The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 10 | Issue 36 | Number 2 | Article ID 3819 | Aug 28, 2012

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Why Americans Must End America’s Self-Generating Wars　　なぜアメリカ人はアメリカが自ら引き起こす戦争をやめるべきか

Peter Dale Scott

French translation is available;German translation is available;Spanish translation is available;Italian translation is available

The most urgent political challenge to theworld today is how to prevent the so-called“pax Americana” from progressivelydegenerating, like the 19th-century so-called“pax Britannica” before it, into major globalwarfare. I say “so-called,” because each “pax,”in its final stages, became less and lesspeaceful, less and less orderly, more and morea naked imposition of belligerent competitivepower based on inequality.

To define this prevention of war as anachievable goal may sound pretentious. But thenecessary steps to be taken are above allachievable here at home in America. And whatis needed is not some radical and untested newpol icy , but a much-needed real is t icreassessment and progressive scaling back oftwo discredited policies that are themselvesnew, and demonstrably counterproductive.

I am referring above all to America’s so-calledWar on Terror. American politics, both foreignand domestic, are being increasingly deformedby a war on terrorism that is counter-productive, actually increasing the number ofperpetrators and victims of terrorist attacks. Itis a lso profoundly dishonest , in thatWashington’s policies actually contribute to thefunding and arming of the jihadists that itnominally opposes.

Above all the War on Terror is a self-generatingwar, because, as many experts have warned, it

produces more terrorists than it eliminates.And it has become inextricably combined withAmerica’s earlier self-generating andhopelessly unwinnable war, the so-called Waron Drugs.

The two self-generating wars have in effectbecome one. By launching a War on Drugs inColombia and Mexico, America has contributedto a parastate of organized terror in Colombia(the so-called AUC, United Self-Defense Forcesof Colombia) and an even bloodier reign ofterror in Mexico (with 50,000 killed in the lastsix years).1 By launching a War on Terror inAfghanistan in 2001, America has contributedto a doubling of opium production there,making Afghanistan now the source of 90percent of the world’s heroin and most of theworld’s hashish.2

Americans should be aware of the overallpattern that drug production repeatedly riseswhere America intervenes militarily –Southeast Asia in the 1950s and 60s, Colombiaand Afghanistan since then. (Opium cultivationalso increased in Iraq after the 2003 USinvasion.)3 And the opposite is also true: whereAmerica ceases to intervene militarily, notablyin Southeast Asia since the 1970s, drugproduction declines.4

Both of America’s self-generating wars arelucrative to the private interests that lobby fortheir continuance.5 At the same time, both ofthese self-generating wars contribute toincreasing insecurity and destabilization inAmerica and in the world.

Thus, by a paradoxical dialectic, America’s New

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World Order degenerates progressively into aNew World Disorder. And at home theseemingly indomitable national security state,beset by the problems of poverty, incomedisparity, and drugs, becomes, progressively, anational insecurity state and one gripped bypolitical gridlock.

The purpose of this paper is to argue, using theanalogy of British errors in the late 19 th

century, for a progressive return to a morestable and just international order, by a seriesof concrete steps, some of them incremental.Using the decline of Britain as an example, Ihope to demonstrate that the solution cannotbe expected from the current party politicalsystem, but must come from people outsidethat system.

The Follies of the Late 19th Century PaxBritannica

The final errors of British imperial leaders areparticularly instructive for our predicamenttoday. In both cases power in excess of defenseneeds led to more and more unjust, andfrequently counter-productive, expansions ofinfluence. My account in the followingparagraphs is one-sidedly negative, ignoringpositive achievements abroad in the areas ofhealth and education. But the consolidation ofBritish power led to the impoverishment abroadof previously wealthy countries like India, andalso of British workers at home.6

A main reason for the latter was, as KevinPhillips has demonstrated, the increasingoutward flight of British investment capital andproductive capacity:

Thus d id Br i t a in s l i p i n tocircumstances akin to those of theUnited States in the 1980s andmost of the 1990s – slumpingnonsupervisory wage levels anddeclining basic industries on onehand, and at the other end of the

scale a heyday for banks, financialservices, and securities, a sharprise in the portion of incomecoming from investment, and astunning percentage of income andassets going to the top 1 percent.7

The dangers of increasing income and wealthdisparity in Britain were easily recognized atthe time, including by the young politicianWinston Churchill.8 But only a few noticed thepenetrating analysis by John A. Hobson in hisbook Imperialism (1902), that an untrammeledsearch for profit that directed capital abroadcreated a demand for an oversized defenseestablishment to protect it, leading in turn towider and wilder use abroad of Britain’sarmies. Hobson defined the imperialism of histime, which he dated from about 1870, as “adebasement … of genuine nationalism, byattempts to overflow its natural banks andabsorb the near or distant territory of reluctantand inassimilable peoples.”9

The earlier British empire could be said by aBritish historian in 1883 to have been“acquired in a fit of absence of mind," but thiscould not be said of Cecil Rhodes’s advances inAfrica. Maldistribution of wealth was an initialcause of British expansion, and also aninevitable consequence of it. Much of Hobson’sbook attacked western exploitation of the ThirdWorld, especially in Africa and Asia.10 He thusechoed Thucydides description of

how Athens was undone by theoverreaching greed (pleonexia) ofits unnecessary Sicilian expedition,a folly presaging America’s folliesin Vietnam and Iraq [and Britain’sin Afghanistan and the Transvaal].Thucydides attributed the rise ofthis folly to the rapid change inAthens after the death of Pericles,and in particular to the rise of arapacious oligarchy.11

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Both the apogee of the British empire and thestart of its decline can be dated to the 1850s. Inthat decade London instituted direct controlover India, displacing the nakedly exploitativeEast India Company.

