While the three sections of the current issue - n. 43 - (Quadrante, Analisi
and Elementi del contesto geopolitico) are dedicated to the war in Iraq, future
issues will go on to look at the question of new pacifism, with a debate on
the Movements, their themes for action and their social and political reach.
“Giano” is also pleased to present the supplement “L’Islam
dopo l’11 settembre. Le opinioni e le informazioni” (Islam
after September 11th. Opinions and information) edited by the Islam expert
Francesca Corrao, who has put together the proceedings of a conference
held at Mains, where experts applied their knowledge to the problems of
the moment.
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Enzo Santarelli, Global
imperialism and peoples’ resistance (an Interview by Ivano
di Cerbo)
Giano poses a number of questions on the current international situation
for one of Italy’s most important contemporary historians, Enzo
Santarelli. After the first Gulf War Santarelli carried out decisive work
on gathering and reconstructing the facts and identifying responsibilities.
In this article he deals with three main points.
The first is a confirmation of his 1991 theory of the “formation
of a relatively new model of global imperialism in a phase of transition
from one era to another”. Santarellli clarifies this concept with
a special focus on the “revolution, in a fundamentalist sense, of
broad sections of the wealthier classes and of US academics themselves”.
He then looks at the crisis within the UN and the European Union, both
of which have been “seriously compromised” - the former by
a “knife in the back wielded by the US in their (unsuccessful) attempt
to gain approval for their attack on Iraq, the latter by internal divisions
caused by pro-American governments.
The third point for consideration is the ambiguity of the Italian government
, whose support for the US was masked by a “no war” declaration,
that did not conform to the political and social requirements of the nation.
Santarelli also makes some important considerations on the peace movement
as it reforms “from below” with mass lay and Catholic participation
that gives reason to hope for the future isolation of the forces of war.
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Vincenzo Strika, The USA heads for
a clash of civilizations. Thoughts on the world of Islam
In the Nineties, with the collapse of the Palestinian peace
process, an uneasy search for unity began in the Arab world. In the Iraqi
area, the embargo was gradually bypassed, and trade and exchange between
Iraq and the other Arab nations was consolidated with the Baghdad agreement
in June 2001. The Americans used the start of the second Intifada and
September 11th as their reason to declare a “war against terrorism”
. In strategic theory and military practice this became a preventive war
with no limits in time and place: an “infinite” war which
first struck and devastated Afghanistan and then, with no clear, proven
connection, Iraq.
But - points out Strika - “rather than extinguishing terrorism,
the Iraq crisis and war has had exactly the opposite effect” provoking
massive popular protest throughout the entire Arab-Islamic world.
This is an area that is already in great upheaval and few of its actors
will be willing to accept a worse “American order” than that
which followed the Gulf war. Meanwhile the US has now got Syria in its
sights and may soon be including Saudi Arabia and Egypt in the “Axis
of Evil”. “It is not unthinkable - concludes the author -
that the present situation may lead to a new Arab and perhaps Muslim order
that could attempt to create at least some form of economic unity. Something
that history requires”.
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Giulio Girardi, No to war, no to
deception
Popular opposition to war and in particular to US warmongering, which
will grow to create a “Superpower of Peace“ that is perfectly
aware that deception is an integral part of war itself. This is the concept
that the author has developed from his intense pacifist activity. It will
contribute to the growth of a pacifist conscience and a popular repudiation
of war, with an inherent rejection of deception. A link will therefore
be created between the demand for peace and the demand for truth on the
war. To this end Girardi lists the greatest lies of the the war against
Iraq, underlining the “intellectual and moral addiction of many”
to what he defines as the system of “modern slavery”.
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Angelo Baracca, Some initial thoughts
on the war and its weapons
The war on Iraq is a war for oil and for world domination
imposed through preventive military force in the interests of the military-industrial
complex. It also has the aim of weakening Europe. A rift now exists between
the Washington-London and the Paris-Bonn axes, with the dollar and the
Euro and the two industrial-military complexes competing with each other.
The future developments of this situation are extremely worrying and absolutely
unforeseeable. A joint nuclear project between Paris and Bonn may be set
up, which could then develop links with Russia, China and India.
