In fact certain
information the aforementioned two books have in common what be summed up as
follows:
Saddam Hussein did
not have the alleged ‘weapons’, did not have production programs for
manufacturing these weapons, and did not have plans to restart programs for
these weapons. The most that Charles Duelfer, head of
the Iraq Survey Group, was able to tell Congress in October was that Saddam
might have had the “intention” to restart these programs at some point. The
weapons were not destroyed shortly before the war, nor were they moved to
Syria, as some still claim. They never existed. As Duelfer
reported, the weapons and facilities had been destroyed by the United Nations
inspectors and U.S. bombing strikes in the 1990s, and he found no evidence of
“concerted efforts to restart the program” (Washington Post, October 7, 2004).
In short, administration officials “hoodwinked” America, as also John Prados carefully and convincingly documents in his book by
that name.
The Senate report, a
valuable and solid piece of work, pulled its political punches. The committee
concluded that while “most of the major key judgments” in the October 2002
national intelligence estimate (NIE) were “either overstated, or were not
supported by, the underlying intelligence report,” the failures were a result
of “systematic weaknesses, primarily in analytic trade craft, compounded by a
lack of information sharing, poor management, and inadequate intelligence
collection” as well as a “groupthink” mentality, rather than administration
pressure. In other words, they blamed the lower-ranking analysts.
The president and
vice president had decided even before September 11, 2001 to overthrow Saddam
Hussein. This was to be the beginning of an historic crusade to forcibly
remake the geopolitics of the Middle East. But the drive for war ran into
serious opposition in summer 2003, particularly from respected Republican
moderates such as retired general Brent Scowcroft’s prescient warning, that an
invasion of Iraq “could turn the whole region into a cauldron and, thus,
destroy the war on terrorism.”
The administration’s
response, “was to craft a scheme to convince America and the world that war
with Iraq was necessary and urgent, a scheme, unfortunately, that required
patently untrue public statements and egregious manipulations of intelligence.”
White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card set up a special White House Information
Group chaired by political guru Karl Rove in August 2002 to coordinate all the
executive branch elements in the new campaign.
The key document in
the administration’s campaign was the CIA White Paper on Iraq’s weapons of mass
destruction programs. The White Paper was hurriedly produced and distributed to
the public in October 2002 as an unclassified version of the now-infamous NIE
that was given to Congress in the same month, just a few days before the vote
to authorize the use of force. These two documents convinced the majority of
congressional members, experts, and journalists that Saddam had a powerful and
growing arsenal. The first paragraph of the White Paper concludes that
Iraq “probably will have a nuclear weapon during this decade.” This claim was
then repeated endlessly to the public. Including that Iraq might acquire a bomb
some time from 2007 to 2009, a time frame that is far in the future, negating
President Bush’s claim that Iraq poses an urgent national security threat.
In fact early on
Michael Gordon of the New York Times published a lengthy article on October 3,
2004, detailing how the administration manipulated the evidence to support a
claim that Iraq had imported aluminum tubes for centrifuges to enrich uranium
for nuclear weapons. David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and
International Security, presented much of that research in his report, “Iraq’s
Aluminum Tubes: Separating Fact from Fiction,” in December 2003. Others, have
weighed in on the tubes, including Seymour Hersh for the New Yorker, Spencer
Abraham and John Judis for the New Republic, and
Jonathan Landay at Knight-Ridder. In fact today
(Sept.25,2005) one can conclude that the way the tube allegation surfaced bears
every mark of an orchestrated leak by the Bush administration.
Having set up the
Times story, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and Cheney were primed
when they appeared on the Sunday talk shows that same day, pointing to the
article as confirmation of their claims. We now know that when Rice said that
the tubes “are only really suited for nuclear weapons programs,” she knew it
was untrue. She had already been briefed on the disagreements in the
intelligence community and knew that leading U.S. experts did not think the
tubes were at all suitable for centrifuges.
A Senate report, next
provides a fascinating exchange of e-mails between a State Department expert
and an Energy Department expert fuming about the way higher-ups at the CIA were
twisting the intelligence. By exaggerating the evidence on Iraq, one
expert warns the other, “the administration will eventually look foolish, i.e.,
the tubes and Niger.
