WAR AND RUMORS OF WAR T. R. Young The Red Feather Institute March, 1989 September 21, 1994 No. 142 Distributed as part of the Red Feather Institute Transforming Sociology Series. The Red Feather Institute, 8085 Essex, Weidman, Michigan, 48893. THE PATRIOT NOT ONLY DOES NOT DISAPPROVE OF ATROCITIES COMMITTED BY HIS OWN SIDE, BUT HE HAS A REMARKABLE CAPACITY FOR NOT EVEN HEARING ABOUT THEM. ...George Orwell WAR AND RUMORS OF WAR: Capitalism and International Crime INTRODUCTION In this historical epoch, most political crime between one country and another arises out of the dynamics of the world capitalist system. Most forms of international crime in the past four centuries are connected to the a struggling capitalist world system in which competing nations vie for markets, for access to raw materials as well as the 'freedom' to move 'surplus' capital to and from the richest nations in the world. Since Korea, most forms of international crime involve a whole series of 'police actions' in which 'friendly' governments are installed, labor movements aborted, costs of raw materials constrained and the right to expatriate profits guaranteed. But war and international crime are larger than any one political economy and deeper than mere class interest in profits or control of market. Before there was industrial capitalism, there was tribal pillage of neighboring tribe; before bourgeois domination of international crime, there was slavery and the raids by which peoples enslaved; before the triumph of capitalism in the 17th and 18th centuries, there was feudalism and its many military ventures by which people were slaughtered and tribute enthroned. In all this, war is economics by other means; wealth is stolen, people indentured, ethnic groups purged and workers robbed of the vast wealth they create. A brief historical overview of several waves of warfare is set forth in this series on crime and its causes. In this article, I focus upon the larger waves of warfare which have swept human history. These larger waves of crime all are connected to the kind of economic system being built...or dismantled. And, in passing, it is well to remember that physical force is the last resort of social control when moral, social or economic power can't be used to shape the behavior of exploited people. While it is easy to take a critical view of other countries including England, France, The Union of South Africa and, of course, the USSR, one should be very careful believing what one is told about one's own country. Every society must get loyalty from its own citizens in order to maintain political legitimacy. Most readers of this article will have difficulty since what I have to say about the role of the United States in the past half century will not set will with their pride and patriotism. Each society teaches its children that it is the best of all possible societies. Young people of every exploiting country are taught in school, church, media and in the political sphere that their country is morally, racially, culturally or socially superior to other countries. This is as true in the USA as it is in the USSR. There is much about America in which pride is well placed; its music, its literature, its compassion for the weak and support for the poor; its endemic populism and suspicion of great wealth; its stubborn insistence upon self-reliance, initiative and morality all speak of its greatness. Yet, in hindsight, we can see that young men have been proud to march off to war ignorant of the ugly, hidden agenda of economic exploitation. Each generation of young people still accepts the self serving ideology of nationalism. (NOTE 1) The brutal fact is that wars are seldom fought for the reasons given in public. They are fought to over the labor, raw materials, food supply or accumulated wealth of a country or region. Sometimes wars are fought to end that exploitation as well. Slavery, feudalism, colonialism, capitalism and bureaucratic socialism are systems for which young people were persuaded by their leaders, by the press, by the church or by their teachers to fight unjust wars. A. E. Housman wrote a series of anti-war poems which each young person should learn as an antidote to the mystifications of war: On the idle hill of Summer Sleepy with the flow of streams Oh hear afar a deadly drummer Drumming steady in your dreams. East or West on fields forgotten Bleach the bones of comrades slain Lovely lads all dead and rotten None that go return again. Still the calling bugles bellow Still the screaming fife replies Still the lads in line will follow To the drums of endless lies. Housman, in another poem, has better advice for young men: They mow the field of man in Season. Call it truth or call it treason, I'll not kill for any reason. Reach my beer and leave your prattle I'll not care to fight your battle. Oh, reason's rare and love's aplenty, I'll stay home and wed my Jenny. THE WORLD CAPITALIST SYSTEM The World Capitalist System [WCS] is composed of about 1000 Multinational Corporations based in the 20 rich capitalist countries. 300 of the biggest multinational corporations are based in the U.S.A.; when one hears government officials in the United States speak of 'our national interests,' they mean those of multinationals in Central America, the Far East, Africa and South America (Domhoff, 1967). There is an international stratification system in which some seven rich countries of the first world of industrial democracies are at the top of the pyramid. Then comes some 15 or so smaller capitalist nations which depend upon the Big Seven to police the world on their behalf. A third stratum is composed of a half dozen NICs; newly industrialized nations such as Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Israel who are able to compete with the older, richer and more powerful countries in the first world. Then there are 80 or so poor, semi-feudal and/or capitalist nations which struggle to stay solvent. Democracy in these countries is fragmented, missing or merely pro forma. Below this third strata are 10 or 15 countries, called 'basket cases' in the jargon of international political science. Tribal politics tend to be central to internal struggles in these quasi- nations. This stratification system constitutes a huge economic pyramid which funnels vast amounts of food and wealth from some 120 poor countries in the 3rd world to 25 or so rich and well fed capitalist nations. The multinational corporations are the means by which wealth is redistributed upward in this pyramid. If there is a busy flow of food, profits, clothes, raw materials and drugs from the poor countries at the bottom of the pyramid to those at the top, one must also consider the return portion of that cycle from wealthy capitalist nations to those below. Most American media focus on the positive elements in that return cycle; advanced technology, foreign aid, investment capital, military security and skilled consultants. There are several other less helpful elements: the return flow from the rich countries are tourists [who distort the economy, prostitute young men and women], soldiers [who use direct force to serve the interests of the top nations], weapons [which are used against traditional values, roles, and institutions], movies and T.V. programs [which demean the local culture and celebrate possessive individualism], CIA agents [who subvert the local political structure], scholars and students [who assiduously study the local society and report its weaknesses back to the home country] as well as luxury goods [which distort economic priorities and domestic investments]. Of late, huge amounts of money from the drug trade work an uneven effect. Significant portions do trickle down to peasant farmers [who tend the crops], to workers [who construct the luxury villas of the drug lords], to police officials [who protect them from the criminal justice system] and to local politicians [who defend them from foreign policing activities]. Each day, billions flow back and forth from poor to rich and back to poor countries; in each turn of the economic cycle, a portion remains at home to serve and save the fiscal concerns of the core capitalist countries. GOVERNING THE CAPITALIST WORLD ORDER As I have said, some 300 of the biggest 1000 multinational corporations are based in the USA. In these times, the president of the USA is more a president of the world capitalist system (WCS) than of the USA these days. The leaders of the other members of the Big Seven: England, France, Germany, Japan, Italy and Canada are much like his cabinet. Together, they run the world capitalist system on behalf of their multinational corporations. Much of the 'policing action' in the third world serves the interests of these corporations in the first place; the home nations and those workers in the Big Seven whose jobs depend upon international trade. In order to maintain the WCS, there are a wide variety of political crimes committed by the rich nations against the poor. The common practice is to install or support a 'friendly' fascist regime, supply it with arms and use the tools of international power to keep it in office. That way wealth, profits, food, and cheap raw materials can continue to move from poor nations to rich. Since 1945, the United States government and its various agencies engineer a certain false peace by which the international pyramid of wealth and power survives. In the USA and on behalf, first, of some 300 multinational firms based in North America and second, on behalf of the other 700 or so transnational corporations based in the other capitalist nations, the U.S. government engineers several kinds of international political crime; crimes which are well hidden from the public policy process. The mass media are quick to cover in depth the political crimes of the USSR and its KGB...rightly so. In the U.S.A., one has to search obscure journals and tiny newspapers to learn of the underground crimes of the capitalist countries. Of late, former agents of the CIA report on the many political crimes of the USA and the secret wars it conducts in the 3rd world. (NOTE 2) Much of what is reported here comes from those sources (Agee, 1975; Blackstock, 1976; Marchetti, 1979; Herman and Chomsky, 1979; Klare, 1984). COSTS OF POLICING THE WORLD CAPITALIST SYSTEM The costs to a nation for engineering political crimes around the world are immeasurable. While those costs at home can be set forth below, the larger costs are borne by the peoples in the 3rd world whose lives, peace and need for social justice are crippled. Social Costs The social costs of policing the world capitalist system are very large. Some of these costs of policing the world capitalist system include: --distortions of basic institutions at home --inability to provide social justice for minorities and the elderly --bigger and bigger deficits for future generations to pay --distortion of electoral politics in the 3rd world: vote fraud, bribery of candidates, harassing of critics. --more and more violence in the 3rd world as workers and peasants turn to armed rebellion and resistance. --more and more political crime engineered by the rich capitalist countries in the 3rd world lead by the USA --the growth of a garrison state (one dominated by military priorities). --more and more street crime as people are disconnected from land and from community. Economic Costs The economic costs of maintaining the great inequalities in the World Capitalist system with all its political crime at home and abroad is hugh. Warfare is now capital-intensive. The costs of capital intensive warfare grows faster than the kill ratio. It cost hundreds of dollars to kill each person in the