil monopoly; it has 
jeopardized its supply of oil in the Middle East by intensifying instability in Saudi Arabia. The 
war has soured US oil dealings in the Caucuses and resulted in speculative oil price increases, 
increasing the US trade deficit. Equally significant while the US is immersed in the Iraq War, 
China, India and Japan secure strategic oil and gas contracts in Asia and Latin America.

The Zionists were wrong in envisioning that the US would proceed to a series of successful wars 
with Israel's other enemies in the Middle East - Iran, Syria, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia. The Iraq 
invasion has tied down the vast majority of US active ground troops in a losing war with high 
casualties, thus at least, temporarily limiting its capacity to start new wars on behalf of the 
Empire or Israel. This has not prevented the Pentagon Zionists and their AIPEC allies from pushing 
for a new military attack on Iran and Syria.

Apart from England, Israel has been the major supporter and ally in the US conquest of Iraq for 
good reason: They are the principle beneficiaries.

The Pentagon Zionists and their zealous ideological allies have weakened the US economy by widening 
the trade deficit (via higher oil prices) and increasing the budget deficit (because of war 
spending). Israel has not suffered at all -- on the contrary military sales to the US increased as 
well as revenues from the Pentagon for military advisory and training, missions to Iraq and 
elsewhere.

The US war in Iraq has several particularities as well as common characteristics with other wars. 
In the first place it demonstrates how a highly organized, ideologically coherent, financially 
powerful minority with highly placed co-thinkers in the top policy-making institutions of the 
imperial state can twist policy to suit the needs of a foreign power over and against established 
economic interests. Secondly the decisions about imperialist wars, though they usually serve the 
long-term interests of the dominant sectors of the capitalist class, are "made" by politicians, who 
have their own agendas, ideological and political loyalties which may or may not benefit (or 
prejudice) the ruling class.

The war in Iraq is a clear case in which the loyalties of the key architects of the war were 
distinct from those of the ruling class, who were barely taken into account, let alone consulted. 
The ruling ideology of the architects of war was 'Israel First, Last and Always'. To cover the 
Israel-centered war plans, the Zionists fabricated a series of "threats" to US interests which were 
made to parallel those faced by Israel: threats of weapons of mass destruction, terrorism and 
Muslim fundamentalism. Anti-Arab and anti-Muslim hate literature circulated in the mass media, in 
influential journals and talk shows as an army of Zionists ideologues went into an ideological 
frenzy - infecting the US body politic - and setting off a secondary wave of vituperative froth 
from fundamentalist Christians, neo-conservative allies and liberal congress-people.

The generalized attack by the Zionists against Arab states and people was directed toward the 
strategic goal of extending Israeli domination beyond Palestine ("Greater Israel") not through 
direct colonization but via a series of client regimes beholden to the US - a US whose major 
foreign policy institutions would be subject to Zionist influence. The ideological formulae adopted 
to promote US-Israel dominance in the Arab world was "A Middle East Common Market" based on a 
campaign to "democratize the region". Both formulae served as the ideological basis for permanent 
war in the Middle East, the installment of dual purpose puppet regimes willing to serve both US 
energy interests and Israel's market penetration.

The Zionist ideologues' manipulation of "free market" and "democratic" rhetoric resonated widely 
among liberal and conservative imperialists, even as the US imperial state and Israel was denying 
Iraqi and Palestinians their elementary democratic rights and domestic markets. The tactics of the 
influential Zionists and their extensive networks in the US were directed at fusing Israeli 
expansionist interests with US imperialist goals, in order to legitimate their pursuit of Israeli 
state policies - a position echoed by President-elect Bush.

In the real world however, as the US continued to suffer heavy casualties in Iraq and the war debt 
grew by billions of dollars a day, and as its 'coalition partners' abandoned the war, the Zionist 
influentials inside and outside of the government intensified their pressure on the US to escalate 
its troop commitments in Iraq and to engage in new Middle East wars. The acid test of Zionist 
loyalties to Israeli interests is found in the fact that they pursued the war policy even as it 
weakened the US strategic global position, heightened discontent in the military and in elite 
civilian circles and increased the probability of an economic crisis resulting from the war 
deficits and weakening dollar. The Zionists in power are so embedded in the Israeli matrix, that 
they are totally impervious to the effects which their policies have on the US Empire, domestic 
economy or civil society.

