Camillo C. Bica, Ph.D.
School of Visual Arts
cbica@sva.edu

Why Someone Who is Not a Leftist,
a Traitor, a Commie, a Hippie, or a Bleeding
Heart Liberal Should Oppose the War with Iraq
and the Bush Administration's Foreign Policy Agenda


I am a former United States Marine Corps Officer and a veteran of the Vietnam war. I love my Country and consider myself a patriot. I also strongly disagree with President Bush's Foreign Policy agenda and adamantly oppose the war with Iraq. I am outraged at having my patriotism questioned because of my political views. I especially resent such allegations when they come from someone who has not themselves experienced the horrors of war and whose patriotism consists only of sending someone else's child to die on the battlefield. This essay is intended not as an apologetic to those who regard dissent as treason, for my patriotism is not in question having been secured by action and personal sacrifice and not meaningless rhetoric and phoney bravado. Rather, my intent in this essay is to inform, to increase awareness, to encourage debate, and, most of all, to raise the concern of others whose patriotism and love of Country entails upholding the American values of freedom, justice, fairness, benevolence and understanding. Values many of us shed our blood for on the Battlefield. Values that are now being abandoned, in my view, by the Bush Administration in its quest for empire, power, dominance, and national interest.
I begin my inquiry into why a rational and patriotic person should question the motives, aims, and goals of the Bush Administration's foreign policy agenda with a brief consideration of what has become known as the "Wolfowitz Doctrine." Finding its clearest and, perhaps, most forthright expression in the now infamous draft of the 1992 Defense Planning Guidance (DPG) authored by Paul Wolfowitz and I. Lewis Libby, then obscure political appointees in the Pentagon's policy office, the Wolfowitz Doctrine advocates the following.


A draft of the 1992 DPG was leaked to the New York Times by a high ranking military source wise enough to be concerned by its hegemonic vision, and courageous enough to risk his career to ensure that it be debated in the public arena. Following an intense but brief uproar, and at the insistence of then Secretary of State James Baker and National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, the final document was overhauled beyond recognition. Wolfowitz, Libby and their boss, then Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, did not abandon their dream of world domination, however, but awaited a more opportune time to implement it.
The tragedy of September 11th provided that opportunity. Exploitation and, no doubt, exacerbation, of the fear, anxiety, and paranoia of a vulnerable post 9/11 citizenry, allowed Cheney, now the most powerful Vice President in the history of the United States, Wolfowitz, now Deputy Defense Secretary, Libby, Cheney's Chief of Staff and National Security Advisor, and others of like mind, a means of implementing, under the guise of a "war on terrorism," the hegemonic agenda and policy of Pax Americana concocted years before. To ensure the least possible resistence at home, these empire builders had the foresight to exploit the situation still further by usurping from Congress its constitutional responsibility to declare war (the Iraq Resolution) and from the American people their civil liberties (The Patriot Act).
Pursuant to the Wolfowitz Doctrine, now reincarnated as the National Security Strategy of the United States, the target of President Bush's bellicose speeches goes well beyond al Qaeda, the alleged prosecutor of the 9/11 attacks. The United States, he declares, now has a military interest in "liberating" such "Axis of Evil" nations as Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Cuba, and North Korea which, by the way, has never been accused of terrorism or of harboring or abetting terrorists (but which had been named in the DPG draft). On June 2, 2002, in a speech at West Point, President Bush shared his vision of a future in which the United States dominates the world with unrivaled military power. The President declared, "America has, and intends to keep, military strength beyond challenge -- thereby making the destabilizing arms races of other eras pointless -- and limiting rivalries to trade and other pursuits of peace." Through its rhetoric and by its actions, the Bush Administration has clearly demonstrated its Wolfowitzian vision and its willingness to (1) project military might throughout the world (Afghanistan, Iraq, the Phillippines, etc.), (2) maintain America's status as the world's only superpower, (3) prevent nations from acquiring or possessing weapons of mass destruction, and (4) abandon old alliances and the strategy of internationalism in favor of acting unilaterally and preemptively.
