globalisation assignment (political)

[phoenix]

Globalisation involves competition on both a political

and economic level. Consider the role that<o:p></o:p>

both these factors play in currant global issues <o:p></o:p>

and suggest ways in which these conflicts can be resolved.<o:p></o:p>

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We all know that within each country there is an upper or ruling class, however, as time moves on and national boundaries break down this idea is becoming more misleading. From recent events in history it is becoming more obvious that power of one ruling class can be implemented onto another, through transactional relationships. <o:p></o:p>
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‘The contemporary world is a global system in which nation-states are only actors. The global system is made up of a number of transactional practices.’ (Leslie Sklair 1995) he also defines transactional practices as being ‘ practices that originate with non-state actors and cross state borders’. For example travel tourism and products can now be sold from one country to virtually any other country in the world. Within this there are three spheres the economic, political and social ideological, which correspond to the TNC, the transactional capitalist class and finally the culture-ideology of consumerism. <o:p></o:p>
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Sklair believes that the capital economy is the foundation of the global system. For example the world production is becoming increasingly dominated by wealthier organisations. Meaning that individual states are left at the will of large organisations to attract the inward investment from them. At the same times vast numbers of people are persuaded to buy the products from the same organisations. <o:p></o:p>
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This therefore shows that companies like McDonalds, Sony, and Ford etc can use as much power as most national states. The ideology of their product is increasingly penetrating the ‘third world’ meaning that some organisations literally hold full power over these countries. <o:p></o:p>
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To show that organisations have power of some nation-states Kenichi Ohmae (1994) states the <st1:country-region w:st="on">United States</st1:country-region>, <st1:country-region w:st="on">Japan</st1:country-region> and <st1:place w:st="on">Europe</st1:place> have formed one giant inter-linked economy (ILE). He claims this ILE ‘is becoming so powerful that it has swallowed most consumers and corporations, made traditional almost disappear and pushed bureaucrats, politicians, and the military towards the status of declining industries’. <o:p></o:p>
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In the past Governments could exercise controls over what information flowed to their citizens, this is no longer possible. If people are aware that they are getting something substandard then they will simply look abroad or demand improvements. This lack of control is due to the fact that governments can no longer protect their domestic industries from foreign competition. <o:p></o:p>
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Ohmae states that most wealth is no longer created by manufacturing goods, and most jobs are created when economies are open to investment from any company be it domestic, foreign of multi-national. <o:p></o:p>
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To explain this further I am going to look at the American war on terrorism and discuss the political and economical effects it has on all parties involved. First of all I am going to look at the Taliban regime and how it came about. The Taliban movement was formed in <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Kandahar</st1:place></st1:City> in 1994, by a group of Islamic students who have a radical approach to interpreting Islam. In September 1996 the Taliban captured <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Kabul</st1:place></st1:City> and were strongly supported by Pakistani military. However the UN condemned the Taliban because of their because of their violation of human rights, particularly of woman’s rights. However baring all this in mind it is still not known weather or not the Taliban are who they claim to be, this is because there are rumours that they could be gorilla fighter s fro the Pakistani secret services. However it has been noted that the Taliban seemed to come about the same time <st1:country-region w:st="on">Pakistan</st1:country-region> declared they would produce a trade route through the centre of <st1:country-region w:st="on">Afghanistan</st1:country-region> to parts of central <st1:place w:st="on">Asia</st1:place> (literally thousands of Taliban recruits came from there). It is obvious then that on this occasion the use of war was purely to gain power so that <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Pakistan</st1:place></st1:country-region> would have better trade route with the rest of the world and therefore stronger economic power. <o:p></o:p>
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I will now look at the effects of September the 11^th and explain why that created a war against terrorism. As we all know from the events that took place on September 11^th 2001 Bin laden and the Taliban hit <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region> on their own soil. Which for many people was an extreme shock because of how powerful a nation <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region> is. It was fairly obvious that as soon as <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region> knew who was behind the attack then there would be a war if purely for revenge. After all a State as powerful as <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region> could not let this attack go unjustified. Here is a summery of what <st1:country-region w:st="on">America</st1:country-region> did in October after the attack, on October the first <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region> and other large national state froze up many accounts to ensure that money could no linger flow to terrorist groups. During this time the American defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld flew to <st1:country-region w:st="on">Saudi Arabia</st1:country-region> to discuss the mater of global terrorism, with <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region> taking the stand of ‘if you are not with us then you are against us’. Our Prime Minister again urged the Taliban to give up the terrorists or give up power. <o:p></o:p>
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It took the rest of <st1:place w:st="on">Europe</st1:place> some time to come up with a response but on February 18^th 2002 the European Union Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt gave a speech in which he declared what the EU would do to help. A key point he made was that after what had happened ‘people would get interested in politics again, society would find a new common purpose, the state would have to take up new tasks, even – television would become serious again.’ (Guy Verhofstadt 2002) but why should this be? People have not really been that interested before and besides even if people had have had a greater interest in what was going on In the rest of the world would it have made any difference. Guy then goes on to say that the <o:p></o:p>
‘Aim was to hit <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region> in some of its most powerful symbols: the Pentagon, the World Trade Centre. Their aim was to kill as many people as possible. The plan they thought out was as cruel as it was smart, with a maximum of simplicity and surprise. Except maybe for a knife, no weapon – in the definition that we understand the word weapon - seems to have been use’ (Guy Verhofstadt 2002). <o:p></o:p>
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This means then that as well as wanting to kill thousands of innocent people it looked as if Bin laden and Al Qaeda wanted to prove a point that <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region> was not powerful at all. For if places of such importance could be hit so easily what was stopping the rest of <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region> being attacked. However the only know motives for the attack are that Bin laden hates <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region> and is sure that respect should only be earned through violence. Later in his speech Guy states that there may not be another attack and if there was it may never focus on Europe but who wanted to risk not having something set up to stop an attack happening. <o:p></o:p>
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‘I just want to stress this: terrorists of this kind are the worst enemies a state can have. They are smart, they do not necessarily need large quantities of weapons, they are ready to kill themselves, they are very difficult to trace or to catch, they will always find new people. It would be a major political mistake to create the illusion towards the public opinion that we can have one day a society free of this kind of terrorists. The most sensible thing you can promise in the fight against terrorism is that you will contain it with all the means at your disposal.’ (Guy Verhofstadt 2002).

