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Geopolitical scientists
study “international relations”—the chess game of foreign policy in its
geographical context. They must produce a model
of four things: A. MOTIVATORS. The ideologies and values
of the relevant actors. B. GOALS. The practical short-term intentions and long-term planning of the relevant actors. C. ASSETS. The special tools of power
wielded by relevant actors to
pursue their specific chosen strategies. D.
CONSTRAINTS.
Whatever factors limit the liberty
of movement of those relevant actors
and force them either to a) use a subterfuge or roundabout in order to try to
achieve their aims; or else to b) momentarily accept a less than ideal state of affairs. Since the
point of any scientific model is to match and anticipate observations,
geopolitical scientists should consider
more than one hypothesis and discard any that don’t match observed behaviors. So far so
good. But, on the geopolitical stage, who are the relevant actors? Readers of
the Economist, the New York Times, or Foreign Affairs
probably think that ‘the United States’ is a relevant actor, for in such publications one will find sentences
such as: “The United
States is pursuing its interests in the Middle East.” or “How
should the United States define its interests in today's world?”[1] But do these
sentences even make English sense? Can ‘the
United States’ really define and pursue
its geopolitical interests? No. Neither can the United States think,
react, speak, or do. Why? Because ‘the United States,’ in human terms, is
currently estimated at well over 300 million. This vast population makes
exactly zero collective decisions in the field of international relations. Who makes
the decisions? A vanishingly small
group of people—the power elite. This is the relevant actor. But what
about US citizens? Aren’t they
relevant? What is the relationship between the US power elite and the US citizen? A good
question (see Part 3). But notice that, to consider it, you
first need to say ‘US power elite’
and also say ‘US citizen.’ To
reason about a relationship, the
parties to it must be kept linguistically distinct, each with its own name. Unfortunately,
journalists and academics breezily gloss over the distinction. They’ll say,
when discussing geopolitics, that the
United States did this or that. In this manner they subliminally
telegraph a presumed solidarity (commonality of values and
interests) between the ‘US power elite’ and the ‘US citizen.’ The subliminal
corollary is that US foreign policy—deployed by the tiny US power elite—means to advance US-citizen interests. Well,
perhaps. But this is a hypothesis. Or it would be a hypothesis if presented
openly, as happens in proper science. Instead, woven into the very structure
of speech, this claim is smuggled as a silent ‘axiom’ that henceforth waits
in ambush to murder any competing hypothesis that rears its head. Who teaches you to speak teaches you to
think (Orwell tried to explain this). By assuming
solidarity between rulers and citizens, this implicit hypothesis—dominant in
media and Academia—produces a view of US power-elite motivators and plans
that agrees closely with how the bosses represent themselves in public, as
supposed protectors and disseminators of democracy and human rights, and thus
at war—both symbolically and materially—with totalitarian ideologies and systems. The assets and limits consistent with such claims correspond to the expectations
of a functional democracy. What are they? First, a US power elite with no
undue, across-the-board influence on media and Academia—free news and
scholarly markets. And second, real alternatives before the voters to choose
from—a free political market. In a country with free markets, officeholders
will be ‘democratically responsive,’ constrained to enact policies that agree
broadly with the values and wishes of the US ‘body politic.’
But against
this implicit dominant model,
consider the following alternative
model about the US power-elite: A. MOTIVATORS. In the conduct of
international relations (as in domestic politics), the US power elite pursues
the enhancement of its own power by the destruction of democracy. B. PLANS. a. Long-term: establish a totalitarian world
system. b. Short
term: 1) ruin the
people’s free markets in the crucial areas of media, Academia, and politics;
and 2) strengthen choice totalitarian ideologies and states (see Part 1,
Part
2, and Part 3). C. ASSETS. The US power elite already
decisively influences media and Academia (see Part 1,
Part
2, and Part 3). D. LIMITS. Given a prevailing democratic political grammar, the US
power elite is forced to dissemble and use psychological (i.e. political)
warfare to hide the true intent of its foreign policy (see Part 1,
Part
2, and Part 3). If this alternative model (A-B-C-D) is misguided, the evidence
will disgrace it. But in proper science a model must first be disgraced, then discarded, rather than outlawed ab initio (as happens in religious
dogma). The alternative model is not easily
disgraced. The postwar
creation of a clandestine US psychological warfare regime with centralized
control over the mainstream mass media has been documented (Part 1).
