Patrick has referred to "draining the swamps" several times in his recent messages - I was thinking that this expression  may require some clarification.

In September 2002, Chomsky wrote an article entitled Drain The Swamps  And There Will Be No More Mosquitoes.   Subsequently Albert langer published an article  (Mayday - It's the Festival of the Distressed) in which he argued that the US is indeed following a policy of draining the swamps.  He presented this view to Chomsky who refused to give it any serious consderation. 

We've now published this discussion on LastSuperpower as it is a good explanation of what we mean when we talk about "draining the swamps".

You can read it by clicking on this mozzie:

keza

It’s fair to say that Noam Chomsky’s position, two years on, has fallen as flat as the moribund ‘peace movement’; a movement that visibly shrinks as the war goes on. 

The reason is that he was objectively pushing a strategic view that was defeated by the Vietnam War experience, of over thirty years ago.  It’s the idea that the USA is a mighty power whose ruling elite, on behalf of its ruling class, can enforce their will on the rest of the world, imposing almost whatever they wish. Perhaps Russia and China being the only genuine limits to this power.  It just ain’t so.

Colin Powell, could have told Chomsky, if he was prepared to listen, that if the aim of the Iraq War was to install some sort of puppets, so that the US ruling class could really control the oil, then this would be far too big an ask for the US military to ever achieve.   This is so if only for the reason that one of the five constants of war is the stability of the home front.  The US population would never tolerate the casualties.

There has had to be a credible and relatively short exit strategy built in from the start.  The exit strategy may have to vary and given the complexities of war probably always will, but an exit strategy must always be there for any even half decent General, and Powell at any rate, to stay on board. 

The email exchange in Draining the Swamps shows that Chomsky was not even prepared to listen to the argument that it was his own analysis, that Bush was being forced to accept and adopt.  Not that the ruling elite had suddenly changed nature or anything absurd, but that they had to face up to a defeat and change policies before things got even worse.  (Be careful what you pray for you just might get it springs to mind).

Bush was forced to change course by the realities of a dramatically exposed relative US weakness in the twenty first century.  This weakness was demonstrated by 9/11 and the war cabinet realization of the ongoing and rapidly developing potential for things to get much worse via WMD.  Technology really does spread real power ever wider and an atomic weapon or similar, devastating a city is now more than possible it’s probable, if the old policies were not abandoned.  Whatever policies are followed, they must address this issue.  The old policies had to go and new policies had to be followed. 

Chomsky recognizes no such thing because he did not in effect put himself in that cabinet meeting.  He knows how to get rid of the mosquito problem himself, but he cannot conceive that the ruling elite could work it out just as easily.  Beats me.  What sort of mindset prevents one seeing a victory for ones own line and the dead end for the line exemplified by a life long enemy like the unpunished war criminal Henry Kissenger? 

Kissenger may well have supported the war when he though it was about WMD’s and when he thought that the democracy talk was the usual nod and wink, while the reality was that another ‘strongman’ would really be installed.  But he dumped on the war when the reality of Bush’s intention to promote genuine democracy really sank home.  It took a while it seems but Kissenger finally got it, Chomsky still hasn’t and has ended up siding with Kissenger!

Iraq is a big enough task simply to liberate and politically modernize.  It would be absolutely impossible for the US in 2003-4-5 ad infinitum to subjugate Iraq, either directly or indirectly.  When you think about it, it’s an idea as silly as the idea that blacks could be returned to the back of the bus.  Yet, that is exactly what Chomsky, and most of the anti-war movement believed was happening. They believed that Bush was not going to Iraq to install bourgeois democracy, but rather to install a regime that would keep the people in their place and permit US economic exploitation, and the all important US oil interests to flourish.  So did Kissenger initially. 

