Globalization and Empire: The U.S. Invasion of Iraq, Free Markets, and the Twilight of Democracy (Albma Rhetoric Cult & Soc Crit)

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In this careful and comprehensive study of the United States' war on Iraq, Hartnett and Stengrim offer a critique of the Bush administration's arguments for waging war, an examination of the foreign policy principles driving the war, an analysis of the economic dilemmas of globalization, and an expose of the inner workings of the reconstruction of Iraq.

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Review by William Podmore, 2008-05-21

The authors Stephen Hartnett and Laura Stengrim both work at Eastern Illinois University. Chapter 1 examines the arguments used for attacking Iraq, mainly the mythical Weapons of Mass Destruction. Chapter 2 peruses the arguments used in support of wider US foreign policy, centrally the myth of the benevolent empire. Chapter 3 looks at the economic agendas of the key drivers of empire and Chapter 4 studies the colonisation of postwar Iraq under the pretence of reconstruction and democracy-building.

They show how the US empire has produced contexts ripe for violence. Globalising capitalists and empire-builders inevitably create economic resentment, political rage and terrorist violence. They bring consumer choice and political freedoms to the few, economic, but political and military violence to the many. The authors show how Bush tries to disguise this by explaining events in moralistic, medical, psychological or theological terms.

The `war on terror' is lawless: Bush's memo of 7 February 2002 stated, "none of the provisions of Geneva apply to our conflict with Al Qaeda in Afghanistan or elsewhere in the world." It is also intolerant: Attorney General John Ashcroft said critics of the government `only aid terrorists'. The US state promises us an endless crusade to `rid the world of evil'. As the National Security Strategy of the United States 2002 said, "the war against terrorists of global reach is a global enterprise of uncertain duration."

The IMF's Brady Plan repackaged developing countries' debts as collateralised tradable bonds, privatising debt ownership, so vulture capitalists could buy debts and then sue for full, immediate repayment. For example, Elliott Associates in 1996 bought from the IMF $20 million of Peru's debt for $11 million; it then sued Peru's government and won $58 million, a $47 million profit. They have done the same in Panama, Poland, Turkmenistan, Ecuador, Ivory Coast and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank benefit the capitalist class and harm the working class. For every dollar that the US taxpayer gives to the Fund and the Bank, US companies get two dollars in bank-financed procurement contracts. For every dollar going into developing countries (investment, aid, grants), two dollars leave to service debts. So since the mid-1960s, $22 billion a year has gone from the developing countries to capitalists in the USA and the EU. As the authors write, "the combination of this institutional architecture of globalization and regional Free Trade Agreements [like the EU's] poses serious threats to state sovereignty, worker rights, local cultures, and any sense of representative government."

Altogether, this book is an exceptionally astute analysis of why workers must stop capitalism, but unfortunately, the authors only propose as a response online activism and a rejection of all ideologies. But the workers of the world do not need a `global economy of information producers and activists': we need to revive our national trade unions. We do not need virtual resistance, `a newly emerging electronic democracy', or `reinventing activism as an online endeavor'. We need real democracy in our places of work and democracy and sovereignty in our nations - which add up to Marxism.

Review by Peter D. Scott, 2006-06-23

A brilliant concrete analysis of the threat to American democracy presented by the bloated expansion of the American military and corporate presence abroad. Particularly useful is a chapter on the "privatization of empire," showing how much of what happens in areas like Iraq lies beyond the present power of Congress to regulate it. A very important book.