Upcoming Events

National | Miscellaneous

no events match your query!

New Events

National

no events posted in last week

Blog Feeds

Anti-Empire

Anti-Empire

offsite link North Korea Increases Aid to Russia, Mos... Tue Nov 19, 2024 12:29 | Marko Marjanovi?

offsite link Trump Assembles a War Cabinet Sat Nov 16, 2024 10:29 | Marko Marjanovi?

offsite link Slavgrinder Ramps Up Into Overdrive Tue Nov 12, 2024 10:29 | Marko Marjanovi?

offsite link ?Existential? Culling to Continue on Com... Mon Nov 11, 2024 10:28 | Marko Marjanovi?

offsite link US to Deploy Military Contractors to Ukr... Sun Nov 10, 2024 02:37 | Field Empty

Anti-Empire >>

The Saker
A bird's eye view of the vineyard

offsite link Alternative Copy of thesaker.is site is available Thu May 25, 2023 14:38 | Ice-Saker-V6bKu3nz
Alternative site: https://thesaker.si/saker-a... Site was created using the downloads provided Regards Herb

offsite link The Saker blog is now frozen Tue Feb 28, 2023 23:55 | The Saker
Dear friends As I have previously announced, we are now “freezing” the blog.? We are also making archives of the blog available for free download in various formats (see below).?

offsite link What do you make of the Russia and China Partnership? Tue Feb 28, 2023 16:26 | The Saker
by Mr. Allen for the Saker blog Over the last few years, we hear leaders from both Russia and China pronouncing that they have formed a relationship where there are

offsite link Moveable Feast Cafe 2023/02/27 ? Open Thread Mon Feb 27, 2023 19:00 | cafe-uploader
2023/02/27 19:00:02Welcome to the ‘Moveable Feast Cafe’. The ‘Moveable Feast’ is an open thread where readers can post wide ranging observations, articles, rants, off topic and have animate discussions of

offsite link The stage is set for Hybrid World War III Mon Feb 27, 2023 15:50 | The Saker
Pepe Escobar for the Saker blog A powerful feeling rhythms your skin and drums up your soul as you?re immersed in a long walk under persistent snow flurries, pinpointed by

The Saker >>

Public Inquiry
Interested in maladministration. Estd. 2005

offsite link RTEs Sarah McInerney ? Fianna Fail?supporter? Anthony

offsite link Joe Duffy is dishonest and untrustworthy Anthony

offsite link Robert Watt complaint: Time for decision by SIPO Anthony

offsite link RTE in breach of its own editorial principles Anthony

offsite link Waiting for SIPO Anthony

Public Inquiry >>

Human Rights in Ireland
Promoting Human Rights in Ireland

Human Rights in Ireland >>

Rumsfeld's 'Blitzkrieg' to dominate Central Asia

category national | miscellaneous | news report author Thursday April 04, 2002 04:37author by Sara Founders Report this post to the editors

"Blitzkrieg" ?the devastatingly effective Nazi war strategy ?is how Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld describes current US military strategy in Afghanistan. Rumsfeld maintains, that the Pentagon must shift its priorities to building a high-tech military capable of launching similar lightning strikes across the world. (Financial Times, 1/2/02)

Blitzkrieg is the term the Nazis used for their rapid advance across Europe to conquer markets, resources and territory for German capital. Rumsfeld's use of the same belligerent word Hitler's generals used is not an accidental slip. He was speaking at a war college ?the National Defense University ?to the very officers and strategists who are planning future US wars.

Along with Nazi military terminology, Rumsfeld made it clear he was embracing the Nazi justification of overwhelming force and pre-emptive strikes. "The best defence and in some case the only defence is a good offence," he said.

Rumsfeld also underscored the developing view of US imperialism that other imperialist countries, which are at the same time allies and competitors, "must not be given a veto over US military goals".

Encirclement and occupation

In blitzkrieg fashion the Pentagon smashed into Central Asia, using the excuse of a "war against terrorism" to establish a permanent military presence in oil-rich Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tadjikistan and Uzbekistan, four bases in Afghanistan and four more in Pakistan.

