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Colin Powell: Crusader for U.S. Multinational Corporations

By Joseph E. Mulligan, S.J.

While our history textbooks refer to most major world powers throughout the ages as “empires,” mainstream educators are reluctant to apply that label to the contemporary projection of U.S. strength. Nevertheless, an honest analysis of official Washington discourse reveals a foreign policy that can only be described as imperial.

Much of this article is a study of U.S. foreign policy – particularly vis-à-vis Iraq and the Middle East – as enunciated by Colin Powell, who announced his resignation as Secretary of State on Nov. 15, 2004. Unfortunately, Powell's statements and reflections remain relevant and indeed alarming, since the American foreign policy shows a persistent consistency over many decades and administrations. Powell, of course, has been associated with U.S. foreign policy through military and corporate interests for over 30 years, and in the next four years the U.S. government may well be even more servile toward American big business.

Iraq and Corporate Interests

Even while the killing continues in Iraq and constitutes a serious limit to their planned ventures, American corporations are moving in for the “kill” which they have long desired and which the Bush administration sought for them.

On Sept. 29, 2004, Conoco Phillips bought the Russian government's holding in Lukoil, a Russian petroleum giant – 7.6% of the company's total shares – for $2 billion ( Forbes , Oct. 1). ConocoPhillips itself reported that it “will benefit from a direct participation in world-class oil projects in the northern Timan-Pechora region, and an opportunity to potentially participate in the development of the West Qurna field in Iraq.”

Ronald Smith, oil and gas analyst at the Renaissance Capital investment bank, noted that having a U.S. partner ‘wouldn't hurt Lukoil's chances' with West Qurna” (“ConocoPhillips Buys Stake in Lukoil,” AP, Sept. 30).

Jason Bush of Business Week spelled this out further: “In addition to the equity investment, Conoco and Lukoil have announced a global partnership. That could come in handy in Iraq, for instance. Lukoil has an existing agreement with the Iraqi government to develop the country's West Qurna field, and Conoco has the links with the U.S. government to help ensure these rights now get recognized” (Business Week Online, Sept. 30).

Powell clearly expressed the new post-Cold War purpose of American foreign policy. . . “Now, as all of you have recognized, we are involved in spreading the fruits of our ideological triumph in that war. Now, we have need of a more sophisticated, a more efficient, a more effective foreign policy.”

The True Purpose of U.S. Foreign Policy

In the early months of George W. Bush's first administration, Powell clearly expressed the new post-Cold War purpose of American foreign policy. In his prepared statement for the Senate Budget Committee (March 14, 2001), he said: “For over half a century we found it absolutely imperative that we look to our participation in that titanic struggle [the Cold War] for ideological leadership in the world as the first and foremost requirement of our foreign policy and our national security. Now, the Cold War is over.

“Now, as all of you have recognized, we are involved in spreading the fruits of our ideological triumph in that war. Now, we have need of a more sophisticated, a more efficient, a more effective foreign policy.”

The crusade to “spread the fruits of our ideological triumph” is designed to open up the entire planet to U.S. corporate penetration and domination. On Sept. 11, 2001, some officials of the new administration who had long proposed an invasion of Iraq (as outsiders during the Clinton years) seized upon the Pearl Harbor they had needed and soon made plans to invade Iraq to spread the fruits of our ideological triumph to the Middle East.

They looked to the now-discredited Ahmed Chalabi, the long-exiled Iraqi who was president of the Iraqi National Congress, to be their instrument in the creation of a “free-market” Iraq. He had told a Senate hearing in 1998: “Give the Iraqi National Congress a base protected from Saddam's tanks, give us the temporary support we need to feed and house and care for the liberated population, and we will give you a free Iraq, an Iraq free of weapons of mass destruction, and a free-market Iraq. Best of all, the INC will do all this for free.”

In quoting Chalabi in an article highly skeptical of the possibilities of overthrowing Saddam by force, authors Daniel Byman, Kenneth Pollack, and Gideon Rose noted: “The INC has suggested that the entire operation would cost little, take only a year or two, and require such scant direct U.S. military involvement that there would be almost no risk of substantial American casualties” (“The Rollback Fanstasy,” Foreign Affairs , January/February 1999).

Detroit Had Given Saddam Hussein Key to the City

In 1980 Detroit had given Saddam Hussein the key to the city. 23 years later it hosted a high-powered U.S.-Arab economic summit which saw government officials, including Powell, and CEOs making plans to profit from the spoils of the American invasion of Iraq.

“Saddam Hussein has collected many things in his 24-year reign – palaces, enemies. And the key to the city of Detroit,” wrote Jennifer Brooks in the Detroit News (March 26, 2003). She quotes Pastor Jacob Yasso of Detroit's Sacred Heart Parish, who presented the key to the city, along with the compliments of then-Mayor Coleman A. Young, to the Iraqi leader in 1980: “It is very strange, thinking about it now,” Yasso said.