In effect the US imperial attack of Iraq can be understood as a surrogate war for a regional power, 
designed and executed by influential policy-makers whose primary allegiance is to defend the 
interests of the regional power. The Zionist zealots have incorporated the same pathological style 
of mass paranoid politics prevalent in Israel to the US: the politics of permanent terrorist 
threats, of pervasive fear, of a hostile world, of unreliable allies. The Zionist zealots have led 
the ideological charge poisoning relations with France and other European countries which fail to 
respond favorable to the bloody repression of occupied peoples. No policy group has done more to 
weaken the sustainability of the US Empire than the Zionist zealots in government and the massive 
well-financed pro-Israel networks through the US. The Congress, the Executive branch, state and 
local governments, and national and local media have all come under the influence of the Jewish 
"lobby's" pro-Israel agenda to the point that none or few dare to criticize Israel or its US 
representatives.

The overweening power of the pro-Israel power configuration has inevitable provoked opposition - 
mainly from non-elected officials. The FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) is preparing to indict 
several high official from AIPEC, the most powerful representative of Israel's interests in the US, 
for spying on the US for Israel. Almost all the major Jewish organizations are preparing to defend 
AIPEC and its practice of twisting US policy toward the "Israel First" agenda. By early 2005, it 
was clear that the Zionist power structure had paralyzed the investigation. Numerous retired 
military and CIA officials have denounced Zionist power in designing and promoting the interests of 
Israel over US imperial interests. Meantime the Zionists along with the neo-conservatives 
successfully purged or "neutralized" independent analysts in the CIA, Defense and State Department 
who questioned the doctrine of sequential wars against Israel's adversaries in the Middle East. The 
Second Bush administration is completely controlled by the neo-conservative-Zionist extremists.

The conventional wisdom which perceives world imperial powers dictating policy to lesser regional 
powers clearly fails to deal with the US Middle East Wars. The reason why this common sense notion 
is inadequate is because it fails to deal with a series of unique (at least in modern history) 
phenomena affecting the policy-making structure of the US Empire - the active role of a privileged 
and influential minority deeply embedded in the decision-making structure and whose primary loyalty 
is to another state. It is as if the State of Israel has 'colonized' the main spheres of political 
power in the imperial state. These 'colons' however are not exactly transplants or emigrants from 
their "mother country". Rather they have mostly grown up and have been educated in the imperial 
center, they have pursued lucrative careers in the US and have, in most instances, been strong 
supporters of US imperial expansion and militarism. They have risen to and influenced the highest 
spheres of political power. They have not been discriminated against, nor have they suffered any 
economic, social or political exclusion. They have not been marginalized - they are integrated in 
the centers of power. Yet they have set themselves apart from the rest of the US citizens and 
conceive of themselves as having a special mission -- of being first Jews who unconditionally 
support the State of Israel and all of its international projections of power. How can we explain 
this irrational embrace of a militarist state by a set of individuals who only vicariously share 
its life and destiny?

War in the 21st Century: Atavistic Behavior

Schumpeter in his book, Imperialism and Social Class, written shortly after the First World War, 
attempted to square his argument that capitalism is opposed to war by citing the re-emergence of 
residual "atavistic" traits, embedded in previous feudal warrior societies, as the cause of war. 
While I do not share Schumpeter's view of the peaceful evolution of capitalism, particularly in the 
face of a series of imperialist wars in Asia, Africa, Latin America and Europe, his concept of 
atavistic behavior is useful in explaining the irrational embrace of Israel by otherwise affluent, 
educated and highly influential Jews. Their embrace of Israel is certainly not for reasons of 
monetary remuneration, though Israel financially rewarded American-Jewish spies like Jonathan 
Pollard. What causes a modern or post-modern elite group to exhibit patterns of fanatical loyalty 
to a foreign militarist colonial power engaged in ethnic cleansing?

The Jewish-led and financed Zionist movement and its influential and wealthy supporters and leaders 
are a highly cohesive and disciplined group which exhibits zero tolerance against any Jewish 
dissidents or other critics of the warrior state or of their supporters anywhere in the world. What 
accounts for the apparent anomaly of highly educated professors, doctors, lawyers, investment 
bankers, media moguls and billionaire real estate tycoons giving unconditional support to a state 
engaged in primitive vindictive acts, of mass torture of prisoners, of collective punishment and 
guilt (destroying family homes of guerrilla suspects, taking family members hostage), 
systematically destroying farmland and uprooting hundreds of thousands of farmers, communities for 
almost six decades? They embrace ancient land claims and the vindictive and gratuitous humiliation 
of subjugated people based on mythological religious beliefs. The primitive belief in a "superior" 
or special people used to justify blood crimes harks back to the ritual barbarities of ancient 
tribal justice. This atavistic behavior is, however, tied to the most modern military technology in 
the hands of highly trained technical experts. The combination of tribal cohesion, religious 
mythology, high-tech weaponry and an overweening desire to exercise power on behalf of a military 
state based on 'racial-religious' exclusivity, is a potent concoction for US Zionists to inhale. 
Yet there are immense psychological satisfactions from being part of a powerful closed in-group, 
with a vision or fantasy of the revival of a lost 'kingdom', a sense of being part of superior 
people, members of a survivalist culture which has endured a unique suffering, and therefore 
possesses the righteousness to commit violence and use power to strike down adversaries anywhere 
and not to be bound by conventional international laws which only serve to limit the prerogatives 
of a 'righteous people'.

