The United States and the World After 2000, Nicholas Guyatt, Zed Books, Pluto Press, MELANIE SJOBERG, September 11, terrorist attacks, terrorism">
US policies create terrorism
Another American Century? The United States and the World After 2000
By Nicholas Guyatt
Zed Books, London/Pluto Press Sydney 2000
258 pages $27.95 (pb)
REVIEWED BY MELANIE SJOBERG
Widespread outrage and consternation among the US people followed the horror of the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington on September 11. Capitalist media commentators and US spokespeople suggested that the attacks were not only unprecedented, but had taken the US administration by surprise.
Nicholas Guyatt's Another American Century?, an insightful analysis of US foreign policy written a year before the attacks, shows that such attacks were a predictable consequence of US policy.
Guyatt's book does not promise to be prophetic, but in the wake of the September attacks its honesty is confronting. He sets out to assess the relationship between the US and the rest of the world by studying the effects of US foreign policy during the 1990s under the administration of President Bill Clinton.
The US was perceived to be at the centre of global power and success and this fed Clinton's rhetoric that encouraged Americans to look to the "next American century" as their pinnacle.
The Clinton administration regularly attempted to portray US actions as "selfless, dedicated to the good of others". In the 1999 State of the Union address, Clinton stated that "no nation in history has had the opportunity and the responsibility ... to shape a world that is more peaceful, more secure and more free". These words are similar to recent speeches by US President George Bush propounding the US as the defender of all that is good and right.
Throughout Another American Century?, Guyatt offers examples to show the enormous gap between rhetoric and reality.
Guyatt was inspired by the 1999 protests in Seattle and the flourishing anti-corporate movement that has challenged neo-liberal globalisation. The twin collaborators in managing structural adjustment, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, are identified as partners that have forced open the doors of Third World countries to Western investment, and are the major force behind the privatisation of these countries' state-owned assets.
Guyatt notes that the US has been a constant advocate of "free trade", resulting in major corporations such as Citicorp and Bankers Trust reaping up to 80% of their profits from overseas loans.
At the beginning of the 21st century, "US domination of the global economy is extensive and deep rooted", writes Guyatt. The consolidation of the "Washington Consensus" has enabled a free trade frenzy to open up more avenues for speculators, yet also enables intervention before financial collapses cause panic to spread, such as the US$40 billion bail-out of Mexico.
He points out that the US in effect chooses the head of the World Bank and the key IMF policy managers. Dissenters are few, with the media controlled by the corporate benefactors of US policy and US trade unions gripped by US nationalism. Despite this, retiring USAID administrator J. Brian Atwood attacked the US for creating a crisis in aid and development, arguing that when 10% of the world's population control 90% of its wealth, the poor cannot afford to buy anything.
The direct link between US military expansion and corporate profit is also explored. In 1999, the Pentagon requested an additional US$60billion per year to modernise. He points out that some US$70 billion of this per year flows directly into the coffers of major US corporations. In 1998, Lockheed Martin received US$12.3 billion, Boeing US$10.9 billion and General Electric US$1.2 billion. On top of that, as the world's largest arms suppliers, US companies receive a double kick-back through US military aid to Third World countries.
Calls by Bush for US unilateralism on the international stage are part of the US government agenda. Calls for an International Criminal Court were an attempt to establish a body that could investigate and prosecute human rights violations across national borders.
In rejecting the establishment of such a court, the US found itself and Israel in the company of so-called "rogue states" such as Iran and Iraq.
As US Senator Rod Grams announced, "The US will not cede its sovereignty to an institution that claims to have the power to override the US legal system and to pass judgement on US foreign policy action". This was followed by a warning that top US decision-makers could be hampered if they were held accountable for their actions beyond US shores.
Guyatt argues that the US aims to exempt itself from international standards that have been agreed on by most other governments. The reality of this unilateral approach was played out in the bombing of Afghanistan and now with the treatment of captives being held in detention at Guantanamo Bay.
Clinton's 1999 speech warned, "As we work for peace we must also meet threats to our nation's security, including increased dangers from outlaw nations and terrorism. We will defend our security whenever we are threatened". However, Guyatt challenges the idea that the US leads the "free world" or complies with a special responsibility to promote peace and justice. Clinton's assertion is only tenable if the disastrous effects of US foreign policy are ignored.
The contradictions in US foreign and military policy are exposed by showing that the identification of so-called rogue states was based on demonisation rather than using criteria that measures respect for human rights or democracy.
Guyatt points out that if these criteria were applied then many US allies, including Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia, should have also been targeted.
Bush uses the same framework in his "war on terrorism". Like Clinton, Bush only targets those states that refuse to kowtow to US interests whi;le keeping as allies tyrants like the dictators of Pakistan and Uzbekistan.
Guyatt argues that the relentless effort to demonise and isolate certain states has resulted in their civilian populations being subjected to great hardship, as in Iraq. He states that the US public is barely aware of the lethal impact of a decade of US sanctions on the Iraqi people, as they live in a state of siege.
According to Guyatt, the US administration has ignored the growing frustration of marginalised people throughout the globe, who are resentful at the enormous disparities of wealth and power protected by US military and economic power. For many of these people, terrorism seems the only answer to such overwhelming power.
US rhetoric drains terrorism of its political significance by selling the US people a story that terrorist acts are the actions of lunatic individuals and encourages the US public to not question US foreign and military policy and its effects.
It seems unbelievable that an author and student of US foreign policy could reach such conclusions without them also crossing the minds of leading think tanks and decision-makers in Washington.
The Seattle protests were a rude interruption to the arrogant triumphalism that was flowing through the US halls of power. Guyatt is encouraged by the protesters' ideas and values. He suggests that a major change in US policy toward social and economic change is needed but is vague about how this can come about.
From Green Left Weekly, April 24, 2002.
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