THE ASIAN AFFAIRS PUBLISHER'S MOOD Bush's doctrine of Pre-emption: what doctrine? It was in at West Point on June 1, 2002, that Bush first fully explained "global terrorism". According to the President, this new kind of war had undermined the principles of deterrence and containment that guided U.S. defence strategy since the end of World War II. The only answer to "global terrorism" was pre-emption. Pre-emption in the mind of the Bush administration meant only and exclusively pre-emptive war, while it might been argued that it could as well mean pre-emptive action to avoid confrontation. Thus, building on the emotions created in the United States by 9/11, Bush hoped to enshrine as the centrepiece of America's national security strategy. "Deterrence, the promise of massive retaliation against nations‚ means nothing against shadowy terrorist networks with no nation or citizens to defend," Bush declared that day. He also added: "Containment is not possible when unbalanced dictators with weapons of mass destruction can secretly provide them to terrorist allies." We all know that by unbalanced dictators, he was referring eventually to Saddam Hussein and to a lesser extend to Kim Jong-Il, the leader of North Korea. While deterrence and containment worked reasonably well, preventing the world to succumb to the temptation of a nuclear war, it is clear that pre-emption according to the Bush doctrine already looks dead. The reason, of course, is Iraq, the doctrine's first test. Initially, the war to depose Saddam Hussein seemed to strengthen the argument for pre-emption. Like the toppling of the Taliban in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the military's lightning run to Baghdad emphasized in the mind of some the United States' ability to eliminate regimes it considers hostile. But that was the easy part. After all, the military budget of the Taliban was about US$200 million a year. That compares to a Pentagone budget of about 500 billion and expenses of 4 billion a day in Iraq. As for the ability to eliminate enemies, we should keep in perspective that the Iraqi army had been depleted by ten years of embargo and thus what could have been expected if not a fast strike. Bush and its administration have probably forgotten that the German army took Poland in a couple of days. That performance followed by a lightning run on Belgium and France did not change the course of history. Therefore, the first lesson is that war is not about winning a battle. It has never been and will never be. It is more like a chess game. The opening salvo does not necessarily win the party. Of course, many think today that the blow to Bush's doctrine came when coalition forces failed to find the weapons of mass destruction the president had stressed as a principal justification for the war. What if there had been weapons of mass destruction? It would not have changed the course of history either. In fact, had the WMD been there, the carnage would have been higher, yet the result would have been the same. Today the Iraqis are not fighting to show their loyalty to Saddam Hussein but to bout out a colonizer. The failure to find WMD hows why pre-emptive wars never works. Forecasting threats that are not visible, that are a matter of political perception, is not a science. Yet, we are told to believe that some "experts", here you can list FBI, CIA, MI5 and even James Bond 007, know better and that politicians are serious people. But repeatedly, we learn they are not. They rely on human judgments, and human judgments are fallible. That is why there is a serious danger when one gives credence to the perception that there are "invisible" signs of danger. To say that "global terrorism" is emerging from a "shadowy" world eludes the fact that it is the by-product of many factors at play. It is not an Act of the Devil. In fact, there are plenty of 'visible" signs that can be studied. We have discussed some of them in this venue, two years ago. But for the concept of pre-emption to be accepted, people must feel threaten by the unknown, by the 'other" world, one that does not belong to us. We are here very close to a religious argument. There is an evil world, and it should be eliminated. Bush said exactly that when he listed the evil nations of the world, adding that we should trust his judgment. The question is why should we? Democracies are not a matter of belief. To work, they actually should eliminate the religious element of the society. Their purpose is on Is pre-emption dead? Probably yes in the expansive way of using overt military action to depose a government the United States considers hostile without evidence of an imminent threat, and, no, when we look at the current hostility of the United States towards Syria and Iran. Ironically, the position of the United States towards North Korea today further reinforce the feeling that pre-emptive war is a fallacy. Whenever the balance of power is respected, the rational seems to disappear. In that particular case, to launch a pre-emptive war against a State declaring it has nuclear capaibilities has cooled down the