The British empire during the VictorianEra

But in the same decade Britain sided withFrance’s nakedly expansionist Napoleon III(and the decadent Ottoman empire) in hisambitions against Russia’s status in the HolyLand. Although Britain was victorious in thatwar, historians have since judged that victoryto be a chief cause of the breakdown in thebalance of power that had prevailed in Europesince the Congress of Vienna in 1815. Thus thelegacy of the war for Britain was a moremodernized and efficient army, together with amore insecure and unstable world. (Historiansmay in future come to judge that NATO’sLibyan venture of 2011 played a similar role inending the era of U.S.-Russian détente.)

The Crimean War also saw the emergence ofperhaps the world’s first significant antiwarmovement in Britain, even though thatmovement is often remembered chiefly for itsrole in ending the active political roles of itsmain leaders, John Cobden and John Bright.12 Inthe short run, Britain’s governments and

leaders moved to the right, leading (forexample) to Gladstone’s bombardment ofAlexandria in 1882 to recover the debts owedby the Egyptians to private British investors.

Reading Hobson’s economic analysis in thelight of Thucydides, we can focus on the moralfactor of emergent hubristic greed (pleonexia)fostered by unrestrained British power. In 1886the discovery of colossal gold deposits in thenominally independent Boer Republic of theTransvaal attracted the attention of CecilRhodes, already wealthy from South Africandiamonds and mining concessions he hadacquired by deceit in Matabeleland. Rhodesnow saw an opportunity to acquire goldfields inthe Transvaal as well, by overthrowing the Boergovernment with the support of the uitlandersor foreigners who had flocked to the Transvaal.

French caricature of Rhodes, showinghim trapped in Kimberley during the

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Boer War, seen emerging from towerclutching papers with champagne bottlebehind his collar.

In 1895, after direct plotting with theuitlanders failed, Rhodes, in his capacity asPrime Minister of the British Cape Colony,sponsored an invasion of Transvaal with the so-called Jameson Raid, a mixed band of MountedPolice and mercenary volunteers. The raid wasnot only a failure, but a scandal: Rhodes wasforced to resign as Prime Minister and hisbrother went to jail. The details of the Jamesonraid and resulting Boer War are too complex tobe recounted here; but the end result was thatafter the Boer War the goldfields fell largelyinto the hands of Rhodes.

The next step in Rhodes’ well - fundedexpansiveness was his vision of a Cape-to-Cairorailway through colonies all controlled byBritain. As we shall see in a moment, this visionprovoked a competing French vision of an west-east railway, leading to the first of a series ofcrises from imperial competition thatprogressively escalated towards World War I.

According to Carroll Quigley, Rhodes alsofounded a secret society for the furtherexpansion of the British empire, an offshoot ofwhich was the Round Table which in turngenerated the Royal Institute of InternationalAffairs. In 1917 some members of the AmericanRound Table also helped found the RIIA’s sisterorganization, the New York-based Council onForeign Relations (CFR).13

Some have found Quigley’s argumentoverstated. But whether one agrees with him ornot, one can see a continuity between theexpansionist acquisitiveness of Rhodes in Africain the 1890s and the post-war acquisitivenessof UK and American oil corporations in theCFR-backed coups in Iran (1953), Indonesia(1965), and Cambodia (1970).14 In all thesecases private acquisitive greed (albeit of

corporations rather than an individual) led tostate violence and/or war as a matter of publicpolicy. And the outcomes enriched andstrengthened private corporations in what Ihave called the American war machine, thusundermining those institutions representing thepublic interest.

My main point is that the progressive build-upof the British navy and armies provoked,predictably, a responsive build-up from otherpowers, particularly France and Germany; andthis ultimately made World War I (and itssequel, World War II) all but inevitable. Inretrospect it is easy to see that the arms build-up contributed, disastrously, not to security butto more and more perilous insecurity,dangerous not just to the imperial powersthemselves but to the world. Because Americanglobal dominance surpasses what Britain’s everwas, we have not hitherto seen a similarbacklash in competitiveness from other states;but we are beginning to see a backlash build-up(or what the media call terrorism) fromincreasingly oppressed peoples.

In retrospect one can see also that theprogressive impoverishment of India and othercolonies guaranteed that the empire wouldbecome progressively more unstable, anddoomed in its last days to be shut down. Thiswas not obvious at the time; and comparativelyfew Britons in the 19th century, other thanHobson, challenged the political decisions thatled from the Long Depression of the 1870s tothe European “Scramble for Africa,” and therelated arms race.15 Yet when we look backtoday on these decisions, and the absurd butominous crises they led to in distant corners ofAfrica like Fashoda (1898) and Agadir (1911),we have to marvel at the short-sighted andnarrow stupidity of the so-called statesmen ofthat era.16

We also note how international crises could beinitially provoked by very small, uncontrolled,bureaucratic cabals. The Fashoda incident in

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South Sudan involved a small troupe of 132French officers and soldiers who had trekkedfor 14 months, in vain hopes of establishing awest-to-east French presence across Africa(thus breaching Rhodes’ vision of a north-to-south British presence.17 The 1911 provocativearrival (in the so-called “Panther leap” orPanzersprung) of the German gunboat Panzerat Agadir in Morocco was the foolish brainchildof a Deputy Secretary of Foreign Affairs; itschief result was the cementing of the Anglo-French Entente Cordiale, thus contributing toGermany’s defeat in World War I.18

The Pax Americana in the Light of the PaxBritannica

The world is not condemned to repeat thistragedy under the Pax Americana. Globalinterdependence and above all communicationshave greatly improved. We possess theknowledge, the abilities, and the incentives tounderstand historical processes more skillfullythan before. Above all it is increasingly evidentto a g loba l m inor i t y tha t Amer icanhypermilitarism, in the name of security, isbecoming – much like British hypermilitarismin the 19th century -- a threat to everyone’ssecurity, including America’s, by inducing andincreasingly seeking wider and wider wars.