Meanwhile it appears plausible that the US has already developed “Fourth
Generation” mini-nukes and tested or even used them in past conflicts,
thus wiping out the distinction between conventional and nuclear war.
Washington strategy is violating every international law and treaty: not
only the UN Charter, but also the NPT, the CTBT the ANM and the Conventions
on Chemical and Bacteriological Weapons.
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Domenico Di Fiore, “American
values”
After September 11th, sixty respected US academics signed a “Letter
from America”, in which they expressed their most profound thoughts
on God, on values, on war. Why - they asked - were we the target for the
terrorists? The answer was clear to them: we, our people, our liberal
democracy represent an ideal of justice and human harmony that the forces
of Evil cannot tolerate. Their attack on the Twin Towers was, in their
minds, an attack on the foundations of the civil society to which all
mankind aspires. Therefore to fight terrorism in the name of those values
means fighting for the whole of humanity so that peace, justice and democracy
may triumph. This approach through syllogism is not unique in the cultural
and political history of the USA, but is specific to the Liberal tradition
established after the second World War as the only possible “theory
of good government”, with a secondary use as a “just war”
doctrine. According to our eminent academics, no wars have been more just
than those fought in the last dozen years: those fought for the defense
of human rights, those fought to punish a reprobate, those fought to export
liberal democracy, “good government” that is by its own definition,
the very negation of war.
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Angelo Michele Imbriani, “Unilateralism”,
its false critics and underlying reasons
Contrary to popular belief, there is no real divergence between “unilateralists”
and “multilateralists” in the US today. There never really
has been: there are clear elements of continuity between Clinton’s
international policy and that of the present US government. The prevailing
unilateralism (a more correct term would actually be ‘Imperialism’)
is reflected throughout the democratic liberal political and intellectual
sphere in a completely manipulative and utilitarian pseudo-multilateralism.
Both sides deny the UN or any other international institution any independent
sovereignty, and US policy cannot therefore be conditioned. The most authoritative
US analysts have emphasized the distance between Europe and the US on
this issue. Their interpretations, however, elude the underlying reasons
for US unilateralism/imperialism based on the critical economic conditions
of the nation and the acute crisis in American Superpower influence. This
has made it absolutely imperative for the US to control resources that
are becoming increasingly scarce in an era that has witnessed the collapse
of the Fordist myth of unlimited development.
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Achille Lodovisi, Models and scenarios
of an “asymmetric war”
The author quotes Chalmers Johnson when he describes the USA as a “victim
of its own economic contradictions” whose “armed forces have
a fatal tendency to take the place of any other foreign policy tool”,
a country where militarism creates its own impetus of interests, mentality
and culture inclined to war. Lodovisi sees the attack on Iraq as the upshot
of the military politics (and militarization of politics) “perfected
by Cheney and Powell between 1989 and 1993”, “maintained to
all extents and purposes under Clinton” and “put into practice
in the war against Yugoslavia”. The “Kosovo Model” was
then absorbed into a general strategy linked to the name of D. Rumsfeld.
One of the key points of this strategy is the concept of “asymmetric
war” that works on the gap in “dissimilar strength”,
or what is in effect the USA and a lesser power, or movement or Stateless
power.
The central, analytical section of this essay is dedicated to the explanation
of this concept, of the strategies that accompany it and of its potential
consequences. The author concludes that a “philosophy of conflict”
and the “variety of operational methods” of the military power
of the USA could lead our planet into a “holistic delirium of conflict
ruled by the ‘law of the jungle’, with unimaginable human
and economic costs”.
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Giuseppe Bronzini, Objection to
the war and democracy: restoration or the forerunner of a new “legality”?
There are two theoretical interpretations of objection to war; the first
is “liberal” and formal-democratic, the second sees it as
a taste of a new and more authentic democratic legality that is to come.
With the current crisis in international law and in particular the impotence
of the UN in the face of the ascendancy of historical global, military
and other dynamics, these two lines of thought do not stand in contradiction
but can join and mingle. Both adopt the same stance of resistance to the
creation of an international system centered on US unilateralism, and
to the damage that Washington’s strategy is causing to the coexistence
of geopolitical areas, cultures, religions and historically diverse identities
which are obliged to resolve their differences by peaceful means.
