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Most Minnesotans are untouched by the rapid takeover of institutions and organizations by the military-industrial complex. We were warned of this possibility by President Dwight Eisenhower many years ago. It is a strange feeling to live in a country so divided. One segment of the nation is feeling an enormous threat to the America that we considered the model for freedom of movement and speech. Another huge segment sees no change at all except in terms of fearing job loss.
Few understand the connection between the state of the economy and the cost of war preparations. So many have been conditioned not to ask where all their tax money has gone. Yet, while tax dollars disappear into war coffers and illegally "detained" people are sequestered and hidden from sight, nothing can hide the impoverishment of people and institutions.
The industrial component of this unholy alliance of industry and military are those who stand to gain enormously from a war. These are primarily the pharmaceutical companies, weapons manufacturers, chemical companies, and owners of the informational networks-radio, newspapers, journals, television, and, to a lesser degree, the movie industry. (For some time the media have been consolidated into a few large corporations. There is a significant overlap of the owners of these corporations and the companies that would gain from a war. For more information, see www.fair.org by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting.)
We must come to terms with the fact that our nation's policy is driven by this cabal of military-industrial interests. The Administration is loaded with veterans of the military-industrial complex-not only Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, but a host of individuals implicated in the Iran/Contra scandal, including Elliot Abrams and John Negroponte. The perpetrators of the Iran/Contra scandal were allowed to go free in the interests of harmony so we could go back to our business of making money at the expense of poor countries whose resources our corporations were looting. Now they are back in government.
In the years after the Iran/Contra scandal unfolded, it was hard to see what was happening at the other end of our prosperity unless you went abroad and participated in the life of the residents for a time. Generously, the Europeans did not blame all Americans and we were admired for our possessions and friendliness as human beings. Now, many reports are warning us that we are hated and feared for dragging Europeans into a war they do not want. Demonstrations around the world seem to confirm this, but it would be hard to quantify.
We can no longer trust polls and not all of us are able to travel. That is why we need to hear from people who are more exposed to international perspectives than we are. To this end, WAMM will be hosting Diana Johnstone in speaking engagements this month (for more information, please see the sidebar on this page. Diana speaks many languages fluently and has many international contacts through her work as information officer for the Green party in the European Community (when it was preparing to become the European Union). She has been traveling and speaking all over Europe and has also recently visited Yugoslavia to witness the continuing conflict there.
While the general public has been cut off from knowledge about the nature and names of our coup plotters-for a coup is what it is-the plotters have not been very astute about attitudes of the general public. The Administration's bullying tactics and the language they use when addressing Europeans (whom they hope to persuade to join them) all work in favor of peace. You cannot build alliances while suggesting that our would-be allies "need some spine."
It is also clear that the Administration cannot control all the members of organizations they have recruited to help them form a "coalition of the willing" for the assault. Witness, for example, their crude attempt to introduce and quickly pass an already prepared adjunct to the Patriot Act that would transform the U.S. into a national-security state. It was not intended to be shown to lawmakers until after the war had begun, in expectation that it would be passed without debate as a necessity in time of war. A true patriot in the Justice Department leaked the bill to the prestigious Center for Public Integrity, which revealed it to the public.
The U.S. and Britain are already bombing and killing Iraqis in the "no-fly zones." But what these plotters seem to want is to occupy the country, not only to control the oil flow, but also to use it as a base of operations for conquest of the whole Middle East.
Ominously, many who oppose the war are saying that if war should come they will support the president. They are still missing the whole point. It is this mantra which has always been used to get us to fight wars we do not want. It is also the reason why the Bush Administration is in such a hurry to get the troops into Iraq. "We must support our boys," (and now girls) they say. Support them by bringing them home and saving their lives. "We have only one president and in time of war we must support him." Why? The assumption behind these calls for supporting our president is that the American people chose him, which simply is not true.
It is long past time for us to confront what we have let happen to our democracy, to face truths we find hard to accept, and to restore our democracy and our civil rights. For a start, we need another perspective with which to measure the march of events. Diana Johnstone will bring us that
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