Tribal loyalties have tight rules of conduct for all who are considered members, whether they are 
active practitioners of Zionist politics or even critics of the State of Israel - home of the 
chosen people. Tribal rules are interpreted in different ways by different segments of the Jewish 
Diaspora. For the Presidents of the Major Jewish Organizations and their functionaries there are 
Five Commandments: (1) 'thou shalt not criticize any action by any Israeli leader at any time, no 
matter how heinous the crime, nor how often it is repeated, irregardless of how vast or intense 
world opprobrium', (2) 'Thou shall not allow any others to criticize or act contrary to Jewish 
State interests or to organizations which embrace the Zionist ideal,' (3)'Every weapon, financial, 
physical, psychological, ideological and economic can be legitimately wielded to weaken, isolate, 
discredit or stigmatize critics of the Tribal Homeland or any of the overseas Tribal 
Organizations,' (4)'Thou shall raise funds from all sources (legal or illegal), public, social or 
private to finance the military machine of the Tribal leaders - tribute secured from lesser 
"others" must enhance the security and living standards of the chosen people' and (5)'Thou shall 
declare loyalty first and foremost to the tribal identity, then to the powers which support "our 
tribe" and lastly to "universal values"'.

Despite sharp criticism from a minority of dissident Jews, both in Israel, the US and elsewhere, 
there are certain unstated codes which are observed even by the most critical commentators. One is 
to never criticize or identify the power of the Jewish organizations in the US and their influence 
in the government. Jewish progressives de facto denial of Jewish power in shaping US war policy in 
the Middle East severely restricts the effectiveness of the anti-war movement by exonerating one of 
the key ideological props of the imperial war machine. The second unstated code followed by the 
"observant" progressive Jewish intellectuals is a denial that Israel has an important influence on 
US Middle East and global policy via its tribal loyalists in the US. Jewish progressives 
deliberately and systematically exclude any mention of Jewish power and influence in shaping US 
policy in the Middle East by focusing exclusively on "oil interests" or "neo-conservative 
ideologues" (who just coincidently are mostly tribespeople and their camp-followers). In deference 
to or more precisely because they share a deep underlying identity with the tribe - they refuse to 
include any systematic study of the very obvious and blatant exercise of power in every branch of 
government, electoral processes and media reports. Likewise with the Middle East, Israel is 
considered by progressive Jews as an "instrument" of US imperialism even as the instrument cuts 
both ways - as Israel uses the US to savage its adversaries, to build up its military machine and 
to manufacture its commercial weapons systems to sell even to US competitors (i.e. China).

The emergence of atavistic behavior and its extension among the Zionist elite is a relatively 
recent development (over the past two decades) and goes contrary to the universalistic, secular and 
socialist values and practices as well as the traditional religious and communal practices and 
beliefs of many Jewish communities during previous centuries. The embrace of imperial power, the 
turn from religious communitarian values toward the embrace of the militaristic state of Israel, 
the shift from internationalism and socialism toward an unconditional embrace of a narrow 
exclusivist ideology has activated the latent atavistic behavior associated with vengeful killing 
of adversaries and blind singular loyalty to the idea of Israeli supremacy in the Middle East. 
Translated into the US context, it means virulent pro-war propaganda, advocacy of concentration 
camps for Islamic believers (as proposed by Daniel Pipes and others) and collaboration with Mossad 
agents in promoting Israel's strategic military, economic and political goals; by utilizing all the 
instruments of power within the US and with its overseas clients (Kurdish regions of Iraq, for 
example).

Atavistic behavior secures its goals through the shrewd manipulation and artificial inflation of 
"fears" emanating from Israel's enemies. The purpose is to create mass support in the US for wars 
on Israel's behalf. US Zionist ideologues, drawing heavily on the self-induced political isolation 
which the Israeli State has brought upon itself through its savage destruction of Arab Palestine, 
have elaborated and preached a paranoid view of the world, in which all international organizations 
(the UN, the World Court etc.) and forums, international opinions surveys, Europe, Asia, Latin 
America and Africa are accused of "anti-Semitism" because they recognize and condemn Israel's 
violation of Palestinian political and human rights.