Civil War, it now costs millions of dollars to kill each person in high-tech warfare. Each year the costs increase. In 1988, some $290-300 Billions will be spent to protect capitalist interests abroad. This is double the amount spent in 1980. By the 21st Century, it could be more than $1 trillion dollars a year in the US budget alone. When one adds up all the military expenditures of all the nations in the world to keep or to overthrow capitalism, the costs far exceed those spent on social justice. Both the USA and the USSR find that the costs of maintaining their policing of each respective bloc of countries is producing a debt burden that is unpopular and harmful of social justice at home. Secret Wars The USA is presently (1988) conducting several secret and undeclared wars in violation of the U.S. Constitution which says that only Congress has the social power to declare war. Active and secret wars financed by the USA in 1989 include: Afghanistan, Angola, and Nicaragua. Former President Reagan authorized 50 secret military operations including the hijacking of a commercial airliner. This is the most such operations authorized in the history of the U.S.A. Mr. Reagan put together his own secret army with funds not authorized by the Congress of the U.S.A. His military budget doubled in 8 years while the national debt exceeded that of all other presidents combined. THEORIES OF INTERNATIONAL CRIME There are two major theories about crime on the international level; one is Dependency Theory and the other is Marxian-Leninism. Both offer considerable insight into why corporations and capitalist states engineer so very much crime and focus upon the 3rd World as their target. Dependency Theory This theory was developed by several Latin American scholars who observed the fact that economic relations between North and South hemispheres led to worse social conditions rather than better social conditions as Modernization Theory had predicted. These scholars, among them Sergio Bagū, Fernando Cardoso, Theotonio dos Santos and Octavio Ianni, argued that unequal trade relations contributed to the de-development of Latin America (Amin: 1976). Dependency theory implies that corporations and countries which benefit from trade engage in political crime in order to establish and to maintain that unequal trade. Since there is not reciprocity in the trade relations, those who are exploited have no motive to stay in the relationship; therefore force, deception, intimidation and bribery are used by the core countries in the 1st World to retain their advantages in the periphery of the world capitalist system. Marxist Leninism This theory says the wage-profit relationship in the developed capitalist countries produces a surplus of wealth that has to be invested elsewhere. The place for the biggest profits are the countries with the fewest capitalist competitors...the 3rd World countries. Protection of overseas profits requires control of the political process in the third world countries where the investments are made. This control can only be maintained by political crime. The surplus of wealth in developed capitalist countries occurs since the market is saturated...that means that workers don't earn enough to buy all they produce. But there are markets in the 3rd world. The 3rd World has lots of wealth to exchange: raw materials, cheap labor, art and artifacts, land, food, tourist opportunity and other resources for which capitalists will exchange the goods and services that are unsold in the developed markets. This is the heart of Marx and Lenin's theory about why capitalism leads to imperialism. So there is some truth in the view of the right-wing in America that marxist-leninists are present in many revolutions in the third world. The major difference between the two theories is in their policy implications. Dependency theory suggests that capitalist development would solve problems if local capitalists could trade on even terms with the core country corporations. Marxist- leninists say that class exploitation would continue regardless of where the owners live (Cereseto, 1983). Marxist-Leninist theory also suggests that political crime at the international level would transform into street crime, corporate crime and white collar crime in the 1st world if the flow of profits, food, and raw materials from the 3rd World were reduced. In this idea, one can see the interconnectedness of the forms of crime clearly. Political crime aboard tends to prevent street crime, corporate crime and white collar crime at home. As we shall see below, there are many benefits which come to Americans from their favored position at the top of the International stratification system. POWER TOOLS The USA uses mainly three power tools to impose its policies on other nations: *The Military. The USA spends about $300 billion a year to maintain the Army, the Air Force, the Marines and the Navy. *There are 1,380,000 persons on active duty *1,580,000 in reserve forces *979,300 civilian employees of the U.S. Military. *the C.I.A., the National Security Agency, Military Intelligence and other secret agencies spend billions more in secret funds to gather information, to supply other armies, to pay local politicians, and to fight secret wars. *the International Financial Agencies. The USA uses the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the Agency for International Development and other financial tools are used to support or destabilize governments. In addition, the USA uses its influence with allies to support American plans and programs. It makes and breaks governments which are not friendly to the 300 multinational corporations based in the USA or to the larger transnational economic system. THE STRUCTURE OF THE U.S. MILITARY The USA is, indeed, a Garrison State. It spends a third of its national income on war and the weapons of war. It has invaded other countries 256 times since 1865. After World War II, the USA had about 3000 military bases which surrounded the USSR and Communist China. The USA, the USSR, and China have reached a stalemate. Today most of overseas USA bases and military actions are located in and are used to control third world countries rather than Communist countries. The Garrison State The overall structure of the US military in 1988 is, in brief: --1266 US Military bases in the world --871 are in the USA: at least 2 in every state --There are four military services -The Army has 206 bases in the USA -The Marine Corp has 25 bases in the USA -The Airforce has 384 air bases at home -The Navy has 242 bases on the US coast --The payroll of those on active military duty is $34,000,000,000 --The pay roll of civilian employees is $26,300,000,000 --The pay roll of the reserve military forces is $5,500,000,000 --There are millions more retired military most of whom have jobs in local business and government with influence in local politics. -their pensions total $18,700,000,000 --Military contractors got $266,700,000,000 -they donate hundreds of millions to political campaigns and are vigorously protected by their Congress people. --All together, the US taxpayers spent $370,000,000,000 on direct military expenses in 1987-88. --The National Security Agency has the biggest budget of any civilian agency including the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. The budget is secret; even from most members of Congress. Merchants of Death Michael Klare, a Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C., has recorded the role of the USA in selling arms in the 3rd world. He says the Pentagon runs a hugh supermarket for arms which keeps hundreds of thousands of managers, engineers, skilled machinists, and unskilled workers at home, prosperous. Klare reports (1984) that US arms sales have grown from $250 million yearly in the 1950s to $10 billion in the late '70s. This makes the USA the biggest arms dealer in the world. The Pentagon and the State Department acts as sales offices for the various private arms manufacturers at home. Part of the economic growth in America is based upon arms sales and repression in South America. Klare also reports that the U.S.A. is involved in subverting the government of some 50 countries in the third world today. For the most part, these arms are sold to police and military in the third world. They are not used against foreign enemies but rather against those in the third world who advocate keeping food and profits at home; against those who insist on charging higher prices for oil, minerals, labor and other essential supplies shipped to the rich capitalist countries. Among these who are policed by 'friendly' governments are labor leaders, populist politicians and since the advent of liberation theology in 1968 at Medellin, Columbia, nuns, priests, bishops and those in the base religious communities who support liberation theology. (NOTE 3) The C.I.A. The C.I.A. routinely violates U.S. law, International law and the laws of the various nations in which it works on behalf of the world capitalist system (Agee, 1975; Wise and Ross, 1964; John Stockwell, 1987). Stockwell, the highest ranking officer in the CIA to defect and go public, has said that the U.S. policy is to destabilize those governments in the third world which are not 'friendly' and to replace them with governments which are friendly to the objectives of U.S. policy (1987). The C.I.A. owns some of the biggest companies in the USA and around the world. Its budget is secret as is the number of its employees. Its activities are also secret but a variety of former agents, disturbed by the unethical and unconstitutional activity of the C.I.A. have written a number of books, cited in the References below, about those activities. They include: --The C.I.A. engineered the overthrow of a democratically elected socialist in Iran in 1955. The C.I.A. brought the Shah of Iran back to rule it. The Shah used the SAVAK, the secret police to murder and imprison political opponents. --The USA helped engineer the military overthrow of president Sukarno of Indonesia. He was replaced by General Suharno who was armed by the USA. Hundreds of thousands of labor leaders, teachers, lawyers, socialists, communists and reporters were murdered by the Suharno regime in the 1970s. --The C.I.A. ran a secret war in Cambodia in the 1960s and 70s with its own armies, airports, cities, and missions. A few members of Congress knew about it but most American citizens did not. --Patrice Lumumba, president of Zaire, ended up in the trunk of a car driven by a C.I.A. agent. Lumumba had tried to nationalize the uranium mines. The USA was the chief customers for uranium. The USA installed the Mobutu government which is one of the most corrupt and repressive in Africa. --The C.I.A. gave Mobutu $1.4 millions to give to counter- revolutionaries trying to overthrow the Angola government. Mobutu pocketed the money. The USA continues to try to overthrow the Angolan government which pushed out the White government which ran it. --The C.I.A. organized and supplied the military overthrow of the democratically elected government of Chile. Chileans elected a socialist government which appropriated the copper mines of American corporations. The new military government killed thousands of socialists, communists, labor leaders, students and professors as well as the President, Salvador Allende. --The C.I.A. planned some 20 attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro in Cuba. Eight of these were activated. The USA used bacteriological warfare to kill 500,000 pigs in Cuba in the 70s. The US Military paid a Canadian $5000 to infect chickens with a viral disease in Cuba. The US used private planes to spread a tobacco virus to