If this (failed) Kissinger-like-view of the world, had been the true war aims then Powell would have resigned.  He would not have gone along with starting such an obviously un-winnable war!  Colin Powell was reluctantly convinced that a war of liberation could be won, but as a senior and very political General he knows full well the limits of US power.  So does Noam Chomsky if you catch him in a more lucid moment, but he has apparently forgotten.

I anticipate that some may think this is a straw man type argument, and assert that the anti-war movement has always known that the war would be un-winnable and that it would turn into a quagmire with the US eventually suffering defeat and being forced into a humiliating withdrawal as with Vietnam.  If this were so then the anti-war movement would be gaining ground as its political demands came to dominate the arguments and swing the mass of the people behind a change in direction.  This is not happening for the very good reason that there are no reasonable demands coming forward from the discredited ‘No Blood For Oil’ line.  They can’t chant slogans like ‘one sides right, the others wrong, victory to the Vietcong’.  They cannot oppose elections and constitutions and reconstruction and dealing with head loppers.  They are comprehensively stuffed.

I recently attended a talk by Peter Singer and after going on about how bad George Bush and the war were he nevertheless concluded by saying that he hoped things would work out!  He was unable to attack the plan to hold elections and create a constitution and give economic and humanitarian assistance.  He was unable to say what Iraqi democrats aught to do.  He boxed himself right into a corner and the ‘good’ pseudo lefties and liberals in attendance didn’t even notice.  I wonder when Noam will notice?

The following is worth a review given the whole Draining the Swamps annalysis .

(1) Why did the U.S. invade Iraq, in your view?

These are naturally speculations, and policy makers may have varying motives. But we can have a high degree of confidence about the answers given by Bush-Powell and the rest; these cannot possibly be taken seriously. They have gone out of their way to make sure we understand that, by a steady dose of self-contradiction ever since last September when the war drums began to beat. One day the "single question" is whether Iraq will disarm; in today's version (April 12): "We have high confidence that they have weapons of mass destruction -- that is what this war was about and is about." That was the pretext throughout the whole UN-disarmament farce, though it was never easy to take seriously; UNMOVIC was doing a good job in virtually disarming Iraq, and could have continued, if that were the goal. But there is no need to discuss it, because after stating solemnly that this is the "single question," they went on the next day to announce that it wasn't the goal at all: even if there isn't a pocket knife anywhere in Iraq, the US will invade anyway, because it is committed to "regime change." The next day we hear that there's nothing to that either; thus at the Azores summit, where Bush-Blair issued their ultimatum to the UN, they made it clear that they would invade even if Saddam and his gang left the country. So "regime change" is not enough. The next day we hear that the goal is "democracy" in the world. Pretexts range over the lot, depending on audience and circumstances, which means that no sane person can take the charade seriously.

The one constant is that the US must end up in control of Iraq. Saddam Hussein was authorized to suppress, brutally, a 1991 uprising that might have overthrown him because "the best of all worlds" for Washington would be "an iron-fisted Iraqi junta without Saddam Hussein" (by then an embarrassment), which would rule the country with an "iron fist" as Saddam had done with US support and approval (NYT chief diplomatic correspondent Thomas Friedman). The uprising would have left the country in the hands of Iraqis who might not have subordinated themselves sufficiently to Washington. The murderous sanctions regime of the following years devastated the society, strengthened the tyrant, and compelled the population to rely for survival on his (highly efficient) system for distributing basic goods. The sanctions thus undercut the possibility of the kind of popular revolt that had overthrown an impressive series of other monsters who had been strongly supported by the current incumbents in Washington up to the very end of their bloody rule: Marcos, Duvalier, Ceausescu, Mobutu, Suharto, and a long list of others, some of them easily as tyrannical and barbaric as Saddam. Had it not been for the sanctions, Saddam probably would have gone the same way, as has been pointed out for years by the Westerners who know Iraq best, Denis Halliday and Hans van Sponeck (though one has to go to Canada, England, or elsewhere to find their writings). But overthrow of the regime from within would not be acceptable either, because it would leave Iraqis in charge. The Azores summit merely reiterated that stand.