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Orsola Casagrande, Blair’s
post-war political downfall
This article looks at the Hillsborough meeting between Bush and Blair
held on April 7th and 8th last, which “turned out to be a political
boomerang” for the British Prime Minister. The clearest outcome
was the US rejection of Blair’s proposals for a central UN role
in Iraq after the Anglo-American coalition victory, for a renewed Israel-Palestine
peace process and for new efforts to mend the divisions between the great
nations of Europe. Casagrande, brings us to the total failure of British
politics when she analyses the domestic front: the isolation of New Labour,
the leftward shift of the Unions, the gradual reinforcement of anti-war
public opinion, the growth of active pacifism to unprecedented proportions.
British politics and society now appear to be marked by deep fractures.
One inglorious victory and some dubious advantages on the oil and Iraqi
reconstruction front will not be enough to mend them.
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Andrea Panaccione, The disillusions
of a constantly insecure identity
The American war against Iraq has dealt a hard blow not only to the odd
USA-Russia alliance against terrorism, but also to the future prospects
of a leading role for Moscow in international decision-making. This deterioration
of relations, which has dashed Russian hopes for a return to Superpower
status, was quite foreseeable. The National Security Strategy of September
2002 not only affirmed US aspirations to world dominance, but also included
“arrogant and scornful comments on present-day Russia”. Moscow’s
stance on the war wavered between open opposition, due to popular anti-americanism
and the obvious negative effects a war would have on Russia, and acceptance
of what was already accomplished or on the way to completion, dictated
by the hope for concessions and compensation. Above and beyond such inconsistencies,
problems concerning the identity of the country, typical of its culture
and mentality are becoming increasingly apparent and more serious.
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Tommaso Giovacchini, The “second
front” and the system of the base network
The American system of bases “is no longer held to be obsolete.
It has in fact returned to occupy a central position in the imperialistic
model put forward by the Department of Defense in Washington” and
in particular by those technicians defined in journalistic jargon as the
“chicken hawks”. The geographical area this article looks
at is that of the Far East and the southeast Asian “second front”
on the Pacific Ocean. Giovacchini focuses on the cases of Korea and the
Philippines. In the first area the military presence allows the US to
upgrade its pressure on North Korea as and when it likes, enabling the
Superpower to ignore both the conciliatory approaches of Seoul and the
requests of Pyongyang to bring things to the negotiating table. In the
southern archipelago the base system has been harshly re-introduced for
a number of reasons: the role of the Philippines in the international
geopolitical oil scenario, the obsessive perception of the “Muslim
threat” and the opportunity it provides to condition the internal
political conflicts of the area. The role of the bases is not purely military.
With an image taken from the Roman Empire the bases are like “legionary
garrisons in the barbarian world”.
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Pio d’Emilia, The Korean War
Game, somewhere between preventive action and “coercive diplomacy”
The global empire emerges. The neo-Feudalism envisaged by the
Bush administration is frantically pursuing new “mergers&acquisitions”
policies as if in an all-out spectacular Risiko game.
Still, despite the deliberate irresponsibility of Japan and her persistently
sycophantic role as a US garrison, and the “big thinking”
of Superpower, China, the Korean peninsular constitutes an uncertain,
indecipherable frontier. Embattled in the self-imposed dichotomy between
“Good and Evil”, the US administration seems unable to tackle
the new “nuclear deterrent” strategy implemented by the Pyong
Yang regime after the collapse of the 1994 Framework Agreement.
While Japan complacently persists in her historical amnesia, Korea is
awakening. Recent surveys indicate that the people in the south are no
longer obsessed with the “Communist threat”, profess dislike
for the US and favour normalization rather than containment. Unfortunately,
while endogenous Korean forces - both in the north and in the south -
are seeking long awaited reconciliation and reunification through engagement
and the “sunshine” policy, a Korea centered solution seems
to represent a major threat to the big players. Yet the time is ripe,
and a peaceful reunification may be around the corner. Unless, of course,
Nuclear Armageddon takes over, sparked off by arrogant stupidity or quite
simply by mistake.
