March 23, 2005 - The Pentagon has released a new strategic plan that explicitly endorses unilateral preemptive strikes. [1] This is yet another indication that the Bush administration is dramatically accelerating away from longstanding doctrines that are upheld by both general international law and seemingly-important transatlantic coalitions like NATO. [2]

Alarmingly, this plan also equates respected international organizations, such as the International Criminal Court, with ... terrorism. According to this sentence from the Pentagon's new strategic plan, the Pax Americana Imperium's overwhelming military and economic strength somehow is being "challenged" by "a strategy of the weak": "Our strength as a nation state will continue to be challenged by those who employ a strategy of the weak focusing on international fora, judicial processes and terror." [3]

The entire world must be wondering WHY the Pentagon's wildly-irrational language conflates diplomatic and legal challenges to US policy in international forums with terrorism? It's bad enough that the scofflaw Bush administration has resorted to grossly mischaracterizing Western civilization's time-honored international conflict-resolution methods as "challenges" which MUST BE DETERRED AS A MATTER OF NATIONAL SECURITY. Nevertheless, it gets even worse.

During a Pentagon news conference on 3-18-05, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith removed all doubt about the fascistic nature of these new policies when he clarified points from the document, titled "The National Defense Strategy of the United States of America."

Quoth the wild-eyed Feith: "There are various actors around the world that are looking to attack or constrain the United States, and they are going to find creative ways to do that, that are not the obvious conventional military attacks.... We need to think broadly about diplomatic lines of attack, legal lines of attack, all kinds of asymmetric warfare that various actors can use to try to constrain, shape our behavior." [4]

Consider Mr. Feith's absurdly-hypermilitarized Orwellian conflations, which are either criminally stupid or deliberately evil: (1) he defames diplomacy and adjudication by unjustly conflating them with insidious methods of "attack"; and (2) he inexplicably conflates any "actor" -- whether individual, group, or national -- who contends that America must honor its treaty obligations with "asymmetric warfare" against the USA, despite the fact that duly-ratified treaties are "the supreme law of the land" under Article VI of the United States Constitution!

So ... let's see if we've finally gotten our new national-security policy straight:

A) the Bush administration declares that it has a unique "right" to engage in a legally-standardless "preemptive/preventive" war against anyone, anywhere, anytime, even if it merely feels subjectively threatened by the theoretical possibility that it might be "attacked" at some undefined place in the indefinite future; AND
B) any diplomatic or legal disagreement with the USA under international law is going to be construed as such an "attack" -- indeed, as a form of "asymmetric warfare"; ERGO
C) the Bushites will inflict "preemptive/preventive" war upon any nation that attempts to "attack" the USA through a cheeky act of diplomacy or adjudication under the rule of law, which is henceforth deemed to be the substantive equivalent of an act of terrorism!

Overarching Conclusions: Who's Guarding The Guardians? It says a great deal -- but nothing good -- about the USA's mainstream media
that this Pentagon document and Mr. Feith's laughable-yet-fascistic clarifications were not subjected to intense questioning during the news conference, and to scathing journalistic criticism thereafter.

Moreover, the Pentagon's outrageously-regressive strategic plan underscores the fact that Mr. Bush has chosen NOT to hold dysfunctional neocons, like Messrs. Feith and Rumsfeld, accountable WITHIN the rule of law. Rather, he's chosen to grant the neocons a second-term stranglehold over his natonal-security policy, evidently so they can withdraw the USA from the rule of internatonal law BEFORE they begin another propaganda campaign for his next petro-state conquest.