The question of who rules Iraq remains the prime issue of contention. The US-backed opposition demands that the UN play a vital role in post-war Iraq and rejects US control of reconstruction or government (Leith Kubba, one of the most respected secular voices in the West, connected with the National Endowment of Democracy). One of the leading Shi'ite opposition figures, Sayed Muhamed Baqer al-Hakim, who heads the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), just informed the press that "we understand this war to be about imposing US hegemony over Iraq," and perceive the US as "an occupying rather than a liberating force." He stressed that the UN must supervise elections, and called on "foreign troops to withdraw from Iraq" and leave Iraqis in charge.

US policy-makers have a radically different conception. They must impose a client regime in Iraq, following the practice elsewhere in the region, and most significantly, in the regions that have been under US domination for a century, Central America and the Caribbean. That too is well-understood. Brent Scowcroft, National Security Adviser to Bush I, just repeated the obvious: "What's going to happen the first time we hold an election in Iraq and it turns out the radicals win? What do you do? We're surely not going to let them take over."

The same holds throughout the region. Recent studies reveal that from Morocco to Lebanon to the Gulf, about 95% of the population want a greater role in government for Islamic religious figures, and the same percentage believe that the sole US interest in the region is to control its oil and strengthen Israel. Antagonism to Washington has reached unprecedented heights, and the idea that Washington would institute a radical change in policy and tolerate truly democratic elections, respecting the outcome, seems rather fanciful, to say the least.

Turning to the question, one reason for the invasion, surely, is to gain control over the world's second largest oil reserves, which will place the US in an even more powerful position of global domination, maintaining "a stranglehold on the global economy," as Michael Klare describes the long-term objective, which he regards as the primary motive for war. However, this cannot explain the timing. Why now?

The drumbeat for war began in September 2002, and the government-media propaganda campaign achieved a spectacular success. Very quickly, the majority of the population came to believe that Iraq posed an imminent threat to US security, even that Iraq was involved in 9-11 (up from 3% after 9-11) and was planning new attacks. Not surprisingly, these beliefs correlated closely with support for the planned war. The beliefs are unique to the US. Even in Kuwait and Iran, which were invaded by Saddam Hussein, he was not feared, though he was despised. They know perfectly well that Iraq was the weakest state in the region, and for years they had joined others in trying to reintegrate Iraq into the regional system, over strong US objections. But a highly effective propaganda assault drove the American population far off the spectrum of world opinion, a remarkable achievement.

The September propaganda assault coincided with two important events. One was the opening of the mid-term election campaign. Karl Rove, the administration's campaign manager, had already pointed out that Republicans have to "go to the country" on the issue of national security, because voters "trust the Republican Party to do a better job of...protecting America." One didn't have to be a political genius to realize that if social and economic issues dominated the election, the Bush administration did not have a chance. Accordingly, it was necessary to concoct a huge threat to our survival, which the powerful leader will manage to overcome, miraculously. For the elections, the strategy barely worked. Polls reveal that voters maintained their preferences, but suppressed concerns over jobs, pensions, benefits, etc., in favor of security. Something similar will be needed for the presidential campaign. All of this is second nature for the current incumbents. They are mostly recycled from the more reactionary sectors of the Reagan-Bush administrations, and know that they were able to run the country for 12 years, carrying out domestic programs that the public largely opposed, by pushing the panic button regularly: Libyan attempting to "expel us from the world" (Reagan), an air base in Grenada from which the Russians would bomb us, Nicaragua only "two-days driving time from Harlingen Texas," waving their copies of Mein Kampf as they planned to take over the hemisphere, black criminals about to rape your sister (Willie Horton, the 1988 presidential campaign), Hispanic narcotraffickers about to destroy us, and on and on.

To maintain political power is an extremely important matter if the narrow sectors of power represented by the Bush administration hope to carry out their reactionary domestic program over strong popular opposition, if possible even to institutionalize them, so it will be hard to reconstruct what is being dismantled.

