Widdowson über die Stärke/Schwäche der USA
Geschrieben von Andreas am 30. Juli 2003 22:54:03:
http://www.darkage.fsnet.co.uk/Newsletter.htm
THE COMING DARK AGE
Newsletter
June, 20031. INTRODUCTION
Welcome to all the people who recently signed up for the newsletter.
This month's edition contains some observations on the current standing
of the United States, plus a discussion of the whereabouts of Saddam
Hussein.
I welcome all comments, suggestions and contributions, especially the
latter. Please forward this newsletter to anyone you think might be
interested.
Marc Widdowson2. THE UNITED STATES IN WORLD HISTORY - A NEW ROMAN EMPIRE?
In the last few years, some commentators have been referring to the
United States as a hyperpower. Paul Kennedy, the historian and author
of 'The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers', said that he looked back at
his data of comparative military investment over the last five hundred
years, and found that no previous superpower has achieved such an
advantage over its nearest rivals. In his words, "nothing has ever
existed like this disparity of power; nothing."
President Bush's easy victory over Saddam Hussein seemed to confirm
this view. The American government said what it was going to do and
then went ahead and did it. Words like 'awesome' were used to describe
this display of political and military might.
Indeed, America's forces were pulling their punches. Precision bombs
delivered enormous firepower but to a limited range of carefully chosen
targets. Meanwhile, American ground troops dressed in body armour and
driving high technology fighting vehicles operated with near impunity
against the rabble-like Iraqi army with its feeble small arms. It was
like taking candy from a baby. People talked of the birth of a new
world empire.
Dark age theorists take a different view. We believe that the
commentators have been mistaking high explosive for genuine power and
authority. The ability to kill foreigners, even with extreme
efficiency, does not in itself constitute greatness as a civilisation.
The civilisations of the past have based their prowess on something
more than that. If we look at the broader picture, and correct for the
general progress of technology, we will find that the United States is
less impressive today than it was thirty years ago.
What is more, the period of American superpowerdom has come within an
overarching historical wave, comprising the rise and fall of what is
called western civilisation. America has caught the tail end of that
wave. Despite its huge talents and achievements, the world-historical
situation has prevented it from gaining as dominant a position as was
the lot of some earlier empires.
Let us consider some other facts about the United States and American
society.
In Missouri recently, the governor ordered every third light bulb in
government buildings to be unscrewed in order to save money. This is by
no means the only state fending off bankruptcy and resorting to
measures more reminiscent of some third world country. Kentucky has had
to let prisoners out early, while Oregon is paying teachers less than
their full salaries. More than half the states are cutting back their
commitments in health, education and social security.
The United States has the highest prison population in the world. The
numbers have trebled since 1990. The proportion of American citizens in
prison is five times the world average-over two million out of a total
population of 280 million. That means that roughly two percent of males
of working age are behind bars, and twice as many are on probation or
otherwise mixed up in the penal system. This is hardly the sign of a
healthy society.
The year 1992 was the fifth centenary of Christopher Columbus's first
voyage to America. The fourth centenary in 1892 had seen extravagant
celebrations, with street-namings and statues commemorating the Genoese
admiral. A hundred years later, the mood was very different as Columbus
was accused of genocide and corruption, and his claim even to have been
the first to reach America was called into question. Fierce protests
made the city of Denver cancel its Columbus Day parade, previously an
annual event, and the parade was not resumed in subsequent years. By
contrast, the 150th anniversary of Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto, in
1998, was widely hyped. The New York Times said that the book was an
'enduring masterpiece' and it called Marx-the inspiration behind both
Maoism and the failed experiment of the Soviet Union-one of the great
thinkers for the twenty first century.
Between 1992 and 1994, the United States attempted to restore order in
Somalia. The government of this country had collapsed in 1990, when
rebels ousted Mohammed Siad Barre. He was a typical African dictator
who had ruled Somalia for ten years. Since the rebels did not set up
any replacement administration, the country was in anarchy. Rival
'warlords,' i.e. former generals and politicians, were carving out
petty fiefdoms with private armies. It was an ugly situation, and the
several thousand Marines and Green Berets deployed to Somalia never got
on top of it. The Americans soon became the enemy for trying to round
up and detain the rebel leaders. Things reached their ugliest on the
night of 3-4 October 1993, when two Black Hawk helicopters were brought
down by rocket propelled grenades. Before the night was over, there
were nineteen American dead and eighty-four wounded. The decision to
pull out was made almost immediately. When the last Marines withdrew to
their landing craft several months later, they were followed down the
beach by a jeering mob. Billed as the world's one remaining superpower,
the United States was chased out of Somalia by a bunch of tee-shirt
wearing teenagers armed with dusty Kalashnikovs and baseball bats.
