Re: A SECRET blueprint for US global domination,

Thanks for the summary of the comments and attitudes--or lack of comments. ;-)

I found the lack of response--and what I have interpreted as the attempts 
to deflect response--curiously interesting as well.  I have thought about 
this for some time over the past few months, and discussed it with various 
collegues. Here's a short summary of what I see are the difficulties in 
many world systems scholars being willing to approach this:


Personally, I believe it may stem from several issues:

1. that people are unwilling to critically challenge their economic 
reductionistic view of the issues at hand or of world systems theory. 
Particularly I am referring to the analysis of the issue of religion, 
particularly in world systems. This is strange because the importance of 
subjective beliefs on "economic rationality" have been dealt with by Max 
Weber--certainly a "canonical" source to point to in brining 
religious/economic networks to light.  Most people in world systems theory 
are on the 'left,' and with this intellectual baggage is the typical 
modernist assertion that "religion is fading." However, if you begin with 
the assertion that it is a durable force in world and human events and 
still widely used to legitimate world events to a public (gullible) 
audience, then ignoring it is simply being unsystematic as to how politics 
works in practice, or how the goals of political elites are more than 
simply economic--that they are religious/economic expressions that are 
merged--material and ideological principles merged and inseperable in 
practice, though seperatable for analysis if you want.

2. the Israel/Zionist question: unquestioning acceptance of "whatever 
Israel does" because of the anti-semite card being thrown. Academic fear 
guiding speaking up more than anything, or out of concern of fanning the 
flames of the world's very real anti-semetism or fear of being associated 
with it by accident.

3. the lack of analysis in most modernist historiography on issues of 
"plotting" or "scheming"--for lack of a better word. To expand on this, a 
more accurate view of history for world systems analysis would be more than 
simply a "public" or accidental accretive sense of activities and "abstract 
forces" where the particulars are unimportant: history is closer to the 
calculating of particular groups against other particular groups where 
particular secret and private interests aim to design certain (wished for) 
public outcomes as their goals, or they react to public outcomes and 
attempt to change others or themselves. Most of this literature about 
secret networks is strictly kept out of academia, and most of the 
literature on private networks is missing except for the work on corporate 
and financial interlocks that does get into particulars. However, how to 
proceed? What if the private interlocks were more extensively and more 
thoroughly analyzed: interlocks in the state, in the applied sciences, in 
religion, in finance, and in corporations--instads of only analyzing 
corporations only? With such issues of private networks being the research 
topic in general instead of simply being packaged into what are interpreted 
as the "overriding large scale abstract economic forces" being expounded, 
one is forced to confront laterally the many public/private interrelations 
seen in many public events and economic events if one claims to be a social 
scientist, in my opinion. On the one hand, I believe that there is an 
academic fear that addressing any of these these private or secret issues 
may import some of the reductionisms that are (I feel justifiably) refused. 
However, certainly an analysis that only sticks to public events is an even 
more obvious reductionism and equally false as a historiography since it 
results in another form of reductionism. What I find useful is to keep in 
mind that in all societies there are various levels of publicity in social 
networks and the categories of public, private, and secret are (1) 
historical constants of sorts that can be used to begin a more holistic and 
more accurate analysis of the interpenetration of each; that these three 
areas are simultaneously (2) contentiously defined and result in changing 
issues about jurisdictional affairs which ties them all to state politics 
and issues of hegemony (of who is in and who is out (or kept out) of 
power). So, instead of simply buying a false dichotomy of saying that 
history is all one (public--"or" secret or private power) or the other or 
simply assuming that in history the categories of public, private, and 
secret remain constant, it is important to remember that the empirical 
issue of research should be what are the  relations between public or 
private or secret power networks. In other words, the nexus of interactions 
approach avoids all three of these "one type of network" analysis approachy 
for historiography of world systems.

4. simple issues of unfamiliarity or people being "too busy" to look into it.