ardor of the military. Bush by winning a second term in the White House shows that if the doctrine needs to return to the dustbin of history, to use it for a while for political gains has create future problems that run deeper and wider than many believe. Therefore, we proposed our readers to look at what the past teaches us. Is there an international law of self-defence? The use of force is the most destructive tool available to a nation-state in the protection of its interests. Before the emergence of democratically elected governments, the use of force was the only means available to secure power. With the emergence of democratically elected governments, the question of the use of force took a different meaning. Furthermore, the progress in weapons of mass destruction, first used during World War 1 in Verdun, including chemical weapons, meant that war had to be avoided at all costs. Thus, after World War I the League of Nations, to be based in Geneva, was founded with the hope that the international community would band together to legislate war out of existence. At the same time, the International Labour Office formulated the first batch of international labour legislation. In the 1920s and 1930s, the European powers continued to assert their pacific intentions and resolutions in favour of disarmament were voted. In 1932, a Disarmament Conference took place. 64 countries attended the Conference, but the United States only send one observer. Altogether 27 disarmament plans were laid before the Conference. Mr. Tardieu, the French delegate suggested the creation of a super-national armed force capable of defending signatories of the League Covenant against unprovoked attack. The British representative suggested the total abolition of submarines and poison gas, while the Russian representative asked for the total abolition of all weapons, whether technically offensive or defensive. In those days, Germany was at the Conference, the only officially disarmed Power. While the conference went on and on with proposals going nowhere, the question of equality of status of all the signatories to the League arose. Why, the Germans asked, would Germany remained the only disarmed countries as long as the others would not agree on a disarmament proposal? Was it fair? Discussing disarmament, the Conference ended three years later discussing what sort of weapons should Germany get as long as the League was unable to provide protection with its own super-national force? As the French, the British and the Italians could not agree on any course, Germany announced its withdrawal from the League. Then the League was confronted with a new challenge: the invasion of Manchuria by Japanese troops. Both China and Japan were members of the League. Japan argued, "Japanese military action in Manchuria was self-defence". Thus, unable to muster any majority on any position, the league slowly sank into irrelevance. Once the World War II ended, a new revamped League was put together for precisely the same reason as before. It seemed inconceivable that what had happened should ever happen again. Learning on experience of the league that failed because it was democratic, the United Nations were conceived from a different perspective. In the shadow of Yalta, the world was divided between the haves and the haves-not. A security council was established. They were the winners of the war, namely United States, United Kingdom, Soviet Union and France (China, also a winner, came on board only much later on as in 1945 everyone was busy trying to get rid of Mao, but to no avail). The United Nations was founded to, in the words of its charter, save succeeding generations from the scourge of war. In the war's aftermath, it appeared self-evident to the UN founders that they could not condemn all resort to force. Hence the inclusion of article 51 in the charter, which states, "Nothing in the present charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations". A literal reading of article 51 prevents a member nation from attacking a hostile neighbour that is massing troops on its border as long as it has not been attacked by those troops. The first challenge to the meaning of article 51 came in 1967 when Israel attacked Egypt, Jordan and Syria in what is now known as the Six-Days war. Israel argued that it had to launch a pre-emptive strike for its own self-defence, because while frantic diplomacy was tacking place, hostile troops were massing in the Sinai, the Golan Heights, and the West Bank. Armed attack seems therefore not to be anymore the sole criteria and it could be argued that article 51 has been so abused that it is fast becoming irrelevant. When the Bush administration announced its new doctrine of pre-emption, the debate over the parameters of legal self-defence spilled into the public arena. Critics warn that this doctrine dangerously expands the international law of self-defence. Supporters counter that the pre-emptive use of force is a legitimate response to threats from new enemies. Let's look at the legal argument used to fit the Bush doctrine into existing rules of