Elsewhere I have
already drawn a parallel between America’s invasion of Iraq and the
old British Colonial practice of “indirect rule”, which meant giving
local rulers the semblance of power but - especially when it came to questions
of security - running their countries for them.
I assumed that, so
long as there remained a significant US military presence in Iraq, the transfer
of “full sovereignty” to a legitimate Iraqi government amounted to the same
thing. In practice, the sovereignty of the Iraqi authorities would be limited
at the discretion of American military commanders.
Instead, we have
ended up with something closer to the disorganized Lebanon in the 1980s than
one of the Indian princely states in the 1880s. What has gone wrong? History
suggests two answers. The first is that the coalition forces are simply too few
to impose order. In 1920, when British forces quelled a major insurgency in
Iraq, they numbered around 135,000. Coincidentally, that is very close to
the number of American military personnel currently in Iraq.
The trouble is that
the population of Iraq was just over 3 million in 1920, whereas today it is
around 24 million. Thus, back then the ratio of Iraqis to foreign forces was,
at most, 23 to 1. Today it is around 174 to 1. To arrive at a ratio of 23 to 1
today, about 1 million troops would be needed. Reinforcements on that
scale are, needless to say, inconceivable.
The second problem is
qualitative rather than quantitative. The plain fact is that controlling
disaffected urban populations is a great deal harder today even Iraqi
dictator Saddam was in breach of 12 years’ worth of UN resolutions. And true,
in January, the Iraqis held their first multi-party elections for 50 years.
Further elections are to follow in December. The absence of a serious
reconstruction plan however since has shamed the entire coalition, especially
as this failure has affected not only Iraqi civilians but our troops, who are
having to act as de facto nation-builders.
The point of my
article today however is that Naomi Klein in “No War” (2005) offer almost the
same common story as outlined above, except now in context of a decidedly so
called “anti-Globalization” narrative.
But first of all, as
can be shown on hand of my previous articles on this website, I
am not an apologist for big business. Many activities of many international companies, for
example tobacco companies, deserve unqualified condemnation. There also have
been a number of incidents in the past where multinationals interfered in
national politics, particularly in South America.
In domestic affairs,
there is clear evidence that the marketing departments of
pharmaceutical companies have often brought improper pressures to bear on
doctors to recommend their drugs and on editors of scientific journals to
review the results of their company's research favorably. The increasing dependence of universities on
financial support from industry can lead to abuse and has sometimes done so. In
one notorious case, a research worker in the University of Toronto found that a
drug developed by a company that sponsored her work, and which was planning to
make a large donation to the university, was less effective than expected and
had serious side-effects. The company sought to suppress her work and she was
dismissed. After a long investigation she was eventually reinstated’ and the furore her case caused will act as a powerful disincentive
for similar abuses elsewhere. Another disadvantage of academic dependence on
corporate finance is the rush by academics to take out patents on their work.
This prevents scientists from sharing information about research results and
undermines good science. Paradoxically, the excessive scope of patents now
being granted is hampering the innovation for which patents were
invented. There is no doubt, therefore, that business activities need
effective regulation and control, which does in fact exist in most of the
developed world. On the other hand, I reject the view of the conspiracy
theorists that all multinational companies sacrifice all ethical considerations
only, for the sake of profit.
To quote Naomi Klein,
“By now we’ve all
heard the statistics: how corporations like Shell and Walmart baskan budgets bigger than the gross domestic product of
most nations; how, of the top hundred economies, fifty-one are multinationals
and only forty-nine are countries. We have heard (or read about) how a
handful of powerful CEOs are writing the new rules for the world economy.”
When Klein writes
that ‘we’ have all heard these statistics, she represents the views of an
introverted coterie who rely on each other as independent sources to confirm
each other’s prejudices. The figures quoted are confused and are based on a
fundamental economic misconception. As many commentators have pointed out,
notably Martin Wolf and Jagdish Bhagwati, GDP (gross domestic product) is a
measure of value added, which cannot be compared with a company’s sales.