Something else happened in September 2002: the administration released its National Security Strategy, sending many shudders around the world, including the US foreign policy elite. The Strategy has many precedents, but does break new ground: for the first time in the post-war world, a powerful state announced, loud and clear, that it intends to rule the world by force, forever, crushing any potential challenge it might perceive. This is often called in the press a doctrine of "pre-emptive war." That is crucially wrong; it goes vastly beyond pre-emption. Sometimes it is called more accurately a doctrine of "preventive war." That too understates the doctrine. No military threat, however remote, need be "prevented"; challenges can be concocted at will, and may not involve any threat other than "defiance"; those who pay attention to history know that "successful defiance" has often been taken to be justification for resort to force in the past.

When a doctrine is announced, some action must be taken to demonstrate that it is seriously intended, so that it can become a new "norm in international relations," as commentators will soberly explain. What is needed is a war with an "exemplary quality," Harvard Middle East historian Roger Owen pointed out, discussing the reasons for the attack on Iraq. The exemplary action teaches a lesson that others must heed, or else.

Why Iraq? The experimental subject must have several important qualities. It must be defenseless, and it must be important; there's no point illustrating the doctrine by invading Burundi. Iraq qualified perfectly in both respects. The importance is obvious, and so is the required weakness. Iraq was not much of a military force to begin with, and had been largely disarmed through the 1990s while much of the society was driven to the edge of survival. Its military expenditures and economy were about one-third those of Kuwait, with 10% of its population, far below others in the region, and of course the regional superpower, Israel, by now virtually an offshore military base of the US. The invading force not only had utterly overwhelming military power, but also extensive information to guide its actions from satellite observation and overflights for many years, and more recently U-2 flights on the pretext of disarmament, surely sending data directly back to Washington.

Iraq was therefore a perfect choice for an "exemplary action" to establish the new doctrine of global rule by force as a "norm of international relations." A high official involved in drafting the National Security Strategy informed the press that its publication "was the signal that Iraq would be the first test, but not the last." "Iraq became the petri dish in which this experiment in pre-emptive policy grew," the New York Times reported -- misstating the policy in the usual way, but otherwise accurate.                                                                                                  

‘Draining the Swamp’ thinking, is the central US policy of the post 9/11era.  The second Bush Administration will make it the conventional wisdom of the Foreign policy Establishment.

Financially punishing Germany with demands for the payment of reparations after WW1 was a major French and British policy of that post war era, (as was the armed intervention against the infant Russian Revolution).  It was a devastatingly wrong policy, and was notably opposed by J M Keynes, but it was nevertheless pursued, and contributed in no small manner to the eventual disaster of WW2.  The same mistake was not repeated in 1945, and new conventional wisdoms settled in the minds’ of the various foreign policy establishments.

When the French were taught a lesson in Vietnam, they were simultaneously unable to convince their US counterparts that the same fate would ultimately befall the US, or for that matter themselves, that Algeria would end in disaster.  Nevertheless, these events came to pass, and once again old conventional wisdoms were then replaced with new ones.  The establishment is changed as failed and retring personnel get turndover, and views held get modifies, but the process is usually measured in terms of decades. 

Now however the speed of change is accelerating in every field in this era of Globalization, and even establishment views are subject to the same phenomenon.  So,  Rather than view the world as if Sir Humphrey Appleby really was running things from the almost unchanging Establishment background, we should expect these changes based on experience of the real world, and not from theoretical breakthroughs, to be more frequent.  

Catastrophic failure marks the less common sudden changes of direction, with a most notable failure being the attack on Pearl Harbor, in 1941.  Politicians, then rearrange the chairs at the top of departments and the new conventional wisdom starts an organic growth process, as the ‘professionals’ below give the boss what he wants to hear all the way up the chain.  But periods of paralysis, and confusion, and struggle between contending views, are also common, and we have just seen one occur in a very open way over Iraq.

