Book Review by Dennis Small
Peace
Researcher 28 – December 2003
BRAVE NEW
WORLD OF THE ENDLESS RESOURCE WAR
"FIGHTING FOR THE FUTURE: WILL AMERICA TRIUMPH?"
by Ralph
Peters, Stackpole Books, 2001
"Sowing
the seeds of military prowess in an anarchic international system has yielded a
rising harvest of violence . . . Three quarters of all war deaths since the
days of Julius Caesar have occurred in this century" (i.e. the 20th
Century). Michael Renner, in "State of the World: 1993: A Worldwatch
Institute Report on Progress Toward a Sustainable Society" by Lester R.
Brown, et al., p139.
"History
laughs at us all - the one economic analyst who would understand immediately
what is happening in the world today would be a resurrected German 'content
provider' named Marx". Ralph Peters in "Fighting for the
Future", p155.
"Fighting for the Future"
("FF") is a book that could have so easily been first published soon
after September 11, 2001. Significantly enough, it was originally published
just a couple of years earlier, in 1999 - on the dawn of the 21st Century and
the opening vista of what some strategists and pundits had come to view as the
American Century. If you want to get a good idea of the direction in which
American military doctrine has been openly moving - even before September 11 -
then this is certainly a book to read. Indeed, one could say that reading it is
highly enlightening about the international scene we have today.
The author of "Fighting for the
Future" certainly feels that his thesis has been well vindicated by what
happened on September 11. He makes this clear enough in his preface
(post-September 11) for the paperback edition. For those of us, however, who
hope for a better world and a better future, Ralph Peters' book affords a most
damning and chilling insight into the American military mind at the cutting
edge of 21st Century conflict. If we want to know who are the enemies of the
future for humankind, then we really do need to appreciate just how much Peters
and what he represents must be included among them, along with all the other
advocates and/or perpetrators of ruthless violence. The grimmest prospect ahead
is that of endlessly contending global networks of terror a la Osama bin Laden
and Al Qaeda versus the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)/Pentagon, a vicious
circle of human destruction as in Israel/Palestine writ large across the
planet. And, of course, this is exactly the future that President Bush and co.
are working to create, and Peters has been one of the architects of this world
vision.
Forwards Into The Future: Making
War
·
The 2003 war on Iraq;
·
The collapse of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks at
Cancun, in September 2003;
·
The standoff between the US/UK/Australia triad and the
United Nations (UN);
·
The ructions over Zimbabwe.
These and a variety of other international
conflicts indicate a deepening pattern of antagonisms between rich and poor,
white and coloured across the planet. In Aotearoa/NZ, these have been
highlighted in recent times with broadcaster Paul Holmes' remarks about UN
Secretary General, Kofi Annan, as a "very cheeky darkie", and the
complaint of the Minister of Agriculture and Trade, Jim Sutton, that the
developing countries, especially the African nations, are unable to deal with
"complex issues" in trade negotiations. It was certainly symbolic
that Paul Holmes' comments were made in connection with his reactionary views
in support of the American takeover of Iraq. Even closer to home, the
Government is struggling to resolve its dispute with Maori over the seabed and
foreshore question. Meantime, the New Zealand First Party whips up racist
antagonism to Third World immigrants. In the Pacific generally, resource
conflicts along ethnic lines have been evident within countries from the
Solomon Islands to Aceh and other parts of Indonesia.
At the root of so many conflicts is the
issue of land and resources and how to use them. The actual substance of a
conflict can vary according to whether the resources concerned take the more
indirect form of economic transactions, or the actual natural assets on which
these exchanges are ultimately founded.
Very often these two dimensions are deeply intertwined, e.g. the
allocation of fisheries and the benefits from their harvest. Antagonisms seem
to be sharpening on the world stage. Sometimes such conflicts can be messily
complicated and can have some very unpleasant high-profile protagonists locked
in contention, e.g. the Bush/Blair/Howard triad, versus bin Laden and Saddam
Hussein. While Mugabe may have some valid things to say about Western
neo-colonialism, he is a brutal, corrupt dictator; and so it goes . .
.Externally imposed and internal injustices can operate in mutually interacting
and reinforcing mode, sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly. Divisions are
compounded both between and within nations, and within regions. There is a planetary pattern of conflict
simmering and erupting under the pressures of globalisation.
For some of us the age of terror and
the resource war has come as no surprise. Quite a number of analysts have long
predicted it, certain strategists even planned for it. Indeed, it can be said that in particular
the US State Department, the Pentagon, and the CIA have worked to bring it on.