self-defence and established international law. The first use of the terms in the United States came in 1837. At that time, the British were fighting the Canadian insurgency. An American ship, Caroline, was supplying the insurgents. The British, to cut off any supply, decided to go across the border and to seize the ship. Their detachment killed an American man, and then burned the Caroline. The Americans were outraged. The British government claimed that the strike was in self-defence. A few years later, during treaty negotiations with the British, Secretary of State Daniel Webster cited the attack on the Caroline in stating that a nation may only invoke the right of self-defence when the threat is instant, overwhelming and leaves no choice of means. These criteria voiced by Webster form today the cornerstone of what is known as anticipatory defence: an attack to thwart an imminent and overwhelming threat. Then how can we recognize that the threat is imminent if we know nothing about it, or conversely if we admit that it is permanent? A first argument, Laid down by Bush supporters, is that during the cold war, the United States and its allies as well as the Soviet Union and its allies assumed that they would have signs of impending attacks. However, today, signs of impending attacks by "global terrorists" are impossible to detect. Therefore, the Webster doctrine is not applicable, hence the new doctrine of pre-emptive strike. Nevertheless, the argument is not a genuine one. The reality of the cold war was that bombers were roaming the sky and submarines with warhead the sea ready to attack at any time. Threat was indeed imminent and permanent. There is therefore little difference between the perceived threat of 'global terrorism' and cold war rule. The argument that we must adapt the concept of imminent threat to the capabilities and objectives of the new adversaries is a curious one. On the one hand, it implies that the adversaries of today are better equipped than the Soviet Union army of the past; on the other that the objectives are different. Nevertheless, is there any other objective than to provoke massive destruction that would sway a political process in one case or the other? The fundamental difference between cold war threat and 'global terrorism' is not in the imminence of one versus the other, or its invisibility, but as some legal scholars argue, that non-state actors are involved, which make deterrence a different proposition. The danger of dropping of the traditional notions of self-defence the criterion of imminent threat, a key element that helped prevent states from masking aggression in self-protection, is not hypothetical. The Iraqi war is there to prove why the criteria are important. It was a war of aggression sold to a gullible public as a war of self-protection. James Steinberg, vice president and director of foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution admits "the nature of what [terrorists] do makes it difficult to apply the imminent threat criterion". But he uses this argument to advance further that since we do not know the risk, we should act "without knowledge of a specific threat from them" our judgment being justified based solely on their doctrines and past practices." In Salem, they said about the same when they wanted to burn some people. Their judgment was based on the doctrines of the witches and their past practices. Moreover, here again, it was difficult to apply the imminent threat criterion. The Bush doctrine of pre-emption has also created a new category of states: the rogue ones. I have tried to come up with a definition of rogue states, but I admit that I did not succeed. Of course, we could take the lists established by the Pentagone, but Libya was in and today is out. What has changed? Colonel Khadafi has admitted wrongdoings, paid some money here and there and dismantled its nuclear research bazaar. Is the criteria to confess? Syria is considered a rogue state, while Israel is not. Yet, in the United Nations, there are countless resolution condemning Israel policies and not much about Syria. Let's conclude therefore that rogue states are states that do not play by the rules. What rules? The United States is laying down some of its own making and the most curious one is about Weapons of Mass Destruction. The argument goes as follows. Some countries have a right to have WMD, because they already have them. The rest of the world should not get WMD. The rogue states are those who are cheats. They have WMD or intent to get them, and worse, they are prepared to sale them to "terrorists". The rational behind this fairy tale is that "terrorists" and "rogue states" have a common goal: the end of civilization. I fail to understand why weapons of mass destruction in the hands of terrorists and rogue nations would change the self-defence analysis. Some say that in a world with these catastrophic weapons, countries should be allowed to strike well before a hostile enemy actually attacks. So let's go to war. However, has anyone realize that WMD are in fact sophisticated weapons? They are visible