destroy the cigar industry in Cuba. ITEM: CIA STATION CHIEF ADMINISTERED CONTRA INSURGENCY. (Knight-Ridder Newspapers: 1 Mar, '87) Thomas Castillo, the C.I.A. station chief in Costa Rica helped organized and run the Contra operations against Nicaragua from 1982 until the present. Among other things he: --selected Contra leaders --paid for expenses --arranged news stories --purged Contra ranks --supervised the mining of harbors in Nicaragua --supported the supply flights over Nicaragua --defended the Contra military officers who murdered their own men --supervised the writing of a psychological warfare manual which advocated murder of civilian leaders in Nicaragua All this which American, International Law and American treaties forbade, more about which later. WARFARE TODAY In your lifetime, there have been more than 7 million people killed in the various forms of war. Robert Sollen, of the Santa Barbara Peace Resource Center, reports in The Nation (Jan. 9-16, 1989) that there are more than 78 wars going on in 1989. They include: Civil Wars internal only.....18 Civil Wars with other countries fighting.........14 Religious/ethnic wars........25 Superpowers involved.........12 The USA is directly involved with arms and advisors in the following as of Feb., 1989: Country Number Killed Afghanistan...........1 million since 1979 Angola..................213,000 since 1975 El Salvador..............65,000 since 1979 Nicaragua................65,000 since 1978 The USA is supplying arms in the following as of Feb., 1989: Indonesia................100,000 since 1975 Philippines...............35,000 since 1972 South Africa...............3,000 since 1985 Iran-Iraq................400,000 since 1980 Israel-Lebanon/Syria.....152,000 since 1975 States use violence in order to control markets, raw materials and to extract surplus value from workers in other countries. As one can see from above, religious and ethnic antagonisms still inform much organized murder in the world today. These often have economic sources mixed in as one ethnic or religious group tries to exploit another as in Bosnia today [1994]. UNDERSTANDING AMERICAN CRIME IN THE THIRD WORLD TODAY. House Speaker Jim Wright of Texas (Dem) said that the Iran- Contra hearings revealed that the USA violated the law seven times. The crimes included violations of: 1. the National Security act which requires that the Reagan Administration keep Congress fully and currently informed of covert operations. 2. the Arms Exports Control Act which required Reagan to report the transfer of arms to Iran. 3. the same Act forbids the export of arms to countries which support terrorism (as defined by the USA). 4. The Appropriations Act which prohibits the shifting of funds from one use to another, unauthorized use. The student will want to know why the U.S. continues to oppose wars of national liberation and wars of socialist liberation while, at the same time, supporting some of the most brutal and corrupt government in the world. Corporate Interests Since World War II, the United States has lost markets and access to raw materials to other capitalist nations (Japan, Germany, South Africa, Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong to name a few) and has lost markets and access to raw materials in the socialist liberation wars mentioned above. Both wars of socialist liberation and wars of nationalist liberation in the third world tend to reduce the arena of 'freedom' of the multinational corporations which run the world capitalist system. Again, there are about 1000 such corporations. 500 of them dominate the world capitalist system. Some 300 of these MNC's are based in the U.S.A. and they bring in great amounts of profits, foods, goods, and raw materials to the U.S. The U.S. cannot fight another world war to take markets back from Japan, Germany and Korea. The U.S. won WWII and still loses the trade wars. The U.S. cannot attack the established socialist countries unless they are very small and very far from other socialist countries. In Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, the U.S.A. attempted to rollback communism and failed. The U.S.A. and the other European countries didn't try to help Hungary and Czechoslovakia with the people there rebelled against bureaucratic socialist dominated by a foreign power. Grenada and Cuba and Nicaragua are small and distant and even of the three, only the invasion of Grenada was successful. One workable option the U.S. has is to help existing capitalist countries in the third world remain capitalist...if they are 'friendly' and support 'freedom.' By freedom and friendly, U.S. governments mean that these countries must provide access to American MNC's to buy and sell, to move capital goods in and out of the country, to repatriate profits back to the rich capitalist countries. It is a very narrow and very important kind of freedom but not at all the freedom to elect representatives; freedom to speak, freedom to bargain or freedom to compete with the local elite. 3rd world countries which do not allow exploitation by 1st world countries are said to be communist. Since the end of World War II, the United States has been spending about one third of its federal budget to develop and to maintain the military capacity to guarantee the rights of some 20 rich capitalist countries to obtain raw materials, food, and profits from some 120 poor capitalist and semi-capitalist countries. Political crime is the most serious form of crime committed; it is crime since it sets up and maintains five great exploitative modes of production used in history; feudalism, colonialism, slavery, capitalism and capitalist imperialism. A Good theory of political crime requires that we make the connection between warfare and modes of production. Take some time now to try to see how warfare is related to creating and opposing economic systems. Markets and Profits Both Marx and Lenin offered a theory of capitalist imperialism. In brief, the argument runs: Workers at home are not paid 100% of the value of the goods they produce; thus they cannot possibly buy 100% of the wealth they produce. Owners must find someone to buy the other 5, 10, or 20% produced...or reduce production. If they reduce production, an escalating cycle begins which ends in a full blown depression. Foreign markets help absorb what capitalists call 'surplus production.' The 20 rich capitalist countries thus need new markets in the 120 poor capitalist countries for domestic corporations or face depressions at home. Without the markets of the 3rd world, social justice programs at home would not cover the needs of housing, education and health care for many of the surplus population. This would result in a legitimacy crisis. In addition to the need for external markets for the realization of all the profits possible in the most productive economic system in human history, capitalist nations must have raw materials and cheap labor. And, they must have some place to invest 'surplus' capital when profits begin to fall at home. Raw Materials Capitalist firms must have raw materials or their factories will close. There are 86 kinds of raw materials found in the 3rd world needed for modern industry but which are scarce in the USA. Capitalist firms turn to the US government to guarantee access to copper, tin, oil, tungsten, chromium, uranium and dozens of other minerals together with coffee, tea, spices, cotton, soy beans, meats, cocoa, as well as many fruits and vegetables. Cheap Labor As workers get organized, they win good wages and safer working conditions. They negotiate for job security and for pension plans. In order to keep profits up, capitalist firms need cheap labor. They need to be able to fire workers as demand decreases. Since workers don't earn 100% of the value of the goods they produce, as a class they cannot buy back all of it. Goods pile up in warehouses and workers are fired or 'laid-off' without pay. Capitalists don't want to contribute to health care, vacation or pension benefits since these, too, cut into the profits of the stock-holders. There are several ways for capitalist firms to cut labor costs; they can pre-select Senators, Congresspeople and Presidents who will pass laws which 'control' labor organizing. They can improve the means of production so that fewer and fewer workers can produce more and more. They can hire people in the 'surplus' population who work for lower wages; mothers, children, immigrants and, in racist societies, minorities. And they often relocate in the 3rd world and replace high priced workers in the USA with workers who will work for $2, $4, and $8 dollars a day instead of $8 an hour. The tactics to lower wages tends to disemploy workers at home; tends to drive down wages; tends to increase welfare costs while reducing the tax base in the USA. This in turn adds to deficit spending and a fiscal crisis. It also contributes to economic depressions since workers as a class have even less with which to buy 'surplus' production. However, the devil's choice is to help firms based in the USA to gain access to cheap labor abroad, control foreign markets and to repatriate profits...or lose every thing to another capitalist country: labor and markets and raw materials. The US government helps MNCs get access to labor, markets and raw materials in the 3rd world by supporting 3rd world governments, by helping local elites keep their favored position, by loaning money to governments, and by giving foreign aid to those countries which are 'friendly' to American business. The C.I.A. has many politicians in the 3rd world on their payroll. Capital Flow Companies need the freedom to move investment capital in and out of 3rd world countries. In advanced democratic societies, profit rates tend to fall lower and lower for a number of reasons; workers elect friendly politicians and get the right to bargain with the boss; consumers demand low prices and higher quality; residents demand protection from pollution; voters decide that businesses should pay part of the cost of roads, schools, sewers, fire and police protection since they benefit from these public services...more so than do single families. The 1000 MNCs need to ensure the flow of profits to 1st world stockholders. They need to ensure the flow of products from 3rd world countries to the rich markets in the first world. In the third world, with no pollution laws, no worker safety laws, no pension plans, no consumer protection laws, no taxes and no job security, opportunities for profit are much better. Indeed, the history of the last 400 years is a history of rich capitalists investing 'surplus' profits in poor countries---and asking friendly politicians at home and abroad to use the army and police to help control workers and/or populist or socialist movements. Since liberation theology came along in 1968, the army and police has had to beat and kill local priests, nuns, bishops as well as missionaries from the North. When religious leaders take the side of the poor and oppressed, they are even more dangerous to profits than communists and socialists. All these needs of US based corporations are weighed when the USA forms foreign policy on war, human rights, international treaties on the environment and on sea usage. Often, the USA places the economic interests of these corporations ahead of the human rights interests of workers and farmers and small business in the 3rd world. Policing the World Since WWII, the USA has become the chief policeman of the world capitalist system. Before that the British ruled the seas and the capitalist system. At its height, British citizens bragged that, 'The Sun Never Sits on the British Empire. Before the British, Spain