Its founding architects explained their purpose: to manage ‘democracy’ with
“persuasive communication aimed at largely disenfranchised masses”—supplemented
with “selective... violence”—as a “strategy for [both] domestic government and international relations” (Part 1). They’ve
created ‘sloppy totalitarianism’ (Appendix A): an attack on democracy. If this alternative model is any good, then
we expect to make two critical observations: 1)
Foreign
policy conducted by the US power elite will routinely do violence to
US-citizen values and interests. 2)
It
will be next to impossible to find—in the mass media or in Academia—any
consideration of the hypothesis that such results were intended by the US power elite. Put another
way, whenever it becomes obvious that US foreign policy has harmed democratic
values and interests, journalists and academics will present this—without
discussion—as a ‘mistake.’ They will seem
fairly critical at times but they will
invariably accuse incompetence, accepting
the power elite’s excuses (themselves obligatory within the prevailing
political grammar). Since
US Intelligence has, since 1947, legal sanction to corrupt foreign media and academic systems, we
expect such behaviors to be at least pan-Western.[2]
Thus, take The Guardian, a British
newspaper. About the US (and British) invasion of Iraq, in 2006 it wrote the
following: “Iran
is the true winner of that war. They only had to sit tight and smile as the
West delivered on a golden plate all the influence Iran had always sought in
the Middle East. The US and its allies will soon be gone from Afghanistan and
Iraq, leaving Iranian-backed Shias dominant in both countries, their
influence well spread across Syria, a chunk of Saudi Arabia and other
countries for decades to come. Historic Iranian ambitions have been fulfilled
without firing a shot while the US is reduced to fist-shaking. How foolish was that?”[3] The Guardian recognizes that invading Iraq
strengthened Iranian rulers—a group of Muslim, theocratic, nuclear-wannabe,
judeophobic, and genocidal thugs who sponsor terrorism everywhere in hopes of
destroying the very liberties and human rights cherished by Westerners. Since
this outcome is bad for democracy, the Iraq invasion—a US (and British)
power-elite policy—must have been “foolish.” Interesting.
No evidence is presented to satisfy us of this interpretation against an
alternative. In fact, no alternative is even mentioned—not even to dismiss it out of hand. So this is not
science. In science every claim
must be defended against an alternative. Single-hypothesis science—like
single-party democracy—is an oxymoron. What is the obvious
alternative? It is this: when the world’s
most powerful bosses spend billions of dollars, they get what they paid for.
And what did they get? A more powerful Iranian Islamist state. So that’s what
they wanted. This hypothesis agrees with the alternative model (A-B-C-D) above. Shouldn’t
the media at least put this alternative model on the table? If the media
is free, yes. Because a free media will investigate power. But if the media
is controlled, then no. For the very job description of a controlled media in
a simulated ‘democratic’ world is not to investigate power, but to convince
us that power elites are responsive to
us and moreover share our Enlightenment values (Part
2). So
notice: the Guardian, damning the
evidence, pushes the view that power-elites are on our side: they mean well
(they are just idiots). This is
supported by linguistic style. The relevant
actor, to the Guardian, is
either “the US and its allies,” “the West,” or “the US.” This joins everybody
together—the powerful with the rest. US citizens, then, must be co-responsible in policy with power-elite decision makers, and these latter solidary in values with US citizens. It is this merging that forces the interpretation of ‘foolishness,’
because: Why would ordinary US citizens want
to “deliver... on a golden plate all the influence Iran had always sought
in the Middle East”? They wouldn’t. See how that
works? The Guardian is hardly alone.
Pulitzer-winning authors (i.e. recipients of an Establishment prize), such as
Thomas E. Ricks, loudly interpret for the public that the US invasion was a
‘FIASCO.’
Of course,
if the Iraq invasion is an isolated case then the Guardian may reasonably treat its outcome as an aberration. But
as HIR has shown, for over three decades—ever since Ayatollah Khomeini
founded the Iranian Islamist regime in 1979—the most important and expensive
US foreign policy adventures in Western Asia—each costing billions of
dollars—have all strengthened the
Iranian power elite.[4] Each time,
media and academics have called it well-intentioned
‘foolishness,’ ‘short-sightedness,’ ‘stupidity,’ or ‘ignorance.’ US
policymakers, they tell us, get it wrong every time—they never learn. How
plausible is that? Even the dumbest of creatures—such as lab rats—quickly
learn to avoid an electrified wall. Such ‘operant conditioning’ is the
furthest thing from rocket science: you get burned, you stop touching. Are
the most powerful people in the world supposed to be dumber than lab rats? This is a reasonable model? What about
the alternative model? Can it
solve outstanding paradoxes? It can. Quite a few, in fact. Here’s one, for
illustration: ‘Iran-Contra’ (or ‘Irangate’).
