Center for a Stateless Society » iran

One might wonder, reading the American “national security” community’s pronouncements, if they refer to the same world we live in. Things make a little more sense when you realize that the Security State has its own language: Securityspeak. Like Newspeak, the ideologically refashioned successor to English in Orwell’s “1984,” Securityspeak is designed to obscure meaning and conceal truth, rather than convey them. As an example, take these 2010 remarks to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee by Ambassador Jaime Daremblum, Senior Fellow and Director of the Hudson Institute’s Center for Latin American Studies.

Daremblum, after praising Senators Lugar and Dodd for their promotion of “national security and democracy” in Latin America over the years, warned of the threat of “radical populism, which has taken root in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Nicaragua.” Perhaps most alarmingly, Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez has formed an alliance with Iran, “the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism.” The Nicaraguan government, having “returned to its old ways,” occupies a Costa Rican river island in defiance of an OAS resolution.

Chavez’s alliance with Iran, in particular, is “the biggest threat to hemispheric stability since the Cold War.” The Chavez regime poses a “serious threat to U.S. security interests.”

Wow! Sounds like a lot of bizarro-world gibberish, right? But if we break it down and translate it a bit at a time, we can actually distill some sense from it.

First, we have to remember that in Securityspeak, “democracy” doesn’t mean what it does in English. You probably think of democracy as meaningful control by ordinary people of the decisions that affect their daily lives. The false cognate Securityspeak term “democracy” sounds the same, but can cause great confusion. It actually refers to a society in which the system of power is disguised by the existence of periodic electoral rituals in which the public chooses between a number of candidates, all selected from the same ruling class. These candidates may argue a lot, but it’s all about the 20% or so of secondary issues on which the different factions of the ruling class are divided among themselves. The 80% of primary issues, on which the ruling class agrees — issues that define the basic structure of power — never come up for debate.

When the structure of power itself comes up for debate — when people start talking about, say, the concentrated ownership of land, or export-oriented development policy — it’s a sign that “democracy” is in danger of being replaced by “radical populism.” That’s a matter for the CIA or Marines to deal with. The whole point of Securityspeak’s version of “democracy” is to safeguard the fundamental structure of power by distracting the population with the illusion of choice.

It’s also important to keep in mind that in Securityspeak, the label “state sponsor of terrorism” — by definition — cannot include the United States. That’s because actions by the Sole Superpower and Hegemon to promote “democracy” cannot — by definition — be terroristic. Actions to promote “radical populism,” on the other hand, can.

As in Newspeak, actions that are considered laudable when practiced by one side are reprehensible when practiced by the other. Take, for example, the Nicaraguan action of occupying Costa Rican territory in defiance of an OAS resolution. That same action — defying an OAS resolution — was entirely commendable when practised by the U.S. (i.e., the mining of Managua harbor as a means of combating “radical populists” thirty years ago).

Consider labeling the Iran-Venezuela alliance the “biggest threat to hemispheric stability since the Cold War.” You’re probably thinking he put that qualifier in there so U.S. actions during the Cold War wouldn’t count. After all the U.S. overthrew Guatemala’s democratic government in 1954, installing a military regime that terrorized the country for decades. It backed Central American death squads that killed hundreds of thousands of people, and (starting with the overthrow of Brazil’s government in the 1960s and proceeding with Kissinger’s Operation Condor in the 1970s) put military dictators in power in most of South America.

But those things wouldn’t count anyway. When the United States overthrows government after government, with domino chains of military coups putting pro-U.S. dictatorships in power throughout most of the hemisphere, that’s protecting stability, not threatening it. It’s all for the sake of defeating that “radical populism,” which is by definition a threat to stability.

And in Securityspeak, saying a Venezuela-Iran military alliance is a “threat” doesn’t mean they might attack the U.S. and invade its territory. It means they might be able to fight back when the U.S. attacks them — that the U.S. might not be able to defeat them and put a stop to the treat of “radical populism.” In other words, they might get away with taking land away from oligarchs and patrons and distributing it to the people who actually work it, and their economies might start serving the interests of the people who live there instead of Norteamericano corporations. And that would be bad.

