by Gregg Easterbrook
Stealth drones, G.P.S.-guided smart munitions that hit precisely
where aimed; antitank bombs that guide themselves; space-relayed
data links that allow individual squad leaders to know exactly where
American and opposition forces are during battle - the United States
military rolled out all this advanced technology, and more, in its
lightning conquest of Iraq. No other military is even close to the
United States. . . .
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[American hyperpower marks the end of the post-colonial era, little
more than 50 years after it started. . . .
In reality, the American invasion was about something completely
different: the assertion of American power in this most sensitive of
regions, with the added perk of control of the country's oil.
Perversely, while the first Gulf war was fought in defence of the
principle of sovereignty - Kuwait's - the second was about precisely
the opposite, the rape of Iraq's.--Martin Jacques, "The power of one: Weak nations will succumb to American ambition
unless we insist on respecting sovereignty," Guardian, May 26,
2003]
[In President Bush's inauguration speech, he pledged to support "the
expansion of freedom in all the world", deploying the words free or freedom
no less than 25 times in 20 short minutes. The neoconservative strategy is
quite explicit: to bend the world to America's will; to reshape it according
to the interests of a born-again superpower. There is something more than a
little chilling about this. Even though the Iraqi occupation has gone
seriously awry, the United States still does not recognise the constraints
on its own power and ambition.--Martin Jacques, "No
monopoly on modernity: American dominance is bound to wither as Asia's
confidence grows," Guardian, February 5, 2005]