and they do not exist in a vacuum. In other words, whoever possesses them becomes a visible player. It is indeed a sign of recognition and most of the time; it changes the attitude of its owners. An example is the Pakistan-India tango. Doctrine of Pre-emption If the doctrine of pre-emption is new, almost all will have a different answer. The European views article 51 narrowly; there is no right of anticipatory defence at all. On the other hand, American scholars are quite happy to point out that there is a rich European history of self-defence in customary law. Some refer to the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928 onwards, which recognizes that countries have a right to adapt measures of self-defence to tactical situations. But, as some the European diplomats would say, why refer to decisions that proved to be at the root of World War II when going into the XXIst century? If we can't design a new world, we are bound to repeat the old one, and it is a scary prospect. The fatal legend of pre-emptive war Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities, the French philosopher Voltaire said. And close look at recent German history shows the perils of Washington's new strategy as Maggie Ledford Lawson explains herebelow. g. "The Bush Doctrine, offered by neoconservatives in the White House, as a unique response to a world changed by Sept. 11, is anything but new, she writes. Much of the ideology behind current American foreign policy parallels a belief system that took root in Prussia under Frederick the Great and bore poisonous fruit in the Nazi era. The notion that pre-emptive war is a legitimate tool of foreign policy, sold to the American public by the Bush White House, became increasingly popular in Germany in the period leading up to the Second World War. Likewise, the idea of exceptionalism, entitling the U.S. government to force its views on others because the American way of life is best, parallels a commonly held German belief in that nation‚ then its self-proclaimed cultural superiority. The similarity to Germany goes even to the language and tactics the White House has used to convert the American people to its cause. A real danger of a pre-emptive strategy is that it seemingly can succeed at first. In fact, Germany's journey to the Third Reich started in triumph. If modern polling had existed in the 18th century, Frederick the Great would have scored near the top. The Prussian king waged three protracted pre-emptive wars against Catholic Austria and got away with it. In fact, his Protestant subjects started calling him ‚ the Great‚ in recognition of his success in wresting part of the rich province of Silesia from Habsburg Empress Maria Theresa. Frederick, lacking a compelling reason for pre-emptive war, invented one. He counted on spin to sell his unethical initiative, ordering his minister to cook up some legal nonsense‚ to justify his aggression, as his biographer, Nancy Milford, puts it. That's the work of a good charlatan, Frederick reportedly said. The inebriation of victory Having manufactured a threat by implying that Austria and her ally, Saxony, were likely to attack, Frederick spurred his soldiers on, urging them to fight, for the fatherland. He singled out European governments he didn't like as the former great powers. He convinced his subjects that the Silesians would greet his invading troops with smiles and flowers, instantly recognizing the new regime as superior to the former one. That proved untrue, but Frederick's subjects soon forgot their disappointment in the inebriation of victory. Frederick cultivated the arts and reformed the government, but his pre-emptive tactics worried his friend Voltaire, a frequent guest at the Prussian court. The French philosopher remarked that the Prussian king's triumph over Austria changed German destiny by putting nationalism into play for the first time. Klaus Wiegrefe, writing in the Jan. 22, 2001, issue of the German magazine, Der Spiegel, judges Frederick yet more harshly. The Prussian ruler's successful conquests persuaded the German public that pre-emptive war could have positive results; thus, says Wiegrefe, ‚ a fatal legend was born. Intellectuals such as George Friedrich Hegel, who held the philosophy chair at the University of Berlin in the early 19th century, encouraged the Germans' belief in their exceptionalism. He claimed German superiority justified that nation's drive to world domination through war and conquest. Soon there developed in the popular culture what historian Edward Crankshaw calls a totalitarian mystique which glorified the community as standing above all law. Prussia emerged as the most powerful German state. However, it was left to Otto von Bismarck, who became premier in 1862, to inspire even higher ambitions in his people. His aim was to unify Germany and turn it into a continental superpower, using any means needed. "The great questions of the time will be decided, not by speeches and resolutions of majorities ... but by iron and blood, Bismarck told the Prussian Diet in September of that year. Bismarck came to embody