by Flemming Funch
John Robb mentions an article "The Pentagon's New Map" by Thomas Barnett, a military strategist from the U.S. Naval War College. It purportedly explains "why we're going to war, and why we'll keep going to war". But what is interesting about it is that it is based on a fairly lucid analysis of how it is *disconnection* that gives birth to the dangers of terrorism and rogue states, etc. Which I fully agree with. It is the fact that some nations and some groups of people are disconnected from the rest of us, that is likely to lead to them feeling disadvantaged and resentful, to the degree that they're likely to strike back. If we were all intertwined in a unified globalized structure, in terms of economics, communication, technology, democracy, etc., there would be no basis for war. So that would be the target.
So far so good. But to a hammer everything is a nail. To Mr. Barnett, being a military strategist, the means of getting there is by going to war. That begins to sound rather insane. Achieve a unified, open, prosperous, global democracy by going to war against anybody who isn't going along with the globalization thing. But I wouldn't be too surprised if that is actually the strategy the people who're running Bush are pursuing. Bomb any country that doesn't have McDonalds franchises. It has hardly anything to do with whether those countries are a military threat to the United States. It has all to do with whether they're willing to play by our rules or not. Which involves giving multi-national corporations free reign, and refraining from acting as an independent state. There's a certain twisted logic there.
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