The greater the "justifiable" violence of Israel, the wider the condemnation of its behavior, the 
more hysterical and strident the vituperation emanating from the major Zionist centers, the greater 
the concerted efforts to discredit the international bodies and to heighten US support. Just as an 
imaginary Neanderthal might bellow loudly and grab a heavy club when others protest his trespass of 
territory, so too do the Zionists reach for the club of US military power to pummel those who 
challenge Israel's transgressions.

"Atavistic behavior" is not confined to affluent Zionists, it is found among civilian militarists, 
Christian Zionists and other religious fundamentalists, who are defenders and practitioners of 
unrestrained violence and permanent imperial wars. Under the veneer of civilized discourse and 
moderate tonalities, is the barely restrained lust for unlimited power, total warfare and 
uncompromising savage torture. Atavistic behavior increasingly threatens to overwhelm the rational 
basis of economic calculation. The civilian militarist who may have originally been seen by many 
capitalists as one tool among others for conquering markets and seizing strategic resources have 
gradually taken a life of their own, subordinating capitalist interests to their raging quest for 
unlimited power. Atavistic behavior is both the apogee of US imperial power and its ultimate 
regress to the dark ages.

Contemporary and future wars in the Middle East cannot be explained merely by reciting an inventory 
of economic resources and matching them with imperial strategic designs. This 
rationalist-economistic reductionism fails to take account of specific ideological, irrational 
political determinants which have demonstrated greater explanatory power.

Privatization and War
One of the strategic goals of imperialist policy-makers is the privatization of public resources as 
an "end" in itself and as a means of securing political, social, economic and cultural control over 
a country in order to enhance empire-building.

Privatization strategies are pursued by political as well as military means, either through 
military invasions or via military coups by surrogate military juntas. Privatization is a first 
step toward de-nationalization and re-colonization of the economy and state.

De-nationalization of the economy usually follows the imposition by imperial lending agencies of a 
macro-political strategy dubbed structural adjustment policies which include among other measures 
privatizations of public enterprises - especially strategies sectors such as energy, petroleum, 
metals, telecommunications, finance and banking. The move toward de-nationalization follows one of 
two paths - either the direct purchase by foreign companies of national assets or a two-step 
process, whereby the nationalist capitalists first buy the public enterprise and then re-sell it to 
foreign capital.

Whether directly or indirectly, privatization means foreign control over essential economic 
decisions (investment, marketing, transfer of profits etc) in strategic sectors of the economy. 
Foreign control of strategic industries means the power of decision over local industries and 
exploitation of natural resources.

Beyond the economic consequences of privatization/de-nationalization (P/D), it is a political 
instrument of empire-building strategies:

  1.. P/D involves the recruitment of 'national executives', financial officers, publicists, 
managers, economists who become an active political base in backing and promoting deeper and more 
extensive colonization as well as political submission to imperial power.
  2.. The chief executive officers of P/D enterprises play a leading role in influencing and 
directing sectoral organizations (automobile and parts manufacturers, banking associations, 
mine-owners' consortiums, etc.), thus "hegemonizing" the national capitalists within the 
associations and securing their acquiescence in imperial-colonial projects.
  3.. P/D firms can work in tandem with the imperial state to pressure a regime to follow imperial 
policies by decreasing economic production or by dis-investing. For example, in the 1960's the 
State Department ordered the US-owned oil refineries to refuse to process Cuban oil imports from 
Russia in order to overthrow the Castro government.
  4.. The US government frequently plants 'agents' (CIA and FBI) in US-owned multi-national 
corporations (MNCs). The MNCs provide a "legal cover" for intelligence agents involved in 
destabilization campaigns, espionage and recruitment of local business and trade union leaders to 
serve imperial interests.
  5.. P/D firms provide imperialist policy-makers with additional leverage to pressure a regime to 
submit to IMF policies and to support colonial rule via ALCA.
  6.. P/D provide a pretext for imperial intervention and conquest, using the excuse that the 
invaders are "protecting the property rights of US citizens.
  7.. P/D provide a "beach head" for multiplying privatization using local allies and political 
influence, following the initial takeovers. P/D have a "falling dominoes" effect, leading to 
cumulative power, from enterprise to enterprise, from sector to sector, from economy to media, from 
economy and media to political control. P/D has a catalytic effect in strengthening imperial 
policy-makers and forcing the hand of any recalcitrant regime.
The Dialectics of Privatizations/De-nationalization and War
Wars are motivated by and result in the privatization and de-nationalization of publicly owned 
properties. Likewise, privatizations lead to war in order to protect and prevent the 
re-nationalization of strategic industries. Privatizations are frequently accompanied or followed 
by the granting of military bases, thus strengthening the colonial presence and weakening the 
sovereignty of Third World countries. At a minimum, privatizations almost always are accompanied by 
military "co-operative agreements" and "mutual defense agreements" which, in effect, allow for the 
presence of US military advisers in the Ministries of Defense, the indoctrination and training of 
military officials and a "legal formula" allowing US military intervention if and when a client 
regime is threatened. In other words, privatization and de-nationalization weakens the Third World 
state - deprives the state of economic resources, revenues and levers of power, while severely 
restricting its sovereignty. Weakened clients often supply mercenary soldiers for future imperial 
wars and colonial occupation, such as in Iraq, Afghanistan and Haiti.

