September 21, 2002
Pax Americana Comes Out in the Open
George W. outlined a new, openly aggressive U.S. foreign policy in which the superpower will "pre-emptively" attack whomever it deems a threat, and, as an administration official put it, "we will not allow an adversarial military power to rise." (See The Washington Post and The New York Times.Both the Washington Post and the New York Times used the euphemistic word "muscular" to describe the new policy as outlined in a document called The National Security Strategy of the United States presented to Congress by the administration.
The document clearly states that the U.S. plans to dominate the world and will forcibly prevent any other country from building a military that has the capacity to resist the U.S. In so many words it says "that the president has no intention of allowing any foreign power to catch up with the huge lead the United States has opened since the fall of the Soviet Union more than a decade ago."
The administration tried to color its new policy of world dictatorship in benign terms by saying it would use its military might to promote "free and open societies," but that is clearly a bald-faced lie. The regime supports dictatorships around the world, as long as they obey American demands, and it is doing its best to squash the freedom and openness that still exists within the homeland.
The Bush administration supported a coup against the democratically elected president of Venezuela, defining the group that tried to overthrow the government as "democratic," only because it would be more friendly to American big business interests. It never uttered a peep against the military overthrow of Pakistan and General Musharaff's subsequent dismantling of democratic institutions. It supports oppressive kingdoms like that of Saudi Arabia. The regime obviously has only contempt for democracy.
Whoever pulls the strings here, we can see that the administration measures all success in terms of military dominance of the world. The quality of life of its citizens carries no weight at all, except as a secondary concern to help the rulers more easily manage their holdings. The United States, and now the world, is ruled by a military dictatorship.
-- By David Cogswell