Regime and Culture Change Unmasked
© Copyright 2003, Joseph B. Ehrlich. All Rights Reserved.
The criticized
American policy and agenda embodied in President Bush’s
National Security Strategy is one aimed at not only regime change
but also culture change in the Middle East, which
little-emphasized dynamic answers those scratching their heads in
Washington why many throughout the world are opposed to the
U.S.’s “war against terrorism.”
What is also overlooked is that President Bush’s attitude toward regime and culture change was in place as a matter of covert U.S. policy since the presidential term of his father, George H.W. Bush (“Bush 41”). It was witnessed when the United States stood back when a coup in Russia uprooted Mikhail Gorbachev, Time Magazine’s Man of the Century, from office. While Mr. Gorbachev was instrumental during the Reagan years in the dissolution of the Soviet Union and removing the former Soviet Empire as a global threat, he was seen by the Bush 41 administration as soft on eviscerating all remaining threatening elements of Communism, having his own political roots therein, and a more compliant Boris Yeltsin replaced him in the manner recorded by history.
The current
President Bush (“Bush 43”) deployed a similar modus
operandi in the spring of 2002 when a coup took place in
Venezuela to uproot Hugo Chávez from power. Industrial and
oil powers within Venezuela, with ties to U.S. interests,
initiated a military coup, which not only failed but also
resulted in the type of criticism applicable to President
Bush’s drive to bring democracy to the Middle East. The wide
criticism spewed forth by the entire spectrum of Latin and South
American leaders put a black eye onto Bush administration tactics
and hypocrisy. When the Bush administration’s preferred oil
industry aligned replacement, Pedro Carmona, immediately
dissolved Venezuela’s National Assembly and Supreme Court,
thereby assuming dictatorial powers, these actions were opposed
across the board by Latin American democracies. When 48 hours
later Chávez regained power, Bush National Security Advisor
Condoleezza Rice publicly warned Chávez to “…respect
constitutional processes,” further undermining U.S.
credibility in the entire region. Since the invasion of Iraq, it
has become crystal clear to the world that democracy and open and
free elections are part of the Bush administration’s noble
agenda and goals in Venezuela, Iraq and soon elsewhere (according
to Bush 43 rhetoric against Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Egypt),
as long as the candidates, and certainly the winning candidate,
meet its approval.
Israelis should
consider whether they have been subject to regime and culture
change under policies that arose under the Bush 41
administration, post the success in seeing Gorbachev replaced by
Yeltsin. Ariel Sharon ultimately was elected to reflect Israeli
dissatisfaction with the policies of Shimon Peres and Ehud Barak.
Within hours of his election, Ariel Sharon offered Barak the
position of Minister of Defense and Shimon Peres the position of
Foreign Minister. This all reflected US foreign policy first
carved for the Bush 41 agenda by Jim Baker, preemptively
intervening in foreign states and promoting democratic principles
as long as election results allow the continuation of covert
approved policies for that foreign state and nation.
Now, the State of
Israel, as a natural result of Bush 41 preemptive policies put
into place, finds itself supporting Bush 43 policies that have
effectuated culture change within the U.S. itself, allowing the
U.S. to put aside, under the cover of 9-11, its own Constitution
to promote the Patriot Act and a continuing string of laws
abrogating basic freedoms and protections, allowing a foreign
policy where anyone can be assassinated or invaded under an
executive level perception that a person or foreign state
represents a current or future threat to U.S. interests; changes
in culture that openly promote and allow corruption and cronyism,
thus lending support to a de facto attitude of benign
authoritarianism. Has Israel allowed itself to become a willing
victim of Bush policy of both regime and culture change, thereby
serving, as an invaluable needed ally to legitimize globally
recognized wrongs and wrongdoings in the Middle East?
The Arab/Islamic
nations want to be free from U.S. intervention as to what serves
the best interests of their own populations, and preclude regime
and culture change promoted under the banner of bringing both
technological advancement and democracy to those nations. The
Arab/Islamic nations have the right to honor, protect and live
under their own heritage and culture without outside
intervention. Israel has to understand the consequences of
culture change for it, especially in terms of how it views and
acts toward its Arab/Islamic neighbors.
The
biblical and religious heritage of Israel attests that Israel
never had enemies when the Jewish people occupied the holy land.
Those that did historically arise, the Assyrians, Babylonians and
the Romans, were all the creation of the reality that the Jewish
people accepted a change to its culture. The Jewish people
remember their mistake in accepting inappropriate culture change
through memorializing it through a day of mourning each year
(“Tish'aB'Av”). The Jewish people thus should
understand that accepting culture change, one arguably with a
strong nexus to Bush 41’s covert policy for regime and
culture change for Israel, precludes their continuation in
Israel, when submission to it, especially under the current Bush
administration’s painted picture for the new Middle East,
would operate to defile God’s gift and name. Thus, the
Jewish people recognize that biblical and religious history
attests that they were cast out of Israel not because of enemies
but because enemies arose to effectuate the required consequence
of their own failings in accepting culture change.
Similarly,
it is important for the U.S., founded on Judeo-Christian precepts
and principles, to recognize that it is accepting culture change,
reflected best when a mainstream media outlet, America-on-Line,
posits, on its opening page, whether Americans any longer find
God and religion relevant. The implications of
this culture change are onerous when one sees Tommy Franks,
former chief of the Central Command, who led the war against
Iraq, who like the President grew up in Midland, Texas and
attended high school with Laura Bush, stating that in the event
of a WMD attack, "our form of government would go out the
window. The Western world, the free world, loses what it
cherishes most, and that is freedom and liberty we've seen for a
couple of hundred years in this grand experiment that we
call democracy. (Emphasis added)"
This type of talk
is massaging the public to expect the installation of a military
government and control in the United States (especially under
unabated Cheney rhetoric that one has been imminent since 9-11)
and compels the American people to think long and hard whether
current policies of this presidential administration were in
place way before the Project for the New American Century and
even far before Bush 41 assumed the presidency in 1988 or before
he nearly assumed the presidency in 1981: for the Bush family was
aligned with one world government a long time ago, as noted by
the Dallas Morning News, many years back, when
it connected Senator Prescott Bush to H. Neil Mallon and the
Dallas Council on World Affairs. The Dallas Morning News
wrote:
“In fact, the one-world views of Mr. Mallon, close friend of U.S. Sen. Prescott Bush of Connecticut and financial patron of Mr. Bush's son George's entry into the Midland oil industry, even became suspect as Dresser's sales leaped the Iron Curtain and the McCarthy era found fertile soil in Big D.”
There were very
good reasons the founding fathers created documents finding
policies in pursuit of regime and culture change anathema to what
this country represented. It is time to protect and find the
Constitution of the United States of America again relevant, to
unmask policies of regime and culture change as treacherous to
the fundamental defining principles and ideals of this nation.
Joseph B. Ehrlich
Hewlett Harbor, New York
December 9, 2003
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