Colonial Wars in the 21st Century

In the 21st century, imperial wars, especially multiple colonial wars requiring military occupation 
of a colonized country, can only be sustained by recruiting mercenary soldiers from client regimes. 
The US imperial armed forces are incapable of sustaining a colonial occupation in the face of a 
prolonged peoples war without large-scale mercenary support from client regimes. This is very 
evident today in Iraq (and Afghanistan), where the US colonial officials and their puppet regime 
are desperately trying to assemble an army of Iraqi and Afghan mercenaries to take the brunt of 
"security duties" (repression of the colonized people). The US colonial army, particular the Army 
Reservists, is demoralized and has experienced a sharp decline in re-enlistment.

Given the imperialist involvement in two countries (Iraq and Afghanistan), Washington turned to 
recruiting military mercenaries from its Latin American client regimes to provide several thousand 
officers and soldiers to prop up the US puppet regime in Haiti. Since the imperial strategists 
particularly the neo-conservatives and Zionists have made military conquest the centerpiece of 
imperial expansion, it is the military which has paradoxically become the "weakest link" in the 
imperial chain which extends from imperial war to colonial occupation and control, to P/D to 
economic pillage.

In the past the US imperial state engaged in external and internal wars to P/D strategic 
industries. The US overthrow of the Arbenz regime in Guatemala (1954), the Mossadegh regime in Iran 
in 1953, the failed effort to invade Cuba in 1961, the CIA engineered coup in Chile (1973), the US 
Contra-War in Nicaragua (in the 1980's) were all directed toward P/D of the economies as well as 
serving imperial geo-political strategies.

In recent years however, the imperial state has increasingly relied on financing civilian electoral 
politicians and pressure from the international financial institutions to implement P/D. Only in 
the Middle East where Zionist-Israeli power is factored in has military invasion become the policy 
of choice. The reliance on war to privatize and colonize continues to operate where 
imperial-financed civilian electoral strategies have failed. Two recent cases come to mind.

The US 'internal' war in Venezuela, where a US-financed and directed coup briefly (48 hours) 
overthrew the elected President Chavez is a case in point. In that short period of time, the puppet 
Carmona regime immediately broke relations with Cuba, withdrew from OPEC and began to draw up plans 
to privatize the state petroleum company before popular power restored Chavez and rescinded the 
decrees. The US-sponsored coup and subsequent 'bosses lock-out' in the oil industry were part of an 
internal war strategy designed to circumvent an unfavorable setting for a manipulated electoral 
outcome.

Likewise in Yugoslavia, the US, in alliance with European imperialism, launched an unprovoked 
military invasion, using Croatian and Kosovar terrorists to destroy the Yugoslav nation and set up 
mini-states in which former self-managed enterprises were P/D'd, major military bases were 
established and mercenary troops were recruited for the Middle East colonial wars.

Privatization and de-nationalization whether it occurs through imperial wars or via subsidized 
client electoral politicians however entails inter-imperialist competition and conflict over which 
the imperialist states will seize the most lucrative ex-public firms. The experience in Eastern 
Europe and Latin America suggests that US political successes resulted in European powers securing 
most of the privatized firms and most lucrative oil, telecommunication and financial enterprises. 
Similarly in the Yugoslav break-up, the Europeans secured influence and control over the richest 
mini-states, Croatia and Slovenia, while the US colonized the poorest, mafia-states - Kosovo, 
Macedonia, Montenegro and Bosnia.

The turn to unilateralist imperialist wars reflected this reality of unequal benefits from 
co-operative US-EU imperial wars. The US unilateral invasion of Iraq was designed to maximize US 
control of the forthcoming privatization and de-nationalization of Iraqi oil industry and to 
undercut European benefits from the post-war "reconstruction" as well as to privilege Israeli 
interests in the Middle East.