Furthermore, it's worth noting in this context that Untergrüppensführer Feith is:

1) the DoD's third-ranking civilian official, behind Rummy and Wolfie, who is primarily responsible for formulating new national-security policies;
2) the DoD official who was directly responsible for the shadowy "Office for Special Plans" -- an ultrasecret propaganda unit inside the Pentagon that concocted pre-war "intelligence" about Iraq's phantom WMD arsenals and nonexistent ties to al-Qaeda -- and who, for purposes of plausible denial, disbanded the OSP after the invasion [5]; and
3) a longtime militarist, war-profiteer, and fundamentalist Zionist who has numerous ulterior motives for both withdrawing the USA from the rule of law and promoting wars of aggression against Islamic nations in the Middle East. [6]

The Bottom Line: Neofascism In Our Name? Americans ought to be asking themselves: (A) whether we really want the Pentagon to be implementing its fascistic "national security" policies IN OUR NAME; and (B) if NOT, why aren't we then creating a firestorm of public protest in opposition to these lunatic-fringe policies? Finally, you'll find more evidence, in endnote #7 below, which proves, when taken as a whole, that the Bushites are withdrawing the USA from the overarching rule of intenational law because they regard it as a necessary precondition for more wars of aggression against petro-states like Iran, and then maybe Venezuela. [7]

ENDNOTES

1. John Hendren's 3-19-05 CD/LAT article, "Pentagon: Unilateral, Preemptive Strikes Now US Policy": http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0319-01.htm

2. A. Nicholas Davies' 12-31-04 OJ essay, "The Crime Of War: From Nüremberg To Fallujah": http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/123104Davies/12
3104davies.html
B. TJSL Professor Marjorie Cohn's 11-9-04 TO essay, "Aggressive War: Supreme International Crime":
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/110904A.shtml

3. John Lumpkin's 3-19-05 CHB/AP article, "Terrorism Report Decries 'Strategy Of The Weak'": http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_6428.s
html

4. Lumpkin, ibid.

5. A. Julian Borger's 7-17-03 GU special report, "The Spies Who Pushed for War": http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,999737,00.html
B. Right Web's 2-11-04 special report, "Office Of Special Plans": http://rightweb.irc-online.org/govt/osp.php

6. Right Web's 9-3-04 special report, "Douglas Feith": http://rightweb.irc-online.org/ind/feith/feith.php

7. A. Jim Lobe's 3-11-05 CD/IPS article, "Bush's Unipolar World View Re-Affirmed" [Significant trends in Mr. Bush's second-term appointments -- like naming neocons John Bolton as his UN Ambassador and then Paul Wolfowitz as head of the World Bank -- confirm both his unipolar worldview and his ongoing intention to pursue a unilateralist national-security policy that will be centered around "preemptive war."]: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0311-08.htm
B. Evan Augustine Peterson III's 3-13-05 TPV essay, "US Withdraws From The Rule Of Law: Now Death-Row Foreigners Can't File International Appeals":
http://liberty.hypermart.net/voices/2005/print/US_Withdraws_
From_The_Rule_Of_Law_Now_Death-Row_Foreigners_Cant_File_Inte ...
C. Michael Leavitt's 3-14-05 FL essay, "Is the Bush Administration
Repudiating International Law?" [Concludes that his titular question must be
answered "yes."]: http://writ.news.findlaw.com/leavitt/20050314.html
D. Tom Turnipseed's 3-15-05 CD essay, "A Scofflaw In The White House: Undermining Respect For Law" [Among other salient points, lists the many international conventions from which the Bushites have withdrawn the USA.]: http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0315-25.htm
E. Ray McGovern's 3-2-05 CD/TD essay, "Attacking Iraq: I Know It Sounds Crazy But..." [Explains the neocrazy groupthink under which the Bushites operate their Mideastern policy and why it's likely to manifest in war during their second term.]: http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0302-31.htm
F. Fabiola Sanchez's 3-16-05 USAT/AP article, "Chavez Followers Get Paramilitary Training":
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-03-16-venezuela-chav
ez_x.htm
G. Stuart Munckton's 3-20-05 GLW essay, "Venezuela: Bush's Next Oil War?": http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2005/619/619p17.htm
H. Davidson Loehr's 11-7-04 ICH essay, "Living Under Fascism": http://207.44.245.159/article7478.htm

Author: Evan Augustine Peterson III, J.D., is the Executive Director of the American Center for International Law ("ACIL").

© 2005 EAPIII