and Portugal dominated international trade. After the U.S.A., still other nations will be the central policing agent of the world. (NOTE 4) In the role of the police force for the economic interests of multinational firms, the US government often makes decisions which cause hardship for American firms. US manufacturers of shoes, steel, electronics, textiles and many other products complain that the federal government no longer protects these industries with tariffs and subsidies. While the 300 giant MNCs can depend upon the US to protect its interests in the 3rd world, other capitalist firms lose out at home to foreign competition. Since 1945, there has been a vast restructuring of the economy of all capitalist countries as they try to fit themselves into the newly expanded and still integrating world capitalist system. Japan will probably become the next international policing nation. It will probably use financial tools rather than military tools to control its markets and suppliers. Japan now has 9 of the top 10 banks in the world capitalist system. Theories of Political Crime. The criminology books will tell students that crime is caused by differential association, by the lack of controls, by labelling processes, by individual pathology or by genes and birth defects. Political crime is caused by greed for wealth and lust for power. The immediate motive for almost all political crime between countries today...and for the past 300 years...is to move wealth from dependent countries in the 3rd world to the core countries of the world capitalist system. People in the poor countries prefer to keep the profits and food at home and/or to sell the raw materials at higher prices so foreign goods and technologies can be bought and used in the home country to build roads, schools, hospitals, and housing. Sometimes it is a small elite of nationalistic capitalists who want to control the wealth of a country. They too, argue for protection against companies from the rich capitalist nations. In those countries where a home grown elite controls the economy as in El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Haiti and dozens of other small countries, a repressive elite exploits workers and peasant farmers. When moderates or socialists try to overthrow those repressive elites, the elite turns to the U.S.A., which in its role as tough cop, intervenes and help the elites put down the rebellion. In these countries, while most of the economy is in the hands of a few families, still there are always a few American firms which call upon Washington and the White House to protect 'vital American interests.' WARFARE There have been five historic waves of warfare in human history and one continuing form of hostility which has created untold suffering, injustice and when possible, revenge. It is difficult to set a precise beginning of each wave but one can get an idea of when each kind of warfare was firmly established in the listing below: 1. Predatory tribal warfare [from prehistory to the present] 2. Wars of Feudal Conquest [early China, Egypt, India] 3. Wars of Bourgeois Liberation [from 1640 in England] 4. Wars of Colonial Domination [since England invaded India and Spain invaded the Americas]. 5. Wars Between Capitalist States [since the time of Napoleon]. A sixth wave of warfare started in 1917 with the Russian revolution. These are called wars of socialist liberation. We are now in the middle of that wave. It is too early to know how liberating this wave will be to the human project. (NOTE 5) Waves of War in History In order to have a good sense of the connection between warfare, profits and mode of production, a quick overview of each of the major forms of warfare is useful. For most of human history unto this very day, predatory warfare has beleaguered societies and interfered with the human process. We will begin with it. Predatory Tribal Warfare. The basic dynamic in the predatory tribal crimes of warfare is the extraction of wealth by force by one ethnic group from another ethnic group of people. This occurs when the means of production are inadequate to the real or perceived needs of a people. War and raiding becomes an alternate means of production. In predatory warfare, the men of a tribe or a village will be assembled, invoke their gods, set out on an expedition and raid neighboring tribes or villages. If the raid is successful, the men will return with food, household utensils, weapons, herds and slaves. After a successful raid, the men who return will be honored, praised and rewarded by high status. Ordinarily, the loot is redistributed on the basis of need first and then on the basis of merit in battle. Most of us are familiar with the raids of the Norsemen of villages along the coasts of England, France, and deep into the Russian steppes. We have heard of the brave exploits of English pirates such as Sir Francis Drake. We have been entertained by the stories of the ancient Greeks as they raided the coasts of Turkey, Yugoslavia, and North Africa. We learned about the slave raids of Muslims in East Africa and about the pirates of the China seas. All of these glorious stories were, objectively, little more than predatory warfare in which one tribe or village would solve its economic problems by extracting wealth and labor from other societies ...which would then have to rebuild after the ravages of war. Predatory warfare continues to this day. In the hinterland of Brazil, in the mountains of New Guinea, in the forests of Africa, one still hears of raiding parties composed of 20 or 30 young men who steal cattle, pigs, blankets, tools, and weapons from another village. Banditry in occupied countries as in Ireland or Sicily are little more than 'heroic' feats against the class enemy. Predatory crime involves the use of physical power to obtain wealth. Since there are no social relations between the two groups...there is no social power or moral power to deter the crimes. However, stolen goods are redistributed on the basis of social relations. Wars of Feudal Conquest. Throughout human history, one tribe has raided other tribes. At some point in history, a few members of the successful raiding tribe stayed to rule over and to extract tribute from the defeated tribe. Often priests and local gods bless the raids thus adding moral power to the use of physical power in the quest for stolen wealth. (NOTE 6) The beginnings of feudalism grew out of this form of warfare. In feudalism, physical power is also joined with moral power to legitimate the flow of wealth from the producers to the consumers of wealth. Priests, scholars, philosophers all legitimate this social arrangement. The idea of a king and a subject arise to join social power to the perpetuation of feudal relations and to this form of economic redistribution of wealth from the poor to the rich. In ancient China at the dawn of written history, feudal lords used violence to conquer and to exploit other tribes. In eastern Mesopotamia along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, feudal lords arose. In ancient Egypt, dynasty after dynasty consolidate feudal holdings which reached south, east and west of the Nile. In Central and South America, the Aztec, Mayan and Inca empires are well known to us as examples of feudal systems. But the most familiar to American students are the feudalities of Europe. The huge 'Holy Roman Empire' rose in the first Century B.C.E. and fell. Charlemagne reintroduced feudalism into Europe in the 9th century. From that time until the 1700th century, the history of Europe was a history of contending feudal lords who called themselves Kings and Emperors. The Scandinavian tribes were brought into feudalism in the 1300th century by German princes. The British have tried for 800 years to pacify the Irish with varying success; Cromwell did succeed for a time, but still the Irish resist. Wars of Bourgeois Liberation. These wars saw the political and economic hegemony of the feudal lords replaced by the political and economic hegemony of the wealthy trading, commercial, banking, and, later, industrial capitalists. Of all the wars to that date, wars of bourgeois liberation were by far, the most emancipatory. Capitalism required and produced several conditions which were most helpful to the human condition. Freedom of movement, of new ideas, of investment, of new and more equitable social relations as well as the new technologies which increase production. Capitalism also required the overthrow of feudalism...and made capitalism the most progressive social invention of the 18th century. There is no incentive for improving either the means of production or increasing the number of people who share in the distribution of goods and services in slavery or feudalism. Indeed, it is better to keep all the goods and services to the slavemaster and his family or to the overlord and his minions than to share it. But capitalism needs a lot of consumers; the more the better. Beginning with the British Revolution of 1640 through to the French revolution and the German revolution in the 19th century, there were a series of wars of bourgeois liberation. The landed Lords who were also producers of export crops: wool, meat, and wheat in Europe and England joined with bankers, merchants, small shop keepers and workers to reduce kings and Queens to mere figureheads. Wars of Colonial Domination. In order for mature capitalism to thrive, as noted earlier, it needs access to foreign markets; access to foreign resources, and access to cheaper labor. In order to assure access to markets and raw materials as well as cheap labor, England, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Portugal embarked on a grand series of wars of colonial domination. Perhaps the first important capitalist colony to come and one of the last to go was India. India became a colony in which British merchants claimed the exclusive right to sell; to get raw materials; and to profit from cheap labor. The English textile industry which was part of the base for English power and English wealth was central to the crimes of the British against the Indians. Indians were forbidden to make cloth...they grew the cotton which was shipped to English textile factories and the cloth shipped back to India to sell to the people who grew the cotton...and others who could afford it. The voyages of Columbus, Sir Francis Drake, Magellan and other adventurers were sponsored by governments interested in new colonies to exploit. Muslims had blocked the trade routes through the Mediterrean and the Near East by which silk, pepper and other spices, porcelain, and other goods travelled. Prince Henry of Portugal sponsored the quest for a Western Route to India and China. Columbus thought he found it when he reach what is now Haiti and Santa Domingo. By the turn of the 20th century, colonial countries had effectively divided up the world into colonies. A conference in Europe in 1898 divided up Africa into British, German, French and Italian colonies. Colonialism rested, primarily, upon physical power. There was very little social power or moral power with which to legitimize colonialism. The core country could buy troops and could buy loyalty from a few natives in the peripheral country but most people saw colonialism as neither moral nor social in character. In East Africa, the British used one tribe against all other tribes. In Uganda, the British used the Baganda to pacify the other 19 tribes. Idi Amin was a folk hero to young people in Africa since he expelled the British and other Europeans in months while other African leaders allowed them to stay on after independence. As long as wealth was coming in satisfactorily from the colonies, the