In my previous entry I wrote

What the filibuster of the future seems to require is international backing. He requires the trust of enterprise. This is harder to get than it sounds; even companies like Royal Dutch Shell have little patience with people like Mr. Abramoff, and it was the American Transit Company that took down William Walker. In my next post, I propose to discuss this at further length.

The short answer: it's the famous ones who are unimportant.

Let me put this another way: what does a filibuster really need in order to alter history? Access to military technology is no longer a constraint. Neither is access to public relations technology. In the 1840's, William Walker benefitted from the fact that a huge proportion of his compatriots, hungry for land and the fortunes their lucky precursors had made with that land, were eager to devour the territory of Latin America. The United States had only just recently acquired about 2.3 million Km² from Mexico through the offices of US nationals accepting Mexican settlement schemes;¹ nearly all of this territory was subject to the terms of the Compromise of 1820, and hence was slated for slavery. Because all US states, regardless of population, have the same number of seats in the Senate, and since slave owners could effectively double their votes by owning 1.67 slaves, this was a windfall to the slavocrats and opposed by the majority of the US body politic. However, the futility of opposing a fait accompli by the militaristic segment of the country meant that Walker could reasonably expect that his adventure would culminate in official recognition. Only the extreme lawlessness of the act, and the financial importance of the Vanderbuilts, prevented Martin Van Buren from assisting Walker, although he invited him to the White House after his first return from Nicaragua.

ONE THING THE FILIBUSTER ALREADY HAS: POLITICAL IMPUNITY

In subsequent years, it has become extremely difficult for US nationals to effectively reject the activities of filibusters. In 1982's, Sen. Boland (D-MA) sponsored legislation to prevent illegal funding of insurgent movements (as it happened, in Nicaragua; the amendment was to the War Powers Act). While the contras were not, properly speaking, a filibuster movement, neither were they supported by the legitimate actions of the US government (until 1986). On the contrary, the CIA and the NSC trampled on US laws in order to fund a terrorist organization. Needless to say, senators such as Boland, Frank Church (D-ID), and Richard Clark (D-IA) encountered an immense amount of resistance and vilification, death threats and a successful smear campaign.² Almost immediately after the passage of each of these laws, the White House not only "interpreted" the laws to exempt the NSC, and then ignored them outright. S. Brian Willson, a vehement opponent of the scheme of arming the contras, attempted to interfere in a small way by lying down in front of a train (1 Sept '87, Concord Naval Weapons Center, CA), losing both legs in the process. The US Navy refused medical assistance despite the risk of death. Afterwards, Concord residents marched in support of aid to the contras; Willson was the butt of sick jokes in subsequent months.

Amateur political analysts typically assume that polls reveal somehow the innate reflexes of the people being surveyed. Hence, it was common in 2003 for European columnists to denounce Americans as moral monsters because surveys "revealed" that a majority of Americans allegedly supported GWB's invasion of Iraq. This was assumed to reflect some innate evil in the US personality. In fact, most people in most countries everywhere have no interest, much less opinion, about the actions their country takes (provided, of course, that such actions are regarded as serving the national interest). Moreover, such surveys usually force respondents to choose between unpalatable alternatives ("Are you committed to supporting our valiant men and women in defending American freedom against Islamofascist tyranny, or are you a smarmy liberal traitor?"). In this way, the partisan employers of pollsters collude with Western Europeans in demonizing all US nationals (except celebrity dissidents, of course; Arundhati Roy & Margaret Drabble give them a pass). There is no possible comparison of passive US enablers with passive EU enablers of Western European hegemony or economic immiserization, since even the most vociferous leftist European can (and will, most assuredly) insist that the latter is required to defeat the Great Satan. In fact, they are happy to collude with the US right wing political groupings in creating and promoting the illusion that this somehow serves American interests or is popular among ordinary US citizens.

In reality, the real question is how willing Americans are willing to bestir themselves in the face of almost complete futility, if not incomprehensibility, and the illusion of "reasonable" civil discourse, to oppose the more odious actions of their state. In most conversations to which I am a party, I am obligated to "tone down" my views somewhat because I am vulnerable to being thought an extremist. However, even in the UK (one of the most openly self-critical societies on earth), criticism of imperialism as an atrocity against the peoples of the South is considered "simplistic," "leftist," and generally naïve to the point of merest idiocy. Of course I could point to Niall Ferguson, whose book Empire equates all such critics with "Communists," testifying not merely Mr. Ferguson's neoconservative pedigree, but also to the rarity of such vehemence (If condemnation of British imperialism in Britain really were common, then either the UK would be overrun by Communists—which, of course, it is not—or the accusation would be levelled at a huge number of political moderates and conservatives, and Mr. Ferguson would look like a delusional psychotic). I could also point to most British critics of US imperialism, whose comparison of our conduct with their own is so unfavorable as to suggest they believe their own was generally beneficent. Ms. Drabble's essay is, in my opinion, one of many satisfactory examples of this attitude.

(Nor is this meant as an attack on Britons for extraordinary smugness. On the contrary, I picked the UK because Britons are among the best in acknowledging their own historic misdeeds. It's just that the best in the world, in this case, is rather dismal.)