Until Bush was re-elected there would have been doubt, double speak, and the creepy but common covering one’s rear end.  It’s just the way the Establishment works.  There are two contending forces and you have to work out which way the wind is blowing before you take a stand with your career.  Then the culture starts to develop.  Yes Minister, is only part of the story.  Regardless of the appearances, the Mandarins do not remain unchanged by the ebb and flow of political masters.  Foreign policy Establishments, change much slower than the mood of the general population, but they change nevertheless.  They just don’t tend to care what the general public thinks.

Western politicians however, face elections, and care a great deal about how they are perceived by the general populace.  George Bush, was facing election while his troops were still dying in an unpopular war.  To state the obvious, the Iraq war had, from the beginning, and still has almost two years on, some major complications and leadership credibility issues (to say the very least).  It’s been a public relations nightmare.  President Bush, who had gained great public prestige from dealing with the Taliban, lost so much ground over Iraq that his re-election was looking like a real uphill fight.  Almost eighteen months out from the election, Bush pushed his re-election interests forward, and viewed every move, on virtually all fronts, in this light.  Greater swamp draining efforts, and the task of selling the policy to Establishment Mandarins would have to wait.  

Prior to the election, the US electorate became more important to President Bush than the views of the US Foreign policy Establishment.   Naturally, the public efforts of the latter, affects the voting intentions of the former, but the administration was going directly to the electorate and speaking (relatively) plainly, while the opposing views could not be as simply conveyed.  Fortunately for President Bush, the Democrats chose John Kerry, and the alternate policy weaknesses became apparent. 

While it’s now academic, my view was that the Iraq war was not irreversibly on-going in strategic direction for any future US administration.  A change of direction to the extent of tolerating a far less than democratic outcome in Iraq was partially possible.  

However the Kurds, and their aspirations for democracy, and national liberation, are now central to US interests, and their protection common to any US Administration.  The Kurds will not be sold out again, and they will always be an embarrassment to the anti-war position.  The Kurdish population is demonstrably better off as a result of the war.  Their national resources will not be plundered by the US, as the anti war ‘it’s all about oil’ brigade would have people believe.  Kurdish areas ought to make rapid economic progress in these circumstances, and this real progress, rather than any debate will settle the issue.

Western democracies, across the board, will also not allow Kurds in neighboring countries to suffer the outrages of the last century either.   Even, France, and Germany are locked into supporting some of the Kurdish aspirations.  A Kosovo-style intervention is now the normal, and expected outcome if any major outrage was beginning to take place.  Intervention to protect peoples’ in the Middle East, and Africa is now, (post Rwanda), expected by western peoples’, and governments’ in the region, and indeed around the world, are beginning to catch on to this.  So, we can expect that the now protected, Kurds, will be an example for the rest of the region’s peoples’ to emulate.  With the contradiction between the Kurdish situation and the Palestinian example breathtaking, something has to give.

The rest of the Middle East project could not even have been attempted by Bush, (with or without, the full support of other Establishment people), unless he was re-elected.  So, getting re-elected was the main game, even if other games had to proceed at the same time, but at a limited pace.  No one ‘can stop the world’ entirely, but as the battle of Fallujah demonstrates, those in the position of setting the agenda, will do just that.  The battle was never going to be fought before the US election, but was always going to be fought.

Leading Neo-Con theorists, addressing the doubting Foreign policy Establishment, in house, as it were, was and is sufficient effort to deal with bringing the doubters on board, given sufficient time.

I believe this, despite the fact that it is a full reversal of their entire working life’s activities being talked about.  Obviously, you will never convince everyone to a new position, but the vast majority can be won especially when the new strategic policy has no reasonable alternative.  Even as put in the declared terms of the US ruling elite.

“Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe - because in the long run, stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty. As long as the Middle East remains a place where freedom does not flourish, it will remain a place of stagnation, resentment, and violence.” 