working class in the core country was happy enough. The factories were going, the stores were full, and the economy prosperous. Workers in England, France, and Germany were happy. Their children were well fed and well educated; they could go into the army of occupation, into international trade, into the church, into the administration of overseas colonies or into the factories, shops, mills and mines that produced a flood of goods for the colonies. Wars Between Capitalist Powers France, England, Germany, Italy and Belgium fought among themselves for four centuries for control of the Americas, India, Africa, the middle and the far East. In 1898, the European powers meet to end that struggle and to make a permanent division of the rest of the world into their colonies. That agreement lasted until World War I. The Germans tried to colonize Europe and failed. It lost its colonies and had to pay war reparations. Hitler came along with a plan to save Germany from the absolute despair into which the winners had forced it. World War I and World War II are best understood as wars between capitalist states for control over three essential factors of production and profit: raw materials, cheap labor and markets, markets, markets. Japan, forbidden to trade in areas where the British and Americans traded; embargoed from oil and scrap iron, restricted in the number of arms and ships they could build and, absolutely convinced that they were the people favored of their god, struck out at Pearl Harbor to forge an economic empire of its own in the South Pacific. The End of Colonialism; the Beginning of Economic Imperialism It takes a lot of military resources to keep colonies under control and, since most of the profits of colony went to private ownership instead of to the state, colonialism was doomed. One after another, colonial powers found the costs of empire too much since profits went to stockholders in private companies instead of the state treasury. Colonialism began in warfare and ended in warfare. England dismantled the British empire after WWII as did France, Portugal and Belgium. Wars of national liberation began almost as soon as the colony was established. Wars of Colonial Liberation. The first great war of colonial liberation in history was the revolution of the American colonies from the British Empire. For the next 200 years, especially since World War II, there has been a dismantling of colonial empire around the world as the various colonial powers lay exhausted from the first modern, high-tech war in history. Britain lost her colonies in Burma, Malaysia, India, Africa and South America. All she has left is Northern Ireland and the Falkland Islands, Gibraltar and a few odd islands. Hong Kong returns to China in 1997. France lost Algeria in a bloody revolution and later lost Vietnam in a war that became bloodier as The United States replaced France in Vietnam. Spain had lost her colonies a century earlier and slid into genteel poverty. Portugal lost her last colony in Angola in the 1970's. Portuguese Macao will be returned to China at the end of this century. Germany lost its colonies to England in World War I and has struggled ever since to keep its workers employed. There is little of empire and less of feudalism left in the world today. Wars of Socialist Liberation. As the sons and daughters of the upper classes in the colonial countries went to school at home or in England and Europe, they came to see the larger picture of colonial oppression. Other well educated sons and daughters from the core countries such as Marx, Lenin, Castro, Trotsky, Rosa Luxembourg and many others deserted their own class and joined with workers and peasants to make the revolution. Many well educated sons of local elites such as Gandhi, Ho Chi Minh, Fidel Castro and Father Ernesto Cardinale became revolutionaries. Father Cardinale, Minister of Culture in Nicaragua, studied with Thomas Merton in the United States in the 1960s. He and many other priests in Latin America worked to make liberation theology a living reality. [Note: President Aristede of Haiti works out of liberation theology]. Many indigenous leaders did not need a college education to discover the abysmal working conditions of peasants and workers on farm and in factory. They lead liberation movements. Simon Bolivar, Jose Marti, Agusto Sandino, Emilio Zapata, Mao Tse Tung and others fought against colonial imperialism. Some indigenous populist leaders corrupted and exploited the resentment of the masses to take state power: Juan Peron, Papa Doc Duvalier, the Somozas, Juan Baptista, Ferdinand Marcos and others started out as liberators but became dictators as pretheoretical rebellion turned such struggles into a great cycle of elites...as Wilfredo Pareto noted had happened in Italy and Europe earlier. The working class and peasants in the 3rd world together with the intelligentsia returned from schools in Europe and America began a series of wars of socialist liberation. Workers in France, Germany, Russia, and other capitalist nations which couldn't compete in the world capitalist system, came to rebel against capitalist exploitation. Sometimes the rebellion was pretheoretical when the social base for revolution did not exist. Sometimes it was theoretically sound in that it correctly identified the sources of poverty and oppression and in that it used effective means to alter those sources. The workers' revolutions in France and in Germany were defeated but the workers' revolution in Russia produced the U.S.S.R. in 1917. Beginning with the Russian revolution, a whole series of wars of socialist liberation began. In China, Vietnam, Cuba, and now Nicaragua, the socialists won. In Greece, Indonesia, Korea, Chile, and Grenada the capitalist class won with the help of the United States army and many other rich capitalist nations. In the Philippines, in El Salvador, in South Africa, in Afghanistan, and in Angola the struggle continues into the 21st Century. All of the negativities of war are now focussed in these countries along with the many negativities of class, tribal, gender and bureaucratic politics. The historical trend is toward emancipation and democratic socialism but the road is long and has many twistings and turnings. The student today has a front row seat on some of the most historic movements in human history. With the right concepts and with good data, one can begin to understand the political crimes of one state against another as these continue into the 21st century. MEASURING POLITICAL CRIME One can determine the amount of crime of one state commits against other states by several related measures: *by the number of acts of terror directed at the citizens of the exploiting nation. The USA is the primary target of terrorism and hostage in the world today. *by the amount of funds spent for military operations by the exploiting nation. The U.S.A. spends hundreds of billions of dollars to police the world. *by the number of the secret police working overseas on behalf of the exploiting country. The C.I.A. is the largest secret police structure in the world. *by the number of soldiers of the exploiting country in the country of the exploited. The U.S.A. has a half million soldiers stationed in hundreds of bases around the world; mostly in the third world. *by the number of secret wars sponsored by the exploiting country. There have been some 256 uses of military power by the USA since 1940. *by the inequality in the flow of wealth between two countries. Banks of the Big Seven hold thousands of millions of dollars in foreign debt in the third world. *by the amount of propaganda directed at the exploited country by the exploiting country. The USA runs several radio stations and supports access of private networks; ABC, CBS, NBC, TNN and, of course, the news services; Agence Presse of France, Reuters of Germany, BBC of England, UPS, INS, as well as Canadian, Australian, and smaller news services. *by the amount of funds and training given in support of the local police and military by the exploiting country in the exploited country. The USA uses billions to train and fund third world police. *by the number of allies in the U.N. found to support the exploited country. Members of the United Nations are greatly split in that support but the Big Seven control it through its client states and usually has enough support to do pretty much what they want to do. *by the repression of dissent within the exploiting country of its own citizens: numbers of arrests, numbers of those expelled or disappeared; numbers of newspapers closed. By every measure listed above, the USA and the USSR are the two most criminal countries in the world today. In other years, the British, the French, the Japanese or the Spanish would have rated as the leading political state criminals of the day. Today, the dynamics of the world capitalist system and the conflict between the capitalist bloc and the socialist bloc has put the USA and the USSR in the forefront of political crime. Today, 3rd world countries spend almost half of their national income for weapons rather than for social programs. The leading producers and merchants of weapons internationally are, in order, the USA, Israel, the USSR, Czechoslovakia, France, England, and China. France is the leading international merchant in nuclear power and nuclear weapons capacity. Both the USA and the USSR are very careful what nuclear capacity they sell on the international market. The industrialized countries sell close to a trillion dollars worth of weapons to the poorest countries in the world. The USA spends close to $400 billions a year to protect the world capitalist system from national liberation movements or from socialist liberation movements. Thus social justice is postponed in order to maintain the flow of wealth from the 3rd world to the 1st world. LEGITIMIZING POLITICAL CRIME The process by which young Americans come to accept the political crimes of its own country commit is the same as the process by which young British men came to be proud to help conquer colonies for Britain in the 18th century; the same as young French men came to be proud to use force to exploit Algerians and almost the same as was the process in which young German men came to view themselves as Supermen and entitled to exploit Eastern Europe. The legitimation process has two parts: A. sharing of economic benefits and B. ideological hegemony A. Economic Benefits The sharing of economic benefits includes: --Jobs for unemployed young men in the colonies: they occupy a country as soldiers, clerks, police, administrators. --Profits for private companies in the core country with fringe benefits for their employees: health care, pension plans and extended vacations. --Servants and cheap living expenses for colonial residents...all have maids, cooks, and 'boys.' --Prosperity and upward mobility for those at home. --Low cost goods and foods from dependent nations. --Pride and self esteem at being a member of a stronger nation Ideological Hegemony The second part of political legitimacy involves subjective factors such as theories, beliefs, myths, loyalties, and ideas generally. Such ideas are produced by the intelligentsia and distributed in ideological education. All societies have founding ideologies about how to do family, politics, economics, and leisure time activity. Ideology is important to the human process. The only interesting question is how that ideology adds to or detracts from the human potential of those inside and those outside that society. The most important agencies which work for ideological hegemony at home include, first of all, politicians and those newspapers which support them. If