Fw: Pilger on Pillaging

["Nello Margiotta" <animarg at tin.it>]

 ZNet Commentary
 A war in the American tradition October 16, 2001
 By John Pilger

 The Anglo-American attack on Afghanistan crosses new boundaries. It means
that
America's economic wars are now backed by the perpetual threat of military
 attack on any country, without legal pretence. It is also the first to
endanger
 populations at home. The ultimate goal is not the capture of a fanatic,
which
 would be no more than a media circus, but the acceleration of western
imperial
 power. That is a truth the modern imperialists and their fellow travelers
will
 not spell out, and which the public in the west, now exposed to a
full-scale
 jihad, has the right to know.

 In his zeal, Tony Blair has come closer to an announcement of real
intentions
 than any British leader since Anthony Eden. Not simply the handmaiden of
 Washington, Blair, in the Victorian verbosity of his extraordinary speech
 to the
 Labour Party conference, puts us on notice that imperialism's return
journey to
 respectability is well under way. Hark, the Christian gentleman-bomber's
vision
 of a better world for "the starving, the wretched, the dispossessed, the
 ignorant, those living in want and squalor from the deserts of northern
Africa
 to the slums of Gaza to the mountain ranges of Afghanistan". Hark, his
unctuous
 concern for the "human rights of the suffering women of Afghanistan" as he
 colludes in bombing them and preventing food reaching their starving
 children.

 Is all this a dark joke? Far from it; as Frank Furedi reminds us in the New
 Ideology of Imperialism, it is not long ago "that the moral claims of
 imperialism were seldom questioned in the west. Imperialism and the global
 expansion of the western powers were represented in unambiguously positive
 terms
 as a major contributor to human civilisation". The quest went wrong when it
was
 clear that fascism, with all its ideas of racial and cultural superiority,
was
 imperialism, too, and the word vanished from academic discourse. In the
best
 Stalinist tradition, imperialism no longer existed.

 Since the end of the cold war, a new opportunity has arisen. The economic
and
 political crises in the developing world, largely the result of
imperialism,
 such as the blood-letting in the Middle East and the destruction of
commodity
 markets in Africa, now serve as retrospective justification for
imperialism.
 Although the word remains unspeakable, the western intelligentsia,
 conservatives
 and liberals alike, today boldly echo Bush and Blair's preferred euphemism,
 "civilisation". Italy's prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, and the former
 liberal editor Harold Evans share a word whose true meaning relies on a
 comparison with those who are uncivilised, inferior and might challenge the
 "values"of the west, specifically its God-given right to control and
 plunder the
 uncivilised.

 If there was any doubt that the World Trade Center attacks were the direct
 result of the ravages of imperialism, Osama Bin Laden, a mutant of
imperialism,
 dispelled it in his videotaped diatribe about Palestine, Iraq and the end
of
 America's inviolacy. Alas, he said nothing about hating modernity and
 miniskirts, the explanation of those intoxicated and neutered by the
supercult
 of Americanism. An accounting of the sheer scale and continuity and
 consequences
 of American imperial violence is our elite's most enduring taboo. Contrary
to
 myth, even the homicidal invasion of Vietnam was regarded by its tactical
 critics as a "noble cause" into which the United States "stumbled" and
became
 "bogged down". Hollywood has long purged the truth of that atrocity, just
as it
 has shaped, for many of us, the way we perceive contemporary history and
the
 rest of humanity. And now that much of the news itself is
Hollywood-inspired,
 amplified by amazing technology and with its internalised mission to
minimise
 western culpability

 How very appropriate that the bombing of Afghanistan is being conducted, in
 part, by the same B52 bombers that destroyed much of Indochina 30 years
ago. In
 Cambodia alone, 600,000 people died beneath American bombs, providing the
 catalyst for the rise of Pol Pot, as CIA files make clear. Once again,
 newsreaders refer to Diego Garcia without explanation. It is where the B52s
 refuel. Thirty-five years ago, in high secrecy and in defiance of the
United
 Nations, the British government of Harold Wilson expelled the entire
population
 of the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean in order to hand it to
the
 Americans in perpetuity as a nuclear arms dump and a base from which its
 long-range bombers could police the Middle East. Until the islanders
 finally won
 a high court action last year, almost nothing about their imperial
 dispossession
 appeared in the British media.

