Down with the New World Order!
By the
Revolutionary Worker, Voice of the Revolutionary Communist
Party, U.S.A.
"What
is at stake is more than one small country, it is a big idea --
a New World Order, where diverse nations are drawn together in a
common cause to achieve the universal aspirations of mankind: peace
and security, freedom and rule of law. Such is a world worthy of
our struggle, and worthy of our children's future."
- President
George Bush, "State of the Union", 29 January 1991
"I am
convinced that 1941 will be the crucial year of a great New Order
in Europe. The world shall open up for everyone. Privileges for
individuals, the tyranny of certain nations and their financial
rulers shall fall. And last of all this year will help to provide
the foundations of a real understanding among peoples, and with
it the certainty of conciliation among nations."
- Adolf Hitler,
"My New Order" speech, 30 January 1941
Last September, when George Bush first sent troops to the Persian
Gulf, he said, "Out of these troubled times... a New World
Order can emerge." Now, two weeks into war, Bush continues
to put this "New World Order" at the very heart of what
the U.S. ruling class wants to achieve through the war.
What is this "New World Order"?
The short answer: This sounds like what it is -- naked imperialist
talk with a Nazi ring to it.
Today the powers in the U.S. call Saddam Hussein a new Hitler. But
he is only a petty tyrant ruling a poor Third World country. Iraq
has been dominated by great powers since before the start of this
century -- in fact, Saddam Hussein himself is a product of that
domination, a creation of the great powers. If Iraq somehow grabbed
more oil fields for itself, it could haggle for higher oil prices.
But it would never be in a position to restructure world
relations around itself.
This raises the question: Who is really following Hitler's footsteps
in the 1990s? Who has similar dreams of turning quick blitzkrieg
victories into a whole New Order?
In the dreams of the powers who rule the U.S., victory in this war
could put them in a new position worldwide. The very fact
that the president of the U.S. is talking about new world
relationships coming out of this war is proof that U.S. troops
are not there to "stop aggression". It is proof that
it is the United States which is the one making a historic
power grab to control this key region.
What is this New World Order?
A longer answer: Europe, Japan and many countries of the
Third World rely on the Persian Gulf for their main source of oil.
The United States ignited a regional war there to violently recast
power relations in this important area.
It's a
Gangster Thing
Millions of people here and around the world see that there is something
really rotten in this New World >Order. They sense that behind
the rhetoric of the powers, this war is a war between the haves
and the have-nots -- that it is not in the interest of the majority
of people.
Those on top of this country have built a world system that is based
on robbing the oil in the Persian Gulf -- and keeping it cheap.
They have polluted the oceans and beaches of the planet with their
constant oil spills. They have poisoned many people with their toxic
wastes. They have built an economic system which keeps most of the
countries of the world chained in debt. They have backed corrupt
and brutal regimes in the Persian Gulf where women have no political
rights. They have created a setup which provides Western banks and
corporations with tremendous wealth, while the millions of Arab
people are dirt poor. If the Arab people weren't so poor, the oil
would not be so cheap. It has been a setup soaked in oil and blood.
And the powers-that-be are demanding that people shed even more
blood to keep this whole imperialist setup going and put the U.S.
even more at the head of it.
This U.S. assault on Iraq is intended as a global power grab in
three major ways:
* First, Bush is making the point to other world powers, "Who
you gonna call?" The world, Bush says, will remain a place
where the current power relations will be challenged -- including
by "upstarts" like Saddam Hussein. The United States may
have lost some of its economic edge in the last years, but now --
with the Soviet Union giving a green light to U.S. military actions
in the Persian Gulf -- the U.S. is hoping to seize a dominant position
for itself among the other great powers.
* Second, Bush has used this war to create a legal figleaf of world
opinion. The votes of the United Nations and the deployment of a
few troops from other nations in the American invasion force are
being used to say that an American-dominated "New World Order"
meets the approval of the rest of the world.
* Third: if the U.S. wins this war, it is going to be U.S.
troops who have their hands on the oil lifeline of the world economy.
THe U.S. powers dream that this will give them control over those
countries dependent on the oil. But in reality it will only mean
more conflict and war.
"American
Leadership" = U.S. Domination
In Bush's New World Order, key lines of power flow back to the United
States and those who rule the United States.
This, for example, is why the White House rejects any peace settlement
with Iraq that includes "linkage" to the Palestinian issue.
The United States may plan to arrange some new "settlement"
for pacifying the Palestinian Intifada uprising in the post-Gulf
war period. But if that comes, they want it to be seen as an American
act, not a concession the U.S. makes to a small power like
Iraq.
