It's starting to look like the love story of the same old used-to-be is gaining currency among what passes for Bu$hCo's strategerists, according to Chris Floyd.
...a Shigalovian plan for global re-ordering – a brutal vision of national dismemberment, forced migration and ethnic cleansing on a gargantuan scale – recently published in Armed Forces Journal has thrown a stark light on the mindset of the "full spectrum dominance" gang now in power in Washington. The article could perhaps be dismissed as the fantasy of a would-be world-shaker – but it has already provoked a diplomatic firestorm from the plan's intended targets, requiring a State Department intervention to dampen the flames.
What's more, a series of events now emerging from the "arc of crisis" stretching from Central Asia to the Mediterranean bear witness to the deadly chaos and "creative destruction" celebrated by the new Shigalovs dancing attendance on the Bush-Cheney administration. These disturbances include strange, Bush-backed treaties with al Qaeda fueling American deaths in Afghanistan; the assassination of moderate voices in Pakistan and Iraq; the despairing surrender of the last hope of holding back civil war in Iraq; and feverish new plans for more war in the turbulent arc, based on the deliberate fomenting of sectarian strife.
Ralph Peters – "Terror War" analyst, hack novelist, ex-military intelligence officer – was the cartographer of creative destruction in the Journal article. Peters, a long-time member of the "close your hearts to pity" school of warhawking commentary, forever urging more strenuous application of hot iron on the recalcitrant tribes that beset us, has recently joined with the bold visionaries at the Project for a New American Century crowd. That's the group made up of Bush Faction heavy hitters – Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Scooter Libby, Elliot Abrams, Brother Jeb and others – who in September 2000 laid out the blueprint that George W. followed faithfully once he acquired the presidency.
This plan – long pre-dating 9/11 – included astronomical hikes in the military budget; invading Iraq and establishing a "permanent role" for a "substantial American force presence in the Gulf;" planting a "worldwide network of forward operating bases;" gutting arms control treaties; and making "regime change" a primary focus of American policy. The PNAC plan did note that it could take decades to get the American people to accept these "revolutionary" changes; unless, of course, the United States was struck by "some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor."
Peters was not involved with this remarkably prophetic document, but he recently hitched up with PNAC and its demands for adding at least 25,000 new soldiers to U.S. forces each year. However, in his AFJ article – aptly named "Blood Borders" – he surpasses his new compatriots. Where they were content merely to usurp existing regimes, Peters has produced a detailed plan for re-ordering whole regions – ruthlessly chopping up Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan, and creating new countries such as Greater Kurdistan, a Vatican-like "Islamic Sacred State" out of Mecca and Medina, and a "Free Baluchistan," tearing the oil-rich province away from Pakistan. He'd also lighten Islamabad of its troublesome Waziristan provinces and give them to Afghanistan.
To be sure, Peters acknowledges that "correcting" these borders "may be impossible. For now." Nevertheless, he assures us that his admittedly draconian adjustments are the only way we will ever see "a more peaceful Middle East." And in any case, he says, "given time — and the inevitable attendant bloodshed — new and natural borders will emerge." Why? Because of a "dirty little secret from 5,000 years of history: Ethnic cleansing works."
Thus from the warmongers' stated goal of freedom for all nations we've now arrived at a savage hacking at their sovereignty, with enforced "corrections" and ethnic cleansing "from the Bosporus to the Indus." Long-eared Shigalov would surely approve...
It's very good for business
2 comments:
Actually, I've thought some about reorganizing some of those countries, too; after all, many of them ARE polyglot fictions based on centuries-old imperialism, either European or local. The borders often make no sense -- they frequently divide tribes that aer related, forcing them to answer to very different governments, or lump together peoples that don't speak the same language, have very different attitudes, and/or hate each other.
The Kurds are the most obvious of these, being split between Turkey, Iraq and Iran, but far from the only one -- the Baluchs are split among Pakistan, Afghanistan & Iran; the Pashtuns bewteen Afg. & Pak.; Armenians among their own country, Turkey, Iran and Azerbaijan; etc.
Of course, I sometimes think the US needs a major rearrangement, too, possibly splicing it into several independent nations that would be more responsive to the needs and perspectives of America's regions.
Oh, P.S. -- Your entry inspired my own. Although I'm also concerned about our govt's motives, the tribalization of that region has long historical roots.
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