The budgets that
Naomi Klein cites refer to company sales. To compare sales of companies with
the GDP of countries either shows ignorance or is a deliberate attempt o distort and evoke prejudice. Even the most primitive
traders do not confuse sales with profits value added or would quickly go bust
if they did. In fact, the value added of the So biggest companies amounts to no
more than 4.5 per cent of the value added of the So biggest economies. The
claim is simply untrue.
Next, if the top
companies were as powerful as their critics claim, they should be able to
consolidate their power. But the league of big companies is constantly
changing, a fact incompatible with omnipotence. None of the top ten companies
in the world today, measured by market value, were in the top ten a decade ago.
At that time Vodafone and Nokia, to cite two European examples, were unknown to
the world at large. Even the largest international companies are subject to
control through national regulation, but perhaps the most effective check that
stops them exercising monopoly power is competition. Indeed, big companies are
most powerful inside closed markets. Open borders weaken corporate power.
In countries who are
members of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, the
countries in which international companies have invested most heavily, the
average ratio of tax revenue to GDP rose by over 5 per cent between 1980 and
1999, a very substantial rise. In the European Union, the ratio rose from 33.5
per cent to 42.3 per cent between 1970 and 1996.
Again, it is claimed
that multinational companies seek out countries with the cheapest labor and
stop governments passing regulations to prevent exploitation of labor. Not so.
Most investment is not-made in countries with cheap labor. As already
mentioned, most American investment flows into Europe; companies invest in
France, despite the enactment of a 35-hour week, and in Britain, despite the
introduction of a minimum wage. As for investment in the Third World, of course
there have been bad cases. Klein cites a number of examples where Nike, Adidas,
Walmart, and other American companies have exploited cheap labor in the Philippines
and even cheaper labor in China. In an appendix, she lists a rogues’ gallery of
companies and their sweatshops in China, making a strong prima facie case that
there is widespread abuse.
Her book performs a
service in, drawing attention to malpractices and adding to public pressure to
end them. But as a general argument against globalization, her case fails.
Overall, foreign companies in poor countries pay higher wages than local
employers; in Vietnam, for example, Nike’s subcontractors (Nike are prominent
villains in Klein’s rogues’ gallery) pay their employees double the average
wage and provide much better working conditions.
In Indonesia, the
average wage in a foreign-owned plant is 50 per cent higher than in domestic
plants.” The International Institute of Economics in Washington, a highly
respected independent think-tank, has also found that people in poor countries
who work for foreign affiliates of American companies earn on average double
the domestic manufacturing wage. (See former UK Minister Dick Taverne, The March Of Unreason, 2005, p.238.)
In poor countries,
the lowest wages are paid in the local service sector, in small industries and
farming, not in the factories, mines, or plantations of multinational
companies. The reason foreign companies pay higher wages is that they need to
attract labour of the highest quality. It is not
therefore surprising that the Pew poll quoted earlier showed strong support in
developing countries for the presence of multinational corporations.
It is worth adding
that the use of child labour-and Klein cites several
examples-is a more common practice in the world than most people realize. The
International Labour Office estimates that in the
year 2000, 186 million children aged 5. (ILO Report (2002),’A Future Without
Child Labour’, p. 16.)
However, to ban
exports from companies that employ child labor, as some advocate, would simply increase
poverty, which is the main cause for child labor in the first place. Ending the
evil of child labor depends on the United Nations’ commitment in the second of
its Millennium Development Goals to universal primary education. (House of
Lords Committee, Evidence II Q12, p. 46. cited in Taverne,
2005, p.239.)
It is also claimed
that multinational companies use their power to lower environmental standards.
Not so. Most international investment has not been made in countries with
least regulation. Furthermore, as globalization has spread, so have
environmental regulations. If association proved cause and effect, this would
indicate that globalization increases environmental protection. In fact, nation
states favor stronger environmental regulation and national sovereignty
prevails; big multinational corporations cannot prevent it, even if they wish
to. Again, foreign companies in the developing world generally observe higher
environmental standards than local companies.