From this statement it seems as if he is trying to say that what <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region> is doing is politically stupid because how can you declare war on terrorism. First you have to find it then be able to stop it and besides that there are so many organisation that promote terrorism or fund it that the global economy could be at state. Also has <st1:country-region w:st="on">America</st1:country-region> forgotten that when the Taliban and Al Qaeda were removing difficult faction from <st1:country-region w:st="on">Iraq</st1:country-region> for them <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region> was happy to fund them and Supply them with weapons? It is ironic really that the weapons <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region> funded are now Being used against them. After a considerable number of little skirmishes with Al Qaeda the collision troops still could not find Bin Laden. America then decided that send troops to find Bin Laden would not be the answer and more strategic methods would have to be used, this again shows that America do not have the power that the world once thought they did. <o:p></o:p>
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<st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region> then focused it attention on removing an old adversary Saddam Husain claiming that he had weapons of mass destruction and that he had carried out crimes against humanity. So lets look at the history of how Saddam came to power and the atrocities <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region> claim he has done since. Saddam joined the Baath party and in 1958 launched his own political career by assassinating a supporter of the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iraq</st1:place></st1:country-region> ruler Abdul-Karim Qassim. He then quickly rose through the ranks and by 1979 became president of <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iraq</st1:place></st1:country-region>; some say that it was because his nation were scared of him. A U.S.-led alliance organized by George Bush ran Hussein's forces out of <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Kuwait</st1:place></st1:country-region> in the Gulf War, which ended in February of 1991 with Saddam still in power. However we must remember that <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iraq</st1:place></st1:country-region> is full of oil well and George Bush Senior was an oil tycoon before starting his political career. Therefore the reason of the first Gulf War could purely have been because George Bush wants to create a greater wealth for his country through oil. <o:p></o:p>
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After all it would not be the only time his former company have used force to create more wealth for themselves. With the headline reading <o:p></o:p>
‘George Bush's former oil firm threatens important nesting sites for endangered Atlantic Green and Leatherback sea turtles in Costa Rica’ (Prweb 2002)<o:p></o:p>
The article then goes on to say ‘SAN JOSE, COSTA RICA-Texas oil company Harken Energy Corporation is vigorously seeking the approval of the Government of Costa Rica to exploit petroleum and natural gas off the Costa Rican Caribbean port of Moin, Limón. With just a few days until the Feb. 3 presidential elections usher in a new administration with new environmental policies, the raging controversy over oil exploration in Costa Rica is assuming a more urgent tone, as opponents turn up the pressure on the government to close the door on U.S. oil interests looking to drill in areas that would threaten the country's unique natural resources’. Seems as if George Bush’s former company are not bothered about what they may destroy so long as they can create an economical gain. <o:p></o:p>
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However there have also been some thoughts that President Bush Senior really invaded <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iraq</st1:place></st1:country-region> to protect Iranian fundamentalists. <o:p></o:p>
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‘In this piece I document that president Bush, the elder, did everything he could to make sure that <st1:country-region w:st="on">Iraq</st1:country-region> invaded <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Kuwait</st1:place></st1:country-region> in 1991. This produced the conditions necessary to launch a punishing attack against <st1:country-region w:st="on">Iraq</st1:country-region> known as the first Gulf War in such a way that the true objective of the war - protecting the Ayatollah Khomeini’s fundamentalist revolution in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iran</st1:place></st1:country-region> - was not apparent.’ (Francisco Gil-White 2003). This seem very strange considering that Iran and the USA have been showing so much public proper gander against each other, which produced a US-Iranian enmity. This still sounds fairly radical that the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">USA</st1:place></st1:country-region> is helping Iranian fundamentalist so lets try and piece together where the two factions became allies. Shia fundamentalism came to power in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iran</st1:place></st1:country-region> with the Ayatollah Khomeini. Everybody remembers that Khomeini immediately denounced the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">US</st1:place></st1:country-region> as ‘Great Satan’. Then of course there was the storming of the <st1:country-region w:st="on">US</st1:country-region> embassy, which made Khomeini look like an enemy of <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">USA</st1:place></st1:country-region>. However Francisco Gil-White claims <o:p></o:p>
