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CounterPunch
March 5,
2003
America's Dual Mission
Destroy and
Rebuild (for a Profit)
By M. SHAHID ALAM
It should not surprise anyone if I feel duty-bound,
as a professor of eco-nomics, to draw upon my modest expertise
in neoclassical economics to look ahead, beyond the impending
war against Iraq, and contribute to the nation-building efforts
in that benighted country as soon as we have finished destroying
it.
About a hundred and fifty years back,
Karl Marx had proclaimed that the British have a "dual mission"
in India: they were there to destroy and rebuild Indian
society. First, they must dismantle those archaic institutions
that had produced centuries of barbarism and stagnation, blocking
her progress to higher forms of economic organization. Once this
historical debris had been removed, the British would lay the
foundations of a civilized society, duly equipped with property
rights, labor markets and an indigenous bourgeoisie. India would
then be ready to join the civilized world as a near-equal of
European nations.
India proved to be more refractory than
Marx had anticipated. As a re-sult, when the British left India,
some two hundred years after they had launched their dual mission,
it was hard to tell if they were in the first or second phase
of their dual mission. Judging from the average height of Indians,
which had shrunk by about a quarter of an inch between 1900 and
1950, it would appear that the British were still engaged in
downsizing India. In any case, no foreign or native observer
could have made the mistake of thinking that in 1947, the year
of her independence, India was even close to laying claims of
equality with Britain. If this was not bad enough, even before
the British terminated their glorious rule, the Indians had plunged
into a great paroxysm of carnage, perhaps to announce to the
world that they had reclaimed their country, and would run it
according to native ideas of just governance. It was a great
pity that the ungrateful Indians had forced the departure of
their British philosopher-guardians before their education was
complete.
Once the sun set on the British Empire, their dual mission fell
into ne-glect. Although the United States inherited the mantle
of global power, it would not be free to exercise this power
in the service of the dual mission. During this era of the Cold
War, when the Soviets were busily seducing the poor huddled masses
of Asia, Africa and Latin America with dreams of socialist revolution,
the greatest part of the energies of the CIA was spent returning
these societies to the sober discipline of military dictatorships
or absolute monarchies. This was mostly a thankless task.
Opportunely, these adverse conditions
changed in 1991 with the collapse of Soviet power. Once again,
the historical conditions were appropriate for Western bourgeoisie
to resume their dual mission, interrupted by the Cold War, among
the half-breeds of the Periphery. No sooner were the conditions
ready than Iraq, the least civilized of the Arab states, offered
United States the opportunity to launch the dual mission with
great fanfare, with nearly all the nations of the world in attendance.
Yet, though United States was superbly endowed, it was not quite
resolved to take upon itself the kinds of risks that attend such
great undertakings.
There is not another region of the Periphery
where the need for resuming the dual mission is stronger than
in the Fertile Crescent, still steeped in obscurantist obsessions
and misogynist dreams. When the British gained control over this
region in 1917, they understood that the time they had was too
short to complete even the destructive phase of their dual mission.
As a result, they decided to leave behind a surrogate--a Jewish
state in Palestine--who would continue to do their job long after
their departure. Once this Crusader state was on the ground,
it could safely be trusted to complete the first phase of the
dual mission, at least in the neighboring territories.
Israel has discharged its historic duties
with serious purpose. But as these things go--and nothing in
this region happens in accordance with the natural laws of history--the
insertion of Israel has created some problems of its own. It
has increased the recalcitrance of some Arab states who arrogantly
and blindly presume that they have the right to live by their
own archaic laws and traditions, even if this obstructs the forward
march of history. It is imperative that these unnatural states
should be destroyed.
Although Iraq offered this opportunity
as early as 1990, United States was not yet ready--as I stated
earlier--to embark on its dual mission. It was still burdened
by painful memories of its failed dual mission in Vietnam, which
despite massive efforts had reverted to the primitivism of communal
ownership and social equality. As a result, after dislodging
the Iraqi barbarians from our oil fields in Kuwait, the
United States lost nerve. It declared victory, and shrank back
from the much greater task of launching the dual mission in Iraq
and the rest of the region.
It is time now for the Son to atone for
the sins of the Father. The Son stands at the head of a coalition--consisting
of Zionists, apocalyptic Christians, and assorted corporate interests--that
is ready and resolved to renew the dual mission, starting with
Iraq, and then moving to Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Libya and
Pakistan. There is so much destructive work that needs to be
executed in these countries; the backlog has been building up
for quite some time.