the totalitarian mystique. Unapologetic, he skirted the constitution and spent money on defence without the legally required parliamentary approval. Like Frederick, his role model, Bismarck took Prussia into three victorious pre-emptive wars, rigging the facts each time to make his opponents appear the aggressors. He bested Denmark in a dispute over Schleswig-Holstein, and then went against the Austrian Habsburgs at Koeniggraetz, winning a victory that established Prussian supremacy in Germany. Victory over France in an 1870 conflict led to unification of the small German states, with the Prussian king as German emperor. Having made Germany the foremost power in Europe, Bismarck swore off what he quaintly called prophylactic wars. He reasoned that eventually the vanquished would return for revenge. Nevertheless, Bismarck's message that German cultural superiority entitled the nation to stand above the law ignited the nationalistic mood. There were battle scenes on glasses and sofa pillows. People decorated their homes with tin soldiers and went in for militaristic sports. The country was aflutter with flags. William II, who became German emperor in 1888, stoked the nationalistic fire. A man with an epic ego, William played on people's prejudices and exploited their religious beliefs to further his goals. He encouraged a sort of collective national piety, with him in the role of Protestant priest. William's messianic message was accompanied by his disquieting habit of sending German warships unannounced into foreign ports. William wished to show that Germany could not be ignored in any question in the world, says historian A.J.P. Taylor. The mood of the German public edged toward megalomania. They began to think the world belonged to them, says Taylor. Many Germans dismissed criticism as envy of their nation's power and affluence. Nursing a vendetta against his uncle, the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII), William manufactured a crisis, claiming Germany faced an imminent threat of attack from England and her allies. While William II is rightly blamed for the war that was to consume all of Europe, it was his ally, Austro-Hungary that triggered World War I by declaring war on Serbia. The Habsburg move came in response to a terrorist attack by members of a Bosnian Serb group closely connected to the Serbian Black Hand. Serbian nationalists, long-time opponents of the Habsburg presence in the Balkans, had become particularly active after the monarchy's 1908 annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Although Emperor Franz Joseph I believed that civilized nations do not wage pre-emptive war, hawkish elements in the monarchy persuaded the old emperor that the definitions of war had changed following the June 28, 1914, assassination of the Austrian heir-presumptive, Franz Ferdinand, and his wife, Sophie, in Sarajevo. Without waiting to establish proof of the Serb government's complicity in the murders, Franz Joseph rushed to war a month later. Buoyed by a popular slogan, "Better an end with terror than terror without end", the Habsburg soldiers rallied to the flag. William II's violation of Belgian neutrality turned the local conflict into a world war. Believing themselves faced with a war for which they bore no blame, William's subjects remained loyal throughout the conflict. Many prided themselves on not reading foreign newspapers. They refused to entertain opposing views. The Germans got on the world's nerves, acknowledged former German Reich chancellor Bernhard von Bulow in his memoirs, adding that it was only after the war that some Germans grudgingly came to realize that other people viewed them as the aggressors. Unfortunately, the peace settlement at Versailles didn't encourage German soul-searching. It stripped the Germans of most of their territory and left them with huge reparation costs. Adolf Hitler quickly capitalized on their hurt pride. Like many populist politicians, Hitler stirred his audience with patriotic phrases about freedom and democracy. He thought in absolutes, leaving no room for dialogue. He regarded history as a struggle between good and evil. He declared it was his messianic mission to defend the Germans against the Jews. In so doing, he was fighting for the work of the Lord. Hitler hammered the theme of German exceptionalism. German cultural values were superior to all others, he said. He encouraged the nation to avoid multilateralism. He argued against the League of Nations and lashed out at journalists for licking France's boots. France was then an ardent defensor of the League and its main promoter. Hitler spelled out his strategy in Mein Kampf, a best seller on its own, deserving notoriety not only for its racist diatribes but also for its cynical rules for manipulating the public. Among other things, Hitler advises his supporters to repeat slogans repeatedly until the last member of the public understands what you want him to understand by that slogan. While most Western political leaders ignored or ridiculed Mein Kampf, only Winston Churchill took it seriously. He realized that