Miriam Sandum Næss / Articles

Illustration photo, from Flicr account "the US Army"

The world is ever changing and the last few years it has changed more rapidly than ever before, or so its seems. In the last year several regimes has fallen, new ones are starting to build up. The Western world is getting weaker as a result of the recent recession, and Asia is growing stronger both in power and economy. Even though terror was known long before 2001, 9/11 changed everything. The term “terror” was thrown everywhere, security was tightening and journalists in the open west was forbidden to publish in the sake of “national security.” But how did we get here? And most of all how did the superpower United States get there? Its a saying that says; that to better predict the future and understand the present, you have to understand the past.

      This is what Gabriel Kolko does in his book “Another Century Of War?” from 2002. The book focuses on American foreign affairs, especially military, from the mid 1940`s too the years after September 11. With telling the readers about different events the United States has been involved in, he concludes through out the different stages how the U.S. managed to get them into the situations they are in today, and gives a few prediction on how he expect the future looks for his country.

       He makes out a point that the U.S. with its huge arms export around the world, has contributed to a disorder in the world. America has become over the last century become an unstable superpower. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the United States had no proper enemy, not without trying to find one bear in mind. September 11, was a military savior, now they knew who to fight.

      “September 11 saved Pentagon from great embarrassment and the need to admit that it was confused and divided and that the military services would resist major changes.”

TERROR

September 11, 2001 were not the first time the United States was attacked, the embassy in Saudi Arabia in June 1996, were 19 U.S. personnel were killed and 240 were wounded. The embassies in Kenya and Tanzania August 1998, 2000 people died. An American destroyer was attacked in Yemen October 2000, killing 17 sailors. 9/11, however, was the first time they were hit hard in their own country, were the population of the States saw them self as relative safe, at least from the outside world. Something that was shown on the approval ratings for Bush, which did go from 50 percent just before 9/11 to about 90 in the months after the attack.

“The war on terror begins with al-Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated.” said George W. Bush right after the attacks.

     Lets go a bit backwards here, don`t Bush contradict himself, as Kolko a few pages points out;

“The United States has founded, trained, and supplied dozens of state- terrorist organizations to maintain regimes that were described as anticommunist. But United States has also supported those -like the contras in Nicaragua- that used every form of violence, including terrorism which injured and killed many innocent civilians, to overthrow established governments.”

     Another point that Koklo makes of this new policy of Bush is if the Americans are supposed to confront the forty nations, maybe more, that are known to have terror network in their countries. This would lead to innovations all over the world and would be unpredictable in time and effort.

     That the United States isolated and had sanctions against Iraq, Libya and Iran because of alleged links with terrorism was a political strategy and then we can go back to Kolko arguments that terrorism will always exist because of the political causes which give the rise to it are integrated to the the way our world is organized.

ENEMIES

The second chapter of the book is dedicated tho show the readers about American relations in the Middle East from 1948. Kolko tells about how the U.S. wanted to take control over the British Oil interests in the region and keep the Soviet Union out. He opens the chapter with that 9/11 was a direct result over the United States involvement in the area over the last fifty years.

The Americans supported the Shah in Iran and that the CIA with the Israeli Mossad trained the Shah's secret police (SAVAK). In 1978 CIA predicted that the Shah would remain in office another decade. Under six months later the Shah went in to exile, and in February 1979 Kohmeini was in power and Iran was from then on a Islamic republic.

“The Carter administration`s intense dissatisfaction turned to fury in November, when Iran`s new leaders seized fifty-two Americans working in the embassy. Never had the United States suffered such humiliation.”

Later Pentagon supported Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Saudi Arabia, support shown with handing out weapons and money, the goal was to fight the new leader of Iran.

       The American support for Israel, in 1968, Koklo says was a turning point for their relations in the region.The U.S. had supported the Israelis with a massive amount of money over the years and they still have an aid for $3 billion from America. It is not only in aid in money Israel gets there support it`s also by U.S. arms aid for the country. This support has according to Kolko made that most of the Arab world identifies Israel and the United States as one. The Bush administration has acknowledge that its strongly support for Iseral has made it more difficult to gain support Muslim countries in the war against “terror.”