There is one consolation for Americans in this

increasing global disequilibrium. As the causesfor global insecurity become more and morelocated in our own country, so also do theremedies. More than their British predecessors,Americans have an opportunity that otherpeoples do not, to diminish global tensions andmove towards a more equitable global regimen.Of course one cannot predict that such arestoration can be achieved. But the disastrousend of the Pax Britannica, and the increasinglyheavy burdens borne by Americans, suggestthat it is necessary. For American unilateralexpansionism, like Britain’s before it, is nowcontr ibut ing to a breakdown o f theunderstandings and international legalarrangements (notably those of the UNCharter) that for some decades contributed torelative stability.

It needs to be stated clearly that the Americanarms build-up today is the leading cause in theworld of a global arms build-up – one that isominously reminiscent of the arms race, fuelledby the British armaments industry, that led tothe 1911 Agadir incident and soon after toWorld War I. But today’s arms build-up cannotbe called an arms race: it is so dominated byAmerica (and its NATO allies, required byNATO policy to have compatible armaments)that the responsive arms sales of Russia andChina are small by comparison:

In 2010 …the United Statesmaintained its dominating positionin the global arms bazaar, signing$21.3 billion in worldwide armssales, or 52.7 percent of al lweapons deals, ….

Russia was second with $7.8 billionin arms sales in 2010, or 19.3percent of the market, comparedwith $12.8 b i l l ion in 2009.Following the United States andRussia in sales were France,Britain, China, Germany andItaly.19

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(A year later America’s total dominance ofoverseas arms sales had more than doubled, torepresent 79 percent of global arms sales:

Overseas weapons sales by theUnited States totaled $66.3 billionlast year, or more than three-quarters of the global armsmarket, valued at $85.3 billion in2011. Russia was a distant second,with $4.8 billion in deals.) 20

And what is NATO’s primary activity todayrequiring arms? Not defense against Russia,but support for America in its self-generatingWar on Terror, in Afghanistan as once in Iraq.The War on Terror should be seen for what itreal ly is : a pretext for maintaining adangerously oversized U.S. military, in anincreasingly unstable exercise of unjust power.

In other words America is by far the chiefcountry flooding the world with armamentstoday. It is imperative that Americans force areassessment of this incentive to global povertyand insecurity. We need to recall Eisenhower’sfamous warning in 1953 that “Every gun that ismade, every warship launched, every rocketfired signifies, is in the final sense, a theft fromthose who hunger and are not fed, those whoare cold and are not clothed.”21

It is similarly worth recalling that PresidentKennedy, in his American University speech ofJune 10, 1963, called for a vision of peace thatwould explicitly not be “a Pax Americanaenforced on the world by American weapons ofwar.”22 His vision was wise, if short-lived. Aftersixty years of the American security system –the so-called “Pax Americana” – America itselfis ever more caught up in an increasinglyparanoid condition of psychological insecurity.Traditional features of American culture – suchas respect for habeas corpus and international

law – are being jettisoned at home and abroadbecause of a so-called terrorist threat that islargely of America’s own making.

The Covert US-Saudi Alliance and the Waron Terror

Of the $66.3 billion in U.S. overseas arms salesin 2011, over half, or $33.4 billion, consisted ofsales to Saudi Arabia. This included dozens ofApache and Black Hawk helicopters, weaponsdescribed by the New York Times as needed fordefense against Iran, but more suitable forSaudi Arabia’s increasing involvement inaggressive asymmetric wars (e.g. in Syria).23

These Saudi arms sales are not incidental; theyreflect an agreement between the twocountries to offset the flow of US dollars to payfor Saudi oil. During the oil price hikes of 1971and 1973 Nixon and Kissinger negotiated adeal with both Saudi Arabia and Iran to paysignificantly higher prices for crude, on theunderstanding that the two countries wouldthen recycle the petrodollars by various means,prominently arms deals.24

The wealth of the two nations, America andSaudi Arabia, has become ever moreinterdependent. This is ironic. In the words of aleaked US cable, “Saudi donors remain thechief financiers of Sunni militant groups like AlQaeda.”25 The Rabita or Muslim World League,launched and largely funded by the Saudi royalfamily, has provided an international meetingplace for international Salafists including someal Qaeda leaders.26

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Obama with Saudi King Abdullah, 2010

In short, the wealth generated by the Saudi-American relationship is funding both the alQaeda-type jihadists of the world today andAmerica’s self-generating war against them.The result is an incremental militarization ofthe world abroad and America at home, as newwarfronts in the so-called War on Terroremerge, predictably, in previously peacefulareas like Mali.

