"Corporations, War, You"

Fri Feb 7 17:45:35 CST 2003

"There's something still on, don't call it a 'war' if
it makes you nervous, maybe the death rate's gone down
a point or two [...] but Their enterprise goes on" 
GR 628

"Don't forget the real business of the War is buying
and selling." 
GR 105

<http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0207-02.htm>
Published on Friday, February 7, 2003 by
CommonDreams.org 

Corporations, War, You 

by Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman

One thing is clear about the Bush administration's
current rush to war: It has nothing to do with
protecting U.S. security. 

There is no evidence nor reason to believe that Iraq
possesses nuclear weapons. The Iraqi military is among
the weakest in the Middle East. And the CIA says that
Iraq does not pose a terrorist threat to the United
States -- although it might, the CIA warns, if the
United States launches an attack. 

What is much less clear is the actual reason for war,
especially because it poses real risks to U.S.
corporate and geopolitical interests. 

There are material interests served by war and the
run-up to war, of course. 

Big Oil: It should go without saying that the Bush
administration, like administrations before it,
obsesses about the Persian Gulf because it sits atop
the world's largest oil reserves. The Washington,
D.C.-based Sustainable Energy and Economy Network's
Steve Kretzmann argues that central to the U.S.
industry interest in Iraq is its potential role as a
counterbalance to Saudi Arabia, which possesses the
world's largest oil reserves by far. 

The Military-Industrial Think Tank Complex I: A
network of defense industry-backed think tanks have
been instrumental in cooking up the rationale for
invasion of Iraq, developing concepts such as
"preemptive war." Many of the staff at these think
tanks are now part of the Bush administration. Former
defense company executives and consultants are also
extremely well represented in the administration, and
wield enormous influence. For the industry, war and
hyped threats to national security mean greater
expenditures on their weaponry. The Defense budget is
set to hit $380 billion this year, rising over the
next five years to a approach a staggering $500
billion. 

The Ideology of Empire: The ideology and geopolitical
strategy of the war-mongering extremist networks is,
in a word, empire. They hope to demonstrate how
awesome and dominant is U.S. military force, and that
the United States is willing to use it routinely on
whatever pretext it chooses. Their intended message:
Cross the empire at your peril. 

But more is going on here than just a corporate
agenda. 

There is no escaping the pathetic fact that a major
impulse for war is the desire of President Bush and
many of the key actors who served in his father's
administration to "redeem" the failure of the first
Bush regime to depose Saddam Hussein. 

And there is the narrow political calculus that must
have been undertaken prior to the 2002 election by
Karl Rove and other White House strategists. They
realized that the post September-11 boost for the
president was rapidly fading and that the
administration was losing control of the national
agenda as the Enron, WorldCom and other financial
scandals dominated the headlines. They ran the
election on the war and, with the Democrats offering
no coherent opposition, this proved a successful
strategy. 

Still, while these propulsions to war can be
identified, there are substantial countervailing
factors at play. A war brings with it enormous
uncertainty. While few doubt that the United States
will prevail quickly on the battlefield, there is the
potential of U.S. soldiers suffering non-negligible
casualties if there ends up being house-to-house
fighting in Baghdad. There is the real risk of
spurring new terrorist acts, either in the United
States or against U.S. citizens abroad, whether these
acts come from Iraq, al-Qaeda or others. (And if
Saddam Hussein is as evil as President Bush suggests,
and if his regime is collapsing, isn't it likely that
he will lash out at the United States through any
means possible?) There is the possibility that the
U.S. invasion will generate political instability in
other countries. There is the enormous uncertainty
about how Iraq will be governed after Saddam is
deposed. 

These are not just concerns for common sense-minded
citizens. They involve the uncertainties that
intensely disturb corporations, which is presumably
the reason the Dow falls as the drums of war beat
louder. They even pose potential risks to the oil
companies. (They may also pose risks to George Bush's
re-election, which is why the last, best hope of
averting war perhaps is that the White House political
strategists pull the country back from the brink.) 

But the administration appears to have shunted aside
these countervailing concerns. The momentum for war --
fueled by a combination of corporate interest,
ideology, personal pique and political expedience --
combined with the arrogance of power of the most
hawkish wing of the administration, appear to have
steamrolled saner voices urging caution. 

President Bush is on the verge of launching a war that
will kill untold thousands of Iraqis, and turn an
already tempestuous world into a much more dangerous
place. Every person in the United States should do
everything and anything they can to stop this lunacy. 

Here are four things to do for those in the United
States: 

1. Attend the massive demonstration against war in New
York City on February 15, or in San Francisco on
February 16. For more information, see:
http://www.unitedforpeace.org. 

2. Call your senators (1-800-839-5276 or
202-224-3121), and urge them to support Senate
Resolution 32, which calls for another Congressional
vote before the United States commences a war. (To see
the text of the resolution, go to
http://thomas.loc.gov and type in "SRes 32" (no
quotes) in the box for the bill number.) 

3. Make sure your city council has passed a resolution
supporting peace. 67 cities, including Chicago,
Philadelphia, Cleveland, Detroit and Washington, D.C.,
already have. Check out http://www.citiesforpeace.org.

4. Give a day's worth of time to stop the war. If
you're not sure what to do, sign up with Moveon.org
(go to: http://moveon.org/giveaday) and they will
supply you with plenty of ideas. 

Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington,
D.C.-based Corporate Crime Reporter. Robert Weissman
is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Multinational
Monitor, http://www.multinationalmonitor.org. They are
co-authors of Corporate Predators: The Hunt for
MegaProfits and the Attack on Democracy (Monroe,
Maine: Common Courage Press;
http://www.corporatepredators.org). (c) Russell
Mokhiber and Robert Weissman 

-Doug

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