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BACK TO : The Bush Doctrine - Key Speeches & Analysis
Bush Doctrine vs self-determination by Fred Goldstein 
AN ATTEMPT TO TURN BACK HISTORY: BUSH DOCTRINE VS. SELF-DETERMINATION By Fred Goldstein The Bush administration is rushing ahead with plans for its unprovoked war of aggression against Iraq based on unsubstantiated charges repeated over and over again by its spokespeople. Their goal for the last year has been to transform the shock and outrage over the Sept. 11 disaster into a permanent state of pro-war psychology in the United States and worldwide that can be harnessed to support a campaign of "permanent war." But while the White House, Pentagon and the big-business media have managed to create this war psychology in the Congress and win a complete capitulation of the Democratic Party, their strategy is backfiring down below, among the people. Every poll shows declining support for the war. Reports from congressional offices around the country, Republican and Democrat alike, show e-mails, letters and phone calls running overwhelmingly against an assault. A growing number of labor unions are passing resolutions against the war. While George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, Paul Wolfowitz and Condoleezza Rice concoct imaginary threats to justify a war of conquest, the masses of people are experiencing the very real threats arising out of the growing economic crisis: layoffs, cutbacks in social services, retirement funds vanishing in the collapsing stock market, loss of medical coverage and growing poverty. While Washington pours forth a continuous stream of charges of "terrorism" and "weapons of mass destruction" against Iraq, the world watches as the Pentagon prepares a campaign of terror bombing that will kill thousands and assure the mass destruction of Iraqi cities and towns. BUSH'S BROADER PURPOSE With its intended war of "preemption" against Iraq, the Bush administration is engaged in a much broader purpose: a unilateral campaign to revamp the entire legal and political structure of international relations in the post-Soviet period, to reflect the absolute superpower domination of U.S. imperialism over the world. This campaign is directed first and foremost against the oppressed peoples of the world, but also against Washington and Wall Street's imperialist allies/rivals in Europe and Japan. The Bush administration has openly stated its goal in Iraq to be "regime change." Against all advice and pleadings, Bush has stubbornly refused to mute or disguise this goal of his intended military action. No matter how much the Iraqi government extends itself to comply with the demands of an inspections regime, the Bush administration dismisses in advance any prospect that such a regime could succeed. War plans are going ahead full steam. Plans for a military occupation and the establishment of a colonial-style puppet regime are openly discussed, even as the so-called debates go ahead, first in Congress and then in the United Nations Security Council. There is a clear political purpose behind this brazen assertion of the right to destroy the government of Saddam Hussein. The Bush administration is determined to demonstratively overturn the right of sovereignty, self- determination and self-defense of former colonial peoples. In Washington's New World Order, these rights have no place. Using the cover of the so-called "war against terrorism," Bush is promoting a conception that is nothing less than a brazen revival of the old rights of colonial powers. The rights of sovereignty and self-determination are to be openly eliminated and explicitly replaced by the superior right of U.S. imperialism to remove any regime that will not submit to its dictates. The right of regime change is directly and brutally counterpoised to the rights of sovereignty and self- determination of colonial and formerly colonial peoples. These rights of oppressed peoples arose out of the innumerable struggles of the 20th century that overturned the colonial powers' right of "regime change" at the cost of millions of lives and rivers of blood. To be sure, the Pentagon has overturned many governments in the past. It overthrew Maurice Bishop in Grenada, Manuel Noriega in Panama and Slobodan Milosevic in Yugoslavia, to name a few. But each one was overthrown under cover of some pretext and without referring to any generalized principle of Washington's right of "regime change." MARXIST VIEW OF LEGALITY The general Marxist view of legality in class society is that it arises out of the class struggle and reflects class and national relations. For example, in the United States in the mid-19th century it was illegal for three or more workers to gather for the purposes of discussing the formation of a trade union. Such behavior was regarded as an illegal conspiracy in restraint of trade. Only the class struggle established the right to organize and to force the bosses to engage in collective bargaining. In the same way the sovereignty and right of self- determination of oppressed peoples became inscribed in international conventions only after generations of anti- colonial struggle. The right of sovereignty of nation-states arose with the establishment of capitalism. But for centuries those rights belonged only to the oppressor states--feudal, capitalist and, in the modern era, imperialist. It was not until 1960, after many liberation and anti- colonial movements had either triumphed or were under way-- including the Cuban Revolution, the liberation movement against the French in Algeria, the struggles for independence in India, Palestine, Libya, Syria, Kenya, Indonesia, Malaya, Ghana, Guinea, Vietnam, Korea, Egypt and many others--that the right of self-determination for colonial peoples was even recognized. The United Nations was finally compelled to issue a document on Dec. 14, 1960, entitled "Declaration on Granting Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples" in which the right of sovereignty and self-determination was raised to the level of international principle. HOW SELF-DETERMINATION GOT ON THE AGENDA It was with the advent of the socialist revolutions and the national liberation struggles that the question of the sovereignty of oppressed peoples made its way onto the historical agenda. After the Bolshevik Revolution--the seizure of power by the workers and peasants of czarist Russia--V.I. Lenin amended Karl Marx's slogan "workers of the world unite" to "workers and oppressed peoples of the world unite." At its Second Congress in 1920, the Communist International reached out to the colonial peoples in an