‘The story of what Ayatollah Khomeini did immediately after he took over <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iran</st1:place></st1:country-region>'s revolution of 1979 with an Islamist coup d État, shows why he had to be an American agent from the beginning. You see, once in power, Khomeini immediately began provocations against <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iraq</st1:place></st1:country-region> that led to the Iran-Iraq war. Khomeini's Shia fundamentalists armed separatist Kurds in northern <st1:country-region w:st="on">Iraq</st1:country-region> and encouraged fundamentalist Shiites in southern <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iraq</st1:place></st1:country-region> to rebel against Saddam Hussein’s government.’ (Francisco Gil-White 2003). It is also controversial that the weapons the Iranians used were all American made. the is also the fact that Iraq could not go to war with Iraq and win on their own, purely because they were in desperate need of ammunition and part for their weapons. It also seems strange that <o:p></o:p>
‘The Iran-gate scandal that exploded in the 1980s exposed that a vast conspiracy within the US government (many of whose never-prosecuted members are top-ranking officials in George W. Bush's administration) supplied Iran with illegal arms transfers from the very beginning of the Iran-Iraq War, until the very end (the war lasted from 1980 to 1988). When caught, those responsible claimed that this was in order to release captured American hostages in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:place></st1:country-region>, over whose captors the Iranians had influence. This explanation was always absurd (since when does a superpower make massive arms transfers, for years on end, to a tiny country it considers its enemy because a few people were taken hostage in a third country?).’ Sorely if Americans had been taken hostage then <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region> could have used its might to literally destroy the country responsible and get the hostages back them selves. Besides that why was the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">US</st1:place></st1:country-region> supplying its so-called enemy with weapons anyway? There is also the problem that the claims do not match the facts because the first shipment of weapon to <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iran</st1:place></st1:country-region> happened ever before the hostages had been taken prisoner. Therefore strengthening Islamic Iran was a geostrategic goal for the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">US</st1:place></st1:country-region>. This still does not explain what relevance it has to the war but Francisco finishes by saying<o:p></o:p>
‘The above context explains why the <st1:country-region w:st="on">US</st1:country-region> considered a weakened <st1:country-region w:st="on">Iran</st1:country-region> next to a relatively strong <st1:country-region w:st="on">Iraq</st1:country-region> as a problem: <st1:country-region w:st="on">Iraq</st1:country-region> was a secular Muslim state, and therefore an alternative to the Islamism that the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">US</st1:place></st1:country-region> was trying to promote. So the <st1:country-region w:st="on">US</st1:country-region> fought the Gulf War in order to protect the Iranian fundamentalist theocracy (which was a <st1:country-region w:st="on">US</st1:country-region> covert ally and ideological strategic asset) by destroying its secular rival: <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iraq</st1:place></st1:country-region>.’ To do this however required much political ground and help from the media because while US covertly sponsor Islamic terrorism it publicly has to be seen as fighting it. For that reason it was necessary to give the Gulf war 1 a different appearance. It is still not fully known why <st1:country-region w:st="on">America</st1:country-region> would want a purely Islamic <st1:place w:st="on">Middle East</st1:place>.<o:p></o:p>
I am now going to look at the Gulf War 2 and fist of all the so-called weapons of mass destruction. In December 2002 <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iraq</st1:place></st1:country-region> submitted a 12,000 page document claiming it had not weapons of mass destruction, however this document was immediately scrutinised by American intelligence experts and U.S officials quickly rejected the claims. Therefore the British Government's Joint Intelligence Committee carried out an inspection of their own with the help of UN weapons inspectors. <o:p></o:p>
"In recent months, I have been increasingly alarmed by the evidence from inside <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iraq</st1:place></st1:country-region> that ... Saddam Hussein is continuing to develop WMD, and with them the ability to inflict real damage upon the region, and the stability of the world." (Tony Blair 2002)<o:p></o:p>
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Within this document were claims that <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iraq</st1:place></st1:country-region> had weapons of mss destruction with it could launch within ½ hour. <o:p></o:p>