More fundamentally, it is a logical product of the process of capitalist
globalisation and the US happens to be its leading force: capitalist growth and
corporate exploitation must inevitably impoverish and alienate a
proportionately growing majority even as it enriches for a time an increasing
number of people before limits are reached. One can adduce both economic
reasons and, more profoundly, ecological reasons for this process.
In "Fighting for the Future",
there is a sense in which Ralph Peters, a retired lieutenant colonel in the US
Army, sees this clearly enough. Billed by Newsweek
as "one of the best military minds of his generation" and "one
of the most intellectually gifted American soldiers" (from
"FF's" blurb), Peters certainly makes his assumptions plain right
from the start. He begins his post-September 11 preface with an obviously
approving quote from the psychologist William James - "History is a bath of blood" (ibid., p.vii). For Peters
this is not simply a historical observation but the path to the future as well.
In his opening page, Peters constructs his image of the al Qaeda-type enemy of
the US in these terms: "They hate the perverted vision of America they
have constructed for themselves, a vision that, above all, excuses their own
failure and the failure of their culture. Attacking the predatory, corrupt,
immoral America of their imaginations is the only purpose left to them"
(ibid.). The key to defeating such enemies, "such human monsters", is
strength of will in a fight to the death.
In this preface, Peters then goes on to
attack a number of myths that he considers the US should put aside in the
coming struggle. Instead of what he condemns as weak policies and tactics,
Peters enjoins such maxims as: (a) kill the terrorists until "their
remaining followers and the governments that succour them bend to our will in
fear" (ibid., p.viii).; (b) "Today, we must not succumb to false
restraint in the application of our military power". This maxim can mean
not worrying about "alienating civilian populations, [as] in the key
countries that harbour terrorists, the populations already hate us, far more
profoundly than Americans understand". For sure: "It is time for a
new realism - not cruelty, but cold realism". And, never mind too much
anyway about innocent civilians because, after all, "remember that we terror-bombed the Germans and Japanese
on a colossal scale - and today they are our close allies" (ibid., pp.viii
& ix).; and, (c) " . . . whatever the scale [of an operation] we
should apply overwhelming combat power relative to the projected need. Our raw
power is a tremendous advantage . . ." (ibid., p.ix). These maxims and
their implications have been applied in Iraq in 2003.
Terrorist Mirror Image
For Peters, the US has to go after the
terrorists and not worry about provoking more attacks since the enemy are going
to come after it "whether we fight back or not" (ibid.). It is time
to take the initiative "and keep after them relentlessly and without
compromise" (ibid.). Eventually, there will be far less terrorist attacks.
In working towards his conclusion to the preface, Peters confronts what he
calls "the most pernicious - and preposterous - myth of all, betraying
both an ignorance of history and a shameful lack of faith in the American
people" (ibid.). This is the myth that: "If we fight as brutally as
our enemies fight, we will become as bad as them" (ibid.). Again, his
answer is to remember the lessons of World War II as he understands them -
respond to the current enemy as "we responded to Japanese and German
savagery with 'indescribable brutality
of our own'" (ibid., pp. ix & x). The US and UK firebombed cities,
burned soldiers to death with flamethrowers, and "ended the war by
dropping atomic bombs" (ibid., p. x). However, the military came back
"to liberal democracy" and the US was not corrupted, not
brutalised.
Of course, the irony is that Peters
himself is already obviously brutalised but is incapable of recognising
it. The whole bloody imperialist
history of American interventions in the Third World, overt and covert, is
clearly something to be proud about for Peters. Or, at least, something to be
hidden from public scrutiny wherever and whenever it becomes too embarrassing,
as in the case of the Bush Administration's suppression of a highly revealing
State Department report on US orchestration of the Indonesian massacres of
1965/66. (See PR 25, March 2002, Special Issue: “Ghosts Of A Genocide. The CIA, Suharto
And Terrorist Culture”, by Dennis Small. Ed.). Peters is truly an extremist
who advocates a hugely aggressive consolidation and extension of the imperium.
But, as we now know, this is the goal of the Bush Administration itself, not
just of some fringe militarist ideologues.