The media tend to present the “War on Terror”as a conflict between lawful governments andfanatical peace-hating Islamist fundamentalists.In fact in most countries, America and Britainnot excepted, there is a long history ofoccasional collaboration with the very forceswhich at other times they oppose.

Today America’s foreign policies and above allcovert operations are increasingly chaotic. Insome countries, notably Afghanistan, the US isfighting jihadists that the CIA supported in the1980s, and that are still supported today by our

nominal allies Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Insome countries, notably Libya, we haveprovided protection and indirect support to thesame kind of jihadis. In some countries, notablyKosovo, we have helped bring these jihadis topower.27

One country where American authoritiesconceded its clients were supporting jihadis isYemen. As Christopher Boucek reported someyears ago to the Carnegie Endowment ofInternational Peace,

Islamist extremism in Yemen is theresult of a long and complicatedset of developments. A largenumber of Yemeni nationalsparticipated in the anti-Soviet jihadin Afghanistan during the 1980s.After the Soviet occupation ended,t h e Y e m e n i g o v e r n m e n tencouraged its citizens to returnand also permitted foreignveterans to settle in Yemen. Manyof these Arab Afghans were co-opted by the regime and integratedinto the state’s various securityapparatuses. Such co-optation wasalso used with individuals detainedby the Yemeni government afterthe September 11 terrorist attacks.As early as 1993, the U.S. StateDepartment noted in a now-declassified intelligence reportthat Yemen was becoming animportant stop for many fightersleaving Afghanistan. The reportalso maintained that the Yemenigovernment was either unwillingor unable to curb their activities.Islamism and Islamist activistsw e r e u s e d b y t h e r e g i m ethroughout the 1980s and 1990s tosuppress domestic opponents, andduring the 1994 civil war Islamistsfought against southern forces.28

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In March 2011 the same scholar, ChristopherBoucek, observed that America’s war on terrorhad resulted in the propping up of anunpopular government, thus helping it avoidneeded reforms:

Our policy on Yemen has been ...terrorism and security and al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, tothe exclusion of almost everythingelse. I think, despite what -- whatpeople in the administration say,w e h a v e b e e n f o c u s e d o nterrorism. We have not beenfocused on the systemic challengesthat Yemen faces: unemployment,governance abuses, corruption. Ithink these are the things that willbring down the state. It's notAQAP….. everyone in Yemen seesthat we're supporting the regimes,at the expense of the Yemenipeople.29

Stated more bluntly: One major reason whyYemen (like other countries) remains backwardand a fertile ground for jihadi terrorism isAmerica’s war on terror itself.

America’s is not the only foreign security policycontributing to the crisis in Yemen. SaudiArabia has had a stake in reinforcing the jihadiinfluence in republican Yemen, ever since theSaudi royal family in the 1960s usedconservative hill tribes in northern Yemen torepel an attack on southern Saudi Arabia by theNasser -backed repub l i can Yemen igovernment. 3 0

These machinations of governments and theirintelligence agencies can create conditions ofimpenetrable obscurity. For example, as Sen.John Kerry has reported, one of the top leadersof Al Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula (AQAP) “is aSaudi citizen who was repatriated to SaudiArabia from Guantanamo in November 2007

and returned to militancy [in Yemen] aftercompleting a rehabilitation course in SaudiArabia.”

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Like other nations, America is no stranger tothe habit of making deals with al Qaeda jihadis,to aid them to fight abroad in areas of mutualinterest -- such as Bosnia – in exchange for notacting as terrorists at home. This practiceclearly contributed to the World Trade Centerbombing of 1993, when at least two of thebombers had been protected from arrestbecause of their participation in a Brooklyn-based program preparing Islamists for Bosnia.In 1994 the FBI secured the release in Canadaof a U.S.-Al Qaeda double agent at the Brooklyncenter, Ali Mohamed, who promptly went on toKenya where (according to the 9 /11Commission Report) he “led” the organizers ofthe 1998 attack on the U.S. Embassy.32

Saudi Arabian Support for Terrorists

Perhaps the foremost practitioner of this gameis Saudi Arabia, which has not only exportedjihadis to all parts of the globe but (aspreviously noted) has f inanced them,sometimes in alliance with the United States. ANew York Times article in 2010 about leakeddiplomatic cables quoted from one of thediplomatic dispatches: “Saudi donors remainthe chief financiers of Sunni militant groupslike Al Qaeda.”33

Back in 2007 the London Sunday Times alsoreported that

wealthy Saudis remain the chieffinanciers of worldwide terrornetworks. 'If I could somehow snapmy fingers and cut off the fundingfrom one country, it would beSaudi Arabia,' said Stuart Levey,the US Treasury official in chargeof tracking terror financing.34

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Similar reports of Saudi funding have comefrom authorities in Iraq, Pakistan, andAfghanistan, according to Rachel Ehrenfeld:

Pakistani police reported in 2009that Saudi Arabia's charitiescontinue to fund al Qaeda, theTaliban and Pakistan's Lashkar-e-Tayyiba. The report said the Saudisgave $15 million to jihadists,including those responsible forsuicide attacks in Pakistan and thedeath of former Pakistani PrimeMinister Benazir Bhutto.