attempt to forge ties of solidarity and support between the workers' revolution and the struggle against imperialism. This congress enshrined the doctrine of an alliance aimed at breaking the stranglehold of imperialism over the colonies, through socialist support for national liberation. Later, after World War II, the socialist revolution triumphed in China and anti-colonial movements swept Asia, Africa and Latin America. Despite many mistakes on the part of the Soviet and Chinese leaderships relative to various national liberation struggles, the broad alliance between the socialist camp and the colonial and formerly colonial peoples held up, however imperfectly. Certainly, the imperialists did everything within their power to break it up. The USSR and China supported the Vietnamese struggle against the French and U.S. imperialists. The USSR gave decisive support to the Cuban Revolution at critical junctures. The socialist camp gave support to the struggle of the African National Congress against apartheid in South Africa and to other liberation fighters around the world, including SWAPO in Namibia, the MPLA in Angola, and Palestinians fighting the Israeli occupiers. They all relied heavily on material and political support from the socialist countries. Newly liberated countries suffering from centuries of underdevelopment could get technical training, education, commercial, financial and military support in Moscow before Mikhail Gorbachev became Communist Party general secretary, and in Beijing before President Richard Nixon's visit there in 1972. When the imperialists refused to support projects of national development, the socialist countries, despite their limited resources and their own desperate struggle to overcome imperialist blockade, often stepped up to supply necessary assistance. These projects were not like the investments by private capitalists that suck out profits from developing countries. What they built became the property of the newly liberated nation. The USSR helped Egypt build the Aswan dam when the United States refused. It also built the first steel mill in India. It tried to help the Bolivian government break the stranglehold of U.S. mining companies by supplying a tin refinery--an effort that was overturned by the United States. In general, the military prowess and material support of the socialist camp, particularly the Soviet military and economic power, formed a shield that limited the aggression of the U.S., European and Japanese imperialists against the many national liberation struggles and newly liberated countries. It helped them hold on to their national sovereignty in the face of the Pentagon and the CIA. The USSR was the first place on earth where the working class came to power for a sustained period. This revolution took place in the impoverished capitalist country of czarist Russia, which in 1917 was still emerging from feudalism. Despite its poverty, despite losing 12 million people in the ensuing civil war and being blockaded by 14 imperialist powers, despite losing 20 million people later in the Nazi invasion during World War II, and despite having to face the Pentagon, NATO and Japanese imperialism--the USSR managed to become the second-greatest power in the world. Its tremendous development was based on state ownership of the means of production, a planned economy, a state monopoly on foreign trade and production for society, not for profit. Without capitalist bosses or private property, it managed to inaugurate the space age, build the biggest construction projects in world history, defeat the Nazi war machine, and show the world that society without capitalism can make great strides, even in an underdeveloped and impoverished country. But 70 years of unrelenting military, political and economic pressure enabled the imperialist camp to bring about a deterioration in the leadership of the USSR that resulted in the alienation of the workers from the government and opened the door to capitalist counter-revolution. The collapse of the USSR and Eastern Europe, plus China's retreat from its position of international solidarity with the oppressed peoples, removed a mighty prop of support for the sovereignty and right of self-determination of the peoples of the Third World. THINK THEY CAN GO BACK TO COLONIAL ERA The U.S. ruling class emerged from this historic struggle with a massive military machine and a worldwide apparatus of subversion and political control. The Bush administration and the Cheney-Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz grouping represent those elements within the capitalist state and the ruling class who regard this new situation as the opportunity to go back to the old colonial era that existed before the rise of the socialist camp and the national liberation movements. The concepts of "pre-emption" and "regime change" being promoted under the guise of the "war against terrorism" are an attempt to codify, in international legal and political relations, the post-Soviet world relationship of class forces. Under this new doctrine, not only is the right of sovereignty and self-determination eradicated, but Washington retains the absolute right to dictate the new rules of international relations--whether in regard to the Geneva Conventions covering prisoners of war, the United Nations Charter on non-interference in the internal affairs of other governments, the Kyoto Accord on the environment, or the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, among many examples. But these dreams of world domination and a return to colonial times, like when the British imperialists decided to create Iraq and rule it as a colonial power, are just that: dreams and delusions. They are created in Pentagon war rooms, in the Foggy Bottom of the State Department, and in the right-wing think tanks. Whatever the military outcome of the U.S. war effort, the Iraqi people will never accept going back to the days of colonialism. Nor will the peoples of the Middle East ever accept such a counter-revolutionary overturn. The minds that have conceived this plan--the Cheneys, the Rumsfelds and the Wolfowitzes--have been shaped in an era of retreat and setback for the socialist camp and the world liberation struggle, beginning with Reagan. Their entire program is predicated upon the assumption that the masses of people, in the United States and abroad, will passively accept this new world order without struggle and resistance. But all of history shows that repression and reaction breed resistance, rebellion and revolution. When reaction is applied worldwide, resistance is bound to grow worldwide. Posted: October 29, 2002 |