Post by blueneck on Sept 20, 2007 17:24:55 GMT -6
From American Economic Alert
What Bin Laden, Chavez, and Chomsky Have in Common -- and Have Wrong
William R. Hawkins
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Osama bin Laden’s recent video tape, released to mark the sixth anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States (for which he again took credit), was entitled “The Solution.” In it, the al-Qaeda leader juxtaposed Islam with American democracy, which he defines as “man-made positive laws that serve the interests of those with the capital and thus make the rich richer and the poor poorer.”
It has long been the argument of theocrats of all stripes that the problem with democracy is that it allows people to support leaders and policies that do not conform with holy writ as interpreted by the theocrats themselves. This argument was made by al-Qaeda in regard to the democratically held elections held in Iraq several years ago.
In his new video, Osama went beyond this fundamentalist objection to democracy, taking inspiration not from the Koran, but from very secular, left-wing ideologues. The aging radical Noam Chomsky, whose hatred for American wealth and power is well documented, was mentioned by name. Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez, the Castro-style authoritarian Marxist, also cited Chomsky in his rambling diatribe against American imperialism at the United Nations last September.
Chomsky sees the world as a place of class conflict rather than international rivalry. His central theme is that since Washington only represents capitalists and corporations, there is no national interest worth defending and no basis for patriotism. For the Left, the patriotic unity felt by Americans in all walks of life after 9/11 had to be torn asunder as quickly as possible to conform with their civil strife ideology, as well as to cripple the projection of U.S. power overseas.
The leftist philosophy that Osama embraces is false on many grounds, but particularly its central theme that America is dominated by “warmongering owners of the major corporations,” and that U.S. foreign policy is devoted only to “sacrificing soldiers and populations to achieve the interests of the major corporations.”
This is an old view of imperialism from a time when corporations still had national identities (and their executives national loyalties) and when their foreign operations still brought economic benefits back to their home countries. The most famous statement of this symbiosis is that of Charles Wilson in 1955, who told a Senate committee, “What’s good for the country is good for General Motors, and vice versa.” Wilson was then Secretary of Defense, after having been CEO of GM. He had been brought into the Eisenhower administration to apply efficient business practices to the Pentagon. He also implemented a new defense policy that was meant to avoid fighting another Korean War. He cut ground troops in favor of airpower and nuclear weapons, which were supposed to deter war. His more “bang for the buck” approach would also keep government spending and taxes down, which was good for the economy and business. But in Wilson’s approach is the seed for conflict between corporate and national strategy, whose growth over the last decade of business “globalization” Osama overlooks.
Major corporations may still be headquartered in the United States, but they have become transnational in outlook. They care nothing for international geopolitics and only hope concerns over national security do not get in their way. They clamor for the borders to remain wide open, despite the threat of terrorist infiltration. On May 9, 2007, the National Foreign Trade Council (an umbrella group of transnational firms) joined other business associations to urge the Senate to reject legislation that would “impose broad, unilateral U.S. sanctions resulting from foreign entities doing business with Iran.” The Business Roundtable, the National Association of Manufacturers, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce were among the co-signers, representing firms that are not bothered by Iran’s nuclear ambitions, support for terrorism, or role in attacking Americans in Iraq. And corporate support for an appeasement policy towards China, despite its clear ambitions to become a peer competitor of the United States in every strategic arena, is on display daily in Washington.
Such actions are reminiscent of the Anglo-German Society, formed in 1935 by such major firms as Dunlop, Unilever, BP, and the British Steel Export Association to do business with Hitler’s Nazi regime.They draw on even older British economic theorists who promoted “free trade” meaning “free” of geopolitical constraints. Even as his country battled Napoleon, David Ricardo was objecting to how the war was being financed, claiming, “Parliaments have something more to do than furnish ministers with the means of preserving the greatness and glory of the country.”
The Bush administration has been trying to get American companies to invest and trade with Iraq. The Commerce Department has held a number of conferences and has taken hundreds of business executives to Iraq to stimulate interest. Last year, the Pentagon set up a Task Force to Support Business and Stability Operations in Iraq. However, when the Washington Post interviewed Paul A. Brinkley, the Deputy Undersecretary of Defense in charge of the task force, in August, he acknowledged that promising opportunities with U.S. companies have slipped away as the war's popularity fell. "I thought we would be further along at this point, but we have a lot of momentum building in terms of support and a lot of momentum building in terms of finances," Brinkley said. "America's economic might has still not been brought to bear in Iraq."
Iraq is a case of the flag trying to get commerce to follow it for strategic purposes, not that of commerce trying to drag the flag into harm’s way for private gain – as the Left claims.
The real problem facing the United States is how to pull rogue corporations back into the national fold to stop the hemorrhaging of industrial capacity, technology, and capital overseas. Osama noted that America is “the greatest economic power and possessing the most powerful and up-to-date military arsenal as well....spending on this war and its army more than the entire world spends on its armies...being the major state influencing the policies of the world.” This dominant position is due to the successful harnessing of capitalism and private enterprise to national development over many generations. Americans should wish to maintain their dominant position in the world with the same fervor that Osama (and Chomsky) show in their desire to bring them down.
americaneconomicalert.org/view_art.asp?Prod_ID=2855
What Bin Laden, Chavez, and Chomsky Have in Common -- and Have Wrong
William R. Hawkins
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Osama bin Laden’s recent video tape, released to mark the sixth anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States (for which he again took credit), was entitled “The Solution.” In it, the al-Qaeda leader juxtaposed Islam with American democracy, which he defines as “man-made positive laws that serve the interests of those with the capital and thus make the rich richer and the poor poorer.”