If imperialist expansion is linked to P/D, the competition and conflict between US and EU 
imperialism shapes the forms and methods through which that expansion takes place. The US resort to 
unilateral (forms) and military (means) is related to its "comparative advantage" in military 
weaponry and the predominance of militarist civilian decision-makers. The doctrines of "total war", 
"offensive wars", and unipolar world supremacy were all designed and implemented by a special elite 
of political ideologues, with specific set of political attributes - they lack direct ties to the 
traditional military hierarchy and have demonstrated contempt for the military and intelligence 
commands. These civilian militarists conceive of themselves as an elite chosen to carry out the 
mission of terrorizing real or imagined adversaries overseas and punishing, expelling or silencing 
traditional military and intelligence rivals within the state. Their extremist militarism is 
directly related to their distance from the actual "blood and guts" of mass killing of civilians 
and ground level military casualties and their proximity to the Israeli State.

Their arrogance in exercising power is matched by their abject ignorance of the political and 
economic conditions and consequences of their decisions. Their blind subservience to serving 
Israel's interests led them to "miscalculate" the massive degree of Iraqi opposition to the war and 
occupation. Their quest for world domination led to unsustainable multiple military invasions, 
leading to the weakening of the US Empire. Their militarist logic revealed their abysmal ignorance 
of the enormous destruction of lucrative Iraqi assets and the cost of war of war to the US economy. 
These policies forced sharp divisions within the imperial state. In response, the extremists in the 
Pentagon have seized control over intelligence functions and special forces operations, involving 
clandestine operations. The Second Bush administration is more extreme and even more aggressive 
than the first. The political conflict within the State is extending into civil society where over 
half of the population opposes the plans for new wars. Instead of adopting an empire-building 
strategy mixing economic, political and diplomatic pressures with selective wars, the civilian 
militarists have, in the Middle East, relied exclusively on military strategies. Even within this 
one-sided military approach, they have chosen the most extreme measures, unilateral permanent wars, 
as opposed to coalitions (and joint colonial spoils) and limited wars (in time and place). Military 
extremism in pursuit of unsustainable colonial war is no virtue.

Israel's dirty little colonial war, despite its daily civilian assassinations, terror bombings and 
ritual torture and humiliation of the Palestinians has not succeeded in 60 years of warfare against 
3 million Palestinians even with universal conscription and life-time military reservists. The 
civilian militarists in the imperial state have learned nothing from Israel's failures: For them 
Israel can do no wrong, it can never fail, it is their living ideological model of the military 
will to conquer. Our own civilian militarists, in their exalted hubris believe that 150,000 
colonial forces could defeat 200,000 armed resistance fighters backed by over 20 million fellow 
citizens.

The Mind of the Civilian Militarists
One of the key aspects of the civilian militarists' rise to power has been their ability to apply 
organizational principles which further their political programs. Their procedures, while not 
usually spelled out in a written document, can be deduced from their organizational behavior. For 
brevity of space, we can spell out their modus operendi:

