TURKPULSE No:81..........OCTOBER 6th, 2002
The American economy is clearly in trouble today with plummeting stock shares and structurally sick giant multinationals like Enron. President Bush is very much aware of this fact and has been hard at work to rectify this during his last two years in power. What instruments has he used in this struggle, what are the results of this hard work, and what are the prospects for the world, especially for Turkey? For an attempt to analyse this question from Turkey’s angle, on the basis of facts and official American documents, please see the article below.
By far the biggest economy of the world, the American economy, is clearly in a shambles today with persistently falling Dow Jones and Nasdaq shares at a cost of trillions of dollars for the American people and shaken confidence of domestic and international investors due to bankrupting giant multinationals such as Enron, World.com and Xerox. It is believed that there are several other multinationals like Enron, but despite congressional resolutions, the Bush Administration is failing to march against these shortfalls, with the fear that it may trigger off an avalanche of crumbling corporations. Instead, the Administration is trying to solve these problems quietly within the special characteristics of the American economic miracle. Only last week, American and west European shares fell so sharply to the tune of 3-4% in one day in an economy where bank interest rates are below 2% a year that the BBC quoted the Herald Tribune’s calculations, “Every American citizen has lost £7000 in one day.” It picked up a little in the following days, but experts say that the problem is structural and deep-rooted and that the drop will continue unless conditions are changed.
What was Clinton’s secret in his purring economy?
A bird’s eye view of recent American history shows that the same conditions existed in the eighties, especially in the second half of the decade. With frightening “Black Wednesdays” and other shocking events in 1987, the American stock market lived through even harder conditions than today under President Bush (the father), but in 1992 Clinton came to power and they were the rosiest days of the American economy. Today, President Clinton has gone after eight years of bright economic performance and left the arena to President Bush, the son, who has been struggling with the same economic evils, as his father did a decade ago.
What was the reason for the Clinton Administration’s bright economic performance? In retrospect, it is seen that the Gulf War President Bush fought in 1990-91 paved the way for the solution of the United States economic problems, and President Clinton reaped the fruits in his eight-year term as from 1992. The Americans emptied their munitions arsenals by showering on Iraq more missiles and bombs in a few weeks than were used in World War II and made the other Arabs - Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the Emirates foot the $600-700 billion bill. President Bush the second is now clearly seeking a remedy to the ailing American economy with the same method as his father found ten years ago, but the conditions are much less favourable this time. Contrary to a decade ago, all Iraq’s neighbours, particularly Turkey, are determined not to be a tool of the prospective American attack on Iraq. No statesman in the world other than PM Blair of the UK is supporting such action and a sizable part of the British and American people are against it. The British media is objecting to President Bush’s “Walkies” order to “the poodle Blair”. Chancellor Schroeder won a major election battle by the skin of his teeth thanks to his promise that “every vote cast for me will be a bullet to stop Bush from starting the war in Iraq”. France, Russia and China are blocking the way in the Security Council for Bush and Blair to pass a resolution for action in Iraq and with Turkey’s and other countries’ pressure the Saddam regime is manifesting the necessary flexibility about UN inspections to detect WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction) in Iraq. Despite these obstructions and especially because of Turkey’s firm stance in stopping it as a key country for a war in the Gulf, President Bush and PM Blair are using all their eloquence to make out Saddam a threat to world peace with little persuasion the world over but still promise to act all alone if necessary. Why?
American documents say arms companies financed Hitler to power
The American economy is a consumption-based free market economy, which needs to empty its accumulated stockpiles from time to time. War industry is a major part of this economy and prolonged peace does not help the functioning of that part of the economy. That is why the American and west European munitions factories do not like prolonged peace times in the world, stir up international confrontations, resort to shady sales practices and provoke the rearmament race in the world.
These are not arbitrary judgements or sweeping remarks of Pulse, but were the preoccupation of the free world after World War I when the Americans had not yet invented the “conspiracy theory” rhetoric. Western parliaments in Europe and Congress in Washington devoted considerable time and attention to the investigation of these claims and came to the conclusion that Skoda in Czechoslovakia and the other western munitions factories “financed the Hitler movement to power, which, more than any one other event, can be credited with causing the present huge rearmament race in Europe, so profitable to the European steel, airline, and munitions companies.”
