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September 06, 2007

Born-Again Militarists “Kicking Ass” in Iraq

Yesterday, as President Bush arrived in Australia, he proudly announced that “We’re kicking ass” in Iraq. That’s a bit of a different tone from his message to a group of veterans a couple weeks ago, in which he finally embraced the similarities between Iraq and Viet Nam and described the American military as the “greatest force for human liberation the world has ever known.” And speaking of that speech to the vets, Tom Engelhardt offers a fascinating analysis of the fundamentalist Christian influence on the Bush Administration and the war and all that ass-kicking. He is particularly concerned at the emphasis placed on militarization, as opposed to everything that has traditionally defined America.

Past American presidents might perhaps have spoken of the "greatest force for human liberation" as being "the American way of life" or "the American dream", or American democracy, or the thinking of the Founding Fathers. But it took a genuine transformation in, and the full-scale militarization of, that way of life, for such a formulation to become presidentially conceivable, no less to pass unnoticed, even by fierce critics, in a speech practically every word of which was combed for meaning.

Now, read the speech again and you'll see that the line in question wasn't simply passing blather for an audience of vets, but a thematic summary of the thrust of the whole address, of, in fact, the very vision the Bush administration and supporting neo-conservatives carried into office. Much has been said about the Christian fundamentalist nature of the administration, but if that had truly been the essence of these last years, the president would have identified Jesus Christ as that "greatest force".

Not that a distinction need be made, but this administration's primary fundamentalism has been that of born-again militarists, of believers in the efficacy of force as embodied in the most awe-inspiring, high-tech military on the planet. This was the idol at which its top officials worshipped when it came to foreign policy. They were in awe of the idea that they had at their command the best equipped, most powerful military the world had ever seen, armed to the teeth with techno-toys; already garrisoning much of the globe (and about to garrison more of it); already on the receiving end of vast inflows of taxpayer dollars (and about to receive staggeringly more of the same); already embedded in a sprawling network of corporate interests (and about to be significantly privatized into the hands of even more such corporations); already having divided most of the globe into military "commands" that were essentially viceroy-ships (and about to finish the job by creating a command for the "homeland," NORTHCOM, and for the previously forgotten, suddenly energy-hot continent of Africa, AFRICOM.

In the wake of September 11, 2001, these fundamentalist believers in the power of One to twist all other arms on the planet managed to add a second Defense Department - the Department of Homeland Security (with its own "industrial complex") - to the American agenda; they passed ever more draconian laws curtailing American rights in the name of "homeland security"; they went remarkably far in turning what was already an imperial presidency into something like a Caesarian commander-in-chief presidency; they presided over a far more politicized Defense Department (whose commanders today speak out, while in uniform, on what once would have been civilian political matters); they initiated far more sweeping means of government surveillance at home.

And they opened offshore prisons, giving their covert intelligence operatives the possibility of disappearing just about any human being they cared to target and their interrogators permission to use the most sophisticated kinds of torture. In short, they presided over a striking increase in the state's coercive powers, as embodied in a single, theoretically unrestrained commander-in-chief presidency and the first imperial vice-presidency in American history. (Of course, from the Reagan "revolution" on, the American conservative movement that first took power over a quarter of a century ago never meant to throttle the state, only the capacity of the state to deliver any services except "security" to its citizenry.)

How distant now is the American moment when a peacetime US Army could still exist as a minimalist force (as between the two world wars or even, to some extent and briefly, after the demobilization of World War II). Similarly, it is no longer possible for American politicians of either party to imagine any region of the globe as not part of our national security sphere or not an object of our attentions, not to say our duty, if push comes to shove (or far earlier), to intervene or make war. As a name, Bush's "war on terror" was no more meant as blather than that "greatest force for liberation the world has ever seen".

Engelhardt offers much more and you really ought to go read it.

Posted by Becky at September 6, 2007 09:59 AM