In May 2010, Buratha NewsAgency, an independent newssource in Iraq, reported on aleaked Saud i in te l l igencedocument showing continuedSaudi governmental support for alQaeda in Iraq in the form of cashand weapons…. An article in theMay 31, 2010, edition of TheSunday Times in London revealedtha t the A fghan f i nanc ia lintelligence unit, FinTRACA,reported that since 2006, at least$1.5 billion from Saudi Arabia wassmuggled into Afghanistan, headedmost probably to the Taliban."35

However the Saudi backing of al Qaeda wasnot, according to the Times, limited to funds:

In recent months, Saudi religiouss c h o l a r s h a v e c a u s e dconsternation in Iraq and Iran byissuing fatwas calling for thedestruction of the great Shi’iteshrines in Najaf and Karbala inIraq, some of which have alreadyb e e n b o m b e d . A n d w h i l eprominent members of the rulingal-Saud dynasty regularly express

their abhorrence of terrorism,leading figures within the kingdomwho advocate extremism aretolerated.

Sheikh Saleh al-Luhaidan, the chiefjustice, who oversees terroristtrials, was recorded on tape in amosque in 2004, encouragingyoung men to f ight in Iraq.“Entering Iraq has become riskynow,” he cautioned. “It requiresavoiding those evil satellites andthose drone aircraft, which ownevery corner of the skies over Iraq.If someone knows that he iscapable of entering Iraq in order tojoin the fight, and if his intention isto raise up the word of God, thenhe is free to do so.”36

The Example of Mali

Something similar is happening today in Africa,where Saudi Wahhabist fundamentalism “hasgrown in recent years in Mali with youngimams returning from studying on the Arabpeninsula.”37 The world

press, including Al Jazeera, has reported on thedestruction of historic tombs by local jihadis:

Fighters from the al-Qaeda-linkedgroup Ansar Dine, controllingnorthern Mali, have destroyed twotombs at the ancient Djingareybermud mosque in Timbuktu, anendangered World Heritage site,w i t n e s s e s s a y … . T h e n e wdestruction comes after attackslast week on other historic andreligious landmarks in Timbuktuthat UNESCO called "wantondestruction". Ansar Dine hasdeclared the ancient Muslim

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shrines "haram", or forbidden inIslam. The Djingareyber mosque isone of the most important inTimbuktu and was one of thefabled city's main attractionsbefore the region became a no-goarea for tourists. Ansar Dine hasvowed to continue destroying allthe shrines "without exception"amid an outpouring of grief andoutrage both at home and abroad.38

Djingareyber

But most of these stories (including alJazeera’s) have failed to point out that thedestruction of tombs has long been a Wahhabipractice not only endorsed but carried out bythe Saudi government:

In 1801 and 1802, the SaudiWahhabis under Abdul Aziz ibnMuhammad ibn Saud attacked andcaptured the holy Muslim cities ofKarba la and Naja f in I raq ,massacred parts of the Muslimpopulation and destroyed thetombs of Husayn ibn Ali who is thegrandson of Muhammad, and sonof Ali (Ali bin Abu Talib), the son-in-law of Muhammad). In 1803 and1804 the Saudis captured Makkahand Medina and destroyed

historical monuments and variousholy Muslim sites and shrines,such as the shrine built over thetomb of Fatimah, the daughter ofMuhammad, and even intended todestroy the grave of Muhammadhimself as idolatrous. In 1998 theSaudis bulldozed and pouredgasoline over the grave of Aminahb i n t W a h b , t h e m o t h e r o fMuhammad, causing resentmentthroughout the Muslim World.39

The Chance of Peace and Insecurity, theChief Impediment to It

Today one must distinguish between the SaudiArabian Kingdom and the Wahhabismpromoted by senior Saudi clerics and somemembers of the Saudi Royal Family. KingAbdullah in particular has reached out to otherreligions, visiting the Vatican in 2007 andencouraging an interfaith conference withChristian and Jewish leaders, which took placein 2008.

In 2002 Abdullah, as Crown Prince, alsosubmitted a proposal for Arab-Israeli peace to asummit of Arab League nations. The plan,which has been endorsed by Arab Leaguegovernments on many occasions, called fornormalizing relations between the entire Arabregion and Israel, in exchange for a completewithdrawal from the occupied territories(including East Jerusalem) and a "justsettlement" of the Palestinian refugee crisisbased on UN Resolution 194. It was spurned in2002 by Israel’s Sharon and also by Bush andCheney, who at the time were determined to goto war in Iraq. But as David Ottaway of theWoodrow Wilson Center has noted,

Abdullah's 2002 peace planremains an intriguing possiblebasis for U.S.-Saudi cooperation onthe Israeli-Palestinian issue.

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Abdullah's proposal was endorsedby the entire Arab League at its2002 summit; Israeli PresidentShimon Peres and Olmert bothreferred to it favorably; and BarackObama, who chose the Saudi-owned al Arabiya television stationfor his first interview after takingoffice, praised Abdullah for his"great courage" in making thepeace proposal. However, thepresumed new Israeli primeminister, Benjamin Netanyahu, hasstrongly opposed the Saudi plan,particularly the idea that EastJerusalem should be the capital ofa Palestinian state.40

The plan has no traction in 2012, with Israelhinting at action against Iran and Americaparalyzed by an election year. However IsraeliPresident Shimon Peres welcomed the initiativein 2009; and George Mitchell, PresidentObama’s special envoy to the Middle East,announced in the same year that the Obamaadministration intended to "incorporate" theinitiative into its Middle East policy.41

These voices of support indicate that a peaceagreement in the Middle East is theoreticallypossible, but by no means do they make itlikely. Any peace settlement would requiretrust, and trust is difficult when all parties arebeset by a sense of insecurity about theirnations’ futures. Pro-Zionist commentators likeCharles Krauthammer recall that for thirtyyears before Camp David, the destruction ofIsrael was “the unanimous goal of the ArabLeague.”42 Many Palestinians, and most ofHamas, fear that a peace settlement wouldleave unsatisfied, and indeed extinguish, theirdemands for a just settlement of grievances.