Recognizing the Bush Administration's foreign policy agenda as a manifestation of the Wolfowitz Doctrine, now thinly disguised as a war on terrorism and on those states who harbor or support terrorism, yields a number of important insights regarding the current situation of tension in the world. It is clear, for example, that this new era of preemptive and unilateral warfare, now with Iraq and soon with North Korea, Iran, Yemen, Cuba, China, and so on, and so on . . ., has been part of the Cheney et al agenda since at least 1992 and, as is made clear in the DPG, has more to do with hegemony and protecting "America's vital interest" - - Persian Gulf oil - - than with combating terrorism or removing a ruthless dictator from power and freeing an oppressed people. This is corroborated by the fact that in 1998, years before the 9/11 attacks, Donald Rumsfeld, now Secretary of Defense, Paul Wolfowitz, and others, undertook a lobbying effort which included writing letters to President Clinton and then House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Senate Republican Majority Leader Trent Lott urging the use of force against Iraq and the removal of Saddam Hussein from power. Clinton, to his credit, viewed such a course of action as fanaticism and unwarranted. Further, this policy of projecting American military power in the world as part of its "constabulary" duties, fighting and decisively winning "multiple, simultaneous, major theater wars," and the other key tenets of Bush foreign policy were expressed in a position paper entitled Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategies, Forces and Resources for a New Century written in September 2000 by a neo-conservative think tank called "The Project for the New American Century."
Understanding the true motivations, aims, and goals of the Bush Administration's foreign policy agenda also explains the current quagmire in the United Nations. President Bush, Secretary Colin Powell and others, have repeatedly cautioned Security Council members that failing to recognize Saddam Hussein's non-compliance with Resolution 1441 by sanctioning war with Iraq would threaten its relevancy. When faced with the possibility that nations such as France, Germany, Russia, China, etc., could not be convinced, coerced, bribed, or threatened into bending to the will of the United States, both President Bush and Secretary Powell affirmed their resolve that the United States is prepared to act unilaterally. Despite their expressed respect for the efficacy of the United Nations, this threat of non compliance clearly suggests a willingness to act in defiance of the judgement of the majority of nations. If the United Nations is to have any relevance as a world body and arbitrator of international law, then all nations, including the most powerful, especially the most powerful, must demonstrate, by its compliance, an acceptance of and respect for the decisions of the Security Council and the finality of a vetoed resolution, even if a nation or a minority of nations are in disagreement. Certainly the United States regarded as final and expected no subsequent action to be taken on the 28 or so resolutions it vetoed in the Security Council. If the United Nations is in danger of being rendered irrelevant, the threat is not from the deceptions of a despot like Saddam Hussein, as the world clearly accepts him for what he is, an unscrupulous dictator and tyrant. Nor is it threatened by a decision that encourages, not passivity, but patience, and recognizes the certain horrors and uncertain benefits of a war in such an unstable region. Avoiding war if possible, and waging war only as a last resort, is the mission of the United Nations. The relevance of the United Nations and the Security Council, at least to the rest of the world, means more than merely to rubber stamp the will of the United States and rests, therefore, not in whether it chooses to wage war against Iraq now rather than later, but in whether President Bush, the Commander in Chief of the most powerful army the world has ever known, possesses the moral fortitude and commitment to world peace and stability to respect its mission and abide by its decisions. What could be more indicative of irrelevance than the Wolfowitzian "to hell with you," "go it alone" attitude the United States has demonstrated of late.
The motivation for the United States' belligerence towards the United Nations is made clear in the DPG. Being the only superpower and far exceeding the military capabilities of any other nation in the world, the United States does not need coalitions, world organizations, and alliances. In fact, an organization such as the United Nations is viewed as a competitor, the only remaining "superpower" to rival the United States and impede its hegemonic agenda. We are losing our "patience" with these Organizations and allies of another time (France, Germany), allies unlike Great Britain that refuse to fall into line and subordinate themselves to the will and dominance of the United States. The fact that, as a consequence of its actions, the United States is alienating itself from the world community, that traditional alliances are in turmoil, and the United Nations is in danger of becoming irrelevant, fits well into the Bush Administration's Wolfowitzian agenda for the new millennium and the new world order. In this new era of "benevolent dominance" by the United States the United Nations is superfluous, a throwback to another era.