the bestselling book unveiled a strategic plan for reshaping Europe in the Nazi image. The intellectual world woke up after it was too late. The Bush Doctrine, spelled out in the National Security Strategy released by the White House Sept. 17, 2002, and in administration speeches and statements, also has attracted little attention. It should be taken seriously. The similarities to the ideas that took hold in Germany and culminated in World War II suggest the dangers in the policy pursued by the White House. Of course, history never repeats itself exactly, and many circumstances may arise to avert the United States from continuing down the road that Germany followed in the 20th century. Still, to a researcher of German history, these parallels are worrisome. For all its talk about American values, the Bush Doctrine actually repudiates those values. Pre-emptive war is at the centre of the ideology, but the Bush White House goes beyond that, claiming that the United States has the duty, indeed the moral obligation, to violate the rights of sovereign nations and to change their rulers as the American government sees fit. The aim is to shape the world in America's image. The administration justifies its departure from the accepted standards of international behavior by claiming the Sept. 11 attack forever changed the rules by which nations live. However, the leading idea in the Bush Doctrine wasn't developed in response to 9/11. Already in 1992, in the waning days of the presidency of the elder George Bush, Paul Wolfowitz, then undersecretary for policy at the Pentagon, endorsed pre-emptive war as a way of dealing with weapons of mass destruction. His proposal, which appeared in internal guidelines prepared for the Department of Defence, caused a furore after it was leaked to the press, and subsequently was omitted in the final document. Neo-conservatives continued to be backbenched during the Clinton administration, but once George W. Bush was elected, they rapidly gained influence. Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld are particularly sympathetic to neoconservative ideology. Neo-conservatives holding key posts in the administration include Wolfowitz, now deputy Secretary of defense; Pentagon adviser Richard Perle; Eliott Abrams, who is in charge of Middle Eastern policy at the National Security Council; Adam Shulsky of the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans; and John Bolton, undersecretary of state for arms control. Neoconservative outsiders with close ties to the administration include writers William Kristol and Robert Kagan. Much of the inspiration for neo-conservatism comes from Leo Strauss, a Jew who fled Germany during the Hitler years and eventually held a professorial post at the University of Chicago, where he became something of a cult figure. While claiming he believed in liberal democracy, Strauss actually advocated a strong nationalistic state with order maintained, if necessary, by force. It is as though Strauss had unconsciously come to believe in the fascistic methods of those from whom he had fled. Wolfowitz and Shulsky studied under Strauss, and many other neoconservatives say he had a profound influence on their thinking. Neoconservative ideology Neoconservatives depict a brutal world in which might is what counts. They claim the United States should use might since it has it. Robert Kagan, founder of the neoconservative think-tank, Project for the New American Century, in a March 17, 2003, interview with the German magazine, Der Spiegel, put it this way: if you meet a bear in the woods and you are armed only with a knife, you handle yourself differently than if you have a firearm in your hand. The person with the firearm feels strong and shoot; the other person will run away. Neoconservatives contend that American exceptionalism entitles the United States to set itself up as a model for the world. Lawrence F. Kaplan and William Kristol go even further in their book "The War over Iraq", claiming that exceptionalism entitles the United States to pass judgment on others. The Bush administration interprets this exceptionalism to mean that the United States can develop a new generation of nuclear weapons while branding countries that are starting to develop weapons programs as rogue nations. It means touting the United States as a champion of human rights while violating the Geneva Convention by holding prisoners at Guantanamo Bay without trial and without access to lawyers or family. According to Rumsfeld, it means the United States cannot be held to evidentiary standards when going against terrorists. Responding to the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush raised the banner of battle by declaring a war on terrorism, a phrase that invites abuse of power by its vagueness. Like Emperor Franz Joseph in responding to a perceived threat from Serbia, Bush declared the United States would make no distinction between the terrorists who committed those attacks and those who harbour them. The administration's intentions became more apparent two days after the World Trade Center