Insecurity is particularly widespread in theMiddle East because of the widespreadresentment there against injustice, whichinsecurity both grows from and propagates.

Much of the global status quo has its origins ininjustice; but the injustice in the Middle East,on all sides, is extreme, recent, and ongoing. Isay this only to offer this advice to Americans:to keep in mind that the issues of security andjustice cannot be separated.

Above all, compassion is needed. We asAmericans must understand that both Israelisand Palestinians live in conditions not remotefrom a state of war; yet both have reason tofear that a peace settlement might leave themeven worse of f than in their presentuncomfortable situation. Too many innocentcivilians have been killed in the Middle East.American actions should not increase thatnumber.

This sense of insecurity, the major impedimentto peace, is not confined to the Middle East.Since 9/11 Americans have experienced theanguish of insecurity, and this is the majorreason why there is so little Americanresistance to the manifest follies of the Bush-Cheney-Obama War on Terror.

The War on Terror promises to make Americamore secure, yet in fact continues to guaranteethe proliferation of America’s terrorist enemies.It also continues to disseminate the War intonew battlefields, notably Pakistan and Yemen.By thus creating its own enemies, the War onTerror, now solidly entrenched in bureaucraticinertia, seems likely to continue unabated. Inthis it is much like the equally ill-consideredWar on Drugs, dedicated to maintaining thehigh costs and profits that attract newtraffickers.

Above all this contributes to Islamic insecurityas well, causing more and more Muslims todeal with the fear that civilians, not just jihaditerrorists, will be the victims of drone attacks.Insecurity in the Middle East is the majorobstacle to peace there. Palestinians live indaily fear of oppression by West Bank settlersand retaliation by the Israeli state. The Israelislive in constant fear of hostile neighbors. So

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does the Saudi royal family. Insecurity andinstability have increased together since 9/11and the War on Terror.

Middle Eastern insecurity replicates itself on awider and wider scale. Israeli fear of Iran andHizbollah is matched by Iranian fear of Israelithreats of massive attacks on its nuclearinstallations. And recently former U.S. hawkslike Zbigniew Brzezinski have warned that anIsraeli attack on Iran could lead to a longer warthat spreads elsewhere.43

Above all, in my opinion, Americans should fearthe insecurity spread by

drone attacks. If not soon stopped, America’sdrone attacks threaten to do what America’satomic attacks did in 1945: lead to a world inwhich many powers, not just one, possess thisweapon and may possibly use it. In this casethe most likely new target by far would be theUnited States.

How long will it be, I wonder, before aprevailable force of Americans will recognizethe predictable course of this self-generatingwar, and mobilize against it?

What Is to Be Done?

This paper has argued, using the analogy ofBritish errors in the late 19th century, for aprogressive return to a more stable and justinternational order, by a series of concretesteps, some of them incremental:

1) a progressive reduction ofAmerica’s bloated military andintelligence budgets, over andabove that already contemplatedfor financial reasons.

2) a progressive phase-out of theviolent aspects of the so-called waron terror , whi le re ta in ingtraditional law enforcement means

for dealing with terrorists

3 ) M u c h o f t h e r e c e n tintensif ication of Americanmilitarism can be traced to the“state of emergency” proclaimedon September 14, 2001, andrenewed annually by Americanpresidents ever since. We need animmediate termination of this stateof emergency, and a reassessmentof all the so-called “continuity ofgovernment” (COG) measuresassociated with it – warrantlesssurve i l lance , warrant lessdetention, and the militarization ofdomestic American security.44

4) a return to strategies for dealingwith the problem of terrorists thatrely primarily on civilian policingand intelligence.

Forty years ago I would have appealed toCongress to take these steps to defuse the stateof paranoia we are living under. Today I havecome to see that Congress itself is dominatedby the powers that profit from what I havecalled America’s global war machine. The so-called “statesmen” of America are as dedicatedto the preservation of American dominance aswere their British predecessors.

But to say this is not to despair of America’sability to change direction. We should keep inmind that four decades ago domestic politicalprotest played a critical role in helping to endan unjustified war in Vietnam. It is true that in2003 similar protests – involving one millionAmericans – failed to impede America’s entryinto an unjustified war in Iraq. Nevertheless,the large number of protesters, assembledunder relatively short notice, was impressive.The question is whether protesters can adapttheir tactics to new realities and mount asustained and effective campaign.

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Under the guise of Continuity of Governmentplanning, the American war machine has beenpreparing for forty years to neutralize streetantiwar protests. Taking cognizance of this,and using the folly of British hypermilitarism asan example, today’s antiwar movement mustlearn how to apply coordinated pressure withinAmerican institutions – not just by “occupying”the streets with the aid of the homeless. It isnot enough simply to denounce, as didChurchill in 1908, the increasing disparity ofwealth between rich and poor. One must gobeyond this to see the origins of this disparityin dysfunctional policies that can be changed.And one of the chief of these is the so-calledWar on Terror.

No one can predict the success of such amovement . But I be l ieve that g lobaldevelopments will persuade more and moreAmericans that it is necessary. It should appealto a broad spectrum of the Americanelectorate, from the followers of Znet andDemocracy Now on the left to those of MurrayRothbard and Ron Paul on the right.

