| Weekend
Edition
September 9/10 , 2006
Cut from the Same Old Pattern
Tailoring the Case
Against Iran
By DAVID
MODEL
The
American people’s short memory virtually constitutes complicity
in the loss of millions of lives and billions of dollars worth of
property. In the past 15 years alone, over a million Iraqis have
died and thousands of Serbians and Afghanis have perished in aggressive
wars perpetrated on countries to serve America’s geopolitical
interests at the expense of innocent civilians who were not collateral
damage but who were deliberately bombed as part of heinous war strategy
to provoke the people in these countries into overthrowing their
own governments.
To
build a case to persuade the American people and Congress to approve
these illegal wars, administrations implemented a multi-faceted
propaganda campaigns consisting of demonizing the leader of the
targeted country, evoking fear of a threat to American national
security or interests, concocting a spurious authorization to legitimize
the war and contriving a set of lofty and noble objectives. Notwithstanding
the fact that this pattern has been repeated numerous times since
World War II, the American people and Congress acquiesce in supporting
wars as was the case in Vietnam, Nicaragua, Panama, Afghanistan,
Serbia and Iraq. Currently, the same pattern is evolving in the
campaign to attack Iran and the same, reflexive mindless support
of the American people is growing.
American
presence in Vietnam began before the French were defeated at Diem
Bien Phu but the real escalation of American involvement began under
Kennedy and reached its apogee under Johnston. The enemy was Communism
embodied in this case by Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Cong who, according
to American policy-makers, were bent on uniting both South and North
Vietnam, with force if necessary, which would establish a Communist
prototype for Indochina. Contrary to this propaganda, the 1954 Geneva
Accords called for a vote in both the South and North over uniting
the two and Americans knew that Ho Chi Minh would win and feared
his victory would trigger the so-called domino effect.
As
a result, the US inaugurated a propaganda campaign which characterized
Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Cong as evil communists, to frighten the
American people into supporting a massive US intervention in Vietnam.
Underlying
the threat of Indochina, was the already deep-seated misplaced fear
of the International Communist Movement with its unrelenting drive
to infiltrate Western countries to convert their governments to
Communism.
Needing
a strong justification to establish legitimacy for intervention
in Viet Nam, President Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara
used a spurious incident in which a North Vietnamese ship attacked
the American destroyer Maddox in the Gulf of Tonkin, to claim that
the North Vietnamese had launched an unprovoked attack on an American
ship in international waters. Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin
resolution which granted the President the authority to wage war
as he saw fit.
All
elements of the pattern are evident in the propaganda campaign.
Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Cong were evil Communists who were part
of a worldwide conspiracy to subvert governments and take over the
world; the threat of all of Indochina falling to Communism represented
a major threat to national security; the approval of Congress granted
the authority for the war and the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was
the authorizing underpinning which infused the war with legitimacy.
The noble cause was to save South Vietnam and the world from communism.
The
same pattern repeats itself in Nicaragua. According to official
sources, Nicaragua became such a threat to the security of the US
that President Reagan warned Americans that Nicaragua was only two
days march from Brownsville Texas.
From
1933 to 1979, Nicaragua was ruled by the Somoza family whose brutal
and corrupt reign of terror endured until a popular revolutionary
group, the Sandinistas, overthrew Somoza and replaced his government
with the nationalist, populist Daniel Ortega and members of the
Sandinistas. In 1984 internationally supervised elections were held
and the wildly popular Sandinistas won a majority of the seats.
The agenda of their government was to improve conditions for the
people through higher quality healthcare, schools and redistribution
of land once owned by the Somoza family.
Fearing
a successful economic archetype and the domino effect in Latin America,
Reagan organized a surrogate force, called the Contras, based in
Honduras and Costa Rica, whose purpose was to avoid the Sandinista
army and to strike during the night at schools, hospital and buses
in a war of attrition against the people of Nicaragua to persuade
them to overthrow the Sandinistas or vote them out of office.
The
Reagan administration employed the usual tactics. In order to legitimize
support for the Contras, Reagan created the Kissinger Commission
to “lay the foundations for a long-termed unified national
approach to the freedom and independence of the countries of Central
America.” Its lofty-sounding purpose masked its real intent
which was to justify support for an illegal intervention in violation
of international law.
One
of the conclusions of the Commission demonized the Sandinistas by
claiming that Nicaragua was worse off under them than under Somoza.
Henry Kissinger also concluded that Nicaragua was worse than Nazi
Germany and Reagan, focusing on the other end of the political spectrum,
referred to Nicaragua as a Communist dictatorship.
Apparently,
International Communism, with its grand design to take over the
world, posed a threat to U.S. national security. Reagan’s
comment about Brownsville Texas was obviously nothing more than
a scare tactic in the same vein as buying duct tape to protect American
homes from biological or chemical warfare.
To
lend legitimacy to supporting the Contras, the Reagan administration
invoked the War Powers Act up to 1982 at which time Congress passed
the Boland Amendment, warned about the sale of arms to the rebels
in El Salvador which was never proven and created the supposed bipartisan
commission headed by Kissinger.