attack, when Wolfowitz told a Pentagon briefing that going after terrorists meant not only capturing the perpetrators but also removing the sanctuaries, removing the support systems, ending states that sponsor terrorism. Bush targeted his initial candidates for regime change -- Iran, Iraq and North Korea -- designating these governments as an "axis of evil", in his January 2002 State of the Union address. The Bush administration eventually compiled a list of more than 60 countries it said fostered terrorism. Having more or less dealt with Afghanistan, Bush focused on Iraq. Like Frederick the Great, Bush lacked a compelling reason for a pre-emptive attack, so he trumped one up. Saddam Hussein, undeniably an evil man, was promoted to the role of leading global villain. The president repeatedly linked the Iraqi dictator and al-Qaeda, even though there was no evidence of collaboration between the two. Bush declared that the Iraqi regime was an immediate threat to the United States. Secretary of State Colin Powell went to the United Nations claiming he had proof that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Few people watching Powell's performance were convinced. Most Americans weren't watching. Undeterred by the failure to win Security Council support for invasion of Iraq, Bush concentrated on winning converts to his cause at home. Opening cabinet meetings with a prayer, the president let the public know he believed he was doing the Lord's business. The Bush message left no room for dialogue. The president spoke in absolutes. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists, he said on Sept. 20. He was to repeat that phrase, or something similar, more than 100 times in the coming months, until even the simplest member of the public understood what the president wanted him to understand. Rumsfeld looked down his nose at old Europe. Hating the French became a mainstay of U.S. policy. Cheney wanted the United Nations to get the message that it was not important. Many ordinary Americans now talk about regime change and future targets for pre-emptive war as if they were acceptable tools of foreign policy. They condone or at least tolerate the government's prying into reading lists in public libraries. Many even silently accept the illegal detainment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. Big Brother has been welcomed into the American family. What used to be a healthy pride in country has turned into malignant nationalism. A scene from Bob Woodward's book, "Bush at War", suggests the extent to which the neo-conservative ideology has infected the American psyche. Woodward describes the arrival of Special Forces and CIA teams in Afghanistan on Feb. 5, 2002. They brought with them a piece of the World Trade Center, burying it in a spot consecrated in memory of those who died on Sept. 11. After a prayer, one man said: We will export death and violence to the four corners of the earth in defense of our great nation. The plague of nationalism is an imminent threat. There is nothing trumped up about that." (Journalist Maggie Ledford Lawson covered Capitol Hill for a number of publications, including Congressional Quarterly, before moving to Prague, where she is writing a biography of Habsburg Emperor Franz Joseph I). Maggie Ledford Lawson was writing the above reflexion long before Bush launched his second presidential election. It is today indeed worrying to acknowledge that repeating slogan over and over has worked so well that Bush has been re-elected with a larger vote than the one he secured in the controversial 2000 election. Here again, the German example comes to mind. Elections after elections, the Germans remained loyal to their leaders and reinforce their power blindly while they were slowly giving away most of their civil liberties. The purpose was that in exchange the German nation was to return to its "rightful" place in the concert of the nations. That it was a fallacy was not questioned, or when it was, the detractor was proclaimed an enemy of the Germans. There is a striking similarity with the discourse of the American administration. Of course, some would say that the Bush II's administration is likely to be less aggressive and that unilateralism has run its course. There is many reasons to believe it is a purely cosmetic attitude. The danger of ideology is that it is not something to use and discard at will. It runs its own course. It is like the djin. Once out of the bottle, it does not go back in. There are many signs that it is the case in the United States when one looks at the intrusion of religious beliefs into the formulation of public policies. It is not new. The Unites States has always been a country of excess. In the XIXth, Gottschalk, a musician from Creole origin and French educated was complaining that on Sunday the towns were dead cities, while in the 1920s we had the years of prohibition and in the 1950s the McCarthy's witches hunts. But it was then confined to the border of the country. Today, there is a pretension to export the American concept of life by force if necessary. | |||
 | | | |