Utopians Launch Drive for
Hemispheric Military Force
by Gretchen SmallThanks to U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the Russellite utopians finally got their long-sought proposals for the creation of a supranational military force to police the Western Hemisphere, placed officially on the agenda of hemispheric policy discussions. Opening the Fifth Defense Ministerial of the Americas in Santiago, Chile on Nov. 19, Rumsfeld laid out two initiatives for the creation of regional military forces, one maritime, the other a broader "peacekeeping and stability" force. With Orwellian Newspeak, Rumsfeld argued that thus violating national sovereignty is required to re-establish "effective sovereignty" over the "ungoverned areas" of the Hemisphere which provide the bases from which narco-terrorists, hostage takers, and arms smugglers destabilize democratic governments.
The utopians have been trying to get a regional military force created for decades, but Ibero-American nationalists and sane U.S. traditionalists would never tolerate serious discussion of such madness. A senior Defense Department official accompanying Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in Santiago—the delegation was headed by Assistant Secretary of Defense Peter Rodman, after Rumsfeld flew off to attend the NATO summit in Prague—insisted to reporters that, this time, "We have done a lot of homework ahead of time.... [We've] put some serious thought into it, and looked into some serious resourcing issues," and have had extensive inter-agency discussions to come up with "real substantive proposals" on how to set up "broader regional capabilities."
The "ungoverned areas" being discussed as targets for potential intervention range from Colombia and Haiti, to the so-called Triple Border area where Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay meet. Ecuador is being eyed as a good spot to establish the precedent of a multinational force policing the region, especially after newly elected President Lucio Gutiérrez suggested during his pre-election visit to Washington, that he might invite in such a force to "protect" Ecuador's border with Colombia. Most lunatic of all, are the hints that a supranational force could be deployed in the gigantic drug-infested favelas (slums) of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, Brazil!
No decision was taken at the Santiago meeting on the Rumsfeld initiatives, but none was expected. The discussion was viewed from the outset as a stepping stone toward the Organization of American States' (OAS) Special Conference on Hemispheric Security, scheduled to be held in Mexico in May 2003. It is that meeting, involving the foreign ministers of the region, where the "definitive" agreements on radical changes in the "architecture" of hemispheric security are supposedly to be reached.
Blundering Along
When the Defense Ministerial "process" was launched in July 1995 in Williamsburg, Virginia, EIR warned that what lay behind the project—ostensibly consisting solely of bi-annual meetings of the defense ministers of the Americas—was the intent of a bunch of utopian nuts, centered around Wall Street's Inter-American Dialogue and its then-Senior Fellow Luigi Einaudi, to establish the military side of the supranational "regional governance architecture" to which they wished to subject the Americas. Einaudi was the Godfather of the OAS's 1991 "democracy" clause, which justifies the abrogation of sovereignty in the name of an alleged collective right to intervention for "democracy," a principle now enshrined in the Inter-American Democratic Charter, adopted on Sept. 11, 2001. Einaudi maintains direction of this project from his post as OAS Deputy Secretary General.
In October 1995, U.S. statesman Lyndon LaRouche exposed the fantasy-ridden incompetence of the Defense Ministerial project as a whole, in a Presidential campaign document, The Blunder in U.S. National Security Policy. This project, LaRouche wrote, is a Hobbesian piece of "utopian, sociological trash," so amateurish that it could "have originated in a wine-and-marijuana party which a group of social workers held someplace in Virginia's Fairfax County." Any policy that violates the principle of the modern sovereign nation-state, anywhere in the world, threatens the security of the United States, LaRouche warned (see Documentation). He elaborated how any proposal to hand areas of nations over to any supranational or other external agency (e.g., non-governmental organizations), will only create regions of "extra-territoriality," where terrorist and separatist operations will thrive—exactly the result the utopians now claim they are trying to prevent.
In 1995, the premise of the regional defense initiative was that the Ibero-American militaries should be downsized and subjected to the kind of "democratic controls" outlined in the bible of the Anglo-American "democracy" crowd, Samuel Huntington's fascist The Soldier and the State.[1] The argument was, that this could be done, because security threats to the region had disappeared with the end of the Cold War. Even the activities of "insurgent and guerrilla forces" were diminishing in Ibero- America, it was stupidly said. The very concept of "narco- terrorism" was rejected, dismissed as an invention of "militarists."
With the post-Sept. 11, 2001 utopian drive for world empire, the same crew, acting as if it had come upon a great discovery, has declared terrorism to be the greatest threat to mankind, demanding new security arrangements. The same people who argued that the national militaries must be dismantled—and who implemented that policy in every country that bowed to the pressure—now cry that a supranational military force is required, because the national militaries in the region lack the resources and capabilities to take on the crises. Deliberately weakened national governments unable to exercise "effective sovereignty" over the entirety of their territories, are told they have no choice but to call in foreign troops.
Go After the Generating Principle!