Like so many similar Rightwingers
promulgating their views from a narrowly self-interested position, any
moralising that Peters indulges in is not only readily transparent, it is also
blatantly contradicted by the more evidently materialist reasons that he gives
to try and persuade his readership. Peters is a modern warrior crusader against
the enemies of the empire, a crusader who expressly sees himself fighting on
behalf of the world's besieged rich white minority - fighting for the winners
against the masses of losers. But the latter will eventually come to like us
despite everything if only we have the fortitude to kill and destroy enough of
them! We can remake the world in our
image . . . and, once again, Iraq in late 2003 can be seen as a model. American foreign policy has engendered
"failed states" around the globe. Afghanistan and Iraq are only the
latest examples.
"Freedom" means the success
of US corporate triumphalism, facilitated globally by military power.
Multi-culturalism is denounced along with "overcultivated Western
consciences" (ibid., p32). Peters even uses the metaphor of the white man
confronting the American Indian to illustrate the situation of the modern US
soldier. The basic strategy, obviously being attempted in Iraq right now, is
"the technique that General George Crook used against the Indians and that
the US Army employed against the Moros *
- cut them off from their sources of strength and pursue them
relentlessly” (ibid., p65). As Peters
describes "civilisation", the new code word for
"imperialism": this condition "is impossible without collective
alienation from those beyond its physical or spiritual frontiers . . ."
(ibid., p51). * Generic name for Filipino
Muslims, concentrated in the south of the archipelago. Both the Moros, and the
Christian majority, fought against the American invasion at the start of the
20th Century: 600,000 Filipinos were estimated to have died in action or in
prison on the main island of Luzon alone; many American Indian tribes, of
course, simply suffered genocide.
At the end of his book, Peters poses
what he sees as the "American Choice" - "Shall we dominate the
Earth for the good of humankind? Or will we risk the enslavement of our country
and our civilisation? Will we pursue asymmetrical weapons that allow us to
eliminate the threat of weapons of mass destruction where that threat
originates, in the human mind and soul? Or will we continue to insist that
diplomatic niceties and the social prejudices of global elites (i.e. the UN,
etc.) demand that we wait, decade after decade, for evil men to act first. Will
we protect our own citizens? Or will we continue to defend the rights of
monsters?" (ibid., p210). Here is the call to pre-emptive war.
Peters embraces the heart of darkness
while denying it will contaminate us, at least certainly not Americans. The myth of American exceptionalism is
exalted to new spiritual heights. He calls for absolute power while ignoring
the old maxim that absolute power corrupts utterly. He is blind to his own
barbarism while denouncing his enemies as "monsters". He wants more
horrendous weapons in order to crush potential enemy threats. Yet, believe it
or not, all this could herald in "something akin to a golden age - so long
the stuff of myth - for humanity" (ibid.). By bloody violence, we may
actually purge out violence from human nature - from the very same human nature
to which Peters appeals to justify American violence. It would truly be a
miracle.
Peters is entrapped in his own gory
mythmaking. He even labels the "nationalism" which he so embraces as
"secular fundamentalism". Perhaps the most ironic remarks in the
whole book are his comments that: "The veneer of civilisation - so recent
and fragile - is being stripped from much of the world. The old problems are
today's problems- and tomorrow's. If we want to know 'Who is our enemy?' we
must look within" (ibid., p175). Amen.
American Fascism
The American drive to fascism is
evident enough in:
·
the new national security state;
·
in the advocacy and practice of reduced human rights,
including torture, for its captives like those at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba;
·
its continued cultivation of ever new and more powerful
weapons of mass destruction (WMD);
·
its newly expanded assassination and death squad-style
operations worldwide, whether via proxy states such as Israel, or by trained
personnel like the Colombian far Right militias;
·
directly targeted killings as in Yemen from automated aerial
assault, or death delivered by some other means;
·
in the constant threats to attack and invade certain
countries (Iran, Syria, North Korea, etc.);
·
the subordination of all forms of international cooperation
to suit the over-riding goal of terrorist posturing and domination (the
so-called "War on Terror");
·
the projection of power to grab key world resources like the
Caspian Sea region’s energy reserves
and Iraqi oil;
·
and all the efforts to generally cower any attempts at
social justice while trampling on civilian populations; along with various
other manifestations of evil.