I think this phony formulation is code for, if enemies of the US ruling class can get WMD’s and blow up New York, or some other western city, there is no security for the US ruling class.  With that as a realistic prospect, something must therefore be done. Cultures must be changed, and changed relatively quickly.

There is nothing as lonely as an ex-policy, and irrespective of the claims of professionalism etc., a herd mentality, is just as evident among Foreign policy Establishments, as it is in universities and so forth.  The up, and comers, smell the wind and give their boss what they want, and as that process filters down the chain, the ripple effect picks up speed.  Once the leadership has adopted the new policies, as the Bush Administration have done in this case, for three years now, the turn around, while slow at first, dramatically picks up speed.  Turnover of personnel, both targeted, and natural attrition grinds on, and begins to increasingly effect the perception of lower and lower levels, as to what the boss wants.  It’s only a question of sufficient time being given.

A policy change of this magnitude cannot be hidden from, or implemented well by, personnel who have not been convinced.  There are just far too many, consequential, or subordinate policy changes also required.  A modified culture is generated by the process, as the views of those being selected for promotion are adopted by those lower down who also aspire to be part of the foreign policy elite.  Let’s face it, even for the US there isn’t really very many of those positions available.  Like, tends to hire like, and the corporate culture develops accordingly.

It’s our thesis that the only realistic thing that President Bush could do was change policy.  Pushing the old policies even harder was just not credible because they had come to a dead end.  It follows that the argument for changing policy could not be defeated by the likes of Henry Kissinger, as his policies are not only defeated they are to be found smashed in the rubble of 9/11.  They are also, to be seen on trial, with Pinochet; exposed in Timor, and fairly self evident in Asia.  His life’s work has visibly unraveled.  No aspects of 9/11, and the potential aftermaths are addressed by the business as usual views of this untried war criminal and the remainder of any un-reconstructed foreign policy establishment members.

These now, alternate policy advocates, (still working) can be powerfully challenged to put up, or shut up, and get on with it. What could they say?  9/11 was just a fluke.  Nothing worse could ever happen?  WMD will never fall into the Middle East terrorists hands?  Israeli occupation of the West Bank is good for the US?  The Saudi’s and their Wahabbism are no problem?  I don’t think so. 

9/11/01, was not as comprehensive a defeat for a policy position, as was 7/12/41, to the America first movement.  Nevertheless, a cancer is at work, that whilst slower is just as sure.    “When an event renders one’s expert views bankrupt…”

The second Bush Administration knows that the Draining the Swamp project will extend over several decades.  They also know the still contentious policy change must become the new conventional wisdom throughout the Foreign policy Establishment, in order to guarantee that future Administrations (either Tweedledee, or Tweedledum varieties) stay the course.  So, I feel quite sure that this ‘front’ will not be neglected over the next four years which they have to ‘shape the world’.  Seven years of policy change, and determined intellectual struggle against the old school should be enough.

None of the above addresses the question of financing the new policy.  That is a massive problem for the ruling elite with only part of that fight carried on in Congress.  I have thought from the beginning of this, with the events of 9/11, that what we effectively have is a third world war, and that fighting it would bankrupt the US as it is currently set up.  So far, nothing that has happened has changed my view on this.  That’s why I’ve always liked the term Lastsuperpower.

I don’t see why being on the right side in any war should ultimately protect the ruling class from the economic challenges to their system.  It's true that in the long term the new policy should be cheaper than the old but in the short term undoing the bad moves of the past (with efforts like Iraq) is expencive. 

However, I have not understood a lot of what the last quarter century has brought forth economically and would have expected ‘the’ next great economic crisis to have come by now.  So, what do I know?  I am however, very keen to see how the next quarter century pans out, so I better start looking after myself

patrick

Washington's U turn

I favour maximum diversity of thought, and have confidence that it will emerge under liberal conditions. I don’t mind belonging to a tribe, but never at the expense of freed