These observations paint a picture of America which is rather different
from that of a self-confident 'hyperpower.' They nevertheless present a
true picture of America's current standing in the world and of what the
twenty first century will bring. The obvious wealth and power of the
United States, and of western society in general, are based on an
illusion because they exist alongside huge problems, which in turn
threaten the whole edifice.
As my book 'The Coming Dark Age' will show these problems add up to a
pattern that has characterised every past society when it was in
decline. People may speak of a new American empire, either to praise it
or denounce it, but measured against the standards established by
history, America's empire is a degraded form of imperialism. This is
not an indictment of the United States, merely a reflection of the way
that history is running.
Furthermore, this pattern of decline is leading towards one of those
interruptions in history known as a dark age. The sheer number,
magnitude and intractability of our problems makes this conclusion
necessary. Future historians will regard the collapse of western
civilisation as predestined, for they will recognise in our time the
clearest signs of imminent disaster.3. WHERE IS SADDAM HUSSEIN?
The war in Iraq opened at dawn on 20 March with a limited strike by
cruise missiles and F-117 Nighthawks against 'a small number of command
and control targets.' That meant an attempt to decapitate the regime by
blowing up a compound that Saddam Hussein was believed to have just
entered. So, at this stage, it was thought that Saddam was still in
Baghdad.
A second strike took place on 7 April against a restaurant (al-Saah) in
the upmarket Mansour district of Baghdad. American agents (spies or
special forces) apparently saw Saddam and his son Qusay go into the
restaurant or the house next to it, with thirty other officials, for a
meeting. A B-1 aircraft was diverted to the area and flattened the
restaurant with four bombs. If correct, therefore, Saddam Hussein was
still in Baghdad at this stage, which was a few days before the city
finally fell.
One question is whether Saddam was actually killed in either of these
attacks. Supposedly not. He appeared on television shortly after the
first raid, and two days after the Mansour raid he turned up outside
the Adhamiya mosque in northern Baghdad, where he made a kind of
farewell speech to surprised local residents. It was suggested that
these appearances could have been by Saddam's well-known doubles. But
would they really have bothered, when Saddam was no longer in charge
and the war was obviously being lost?
Allegedly, MI6 said that Saddam had left the restaurant moments before
the raid, while a former chief of protocol for Saddam told the BBC that
the Iraqi leader was not even in Baghdad at the time of the strike.
General Tommy Franks, coalition forces commander, claimed that he had a
sample of Saddam's DNA and that it would be used to test remains found
in the Mansour bombing. On 4 June, the Americans went back for another
look, saying that previous searches had not been thorough enough.
Today (13 June), American officials said that they would be stepping up
the search for Saddam, with a new task force of Iraq experts sent over
from the Pentagon. This suggests that they now believe he survived the
attempts to kill him, and that they still believe he is in Iraq.
Saddam is supposed to have rented five thousand houses around Baghdad
that he could use as bolt-holes, moving between them and never staying
twice in the same place. Many analysts believe though that he would
have quit Baghdad and holed up in his home town of Tikrit, where he
would be protected by his most loyal followers.
Ahmed Chalabi, the head of the Iraqi National Congress, recently said
that Saddam is 'moving in an arc' around the River Tigris, and paying
out bounties to those who succeed in killing American soldiers.
However, few people believe that Chalabi's claims are objective or
trustworthy.
It is true that people tend to run for home when they are in real
trouble. It is also true that Saddam was quoted as telling foreign
visitors before the war that he had been born in Iraq and would die in
Iraq. But Saddam is nothing if not an expert survivor, with a massive
sense of self-preservation. Would he really hole up in Iraq, especially
in Tikrit-the most obvious place-to make a suicidal last stand?
In mid-April coalition officials were apparently fairly sure that
Saddam was still in Iraq. Some have suggested that he might be living
as a nomadic Bedouin out in the desert. Yet the really sensible thing
for Saddam would seem to have been to get out of the country
altogether, and hole up with friends somewhere that is not crawling
with American forces.