The
pattern was an integral part of the war on the Nicaraguan government.
Reagan claimed that the contras were engaged in a humanitarian mission
to free the people of Nicaragua from the yoke of communism and to
support them in meeting their social and economic needs. Reagan
demonized Ortega and the Sandinistas, warned the American people
of the threat they posed to national security, created the Kissinger
Commission to lend legitimacy to supporting the Contras and enveloped
the campaign in the mantle of humanitarianism and freedom.
Panama offers another example of how the U.S. wins support for interventions
that violate international law.
Between
the collapse of the Soviet Union and 9/11 there was a gap during
which there was no arch enemy threatening the interests of the United
States that could serve as a justification for enormous defense
spending and for maintaining such overwhelming military superiority.
The Reagan and Bush administrations conjured up the “War on
Narcoterrorism” as the new superenemy to be overcome with
American military might.
President
Manuel Noriega was on the CIA parole for many years as an important
asset for gathering intelligence in Latin America and for flying
weapons to the Contras on the same planes that carried drugs on
their return flights.
When
Noriega began asserting his nationalistic proclivities and refused
to obey all the orders issued by North, Poindexter or Casey, it
was becoming increasingly necessary to replace him with a more American-friendly
leader. The strategy was to warn Americans about the dangers posed
by this so-called narcoterrorist, indict him in a Florida court,
and then invade Panama for the purpose of capturing him for trial
in the U.S. The U.S. invasion was swift and merciless.
Reagan
and Bush Sr. repeatedly demonized Noriega by referring to him as
a narcoterrorist dictator despite the fact that they both knew that
he was on the CIA parole at the same time as he was heavily involved
the Latin American drug trade.
President
Bush Sr. considered him a threat to U.S. interests on two counts.
He proclaimed that a critical strategy in the War on Drugs in the
United States was to eliminate Noriega. As well, Noriega posed a
problem because he refused to renegotiate a treaty signed by President
Carter and the former President of Panama, Omar Torrijos, which
transferred control of the Canal Zone where the Southern Command
was located from the United States to Panama.
American
forces invaded Panama under the pretext of capturing the narcoterrorist
Noriega and freeing the Panamanian people from a brutal dictator.
The justification for the invasion was based on the Florida indictment
and the protection of American lives. The U.S. military in Panama
repeatedly provoked the Panamanian Defense Forces until an incident
occurred in which one marine was shot and another held captive.
These incidents provided the necessary justification for invading
Panama to save American lives.
The
lofty purpose for this murderous invasion was the protection of
American lives, freeing the people from an evil dictator and disrupting
an important cog in Latin American drug trafficking.
There
was the predictable demonization of Noriega, instilling fear of
a dangerous narcoterrorist, legitimizing the invasion with claims
that American lives were at risk and ennobling the cause by imbuing
it with a humanitarian façade.
The
1991 war on Iraq was anomalous given that it was clearly an aggressive
war against Iraq but was sanctioned by the Security Council. One
of the two criteria for assessing the legality of a war is that
it wins the approval of the Security Council but in this case, the
approval violated the UN Charter. The US achieved this feat of legerdemain
by threatening or bribing the members of the Security Council. The
U.S.-dominated World Bank offered China $114 million in aid and
the U.S. offered normalization of diplomatic relations. They convinced
some of its Gulf allies such as Saudi Arabia to loan $4 billion
to the Soviet Union. Egypt, whose support was critical, was desperate
for economic assistance which arrived in the form of debt forgiveness
from the United States and Saudi Arabia.
Through
bribes and threats, the American government secured the ultimate
authority for using force against another nation and in the process
seriously damaged the credibility of the Security Council.
To
demonize Saddam Hussein, the Bush Sr. administration lured Iraq
into invading Kuwait and then condemned Saddam Hussein for such
a brutal act of aggression. Then to cement his case against Hussein,
Bush hired Hill & Knowlton to invent a story about Iraqi soldiers
snatching babies from incubators and throwing them on concrete floors.
Despite the offers from Iraq to negotiate, Bush claimed that Iraq
was intractable. Of course, there were the usual comparisons to
Hitler.
On
January 8, 1991 President Bush sent a letter to Congressional leaders
warning that “The current situation in the Persian Gulf, brought
about by Iraq’s unprovoked invasion and subsequent brutal
occupation of Kuwait, threatens U.S. vital interests. The situation
also threatens the peace.”
All
the signposts of the American war propaganda strategy are evident
and include referring to Saddam Hussein as a brutal dictator with
grand designs on the region and as a threat to American interests.
In addition, Bush won Security Council approval and created a coalition
of partners to legitimize his cause which was wrapped in a humanitarian
cloak.
President
Clinton managed to convince the American people and Congress that
the war on Serbia was a singular example of nations cooperating
in a great humanitarian cause. In order to break up the former Yugoslavia,
Clinton exploited the civil war that had already been waged in Bosnia
and the ongoing civil war between the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA)
and Serbia as a pretext for bombing Serbia. After presenting a peace
agreement to both parties in Rambouillet, France, that no sovereign
state could possibly accept, he warned Milosevic, the President
of Serbia, that NATO would use force if necessary if he did not
sign the agreement. After committing many atrocities during the
bombing campaign against Serbia after Milosevic predictably refused
to sign the agreement, NATO forced Milosevic to surrender.
