Permanent war for the empire

By Saul Landau

This country has officially taken on the rest of the world. As U.S. military units fight, or threaten to fight, alleged foes belonging to jihadist groups most Americans have never heard of, a Defense Department official informed Congress that the Pentagon now considers the whole world as America’s battlefield.

On May 16, Michael Sheehan, assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, also predicted to Congress that the war against al-Qaeda would endure10 to 20 more years and could take place anywhere in the world. He also claimed Congress had authorized U.S.-initiated military operations for that unspecified period under the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), passed by Congress days after the attacks on Sept. 11.

But on May 23, President Obama declared we are not in such a state, and that he planned to normalize (demilitarize) terrorism policy, shut Guantanamo and protect the procedural rights erased by “security” concerns after 9/11. But how to live without an enemy, especially with a military that eats about $1 trillion (including CIA and NSA and cost of wars) annually?

For almost 50 years we fought the Soviet’s “evil empire and its bloc. In 1991, the USSR collapsed. But within a few years, our leaders found a new enemy (terrorism) worthy of global military response.

Over the decades, during our anti-Communist crusade, U.S. leaders also created alliances and surrogates to promote our policies. One former military ally recently faced a Guatemalan court. His case might teach Congress more about U.S. policy than they would from listening to Defense officials testify.

In mid May a Guatemalan judge found former dictator and U.S. ally General Efrain Rios Montt guilty of genocide for ordering the slaughter of thousands of Indian peasants. Rios Montt didn’t deny he had ordered his army to attack poor peasants. “My work as head of state was to take the reins of the country that was on the edge. Guatemala had failed,” he told the court.  “And forgive me, Your Honor, the guerrillas were at the door of the presidential palace.”

No one else noticed those guerrillas at the doorstep. The 100,000-plus peasants killed by Rios Montt’s soldiers were not guerrillas, but his officers stole their land. Moreover, he and the military goons who governed Guatemala since the CIA overthrew the elected government in 1954 received significant amounts of U.S. aid and verbal encouragement.

On May 21, Guatemala’s Supreme Court overturned the guilty verdict. The outcome remains cloudy. But Rios Montt’s deeds have become common knowledge to the world.
One missing item in the trial was the U.S. government’s role in aiding and abetting genocide under the pretext that US aid was going for the anti-commy crusade.

Indeed, we might have seen more adequate justice if former presidential aide Elliott Abrams, the man who functioned as one of Reagan’s primary promoters of human rights violators in Latin America, had sat beside Rios Montt in the accused dock. Abrams praised Rios Montt’s behavior – other than massacre rituals what did he do? – and even said “human rights is improving under his rule.” Abrams had facts that should have led him to the opposite conclusion, unless one considers genocide as action favoring human rights.

More importantly, President Ronald Reagan called Ríos Montt "a man of great personal integrity." What laurels might he have heaped on Al Capone? And Abrams, convicted of lying to Congress, now sits on the prestigious Council on Foreign Relations instead of sitting in a Leavenworth cell in for promoting genocide in Guatemala and violence in other neighboring countries.

In 1991 a court convicted Abrams of two counts of unlawfully withholding information from Congress during the Iran-Contra Affair investigation. Abrams colluded with Paul Wolfowitz, and retired U.S. Marine Corps Lt. Col. Oliver North, as integral players in the Iran-Contra scandal.

In 1992, George H. W. Bush pardoned him. And Abrams later served as W. Bush’s Deputy National Security Advisor for Global Democracy Strategy from February 2005 – January 2009. His advice brought neither greater democracy, nor a strategy for getting it.
No matter these blips of behavior by our allies and officials, the U.S. military now confronts the world as a battleground for the new anti-terrorism crusade.

Abrams and his ilk should have stood trial for promoting murder, torture and war in various Central American countries as he promoted right wing military thugs who ran some of those nations under Reagan’s presidency, where he served as special adviser. Abrams promoted the Nicaraguan Contras as his buddies sold missiles to Iran after Congress banned such sales, to finance weapons supplies for counter revolution in Nicaragua. For Abrams, and his fellow neocons, third world friends meant obedient, not democratic figures. In the face of the cold facts about El Salvador’s military committing murder and torture (including of U.S. nuns), Washington coddled almost every third world dictator and torturer from Marcos in the Philippines to Chile’s Augusto Pinochet. Washington also backed a host of military dictatorships, from Indonesia through the southern cone of Latin America.

Washington never complained about Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak. For three decades he said “yes, sir.” When million of Egyptians gathered in the streets to evict him, Washington hailed the democratic movement as it had previously backed Mubarak, and simultaneously tried to strengthen ties with Egypt’s military, hardly a force for democracy.

Pentagon officials now claim President Obama and future presidents have the power to send troops anywhere in the world to fight groups allegedly linked to al-Qaeda. When Sheehan said troops could be sent to Syria, Yemen and the Congo without new congressional authorization, Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) challenged this notion that the military could decide that the entire world is its battlefield. "This is the most astounding and most astoundingly disturbing hearing I’ve been to since I’ve been here. You guys have essentially rewritten the Constitution here today," King said. "It renders the war powers of Congress null and void."(Democracy Now, Pacifica Radio May 17)

Will worldwide military engagement be Obama’s legacy? Or will he try to restore our rights and the nation’s legal status, which his actions have undermined. The empire seems to have dictated the options to presidents post World War II. Who would have imagine the USA as a country where the military dictate policy and criminals like Elliot Abrams get encouraged to collaborate with genocidal dictators abroad?

Saul Landau’s FIDEL and WILL THE REAL TERRORIST PLEASE STAND UP are on DVD from cinemalibrestudio.com. He is an Institute for Policy Studies fellow.