One of the mayor's staff gave Yasso the key as a courtesy to the city's Chaldean community. “Now, you must remember that in those days, Saddam Hussein was a puppet. He was an American puppet,” said Yasso. Brooks noted that “in the 1980s, Iraq and the United States were allied in their mistrust of Iran.”

The priest still remembers his final words to Saddam. “Mr. President, we would like to have our Iraq in faithful hands,” Yasso told him. “And he told me, ‘Iraq is in faithful hands.'. . . I would like to know why he has done this to his people.”

U.S.-Arab Economic Forum

In September 2003, the American-Arab Chamber of Commerce, based in the Detroit area, organized the U.S-Arab Economic Forum, bringing together high-ranking government officials from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Qatar, along with CEOs from Boeing, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, General Motors and Ford Motor Co.

The Detroit area has the largest concentration of Arabs outside the Middle East; its Arab-American population is estimated at 300,000.

In his speech at The Forum in Detroit on September 29, Secretary of State Colin Powell outlined the Bush administration's plans for the new Middle East. “Tonight I have come to enlist your power and your passion in a great cause for our times; a cause that links America and the Arab world,” the Secretary said. “I have come to ask you to help build the new Middle East.” This new creation would be “peaceful, prosperous, and free.”

The notion of freedom so often praised by the Bush administration . . . has more to do with “free enterprise” and unregulated liberty for private corporations than with the democratic freedoms of the poor and middle-class majority in a given country. Young Americans should understand this when they are asked to shed their blood and kill others in the name of freedom.

The notion of freedom so often praised by the Bush administration as the main goal of U.S. foreign policy is a concept which has more to do with “free enterprise” and unregulated liberty for private corporations than with the democratic freedoms of the poor and middle-class majority in a given country. Young Americans should understand this when they are asked to shed their blood and kill others in the name of freedom.

At the Detroit forum, Powell claimed that Iraq was on its way to economic recovery. “Over 90 percent of schools are now open,” he said proudly. “All of those schools are now ready to teach Iraqi children the skills for success in a free market democracy.” The Secretary and others in this administration frequently express their enthusiasm for this “free-market democracy” – a combination whose two terms do not have to go together. The first half of the expression obviously has to do with economics, the second with politics.

My experience of 18 years in Latin America indicates that development plans based on this kind of free-market economics have not worked to benefit the poor and middle-class majorities of those countries nor of other parts of the world. The main priority of the marginalized countries should be to organize themselves on a truly national level to demand social, economic, and political structures of the people, for the people, and by the people – systems which would place a priority on meeting the average person's need for work, health care, education, and adequate nutrition. Organizing people-power is the only way to achieving their hopes and dreams.

Powell, however, and other officials who sometimes sound more like secretaries of commerce than servants of all the American people, continue doggedly to exalt the private sector as the best agent of change. “To seize their future and make hope real, the Iraqi people need trade. They need investment. They need you.” Trade and investment are certainly part of the modern inter-dependent world, but they are based on the maximization of profit for private benefit rather than on a commitment to enhance the common good or to create more balance between the “haves” and the “have-nots.”

The reasons given by the Bush administration for the invasion of Iraq – weapons of mass destruction, Saddam's ties to al Qaeda terrorists – have proved to be empty and groundless. But the real reason can be glimpsed in statements by leading administration officials such as Powell.

“President Bush has asked Congress for $20 billion to help rebuild Iraq's infrastructure,” he continued. “If Congress approves the President's request, and if the international community is generous, there will be many opportunities for companies to bring their know-how to Iraq, to help the Iraqi people, and to do good business.” But so far we have seen little by way of real help for the Iraqis, while the administration's favorite multinationals (e.g., Halliburton, Bechtel) have netted billion-dollar contracts for the rebuilding of Iraq – very good business indeed.

Powell made it clear that U.S. control of Iraq fits into a larger strategy. “A new Iraq is an essential part of the new Middle East,” the Secretary noted, adding that President Bush has put “reform squarely on America's Middle East agenda. . . Under the President's initiative, we will rev up the engine of trade with a series of steps, which we hope will lead to a U.S.-Middle East Free Trade Area within a decade.”

It may be simplistic or incomplete to say that hundreds of American soldiers have shed their blood for oil; a more adequate explanation is that they have shed blood, and millions of working-class Americans have sacrificed their vital interests in health, jobs, and education, to fuel a war machine which is paving the way for an entire Middle East Free Trade Area (MEFTA) for corporate profit.

Workers, unions, and some politicians in Latin America as well as in the U.S. are opposing the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) scheme with good reason – on grounds that it would give large corporations unregulated rein to buy up all natural resources (including water) and ship jobs to countries which have little or no protections for labor and the environment. Now, the ultimate paradox is that children of workers in the U.S. give their lives so that the corporate supporters and partners of the Bush administration can initiate a MEFTA amidst the blood and rubble of Iraq.