And I believe also that a well-coordinatednonviolent antiwar minority – of from two tofive million, acting with the resources of truthand common sense on their side – can win.America’s core political institutions are atpresent both dysfunctional and unpopular:Congress in particular has an approval ratingof about ten percent. A more serious problem isthe determined resistance of corporate andpersonal wealth to reasonable reforms; but themore nakedly wealth shows its undemocraticinfluence, the more evident will become theneed to curb its abuses. Currently wealth hastargeted for removal Congress members whohave been guilty of compromise to solvegovernment problems. Surely there is anAmerican majority out there to be mobilized fora return to common sense.

Clearly new strategies and techniques ofprotest will be needed. It is not the purpose

here to define them, but future protests – orcyberprotests – will predictably make moreskillful use of the Internet.

I repeat that one cannot be confident of victoryin the struggle for sanity against specialinterests and ignorant ideologues. But with theincreasing danger of a calamitous internationalconflict, the need to mobilize for sanity isincreasingly clear. The study of history is one ofthe most effective ways to avoid repeating it.

Are these hopes for protest mere wishfulthinking? Very possibly. But, wishful or not, Iconsider them to be necessary.

Peter Dale Scott, a former Canadian diplomatand English Professor at the University ofCalifornia, Berkeley, is the author of Drugs Oiland War, The Road to 9/11, and The WarConspiracy: JFK, 9/11, and the Deep Politics ofWar. His most recent book is American WarMachine: Deep Politics, the CIA Global DrugConnection and the Road to Afghanistan. Hiswebsite, which contains a wealth of hiswritings, is here.

Recommended citation: Peter Dale Scott, "WhyAmericans Must End America’s Self-GeneratingWars," The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol 10, Issue36, No. 2, September 3, 2012.

Notes

1 Oliver Villar and Drew Cottle, Cocaine, DeathSquads, and the War on Terror: U.S.Imperialism and Class Struggle in Colombia(New York: Monthly Review Press, 2011); PeterWatt and Roberto Zepeda, Drug War Mexico:Politics, Neoliberalism and Violence in the NewNarcoeconomy (London: Zed Books, 2012);Mark Karlin, “How the Militarized War onDrugs in Latin America Benefits TransnationalCorporations and Undermines Democracy,”Truthout, August 5, 2012.

2 Peter Dale Scott, American War Machine:Deep Politics, the CIA Global Drug Connection,

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and the Road to Afghanistan (Lanham, MD:Rowman & Littlefield, 2010), 217-37.

3 Patrick Cockburn, “Opium: Iraq's deadly newexport,” Independent (London), May 23, 2007.

4 Scott, American War Machine, 134-40.

5 See Mark Karlin, “How the Militarized War onDrugs in Latin America Benefits TransnationalCorporations and Undermines Democracy,”Truthout, August 5, 2012.

6 Sekhara Bandyopadhyaya, From Plassey toPartition: A History of Modern India (NewDelhi: Orient Longman, 2004), 231.

7 Kevin Phillips, Wealth and Democracy: APolitical History of the American Rich (NewYork: Broadway Books, 2002), 185.

8 “The seed of imperial ruin and national decay– the unnatural gap between the rich and thepoor…. the swift increase of vulgar, joblessluxury – are the enemies of Britain” (WinstonChurchill, quoted in Phillips, Wealth andDemocracy, 171).

9 John A. Hobson, Imperialism (London: Allenand Unwin, 1902; reprint, 1948), 6. The book’schief impact in Britain at the time was topermanently stunt Hobson’s career as aneconomist.

10 Hobson, Imperialism, 12. Cf. Arthur M.Eckstein, "Is There a 'Hobson–Lenin Thesis' onLate Nineteenth-Century Colonial Expansion?"Economic History Review, May 1991, 297–318,especially 298-300.

11 Peter Dale Scott, "The Doomsday Project,Deep Events, and the Shrinking of AmericanDemocracy," Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus,J a n u a r y 2 1 , 2 0 1 1 ,http://japanfocus.org/-Peter_Dale-Scott/3476.

12 See Ralph Raico, “Introduction,” Great Warsand Great Leaders: A Libertarian Rebuttal

(Auburn, AL: Mises Inst itute, 2010),http://mises.org/daily/5088/Neither-the-Wars-Nor-the-Leaders-Were-Great.

13 Carroll Quigley, Tragedy and Hope: A Historyof the World in Our Time (G,S,G, & Associates,1975); Carroll Quigley, The Anglo-AmericanEstablishment (GSG Associates publishers,1 9 8 1 ) ,http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/New_World_Order/Anglo_American_Estab.html. Discussionin Laurence H. Shoup and William Minter, TheImperial Brain Trust: The Council on ForeignRelations & United States Foreign Policy (NewYork: Monthly Review Press, 1977), 12-14;Michael Parenti, Contrary Notions: TheMichael Parenti Reader , 332.

14 For the little-noticed interest of oil companiesin Cambodian offshore oilfields, see Peter DaleScott, The War Conspiracy: JFK, 9/11, and theDeep Politics of War (Ipswich, MA: MaryFerrell Foundation, 2008), 216-37.

15 Thomas Pakenham, Scramble for Africa: TheWhite Man's Conquest of the Dark Continentfrom 1876-1912 (New York: Random House,1991).

