What Workers World said in April 2003
The death of a delusionary doctrine:
Iraqi resistance and the Rumsfeld strategy
The following excerpts are from an article by Fred
Goldstein in the April 10, 2003, issue of Workers World
newspaper about the false debate regarding the role of U.S.
troop strength in the Iraq War.
The most important thing to note about the controversy over
the war plan is that it is entirely superficial. The dispute
has been reduced to a question of judgment. In fact, it is not
merely a question of poor judgment on Rumsfeld's part. It is a
question of ideology and world outlook that underlies the
disastrous miscalculation.
The Bush administration developed its doctrine of world
domination in a National Security Strategy document of
September 2002. This is an evolution of the Defense Planning
Guidance first promulgated in March 1992, authored by Paul
Wolfowitz and approved and later modified by Cheney. It has
been brought up to date and couched in language about
countering terrorism. But it basically asserts the right of
U.S. imperialism to intervene and remove any government that
Washington deems a threat. The document further flatly states
that no power or combination of powers shall be allowed to
challenge the world supremacy of the Pentagon.
Such an outrageously aggressive and delusionary political
doctrine, which proclaims the intention of U.S. imperialism to
dominate the globe and its population of 6 billion people, must
of necessity have an enabling military doctrine that can
envision such a world conquest within the means available to
U.S. capitalism. ...
The Rumsfeld military doctrine--the supremacy of air power,
high technology and threats of "shock and awe"--is a
21st-century version of 19th-century gunboat diplomacy. It
harkens back to an era when the masses of the world were as yet
isolated from one another, cut off from modern technology,
military means, means of communication, and historical
experience of struggle and organization. It recalls the era
when British gunboats could sail to the coast of China or
Africa and fire their cannons--a vastly superior military
technology at the time--and devastate a coastal area in order
to bring the local rulers into submission. ...
This was the "shock and awe" of the 19th century, which is
being resurrected for the 21st century with computer-guided
bombs instead of cannon balls.
The fatal flaw in their doctrine
Its two principal and interconnected assumptions are that
Washington can get its way by threatening governments into
submission or changing "regimes" around the globe so as to
establish absolute sovereignty and domination. And that the
people of the world are an inert mass--they are mere objects
sufficiently disorganized and non-threatening that they do not
have to be taken into account as the fundamental factor in
world history. All that is needed is to send some smart bombs,
cruise missiles, killer helicopters and computerized tanks, and
U.S. domination is assured.
This, of course, is a necessary military doctrine for any
faction of the ruling class that dreams of establishing a world
empire. It means that you don't have to use millions of
soldiers to go kill and be killed in massive combat. It means
that the role of the infantry and the Marines is to go in and
"mop up" after murderous bombardments and then be transitional
occupation forces helping to usher in new puppet governments
that will do the beck and call of Washington.
It means that the working class here being sent to the wars
of conquest will not have to undergo hardships; will not rebel
against being used as shock troops for the transnational
corporations and the oil companies. It means the ruling class
can have "endless war" abroad and social stability at home.
But the Iraqi government, which has become a government of
national resistance, and the Iraqi people in every city, town
and village, have already proven decisively on the ground that
the Rumsfeld strategy, and the Bush doctrine of empire that it
is calculated to uphold, are false to the core.
Reprinted from the Oct. 28, 2004, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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