Herman - Coalitions Of The Willing, Coerced, And Bribed

[Mark Pavlick]

>
>Coalitions Of The Willing, Coerced, And Bribed December 24, 2001
>By Edward Herman
>
>When the United States pummels tiny states like Grenada and Panama, 
>the U.S. media and public have no apparent embarrassment at the 
>imbalance of power and the bully-boy aspect of the incursions; in 
>fact, there is pride at super-Goliath beating up the mini- Davids.
>
>This rests in good part on the prior demonization of the victims, 
>which makes each action a "just cause," the self-appointed policeman 
>doing his moral duty. But it also rests on a blind chauvinism that 
>grips the populace as an irrational force whenever the United States 
>is attacked or insulted and "our boys" go into action, causing large 
>numbers to bring out the flags and yellow ribbons and rally behind 
>their leader.
>
>It is the same spirit that made it a no-no in this country for Bill 
>Maher to suggest on ABC's "Politically Incorrect" that sending off 
>cruise missiles from many miles away from target was not "brave." 
>That was an intolerable insult to our fighting men and women.
>
>It would also be intolerable to question whether the United States 
>NEEDS a "coalition" to help it work over some small country. It 
>didn't resort to any in its attacks on Grenada, Panama, or 
>Nicaragua, but it went to great pains to put up coalitions to 
>assault Iraq in 1991, Yugoslavia in 1999, and now once again 
>Afghanistan.
>
>Nobody in the mainstream media asks: Wasn't the U.S. military edge 
>over these small adversaries already great enough to allow it to do 
>the job without a coalition? Isn't this overkill and superbullying?
>
>Of course, an important part of coalition building by the United 
>States is based on the desire to give the appearance that its 
>unilateral actions really have wide support and that the actions 
>themselves are collective. This fools the imperial liberals, who are 
>anxious to be fooled.
>
>Thus, Robert Kuttner writes complacently that "the White House is 
>now pursuing a feverish multilaterialism...and may soon embrace 
>yesterday's conservative epithet 'nation building'" (American 
>Prospect, Nov. 5, 2001). Kuttner mistakes unilateralism with a 
>nominal multilateral cover for a genuine multilateralism that would 
>involve authority and decision-making beyond the boss. Kuttner also 
>assumes for no reason whatsoever that post-war humanitarian 
>intervention will be constructive and effective.
>
>The record on postwar "nation-building" in Nicaragua and Kosovo are 
>outside the orbit of his interest or knowledge; and although he is 
>well aware of Bush's unwillingness to spend money on nation-building 
>at home, imperial faith causes this liberal Democrat to assume that 
>even Bush will prove to be an overseas do-gooder.
>
>In reality, the U.S.-organized coalitions to attack Iraq, 
>Yugoslavia, and now Afghanistan, have been tightly controlled by the 
>United States, with the help of its lap-dog British ally; the two, 
>but mainly the United States, have done all the dirty work in Iraq, 
>and they ran the bombing show in the Yugoslav war despite a supposed 
>19-member coalition (NATO) at work there; and the same is true in 
>the Afghan war.
>
>A few countries support the United States because its leaders truly 
>believe in what it is doing, but many go along because of potential 
>negative consequences of failing to line up behind the hegemon, and 
>some leaders are bought. French president Mitterand admitted to 
>taking part in the 1991 Persian Gulf war to assure membership in the 
>"Club des Grands," and Italian Prime Minister Massimo D'Alema 
>explained that taking part in the Kosovo war was essential for Italy 
>to "count as a major country."
>
>It is sad to see Nelson Mandela also supporting the U.S. "war 
>against terrorism" ("Anwar Sadat Lecture for Peace [sic]," 
>University of Maryland, Nov. 15, 2001), which I suspect he is doing 
>partly in the Mitterand-D'Alema mold--to be an accepted member of 
>the respectable state cohort.
>
>But I wouldn't be surprised if he has been sold by the saturation 
>coverage of the victims of the 9/11 attacks, which reflects U.S. 
>power and the global power of the U.S. media. If Mandela and many 
>others were provided each day with pictures of dying Iraqi children, 
>with Iraqi and other indignant descriptions of the U. S.-British 
>refusal to allow Iraq to import equipment to make its water safe, 
>his consciousness and indignation on that "terrorism" would be 
>greatly elevated.
>
>Similarly, if the media directed the same energy to interviewing 
>Afghan refugees as they did Kosovo Albanians during the NATO bombing 
>of Yugoslavia, and focused on the damaging effects of the war on 
>supplying food to a starving population, Mandela's perspective might 
>well alter.
>
>It is sad also that Mandela can't reflect on the fact that the 
>United States held the African National Congress to be a terrorist 
>organization in the 1980s, and that the CIA helped South Africa 
>capture and imprison its terrorist commander, Nelson Mandela. What 
>would he think of a Third World country that had gotten on THAT 
>antiterrorist bandwagon?
>
>It is well-known that Egypt had a multi-billion dollar debt forgiven 
>for supporting the first Bush, while Yemen, refusing to go along on 
>a Persian Gulf war vote, was told by a U.S. official that this would 
>be "the most expensive 'no' vote you ever cast," followed shortly 
>thereafter by its loss of a $70 million aid package. Currently, 
>Pakistan has been given substantial payments for servicing the U.S. 
>war, and Russia, Uzbekistan, and others as well are being paid off.
>
>The U.S. mainstream media, however, speak of the emergence of these 
>coalitions as a wondrous upsurge of support from the world community 
>based on moral solidarity, not fear of retaliation, threats, or 
>bribery.
>
>That these coalitions represent and support extreme superbullying by 
>the Great Powers is never hinted at--these are always moral ventures 
>and just causes.
>
>That the publics in many of these countries are unsympathetic to the 
>war, not having been bought or coerced as their elite leaderships, 
>is rarely mentioned. In short, the U.S. media are an integral part 
>of a beautifully working war machine, serving their state with at 
>least as much bias and enthusiasm as Serb broadcasting served its 
>state, before it was bombed out of existence by NATO for war service.

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