one remembers that it costs over two millions to run for the Senate and over 20 millions to run for the presidency, one can understand that the wealthy can pre-select those candidates who believe and who serve their interests through campaign contributions. Domhoff (1967) is very specific about the mechanisms by which such candidates are pre- selected. Every society must enlist the loyalties of its young people; most countries do it with emotional appeals rather than by rational analysis. Patriotism, religion, and imaginary threats from the outside sometimes are used when political legitimacy is threatened. Highly charged emotional symbols often are used to counter critical thinking and balanced analysis. Songs, patriotic holidays, art, novels, cinema, civics classes, history books and magazine articles celebrate the greatness of every society...and attribute its faults to deviant or inferior individuals. The boundaries of social affiliation are always changing. The general trend is for people to include more and more of the population of the world in their definition of who is a person in the eyes of the law and in the norms of the society. This makes it difficult for traditional ideologies to survive. In turn, more and more emotional content is defined into the symbols of nation, ethnic group, or religious denomination. Young people are subjected to very heavy propaganda tactics by those who oppose such changes. It is good for young people to commit themselves to their society; to acknowledge the heavy debt they owe present and past generations; to respect the best in the traditions they come to value. It is well and proper for young people to trust, to believe and to have faith in their parents, teachers, ministers, and political leaders. But at some point, young people must stop and reflect upon those ideas and practices which shape their life. People enter into the fullness of their morality when they review cherished social practices and judge them appropriate or no longer helpful to the human project. It takes much thought and wisdom to do so. This exercise in ideological education often detracts from social justice when it: --emphasizes the positivities of the home country while attributing failures: poverty, crime, infant mortality, or homelessnes, to individuals. --by emphasizing the negativities of other societies while attributing their success to individual effort, luck, or unfair practices. --In stratified societies, young people from upper class families learn that their favored place in society is right and natural. Young people from lower classes and from the underclass often learn that they are not expected to do well; that they are inferior in biological, cultural or moral terms. In racist societies, majority and minority children are taught that their place in life is determined by biology rather than by force, guile and ideology. There are five major social institutions which engage in ideological education aimed at political legitimacy: --the family. Most young people accept the political views of their parents. Some families are patriarchal and authoritarian. Some families are egalitarian. Children learn democratic values or they learn elitist values in the very fabric of life at home. --the school system: pledges of allegiance, history and social science courses, holidays and celebrations propagate existing social relations. In stratified societies, teachers, professors and administrators benefit from existing relations in terms of social honor and economic security and thus tend to endorse them. --the mass media: radio, magazines, T.V., and papers are very important agents of political legitimacy and cultural hegemony. In the USA, the mass media are owned by those who benefit by existing relations. With 25,000 media outlets, 26 corporations control most of the books, magazines, T.V. and radio stations and motion pictures...by the first part of the 21st Century, six corporations will own most if the trend continues. The possibilities for elite control of the knowledge process grow in such a society. Computers, copies and fax machines are technologies which open up the knowledge process. The long range trend seems to be toward critical and balanced knowledge processes in the various media, although those in the field will tell one that there is a long way to go in most countries. --the political system reinforces uncritical patriotism in campaigns, elections, patriotic games, and special days honoring those who died in war. In stratified societies, politicians often are funded by or profit directly from those who benefit the most by existing arrangements. --The church is very important as part of the ideological indoctrination in many societies. Some religions teach that the Universal We is small and limited to members of a tribe or ethnic group. Some religions teach that the Universal We is much larger and open to the variety of cultural and religious experience; some are very narrow and destructive of other ways of being a human being. (NOTE 7) Important changes are going on in religious institutions in this century. Power and Ideology Four forms of power converge to shape the beliefs and loyalties of young people in the USA: the social power of their parents; the economic power of their employers; the moral power of their ministers and professors; and the physical power of the law. Parents use social power to encourage young men to fit themselves into the existing social order. They take quiet pride in their sons as soldiers and withhold love and support when their sons resist and rebel. Those sons in the lower classes resist and rebel in one way; those of the middle classes, in another way. Young men, newly married have to take the jobs available; in postwar years, many such jobs are in 'defense' industries; aviation, space technology, communications, advanced weaponry, and of course, in the military branches. They do what they are told or lose their jobs. Those who make poison gases, bacteriological weapons, bombs, bullets and rockets take jobs which, in some religions are prohibited as unholy. (NOTE 8) Priests, ministers, preachers and professors use their moral support to bless war, war goods and the making of war. In the U.S. Military, chaplains go along to console, comfort and to offer forgiveness to the dead and wounded. Religion is a very powerful part of the lives of most people who grow up in any society. The use of moral power along with social and economic confirms the goodness and rightness of international crime. Again, the range and reach of the Universal We is important to moral agency; when other peoples are vilified as are enemies in wartime murder, rape and robbery comes easily. Add to these more affirmative motives for enlisting young men in the quest for foreign wealth, the use of negative sanctions ranging from death to obloquy and one can see the magnitude of the social factors which come together to funnel young men and now, young women, into military ventures of their various countries. Sometimes it is difficult for young people to challenge or to resist in the face of all the power ranged against critical analysis. In most democratic countries and in many authoritarian countries, there are social movements one can join in order to share in the collective social, economic, and moral power of the group. As the saying goes, If one want peace at home or abroad, work for justice. INTERNATIONAL CRIME: THE REAGAN CASE John McFarlane, former Director of the super-secret National Security Agency, testified before the Tower Commission in 1986 that Mr. Reagan had authorized 50 secret military actions; some of which Mr. Reagan failed to inform the Congress as required by law. Of those about which Mr. Reagan did tell the Congress, many were in violation of other U.S. laws, International treaties and International law. John Stockwell, former Station Chief of the C.I.A., has said that the Reagan administration is the most criminal since the days of Warren Harding, a president known for his corrupt cabinet. The political crimes of the Reagan Administration includes: --An illegal Invasion of Grenada, an Island country in the Caribbean --An illegal bombing of Libya for alleged support of terrorism. Innocent civilians including children died. The bombing was designed to assassinate Omar Kaddhafi, the Libyan leader. --The financing, training, supplying and advising of the military in El Salvador from 1980 to 1988. The military and Right wing murder squads have executed thousands of labor leaders, reporters, students, professors, lawyers, and liberal politicians in those eight years. Catholic nuns and priests from the USA have been murdered for offering medical care and pastoral counselling to farmers. 14 families control most of El Salvador. The average wage is $2 per day. The capitalist class and the US businesses which operate there do not want to pay higher wages. --An illegal mining of a harbor in Nicaragua. The right of shipping to move freely in international commerce was denied as neutral ships were sunk. --The subversion of the Nicaraguan government...elected in what most observers say was the most honest election in Central America. It is against national and international law to subvert governments with which a nation has diplomatic ties. DRUGS AND POLITICAL CRIME The drug trade is deeply involved in the secret wars of the USA as in the liberation movements in the 3rd world. Profits run into the billions of dollars. Some of these profits are used to finance revolution and some profits are used to finance counterrevolution and low intensity warfare. On the Right The CIA permitted drug overlords in Burma, Laos, and Cambodia to use their airline, the Flying Tigers, in return for help in the Vietnamese war. The drugs were shipped, in part, to the USA and to Europe. Testimony at the Iran-Contra hearings held by Congress revealed that the CIA permitted its counterrevolutionary force, the Contras, to trade in drugs in order to buy weapons. When the US Congress cut off aid to the Contras, they were still able to buy weapons with drug profits. The planes which flew arms from the USA brought drugs back to sell on the streets of America. Colonel Oliver North ran the operation from the basement of the White House. In Pakistan, profits from the heroin trade are used to supply the Afghans who are rebelling against the communist regime in Afghanistan. The drugs flow through Italy under the control of the sicilian Mafia and then to the USA. The fundamentalist muslims who are fighting the war are sponsored by the Reagan administration. On the Left The rebels in Columbia are financed, in part, by profits from the drug trade. Production and distribution of cocaine to the USA is informed by the theory that the USA is the chief imperial power in the world. There are continuing rumors that drugs are reshipped out of Cuba to the Florida keys. Cuba is but 90 miles from south Florida. A night the run is quick, easy and safe in the very fast speed boats which are common in south Florida. Fidel Castro expressed anger and fired one high ranking officer for such participation. U.S. press releases quote sources as saying such anger is simulated; that Castro knew, approved and profited from such trade. The rumors are that Cuba in part of the drug trade in order to circumvent the trade embargo the USA uses against Cuba; Cuba has access to hard currency and to scarce goods brought along with the drugs. In addition, such trade would gain petty revenge for the many efforts on the part of the USA to 'destabilize' Cuba as well as for the invasion of Cuba organized and sponsored by the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations. Those in Latin America who use drug profits say that the sale of drugs to the USA is justified because the USA supplies weapons to kill young men and women in Latin America. They say that the only way they have to kill young men and women in America is to send the drugs. Many politicians in Latin America turn a blind eye to the drug trade since it is an important source of hard currency with which to pay off the International Banks. 