        1.. Precipitate war thus precluding public debate and systematic analysis of who benefits 
and who loses, and the tactical gains and strategic costs. Given that the civilian militarists came 
to power with an already fixed doctrine and a disciplined cohort, it was not difficult for them to 
impose their views over their fragmented and dispersed rivals and opponents within the military and 
government bureaucracy. Taking advantage of the notion of "civil supremacy" they were able to 
impose their extreme militarist war doctrines on their critics within the traditional military 
leadership, whom they attacked as being "too bureaucratic and cautious". In effect their 
ultra-voluntarism military doctrines conflicted with the more rational-calculated policies of the 
established military strategists.
        2.. Facilitating an apocalyptic event was an essential element in the ascendancy of the 
civil militarist in imperial policy-making positions and the seizure of war making powers. Massive 
documentation and critical analysis drawn from official intelligence sources reveal that the 
civilian militarists were knowledgeable and actively involved in facilitating the terrorist attack 
on September 11, 2001. The civilian militarists, on the day of the terrorist event, set in motion 
their Middle East war agenda and proceeded to propound and implement their extremist "offensive 
war" agenda. They deliberately induced and magnified a paranoid style of politics which centered on 
an immediate world-wide terrorist threat to millions of defenseless civilians based on nuclear, 
biological and chemical warfare (despite that fact that 9/11 terrorist attack was carried out with 
cheap plastic box-cutters). This unprecedented bizarre ideological "terror campaign" orchestrated 
by the civilian militarists resonated strongly with the paranoid politics of the Israeli regime 
which urged a Judeo-Christian Crusade against a worldwide Islamic terrorist threat.
        3.. Messianic missions are a constant component of the civilian militarist mentality. These 
are partly cynical exercises in the manipulation of universal democratic ideals and partly the 
result of a fervor for US world supremacy. Messianic missionary zeal has the intended consequence 
of providing a self-justification for gross violations of human rights, international and domestic 
laws. The civil militarists know that their military invasions willingly destroy democratic rights 
of self-determination, that their advocacy of military occupation lead to the denial of the rights 
of democratic self-government, yet they proclaim their goal is to "democratize the Middle East", a 
claim which is echoed in the mass media. Cynicism aside, the Messianic mission fuels the 
vituperative attacks against real or imagined critics which accompanies authoritarian repressive 
measures aimed at intimidating critics, and inciting arbitrary arrests, indefinite jailing and the 
use of torture against suspects.
        4.. Moralistic military campaigns have the virtue of not having to provide facts to justify 
violent assaults on peoples and nations. The issue for the civilian militarists is not whether an 
attack or a military threat really exists. The essential element for them is that there is a 
self-defined world of "good" and "evil" -- a virtuous world power (US) united with its regional 
accomplice (Israel) against an evil "other" (Muslim, Third World, independent state) hostile to US 
empire building and Israeli colonization. Moral crusaders among the civilian militarists believe 
that the masses need to be deceived by a "Noble Lie", because the masses are incapable of 
understanding the "higher truth" of the virtues of permanent war to secure US world supremacy and a 
"Greater Israeli" regional mini-empire. Many progressive critics have spilled gallons of ink 
refuting the lies of the civilian militarists regarding Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, 
Saddam's links to Al Queda. This is a worthy enterprise but one which is irrelevant to the civilian 
militarists, because, for them "truth" is embodied in their (military) actions and not in the 
pretext (lies) that they expounded. Insofar as the lies "worked", that is insofar as they were able 
to launch a war, prepare for other wars, terrorize the population into supporting war, and seize 
control of the levers of power, a "higher truth" became a reality: the beginning of permanent 
offensive warfare.
        5.. The doctrine of "living space" is intimately related to the civilian militarist 
practice of permanent war. In their paranoid voluntaristic vision, no place and no time is secure. 
Threats exist in a series of concentric circles from the Middle East Islamic people (surrounding 
Israel) outward toward Asia, North Africa, and Western Europe. Security threats are present among 
"Old European States" and Third World countries which refuse to subordinate themselves to US 
security forces. In order to achieve "living space" in the US and wherever its business interests, 
military bases and operation can (or should) have a dominant presence, the issue of "security" 
becomes a code word for perpetual overt or clandestine military, political and ideological warfare. 
Ultimately, for the civilian militarists, only a world in which the US exercises absolute supreme 
sovereign imperial power will result in secure living space.
To enhance their power in the imperial state, the civilian militarists have pursued a number of 
organizational reforms. For illustrative purposes we can cite at least three types of "reforms" and 
their stated rationale and real purpose:

              1.. Organizational decentralization: Civilian militarists argue that there are too 
many bureaucratic and political constraints on timely and efficient decisions in a time of imminent 
threats of terror. In a time of national emergency, established "bureaucracy" becomes part of the 
threat rather than part of the solution. This is the formal rationale to disguise the real purpose 
which is to concentrate power in the hands of civilian militarists in the Pentagon elite and among 
the neo-conservatives in the National Security Council. The "reform" is designed to bypass existing 
lines of command until they can be purged and replaced by civilian militarist loyalists.
              2.. The establishment of non-traditional sources of information (intelligence): 
Civilian militarists argue that the traditional existing intelligence agencies are ineffective, 
inaccurate and cumbersome. They argue for "broadening" the basis of intelligence gathering, 
"diversifying" sources and by-passing cumbersome bureaucracies and securing "direct lines" from the 
field in order to take decisive action in a timely fashion. The real purpose of the civilian 
militarists is to create their own parallel "sources" to fabricate intelligence in pursuit of their 
permanent war doctrine.
              3.. Greater 'cooperation' with acknowledged friendly states with a long-term, 
in-depth experience in the area of terrorist warfare: The formal rational for this "reform" 
advocating "special relations" with overseas experts is that the imperialist state can save time, 
build on existing expertise, avoid making mistakes through trial and error and duplication by 
creating new bureaucracies. In addition the civilian militarists, especially the Zionists, look at 
the Israeli "anti-terrorist" apparatus as a successful model, despite the fact that Israel is the 
most likely site of terrorist action. The real purpose is to strengthen ties with the State of 
Israel, to increase biased information and disinformation flows in order to mold US imperial 
policies around Israel's Middle East interests. Since the Pentagon Zionists have the best and most 
intense relations with Israel who is better placed to facilitate joint cooperation than these very 
same ideologues
Conclusion

War, specifically US imperialist war, doctrine is made up of several sub-tests and key concepts 
such as a "unipolar world", offensive, permanent wars and extra-territorial jurisdiction. The 
doctrine is based on the belief of imperial invincibility - based on mass media imagery of 
successful US warriors-supermen representing a righteous superpower.