Similarly, “national security” refers not, as you might expect in English, to the security of the American people. It refers to the security of the American state and the coalition of class interests that controls it. Economic populism is indeed a threat to “national security” in this sense. American economic elites are the heart of one of the opposing sides in the age-old conflict between those who own the world, and those whose blood and sweat enriches those who own the world. When a functionary of the American state like Daremblum refers to a “threat to national security,” he means a threat to the ability of the hemisphere’s owning classes to extract wealth from the blood and sweat of the rest of us.

There — that wasn’t so hard, was it?

Irán y la Cultura del Miedo

David S. D'Amato — Wed, 15 Aug 2012 22:00:11 +0000

Como era de esperarse, las protestas revolucionarias que se están llevando a cabo en el Medio Oriente han inyectado vigor a la campaña de promoción del miedo a Irán impulsada por la clase política estadounidense. Como lo ha notado Elise Labott en CNN, el hecho de que las protestas populares hayan surgido debido a malestares “totalemente domésticos” no ha “impedido a los dirigentes políticos estadounidenses sugerir que Irán ha jugado un papel en ellas” y “hacer sonar la alarma” en señal de la amenaza planteada por Irán.

Siempre en búsqueda de un nuevo y ominoso fantasma con el cual impulsar la permanente economía de guerra, la clase dirigente debe defender constantemente — con la palabrería engañosa de Mike Mullen, Presidente del Estado Mayor Conjunto — “los compromisos de seguridad que hemos hecho”. En Mil Novecientos Ochenta y Cuatro, George Orwell describió con maestría la estructura piramidal del estado totalitario, un infierno viviente creado por élites a través de una economía “que existía para y por un estado de guerra permanente”.

Las palabras de la novela muestran un paralelismo muy cercano a la obsesiva y paranoica cultura del miedo que las élites de poder en Estados Unidos han cultivado y de hecho, perfeccionado; en lugar de sólo lograr los objetivos más obvios de adquisición de territorio y recursos, las campañas interminables de guerra sostenidas por el estado total tienen como objetivo “mantener intacta la estructura de la sociedad”. Si el estado puede convencernos de la existencia de los fantasmas que inventa, de que en realidad presentan la posibilidad de una catástrofe vagamente definida, entonces hasta las medidas más draconianas se pueden racionalizar como necesarias para protegernos.

Y “¿…si la mente misma es controlable”, pregunta Orwell, “qué nos podemos esperar?”. Notando que la capacidad de Irán para influir en sus países vecinos — incluso en el caso de que tuviese un deseo verificable de hacerlo — es limitada, Labott correctamente acepta que los comentarios oficiales de Estados Unidos van más por la línea ofensiva que por la de las preocupaciones defensivas. Y teniendo en mente el gélido estado de las relaciones entre Estados Unidos e Irán, y la fijación de la nobleza estadounidense con la supuesta búsqueda de armas nucleares por parte de Irán, las amenazas proferidas recientemente por la potencia no deben sorprender.

La verdad es que a pesar de la reciente campaña propagandística desde Washington acerca de los levantamientos populares en la región, Irán no tiene que infiltrar ninguno de ellos para que surjan gobiernos antiamericanos en la región; ese resultado se materializará de forma decisiva por sí solo. La ocupación neo-colonial y ladevastación impuesta por Estados Unidos en la región es más que suficiente para asegurar que cualquier movimiento verdaderamente popular en la región será, por definición, antiamericano. Ésto no significa, por supuesto, aceptar los chillidos demenciales de los neoconservadores sobre un califato global o el catapultamiento del terrorismo islámico contra el pueblo americano.

El pueblo árabe puede sentir (y debería sentir) repulsión absoluta por el estado americano sin necesariamente guardar ningún tipo de hostilidad en contra de la gente común que vive en los Estados Unidos. La gente trabajadora común y corriente de Oriente Medio y de Estados Unidos no tienen por qué darle credibilidad al discurso de patriotismo vulgar y a la psicología de “ellos contra nosotros” que sirve como base a la campaña de miedo a Irán promovida por los políticos estadounidenses.

Que los Estados Unidos, el más militarizado, asesino y salvaje mercante de la muerte continúe invocando la amenaza de un Irán con armas nucleares es uno de los ejemplos más ilustrativos de locura estatista. Quien quiera que esté más asustado de Irán que de los Estados Unidos haría bien en echar un vistazo al Medio Oriente y considerar cuál de los dos está derramando más sangre.

El estado iraní es un instrumento venenoso de opresión y violencia política, pero difícilmente es la amenaza tenebrosa que la élite política de Estados Unidos pinta como tal. Y lo que es aún más importante, no puede ni siquiera compararse con la amenaza global que los Estados Unidos representan.

