The Use of Terrorism to Construct World Order

Ola Tunander


Denver International Airport Mural. More images here

[This paper was prepared for submission] at the Fifth Pan-European International Relations Conference (Panel 28 Geopolitics) Netherlands Congress Centre, The Hague, 9-11 September 2004.

Securitization, Dual State and US-European Geopolitical Divide or The Use of Terrorism to Construct World Order

Abstract

In any state, certain areas are ‘securitized’ and by definition removed from the democratic political process. In an emergency situation – in short of war or terrorist attacks – the security sphere ‘invades’ the sphere of democratic politics. An autocratic security force or ‘security state’ appears to act in parallel to the regular democratic state, and this duality or ‘dual state’ was described by Hans Morgenthau already in 1955. After September 11, terrorism has become an instrument to ‘securitize’ what used to be public and tilt the ‘dual state’-balance in favour of the ‘security state’. The US ‘security state’ with its intelligence hegemony enters the scene as global protector that defines the world order in terms of a Pax Americana. Terrorism is used to construct a new world order. This development has been followed by mutual transatlantic accusations between European critiques and US neo-conservatives. According to the critiques, the Strategy of Tension, as we know it from Cold War Europe, has received a global dimension. During the Cold War, the US ‘dual security structure’ – with its specifically tasked units masquerading as ‘enemy forces’ – was developed by the US ‘security state’ in order to keep the political strength and the readiness and capability of the Western defences. Now, this structure has seemingly been made into a self-propelled mechanism that is able to transform the world order into a Pax Americana.

Introduction

In the USA, terrorism has replaced Communism as the new evil. In his famous speech on September 20 President George W. Bush promised to eliminate terrorism ‘and destroy it where it grows … and we ask every nation to join us’.1 This threat will be removed from our civilisation, he said and ‘we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven for terrorism. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists’.2 The US led antiterrorist ‘coalition of the willing’ is presented as a coalition for the 21 century replacing the structures of the Cold War. A new world order is emerging. President Bush’s speech on September 20, 2001, has been compared to the speech of President Truman 1947. Now, the Cold War is over, and the War on Terror has started.


The Dismal Economic Outlook For The New Year

Paul Craig Roberts

There is no safety in a police state and a debauched currency. The comfortable world that Americans have known is falling apart at the seams.

Jobs offshoring, financial deregulation, and ten years of wars have severely damaged the US economy and the economic prospects of 90% of the American population. The signs are everywhere in front of our eyes. They are in the income distribution data, the BLS jobs data, the Census data, the poverty figures, and the high number of food stamp recipients.

The signs are in the foreclosed and boarded up homes and the accompanying homelessness. They are in closed strip malls, in office building, warehouse, and shopping mall vacancies, and in the huge population losses of America’s manufacturing cities.

The New Economy was a hoax, like Saddam Hussein’s “weapons of mass destruction” and the “war on terror.” Americans were deceived by “their” corrupt government, by greed-driven corporations, and by corporate shills among economists and the pundit class into believing that they were trading middle class “dirty fingernail” jobs in manufacturing for better middle class “clean fingernail” high-tech service jobs. Instead, reasonably paid manufacturing and professional skill jobs, such as software engineering and information technology, were traded for lowly paid jobs as waitresses and bartenders and for jobs in ambulatory health care.

Consequently, real median US income fell for the vast majority of the population. To keep consumers spending when they had no raises, the Federal Reserve used low interest rates to create a real estate and credit bubble. The low interest rates drove up housing prices, and Americans refinanced their mortgages and spent the equity in their homes. Americans maxed out credit cards. The rise in consumer indebtedness kept consumer demand growing and the economy afloat.

But there is a limit to how far debt can outpace income, and the bubble burst. And when it burst the financial fraud that had been hidden in the euphoria was revealed. That set off the financial crisis.


Promoting War on Iran

Stephen Lendman

In June 2009, a Brookings Institution report titled, "Which Path to Persia? Options for a New American Strategy Toward Iran" was a regime change policy paper. Pro-Israeli right-wing ideologues prepared it, including:

(1) Martin Indyk: former US ambassador to Israel, currently Brookings foreign policy director.
(2) Kenneth Pollack: Former CIA analyst and National Security Council staff member; current Council on Foreign Relations member and Brookings Saban Center for Middle East Policy research director.
(3) Michael O'Hanlon: Former Congressional Budget Office national security analyst, currently Brookings senior fellow for defense and military policy.
(4) Bruce Riedel: Former CIA counterterrorism specialist and assistant to the President and senior director for Near East Affairs on the National Security Council; current Brookings foreign policy senior fellow.
(5) Suzanne Maloney: Former State Department policy advisor, currently Brookings foreign policy senior fellow.
(6) Daniel Byman: Former 9/11 Commission staff member; currently Brookings Saban Center for Middle East Policy research director and Georgetown University security studies professor.


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