The ease with which Baghdad fell after the resistance in the southern
towns has rightly led people to suspect that a deal was done with Iraqi
leaders. They were allowed to escape in return for not putting up a
fight. This will never be admitted officially, but it has to be the
case. On 5 April, the US sent a patrol right into the heart of Baghdad
to test the situation. They were obviously not expecting any
resistance.
Nevertheless, it is highly unlikely, unthinkable even, that the deal
that led to the fall of Baghdad was made with Saddam Hussein. It is
more probable that it was made with top army commanders, and the
omission of their names from "Iraq's most wanted" has given fuel to
that suspicion.
Saddam was probably not allowed to flee Iraq, and so it would not have
been easy for him to get out during the war. Nevertheless, he could see
it coming for a long time. It seems likely that he would have had
contingency plans, perhaps developed years beforehand. Indeed, it is
almost certain that he had a variety of sophisticated schemes and that
one of them was duly implemented.
In May, US forces intercepted a lorry containing $500m worth of gold
bullion, heading for the Iraqi town of Qaim near the border with Syria.
This was said to be a staging post for the escape of top Iraqi
officials. It was also announced that Qusay Hussein had turned up at
the central bank hours before hostilities started and removed $1bn in
various different currencies -- although a significant amount of that
was said to have been recovered.
How useful would gold bullion and foreign currency be if Saddam were
sitting in Tikrit or a tent in the desert? Not very. It would be much
more useful, though, as a present to a foreign leader who happened to
accept Saddam as a guest.
Where could Saddam go? The most obvious place is Syria, where the
bullion was heading. Syria is an ally of Iraq. In the immediate
aftermath of the war, America directed some very threatening rhetoric
against Syria, so that it seemed as though it might be next on the
attack list. This included the accusation that it was sheltering wanted
Iraqis, although Saddam was not mentioned by name.
The Russians were also suspected as possibly ready to give Saddam
shelter. Russia and Iraq had developed friendly relations over the
previous decade, when Iraq was under western-imposed sanctions. On 7
April, the same day as the Mansour raid, American troops fired on a
convoy that contained Russian diplomats fleeing Baghdad for Syria. A
huge amount of disinformation surrounded this attack, which was
eventually deemed an 'accident,' but that is not very likely. There are
many reasons why the Americans could have wanted to send a warning to
the Russians, but one of them is certainly that they might have been
aiding Saddam's escape. At any rate, it turned out that he was not
aboard the convoy.
The rhetoric against the Syrians has now been turned way down. Perhaps
this is a sign that Syria has somehow managed to satisfy the US that
Saddam is not hiding there. As for Saddam's other neighbours, it is
unlikely that he would have been accepted in Iran, Kuwait or Saudi
Arabia, countries with whom he had fought. Nor is it likely that he
went to Turkey. The latter may not have supported the war, but it was
certainly not on Saddam's side. Nevertheless, if Saddam was going
anywhere, it would have had to be overland. The Americans had Iraqi
airspace and the waters of the Gulf well covered.
The Spectator's chess correspondent, Raymond Keene recently suggested
that Saddam might be in the autonomous Russian republic of Kalmykia.
Its idiosyncratic president, Kirsan Ilumzhinov, who is also president
of the international chess federation, seemed to come into a lot of
money in the late 90s, which he used to host lavish chess events. This
is despite the fact that Kalmykia is poverty-stricken. Kirsan also
developed a very close relationship with Saddam Hussein. It seems
plausible that the two facts might be related, and that Saddam bought
himself a retirement home in Kirsan's fiefdom. The way to Kalmykia from
Iraq lies through north-west Iran and Chechnya -- rugged, lawless
regions, which Saddam might just have been able to cross unnoticed.
In South Africa, meanwhile, rumours abound that Saddam has found refuge
in Cape Town. South Africa's president, Thabo Mbeki, was said by the
Iraqi ambassador to have been very supportive, along with many other
South African politicians. This would be a good hiding place. Far away
from the heat in the middle east, and Saddam's wealth would go a long
way here. It is difficult to know how Saddam got all the way to Cape
Town, but Syria might have served as a staging post.
So that is it. Inconclusive. But the US is offering a multi-million
reward for information leading to Saddam's arrest. Does anyone have any
other ideas?