Protests yesterday
however denounced among others, the ‘outsourcing’ of American jobs to low-paid
foreign workers. What is this but protectionism pure and simple, and
indefensible? When jobs are exported from the United States to the Philippines
or Indonesia, of course American workers suffer and complain, but poorer
countries gain. In fact, most blame for the decline in demand for low-skilled
workers in the northern hemisphere is due not to loss of jobs to the developing
world, but to technological change.
Furthermore, no one
claims that the WTO is perfect. It is a small body (not a huge bureaucracy, as
those who demonstrate against it imagine) with a budget of less than a quarter
of that of one of its critics, the World Wildlife Fund. It is limited in what
it can achieve since its decisions depend on agreement among all of its
140-plus members.
But what does the
anti-globalization movement stand for? Can it offer, as some of its champions
maintain, an alternative which is neither capitalist nor socialist and which
avoids the mistakes of the past? What-can this strange alliance, of
Greens linking arms with trade union members representing smoke-stack
industries, vegetarians allying with meat farmers, Trotskyites mixing with
church groups, & co-fundamentalists joining with anarchists, possibly have
in common, except what they are against?
At a meeting of the
more modest offshoot of the World Forum, the European Social Forum, some 40,000
gathered, made up, according to a report, of intellectuals, students,
ecological and social activists, people representing the poorest and most
marginalized, radical economists, concerned individuals, humanitarians,
artists, culturalists, churches, scientists, and land workers from a
bewildering array of non-government groups and grassroots social movements.
(John Vidal, The Guardian, 1 February 2003, p.74.)
In the circumstances
it is not surprising that what has emerged so far is vague. At the first Alegre
conference the emphasis was on the creation of a movement that was ‘new’, new
faces, new ideas, new methods, and a determination to avoid the failures of
leftwing regimes of the past. The second conference was dominated by big
gatherings to hear speeches by big personalities, some of whom preached
something uncomfortably close either to ‘new’ Marxism, or old-fashioned
left-wing politics. President Hugo Châvez of
Venezuela, for example, not at first sight a reassuring advocate of the
democratic decentralization of power, declared that ‘the left in South America
is being reborn’ and cited the continuation of Fidel Castro’s rule in Cuba as
evidence. Castro is clearly much admired by those who went to Alegre, and even
if he owes much of his popularity to his ostracism by America, identification
of the new movement with the Castros and Châvezes hardly suggests that its positive programme will be either democratic or new. Indeed, Naomi
Klein declared her disappointment that the second World Social Forum was
usurped by ‘big men and swooning crowds’, instead of building its own version
of participatory democracy. (Naomi Klein, The Guardian, 9 November 2002.)
Unfortunately, her
own alternative prescription shows little awareness of the real world of
politics or economics. As disclosed in a series of essays and articles, she
envisages a movement based on neighborhood councils, participatory budgets,
stronger city governments, land reform and co-operative farming, referendums,
constituents’ assemblies, and empowered local councils, ‘a vision of
politicized communities networked internationally to resist further assaults
from the IMF, the World Bank and World Trade Organization’.‘ Budget
constraints, intellectual property rights, and multinational companies are
conspiracies against the public that should be dispensed with. It is an
eloquently articulated reaction against widely felt injustices, based on a
conviction that everything is getting worse, that everywhere democracy is being
trampled underfoot by monolithic capitalism, and that oppression and inequality
in the world can be cured if only we abandon the ‘neo-liberalism’ of the
market, put people before profits, and restore power to the people.
To point out that
both analysis and prescription are simplistic and flawed is to underline the
obvious. Many forms of decentralized politics mentioned by Naomi Klein
have been widely advocated by liberal democrats in many countries, but they are
neither inconsistent with, nor an alternative to, globalization. Democracies
have to strike a difficult balance between local powers and central decisions
(local centres of power may reach separate
conflicting decisions that are nationally incompatible and can only be resolved
centrally) and also between the will of the majority and the rights of
minorities. It is naïve to denounce budget constraints and patent rights, to
fail to realize that governments that ignore budget constraints can eventually
go bust and that technological innovation requires some system of patent
rights. However strong the case for the reform of TRIPS, immensely costly
investment in research and development of new drugs will never be made if
competitors can sell copies at a price that merely reflects the cost of
production.