Within the U.S. ruling class, their gestapo fantasy New World Order
is being called "Pax Americana". This means that
the American powers want to copy the "Pax Romana" (which
means "Roman Peace") that the Roman emperors maintained
for centuries. "Pax Romana" is the setup that gave the
world the word "imperialist" in the first place. Now modern
capitalism has taken "empire" to a whole new level of
rottenness.
Roman Peace was not peaceful for the masses of people: This was
a brutal slave empire maintained by constant wars of brutal suppression.
It raised the city of Rome to great wealth on the basis of alliances
with other city states and then the conquest, robbery and enslavement
of whole peoples. When Bush talks about the "rule of law"
he really means "rule by Rome". It's the law of the slavemaster.
Based on
War, Because It's Based on Oppression
There's nothing peaceful about plans for a Pax Americana.
Prominent reactionary columnist George Will remarked that if you
want to rewrite the world order with a pen, you first have to recarve
it with a sword.
The reason for this is simple: robbery is at the heart of this New
World Order. It can only be established and maintained by military
means.
The United States intends to "break the back" of the Iraqi
military as the starting point for this "New World Order".
It wants to use a quick, decisive victory to send a message to the
Third World and revolutionary people: "Don't even think about
it". It is like when the Godfather orders his hitmen to break
the legs of some petty hoodlum who dares question the rules -- the
lesson is intended for everyone else too.
Going Hitler
One Better
Hitler's plans were for a New European Order. Bush's plans
are for a New World Order. That points to one difference. Hitler
assumed there would remain Japanese and American empires in competition
with his, even after a possible German victory. His war goals were
to knock down Britain and Russia and emerge as the sole European
power within a multipolar imperialist world. Bush plans to
have the whole world under "American leadership".
In other words, the plans of the U.S. powers since World War 2 are
even more grandiose than Hitler's.
In America's "New World Order", the other imperialist
powers (Britain, France, Germany, Soviet Union) would be allowed
their "spheres of influence", but basically they are envisioned
as functioning within a global framework defined by American
power.
Germany, for example, gets to send military forces to its
client, Turkey. The Soviet Union even gets the go-ahead to bloody
smaller peoples on its fringe -- as was shown by Washington's
response to the recent Soviet bloodletting in the Baltic states.
But, in the New World Order, the final say-so will be the powers
in the U.S.
These Are
the Big Fantasies of a Paper Tiger
How long do the modern-day imperialists of the U.S. hope their Pax
Americana will last? In Bush's speech he talked twice about
the "next American century".
There are two things to say about this dream: the people of the
world should work to defeat it, and it is unlikely to succeed.
This is the era of both imperialism and proletarian revolution.
The great powers have fought huge wars -- and dreamed that victory
would stabilise their rule far into the future. Instead they have
run smack into the ambitions of their great power rivals and the
tremendous revolutionary power of the people of the world.
Hitler's New Order never got off the drawing board. The main reason
it failed was the German war machine ran into the revolutionary
armies and peoples of the then-socialist Soviet Union.
The U.S. powers have crowed about an "American Century"
once before, in the late 1940s when they emerged from World War
2 as the world's strongest imperialist power. European powers lay
exhausted by war. The U.S. was the only country with atomic weapons
-- and it had just shown that it would use them, by destroying the
Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
That previous "American Century" only lasted a few years:
It met defeat on the battlefields of Korea, when it crashed against
the revolutionary armies of liberated China, led by Mao Tsetung.
Mao called the U.S. a paper tiger -- it has teeth but it can be
beaten. In the years that followed, the U.S. imperialists were battered
by a growing storm of national liberation struggles, culminating
in a second bitter defeat by the revolutionary peoples of Indochina.
Even some official commentators within the U.S. remark that Bush's
New World Order is "utopian" -- there is no guarantee
that the U.S. will prevail against Iraq, and even a U.S. victory
against Iraq might only draw the U.S. more directly into conflict
with the masses of people in Arab countries and elsewhere. The other
great powers are also waiting like vultures, preparing to take their
own imperialist advantage if the U.S. does get bogged down.
Here, within the Unites States itself, shouldn't the basic people
do everything possible to stop Bush's ugly fantasy of a New World
Order from coming true? Why should the basic people here support
their own oppressor's dreams of being the top dominators of the
planet? Why should the basic people here kill and die as hitmen
for this Pax Americana?
Down with
the New World Order!
U.S. Troops
Out of the Gulf -- Now!
The Arab People
Are Not Our Enemy! They Are Our Sisters and Brothers!
10 February
1991
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