In a “major speech” yesterday (transcript), Prime Minister Tony Blair defended his “controversial” foreign policy, insisting that Britain must continue to follow his doctrine of interventionism. A major theme of the address, repeated many times, is that the situation we face today is somehow radically different from anything we’ve ever faced before. Thus, Blair speaks of a security threat that is “qualitatively new and different”, of a “new security context”and a “new strategic reality”. The terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001, apparently, “changed everything”.
The propagation of this supposed paradigm shift is necessary in order to justify Bush and Blair’s radical doctrine of preventive war. If the paradigm has been so radically transformed, so goes the implication, the old systems of international law and morality are no longer relevant.
In reality, the “war on terror” declared after 9/11 is fundamentally similar to the first war on terror, declared by Reagan in the 1980s. This shouldn’t be surprising, since many in the Bush administration previously worked for Reagan – in terms of policy, their second stint in power is largely a continuation of their first. Both administrations used the construct of terror (and, in Reagan’s case, Communism) to justify illegal, imperial aggressions around the world combined with internal repression and domestic militarisation. The main difference with the Bush administration is the sheer unprecedented openness with which it carries out its policies. Aggressive war has been a de facto policy of virtually every American government since the Second World War, but the Bush administration is the only one, as far as I know, to have made it official policy. The primary reason for this is the terrorist attacks of September 11th, which shocked the American people and Congress into granting the President a literal blank cheque to “use all necessary and appropriate force” against those nations, organisations or people “he determines” to have “planned, authorized, committed or aided” the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Bush has used that cheque to pursue hegemonic policies (.pdf) he and his buddies had previously only dreamed about. That is the significance of the atrocities of 9/11.
The U.S. National Security Strategy (.pdf) (NSS) of 2002 was effectively an announcement that, to quote Noam Chomsky, the United States will `maintain global hegemony permanently. Any challenge will be blocked by force, the dimension in which the US reigns supreme.’ To this effect, the NSS authorised the use of preventive war, which under international law is indistinguishable from the “supreme international crime” of aggression. In his speech, Tony Blair did the same, arguing that:
“The frontiers of our security no longer stop at the Channel. What happens in the Middle East affects us. What happens in Pakistan; or Indonesia; or in the attenuated struggles for territory and supremacy in Africa for example, in Sudan or Somalia. The new frontiers for our security are global. Our Armed Forces will be deployed in the lands of other nations far from home, with no immediate threat to our territory (my emphasis)“
Blair advocates the use of force for “”security” in the broadest sense”, in an “assertion of our values against theirs”. The values we will, literally, fight are “anti-democratic, anti-freedom and anti-everything that makes modern life so rich in possibility.” It is indeed hard to imagine a broader license for the use of force. Britain will, Blair continues, use force to “protect our security and advance our interests and values in the modern world”. In essence, then, Blair is reserving the right to use force anywhere in the world, regardless of any “immediate threat” to our territory, in order to advance British “interests” and “values”. As a 2006 government White Paper entitled `Active Diplomacy for a Changing World (.pdf)` put it, the UK `must be engaged around the globe to shape developments at a time of rapid change’.
As noted above, preventive war (or `aggression’) is the “supreme international crime”. Tony Blair’s support for it – which, as we saw with Iraq, goes beyond mere rhetoric – completely contradicts official UK policy, which is to pursue a `truly international and co-operative’ response to terrorism that is `vigorous’ but remains `within the rule of law’.
Blair doesn’t expand on what right the UK has to “shape” the world in its “interests” and according to its “values”. He doesn’t need to; it’s a given. We, Britain, pursue only noble goals. What is good for us is good for everyone. Our foreign policy over the past decade has, says Blair, been “governed as much by values as interests”. This is a standard feature of establishment propaganda – that `we’ are the good guys, who try our best to be a “force for good” in the world, even if we sometimes make mistakes. As Blair puts it:
“The reality is we are those charged with making decisions in this new and highly uncertain world; trying, as best we can, to make the right decision. That’s not to say we do so, but that is our motivation.”
Bush’s National Security Strategy also paints the U.S. as fundamentally benign, stating that the aim of U.S. foreign policy is to `make the world not just safer but better’. What gives the U.S. – the most feared and hated nation on the planet – the right to use force to `make the world…better’ is, again, not discussed. In reality, virtually every oppressor and aggressor in history – including Hitler – has proclaimed noble intent in carrying out their crimes. Flowery statements about promoting “values” and “freedom” are thus utterly meaningless.
Blair criticises those in the West – including the “media” – who succumb to “enemy propaganda” and believe that somehow terrorism is “our” fault. The roots of global terrorism developed “long before any of the recent controversies of foreign policy”, argues Mr Blair, and so to “retreat” from battle now would be “futile”. Blair is right – terrorism did develop before “recent” atrocities the West has inflicted upon the developing world, such as the invasion of Iraq. So what? That would only mean something if there did not exist less-recent “controversies” – like, for example, the 1953 U.S.-backed coup of Iran’s democratically elected leader Mossadegh, and subsequent decades of U.S. support for the brutal Shah. But there does, and so it doesn’t.
The Foreign Office is a bit less confused on the subject:
“There can never be any justification for the use of terrorism. But we need to understand the causes and deal with them. There are no simple causal relationships between conditions such as political or economic failure, rapid modernisation or partial or inadequate reform, conflict, bad governance, failed states, and terrorism. But they can in certain circumstances create a starting point. We also need to respond to powerful motivating factors such as moral outrage and injustice in the international arena, (and the exploitation by some groups of that moral outrage). In addition, we need to address the perception of some groups that they are facing an existential threat from the economic, political or cultural dominance of the West.”