It is of the utmost importance to note
that the new dual mission promises to be different. When the
British and French initiated the destructive phase of their dual
mission some two hundred years ago, their work proceeded slowly,
since their firepower was not sufficiently developed at the time.
It took the French nearly 50 years, from 1820 to 1870, to kill
half the population of Algeria. The British faced a more difficult
task in India; they simply did not have the firepower to terminate
half their population. As a result, they put in place a variety
of policies that would produce an abundant harvest of famines,
managing to kill off millions. Still, their kill rate was too
slow to match the French record in Algeria.
The new dual mission led by the Bush-Blair
crew can finish its demolition job much faster. The destruction
which the British and French took decades to accomplish can now
be completed in mere days, even hours. Indeed, if the Bush-Blair
crew were not moved by humanitarian concerns, they could depopulate
all of Iraq in a few minutes. This would have the further advantage
of converting the dual mission into a "singular" mission,
since there would be no rebuilding to do, at least for a couple
of hundred years. Instead, they plan to implement a strategy
of "shock and awe," which depends on the simultaneous
delivery of hundreds of cruise missiles to produce the effect
of the Hiroshima bomb without producing its human casualties.
As the Iraqis watch the missiles coming in, they will be seized
with mind-blowing awe, a sight they will treasure for the rest
of their shortened lives. And when the missiles hit their targets
with pin-point accuracy, exploding into a thousand infernos,
the Iraqi awe will swiftly be converted into shock.
The Iraqis who survive their ordeal of
"shock and awe" will, of course, quickly queue up for
surrender to American tanks, drones, robots, or any moving object
made in USA. Once the rites of surrender have been completed--and
televised to prime-time American audiences--the Iraqis can return
to their homes, if these haven't been reduced to rubble, and
wait with baited breath, but without water and electricity, for
the second phase of the dual mission, for the benefits of peace
and democracy to start pouring in. I suspect that the wait may
be long.
Historians of technology will tell you
that technology rarely advances at the same rate on all fronts.
Thus, while the technology for completing the destructive phase
of the dual mission has made impressive progress in the past
decades, the rebuilding technology has yet to catch up. At the
press of a few buttons on ships stationed thousands of miles
away, we can dismantle simultaneously--and almost instantly,
if we are so inclined--all the power stations, bridges, sewage
treatment plants, and water purification plants in Iraq that
survived the first Gulf War. On the other hand, we are still
a long way from inventing automated plants which can build power
stations, bridges, sewage treatment plants, and water purification
plants at the press of a button. The Pentagon has commissioned
MIT and Stanford University to design robots that will be able
to rebuild a country's civilian infrastructure from the rubble
of those that are destroyed by bombs and cruise missiles.
There is a further problem. Rebuilding
of the slow kind requires money--tens of billions of dollars--given
the dramatic success with which we are likely to execute the
first phase of the dual mission. Where will this come from at
a time of rapidly escalating budget deficits, when the demands
of the rich for tax cuts have not yet been fully satisfied? There
will be many in the administration who will be tempted to revise
their thinking on the dual mission. "If we can be so effective
in the first phase, do we need to undertake the second phase?"
Under the circumstances, it is doubtful that any money will be
quickly forthcoming. We cannot count on oil revenues either,
since Saddam may choose to go down in a blaze--the blaze of the
burning oil fields. And if we turn to our allies, they are likely
to decline. Most likely, they will say, "This dual mission
is yours, Imperial Highness, not ours."
Where will the Americans find the money
to start rebuilding the new, free, democratic, post-war Iraq?
We could, of course, draw down the nearly $5 billion in economic
and military assistance we have provided to Israel for several
decades now, especially since a democratic Iraq will have eliminated
the imminent peril from Iraq's yet-to-be-developed nuclear arsenal.
But perish the thought! A Congressman proposing to sacrifice
that sacred cow would instantly put his political career
in jeopardy. Thankfully, we do not have to take recourse to any
radical measures. The rebuilding of Iraq can begin without offending
Israel.
The solution to our predicament comes
from neoclassical economics, such as our better undergraduates
in economics are expected to master before they graduate from
college. Let me explain, drawing upon my modest expertise in
economics, how the time-tested principles of neo-classical economics
can be employed to rescue Iraq's post phase-one economy. Our
bright senior in economics knows, a la Heckscher-Ohlin
theory of international trade, that a country's comparative advantage
lies in making the best use of its most abundant resources. When
their markets are left free, every country will--and should--export
products which make the most intensive use of their abundant
resources. All that we need to do then is to review quickly the
most abundant resources that are likely to become available in
post-war Iraq. It is an ill wind that blows no good. It is, therefore,
unlikely that the most high-tech war that is about to be unleashed
on Iraq will fail to create some quite lucrative opportunities
for Iraqi entrepreneurs. The first place to look for these opportunities
is in the rubble of post-war Iraq.