3rd World countries owe $1.3 trillion to the 1st world. Other politicians are on the take from the drug barons who run international trade in drugs. Pretheoretical Politics The position that selling drugs to people in 1st world countries which exploit 3rd world countries is, for the most part, pretheoretical. The young men and the young women ruined or dead from drug use are not the people who decide to send the arms from the USA nor are they the ones who profit from the exploitation of the 3rd world. And it is pretheoretical since the death of some Americans will not stop the use of force against social justice in Latin America. It is pretheoretical, as well, since drug trade does not resonate with the concept of praxis and is prohibited by those same religious injunctions which forbade other harmful occupations. Most young people in the third world are not marxists- leninists. They have never heard of either. Many are young people who see landlords using force to evict their families from land they have farmed for generations. Many are young men and young women who see their sisters prostitute themselves to the rich businessmen and foreign tourists. Many see their older brothers turned into petty thieves, pimps, and drug pushers to gain access to the consumer goods restricted to the wealthy. Young people in the 3rd world see these things and they are morally offended. They are ready to listen to socialists, to preachers, prophets, and priests, to right wing demagogues or to any body else who tells them why these things are and how these things may be stopped. Many are young people who listen to the teachings of Christ about justice, brotherhood, and the sufferings of the poor. Many are the flotsam and jetsam of neighborhood barrios, ghettoes, and favelas who have nothing better to do than to join the many revolutionary movements in the third world, steal from the rich, buy weapons and use them for social justice or, sometimes for personal gain. All revolutions today carry a mixture of such people...some informed by the highest of principles; some by the lowest of motives. Equally, they are brutally repressed with the aid of the United States in the most serious form of political crime found in the world today. Indeed, when one counts up the costs of political crime over the past four hundred years, it far outweighs street crime, white collar crime, corporate crime and organized crime. Political crime produces the most deaths and the destroys the most wealth of the world than any other form. Theoretically informed politics require that the relations of production be changed...not the beneficiaries of exploitation. In the last section, we will look at some ideas by which international political crime can be reduced. Right now, let us consider one of the more visible forms of pre-theoretical rebellion and resistance. TERRORISM IN THE WORLD CAPITALIST SYSTEM There are more than 2000 terrorist groups working in the world capitalist system in the 1980s. Schmid and Longman, Swiss specialists in terrorist activity, emphasize that state terrorist groups are hard to count since they are secret and since there is censorship. Left wing groups identify themselves and their goals or there would be little public understanding of that for which they work. And the state reports leftist groups in defense of its actions. Most terrorism is in the 3rd world and most of that is aimed at people who want social justice as opposed to the structures of domination: class, racist, gender, and bureaucratic. Terrorism is a particularly disturbing form of political crime since non-combatants are victims. Terrorist groups do not hit targets at random, however. U.S. citizens are far more likely to be targets than any other nationality since the U.S. is the major architect and policing agent for the world capitalist system. The USA used terror in Project Phoenix in Vietnam. Special teams of assassins were recruited and trained by the CIA to murder those who helped the communist liberation movement. It failed since it was not backed by moral or social power. The Classic Case The modern day use of terror as a political tool developed in Algeria as a means to force the French colonialists to leave. The French Army had used terror to eliminate both peaceful and violent resistance to its control of Algeria after WWII. Algerians used terror against the French Army and against colonials in order to provoke more repression against the entire Algerian population. The French did respond by issuing unpopular orders...and the rebellion grew to include many elements of the Algerian population. So widespread became the resistance that the French government could not afford the costs of policing Algeria. The De Gaulle government withdrew. Terrorism worked. It was joined to moral power and to social power. Terrorism Today. Below is a small sampling of the most active terrorist groups in the world. Again, most terrorism is state sponsored; most in the 3rd world. The USA, Iran, Libya, Israel, the U.S.S.R., and perhaps Cuba, sponsor the most terrorism around the world today. The general rule is that Left-wing terrorist groups are more numerous in the 20 rich capitalist countries while Right-wing terrorist groups are more numerous in 3rd world countries. In the first world, the governments are liberal but support repression in the 3rd world...the Right has little complaint as long as the state does its work. In the 3rd world, the government is right-wing so it is the target of attacks. Europe There are a number of left-wing terrorist groups working in Europe today. Their efforts to use terrorism to eliminate NATO or to end capitalism is failing. Terrorism is not theoretically informed and it is not joined with moral or social power for the most part. For the most part, terrorism has no social base in Europe. Ireland and the Basque region of Spain are exceptions. Left Wing terrorism in Europe has failed despite the assassination of members of the ruling classes. Politicians, judges, generals, and leading capitalists have been shot in the knee, murdered, kidnapped, and threatened by one or more of the groups below. The most active left wing terrorists today include: *the Red Army faction [It assassinated a Senator in Italy in April, 1988: there are many cells in Europe]. *the French Action Directe [It hits computer retrieval systems but also aims to destroy the 'capitalist slave state.' *the Baader Meinhof group [It robs banks, kidnaps, and bombs] *the Belgium Cellules Communistes Combattantes *the Irish Republican Army *ETA-M [Basque Separatist Movement] *Animal Rights Militia [England: they send bomb letters] *Free Wales [ This group bomb selected English targets in Wales] There are far too many Right Wing groups to list. Below is a sample of some about which one will read in the news: *The C.I.A. [the most active terrorist group in the world] *the National Front [England] *Viking Youth [Belgium: extreme right wing group] *OAS, DELTA, FNE [all french fascist groups] *National Fascist Front, Nazi Action Front [and many more in West Germany] *Massada, MOSSAD [Israel: each has a murder brigade and secret police] *NAR [Italy: neofascist group] *UDA, UFF, UVF [Protestant terrorists in Northern Ireland] TERROR IN THE 3rd WORLD Below are some names for which to watch around the rest of the world. First the Left wing terrorist groups then the Right wing: *Bandera Roja [Columbia: Red Flag group *the Maoist Sendero Luminoso movement (Peru) *the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary movement (Peru) *Moluccan movement [operates in the Netherlands] *the Japanese Red Army *the PLO [Palestinian Liberation Organization] The two most active are the Japanese Red Army which acts in several countries; the PLO, which is active against Israel and its supporters and the Sendero Luminoso movement which is very active in Peru. Most of the news about terrorism in the US media focus upon the pretheoretical politics of the Left. The fact is that the overwhelming use of terror is on the Right. That does not redeem Left wing terror but a good theory of terrorism needs to consider the social location and the social purpose of terrorism everywhere it occurs. Rightist Terror The Right wing terrorist groups in the 3rd world are very active. Almost every Latin American government uses death squads or turns a blind eye to right wing death squads. Even when populist leaders are elected they seldom prosecute thugs on the right...it is far too dangerous. In May, 1988, the entire cabinet of Columbia resigned for fear of drug dealers death squads. In El Salvador alone there is the Escuadron de la Muerte; the Escuadron de la Muerte Nuevo; the ESA...a secret death squad; the Escuadron de Muerte; the UGB...union of White Guerrillas; and the Falange made up of the 14 families which rule El Salvador. Other terrorist groups include: *the ESA in Guatemala [Ejercito Secreto Anticomunista] *The tanton Macoutes [some 14,000 Duvalier thugs still active in Haiti] *FPAN, Brigada Blanco [anticommunist groups in Mexico] *Contras [a CIA sponsored army in Nicaragua led mostly by former Guard members in the Somacista regime] *Afrikaner Broederbond, Koevoet [White South African terrorists] Muslim Terrorism The terrorists who operate in support of the Moslem Brotherhood are hard to characterize in conventional political terms. They work for an extremist religious state in dozens of Muslim countries from the Philippines to Iran, Afghanistan, and Iraq to Saudi Arabia and then all across north Africa to Morocco. Muslims engage in Jihad, a holy war against both socialist and capitalist governments. They oppose the semi-feudal regime in Saudi Arabia which co-operates with Europe and the USA. Their vision is a very conservative society but one oriented to social justice for those united in Islam. Such a society is to be led by holy men; imams and ayatollahs. Islam nations maintain a severe gender stratification system yet a generous program of social welfare. The muslim society is also a very punitive society for those who violate Islamic legal codes. The combination of devout followers, social justice as well as quick and certain punishment make Islamic societies among the lowest crime societies in the world. There are 750 million muslim followers so Islamic ambitions should not be lightly taken. Israeli and Arab The British guaranteed European Jews a homeland in Jerusalem. After WWII, tens of thousands displaced Jews went to Israel. They were the targets of violence and repression by the Arab Muslim states which surrounded them. The British pulled out and left the Jews to their fate. Somehow, they survived to build a democratic and socialist society. Menachem Begin was an Israeli terrorist who killed British soldiers and civilians indiscriminately in the late 40's. Israeli terrorism was successful in forcing the British to withdraw. When he become the head of government of Israel in the 1980s, Begin used state power to dispossess the other Palestinians and to distribute land and business to Israeli citizens. In turn, the Palestinians who had been peaceful but now are powerless in the face of the armaments of the Israelis, began to use terror against Israelis. Palestinians, denied access to state power in their own