It has long been the argument of theocrats of all stripes that the problem with democracy is that it allows people to support leaders and policies that do not conform with holy writ as interpreted by the theocrats themselves. This argument was made by al-Qaeda in regard to the democratically held elections held in Iraq several years ago.
In his new video, Osama went beyond this fundamentalist objection to democracy, taking inspiration not from the Koran, but from very secular, left-wing ideologues. The aging radical Noam Chomsky, whose hatred for American wealth and power is well documented, was mentioned by name. Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez, the Castro-style authoritarian Marxist, also cited Chomsky in his rambling diatribe against American imperialism at the United Nations last September.
Chomsky sees the world as a place of class conflict rather than international rivalry. His central theme is that since Washington only represents capitalists and corporations, there is no national interest worth defending and no basis for patriotism. For the Left, the patriotic unity felt by Americans in all walks of life after 9/11 had to be torn asunder as quickly as possible to conform with their civil strife ideology, as well as to cripple the projection of U.S. power overseas.
The leftist philosophy that Osama embraces is false on many grounds, but particularly its central theme that America is dominated by “warmongering owners of the major corporations,” and that U.S. foreign policy is devoted only to “sacrificing soldiers and populations to achieve the interests of the major corporations.”
This is an old view of imperialism from a time when corporations still had national identities (and their executives national loyalties) and when their foreign operations still brought economic benefits back to their home countries. The most famous statement of this symbiosis is that of Charles Wilson in 1955, who told a Senate committee, “What’s good for the country is good for General Motors, and vice versa.” Wilson was then Secretary of Defense, after having been CEO of GM. He had been brought into the Eisenhower administration to apply efficient business practices to the Pentagon. He also implemented a new defense policy that was meant to avoid fighting another Korean War. He cut ground troops in favor of airpower and nuclear weapons, which were supposed to deter war. His more “bang for the buck” approach would also keep government spending and taxes down, which was good for the economy and business. But in Wilson’s approach is the seed for conflict between corporate and national strategy, whose growth over the last decade of business “globalization” Osama overlooks.
Major corporations may still be headquartered in the United States, but they have become transnational in outlook. They care nothing for international geopolitics and only hope concerns over national security do not get in their way. They clamor for the borders to remain wide open, despite the threat of terrorist infiltration. On May 9, 2007, the National Foreign Trade Council (an umbrella group of transnational firms) joined other business associations to urge the Senate to reject legislation that would “impose broad, unilateral U.S. sanctions resulting from foreign entities doing business with Iran.” The Business Roundtable, the National Association of Manufacturers, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce were among the co-signers, representing firms that are not bothered by Iran’s nuclear ambitions, support for terrorism, or role in attacking Americans in Iraq. And corporate support for an appeasement policy towards China, despite its clear ambitions to become a peer competitor of the United States in every strategic arena, is on display daily in Washington.
Such actions are reminiscent of the Anglo-German Society, formed in 1935 by such major firms as Dunlop, Unilever, BP, and the British Steel Export Association to do business with Hitler’s Nazi regime.They draw on even older British economic theorists who promoted “free trade” meaning “free” of geopolitical constraints. Even as his country battled Napoleon, David Ricardo was objecting to how the war was being financed, claiming, “Parliaments have something more to do than furnish ministers with the means of preserving the greatness and glory of the country.”
The Bush administration has been trying to get American companies to invest and trade with Iraq. The Commerce Department has held a number of conferences and has taken hundreds of business executives to Iraq to stimulate interest. Last year, the Pentagon set up a Task Force to Support Business and Stability Operations in Iraq. However, when the Washington Post interviewed Paul A. Brinkley, the Deputy Undersecretary of Defense in charge of the task force, in August, he acknowledged that promising opportunities with U.S. companies have slipped away as the war's popularity fell. "I thought we would be further along at this point, but we have a lot of momentum building in terms of support and a lot of momentum building in terms of finances," Brinkley said. "America's economic might has still not been brought to bear in Iraq."
Iraq is a case of the flag trying to get commerce to follow it for strategic purposes, not that of commerce trying to drag the flag into harm’s way for private gain – as the Left claims.
The real problem facing the United States is how to pull rogue corporations back into the national fold to stop the hemorrhaging of industrial capacity, technology, and capital overseas. Osama noted that America is “the greatest economic power and possessing the most powerful and up-to-date military arsenal as well....spending on this war and its army more than the entire world spends on its armies...being the major state influencing the policies of the world.” This dominant position is due to the successful harnessing of capitalism and private enterprise to national development over many generations. Americans should wish to maintain their dominant position in the world with the same fervor that Osama (and Chomsky) show in their desire to bring them down.
americaneconomicalert.org/view_art.asp?Prod_ID=2855