Transcript World War IV: As Viewed From Above and From Below

World War IV?
As viewed
from
Above and from Below
Woolsey on WWIV
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James Woolsey: Ex-CIA Director under Clinton
Speech at UCLA, April 2003
Forum sponsored by “Americans for Victory over
Terrorism”
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Quotes Elliot Cohen of Johns Hopkins:
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Right Wing Group founded by Bill Bennett
Not War on Terrorism, but World War IV
Who are the enemies in this war?:
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“Islamist Shia” in Iran,
“fascists”/Baathists, like Hitler, in Iraq and Syria
“Islamist Sunni, Al-Qaeda
Saudi Royal Family, Mubarack in Egypt
Marcos on WWIV
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Subcomandante Marcos
Spokesperson for the EZLN
War in Chiapas
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January 1, 1994 to the present
Should have ended with San Andrés Accords
Why not?
Constants in WWI, WWII, WWIII, WWIV
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Conquest and reorganization of territory
Destruction of the Enemy
Administration of Conquest
WWIV?
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End of WWIII (cold war) left unipolar world
WWIV = achievement of globalization
Globalization = embodiment of neoliberalism
Requires defeat and administration of enemy
Enemy = humanity
Strategy?
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Homogenization
Fragmentation
Homogenization
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Destroy effective differences
Whatever makes nation states different, e.g.,
language, culture, economy, social fabric
Destruction?
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Not of people, per se, but of relationships
Reduction to computer language & logic of market
Break up and destroy social relationships that
resist their reduction to market relationships
Fragmentation
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Fragmentation of nation states (Balkans)
Fragmentation of social groups
 New
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identities for old
A commercial/financial network
 No
local equilibrium
 Market determines what you produce, buy,
consume, your worth
 People reduced to producing/consuming
machines
The Enemy
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All that resists this becomes the enemy, including
dignity, overt resistance, solidarity, i.e., those
qualities that make people human
Thus the hate campaigns:
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Thus the attack on civil liberties:
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Xenophobia against “foreigners”
Racism against immigrants
Homophobia against gays
No rights for foreigners
Discrimination against immigrants
Persecution of gays
Ethnicide against the indigenous
But thus too growing resistance to these attacks,
increased solidarity across borders, within and
across differences
More than military: WWIII
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Many (US) soldiers vs many (USSR) soldiers, I.e.,
conventional war scenarios
Limited Nuclear war (in Europe)
Total Nuclear war, MAD, Deterrence
Surrogate conventional wars in Third World, e.g.,
Vietnam, domino theory
Total War (on all fronts): military + anything else,
e.g., media, diplomacy, economic warfare,
sabotage
Tried to recapture legitimacy of WWII – defense of
freedom for all
More than military: WWIV
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Total war: all fronts + anywhere + anytime
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Against all possible enemies
Thus “flexible forces” and “rapid deployment” capacity
Thus “forward basing” of materiel and troops ready for fast
deployment
But also use of surrogates
Supranational institutional legitimacy (UN, NATO) of
“humanitarian intervention”
From “containment” to the “extension” of total war
From national armies & national security to national
stability and policing – both domestic and international
From national defense to hemispheric defense, e.g., against
drug trafficking
War in Chiapas
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Total war, no neutrals
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That is why the war didn’t end
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Not just against the EZLN, it is secondary
But the terrorism of the military and paramilitaries against the
real enemy: the indigenous people/communities in rebellion
Implementing the San Andres Accords would have mean
accepting the existence of an enemy they actually want to
destroy, to disperse, to wipe out as peoples
Question: But why destroy the indigenous?
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Answer #1: for the resources of & on their lands: oil, uranium
and lumber, the “Mayan Lands” tourism project
Answer #2: the indigenous are neither consumers nor
producers, they go their separate way and that is
unacceptable, they are in the way
The Machinery of Ethnicide
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The Army:
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An occupying force, on alien terrain
The enemy is the civilian population
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That goes about its life
 That shouts “get out” every day
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Bought media hide the reality of this occupation,
profitable and destructive
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Trafficking in babies
Drug trafficking (reversed EZLN ban)
Prostitution
Alcohol
Desertions and promotions
Army Strategies
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Surgical Strike
 Special
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operation units to strike EZLN
Total Strike
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Army seals of the area to hide what
happens, no press, no HR observers
 The rest of the army attacks all known leaders
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Secret basements and tunnels for torture and killing
and disposal (within and without)
Human Rights Strategies
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Violation of Individual Human Rights
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Beatings, torture, killings
Violation of collective human rights under the
legitimacy of individual human rights
 Collective human rights have no legal status
 There are no collective HR observers
Objective: destruction of indigenous peoples, I.e.,
ethnicide.
Resistance
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Not to take power (like Emiliano refused)
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We question everything, we are an army that wants to
abolish armies
The old resist, the young resist, they are the
bridge between an unacceptable present and
more acceptable future
Against neoliberalism in Mexico, nationalism is
revolutionary
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Nationalism as self-determination
Nationalism as shaping one’s own future
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