Nor is ‘granting
power to the people’ a simple remedy to prevent democracy being trampled
underfoot as globalization spreads. In fact, while there are still numerous
unpleasant dictatorships around the world, their number is declining, not
increasing. According to the latest Human Development Report, the number of
regimes considered democratic jumped from 44 in 1985 to 82 in 2000, while the number
considered authoritarian declined from 67 to 26.36 This is a remarkable
improvement, even if it must be conceded that democratic institutions in the
new democracies are not the state, whose economic role is mainly confined to
protecting property rights, and which allows greed to be the principal
motivator.41 This business model has undoubtedly been successful in creating
wealth in the last decade, particularly for company directors, but its claim to
be the most successful model in the world is open to question.
Capitalism was a
European, not an American, invention and there are many different models on
show. Even in the United States many companies behave in ways very different
from those expected from the American model. Not only is ‘social
capitalism’ in Europe very different from its American relative, but inside
Europe itself the corporate system of almost every country is distinct. There
is the German ‘Rhineland’ model (now undergoing significant alterations), the
Dutch ‘Polder’ model (just as successful in the last decade in promoting growth
and employment as the American model), a more dirigiste French model, separate
Scandinavian models, and so on. Outside Europe, in Japan and Korea for example,
there are also very different models. Nearly all the European models stress
workers’ rights, recognize a measure of industrial democracy, and seek to
operate by consensus. The role of the shareholder, while gradually acquiring
greater substance, does not have the pre-eminence it is accorded in America, and
rewards for directors, while still handsome by almost any standard, do not
begin to approach the stellar heights of those of their American
counterparts. Takeovers, which often treat companies and their employees
as if they were commodities to be bought and sold like chattels, are much rarer
outside the Anglo-Saxon world. Indeed, champions of European-type social
capitalism argue that, at its best, it reconciles the advantages of the market
with the interests of a fair society.
European social
capitalism is viewed by many Americans as sclerotic and inflexible, lacking
innovation and enterprise, and ineffective at delivering economic growth. In
time, they argue, everyone will have to copy the American model. It is not
within the scope or purpose of this article (Sept.25, 2005) to diagnose the
strengths and weaknesses of different capitalist systems, but on past evidence
it ms a reasonable forecast that no single model will
prevail.
If the test of
economic success is the record, not of the last ten, but of the last thirty
years, European social capitalism wins the prize. European economies have grown
faster than the American economy, not vice versa. Even today, despite the
recent surge in growth American productivity, production per hour is higher in
several European countries, including France, the Netherlands, Belgium, and
former West Germany, while it is only fractionally lower in Austria and
Denmark, all of them countries which prosper despite -heir high rates of
taxation, thus disproving the argument that high taxes necessarily stifle
enterprise and destroy wealth.” Annual production per worker is lower because,
adopting a civilized approach, European workers take longer holidays and work
shorter hours. Even Germany, which has not yet fully recovered from the
enormous burden imposed by reunification and which faces the need for major
structural reforms to overcome a recent spell of low economic growth, is hardly
a country facing a major crisis. The German social model offers stability,
security, fairness, a very high standard of public services and a civilized
lifestyle, in fact the kind of social good, as Europhiles would argue, that
economic growth should aim to achieve. However, past successes do not prove
that European models of capitalism will prosper in the next thirty years if
they fail to adapt to new circumstances and there is little doubt, as
persistent high unemployment in several EU countries demonstrates, that this is
a time when many traditional business practices in a number of EU countries will
have to change.
The movement against
globalization views capitalism as monolithic, because, like eco-fundamentalists
and the back-to-nature movement, it seeks simple solutions to complex problems
and prefers to talk about the general, not the particular. Its motives, justice
for the poor and more equal treatment between nations, are admirable; its
intellectual base is weak. It is another example of the triumph of emotion over
reason. If it succeeds in limiting free trade, abolishing the WTO, and
replacing contemporary capitalism, it will not make the world a better place.
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