To be sure, Peters constantly assaults
the ethical restraints on the conduct of combat. These days the US
Administration is refining its interrogation techniques both in practice and in
terms of public acceptability. For a
long time it has fostered torture under client regimes throughout Latin
America, Eurasia and Africa. Currently,
it uses such regimes as places where enemy suspects can be routinely
interrogated with the help of torture to extract information. Peters is keen to
push the re-examination of "our concepts of the ethical and the
legal" in warfare, occasionally using weasel words to dress up his import
(ibid., p109). He runs at the mouth with newspeak and doublethink. Yet, even in
his own language, he can often be openly contemptuous of the "West's
pathetic, if endearing, concern for human life" (ibid., p38). Indeed, he
sometimes revels in his image of "Man, the Killer" (ibid., see
pp188-91 for his exultation of this aspect of his thesis).
He advocates that "the primary
goal of any US war or intervention would be to eliminate the offending
leadership, its supporting cliques, and their enabling infrastructure" (ibid.,
p109). This means targeted assassinations as with all the attempts to kill
former Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein - as indeed specifically enjoined by
Peters (ibid., p111). More covertly, and more sinisterly, it is code for death
squad operations in low-intensity warfare situations, a long-refined and
routine US strategy in Third World countries anyway. Peters' book is all about the need to kill more efficiently and
effectively.
The most visible model of targeted
killing today is that exemplified by Israeli state terror. US-backed Israel
regularly carries out open assassinations - as well as more secret killings -
of Palestinian leaders engaged in suicide bombings and other forms of violent
resistance. There are many innocent civilian casualties as well. Planes and helicopters fire missiles into
buildings or the streets of one of the most highly populated areas in the
world. Some Israeli pilots have even refused participation in such operations.
Torture is also still routine in Israel while the US has refused to sign
international conventions against torture and cruel punishments. Terror feeds on terror in a continuous
cycle. Meanwhile, the fundamental causes of the terror, the Israeli
dispossession and repression of the Palestinians, only continues to intensify.
The Nature Of World Conflict:
Neo-Marxist Struggle!
It is one of the great ironies of the
new capitalist modernity that Rightwing militarist ideologues like Peters see
world conflict in expressly neo-Marxist terms - at least in a basic sense,
however crudely understood and portrayed. His neo-Marxism is of course really
expressed in terms of Social Darwinism. Peters is explicitly and disarmingly
frank: "Future wars and violent conflicts will be shaped by the inability
of governments to function as effective systems of resource distribution and
control, and by the failure of entire cultures to compete in the postmodern
age. The worldwide polarisation of wealth, afflicting continents and countries,
as well as individuals in all countries, will prove insurmountable, and social
divisions will spark various forms of class warfare more brutal than anything
imagined by Karl Marx. Post-state organisations, from criminal empires to the
internationalising media, will rupture the integrity of the nation-state . .
.In the end, the greatest challenge may be to our moral order" (ibid.,
p2). Examples of failed states are listed as the former Yugoslavia, North
Korea, Congo/Zaire, and Liberia. Growing and spreading instability confronts
the maintenance of American values, prosperity and power.
The challenge for the future is
becoming more and more the ability to project American power effectively
enough. This has to be done to achieve the necessary degree of order for the
American Dream to survive. He poses the
question: "What will our 21st Century world look like? For the successful,
it will be an age of nontraditional empires. The US in particular, and the West
in general, currently possesses a cultural and business empire that touches all
parts of the globe. It is far more efficient and rewarding than any previous
form of empire has been . . . As noncompetitive regions decline, wealth
enclaves will emerge, primarily in the West-plus. The 'colonies' of the future
will be controlled economically and 'medially', not politically, and will focus
on resources and markets. The political and then the military arms of West-plus
governments will become involved only when business encounters disadvantageous
illegal behaviours or violence - today, the flag follows trade. West-plus
governments will police physical and digital 'safe corridors' for resource
extraction, general trade, and information ranching, but in failed countries
and continents, the West-plus will be represented primarily by postmodern
traders" (ibid., pp16/17). "Loser" cultures abroad, Peters
avers, "will threaten our preferred order and the extraction of the wealth
that pays for our homes" (ibid., p181).
The aim of all this is the protection
of "our quality of life" with the focus on "financial interests
and lifestyle protection" (ibid., p17). It will demand the
"overarching mission of our military will . . . " (ibid.). While
Peters can dismiss the proposition that America thrives by looting an
"impoverished group or country or region" (ibid., p137), he openly
preaches resource wars and declaims that: "The struggle to maintain access
to critical resources will spark local and regional conflicts that will evolve
into the most frequent conventional wars of the next century" - i.e. the
21st - (ibid., p8). Hence the war on Afghanistan and the resumption
of the gas pipeline there, and the war on Iraq and the opening of this country
to foreign pillage. As the greatest "have" nation the US will arouse
the envy and hatred of the "have-nots" to ever greater levels (ibid.,
p140).
