Naomi Klein (The Nation): The Rise of Disaster Capitalism

[Jack Rabbit]

From The Nation
Issue of May 2, 2005
Posted online Thursday April 14

The Rise of Disaster Capitalism
By Naomi Klein

Last summer, in the lull of the August media doze, the Bush Administration's doctrine of preventive war took a major leap forward. On August 5, 2004, the White House created the Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization, headed by former US Ambassador to Ukraine Carlos Pascual. Its mandate is to draw up elaborate "post-conflict" plans for up to twenty-five countries that are not, as of yet, in conflict. According to Pascual, it will also be able to coordinate three full-scale reconstruction operations in different countries "at the same time," each lasting "five to seven years."

Fittingly, a government devoted to perpetual pre-emptive deconstruction now has a standing office of perpetual pre-emptive reconstruction.

Gone are the days of waiting for wars to break out and then drawing up ad hoc plans to pick up the pieces. In close cooperation with the National Intelligence Council, Pascual's office keeps "high risk" countries on a "watch list" and assembles rapid-response teams ready to engage in prewar planning and to "mobilize and deploy quickly" after a conflict has gone down. The teams are made up of private companies, nongovernmental organizations and members of think tanks--some, Pascual told an audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in October, will have "pre-completed" contracts to rebuild countries that are not yet broken. Doing this paperwork in advance could "cut off three to six months in your response time."

The plans Pascual's teams have been drawing up in his little-known office in the State Department are about changing "the very social fabric of a nation," he told CSIS. The office's mandate is not to rebuild any old states, you see, but to create "democratic and market-oriented" ones. So, for instance (and he was just pulling this example out of his hat, no doubt), his fast-acting reconstructors might help sell off "state-owned enterprises that created a nonviable economy." Sometimes rebuilding, he explained, means "tearing apart the old."

Few ideologues can resist the allure of a blank slate--that was colonialism's seductive promise: "discovering" wide-open new lands where utopia seemed possible. But colonialism is dead, or so we are told; there are no new places to discover, no terra nullius (there never was), no more blank pages on which, as Mao once said, "the newest and most beautiful words can be written." There is, however, plenty of destruction--countries smashed to rubble, whether by so-called Acts of God or by Acts of Bush (on orders from God).

Read more.

[CHIMO]

1. Very Good Article

Makes me wonder when and what form the blowback will take.

[AG78]

2. Does it matter?

Blowback, we go and bomb someone in response, then these corporations go in and make more money.

[CHIMO]

3. At Some Point

In the chain that you describe there will eventually be a limit.

[realFedUp]

4. She's such a treasure

thank God.

[JohnyCanuck]

5. Check out the BBC documentary "Why we fight."

The reporting in this documentary tie in with the Naomi Klein article. This BBC documentary shows how Ike's warning on leaving office in the 1950's that the military industrial complex would be dangerous for American democracy has finally come to fruition in the neocon movement - joined at the hip to powerful corporate interests who make humongous profit off of war and selling services and war materiel to governments (especially the US government). Even back in the 50s apparently Ike was alarmed that corporations were becoming more powerful and apparently showing greater ability to affect official government policy than the President of the USA, hence his famous speech warning of the dangers of the military industrial complex.

The documentary has appearances and commentary by John Eisenhower (Ike's son), Chalmers Johnson (author of "Blowback"), whistleblower Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatowski Ret., Gore Vidal, Richard Perle and a few other assorted neocons and Senator John McCain. I just about fell off my chair when they showed a clip of McCain admitting for the camera that Ike's warning about the dangers of the military industrial complex has now come true. No way in hell would you ever see McCain making and admission like that on CBS or NBC.

You can see the video here. It is a bit long as it runs 1hr 40min however, it's well worth it IMHO. It only runs on Real Player. If you have Real Player installed, just click on the link and it will download and start playing automatically in a Real Player window embedded in the web page.

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article8494.htm

[chlamor]

6. Gangsters at the Helm