The New Form of Government: Bombocracy

The new product that the emergent totalitarian hegemonist is bringing to the world

by Dr. Annemarie Buchholz, historian, Switzerland

‘Let me begin by saying this will be a campaign unlike any other in history, a campaign characterized by shock, (...) by the employment of precise munitions on a scale never before seen, and by the application of overwhelming force,’ said General Tommy Franks at a press conference on 22 March. His words were well chosen, clear and decisive. He ought to be ‘congratulated’ for them, since they dispel any illusions one might have still been entertaining.

The Kosovo war bore the label ‘defending human rights’. Initially the war in Afghanistan was said to be in the name of a necessary ‘liberation of women from the Taliban regime’. Then 11th September came and the grounds for war shifted. The current war is to protect America from Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction: the will to war has preempted any decision the weapons inspectors might have made. No doubt the grounds for war were based on legitimate problems. Yet the world has never been made more comfortable by driving the devil out with Beelzebub. We are gradually becoming used to the din of war, which is why we need to keep reminding ourselves of what really happened:

The Kosovo war did not fall out of the blue. The British, as is meanwhile generally known, promoted and armed Milosevic. Madeleine Albright had Hachim Taci trained in Switzerland during his ‘asylum’ there, as well as several student leaders from Pristina in Germany. This is how the KLA was born. Two years before the war began, Mary Robinson explained before the Conference on Human Rights in Geneva: “We know that the situation in Kosovo concerning Human Rights is very bad. But the autonomy they ask for we cannot give them.” As a result, preparations for war began. Madeleine Albright took Hachim Taci to the Rambouillet negotiations and treated him like a statesmen; Ibrahim Rugova was forced into the second row. Then the Racak photograph was fabricated and the sinister game could begin: Both parties were let loose on each other and the Americans with their fighter jets could show who they were. After 50 years of peace war had returned to Europe. In the aftermath, the Europeans had to bow to the burdon of the clearing-up operations. The result: the Balkans occupied, with an american huge military basis. Returning Kosovo guest workers reported soon after that a small city was being built around the base: making it clear that the American presence was to be an enduring one. Voices were heard from America saying that old World War II plans not fulfilled for this region were now being carried out. Since then, in the form of the so-called ‘Partnership for Peace’, neutral countries have been ‘allowed’ to take part in the occupation and carry out clearing-up and service operations. Swiss airplanes, for instance, proudly fly mineral water to the Americans there.

Is it possible to defend human rights with bombing raids in the name of the most powerful state or alliance? Human rights per definition protect individuals’ rights from government encroachment. Whether they can ensured by bombocracy is a matter for history to decide. In any case, this war’s moral mantel has become threadbare.

In Afghanistan, too, bombing squadrons were used to bring freedom and democracy. Americans promoted and armed the Taliban with the help of Pakistan’s secret service, as everyone now knows. They were students of the CIA. If it were really all about bringing freedom and democracy to this country, which was already heavily burdened by poverty and war, then something else should have happened after the fall of the Taliban: A consultative vote should have taken place among all Afghan citizens to decide whether they wanted to establish a centralized or decentralized state. Such a debate would have required at least a year of peace with an interim administration, a year in which all the armies remained in their barracks. A council made up of elected representatives from every region should subsequently have been able to draw up a constitution according to the people’s will, which in turn should have been voted on. After that, free elections (without corruption) should have taken place, as well as the establishment of new civil structures. This process could well have been supported by the European countries - which would have brought them the trust and appreciation of the Afghan people. The fact that several “Dostums” are steadily gaining influence and European troops are being made to protect them has torn the idea to pieces that they are ‘bringing freedom and democracy’. Bombocracy No. 2 now stands, and oil can flow from the Caucasus into the Gulf.

And now it is the turn of the Iraqi oil fields and the political transformation of the whole region. Until recently Saddam Hussein was America’s man. ‘We know that he is a son of a bitch, but at least he is our son of a bitch’, was the standard phrasing of the Americans. But where did he get the chemical and biological weapons which have not been found? Only from the Russians? Wasn’t it America and the British who armed him for the war against Iran and provided his people with all the know how? Isn’t is their own traces that have to be covered over before the world discovers them and puts two and two together? During the Second World War America and Britain worked closely together on the research and development of biochemical weapons. American military laboratories worked very closely together with Porton Down in a race against Hitler who was working on the development of his own substances. The book by Egmont R. Koch and Michael Wech ‘Code Name Artichoke: The CIA’s Secret Experiments on Humans’ which revolves around the case of the American microbiologist Frank Ohlsen, reveals here the blackest depths of the history of the 20thcentury. For example the secret human experiments which US and UK continued after the end of the Second World War in the same buildings in which Hitler’s henchmen tried out their substances for their lethality on human beings. Everything was scientifically accurately surpervised, recorded and evaluated. However, their own capacities proved insufficient: Koch and Wech report that american and british occupation forces drew up a list of Hitler’s one thousand best bio- and chemical weapon experts. They were filtered out among the captured Germans in the “re-education centres”, treated with exceptional politeness and received the offer of continuing their work in the USA. Naturally, they preferred this alternative to the courts of Nuremberg. In this way the expertise of the enemy became incorporated in the USA’s own belly. Is something similar planned with Saddam’s ‘most able’ people? At least, surely those traces which could betray one’s own actions during the war against Iran have to be wiped away: information which the inspectors obviously did not receive. It is history that will tell us everything that happens in Bombocracy No 3.

‘This war will be waged with a force never before witnessed in history!’ Wars, though, in the course of the last century have certainly been no gentle affairs. Those who fail to watch out are in danger of succumbing to the fascination of this ‘force never before witnessed in history’. Those who only apply their intelligence in a effort to comprehend the technical issues and thereby become mesmerised by what they see do not contribute to peace, in particular not to a sustainable peace.

The illusion that with a hail of bombs with a force never before witnessed in history one can - in the name of the hegemonic state mark you - protect human rights of the individual, safeguard the freedom of women and children or even bring democracy to the world, has vanished. The development towards these wars has already severely damaged precisely these rights in the USA: Citizens can no longer borrow books from a library without becoming registered in the national surveillance computer; citizens – we are told – remain in custody for months without proper legal proceedings; freedom of expression of opinion is in serious danger. Citizens in the USA who have been fighting for the preservation of these rights by publishing books, issuing statements and using the internet, already have a thing or two to say about that. Their courage is magnificent, as is the courage of the reservists in America and Israel who refuse to obey the adherents of these wars.

Let’s do our bit on our side of the Atlantic for peace. Every generation in history has to fill up and shape it’s own time. There is still much available to us from the wealth of experience of past generations which is to the benefit of us all. If we know better than our forefathers, we can build upon it.

‘Recent developments make it clear that it is time to to cut our ‘umbilical cord’ with America’, said the Reverend Ernst-Jürgen Albrecht in Dusseldorf some days ago on German radio. ‘We have to have the courage to develop our own standpoint concerning war and peace.’ And: ‘The wonderful thing about this peace movement is that it comes from the very centre of society. Therein lies also a great hope!’