Missilomania

Columnist Dr SM RAHMAN expounds about the new concept gunboat diplomacy-using of cruise missiles

Cliff Hopkinson in his write-up ‘Impeachment makes the American heart grow fonder’ reveals: ‘Clinton’s popularity has soared in the polls to 73 percent, his highest - ever rating - even higher than any thing achieved by that evergreen favourite Ronald Regan’.1 He further says, ‘the whole nation believes, he lied to a grand jury about his sexual affair with Monica Lewinsky; but it is ever clearer that most Americans do not want him impeached. Two-third of them say ‘no’ to it. One-third says censure him, but cancel the Senate trial. And another third now wants him to be left off, ‘no censure, no trials’.2 But why should popularity rating shoot so high when the offence is so unequivocally clear. The answer is that in condemning the President one has to condemn oneself in a permissive society where ‘sexual freedom’, before, during and after marital life is no taboo. In a way, President’s sexual exploits, off-loads the accompanying guilt, if any, in an ordinary citizen and provides him a ready rationalization for doing the same. In other words, the President becomes a role model for libidinal gratification.

Sex and aggression are the twin instinctual reservoirs of behaviour. When one is freed of the restraints on ‘sex’, the control on aggression is also relatively loosened. Ex-president Jimmy Carter cites FBI Report, which gives a very grim picture: ‘22,540 were murdered in 1992... and the sad fact is it is primarily our youth who are both using firearms and suffering from firearm injuries at alarming rates. Across the country, murder by gun is the second leading cause of death among all young people between ten and forty-three years of age... for African-American males aged between fifteen to twenty four, firearms are the leading cause of death. Nationwide, firearms kill more teenagers of all races than ‘natural-causes’ combined’.3 Aggression is endemic in the woof and warp of US social fabric. Discrimination - a social and emotional aggression on the black community is a long legacy. As far back as 1886 the Supreme Court came out with a very ironical verdict, according to which the railroads could require black and white passenger to occupy separate coaches, provided the accommodations were of equal quality. Carter comments: ‘after that time, this separate but equal ruling was abused to permit discrimination against African-Americans, in all southern states black citizens would require to go to separate schools and prevented from drinking at the same water fountains, using the same rest rooms, or even ordering a sandwich from the lunch counter as white customers’.4

One recalls that the black community was treated as chattel slaves and as such ‘properties’ to be sold and purchased and there was thus no justification for them to be granted franchise rights as pronounced by the Superior Court. Moreover, the Red Indians, - the indigenous population - as they were perceived to be too ‘primitive’ to be utilized in industries, they had to be physically eliminated. Those who survived are put in reservations as museum pieces. The ‘Cowboy’ reflects the typical ‘archetypal’ imagery of the wild - west mentality. Have Gun will Travel, was the popular theme of the ‘western’ serials on television. No doubt, the great US reformers like Jefferson, Wilson and Abraham Lincoln have had profound impact in shaping American personality but the core element- the propensity for aggression and ‘trigger - happy’ sensibility has remained, by and large, dormant. Whenever external controls are lowered, one sees the outflow of repressed aggression.

The Cold War period - the bipolar order - kept the US aggression considerably at bay. The fear of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) was the major inhibiting factor. Only such aggressions were launched which did not entail serious risks. In the Post Cold War era, U.S.A. is a typical macho - a cowboy - in the international power arena, but with a difference. Direct encounter with adversary is a phobic strain on American psyche. The Vietnam Trauma had a serious impact and the public opinion, overly reacted against the spilling of American blood on foreign soil. Since then the strategy was to fight wars for power and influence through surrogate states. The development and sophistication in air power and missile technology came in very handy. Gravest destruction can be made without American soldier ever setting his feet on ground. Adventure in Somalia through ground operations proved too humiliating and costly for USA, to repeat it anywhere else.

In the 1991 Gulf War, Ramsey Clark mentions: ‘The salient feature of the slaughter of Iraqi troops is that it was carried out overwhelmingly by aircraft and missiles. There was virtually no risk to US troops as real ground combat did not even occur. There was no military need for US troops to enter Iraq’.5 According to an estimate - the tonnage of high explosive bombs already released had exceeded the combined allied air offensive of World War II. Among the explosives that US planes dropped on troops were napalm bombs, fuel-air explosives (FAEs) and cluster bombs. These weapons are not approved by international law. Fuel-air explosives (FAE) are cruel weapons, not to be used against humanity - approximating in effect the nuclear power. Los Angeles Times reported: ‘We probably killed more than 100,000 people without ever occupying the territory. We didn’t take the lines and move forward. We passed over them day after day, and that’s a different kind of war historically, than we’ve ever fought’.6 Actually, the casualty figure was above 100,000 - 150,000 or more. But was it war? It was expressive of a debased human sensibility - outrightly callous, devoid of any chivalry and courage. It is this pathological dimension which makes it human slaughter. To illustrate, the following incident quoted by Clark, may be mentioned:

