Understanding the U.S. War State

by John McMurtry

“It is easy. All you have to do is tell the people they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.”
Herman Goering

Genocide used to be a crime without a name. Although the most heinous of all crimes, the concept was not introduced into international language until after World War 2. Until then, military invasion and destruction of other peoples and cultures masqueraded under such slogans as “progress” and “spreading civilisation”.

The tradition of misleading the American people by false pretexts for aggressive wars is an old one in U.S. history, but since the fascist interregnum war criminal invasions of other countries have not been accepted by public opinion. The U.S. under the control of the corporate war party now seeks to reverse this trend.

By dint of the permitted 9-11 plane attacks on the World Trade Centre, an open presidential blank-cheque has been granted by Congress for attacking third- world countries so as to occupy their countries and control their resources. The now known blueprint of Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and others written in September of 2001 as the “Project for the New American Century” is clear on the plan to “shape the international security order in line with American principles and interests”. Armed domination of the Gulf region “transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein”.

The U.S. state military invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq in under two years are expressions of this new supra-market policy. Before we pass over the pattern of facts at work as merely “realpolitik”, we should note that this armed-state project resembles fascism: not only in war criminal attacks on other countries in violation of international law, but in repudiating market relations to seize others’ valuable goods by armed force.

Facing Facts
As demagogic glorification of genocidal invasion once again escapes naming by a flood of falsehoods and projections onto the latest U.S. Enemy, we need to remind ourselves of facts that no mass medium once discussed from October of 2002 to March of 2003. As we lay bare the ruling deceptions here, we should keep in mind their unifying principle which is not seen. U.S. state justifications always project onto the designated Enemy what the U.S. security state is doing itself.

If it loudly condemns another weaker state’s “weapons of mass destruction”, “chemical and biological weapons”, “violation of international laws”, or “attempts to impose its will on the world by terror”, then we can deduce that this is exactly what the U.S. is planning more of, but is diverting attention from by accusing others. Test this underlying principle with every international accusation the U.S. makes next, and you will find that it is invariable confirmed.