16 See the various books by Barbara Tuchman,notably The March of Folly: From Troy toVietnam (New York: Knopf, 1984).

17 Pakenham, Scramble for Africa.

18 E. Oncken, Panzersprung nach Agadir. Diedeutsche Politik wtihrend der zweitenMarokkokrise 1911 (Dilsseldorf, 1981).Panzersprung in German has come to be ametaphor for any gratuitous exhibition ofgunboat diplomacy.

19 Thom Shanker, “Global Arms Sales DroppedSharply in 2010, Study Finds,” New YorkTimes, September 23, 2011.

20 Thom Shanker, "U.S. Arms Sales Make UpMost of Global Market,” New York Times,

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August 27, 2012.

21 Stephen Ambrose, Eisenhower: Soldier andPresident (New York: Simon and Schuster,1990), 325,

22 Robert Dallek, An unfinished life: John F.Kennedy, 1917-1963 (Boston: Little, Brown andCo., 2003.). 50.

23 Shanker, "U.S. Arms Sales Make Up Most ofGlobal Market,” New York Times, August 27,2012.

24 Scott, The Road to 9/11, 33-37.

25 Scott Shane and Andrew W. Lehren, “LeakedCables Offer Raw Look at U.S. Diplomacy,”New York Times, Hovember 29, 2010. Cf. NickFielding and Sarah Baxter, “Saudi Arabia ishub of world terror: The desert kingdomsupplies the cash and the killers,” Times( L o n d o n ) , 2 0 0 7 ,http://www.jihadwatch.org/2007/11/saudi-arabia-is-hub-of-world-terror-the-desert-kingdom-supplies-the-cash-and-the-killers.html.

26 The United Nations has listed the branchoffices in Indonesia and the Philippines of theRabita’s affiliate, the International IslamicRelief Organization, as belonging to orassociated with al-Qaeda.

27 See Peter Dale Scott, "Bosnia, Kosovo, andNow Libya: The Human Costs of Washington'sOn-Going Collusion with Terrorists," Asian-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, July 29, 2011; alsoWilliam Blum, “The United States and ItsComrade-in-Arms, Al Qaeda,” Counterpunch,A u g u s t 1 3 , 2 0 1 2 ,http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/08/13/tales-of-an-empire-gone-mad/.

28 Christopher Boucek, “Yemen: Avoiding aDownward Spiral,” Carnegie Endowment forInternational Peace, 12.

29 “In Yemen, 'Too Many Guns and Too Many

Grievances' as President Clings to Power,” PBSN e w s h o u r , M a r c h 2 1 , 2 0 1 1 ,http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/world/jan-june11/yemen_03-21.html.

30 Robert Lacey, The Kingdom: Arabia and theHouse of Sa’ud (New York: Avon, 1981),346-47, 361.

31 John Kerry, Al Qaeda in Yemen and Somalia:A Ticking Time Bomb: a Report to theCommittee on Foreign Relations (Washington:U.S. G.P.O., 2010), 10.

32 Scott, The Road to 9/11, 152-56.

33 Scott Shane and Andrew W. Lehren, “LeakedCables Offer Raw Look at U.S. Diplomacy,”New York Times, November 29, 2010.

34 Nick Fielding and Sarah Baxter, “SaudiArabia is hub of world terror,” Sunday Times(London), November 4, 2007: “Extremist clericsprovide a stream of recruits to some of theworld's nastiest trouble spots. An analysis byNBC News suggested that the Saudis make up55% of foreign fighters in Iraq. They are alsoamong the most uncompromising and militant.”

35 Rachel Ehrenfeld, “Al-Qaeda's Source ofFunding from Drugs and Extortion LittleAffected by bin Laden's Death,” Cutting Edge,M a y 9 , 2 0 1 1 ,http://www.thecuttingedgenews.com/index.php?article=51969&pageid=20&pagename=Security.

36 Sunday Times (London), November 4, 2007.

3 7 B B C , J u l y 1 7 , 2 0 1 2 ,http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-18870130.

3 8 A l J a z e e r a , J u l y 1 9 , 2 0 1 2 ,http://m.aljazeera.com/SE/201271012301347496.

3 9 The Weekly Standard, May 30, 2005,

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http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/642eforh.asp. Cf.Newsweek, May 30, 2005. Adapted from HilmiIsik Advice for the Muslim, (Istanbul: HakikatKitabevi).

40 David Ottaway, “The King and Us: U.S.-SaudiRelations in the Wake of 9/11, Foreign Affairs,May-June 2009.

41 Barak Ravid, “U.S. Envoy: Arab PeaceInitiative Will Be Part of Obama Policy,”Haaretz, April 5, 2009. David Ottaway, “TheKing and Us Subtitle: U.S.-Saudi Relations inthe Wake of 9/11, Foreign Affairs, May-June2009.

42 Charles Krauthammer, “At Last, Zion: Israel

and the Fate of the Jews,” Weekly Standard,May 11, 1998.

4 3 “We have no idea how such a wald rwouend,” [Brzezinski] said. “Iran has militarycapabilities, it could retaliate by destabilizingIraq” (Salon, March 14, 2012).

44 See Peter Dale Scott, The Road to 9/11:Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007),183-242; Peter Dale Scott, "Is the State ofEmergency Superseding our Constitution?Continuity of Government Planning, War andAmerican Society,” Asia-Pacific Journal: JapanF o c u s , N o v e m b e r 2 8 , 2 0 1 0 ,http:/1/japanfocus.org/-Peter_Dale-Scott/3448.