The rapidly expanding US military occupation is arousing deep apprehension among all the countries in the region.

Articles in the Pakistani, Indian and Russian press, and a number of European newspapers, have raised alarm regarding the long-term US presence in the heart of Asia.

Kommersant ?Russia's main business newspaper stated, "The main goal of the military presence is to uphold the economic interests of US companies, primarily the oil and gas sectors."

Another Russian newspaper warned, "The so-called honeymoon in relations between Russia and Washington, which started after the September 11 attacks, seems to be gradually developing into a new cold war."

Chief of the General Staff of the Chinese People's Liberation Army General Fu Quanyou warned that positioning US troops in Kazakhstan, which shares a 1000-mile border with China, "poses a direct threat to China's security".

Now US oil corporations are rushing to consolidate their position. The Hindustan Times of India reported (3/2/02) that a consortium has revived plans to build a gas pipeline that will link gas fields in Turkmenistan to India after stretching 1000 miles across Afghanistan.

At the beginning of the last century the Caspian region generated one-half of the world's petroleum. The Nobel and Rockefeller dynasties built vast fortunes based on their ownership of this valuable resource. But after the
socialist Russian Revolution in 1917, these resources belonged to the many peoples of the Soviet federation of socialist states.

Nevertheless, the giant oil monopolies never gave up on their drive to reclaim these vast fortunes. Immediately after the breakup of the Soviet Union, oil company executives flooded back into the Central Asian republics
to reclaim their past wealth through new privatisation schemes and pipeline routes.

Today the Bush administration is top-heavy with CEOs from oil and gas corporations that have an enormous stake in the control and development of resources in this region. These lucrative contracts, worth billion of dollars, only have value if they are backed up and defended by military force.

War is not over

The U.S. military command secured its position in Afghanistan through a terror campaign of high-altitude bombing and overwhelming force. The tactics utilised by this occupation army are beginning to leak out into the US and world media.

On January 23, Pentagon commando units mistakenly identified as Taliban fighters some Afghan forces who were actually loyal to the US-puppet regime. In a night-time raid on their village, US forces reportedly shot 21 people in their sleep. Some of the men were found shot in the back, their hands still bound by US-Army-issued plastic handcuffs.

Twenty-seven prisoners who were released two weeks later related that they had been kicked, beaten and imprisoned in cages at a US base in Kandahar.

In another incident, the Washington Post (5/2/02) reported that Hamid Karzai, the US-appointed president of Afghanistan, said US forces admitted to him that they had killed 65 innocent people on their way to his inauguration. US jets destroyed a convoy of vehicles near the city of
Khost.

Almost four months of pulverising bombs have turned hundreds of villages into rubble. Infrastructure that barely functioned before has been destroyed.

Warlords are back in control of every city. Even the few United Nations emergency relief convoys are being looted. Hospitals are not functioning. In the midst of a cold winter, following a year of drought and famine, hundreds of thousands of refugees have been abandoned.

As in all the countries Washington has occupied ?from Korea to Vietnam, the Philippines and Kosovo ?it is unable to solve any of the enormous social problems it has created.

The same capitalist drive for new markets in a capitalist recession, which fuelled the German military blitzkrieg across Europe 60 years ago, is fuelling the Pentagon today. The corporate CEOs are backing military expansion to combat economic contraction.

But the Pentagon's vast overreach, its new bases, and the massive subsidies to the military-industrial complex in the form of an inflated military budget, have not jump-started the economy. Instead they are dragging the economy down, while creating a volcano of opposition abroad and growing anger in the United States.


Abridged. Acknowledgement to Workers Work Service
www.workers.org

Related Link: http://www.cpa.org.au/campaign/uswar.html
© 2001-2025 Independent Media Centre Ireland. Unless otherwise stated by the author, all content is free for non-commercial reuse, reprint, and rebroadcast, on the net and elsewhere. Opinions are those of the contributors and are not necessarily endorsed by Independent Media Centre Ireland. Disclaimer | Privacy