Artículo original publicado por David D’Amato el 06 de marzo 2011.

Traducido del inglés por Alan Furth.

Iran and the Culture of Fear

David S. D'Amato — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 09:40:59 +0000

As we might expect, the revolutionary protests consummated and under way in the Middle East have reinvigorated the fear-mongering of America’s political class regarding Iran. As CNN’s Elise Labott notices, the fact that the popular protests have grown out of “entire[ly] indigenous” grievances “hasn’t stopped top U.S. officials from suggesting Iran has a part” and “[ringing] the alarm bell” in warning of an Iranian threat.

Forever in search of new and foreboding ghosts against which to leverage the permanent war economy, the ruling class must constantly defend — in the perfidious wording of Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — “the security commitments we have made.” In Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell masterfully depicted the “pyramidal structure” of the totalitarian state, a living hell created by elites through an “economy existing by and for continuous warfare.”

The words of the novel closely parallel the paranoid, obsessive culture of fear that America’s power elites have cultivated and indeed perfected; rather than merely accomplishing the more obvious goals of acquiring new territory and resources, the total state’s sustenance of interminable war is designed “to keep the structure of society intact.” If the state can convince us that the ghosts it conjures up are real, that they actually pose the prospect of some vaguely-defined doom, then the most draconian measures can be rationalized by the need for protection.

“[A]nd if the mind itself is controllable –,” asks Orwell, “what then?” Noting that Iran’s “real potential” to influence events in surrounding countries — even if it had a verifiable desire to do so — is limited, Labott correctly submits that the United States’ official comments on Iran are more in the nature of threats than defensively-minded misgivings. And keeping in mind the gelid nature of U.S.-Iran relations and the American nobility’s fixation with Iran’s purported quest for nuclear weapons, recent saber rattling is no surprise.

The truth, contrary to U.S. propaganda regarding the popular uprisings in the region, is that Iran doesn’t have to hover around the peripheries of the demonstrations in order for anti-American governments to take root; that result will materialize independently. The United States’ neo-colonial occupation and devastation of the region is altogether enough on its own to ensure that any truly popular movement in the Middle East will be thoroughly anti-American. This is not, however, to admit the truth of neoconservatives’ delusional shrieks about a global caliphate or the precipitous rise of Islamic terrorism against the American people.

The people of the Arab world can (and ought) to be utterly repulsed by the American state without necessarily harboring any violent hostility toward ordinary people living in the United States. Average, working people in the Middle East and in the United States needn’t give credence to the jingoistic “us versus them” psychology that provides the basis for American politicians’ Iran-centered campaign of fear.

That the United States, the world’s most militaristic, murderous and savage death-dealer, continues to invoke the menace posed by an Iran with nuclear weapons is among the most striking and illustrative examples of statist madness. Anyone who is actually frightened more of Iran than the United States would do well to take a casual look around the Middle East and consider which of the two is spilling more blood.

The Iranian state is a noxious instrument of political violence and oppression, but it is hardly the tenebrous threat that the United States foreign policy elite paints it as. More importantly, though, it can’t even begin to approach the global menace that the United States constitutes.

Translations for this article:

Spanish, Irán y la Cultura del Miedo.

The News About Leaked Cables

Darian Worden — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 18:49:49 +0000

The highly-anticipated Wikileaks release of thousands of diplomatic cables began with the first installment of releases on Sunday. The release gives average people an unprecedented look into the workings of international statecraft. Beyond historical reference and human interest, the cables reveal contemporary political dishonesty.

The rare inside look at current foreign policy holds immense value for people trying to gain a detailed understanding of politics. The fact that released cables date back to 1966 aids in the value of historical research as well.

But what matters of importance can be found within the drama of the release?

It should not be surprising that government officials make disparaging comments about each other. National leaders are probably ready to pounce on whatever personal weaknesses they find in US diplomats as well. But is interesting to see exactly what kind of assessments they have of each other. Although revelations of information gathering at the United Nations were initially surprising, they really should not be a shock. Of course diplomats are trying to get the upper hand on each other and reporting items of interest to other government agencies. If anything each country only varies in its audacity. However, the human interest part of the story does provide a direct, personal confirmation of what people should realize about government officials. They have human flaws like the rest of us, so how do they get so much power? Partly because at every level they are working to gain advantage over one another.