The most reasonable strategy I’ve come across for combating terrorism directed against the West (because it should not be forgotten that terrorism is primarily a weapon of the strong, and one that is oft used by both the U.S. and the UK) was expressed by Noam Chomsky, who writes that:
`The first step, plainly, is to try to understand its roots. With regard to Islamic terror, there is a broad consensus among intelligence agencies and researchers. They identify two categories: the jihadis, who regard themselves as a vanguard, and their audience, which may reject terror but nevertheless regard their cause as just. A serious counter-terror campaign would therefore begin by considering the grievances , and where appropriate, addressing them, as should be done with or without the threat of terror’.
Put simply, we need a two-pronged approach: with regards to the jihadis themselves, we should deal with them as we would any other criminal – they should be arrested and brought to trial. To deal with the broader problem of why ideologies like al-Qaeda’s find so much sympathy in certain parts of the world, we must examine and address the legitimate grievances many around the world hold against the West. Bush and Blair like to paint a picture of a grand conflict between “values” and ideology – freedom vs. oppression, democracy vs. dictatorship, civilisation vs. barbarism – but this apocalyptic showdown is a fiction; it doesn’t exist. As Chomsky writes:
`The senior CIA analyst responsible for tracking Osama bin Laden from 1996, Michael Scheuer, writes that “bin Laden has been precise in telling America the reasons he is waging war on us. None of the reasons have anything to do with our freedom, liberty, and democracy, but have everything to do with U.S. policies and actions in the Muslim world…A Pentagon advisory Panel concluded a year ago that “Muslims do not `hate our freedom,’ but rather they hate our policies,” adding that “when American public diplomacy talks about bringing democracy to Islamic societies, this is seen as no more than self-serving hypocrisy.”‘
Blair uses the construct of a “global” enemy and an ultimate showdown between two conflicting ideologies to justify the criminal aggressions the UK has perpetrated around the world. In this respect, it is fitting that he compares terrorism to “radical Communism” – both have been used as excuses for campaigns of terror, support for brutal dictatorships and the militarisation of society to insane levels.
Blair repeatedly draws the distinction between “hard” and “soft” power. He advocates the use of both – the alternative, says Blair, is a catastrophic “retreat” that will merely “postpone” the conflict with radical Islamism. But the important distinction is not between “hard” and “soft” power, but between what is legal and what is not. That is the most important distinction. For Blair, the invasion of Iraq was an example of the use of “hard” power, and he tries to defend it on those terms. In reality, whether “hard” or “soft”, the important fact is that the invasion of Iraq was illegal. It was a crime, an aggression, and moreover was a crime that was opposed by the vast majority of the world. That Blair has the gall to talk about working “in alliance with others” after treating the authority of the UN with such contempt and undermining it almost to the point of its collapse is amazing.
According to the government’s `Defence Vision`, the key role of British foreign policy and defence establishment is to `Defend…the United Kingdom and its interests.’ According to the government’s Strategic Defence Review (.pdf) (SDR) of 1998, `there is today no direct military threat to the United Kingdom or Western Europe. Nor do we foresee the re-emergence of such a threat.’ Since even Blair admits terrorism cannot be defeated by “conventional means”, that leaves just one purpose for the second biggest defence budget in the world – defending advancing UK interests abroad. What are those interests? The SDR refers to `vital economic interests’ that are `not confined to Europe’. Specifically, the UK has `particularly important national interests…in the Gulf. Oil supplies from the Gulf are crucial to the world economy’. It is in our interests, apparently, to ‘support…the international order’. The SDR advocates using `all the instruments at our disposal’ – including the `military’ – to `pursue our interests’.
It is clear that Britain’s armed forces are not being used for `defence’ (or even, as Tony Blair posits, for “security in the broadest sense”). It is, on reflection, a profound propagandistic achievement that spending on our military is labelled the “defence budget”. That the branch of government responsible for maintaining our weapons of war is labelled the “Ministry of Defence” is an exercise in doublespeak comparable with Orwell’s `Ministry of Love’. What we have in Britain is a Ministry of War, led unquestionably by Tony Blair. The Prime Minister has undoubtedly pursued policies that have made British citizens less secure, both by increasing the threat of terrorism and by leading us further down the paths to nuclear war and environmental catastrophe. The “Ministry of Defence” wants (.pdf) Britain’s armed forces to be able to fight either three small foreign wars simultaneously or one large one, which `could only be concievably undertaken alongside the US’. “In other words”, as George Monbiot writes, “our “defence” capability is now retained for the purpose of offence. Our armed forces no longer exist to protect us. They exist to go abroad and cause trouble.”
Blair’s “controversial” foreign policy is a recipe for devastating war and the further erosion of international law. It has, predictably, resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people. He finished the speech by saying he looks “forward to the debate” about the future of British foreign policy. Of course, the time for “debate” would have been before Blair lied the country into an illegal war, and before he decided to ignore international law and the Non-Proliferation Treaty by renewing Trident. The time for debate is over; what we need now is an intervention. Not the imperialist kind that Bush and Blair are so familiar with, but rather a democratic intervention by the people to put a stop to the warmongering that has left us all complicit in Bush and Blair’s aggression, terrorism and murder.
Cross-posted at The Heathlander