America146;s war itch

America is well and truly isolated. But why is this great democracy itching for war? For a man like George W. Bush, his well-known complaint...

America is well and truly isolated. But why is this great democracy itching for war? For a man like George W. Bush, his well-known complaint against Saddam Hussain 8212; He tried to kill my dad 8212; is a strong enough reason. Compelling, too, is the need for America8217;s military-industrial complex to fight a war, any war, at periodic intervals.

It8217;s good for weapon-testing and good for the economy. But there is another, much deeper, more frightening factor behind the new aggressiveness of America under George Bush. This is the fact that America has become, at last, an imperial power with the firm conviction that it has a national duty to keep the rest of the world firmly under control.

Look at the declared national security strategy of the Bush Government. It states, without any scope for doubt, that the US will do whatever is necessary to remain the unchallenged power in every theatre of the world. 8216;8216;Every theatre8217;8217; means Ideas-Culture, Economy-Technology and of course Military. 8216;8216;Unchallenged8217;8217; means, as Bush actually spelt out, that the US would use every means to maintain its hegemonic status and to prevent any other nation from dominating any region of the world.

In other words, any country acquiring supremacy in any sphere 8212; including culture 8212; anywhere in the world would be seen by America as a threat to its national security. No one in history has ever made such a self-centred doctrine its stated national policy. It8217;s USA vs. the world. Openly, defiantly.

Building a military might unheard of in history is the American way of ensuring its empire. The US has a 10-billion-a-year budget to fight the 8216;8216;war on terror.8217;8217; This is in addition to its regular 360-billion annual budget. Today it spends more on arms than the next one dozen powers combined. It will soon have a military budget equal to that of all other countries of the world combined. This kind of money can be better used to solve some of America8217;s own social problems. After all, a million children in America live on the streets and the number is rising, according to a Los Angeles Times survey. According to the NGO, Children8217;s Defence Fund, a child is shot dead every other hour in America.

But the Bush Government8217;s priority is history8217;s greatest build up of weapons of mass destruction. And a great many Americans, including thinkers and writers, support the policy though common people have staged massive protest rallies against an Iraq war. The Conservative wing of the ruling Republican Party runs a journal called The Weekly Standard. It ran a cover story in 2001 headed 8216;8216;The case for an Empire8217;8217; which argued that 8216;8216;Afghanistan and other troubled lands today cry out for the sort of enlightened foreign administration once provided by Englishmen in jodhpurs and pith helmets.8217;8217; The National Review once called for 8216;8216;low-grade colonialism8217;8217; under which the US would invade pro-terrorist governments. 8216;8216;The institutions in these countries are a failure. The West knows best. There8217;s a lot of good we could do.8217;8217;

There is also a lunatic right like the notorious columnist Ann Coulter who once wrote that America should invade suspect countries, 8216;8216;kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.8217;8217; The Wall Street Journal columnist, Peggy Noonan, asked that 8216;8216;Middle Eastern looking men8217;8217; should be stopped from taking photographs in American cities. This is the country that now wants to control all spheres of human activity including ideas and culture.

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Saddam Hussain is merely a cockroach; it can be crushed with five aircraft carriers and 400-missiles-a-day saturation firing. And then Bush will be ready for other cockroaches in other parts of the world.