AFGHANISTAN

In the 1980`s American founds and arms was handed to Afgan warlords to fight against Soviet, one of the people they armed was Osama bin Laden himself. Kelko writes that the CIA set up a trap for the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, so Soviet could have their own Vietnam war. The same case was for Iraq, where the both countries was at one point allies against Iran. Pentagon encouraged Saddam build huger armies, with artilleries and chemical weapons. Both turned their backs to the U.S. at a later point, and used their weapons and knowledge against them.

“Where all this leads depends many considerations, including the war in Afghanistan and, above all, the war`s political aftermath in the coming years. At this point we can realistically dread the worst-case scenarios. There are many seeds here for future conflicts over the course of the next decades.”

The book is written in 2002 and already could Kolko see were this war could be headed. Unfortunately it looks like there is some truth to his words. The aftermath of the war in Afghanistan has become a international headache, a headache the rest of the world wanted to avoid by all means. Kelko continues to say; “to win the war militarily but loose it politically would be a disaster for the United States(...)”

In the preface of the book (updated in 2004) Kolko has this to say;

       “The united states has won the war again the Taliban in Afghanistan militarily; if the the Taliban regroup and fight a guerrilla war, then what follows is even more relevant, but that is even more relevant, but that is not likely to be America`s concern. Then what is? Superficially the crisis in Afghanistan may end for a period whose duration no one can predict, although the country will once again be so destabilized politically that is likely to reemerge as a problem for outside powers -above all, its neighbors.”

        Afghanistan today is a politically disaster. The Government don't have a lot of real power amongst the public. The UN is still there to help the country to stabilize, but the dates to pull the troops out get further pushed away, as the country is barley standing on their own feet.

"But both of America's prime enemies in the Islamic world today – Osama bin Ladin and Saddam Hussein in Iraq – were for much of the 1980s its close allies and friends, whom it sustained and encouraged with arms and much else."

UNSTABLE

According to Kolko the are several reasons that led the country to this point. The main reason is that Washington is thinking more about military strategy than the political. And that they don`t see or recognize their failures, and as a result they don`t learn from them.

       In chapter four “the making of American foreign policy” Kelko underlines that the American Government has “never been in full control of its foreign policy. But it has neither acknowledged nor admitted the fact.”                      

      The United States has never been as confused than now, according to Kolko, and he continues that with this the States are dangerous both for their own people and the rest of the world. It is some truth too this. With the recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, International troops had to go in after the Americans invaded.

“America has power without wisdom, and cannot recognize the limits of arms despite its repeated experiences. The result has been folly, and hatred, which is a recipe for disasters. September 11 conformed that”

Kolko states that the United States attempt to control changes in the world and that most of what is wrong with the world today is an result of their interventions.

      "The strongest argument against one nation interfering with another does not have to be deduced from any doctrine, moral or otherwise; it is found by looking honestly at the history of the past centuries."

      After reading this book the image of a strong superpower, who looked like they only wanted more power is gone. Throughout the book the image of a state who has too much military power, and no idea what to to with it and that they are insecure is growing stronger as the pages are turned. How dangerous Washington actually is shown by Kolko. The biggest enemy to the United State at this moment is actually them self.

      After the seven years after this book was updated and nine since it was written a lot has changed. George W. Bush is no longer in power. Obama is trying to clean up his messes and things can look a bit lighter for the States. In Kolko`s latest book from 2009, “World in Crisis:

The End of the American Century” states that this decade has been one of the bloodiest.

       In the hundred and fifty pages of “Another Century of War?” Professor Kolko shows the reader previous events and many more. It its a lot of wisdom and he concludes with commons sense. He can predict the future by analyzing the past and knowing his own government. He warns the "American Empire" about the danger of exaggerated self-confidence, their lack of political power compared to their military could lead to the same faith as other empires trough history. As Kolko says; “The war the United States has been fighting abroad since 1947 has reached its shores”

      It is sad to say that he is right on several points in the book. The people in Pentagon and the rest of Washington should take notes from this little book, throw away their insecurity and acting on Kolkos advices. Maybe, and only maybe they can save them self from further embarrassments.

“Mankind cannot endure another century of war, because future wars will be far more destructive, to civilians as well as soldiers.”