LaRouche warned in his Blunder document that the approaching financial firestorm constituted the greatest security threat facing the Americas and the world. What do those who dismissed his warning then, have to say now, as they watch the once-rich nation of Argentina disintegrate? Is the same firestorm not now consuming their nation, too—including the United States?
Is not that firestorm also responsible for having created the "ungoverned areas" spreading across Ibero-America in the first place? Is it not the policy of "dismantling of the centralized economies" of the region—as Einaudi hailed International Monetary Fund policy in 1996—which so weakened the nation-states of the region, that they could not ensure "effective sovereignty"? Is that not the declared aim of the dogma of free trade and democracy, a dogma still repeated blindly in every capital of the Americas?
And what about the friendly negotiations held in the south of Colombia in 1999 and 2000 between the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC)—the largest terrorist drug cartel in the Americas—and New York Stock Exchange President Richard Grasso, America Online founder Jim Kimsey, and other "legitimate" businessmen? In an unparalleled "democratic" gesture, Grasso invited FARC "Supreme Commander" Manuel Marulanda to come "walk the floor of the New York Stock Exchange" with him! Are not those the very policies responsible for turning Brazil's favelas into the "lawless urban protectorates" which the utopians argue require multinational intervention?
The policy is, as LaRouche put it in 1995, utterly insane. No multinational force could conceivably stop the destruction enveloping greater and greater areas of the Americas, under these policies. The only possible exception, might be the deployment of a regional commando force to help tough-talking U.S. Chicken-hawks such as Secretary Rumsfeld find the guts to capture the FARC's partner, Richard Grasso, and reestablish U.S. "effective sovereignty" over the greatest "ungovernable area" in the Americas: Wall Street.
Another Santiago Special
Rumsfeld spoke softly in Santiago, with a gleam in his eye, insisting he was merely putting forward two "suggestions" for discussion: 1) "an initiative to foster regional naval cooperation," which "could potentially include cooperation among coast guards, customs, and police forces"; and 2) an initiative to "explore the possibility of integrating" the specialized peacekeeping capabilities existing in the region "into larger regional capabilities—so that we can participate as a region in peacekeeping an stability operations." He specified in an interview with the Chilean daily El Mercurio, that such a force would target the "unoccupied parts of countries" where terrorists and others operate. He cited Colombia's "difficult situation," and linked the proposal to similar efforts under way in Yemen, Somalia, and the Philippines.
The Rumsfeld-Rodman offensive was backed up by the delegation from Queen Elizabeth II's satrapy of Canada, headed by its Deputy Defense Minister, the eerily named Margaret Bloodworth. Bloodworth announced that Canada would be joining the Inter-American Defense Board, and called for the creation of a "permanent hemispheric body to promote military cooperation and to provide the OAS with military advice on defense and security." The latter has been the hobby-horse of the utopian crowd for years, as a means to transform the OAS from its proper role as a consultative forum for allied sovereign nations and their respective military forces, into a supranational entity deploying its own military force. Canada also talked up the need to develop a regional rapid deployment force (RDF) to operate under the banner of the United Nations.
The hosts of the meeting, President Ricardo Lagos and Defense Minister Michelle Bachelet Jeria of Chile, gave lip service to sovereignty, and the need for "diversity" in the ways in which countries participate in international defense projects. But, by endorsing the supposed need for a new military structure for the region, and championing the urgency of codifying the past ten years of erosion of sovereignty into a new Hemispheric Security Charter, Chile has once again opened the door to an Anglo-American assault on the continent. Pressed as to whether Chile backed the creation of an international military force, Bachelet was evasive, saying only that "this is not something which Chile has been developing as an idea."
Bolivia's Defense Minister, Freddy Teodovich Ortíz, representing his President, Inter-American Dialogue leader Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, distinguished himself as the only Ibero-American representative present—publicly, in any case—to argue, as a matter of principle, that under globalization, sovereignty has been replaced by a right to collective intervention, cloaked under an alleged responsibility to protect human rights.
A Military for the FTAA?
The U.S.-Canada initiative for a regional military force is no mere "suggestion," as Rumsfeld pretended. In the Spring 1996 issue of Joint Forces Quarterly, Einaudi formulated the "suggestion" more bluntly: The only way to head off U.S. unilateral interventions into the region, he threatened, was for the Ibero-Americans to give up their opposition to the formation of a multinational regional force—a statement akin to "suggesting" that someone commit suicide, to avoid being killed. (Einaudi's threat was published in a special issue of the magazine dedicated to the Americas, the centerpiece of which was an attack on Lyndon LaRouche, for EIR's book, The Plot To Annihilate the Armed Forces and Nations of Ibero-America. Ironically, the Quarterly accused LaRouche of propagating baseless "conspiracy theories" about an anti-Ibero-American military bias in U.S. policy.)
Sources at the U.S. Army War College reported in early December that the proposal for a regional intervention force is being talked up by both honchos of the Bush Administration's Ibero-American policy team, former Assistant Secretary of State Otto Reich (currently a special envoy to the region), and John Maisto at the National Security Council.