land, having no access to social power and without enough economic or physical power inside the state of Israel with which to confront the Israeli State, Palestinians try to use the social power of the International community against the Israeli state. They commit terrorist acts against third parties under the theory that making such repression visible by acts of terrorism inside and outside Israel will encourage third parties help them get their land back from the Israelis. (NOTE 9) The hijacking of ships and planes, the bombing of restaurants and the assassination of Israelis in host countries embarrass and provoke other countries to intervene. All countries which maintain relations with the Israelis have social power to shape its policies. The USA has the most social and economic power to use on Israel since it supplies it with billions in military and other aid. The USA is often a target of terrorism for that reason. The Palestinian terrorists hope to use public opinion in the USA to pressure the American government to pressure the Israeli government to return the lands of the Palestinians. In their turn, Israelis use terrorism as a control tactic since they have no moral power or social power to control the Arab Muslim population. They bomb villages suspected of harboring Arab activists; they kidnap local leaders; they expel opposition leaders; they imprison hundreds without due process. Israeli secret police use torture and informers. Theory of Terrorism Terrorism can be understood as partially theoretical rebellion and resistance only when: *It targets the source of alienation and exploitation rather than innocent victims of oppression. *It is oriented to collective emancipation rather than to private advantage. *It is an effective means to promote praxis rather than producing more alienation. *There is no better political means available. But terrorism is less than theoretical since it often provokes more repression...and slaughter of the very people it seeks to liberate. It is less than theoretical when there are other, less violent means to achieve the same end. It is less than theoretical when it strikes out blindly at false targets including other oppressed minorities. WHAT TO DO ABOUT POLITICAL CRIME Most political crime in the world has International origins. The solution to political crime must involve the transformation of the international system. The free-market rights of the 20 or so rich capitalist countries to extract food, wealth and profits from the 120 or so poor capitalist and semi-capitalist societies must be set modified in favor of the political rights of the local governments to use those resources for housing, health care, education and development of each 3rd world country. Human rights must trump market rights if we are to avoid more warfare. The Social Democratic Solution Democratic socialists call for a new world economic order in the capitalist world system in which profits remain in the underdeveloped countries. The profits are to be used for social justice: housing, schools, hospitals, child care centers, roads, canals, docks, pensions and such. The flow of food, wealth, and raw materials from the poorest hungriest countries in the world to the richest, fattest countries must be reversed. A truly non-zero economic game must replace the present trend toward greater inequality. Democratic socialists call for a new world order in communications in which the cultural values of the local society are respected...and the exploitative cultural values of the USA are to be excluded from mystifying human consciousness: competition, individualism, false needs, private profit, and privatized use of sacred supplies. The role of the United Nations or some such transnational confederation of states to coordinate social justice programs and to police international crime is essential as poverty, inequality, hunger, and repression increases in the 3rd world. The 1st world is now run by a loose federation of the Big Seven: Britain, France, Italy, West Germany, Japan, and Canada lead by the USA. A larger role for the United Nations and other transnational and democratic policy-making agencies might well be useful. Bloc Formation. In the next 20 years or so, bloc formation could work to meliorate international political crime. There are some ten to twelve such blocs now emerging (Young, 1994a). The history of the world has been such that kinship groups were expanded to put tribes at the center of the social horizon; tribes expanded to put empires at the center of the social horizon; and in the last 400 years, nation-states with Constitutions have emerged to organize a sense of self and of the Universal We. If blocs do emerge both the structure of self as well as that of just who is included inside religious definitions of the Universal will be important protections against international political crime. The big Seven will have to deal with whole blocs consisting of those who are in the same language family, in the same religious tradition; in the same geographical region and/or in the same economic bloc. Multinational corporations themselves need peace and co- operation if they are to provide air travel to all parts of the globe; if they are to provide news services and advertizing to all parts of the globe; if they are to use alternative sourcing and productive facilities to respond to shutdowns and to new demand. All these as well as the need for safe and secure movement of funds and investment capital around the world argue for peace and against the use of physical force to impose the will or advance the interests of one nation or one coalition of nations. New and more encompassing forms of religion are important to a peaceable kingdom. A postmodern theology is developing which does offer new and more open boundaries in the various dramas of the Holy which sanctify or profane the human project Young, 1994a). International Law and International Courts could well become more active in the settlement of disputes as blocs form and coalitions emerge which require more peace and more stability than direct use of force permits. In the long run, the possibilities for a peaceful world hinge upon being able to think about and to respond to the needs of other countries. Just as a praxis society is needed to facilitate the human potential in a society, a praxis international system is needed to help individual countries live in peace. As the bumper sticker puts it: If one want peace, work for justice. Bibliography and References Agee, Philip. 1975 C.I.A. Diary. New York: Bantam Books. Amin, Samir 1977 Imperialism and Unequal Development. New York: Monthly Review Press. Blackstock, N. 1976 Cointelpro. New York: Vintage. Cereseto, S. 1983 "A test of four inequality models: comparing socialist and capitalist development." The Insurgent Sociologist. Chomsky, N. and Edward Herman 1979 The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism. Boston: South End Press. Domhoff, G. W. 1967 Who Rules America. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall. Klare, Michael T. 1984 American Arms Supermarket. Austin: University of Texas Press. Marchetti, Victor and John Marks 1974 The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence. Dell Publishing Company. New York. Michalowski, Raymond and Ron Kramer 1987 The Space Between the Laws: The Problem of Corporate Crime in a Transnational Context. Social Problems, V.34:1, Pp.34-50. February. Stockwell, John 1987 Lecture presented at Colorado State University, 26 March. Sunkel, Osvaldo and Edmundo Fuenzalida 1984 Transnational Capitalism. In How the World Works. Ed. by Gary Olson. Glenview, Ill.: Scott, Foresman & Co. Wallerstein, Immanuel 1979 The Capitalist World Economy Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Young, T. R. and Nancy Maxson, 1986. Work and Religious Wisdom in the World. Available from the Red Feather Institute Young, T. R. 1994a Postmodern Religion and the Global World Order: Postmodern Theology and Social Justice. Humanity and Society. Forthcoming. Young, T. R. 1994b State Crime: The United States of America. Forthcoming in Jeffrey Ian Ross, Editor, Controlling State Crime in Advanced Industrial Democracies. Forthcoming. NOTES 1: This essay on war is written first of all for undergraduate students in social science...hence the anticipation and effort to enable them to transcend their socialization. 2: I use the traditional division of the global economy into; a) the First World of Development which includes most of Western Europe and North America, b) a second world of development which includes some 15 or so putatively socialist nations, and c) the third world which consists of 'underdeveloped' nations. Since, writing this, of course, the second world has fallen into great disarray and is much more a part of the third world than was the case before the collapse of bureaucratic and elitist state socialism. 3: For those who are interested, liberation theology combines the teachings of Christ with those of Marx; for such Christians, there are two kinds of sin; personal sins forbidden by Deuteronomy and structural sins committed by earlier generations. These 'structural sins' include racism, class exploitation, gender oppression and elitist governing practices. 4: Actually, some ten or twelve economic blocs are emerging which might well change the policing patterns in the future. The use of foreign troops to control markets and access to raw materials may be past. See companion articles in the Red Feather Series for this case. 5: As of 1994, this statement is true. The new sciences of complexity and Chaos suggests that entirely new solutions to the old problems of production and distribution will emerge; with a bit of imagination we can see several consequences of the collapse of bureaucratic/elitist socialism...first there will be considerable but not complete disorder; then there will be a variety of economic forms emerge varying from narrow and oppressive ethnic/religious based economies to new and scarcely imaginable capitalist and/or socialist economies. 6: Reading Deuteronomy (esp. Deut:12) is instructive in this regard; the God of the Israelis promised great wealth if His people were to utterly destroy a variety of other cities in the region. The orders are to kill every male and tear down every temple. One can enslave the women and children and take home the loot. Since Islam is predicated on the same five books of the old testament, Muslims too, are encouraged to pillage, enslave, and rape. 7: The notion of the Universal We is very important to a sociology of religion as to a theory of political crime since, if one is left outside the Universal We, one can be robbed, raped, beater or ignored without moral onus. See the companion articles from RFI archives on postmodern religion. 8: See Young and Maxson (198y), Work and Wisdom in the World for a look at all those occupations forbidden by the various religions including Jewish, Christian, Muslim and Buddhist. 9: Differences in land use and property rights are key to Arab- Israeli conflict. Arabs know generally which families use which land for grazing; very few formal titles to land have been registered over the centuries. Israelis, using European land use law, recognizes only legal title made legal by registering the land with the state land office. When such land is not registered, it is claimed by the Israeli state and, often, sold or given to Israeli settlers. Such conflict over land use is parallel to that in North America between Indian tribes which, historically had possession [but not title] to lands. Spanish land grants also conflicted with both European land use law and native American land use traditions.