While the actions of the North Koreans have been downplayed by the Administration thus far, the willingness, by the public and in the media, to portray North Korea as perhaps even a greater threat to the U.S. than Iraq, will soon be exploited by the Administration for the implementation of the next step in its war plan for world domination. While North Korea has never been a "model nation" it has, until rather recently, acted with some restraint. What could possibly have motivated its rather sudden irrational and threatening behavior? Is it the case that North Korea is finally being appreciated for the threat it truly poses to the United States and to the rest of the world? Another example of an out of control rogue nation led by a megalomaniacal despot that Wolfowitz warns us about? But are the actions of the North Koreans truly irrational or, perhaps, an understandable, though drastic, response to (1) a perceived threat from a bellicose superpower with a hegemonic agenda whose leader has repeatedly named it to a list of nations slated for destruction, (2) a realization that, given the situation in Iraq, the threat from the United States is real and immanent, (3) their vulnerability in the face of the overwhelming military strength of the United States, and (4) the ineffectiveness of the United Nations to prevent their destruction. Consequently, it is understandable and, perhaps, not so irrational, for the North Koreans to have decided that the acquisition and/or manufacture of WMDs and a subsequent utilization, or support of, terrorism, the tactic of the weak, is the only practical means of defense available in what they perceive as a situation of supreme emergency - - a situation which, in the view of many, trumps the applicability of the "laws of war." Claims of "supreme emergency," you'll remember, "sanctioned," during World War II, the Allied employment of the clearly terrorist tactic of the carpet bombing of cities - - targeting and murdering innocent civilians - - and the manufacture and use, by the United States, of weapons of mass destruction.
The taking of such drastic steps by the threatened "Axis of Evil" nations, however, only furthers the Bush Administration's hegemonic agenda. That is, it provides the warrant and justification for their being "liberated," i.e., invaded and destroyed, on the grounds of national interest, eliminating the threat of terrorism, and freeing the world from the possibility of WMDs falling into the hands of Al Qaeda or some other terrorist organization. This choice of defensive action by these nations, then, though understandable, is misguided and only further jeopardizes their survival.
In addition, this increased threat of a terrorist response from these nations furthers the Bush Administration's agenda on the home front as well. It does so by raising the level of terrorist paranoia, warranted or fabricated, thereby increasing the willingness on the part of Congress to allow, and the American people to accept, further violation of the Constitution. That is, a continuing march toward monarchy and a police state by further increasing the power of the Executive Branch and a continuing forfeiture of individual freedoms ( Patriot Act 2) in the name of fighting the war on terrorism and Homeland Security.
In conclusion, what has now become known as the Bush Doctrine, but which is clearly the Wolfowitz Doctrine with an appropriately adjusted rhetoric of terrorism, has proven a shrewdly effective mechanism for perpetuating its hegemonic agenda. It accomplishes its goals and masks its intent and maliciousness by creating or augmenting the threat of terrorism, the very evil it is alleging to eliminate in the world. As a consequence of this obsession with world domination and the imposition of a Pax Americana, the Bush Administration has virtually ignored, if not contributed to, the worst U.S. economy in years, has created a 300 billion dollar plus deficit (not including the cost of the Iraq war), fostered a level of divisiveness within this Country unseen since the Vietnam War, plunged the world into chaos, increased the danger of nuclear proliferation and confrontation, abetted terrorism rather than lessened it, fostered division among our allies, abandoned a policy of Internationalism that has characterized American Foreign Policy since at least WWII, rendered the United Nations and the Security Council in danger of becoming irrelevant, and further alienated our Nation from the rest of the world by characterizing those who question our motives or our tactics as naive, unappreciative, cowardly, or as motivated by some unscrupulous economic agenda. These are troubled and dangerous times, but trouble and danger that is augmented not ameliorated by the Bush Administration and its policies. We are certainly not better off than we were two years ago. This is the legacy of the Wolfowitz Doctrine and the agenda of the Bush Administration and should be of concern to all patriotic Americans, even those who are not Leftists, Commies, Traitors, Hippies, or Bleeding Heart Liberals.