MAD DOG' STRATEGY OF U.S. EMPIRE

[Col. Writ. 2/18/02]

by Mumia Abu-Jamal

Copyright 2002

When U.S. president George W. Bush launched into his bellicose State of the Union address recently, and called Iran, Iraq and North Korea the "Axis of Evil," Europeans, Asians and people the world over reacted with shock, fear and wide-eyed disbelief of the American implication that these nations were the next targets in the never-ending war against Evil.

Many of these erstwhile "allies" (really junior partners) looked at the Americans as if they were crazy.  "Were they planning a world war?," many wondered.  They did not want this.  For who knows where this will end?

American saber-rattling and war-talk may sound like madness, but there's a method to the madness.  Indeed, it's more than a method -- it's a policy.

In 1995, the U.S. Strategic Command (the group  responsible for the nation's nuclear arsenal) prepared an internal study, called "Essentials of Post-Cold War Deterrence."  Here are some excerpts;

Because of the value that comes from the
ambiguity of what the US may do to an
adversary if the acts we seek to deter are
carried out, it hurts to portray ourselves as
too fully rational and cool-headed.  The fact
that some elements may appear to be
potentially 'out of control' can be beneficial
to creating and reinforcing fears and doubts
within the minds of an adversary's decision
makers.  This essential sense of fear is
the working force of deterrence.  That the
US may become irrational and vindictive
if its vital interests are attacked should be
a part of the national persona we project
to all adversaries.  [See Boston Globe,
2 Mar. '98, p. 5]
 

This, then, is the method behind the madness, it seems. These crazy Americans!

Drunk on the ambrosia of empire, striking matches in a room reeking of gasoline, shocking the world with bombast and bluster, every bellow like the rage of a rampaging elephant, the US is a power that sends shudders through a hundred capitals on every continent.  They shudder because they know, perhaps better than most Americans, the horrific costs that America has imposed on the world in the name of capital.  As former CIA station chief John Stockwell noted in Praetorian Guard (1991):

Coming to grips with these U.S./CIA activities
in broad numbers and figuring out how many
people have been killed in the jungles of Laos
or the hills of Nicaragua is very difficult.  But,
adding them up as best we can, we come up
with a figure of six million people killed -- and
this is a minimum figure.  Included are: one
million killed in the Korean War, two million
in the Vietnam War, 800,000 killed in Indonesia,
one million in Cambodia, 20,000 killed in Angola
-- the operation I was a part of -- and 20,000
killed in Nicaragua [p. 81].

These Americans!  Like wild cowboys!

Crazy, No?

 

Text © copyright 2002 by Mumia Abu-Jamal.
All rights reserved.
Reprinted by permission of the author.

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