27 Dec. 2001 - 2 Jan. 2002
Issue No.566
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 27 Dec. 2001 - 2 Jan. 2002 Issue No.566 |
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Corporate jihad
The war against terrorism has inflated more than President Bush's international standing -- his executive powers are growing too, writes Faiza Rady
In 2001 United States President George W Bush grew in stature. He stood taller, he seemed larger than life. Following an initial political dry run, the ball finally started rolling after 11 September. By the year's end Bush had unquestionably found his cause: successful warmongering. A call which will, most probably, extend to the remainder of his term in office.
Heralding good tidings for the Christmas holidays and the New Year celebrations, Bush announced on Friday that 2002 will undoubtedly usher in more of this thriving war culture. "Next year will be a war year as well because we're going to continue to hunt down these Qa'eda people: in this particular theatre, as well as in other places," Bush said.
If one goes by this year's fruitless pursuit of the ever- elusive Al-Qa'eda leader Osama Bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Mohamed Omar, hunting down the "Qa'eda people" will take extensive time and effort. The CIA's job in 2002 will be a tough one, particularly since the agency has recently identified no less than 60 countries that allegedly harbour terrorist cells within their borders. The manhunt promises to be sufficiently long-term and arduous enough to keep the Pentagon and transnational arms manufacturers in business for years to come. General Dynamics, Lockheed, Northrop and a host of other giant arms transnationals are making out well. "Wartime profiteering is in full swing," commented the New Statesman, a British weekly.
While the Bush administration pushed the military industrial complex into high gear with hefty government contracts, it further extended the call to arms to include trade negotiations. US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, who headed the US delegation at the Doha World Trade Organisation (WTO) ministerial meeting last month, laid out the groundwork to expand President Bush's international trade negotiation capabilities by selling the so-called Fast Track procedure to Congress. A fall-out from 11 September, the Fast Track bill will empower Bush to circumvent congressional hurdles by allowing him to negotiate and sign binding international trade agreements without prior congressional approval.
A manna for the US president, the procedure ensures a free hand to unilaterally negotiate trade agreements. Largely bypassing the legislature, Fast Track massively expands presidential powers by limiting congressional input to a "yes or no" vote on new trade agreements after the fact and disallows any amendments.
An impeccable salesman, Zoellick cashed in on the state of emergency ambiance at Capitol Hill to sell the Fast Track package to the House of Representatives. On 6 December, the House caved in and abdicated its powers to the president, passing the bill by one vote: 215-214. While capturing the House vote constituted a major victory, the Bush camp has yet to clear another hurdle. Fast Track still needs to pass the US Senate.
Zoellick's lobbying efforts have paid off handsomely. A consummate wheeler and dealer, the US trade representative fine-tuned his sales pitch to the fervently patriotic post-11 September discourse by promoting the struggle of the righteous against evil. "Trade is about more than economic efficiency," said Zoellick. "It promotes the values at the heart of this protracted struggle [against terrorism]."
Arguing along the "if you are not with us, you are against us" harangue, Zoellick made a case for increased globalisation as the new patriotic duty -- allegedly serving the interests of the American and the global poor. While Congress succumbed to the tirade, the anti-globalisation movement begged to differ. "Opportunism and cynical manipulation of tragedy are nothing new in Washington. But the proposals to exploit the 11 September tragedy for narrow corporate aims mark a new low," wrote political analyst Russell Mokhiber in the alternative media Web site.
The Bush administration's urgency in securing Fast Track expands its narrow corporate aims to Central and South America. At stake is the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), a gargantuan market of 34 countries that will encompass all those of the Western hemisphere -- with the notable exception of Socialist Cuba. With a population of 800 million, and a combined gross domestic product (GDP) of $11 trillion, the FTAA would be the largest free trade zone in the world.
Modelled on the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which includes Canada, the US and Mexico, the US version of the FTAA will be exclusively fine-tuned by the Bush team -- should the Senate decide to pass the Fast Track bill.
US plans for the FTAA are, indeed, visionary. The Clinton administration previously hailed the FTAA-in- the-making as the realisation of the pan-American dream of prosperity, democracy and environmental benefits for all. Dubbed "NAFTA on steroids," details of the FTAA draft remain shrouded in secrecy. Negotiations, which have been ongoing since 1994, are strictly conducted behind closed doors. Despite this lack of transparency, however, a hazy outline of the FTAA grand scheme has leaked into the public domain.
According to the US-based trade watchdog Global Trade Watch, the FTAA contains all the powers of the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI), which was dumped from the Paris 1998 Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) round as a result of concerted and radical public opposition. The MAI's essential purpose was to override national governments' sovereignty in favour of transnational "investment rights." Designed to protect real or even "perceived" corporate profits, MAI regulations supersede standing national legislation -- divesting national governments of their legislative and executive powers.
Besides aiming to resuscitate the defunct MAI, the FTAA also expands on structural adjustment programmes (SAPs), which the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have imposed on the South for the best part of the last two decades. Based on orthodox neo-liberal wisdom, SAPs prescribe the same recipe across the board: slashing government spending, privatising state-owned enterprises, focusing on export- oriented economies and attracting foreign investment by any and all means possible.
It is now common knowledge that in most cases, SAPs have spelled disaster in the South. Since the implementation of tough SAPs tied to economic rescue packages, Latin America has experienced stagnant growth, while African economies have sunk dramatically. According to the Washington, DC-based Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), SAPs have devastated the economies of 89 countries, spurring a decline in per capita growth averaging five percentage points over the last two decades. Besides declining economic growth, social growth indicators -- like reduced infant and child mortality, increased literacy and access to education -- have all slowed under SAPs and rampant globalisation.
A revamped version of NAFTA, with an inflated SAP appendage, the FTAA under Fast Track spells bad news for workers in the Americas and in the South. In the words of John Sweeney, president of the American Federation of Labour-Congress of Industrial Organisations (AFL-CIO), the US-led war is being waged on two fronts: "the war against terrorism and the war against workers."
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