“To that end,” Powell went on, “we will help reforming countries such as Lebanon, Algeria, Yemen and Saudi Arabia join the World Trade Organization. At the same time, we are working with a number of Arab countries through bilateral trade and investment framework agreements to make them more hospitable to foreign trade and investment.” This same over-riding interest in “opening up” the world to corporate profit-taking has powered American foreign policy ever since we set out on the road to empire over a century ago.

“The final step,” in Powell's overview, “is to negotiate access to American markets through Free Trade Agreements.” Countries which are “opened up” to foreign investment will also be able to negotiate access to the huge American market, but their export sectors which are capable of competing in the U.S. market are usually very limited in scope and quantity – except, of course, for the major oil producers.

In political discourse, speakers have a strange way of stating that they do not intend to do something in order to communicate their intention to do precisely that. In a rare moment of political humility, the Secretary said: “We do not wish to judge others. We do not wish to preach to others. We certainly do not wish to coerce others. We wish to help others, and by so doing, help ourselves.” No coercion, but countries which do not “modernize” and “liberalize” along the lines demanded by multinational trade and investment are not eligible for President Bush's new Millennium Challenge Account – several billions in a new kind of foreign aid presented in business terms.

Local Arab Criticism of Forum

Osama Siblani, publisher of the weekly Arab American News in Dearborn, editorialized against the forum. “The timing and focus of this conference are completely inappropriate,” he wrote. “The Arab world has never in all its history witnessed a more devastating period of chaos, death and destruction. Iraq and Palestine are both on fire, their people occupied and demoralized – in both cases by some of the very corporate and governmental bodies supposedly coming together in Detroit to strengthen economic ties.”

Each of the thousand participants paid a $2,250 registration fee. Siblani, in his editorial, said the high registration fee was “meant to exclude members of the community,” thus limiting attendance to elite corporate types, U.S. officials and “government leaders from Arab countries seen as American lackeys. . . The Arab street does not want to see U.S.-Arab dialogue on economics,” Siblani wrote. “It wants to see dialogue on peace and justice, an end to oppression, an end to abject poverty and war and bloodshed” (quoted in Detroit Free Press , Sept. 25, 2003).

Powell on George Kennan

On Feb. 20, 2004, at Princeton University, Secretary Powell delivered some remarks on the occasion of the 100th birthday of George F. Kennan , a diplomat and foreign policy planner in the State Department in the years following World War II. Powell lauded Kennan in philosophical terms: “Ambassador Kennan has grasped the link between diplomacy and human nature. And that's why his memoirs have been treasured for so many decades by generations of foreign service officers.

“It's not just because they teach diplomatic technique, or raise respect for both history and happenstance. It's because his memoirs show us how to get under the human skin of international politics, allowing us to see deeper into its very essence.”

“Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security. To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and daydreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives.”

For Kennan, human nature was fundamentally predatory; and the very essence of international politics was to protect and advance economic privilege. He spelled this out clearly in his well-known 1948 memorandum to the Secretary of State: “We have about 50% of the world's wealth but only 6.3% of its population. This disparity is particularly great as between ourselves and the peoples of Asia. In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security. To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and daydreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives. We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford today the luxury of altruism and world-benefaction.

“. . .In the face of this situation we would be better off to dispense now with a number of the concepts which have underlined our thinking with regard to the Far East. We should dispense with the aspiration to ‘be liked' or to be regarded as the repository of a high-minded international altruism. We should stop putting ourselves in the position of being our brothers' keeper and refrain from offering moral and ideological advice. We should cease to talk about vague and – for the Far East – unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better” (PPS/23: “Review of Current Trends in U.S. Foreign Policy,” a memorandum by George Kennan, Director of the Policy Planning Staff to Secretary of State George Marshall, 1948, published in Foreign Relations of the United States , 1948, Volume I, pp. 509-529).

With this hard-nosed imperial approach, Kennan seems to be a hero or model for Powell.

In his speech Powell went on to discuss several “labels” for the world we live in. The “globalization” label, he noted, “recognized important economic changes in the world, driven by new technologies and by the disappearance of those old political boundaries that kept us separated, those boundaries that were constraints to free trade, constraints to cooperation and the exchange of commerce. Now you can see a Starbucks in Beijing, the same Starbucks in Berlin, the same Starbucks in Moscow. . . Those old barriers that kept us separate are gone.”

“Democracy and free market” are joined in an inseparable triad with the “rule of law.” This label “recognized that, in the realm of political ideas, there's now no organized, coherent alternative to the liberal triad of democracy, the rule of law and market economics.”