Grossly Unashamed Capitalist
Barbarism
So here is grossly unashamed capitalist
barbarism that even pretends at times to dress itself up with a moralising
gloss. But, then, all throughout human history the men of blood and plunder
have been great moralisers of their greed and slaughter. In the relatively
modern era we have legions of examples - from the Spanish conquistadors to the
slave traders and plantation owners, from the adherents of apartheid to the
Nazis. No wonder the Wall Street Journal
welcomes this sort of stuff as "Crackingly intelligent writing . . .
classic" (ibid., see blurb). The Chicago
Sun Times extolls Peters: "As lucidly literate as he is humanly
insightful", while the Washington
Post has declared that: "Few have been more provocative or more
diligent in pursuit of large and difficult truths . . . a strong and clarifying
case for radical policy review" (ibid.). Peters has featured on the CNN
and NPR media networks. The book's blurb proudly proclaims that "the body
of strategic thought in the work of Ralph Peters has already shaped our
military's future".
Revealingly, the neo-Marxist struggle
of the rich and poor is also seen by Peters as an internal one within America,
as well as a struggle between the "West-plus" and the rest of the
world which comprises "noncompetitive cultures, such as that of the
Arabo-Persian Islam" (ibid., p135). Thus this noncompetitive culture,
sidelined and alienated by the knowledge revolution and information empowerment
of the winners of the world, includes "the rejectionist segment of our own
population"; and, in fact: "The laid-off blue collar worker in
America and the Taliban militiaman in Afghanistan are brothers in
suffering" (ibid., pp135/6). But these people are certainly not human
brothers to be assisted into a better state but rather inevitable
"victims" to be further repressed. "The great class struggle of
the 21st Century will be for access to data" and the US is on track to win
the battle for wealth and power, i.e. in terms of success for its corporate
elite (ibid., p155).
"Globalisation demands conformity
to the practices of the global leaders, especially to those of the US. If you
do not conform - or innovate - you lose. If you try to quit the game, you lose
even more profoundly. The rules of international competition, whether in the
economic, cultural, or conventional military field, grow ever more homogeneous
(ibid., p152). This is freedom American style - the rule of the totalitarian
market: " . . . globalisation means the imposition of uniform rules by the
most powerful actors. They are fundamentally economic rules" (ibid.,
p170). This "invisible hand of the market" packs a very brutal fist
as the wars on Iraq and Afghanistan have demonstrated. Peters is gleeful about
the prospects: "Everybody is afraid of us", he gloats, just like the
Iraqis in the 1991 Gulf War (ibid., p48).
However, there are always potentially
dangerous enemies to be monitored. Although external foes will be the main US
opponents, there will also be potential internal enemies. Such enemies will at
times have to be physically crushed within America itself (p26). Indeed, his
attitude to his own fellow Americans is so perverted that he even recommends
that "many of our own blighted cities" with their ruined housing
projects and industrial plants would be "nearly ideal for combat-in-cities
training" since in a rapidly urbanising world the US needs to prepare much
more for urban warfare (ibid,. p81). This would serve handily to intimidate and
socially discipline recalcitrant locals as well. There could be a positive
interactive correspondence between application in the cities of Iraq and other
foreign cities, and on the home security front.
So Peters embraces corporate
globalisation and free trade with the recognition of their consequences, and
thus the need to militarily enforce social injustice. The fascist national
security state is therefore expressly articulated. As Peters so sweetly says of
his own society's "losers": "These discarded citizens sense that
their government is no longer about them, but only about the privileged"
(ibid., p136). He is frank: "Our elites will be inclined to defend foreign
elites, even at the expense of our own
population (this is already the paradigm of US-Mexican and US-Saudi
relations). Our future military expeditions will increasingly defend our
foreign investments rather than defending against foreign invasions. And we
will fight to subdue anarchy and the violent "isms" because disorder
is bad for business. All this activity will focus on cities" (ibid.,
p94). One could well think that this is
the stuff of satire but Peters is for real; and this is the trendy American
military doctrine!
Into The Global Killing Fields?
Given the need for the US armed forces
to keep the world safe for its economy and cultural assault, the big challenge
for Peters (as we have already noted) is that humanity could get in the way.