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I am now going to analyse what claims where made by <st1:country-region w:st="on">America</st1:country-region> and the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">U.K.</st1:place></st1:country-region> to persuade the UN to allow military use. <o:p></o:p>
‘Now it is clear that many of his statements appear to be false. In the past, Bush's White House has been very good at sweeping ugly issues like this under the carpet, and out of sight. But it is not clear that they will be able to make the question of what happened to Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) go away - unless, perhaps, they start another war.’ (John W. Dean 2003).<o:p></o:p>
Politically it is fairly obvious that <st1:country-region w:st="on">America</st1:country-region> would have to make some radical claims about <st1:country-region w:st="on">Iraq</st1:country-region> in order for the UN to sanction military force against <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iraq</st1:place></st1:country-region>. The problem comes however that now no weapons of mass destruction have been found, will <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>’s citizens follow their President into another war. Likewise in this country with a general election not being to far in the future what hope does Tony Blair have of regaining power after leading his country into a war that did not need to be fort. After all even with Saddam Being overthrown his militants are still killing and Co elision troops and destroying our military vehicles. In that respect <st1:country-region w:st="on">America</st1:country-region> has not been able to sort out one of the problems it aimed to merely because the war was not as easy to win as <st1:country-region w:st="on">America</st1:country-region> thought and Saddam’s militants are still oppressing the general public with <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iraq</st1:place></st1:country-region>. We must remember however that the lies created are not purely the Fault of President Bush after all any speech made by an American president has to pass through certain stages.White House speechwriters process raw information, and their statements are passed on to senior aides who have both substantive knowledge and political insights. And this all occurs before the statement ever reaches the President for his own review and possible revision. At least in every White House and administration statements with national security implications were the most carefully considered of all. The White House is aware that, in making these statements, the President is speaking not only to the nation, but also to the world. These statements are typically corrected rapidly if they are later found to be false. And in this case, far from back-pedalling from the President's more extreme claims, Bush's press secretary, Ari Fleischer had actually, at times, been even more emphatic than the President had. For example, on January 9, 2003, Fleischer stated, during his press briefing, "We know for a fact that there are weapons there." In addition, others in the Administration were similarly quick to back the President up, in some cases with even more unequivocal statements. Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld repeatedly claimed that Saddam had WMDs - and even went so far as to claim he knew "where they are; they're in the area around Tikrit and <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Baghdad</st1:place></st1:City>." We must also consider that with such political risk to what he was saying President Bush would make sure it was true. I would also have thought that if there were any doubt that it was truthful then Bush’s political advisers would have persuaded him to back down his claims. <o:p></o:p>
I my opinion the fact that <st1:country-region w:st="on">America</st1:country-region> cannot prove they have been successful in what they set out to do and the fact that they killed allied troop with friendly fire in the process only goes to prove that it is a war the <st1:country-region w:st="on">UK</st1:country-region> and <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region> should never have entered. Further more with more Allied troops being killed every week (although <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region> claims the war is over), only goes to show that troops should be pulled out and leave the Iraqis to it. <o:p></o:p>
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<o:p> </o:p>Bibliography<o:p></o:p>

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http://www.afghan-info.com/TALIBAN.HTM<o:p></o:p>
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Haralambos and Holborn, 2000, Sociology themes and Perspectives (fifth edition)<o:p></o:p>
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http://www.september11news.com/ <o:p></o:p>
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http://www.gnumatic.com/saddam_hussein.html<o:p></o:p>
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http://www.prweb.com/releases/2002/2/prweb32783.htm<o:p></o:p>
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Francisco Gil-White, 2003, http://emperors-clothes.com/gilwhite/gulfwar1.htm<o:p></o:p>
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http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB80/<o:p></o:p>
<o:p> </o:p>
http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20030606.html<o:p></o:p>

[phoenix]

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