The key to understanding the source and practitioners of these doctrines is found in the ascendancy 
of a "new class " of civilian militarists (CM) and their think-tank auxiliaries and civil society 
supporters who have triggered catastrophic events to facilitate their dominant position in the 
imperial state. The ascent of the CM has not gone uncontested both from inside the imperial state 
and from without, especially from former traditional military and intelligence leaders.

In the new millennium a combination of circumstance and timing as well as calculated long-term 
positioning, has enabled a specific group of civilian militarists to achieve strategic positions in 
the imperil state - namely Zionist ideologues intimately involved in long-term relations with the 
state of Israel.

These ideologues and their civilian militarists cohort have pushed to the limit their psychological 
warfare designed to terrorize the mass of the population to follow their extremist doctrine and 
make the financial and human sacrifices for on-going wars.

This paper demonstrates that the decisions to launch imperial wars today are not simply the result 
of the economic interests of US multi-nationals (petroleum or otherwise). In the case of the Middle 
East, many of the decision-makers did not consult nor were they influenced by oil or other economic 
interests - most of the multinationals had on-going, lucrative and stable working relations with 
conservative oil producing Arab elites. At most some oil companies were promised future benefits 
via privatization of public oil facilities.

Imperial war was designed and driven by a set of policymakers with little interest in or no notion 
of the economic costs of war. The driving force for the war is found among civilian militarists who 
facilitated and capitalized on a catastrophic event (9/11) which allowed them to bypass traditional 
military and intelligence hierarchies. Internal consent for extremist militarism was induced 
through massive, intense and continuous fear propaganda fomented by the civilian militarists to 
consolidate their power. The psychological-ideological campaign allowed for vast expenditures of 
resources and civilian militarist monopoly over imperial policy. War took on a special meaning for 
the Zionist component of the civilian militarists - serving as a prop for enhancing Israel's 
regional power.

While the ideological dominance and psychological control exercised by the civilian militarists 
over the masses is formidable it is profoundly vulnerable. The constant and irreversible defeats 
suffered by the US colonial army in Iraq have demonstrated that the US imperial army is not 
invincible. The incapacity for the US to move on to new ground wars has temporarily challenged the 
doctrine of permanent offensive wars. The mass discontent within the colonial army has undercut and 
exposed the irrationality of the civilian militarists. Their proposals for increasing troop levels 
in Iraq, augmenting the recruitment of soldiers, that is, deepening US involvement in an 
un-winnable war is leading to greater casualties, deeper discontent at home and greater resistance 
in Iraq, and severely straining the crisis-ridden US economy. Escalation of war to Iran based on 
irrational voluntarism will bring the civilian militarists into greater conflict with traditional 
economic and military power centers. Capitalist rationality, based on cost-benefit calculations, is 
likely to challenge the atavistic behavior of the civilian warlords, leading to greater internal 
divisions within the empire and without.

Inter-elite conflicts may serve to activate sectors of the 'rational' middle class concerned with 
the long-term, large-scale interests of empire against the civilian-militarists and their 
associated power worshipers. "Living space" security doctrines will continue to be played out but 
in more select locations and within the boundaries of imperial capacity to recruit clients and 
imperial allies. Wars, which endanger the military status of the imperial state, will be recast in 
terms of spheres of influence - in which big powers interests will marginalize the exaggerated and 
inflated role of Israel in world and regional politics. Today the future of the US Empire and 
particularly the future of its civilian militarists depend on how decisively the empire is defeated 
in the Middle East. As goes the war in the Middle East, so go the future methods of imperial 
expansion.

The total military debacle of the civilian militarists and their Zionist core in the Middle East 
will probably result in a rethinking of the meaning, purposes and goals of imperial wars. Most 
likely, the economic costs and benefits of imperial wars will return to the center of elite debate, 
without the bias of third countries interests. These elite debates will attempt to forge a new more 
limited and 'rational' model of world empire.

The issue of turning from empire toward a more 'republican' style of politics can only be taken up 
in another venue, within mass-based anti-imperialist movements which will begin among the colonial 
subjects of imperial centers but may include the excluded and exploited within the imperial 
capitals.


 January 2005



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