"Our potential national weakness will be the failure to maintain the moral
and raw physical strength to thrust that bayonet into an enemy's heart"
(ibid., p142). The US will have to "do a fair amount of killing"
(ibid., p141). Peters is confident about the future to some extent as: "We
are building an information-based military to do that killing" (ibid.). But
he is always keen to remind his readers that being ruthless enough will be the
essential mental and emotional requirement since: "Only the foolish will
fight fair" (ibid., p143). He avows that the US "will win militarily
whenever we have the guts for it" (ibid., p140).
Over its existence, Peace Researcher (PR) has traced the evolution of US military and covert action
doctrine and practice, and their interconnections. In a special issue in 1987,
we documented in detail, often using information from NZ press reports, how the
aggressive resource war strategy now so openly and boldly enunciated by Peters
was already affecting, or rather perhaps infecting, the doctrine and training
of the NZ military (PR, first series,
no. 13, June 1987). "Fighting for the Future" is a graphic
confirmation of the implications we drew in that particular PR special issue. Later, in March 2002, another special issue
of PR (second series, no. 25),
described the covert CIA operation which engineered mass slaughter in Indonesia
in the mid-1960s, a massacre that the CIA itself in its own propaganda
correctly described as one of the worst of the 20th Century. A recent PR issue has also highlighted the
terrorist nature of the War on Terror and current US resource warfare strategy in
the Middle East and Central Asia (PR
26, October 2002).
In the period between 1987 and 2002 the
low-intensity warfare approach was mostly adapted in the case of the NZ forces
for genuine peacekeeping purposes under UN auspices. This is how we want to keep
it. And we do this by keeping out of ANZUS *. As the American Ambassador,
Charles Swindells, has made very plain, the US wants us back fully into its WMD
war machine. Furthermore, free trade/investment and war making are intimately
interlinked as both Swindells and Ralph Peters make clear. Already, the Labour
government has seriously compromised our independence with its commitment of
the Special Air Service (SAS) in Afghanistan and other military involvements in
Afghanistan and Iraq. * ANZUS – The 1951
Australia, New Zealand, US military agreement. It formed the cornerstone of
NZ’s military and foreign policy until the 1980s, when NZ was unilaterally
suspended from ANZUS, because of our nuclear free policy. We remain both
suspended and nuclear free. Ed.
Many (most?) in the NZ armed forces
still look to their inspiration from the US. They want to be in on the action
with the American/British/Australian forces. The sort of doctrines and thinking
as promoted by Ralph Peters in "Fighting for the Future" will have
much appeal. It is easy in the present climate to predict the growth of this
militarist ideology. Peters' book is a compilation of essays originally
published in Parameters, the US Army
War College quarterly, and in Strategic
Review, a publication of the Strategic Studies Institute. A number of American military people are
cited as heartily endorsing his views while he himself boasts of his essays
that: "A range of military schools and universities [have] used them in
their curricula, and they [have] gained an international following. The
business community, too, found the strategic implications of interest. Most importantly, officers actually read
them. The ideas inspired change" ("FF"., p.xiii). Peters hopes
that "they have served a good purpose and that they have done no
harm" (ibid.).
What Peters expounds can fuse a range
of related motivations - from a sense of racial/cultural superiority to ideas
about how to safeguard our socio-economic quality of life. It exactly fits the
perspective of those who readily identify with the West against the rest. A
certain idealism seemed to have been developing about our peacekeeping work,
e.g. regarding the recent operation to guard and help the East Timorese. Some
of our military personnel have been doing very admirable things, e.g.
dismantling landmines in various parts of the world. It would be hugely disturbing to see any reversion back to the
resource war strategy. This strategy is
literally a dead-end for humankind.
Defending Human Rights
In the early 21st Century, the
worldwide debate over human rights has never been so extensive and vigorous.
There is a lot of concern to see that these rights are protected as much as
possible. There is also much suspicion, completely justified, over the support
shown by the American intellectual establishment for purported humanitarian
interventions. Ralph Peters, incidentally, does not bother pushing any
humanitarian cover for American intervention, calling for military action only
when significant interests are at stake and objectives well defined.
These days President Bush calls the US
imperial occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq "liberation". While
Peters warns of the dangers of "criminal" regimes, there is one in
Washington, which is already well down the freeway of illegal warfare and
threatening to destabilise international relations in general. It will only be
through our joining hands with people in America, Britain, Australia, Iraq,
Afghanistan, and all the other countries across the globe, in a new
internationalism, that we will be able to eventually prevent further outrages,
and create alternative paths to sustainable development and peace.
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