The above quote is from the “Report of the Special Committee on Investigation of the Munitions Industry (Nye Report), U.S. Congress, Senate, 74th Congress, 2nd session, February 24, 1936. The Nye Investigation Committee finds “that almost without exception, the American munitions companies investigated have at times resorted to such unusual approaches, questionable favours and commissions, in effect, a form of bribery of foreign government officials or of their close friends in order to secure business.” The report says of military sales, “The effect of such sales is to produce fear, hostility, and greater munitions orders on the part of the neighbouring countries, culminating in economic strain and collapse or war.” The Nye report continues, “The Committee finds, further, that the munitions companies have secured the active support of the War, Navy and Commerce and even State Departments in their sales abroad, even when the material was to be produced in England or Italy….The Committee finds, further, any close associations between munitions and supply companies, on the one hand and the service departments on the other hand, of the kind which existed in Germany before the WW, constitutes an unhealthy alliance in that it brings into being a self-interested political power which cooperates in the name of patriotism and satisfies interests which are, in large part, purely selfish, and that such associations are an inevitable part of militarism, and are to be avoided in peace time at all costs.”
The Nye report says of the western munitions companies’ contributions to Germany’s and Japan’s armaments before WWII, “Such considerations of commercial interest were apparently foremost in the rearming of Germany beginning in 1924 and in the sale of process which could be used to manufacture cheaper munitions in Japan in 1932, shortly after Secretary of State Stimson had taken steps to express the disapproval of this Nation for Japan’s military activities in Manchuokuo. Several aviation companies also licensed Japan for the use of their material in Manchuokuo at a time when the United States Government refused recognition to it. Recognition by munitions companies may be far more important than diplomatic recognition.”
The Nye report gives several examples of how international disarmament conferences and arms control efforts were undermined by munitions companies as from the 1925 Geneva conference. “The embargo placed at the request of the Central (Nanking) Chinese Government on exports of arms to China, according to the evidence, violated by American and European munitions companies. Shipments via Europe and Panama were frequently considered as means of evading the embargo.”
Bush’s Iraq designs in the light of Nye Report
Since the Nye report in February 1936 much water has run under the bridge, but by judging what President Bush is doing today about Iraq, nothing has changed in the Americans’ methods and intentions for war as a stimulant of the ailing national economy. Only last week the “Hard Talk” interviewer on the BBC was recounting name by name which members of the Bush Administration were key managers of which American Arms Company before the present Bush Administration came to power two years ago.
Turkey is strongly objecting to the prospective American military action in Iraq on the grounds that the national economy suffered big losses from the first operation in 1990 and the American answer to that is “You will lose even more if you stay away from the conference table after the military operation in Iraq by not siding with us in the Iraq operation ahead.”
Turkey’s efforts are now focused on these calculations and foiling these plans. Above all, the American claim, now marketed in Turkey by the Disinformation Mechanism through Milliyet and other newspapers, is a fallacy. According to Ankara’s calculations, the Americans will move into the region permanently this time and will not stop the military action in the middle as it did in the first Gulf War. It means creating another “Israel”, that is to say a Kurdish State in Northern Iraq and having permanent American military presence there with sophisticated air bases to replace Incirlik, which Turkey is allowing to be used under stringent restrictions not suiting American interests. Another meaning is an endless struggle in the region like the one in Palestine that has been going on with heart-rending tragedies for the last 60 years or so. Turkey must nip this danger in the bud by cooperating with all the countries concerned whatever the cost is in the short run. Avoidance of paying that price today will be much more costly for Turkey in the long run as is seen in the Palestine example today. That is why PM Ecevit and General Kivrikoglu spoke of the Palestine example in discussing the Iraqi affair.
This fact, for its part, has brought Turkey to the point of considering the Kurdish State question a reason for war, “casus belli”.
Naturally, Turkey is more than reluctant to go as far as that over the prospective American military action in Iraq. but this price has to be paid if necessary and it will be done no matter who is in power in Ankara. That factor, for its part, is the strongest deterrent to Bush’s plans for action in Iraq because who knows better than the Americans what it means to confront the Turkish soldier when he considers a matter life or death.
Will these dangerous developments be averted with common sense or will the Bush Administration, motivated by its munitions companies’ interests plus the more important oil factor, take into consideration every risk and move into Iraq militarily? By all indications the latter will be the case and the confrontation will be unavoidable in the Gulf. Turkey is making its preparations to prevent it from prolonging too long and dissuading Washington from the intention of settling in the region with bases and permanent military presence with the foundation of a Kurdish State. That is one of the main reasons why the Americans may have to find other means than war in order to rejuvenate and stimulate their ailing national economy this time. uras@ada.net.tr - October 6th, 2002