There are at least six issues raised in the initial cable leaks that ought to be major news.

1) American diplomats offered to trade Guantanamo detainees to foreign nations in exchange for favors. The New York Times reports that “Slovenia was told to take a prisoner if it wanted to meet with President Obama, while the island nation of Kiribati was offered incentives worth millions of dollars to take in Chinese Muslim detainees.” American officials also “suggested that accepting more prisoners would be ‘a low-cost way for Belgium to attain prominence in Europe.’” (All New York Times quotes are from November 28 article “Leaked Cables Offer Raw Look at U.S. Diplomacy”)

2) The government of Saudi Arabia wants the US to attack Iran. Antiwar.com, which has provided excellent analysis of the leaked cables, reported that “Saudi King Abdullah has been repeatedly pressing the United States government to launch a unilateral attack on his long-standing rival, Iran.” Islamic sectarianism may be a motivating factor for Abullah. It should be remembered that the Obama Administration has just made the largest arms deal US history with Saudi Arabia, a theocratic state with a terrible record on civil liberties and gender equality. In addition, the New York Times reported that leaked cables indicate “Saudi donors remain the chief financiers of Sunni militant groups like Al Qaeda.” The influence of regional rivalries suggests balance-of-power politics at work in US foreign policy.

3) The United States told the Turkish government to toe the line on Iran. Antiwar.com describes how in late 2009, the Obama administration “privately warned the Turkish government not to criticize unsubstantiated allegations against Iran’s civilian nuclear program, in particular warning that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s comments made Turkey ‘vulnerable to international community criticism.’”

4) Afghan President Hamid Karzai claims that the Pakistani government is forcing Taliban militants to keep fighting coalition forces. If it is true that Pakistan is intentionally lengthening the war, it should be considered evidence that war is not unavoidable but is a deliberate policy for furthering state power.

(See The Raw Story, “Pakistan forcing Taliban militants to keep fighting, Karzai says in leaked cable” by Daniel Tencer)

5) Zia Massoud, the vice president of Afghanistan, was found to be carrying $52 million in cash when he visited the United Arab Emirates. Despite suspicion of corruption, the New York Times reports Massoud was ultimately allowed to keep the cash “without revealing the money’s origin or destination.”

6) Yemen officials boldly lie about US bombing. While it has been previously reported that the Yemeni government was involved in covering up the US government’s role in missile strikes aimed at Al Qaeda, leaked cables provide an inside look at the attitude toward deception. The New York Times quotes the Yemeni president as stating “We’ll continue saying the bombs are ours, not yours,” which prompted the deputy prime minister to “joke that he had just ‘lied’” to the country’s parliament by telling them Yemeni forces were responsible for the strikes.

The leaks also contain confirmation of unsurprising bad deeds. They reveal that US officials pressured German authorities to prevent them from arresting CIA operatives for the mistaken abduction and detention of a German citizen with the same name of a suspected militant. Government agents expect to operate above the law, and a more powerful government can leverage its power to prevent rivals from holding its agents accountable.

Similarly unsurprising, but nevertheless interesting for their viewpoint, are numerous allegations of corruption, descriptions of the Russian mafia state, and revelations of hacking directed by the Chinese government. Also of note are political assessments of North Korea.

But perhaps the biggest story is how the cables made it to the news in the first place. It is believed that a disgruntled soldier named Bradley Manning downloaded files from a government information network then gave the information to Wikileaks. Manning, a low-level intelligence analyst, was one of 2.5 to 3 million US citizens with access to the network. The US government had apparently set up the vast network for the sake of facilitating the exchange of information between different government agencies, preventing communications failures from becoming weak points.

(See Der Spiegel, “Leaked Cables Reveal True US Worldview” and The Guardian, “How 250,000 US embassy cables were leaked” )

The dilemma of the vast, vulnerable information network demonstrates tension between security and bigness, but also between security and secrecy. The more people who have access to the network, the more likely one person will take information from it. Yet the fewer people who have access to information, the harder it is to share vital information and pick up on unnoticed connections.

It should also be noted that these are State Department cables, none classified at the highest level of secrecy. What information exists in the bowels of intelligence agencies remains to be seen, possibly after a leak.

So take the opportunity to see the world through the eyes of the State Department. Go to Wikileaks and reach into the stash. And ask why such information was only meant to be seen by a privileged minority.