The most elaborate proposal for such a force available in the public domain, was authored by a professor in the Department of National Security and Strategy of the U.S. Army War College, Col. Joseph Núñez. The paper is featured on the War College website under the indigestible title, "A 21st Century Security Architecture for the Americas: Multilateral Cooperation, Liberal Peace and Soft Power."
This is wild-eyed Bertrand Russell/H.G. Wells world-government stuff. Núñez proposes that the model for the regional force be the joint Canadian-U.S. unit operating during World War II, called the First Special Service Force (FSSF). By the end of the war, the force was hailed for having become "an individuality, a separate entity that was neither Canadian nor U.S., but just plain Special Service Force." Citing the FSSF as "the prototype of the world police of that world community which has for so long been the dream," Núñez urges that new FSSFs become "the cornerstone for Hemispheric security cooperation in the 21st Century."
It gets weirder. He proposes that two FSSFs, of 5-6,000 men each, be created for starters. One, the FSSF-North, would be made up of combat troops from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) countries—the United States, Mexico, and Canada. Although it would ostensibly operate under a new OAS Security Council (which has yet to be created), he specifies that the FSSF-N would actually be commanded by a brigadier general from the United States, and function operationally under the U.S. Northern Command. The Brazilians would head up the FSSF-South, which would draw its core troops from Brazil, Argentina, and Chile. The primary role of the FSSF units would be to serve on missions within the Western Hemisphere, until such time as other FSSF brigades be formed, which then could deploy globally under the UN banner.
Núñez's timetable is ambitious: Create and staff the new OAS Security Council and structure by Jan. 1, 2004 (Núñez specifies that Canada, the United States, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, and Chile would be designated the "permanent six" members of such a council); have FSSF-N and FSSF-S operable by Oct. 1, 2004; ensure that both FSSFs are properly filled, provisioned, and trained, to be fully prepared to deploy within the Americas on any potential mission by Oct. 1, 2005; get other such brigades in operation by Oct. 1, 2006.
Why the rush? Núñez echoes a study produced by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in 1999, Thinking Strategically About 2005: The United States and South America, which argues that a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) requires a regional military structure to enforce it. Núñez, in fact, surfaced a similar proposal for a NAFTA military force in 1999. The proposal, reportedly contained in an Army War College monograph titled, "A New United States Strategy for Mexico," caused a scandal when it was reported in the Toronto Star in September 1999.
For all his talk about "soft power," "strategic restraint and reassurance," and not imposing anything unwanted upon U.S. "allies" in the Americas, Núñez has been deploying around the continent with Einaudi's mafioso message: Either you support a multinational force, or you'll get unilateral U.S. intervention.
The big problem faced by the utopian nuts, is that neither the Brazilian nor Mexican militaries will accept such schemes. "If Brasilia does not come up with a significant role in aiding regional security," Núñez threatened in his paper, "there will be major negative consequences."
No military provokes the anger of this crowd like that of Mexico, however. Army War College people are promoting any scandal they can find against it, to break its "institutionalized policy of non-intervention," the which they denounce as "feudal," "a relic of the 19th Century," etc. Mexican President Vicente Fox and Foreign Secretary Jorge Castañeda want to change that policy, but it will take more scandals against the military to break its resistance to the policy, Núñez wrote.
Reality, however, has a way of disrupting the schemes of madmen. These fools still argue that "new defense" policy is necessary to defend the "new economy," long after the "new economy" has crumbled into dust. Rumsfeld even reportedly promised substantial sums for those who backed up his project. Was there no little child present to ask—as the Defense Secretary imperiously walked the streets of Santiago, stark naked—whether the money actually exists?
[1] The term fascist is not used lightly. In The Soldier and The State, Harvard's Huntington, the guru of the demilitarization school which EIR dubbed "The Plot," held up the German generals, who opted in 1933 to permit Adolf Hitler's rise to power in Germany, as the model of "professional" military officers. He abhorred the German generals who rebelled against Hitler in 1944, only less than he despised Gen. Douglas MacArthur, that great representative of the American intellectual tradition whom Huntington denounced as "a deviant," for his emphasis "on the moral and spiritual aspects of war and the importance of the citizen-soldier."
For Huntington, the soldier's mission is only to kill on order. "The superior political wisdom of the statesmen must be accepted as a fact. If the statesman decides upon war which the soldier knows can only lead to national catastrophe, then the soldier, after presenting his opinion, must fall to and make the best of a bad situation," he wrote. "The commanding generals of the German army in the late 1930s, for instance, almost unanimously believed that Hitler's foreign policies would lead to national ruin. Military duty, however, required them to carry out his orders: some followed this course, others forsook the professional code to push their political goals. General MacArthur's opposition to the manner in which the government was conducting the Korean War was essentially similar. Both the German officers who joined the resistance to Hitler and General MacArthur forgot that it is not the function of military officers to decide questions of war and peace." Samuel P. Huntington, The Soldier and The State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1957; p. 77.