 How appropriate that John Negroponte is Bush's ambassador at the United
 Nations.
 This week, he delivered America's threat to the world that it may "require"
to
 attack more and more countries. As US ambassador to Honduras in the early
 1980s,
 Negroponte oversaw American funding of the regime's death squads, known as
 Battalion 316, that wiped out the democratic opposition, while the CIA ran
its
 "contra" war of terror against neighbouring Nicaragua. Murdering teachers
and
 slitting the throats of midwives were a speciality. This was typical of the
 terrorism that Latin America has long suffered, with its principal
 torturers and
 tyrants trained and financed by the great warrior against "global
terrorism",
 which probably harbours more terrorists and assassins in Florida than any
 country on earth.

 The unread news today is that the "war against terrorism" is being
exploited in
 order to achieve objectives that consolidate American power. These include:
the
 bribing and subjugation of corrupt and vulnerable governments in former
Soviet
 central Asia, crucial for American expansion in the region and exploitation
of
 the last untapped reserves of oil and gas in the world; Nato's occupation
of
 Macedonia, marking a final stage in its colonial odyssey in the Balkans;
the
 expansion of the American arms industry; and the speeding up of trade
 liberalisation.

 What did Blair mean when, in Brighton, he offered the poor "access to our
 markets so that we practise the free trade that we are so fond of
 preaching"? He
 was feigning empathy for most of humanity's sense of grievance and anger:
of
 "feeling left out". So, as the bombs fall, "more inclusion", as the World
Trade
 Organisation puts it, is being offered the poor - that is, more
privatisation,
 more structural adjustment, more theft of resources and markets, more
 destruction of tariffs. On Monday, the Secretary of State for Trade and
 Industry, Patricia Hewitt, called a meeting of the voluntary aid agencies
to
 tell them that, "since 11 September, the case is now overwhelming" for the
poor
 to be given "more trade liberation". She might have used the example of
those
 impoverished countries where her cabinet colleague Clare Short's ironically
 named Department for International Development backs rapacious
privatisation
 campaigns on behalf of British multinational companies, such as those vying
to
 make a killing in a reso

 Bush and Blair claim to have "world opinion with us". No, they have elites
with
 them, each with their own agenda: such as Vladimir Putin's crushing of
 Chechnya,
 now permissible, and China's rounding up of its dissidents, now
permissible.
 Moreover, with every bomb that falls on Afghanistan and perhaps Iraq to
come,
 Islamic and Arab militancy will grow and draw the battle lines of "a clash
of
 civilisations" that fanatics on both sides have long wanted. In societies
 represented to us only in caricature, the west's double standards are now
 understood so clearly that they overwhelm, tragically, the solidarity that
 ordinary people everywhere felt with the victims of 11 September.

 That, and his contribution to the re-emergence of xeno-racism in Britain,
 is the
 messianic Blair's singular achievement. His effete, bellicose certainties
 represent a political and media elite that has never known war. The public,
in
 contrast, has given him no mandate to kill innocent people, such as those
 Afghans who risked their lives to clear landmines, killed in their beds by
 American bombs. These acts of murder place Bush and Blair on the same level
as
 those who arranged and incited the twin towers murders. Perhaps never has a
 prime minister been so out of step with the public mood, which is uneasy,
 worried and measured about what should be done. Gallup finds that 82 per
cent
 say "military action should only be taken after the identity of the
 perpetrators
 was clearly established, even if this process took several months to
 accomplish".

 Among those elite members paid and trusted to speak out, there is a lot of
 silence. Where are those in parliament who once made their names speaking
out,
 and now shame themselves by saying nothing? Where are the voices of protest
 from
 "civil society", especially those who run the increasingly corporatised aid
 agencies and take the government's handouts and often its line, then
declare
 their "non-political" status when their outspokenness on behalf of the
 impoverished and bombed might save lives? The tireless Chris Buckley of
 Christian Aid, and a few others, are honourably excepted. Where are those
 proponents of academic freedom and political independence, surely one of
the
 jewels of western "civilisation"? Years of promoting the jargon of "liberal
 realism" and misrepresenting imperialism as crisis management, rather than
the
 cause of the crisis, have taken their toll. Speaking up for international
law
 and the proper pursuit of justice, even diplomacy, and against our
terrorism
 might not be good for one's care