C. Roy ReynoldsTHE SURVIVAL complex which motivates so many militia cults in America seems to be now dominating the Bush administration. Hardly a day passes without some new weapon system being proposed.
The latest addition to the list is a proposal to take weapons of mass destruction into outer space, giving America the capability to not only ostensibly protect its assets in this sphere, but to wage war against other countries as well.
America's attitude today is eerily reminiscent of what happened in Germany especially in the decade of the 1930s. The Germans under Hitler rationalised their frenzied rearmament on the pretext of the right to defend itself and in the name of national pride in the wake of World War I.
Today the massive one-country arms race being indulged or proposed by America is being done under the guise of self-defence. According to their rationale some 'rogue nation' might take a fancy to lobbing a nuclear warhead at them, though all such a nation could hope to gain from an act like that would be to assure their annihilation. The case is far from convincingly made. In order to build a super expensive defensive shield that only America could afford, it is willing to repudiate a 30-year-old treaty that has largely been credited with keeping the world from nuclear war.
America is building as well a whole family of new weapons, including unmanned aircraft capable of raining death upon faraway nations without ever exposing its military personnel in harm's way.
America has also rejected the Rio Treaty which seeks to help stave off environmental disaster on a global scale. Declares its unelected President, some say figurehead: America will not support any such proposition that could impede its economy.
Those of us who had welcomed the end of the Cold War and had hoped for a new era of world peace must wonder what could be behind America's new belligerent stance. The claims about rogue nations hardly holds water. The USSR in its day had been regarded as such a nation, but the balance of nuclear power assured that it would not have attacked. Why then should we assume that some little nation with one or two puny warheads would attack America which could wipe it off the face of the earth with one twitch of its tail?
As far as the space situation is concerned there is nothing but international co-operation going on. So-called rogue nations have neither the technology nor the resources to pose a serious challenge. It has not even been shown that they have an inclination to. So why this sabre-rattling?
The more plausible reason is that America is preparing for a world confrontation it knows its insistence on world domination will provoke. The theory seems to be that if you have the capacity to shield your country from nuclear attack or retaliation, you have the capacity to rain down terror and destruction on other nations without leaving home as well as unleashing terror from outer space. So no one is likely to refuse to do what you say.
Isn't it ironic that a country which in the recent past has insisted so strenuously on keeping what it deems 'weapons of mass destruction' out of the hands of puny dictators should itself be so addicted to weapons of super-massive destruction.
Is the rest of the world to rely only on the benevolence of America for assurance that these weapons will not be unleashed upon them? Its record in this regard is hardly reassuring.
For instance, it has now been established that its actions in Vietnam, for example, would if carried out by most other nations have had it bellowing for some of the military officers involved to be hauled before the International Court.
Alleged Nazi offenders have been deported from America to stand trial after many more years than have passed since the Vietnam adventure. At another level it would be tragic for America and the world if all this financial and technological resource was being expanded to face the wrong threat. Have they considered, for instance, nuclear weapons are to all intent and purpose been rendered obsolete? True, they still can create a big bang and destroy a lot of things. But, who needs that when there are much tidier ways of doing things?
Biological agents, for example, are infinitely easier to conceal and deliver. AIDS has shown that they may even be set years in advance of their manifestation, thereby giving the perpetrator adequate time to cover his tracks.
So America's bid to control the world without risking its own lives is really a pipedream.
If America did not realise that much of the rest of the world, apart from its lackey Britain, is beginning to view it with alarm and recognise it as the most dangerous nation of the 21st century, then it ought to sit up and take notice that it has been removed from two important world organisations.
Instead of introspection though, with its now familiar arrogance, it is fanning a campaign to blackmail the UN into reinstating it.
The image of the Ugly American is alive and kicking and getting uglier!
C. Roy Reynolds is a freelance journalist.