When caught
secretly (and illegally) sending millions of dollars in arms to the Iranian
Ayatollah Khomeini during the Iran-Iraq war (1980s), the US power elite
‘confessed’ to well-intentioned stupidity. They had meant to release hostages
held in Lebanon by the Iranian-sponsored Hezbollah terrorists, they said, so
they sent millions of dollars in
arms to Iran, over several years,
breaking US law, and against an explicit and official policy not to negotiate
with terrorists, in hopes that Iran would lean on Hezbollah to release a
handful of hostages. This explanation was preposterous. And insulting. But we shan’t argue about that. Ten years later, the New York Times reported what congressional investigations into the Reagan-Khomeini relationship had found: that US arms transfers started “in 1981,” which is “before the Iranian-sponsored seizure of American hostages in Lebanon began in 1982...” (my emphasis).[5] It had nothing to do with the hostages. Behold, therefore, a natural test of the
media. The ‘stupid-but-well-intentioned’ interpretation
has been here specifically and publicly refuted. So did the New York Times now put the alternative hypothesis on the table? No. It threw up its hands: “No American
rationale for permitting covert arms sales to Iran could be established.”[5]
We have here
an ‘exception that proves the rule.’ It is an exception because the mandatory
grammatical move—to claim a ‘well-intentioned mistake’—is foreclosed: the dates
don’t allow it. It proves the rule
because, rather than present an alternative hypothesis, the New York Times rushes to say nothing:
there is simply “no American rationale.” US leaders sent billions in armament
to the Iranian terrorists, over several years, because… nothing. There will
be zero geopolitical science: if it
can’t be the one hypothesis—the official apology—then no hypothesis. Under the dominant model, all of these
behaviors are perfectly absurd: the US power elite went to great lengths to
clandestinely arm totalitarian terrorists to the teeth, and the New York Times, “the newspaper of record,” the most influential news source in the world, then refused to make
any effort to explain it. But the alternative model has no trouble with
this evidence: the US power elite armed the Iranian Islamists as an attack on
democracy. Since that is ungrammatical
(i.e. politically incorrect), the power-elite’s loud pretense of enmity with
the Islamists, and the secrecy of the arms transfers, were grammatically
forced moves. The mainstream media—because it is rather tightly
controlled—first repeated the ‘well-intentioned stupidity’ apology; when that
became impossible, they just shut up. Media and
Ivory Tower have been tamed. They speak or don’t as required to hide the hand
of power, which, resting gently on the citizen’s shoulder, nudges his
sleepwalk on the path of directed history (see Part 1,
Part
2, and Part 3). But where is
this going? What is the US power elite’s great geopolitical game? We consider
this next.
[1] “Redefining the National Interest”; Foreign Affairs; July/August 1999
Issue; By Joseph S. Nye, Jr. [2] “Did the National
Security Act of 1947 destroy freedom of the press? The red pill...”; Historical
and Investigative Research; 3 Jan 2006; by Francisco Gil-White [3] Comment & Debate: No more fantasy diplomacy: cut a deal with the mullahs: Iran cannot be prevented from developing nuclear weapons, only delayed. We must negotiate not ratchet up the rhetoric, The Guardian (London) - Final Edition, February 7, 2006 Tuesday, GUARDIAN COMMENT AND DEBATE PAGES ; Pg. 31, 1095 words, Polly Toynbee [4]
Why Bush Sr.'s
1991 Gulf War? To Protect Iranian Islamism. Will the US
attack Iran? [5]
The Iran Pipeline: A Hidden
Chapter/A special report.; U.S. Said to Have Allowed Israel to Sell Arms to
Iran, The New York Times, December 8, 1991, Sunday, Late Edition - Final,
Section 1; Part 1; Page 1; Column 1; Foreign Desk, 2897 words, By SEYMOUR M. HERSH, Special to The New York Times, WASHINGTON,
Dec. 7 |
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