Improbable as this may sound, Iraqis
are likely to find their most valu-able opportunities in the
bombed-out sites, both military and civilian. I think I am not
being overly optimistic when I assume that United States will
be generous--maybe, even to a fault--in dispatching its arsenal
to chosen targets. Almost certainly, the dispatched arsenal will
include daisy-cutters, micro-wave bombs, cruise missiles, and
anti-tank artillery shells laced with depleted uranium. As a
result, once the war is over, we can reasonably expect that Iraq
will possess an abundant supply of empty warheads, precision-guidance
systems, and other assorted bomb and missile parts. The post-war
government in Iraq should assign its best engineers to collect,
grade, and recondition its war debris for export. In order to
prevent this lethal material from falling into the wrong hands--such
as the two remaining members of the axis of evil--I am quite
sure that the United States military will be eager to snap up
the Iraqi exports.
A second potent source of post-war opportunities
will be presented by the human casualties of the war. According
to one UN estimate more than 1.3 million Iraqi children under
the age of five will be at risk of death from starvation during
and after the war. If we assume that 10 percent of these children
will die in the immediate aftermath of the war--a fairly conservative
estimate--they can serve as an invaluable source for body parts.
I recommend that the US Agency for International Development
(USAID) should make arrangements to deliver thousands of refrigerated
containers to all parts of Iraq to ensure that the children can
be frozen as soon as they die. Once this program comes into operation,
no American children have to die needlessly because of unavailability
of fresh body parts.
War tourism offers a third set of opportunities
for Iraq. I admit it is a new concept, but that should not prevent
the Ministry of Tourism in Iraq from exploring its potential
for generating export revenues. I do not doubt that once the
war is over, there will be a considerable interest in the capitals
of most Third World countries, and especially the Arab countries,
to evaluate the magnitude of the damage that the Americans are
capable of inflicting at short notice on any country. The first
cohort of war tourists will consist of the heads of states, their
ministers, generals, wives, and other hangers-on. Imagine the
sobering effect this tourism will have on these visitors. I am
sure that the whipping-boy theorists of the Iraq war will strongly
support this new tourism, and they might even persuade the Pentagon
to subsidize this cost-effective way of promoting US hegemony.
Perhaps the officials of France, Germany and Belgium can also
be persuaded to join this tourist crowd.
I will list one more opportunity that
the war is almost certain to create: making commercial use of
the depleted uranium left behind by American artillery. According
to a scientific paper in the Iraqi Journal of Medicine
(Spring 1995), several Iraqi hospitals reported sudden elevations
in the rates of cancer remission--even in advanced cases--in
the months following the first Gulf War. Upon investigation,
the scientists found that all these hospitals were located in
areas that were close to the scenes of battles, and enjoyed very
high levels of radiation left from the use of depleted uranium
shells by the US military. The Iraqi Ministry of Health should
capitalize upon this finding, and invite multinationals to set
up cancer treatment facilities that will take advantage of the
uranium radiation that is sure to be gifted to Iraq by the new
war. It is important, however, that these multinationals use
only local doctors and nurses to staff these facilities.
I am sure that if I gave my economic
thoughts freer rein, I could come up with several additional
ways of finding economic opportunities in the wreckage of the
Iraqi economy, the debris of dams and powerplants, the maiming
and mutilation of the Iraqi people. The modest proposals that
I have offered should demonstrate to the Iraqi people that they
should not despair at the thought that the constructive phase
of America's dual mission in Iraq may be stalled by burning oil
fields, the need to provide additional tax breaks to the richest
Americans, or the growing budget deficit. They can start rebuilding
their economy from the wreckage of war itself. And for this they
should be eternally grateful to Americans far having advanced
the arts of war to the point where they sow seeds of hope in
the midst of destruction. No Jhengiz, no Halaku, no Attila, no
Tamburlane ever offered half as much to mankind.
M. Shahid Alam
is a professor of economics at Northeastern University. His last
book, Poverty from the Wealth of Nations was published
by Palgrave (2000). He may be reached at m.alam@neu.edu.
© M. Shahid Alam.
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