comments welcome,


Mark Whitaker
University of Wisconsin-Madison




At 03:17 PM 4/28/2003 -0700, you wrote:
> The Sunday Herald article reproduced on http://www.sundayherald.com/27735, 
> to which Richard Ragland referred in his April 26, 2003 post " A SECRET 
> blueprint for US global domination" as being "quite interesting," is the 
> one to which I drew attention in my April 1, 2003 post with exactly the 
> same title.
>
> I expected at that time that a serious discussion would follow, since the 
> document prepared for Bush et al by the American think-tank Project For 
> The New American Century (PNAC) can be downloaded from
>
>         http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf
>
> and it goes to the very heart of what WSN should be concerned with: 
> blueprints for new world systems - which in this case is one for absolute 
> US global domination.
>
> Instead, the only posted reactions consisted of information about the 
> above website, and the following comment from a University of 
> Missouri-Columbia Ph.D. student named Balkan Devlin, who wrote:
>
> "I dont wanna sound cynical but is that [PNAC] really SECRET ??? I dont 
> think so..you can even checkout Wolfowitz's memo for DoD in 1992 (I think) 
> where he talks about similiar stuff. I am not American but even I am aware 
> of those reports and PNAC since 2000."
>
> I believe that the language of this comment speaks for itself. 
> Nevertheless, I checked with knowledgeable academic colleagues and other 
> people, and found out that what is so extremely well-known to Mr. Devlin 
> is not known to a lot of other otherwise well-informed people. Maybe Mr. 
> Devlin is in the privileged position of having access to special 
> intelligence sources, but that doesn't seem to be the case with people in 
> general.
>
> I was even more astounded when Mark Douglas Whitaker <mrkdwhit@wallet.com> 
> posted on April 22, 2003 an article on the related subject "The Project 
> for an Israeli Century," and the only response was an ad hominem attack 
> (again from "Devlen, Balkan  (UMC-Student)" <bdff5@mizzou.edu>) on the 
> writer of that article - instead of a reasoned analysis, with refutations 
> or confirmations of the points raised in the article itself.
>
> I therefore asked myself: Are there no serious political scientists and/or 
> other types of social scientists who subscribe to WSN, and who can devote 
> to these most crucial issues the attention they deserve?
>
> It seems to me that those who contribute regularly to WSN cannot see the 
> forest for the trees: they discuss specific incidents and devote a lot of 
> attention to particulars, but when presented with a blueprint for global 
> domination, they seem incapable of presenting any analyses with viable 
> suggestions, projections, or even reasoned conjectures.
>
> Hence let me recapitulate here, from my last post, that PNAC:
>
>         1. Supports a "blueprint for maintaining global US preeminence, 
> precluding the rise of a great power rival, and shaping the international 
> security order in line with American principles and interests." This 
> "American grand strategy" must be advanced for "as far into the future as 
> possible," the report says. It also calls for the US to "fight and 
> decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theatre wars" as a "core mission."
>         2. Refers to key allies such as the UK as "the most effective and 
> efficient means of exercising American global leadership."
>         3. Describes peacekeeping missions as "demanding American 
> political leadership rather than that of the United Nations."
>         4. Reveals worries in the administration that Europe could rival 
> the USA.
>         5. Says "even should Saddam pass from the scene" bases in Saudi 
> Arabia and Kuwait will remain permanently -- despite domestic opposition 
> in the Gulf regimes to the stationing of US troops -- as "Iran may well 
> prove as large a threat to US interests as Iraq has."
>         6. Spotlights China for "regime change" saying "it is time to 
> increase the presence of American forces in Southeast Asia". This, it 
> says, may lead to "American and allied power providing the spur to the 
> process of democratization in China"
>         7. Calls for the creation of "US Space Forces", to dominate 
> space, and the total control of cyberspace to prevent "enemies" using the 
> Internet against the US.
>         8. Hints that, despite threatening war against Iraq for 
> developing weapons of mass destruction, the US may consider developing 
> biological weapons -- which the nation has banned -- in decades to come. 
> It says: "New methods of attack -- electronic, 'non-lethal', biological 
> -- will be more widely available ... combat likely will take place in new 
> dimensions, in space, cyberspace, and perhaps the world of microbes ... 
> advanced forms of biological warfare that can 'target' specific genotypes 
> may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a 
> politically useful tool."
>         9. Pinpoints North Korea, Libya, Syria and Iran as dangerous 
> regimes and says their existence justifies the creation of a "worldwide 
> command-and-control system."
>
>
> My comments:
>
> a) With regard to #1, George Kennan - who was head of U.S. State 
> Department Planning during the Truman administration, and authored the 
> doctrine of "containing" the Soviet Union that determined U.S. policy 
> throughout the Cold War, stated in 1948:
>         "We [Americans] have about 60 per cent of the world's wealth but 
> only 6.3 per cent of its population. Our real task in the coming period 
> (will be) to maintain this position of disparity. We need not deceive 
> ourselves that we can afford the luxury of altruism and world benefaction 
> ... The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight 
> power concepts. The less we are hampered then by idealistic slogans the 
> better." (Emphasis added)
>
> PNAC carries into the 21st century George Kennan's 1948 policy suggestions.
>
> b) With regard to #2, in today's (April 28, 2003) online issue of Xinhua 
> News Agency (www.xionhuanet.com) there is an article entitled "Blair warns 
> France of its vision for Europe," in which one can read the following:
>
> "LONDON, April 28 (Xinhuanet) -- British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Monday
> challenged France over the future of the transatlantic relationship, 
> warning that French President Jacques Chirac's vision of Europe as a rival 
> to the United States is dangerously destabilizing.
>         "I do not want Europe setting itself up in opposition to America. 
> I think it will be dangerous and destabilizing," Blair said in an 
> interview with the British business daily, Financial Times.
>         "France wanted a multipolar world with different centers of 
> power, but "I believe that they will very quickly develop into rival 
> centers of power," Blair told the paper."
>
> Of course, what Mr. Blair wants is exactly what Mr. Bush wants - and all 
> of that is spelled out by PNAC, which severely condemns "rival centers of 
> power." According to PNAC, there should be one and only one center of 
> power on this entire planet, and that one should, of course, be located in 
> U.S.A.!
>
>
> PNAC presents WSN political scientists with the unique opportunity of 
> carrying out a comparative analysis of how a blueprint for achieving world 
> domination is being carried out right now in practice. But they seem to be 
> totally ignoring this unique opportunity.
>
> I am a quantum physicist, with no inside knowledge or deeper insights into 
> how the recommendations of PNAC are being implemented behind the scenes. 
> But shouldn't the WSN social scientists be presenting regular analyses of 
> such topics? And should they not publish their conclusions wherever and 
> whenever they can, so as to alert the world public to the danger facing us all?
>
> Today Iraq, and tomorrow Syria, then Iran, after that perhaps North Korea, 
> then Libya, and after that ... ??? When will be the turn of China, 
> Venezuela, Brazil, Cuba, etc.? And what will become of France, Germany, 
> Russia, etc.? How long until the entire world will have the pleasure of 
> experiencing the US style of "freedom and democracy," the way the native 
> peoples of North America have experienced it? (Cf. American Holocaust by 
> D. E. Stannard)
>
> Or maybe I'm wrong, and there are no social scientists who subscribe to 
> WSN and feel competent to deal with deeper issues.
>
> Eduard Prugovecki
> Professor Emeritus
> University of Toronto
> http://individual.utoronto.ca/prugovecki/