‘...........hundreds, possibly thousands, of Iraqi soldiers began walking towards the US position unarmed, with their arms raised in an attempt to surrender. However, the orders for this unit were not to take any prisoners.....The Commander of the unit began firing by shooting an anti-tank missile through one of the Iraqi soldiers. This is a missile designed to destroy tanks, but it was used against one man. At that point everybody in the unit began shooting. Quite simply, it was a slaughter.’ 7

The motive behind operation Desert Storm was not what it was professed to be - the liberation of Kuwait. In fact, it is no secret that Saddam Hussain had agreed to pulling out his troops, but on the condition that no condemnation of Iraq would be made. Egypt had agreed to it, but USA through its pressure made Egypt adopt a resolution by the Arab League to condemn the invasion of Kuwait. A firm message was sent to the Egyptian Foreign Minister. ‘The West has done its duty, but the Arab nations are doing nothing. The United States has sold a lot of arms to Arab countries, especially Egypt. If they do not act, if they do not take a firm stand on the Kuwait affair, they can be sure that in the future, they will not longer be able to count on America’.8 Through sheer deceit and chicanery, the Desert Storm was manoeuvred to cripple Iraq militarily and economically so that it posed no threat to Israel, and that the oil wealth of the Middle East remained under the total control of USA.

The operation Desert Fox was not targeted against Iraq’s so called arsenal of mass destruction - biological and chemical weapons. It was pure and simple for the murder of Iraq’s President Saddam Hussain, his family and Imperial Guards. Apart from the gamble to deflect attention from the impeachment proceedings against the President, the display of the precision and havoc that missiles can let loose, on targets selected for destruction was also the objective. Nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki carried a similar message for any potential adversary that sought confrontational path with a giant of military power like USA. Ruthless elimination of the Iraqi people was to establish the ferocity of coercive power, so that the price of defiance by Saddam Hussain could convincingly be demonstrated. Pounding of over five hundred missiles on hapless people of Iraq already battered by the cruel sanctions imposed on them for the last eight years, was the worst possible crime against humanity. One cannot but pay rich tributes to the endurance threshold of the Iraqis, who have braved such colossal atrocities - a legacy of their historical conditioning.

Betrand Russell has characterized USA as the most violent power in history. It is despite the fact that American has not faced any aggression on its soil, as Jimmy Carter says: ‘we have been very fortunate that except for bombing of Pearl Harbour in Hawaii on the morning of December 7, 1941, Americans have not seen combat on our soil, since the civil war and battles between US troops and Native Americans in the last century. Other nations have not been so fortunate.9 But USA’s interventions and intrusions in the affairs of other countries are far too numerous. These were largely in support of the despots and tyrants in suppressing the voice of freedom and sacrosanct values of democracy. Enthusiastic support was provided to Marcos of Philippine, Pinochet in Chile, the Shah of Iran, and Martial Law rulers of Pakistan. Invasions were made on Cuba, Grenada, Panama and more recently on Haiti. Missile power was used fruitlessly in Afghanistan to eliminate Osama Bin Laden, but in turn innocent people were killed. In Sudan a pharmaceutical industry was made the target on whimsical ground that it was producing chemical weapons. Of late, USA has gone berserk in triggering missiles, in a vain attempt to intimidate recalcitrant nations, who cannot be brought to servility.

It is indeed an irony that popular nationalists like Mossadegh in Iran, Abdul Nasser in Egypt were ousted from power, which in turn, created conditions for the emergence of Islamic Extremism - a phenomenon so dreaded by the West. What is intended to convey that blinded by self-interest, USA is manifesting a dual personality syndrome, analogous to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - decent and institutionalized existence at home and a bully abroad. What is especially distressing that UNO has received the worst degradation ever since its inception. Bricks and mortar do not make institutions. It is the spirit and credibility that matters. UNO, alas! is reduced to a structure without substance. The three permanent members of the Security Council - Russia, China and France fell utterly humiliated by USA - brazen facedly through the support of Great Britain which behaves just like a ‘strategic poodle’.

Missilomania, thus is the potent threat to global peace and tranquillity. This is also undermining USA’s clout and lowering its image in the world community. One sees why Clemenceau said: ‘America is the only nation in history which miraculously has gone directly from barbarism to degeneration without the usual interval of civilization’.