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Wanted:
Regime Change in the USA
By
Hazel Henderson
author of Beyond Globalization, Building a Win-Win World
and other books.
October 4, 2002
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For InterPress Service
© Hazel Henderson, September 2002 www.hazelhenderson.com
Popular US comedian Jon Stewart announced recently on
his mock news show's headlines, that there were plans for
a regime change in Florida. After another botched
election, Florida had become an embarrassment to the
nation. Bombing would begin with targeting the city of
Pensacola. On a more serious note, politics and elections
in democracies are always about regime change.
How far will the Bush II Administration go with its
new preemptive strike policy, now officially spelled out
in the latest White House document? Few have any doubts
about the Bushies' go-it-alone unilateralism, since the
US President's September 12th speech at the United
Nations. It is now clear that Mr. Bush sees his role as
"Globocop" and the USA as the world's self-appointed
policeman. Wherever Mr. Bush sees the need for regime
change in other countries or preemptive strikes to
prevent terrorism, the US will act &endash; with or
without the UN.
Needless to say, such policies reverse a good part of
US history of isolationism and reluctance to assume the
role of world policeman. Polls over the past decade show
the US public firmly opposed by 68% to 70% (Roper Center,
University of Connecticut).
Domestic opposition is currently muted by the
Administration's media blitz of fear and war mongering.
The US public is now facing a $200 billion deficit in
2002 and a bill for the proposed war on Iraq of another
$200 billion. The economy is a mess. Even the Democrats
&endash; who are supposed to be campaigning for a US
regime change in the upcoming mid-term elections &endash;
have rolled over under the media onslaught.
Democrats' issues are drowned out: the tanking US
economy; the corporate crime wave and its undermining of
US style capitalism; soaring domestic and trade deficits;
Bush's budget-busting tax cuts for the rich; unemployment
hovering near 6%; rising corporate and personal
bankruptcies. The Republicans may win if they can keep
the focus on terrorism and the war. Such familiar
political strategies are age-old. But stakes are higher
than in the past, when princes feuded over territory.
Today, we live in a globalized world. Transmission
belts of shocks include $1.5 trillion daily currency
trading; media-amplified market-movements; globe-girdling
technologies: jet travel, computer networks and
satellites. Reckless talk and intemperate policies can
rock oil and currency markets, affect elections in
distant countries and destabilize even well run
democratic regimes.
Bush "preventive," preemptive strike polices are
already being cited by Russia's Vladimir Putin as his
justification for sending troops into Georgia to clean up
terrorists there. How long before India uses the same
rationale for similar action against Pakistan &endash;
both nuclear powers? Not only is the US poised on these
slippery slopes &endash; but it could take many other
countries with it. Meanwhile, the US public is confused,
40% say they are not Republican or Democrat &endash; but
independent. The two-party system is stalemated. Many
call them "Republicrats" &endash; two football teams
owned by the same corporate owners. Former SEC chief,
Arthur Levitt describes the corruption in his expose,
Taking on Wall Street.
Deeper moral critiques of the oil-driven Bush polices
struggle for a hearing in small journals. University of
Maryland professor, William Galston cites the dire
consequences of preemptive war &endash; on Iraq or any
other nation in The American Prospect. Richard Falk and
David Krieger of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation add
that a preemptive strike on Iraq is not President Bush's
decision to make. These reminders that such a strike
preempts international law, flouts the UN charter and the
US Constitution, appeared in Japan's Asahi Shimbun and in
the International Herald Tribune.
Meanwhile US mainstream media, including top news
shows in 2001, were found to use biased sources: 90%
interviewed or quoted were white, 85% were male and where
party affiliations were identified, 75% were Republican.
Sixty-two percent of all partisan sources were
administration officials. President Bush alone accounted
for 33% of this total. Third party or independent sources
accounted for 1% (www.fair.org).
The Christian Science Monitor, September 6, 2002,
showed how truth is the first casualty of war. In 1991,
George Bush I claimed that up to 250,000 Iraqi troops and
1,500 tanks were massed on Iraq's border with Saudi
Arabia. The St. Petersburg Times, Florida, countered
Bush's top-secret Pentagon satellite images by showing 2
commercial Russian satellite images of the same area,
which showed only empty desert. John MacArthur, publisher
of Harper's and author of "Second Front: Censorship and
Propaganda in the Gulf War" says that considering the
number of officials shared by the Bush I and Bush II
administrations, the American people should bear in mind
these lessons of Gulf War propaganda.
Dick Cheney, Colin Powell and many other top officials
in both Bush administrations are today citing "top
secret" evidence of Iraq's buildup of weapons of mass
destruction. Meanwhile, former UN inspector Scott Ritter
challenges Bush to produce the evidence, he says is
non-existent. Ritter battles on talk shows against
administration "hawks" who challenge his reputation,
motives and integrity. Ritter responds that he is now a
warrior for peace, who experienced the horrors of war in
military service &endash; and has "maxed out" his credit
cards and received funds from US peace groups in his
campaign to get UN inspectors back into Iraq.
Many US baby-boomers remember the infamous Gulf of
Tonkin Resolution President Johnson used to get
Congressional support during the Vietnam War. In 2001,
the Pentagon secretly created an "Office of Strategic
Influence" &endash; since closed down after a chorus of
opposition. The Christian Science Monitor recalls that
public relations firm Hill and Knowlton, was hired by
Kuwait for $10 million to make the case for the Gulf War
in 1991.
Despite the mounting media spin, oil politics and lack
of evidence that only a return to Iraq of US inspectors
can provide &endash; Vice President Cheney is still
saying, as he did with Gulf War disinformation: "Trust
us". Bush II's arguments that terrorism must be prevented
&endash; by war when necessary to keep the US safe
&endash; will likely have the opposite effect, and
provoke more terrorist attacks.
The race for peace now focuses on how fast the UN can
get inspectors back into Iraq under the new unconditional
terms &endash; versus how fast Globocop Bush can stampede
his war resolution through Congress. If Bush succeeds
before the November 5th mid-term elections, the world may
be headed for open-ended war for a long time to come.
©
TFF and the
author
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