Milosevic
was portrayed as a monstrous war criminal who had been guilty of
ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and was now perpetrating the same crime
in Kosovo. Rather than claiming that American interests were specifically
threatened, President Clinton grandstanded about how the United
States and its NATO allies were committed to humanitarian interventions
to prevent the kind of ethnic cleansing which was inflicted on Kosovo
and Bosnia.
Unable
to convince the Security Council to pass a resolution authorizing
the use of force in Serbia, Clinton used NATO as the authorizing
agent not only to lend credibility to this particular war but also
to an expanded role for NATO. The grand cause was the new concept
of legitimate humanitarian intervention even though the war against
Serbia violated both the UN and NATO Charters. This concept has
led to the principle that a war can be illegal but still legitimate;
a principle which conveniently allows nations to ignore international
law when it suits their purpose but which would not be acceptable
to any international tribunal or to the overwhelming majority of
states that have ratified the vast system of international conventions,
treaties and laws.
The
war on Serbia possesses all the elements of the pattern including
demonizing the leader Milosevic, defining American interest in terms
of humanitarian interventions, establishing NATO as the authority
approving the war and creating the concept of illegal but legitimate
wars.
In
2003, Bush Jr. set out to finish the task of removing Saddam Hussein
from office but for different reasons. Bush Sr. was unable to convince
Saddam to be a client state and failing assassination attempts by
the CIA, was forced to resort to war. Bush Jr., or more accurately
his advisors, had grand plans for gaining control of the Middle
East by ensuring a friendly regime in Iraq and by weakening the
remnants of the once relatively strong Iraqi armed forces.
Saddam
was condemned repeatedly by everyone in the administration and eventually
but belatedly his removal became the “real” purpose
of the invasion. Lacking United Nations approval and the support
of the major states which had participated in the first war on Iraq,
Bush managed to cobble together a rather ragtag group of nations
(except for Britain and Australia) called the “Coalition of
the Willing” which consisted of Albania, Azerbaijan, Dominican
Republic El Salvador, Eritrea and Nicaragua to name but a few. His
grand and noble cause changed many times from elimination of Saddam’s
WMD to building democracy in Iraq.
To
complete the task of gaining control of the Middle East and ensuring
that all its nations were American-friendly, war against Iran became
the next target in the campaign to secure approval from the American
people and Congress. To persuade the American people and Congress
to support a possible attack on Iran, Bush Jr. is cultivating the
specter that Iran is a nuclear threat to the region and the US and
as well, the Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a madman and
anti-Semite capable of pulling the nuclear trigger.
According
to the Bush administration, Ahmadinejad is another Hitler who is
a menace to the Middle East and in particular, to Israel, whom he
allegedly threatened to “wipe of the map” and who was
also allegedly involved in terrorist activities in the eighties.
Alleged
anti-Semitic and anti-Israel comments were a result of deliberate
misinterpretations based on a number of his speeches. For example,
according to Virginia Tilley in CounterPunch
(August 28/06), “In his October 2005 speech, Mr. Ahmadinejad
never used the word ‘map’ or ‘wiped off’.
According to Farsi-language experts like Juan Cole and even right-wing
services like MEMRI, what he actually said was ‘this regime
that is occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time’.”
“Regime” does not refer to Israel but to the government
which is currently oppressing the Palestinians.
As
for the accusation that Iran is a nuclear threat, although American
intelligence agencies differ in their progress estimates of Iran’s
nuclear capability, they all agree that it is premature to conclude
that Iran has weapons-grade material. International Atomic Energy
Agency inspectors did not find any evidence of a program to produce
fissile material.
A
nuclear attack on either Israel or the United States is the threat
posed by a nuclear capability in Iran and a madman as leader. According
to the New York Times “Iran’s fundamentalist regime
and its nuclear ambitions pose a strategic threat to the United
States…It’s obvious that Iran wants nuclear weapons,
has lied about its program and views America as an enemy.”
Saving the world from a dangerous nuclear power is the lofty cause
pursued by the United States.
As
in the previous examples, the imperialistic government in Washington
is manipulating and deceiving the American public and Congress into
supporting a possible illegal intervention for the purpose of advancing
American interests. At the same time that support for the occupation
of Iraq has dropped below 50%, Bush and his cronies are using the
same tactics to win approval for a war of aggression against Iran.
The overlap is ironically paradoxical given that the American people
are questioning the honesty of the president at the same time that
they seem willing to believe the case he is making against Iran.
Every time the American people and Congress support these imperial
interventions their hands are covered with blood.
David
Model is Professor of Political Science and Economics at
Seneca College in Toronto. In August 2005, Common Courage Press
released his latest book titled "Lying
for Empire: How to Commit War Crimes with a Straight Face".
He can be reached at: David.Model@senecac.on.ca |