Responding to a question about current dangers in the world, Powell expressed his desire to deal effectively with them so that “then we can turn our attention to the really great threats that are out there – HIV/AIDS, poverty, starvation, improving the human condition, working on free trade, more free trade agreements with nations around the world, breaking down trade barriers. Why? Just so we can sell stuff? No, so that we can give opportunity to people in these nations to get into the economic game, get into the economic world.”

He mused that “the most exciting part of my day is when leaders come from nations that a dozen or so years ago were enemies, the former nations of the Soviet Empire, or from our own hemisphere where fifteen years ago, when I was National Security Advisor, these nations were being run by generals and coups and that kind of activity. And most of those now have shifted over.

“I have fun. I say, ‘You know, 15 years ago you were on my target list.' (Laughter.) And they go, ‘Hmm.' (Laughter.)” Continuing the fun, Powell joshes with them: “And I said, "Now you're on my target list again – for Millennium Challenge Account funding, for more trade, more assistance, for helping you learn why the rule of law is so important.”

“And to sit in my office and to kid with them – I have fun. I say, ‘You know, it's great to have you here. I want to talk about things with you. You know, 15 years ago you were on my target list.' (Laughter.) And they go, ‘Hmm.' (Laughter.)”

Continuing the fun, Powell joshes with them: “And I said, "Now you're on my target list again – for Millennium Challenge Account funding, for more trade, more assistance, for helping you learn why the rule of law is so important.”

Next Powell fielded a question he called “terrific” – whether during the Cold War we “did some things that we are now not necessarily so proud of, propping up and assisting regimes that weren't necessarily the kindest people.”

Powell admitted: “There's no question that during the era of the Cold War, when we really thought our national survival was at stake, and that Communism as a political philosophy was in ascendancy in the minds of some, that we had some strange bedfellows. And I was in government during many of those years, and we worked with certain regimes that, in retrospect, I would just as soon not have had to work with.

“But that was history. That was the kind of history that we were facing at that time, and we did what we thought was right.” Nevertheless, he continued, “we have never lost our commitment to human rights or to the rule of law.” Seemingly oblivious to the erosion of human and civil rights carried out by the neocons in his boss's administration, Powell said: “I think what's different now is that the threats we face are serious, but not so serious that we have to sort of back off some of our ideals and our values.”

C.I.A. Recruiting Among Arab-Americans

To deal with rising anti-American feelings using straight power concepts, as espoused by Kennan and now Powell, the C.I.A. has stepped up its recruiting efforts among Arab-Americans, since empires always need agents who can speak the language and understand the culture of the subjects. Nine months after the U.S.-Arab Economic Forum, the agency was hard at work in a Detroit suburb.

“At the Arab Festival in Dearborn this summer, you could spot the familiar logos of the usual corporate sponsors like Ford and Comerica on a banner that draped the main stage. But there was a new symbol on display this year, one that caught the eye of curious Arab Americans: the logo of the CIA. It was a striking example of how the nation's intelligence agencies are pushing hard to recruit agents and translators in metro Detroit's large Arab and Muslim communities,” reported Niraj Warikoo in the Detroit Free Press (July 23, 2004). As a sponsor, the C.I.A. helped to pay for the June 18-20 festival.

Corporations Awaiting “Stability” in Iraq

With the C.I.A. and the U.S. army struggling to “pacify” Iraq, American corporations look with their customary avarice but still with caution toward that stability and "favorable climate for investment" which they always need for their ventures.

General Motors, for instance, is among the corporate giants waiting for the anti-American feelings in Iraq to cool and for the country to move in the desired direction. “General Motors Corp. would like to establish and develop a dealership network in Iraq . . . but the automaker does not believe the country is stable enough, and it has no timetable for expanding there, an official who oversees the region said” in early October.

“GM sales grew 60 percent in the Middle East last year, but with Toyota Motor Corp. the reigning brand in the region, GM would like to see its double-digit growth continue and eventually include Iraq, said Maureen Kempston Darkes, GM group vice president and president of GM Latin America, Africa and the Middle East” (“GM Has Plans to Lift Sales in Iraq,” by Sarah A. Webster, Detroit Free Press , Oct. 5, 2004).

The foundations of the American empire were established long ago, and the imperial momentum continues to gather force. The State Department under Condoleezza Rice, formerly a board member of Chevron which named a tanker after her, can be expected not only to continue to champion the interests of American multinationals but to do so even more brazenly and blatantly than the Department under Powell. The juggernaut will be stopped only by a combination of domestic and foreign resistance.

Fr. Joseph E. Mulligan, a Jesuit priest from Detroit, works in Nicaragua with Christian base communities. He is the author of The Nicaraguan Church and The Revolution (Sheed & Ward, 1991) and The Jesuit Martyrs Of El Salvador – Celebrating the Anniversaries (Baltimore: Fortkamp, 1994).