Provocations as Pretexts for Imperial War: From Pearl Harbor to 9/11

[Joanne98]

by James Petras / May 26th, 2008

Wars in an imperialist democracy cannot simply be dictated by executive fiat, they require the consent of highly motivated masses who will make the human and material sacrifices. Imperialist leaders have to create a visible and highly charged emotional sense of injustice and righteousness to secure national cohesion and overcome the natural opposition to early death, destruction and disruption of civilian life and to the brutal regimentation that goes with submission to absolutist rule by the military.

The need to invent a cause is especially the case with imperialist countries because their national territory is not under threat. There is no visible occupation army oppressing the mass of the people in their everyday life. The ‘enemy’ does not disrupt everyday normal life — as forced conscription would and does. Under normal peaceful time, who would be willing to sacrifice their constitutional rights and their participation in civil society to subject themselves to martial rule that precludes the exercise of all their civil freedoms?

The task of imperial rulers is to fabricate a world in which the enemy to be attacked (an emerging imperial power like Japan) is portrayed as an ‘invader’ or an ‘aggressor’ in the case of revolutionary movements (Korean and Indo-Chinese communists) engaged in a civil war against an imperial client ruler or a ‘terrorist conspiracy’ linked to an anti-imperialist, anti-colonial Islamic movements and secular states. Imperialist-democracies in the past did not need to consult or secure mass support for their expansionist wars; they relied on volunteer armies, mercenaries and colonial subjects led and directed by colonial officers. Only with the confluence of imperialism, electoral politics and total war did the need arise to secure not only consent, but also enthusiasm, to facilitate mass recruitment and obligatory conscription.

Since all US imperial wars are fought ‘overseas’ — far from any immediate threats, attacks or invasions — US imperial rulers have the special task of making the ‘causus bellicus’ immediate, ‘dramatic’ and self-righteously ‘defensive’.

To this end US Presidents have created circumstances, fabricated incidents and acted in complicity with their enemies, to incite the bellicose temperament of the masses in favor of war.

The pretext for wars are acts of provocation which set in motion a series of counter-moves by the enemy, which are then used to justify an imperial mass military mobilization leading to and legitimizing war.

State ‘provocations’ require uniform mass media complicity in the lead-up to open warfare: Namely the portrayal of the imperial country as a victim of its own over-trusting innocence and good intentions. All four major US imperial wars over the past 67 years resorted to a provocation, a pretext, and systematic, high intensity mass media propaganda to mobilize the masses for war. An army of academics, journalists, mass media pundits and experts ‘soften up’ the public in preparation for war through demonological writing and commentary: Each and every aspect of the forthcoming military target is described as totally evil – hence ‘totalitarian’ - in which even the most benign policy is linked to demonic ends of the regime.

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2008/05/provocations-as-pretexts-for-imperial-war-from-pearl-harbor-to-911/

[wtmusic]

1. There is no comparison between Pearl Harbor and 9/11

for many, many reasons. Japan was an agressor; Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.

This obfuscation only aids the Bush administration in their efforts to legitimize imperialism.

[Arctic Dave]

2. I guess if we play the role Japan it might make sense but I agree

Iraq never even remotely threatened our nation. The US has become Japan, Germany and Italy circa 1939 all rolled into one.

[zonmoy]

3. Perhaps but always remember that there are as many versions

of events as those involved. and one can be manipulated into attacking another if the victim is clever enough to pull it off.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_of_Deceit