Editorial from Kommunistisk Politik, No. 20, October 12, 2002
Some weeks ago, the US administration issued a document called "The National Security Strategy of the United States of America". On thirty-two pages, the whole new imperialist strategy, which has been developed by the hawks in the Pentagon and the Bush camp during the 1990s, is explained. The content of the document is Bush Senior's "New World Order" that has now been adapted to the twenty-first century and become the strategy for US military, economic and political world hegemony. It is based on the ideas of Zbigniew Brzezinski and his disciples Wolfowitz and Lippy on empire construction. In other words, the dreams of the US fascist ultra right have become official US policy: the US will not tolerate any competing superpower, any challenger to its hegemony. And the US arrogates to itself the right to attack anybody who opposes US interests, using pretexts like "War against Terrorism".
The strategy proclaims, contrary to international law, the right of the US
to carry out pre-emptive wars and attacks, that is, open aggressions. It does
not exclude first nuclear strikes, and by completely rejecting the International
Criminal Court (ICC) it places the US and its global armed forces, which are
de facto occupying a big part of the countries in the world, in a category of
itself outside international rules.
It also examines the concrete policy towards a number of countries and conflicts,
and presents the wish of the US to make NATO an aggressive and US-controlled
striking force on a global scale. The document is called "the Bush doctrine".
An Australian journalist has aptly called it a recipe for US world dictatorship.
The war against Iraq is meant to be the test of this new strategy. As Scott Ritter, former chief UN Weapons Inspector in Iraq and now a zealous opponent of a war against Iraq, points out in The Guardian on October 7: "The fact of the matter is this crisis between Iraq and the US goes beyond even the issue of regime removal. It represents the first case study of the implementation of a new US national security strategy, published last month, which sets forth a doctrine of unilateralism that capitalises on American military and economic might to maintain the US as the sole superpower, to impose our will on the rest of the world, even through pre-emptive military action. This strategy is a rejection of multilateralism, a turning away from the concepts of international law. This new Bush doctrine of American unilateralism reeks of imperial power, the very power against which Americans fought a revolution more than 200 years ago."
On October 8 at a hearing at Christiansborg (the national parliament building,
translator's note), in which Hans von Sponeck, former UN Humanitarian
Aid Co-ordinator for Iraq and another internationally known opponent of war
and sanctions against Iraq, took part, Villy Soevndal of the Socialist People's
Party (SF) expressed things more or less like this: "The US government
will let the jungle law, the right of superior force, rule in international
relations. This will damage the UN, the whole international system based on
agreements, and international law."
The reality, which all efforts for "a better world" must take into
account and have as their starting point, is the actual strength and dominance
of the US superpower and its strategy for a total US world dictatorship. Understanding
this clearly means fighting US imperialism, the biggest threat to peace, security
and social progress in the twenty-first century. Having naïve confidence
in the importance of international conventions or hoping that the US superpower
will respect them is wrong.
The US government will not respect anything that does not suit it. This is what
the Bush doctrine tells us.
The opposition to the US "War against Terrorism" and the concrete
wars of that particular war, which is being supported by Denmark, must also
start out by understanding this reality. The EU is not an alternative. The UN
is under US pressure and dominance and is not able to hinder the US in going
solo and berserk, and NATO plays a key role in this whole strategy.
It is on the basis of these facts mentioned above that a line for opposition
and resistance must be developed, a line corresponding to the reality and being
able to bring about the absolute necessity: a broad popular movement against
US imperialism and its world order.
October 8, 2002