Political activists with a sincere interest in raising consciousness are, in contrast, eager to point out the shallowness of American support for their government's foreign policies. Like all other humans, Americans avoid futile activities as a mark of sanity; they regard outrage at the inevitable as evidence of immaturity. Only children are outraged at human nature. Opposition to filibusters or illegal military engagements is utterly futile; the things themselves are inevitable, anyway (and presumbably necessary; what relevence are international laws to terrorists?). Political discourse has gradually solidified to define anti-imperialist ideas as extreme; oppositionist figures tend to abett the notion that they have emotionally defected from the USA. There really is a reflex on the part of the left to disparage anything from the USA; the only exceptions allowed are those that explicitly validate recriminations against this society. Such behavior creates for many US nationals an insuperable barrier to progressive causes. Most progressive movements today seem devoted to force-feeding members a diet of national self-contempt and social alienation, even when this is totally extraneous to the cause at hand. Not only is this impulse self-defeating on the part of political progressives, it disregards any basic understanding of the human personality. It also ignores the fact that, sometimes, effective opposition is impossible. The antiwar left of the USA has only recently had a chance to recover the moral influence it lost; it has done so partly by acknowledging that effective opposition was impossible. US nationals did not "let" the Iraq War happen because US nationals are satanic monsters; they did so because such opposition was impossible.

WHAT THE FILIBUSTER MUST HAVE

The filibuster requires the approval of regional powers. Places where a filibuster can operate freely include nations such as Angola or Nicaragua, where a region is ungovernable. This may be the result of foreign agency, or it may be the result of long-simmering class conflict. Readers will naturally expect me to believe, as I do, that failed states and no-go zones are typically thus because of imperialist influence. Perhaps I am mistaken; in any case, it is undeniable that failed states are the preferred targets of private-executed military action. Comoros is one of the more famous targets of recent filibusters [*]. If a major power, such as France or the UK, is a patron of a country, then attacks on that country are likely to come to grief. This is why filibusters need to confine themselves to the most extreme administrative bomb craters. If the leadership is cohesive enough to maintain loyalty to a foreign patron, then attacking that country will be a doomed proposition.

The Arab nations are likely to face a heightened risk of filibuster attacks (as opposed to concerted US invasions) as their leaders scramble to scale back political dependence on foreign governments. Such attacks would be intended to embarrass the regime and expose it to heightened danger of a coup, rather than oust the government directly. Military technology for such attacks is readily available for cash, provided the payer can coordinate other elements of an attack. All that is needed is the approval or passivity of major powers.

In the past, if I were writing an essay on future filibusters I should probably contemplate the impact of data processing on warfare; if I were a screenwriter for another James Bond movie, I suppose I should have the villain be the head of a huge data management company like ChoicePoint, which would use it as part of an ambitious greenmailing scheme. I should refer to technical innovations borrowed from security firms. I would probably refer to attacks against infrastructure and energy delivery systems. However, it transpires that I am actually one of the last humans on the planet to learn about the decentralized, market-oriented character of modern terrorism (John Robb, 1, 2).

While Mr. Robb applies the Terror Bazaar analogy to movements like Alhaji Dobuko's, an alternative is to examine this (comparatively sympathetic) article on Halliburton and consider how the company is likely to respond:

A focus on "Halliburton" is in line with global guerrilla strategy. The market for outsourced services provided by western and associated companies are critical to the reconstruction of Iraq, the logistics of the US military, and the operation of critical infrastructure in Saudi Arabia. It's our "soft underbelly." Because these services form a market network, global guerrillas can use the dynamics of the marketplace to amplify the impact of their attacks.

How these attacks work
The endless series of hostage dramas and assaults on contractors in Iraq form a pattern. They are aimed at the fault lines in the "outsourced services" market. This pattern is quickly being copied via stigmergic learning by a rapidly proliferating number of groups that swarm on targets. Global guerrillas are using the following methods to disrupt this market:

• Companies. Assaults on employees in Saudi Arabia forced the engineering company ABB to withdraw their employees. Within Iraq: Siemens, Tekhnopromexport, GE, etc. have withdrawn employees due to direct pressure. Focused attacks on specific employers can create pressures within boardrooms and among employees/families back home to withdraw.
  
• Nations. An indirect method of coercing companies is to target employees of specific nationalities. Attacks on South Korean, Chinese, and Russian employees have resulted in government pressured evacuations of workers of those nationalities from Iraq. The attacks in Saudi Arabia targeting Americans, has caused the US government to urge that all Americans leave the country. This strategy will increasingly widen to include nations outside the US coalition (Egypt, Kenya, China, and Russia have already been targeted). Nations will increasingly tire of the crisis management and domestic political fallout caused by these attacks.
  
• Individuals. Beheadings and seemingly random assassinations, in particular, have created a climate of fear among employees of outsourced service companies. This fear has driven thousands of Americans and Europeans working for companies in Saudi Arabia and Iraq back home.

And they have become not merely a private contractor of the US military, but increasingly a belligerant themselves:

Battles between the corporate allies of nation-states and the transnational tribes and gangs of black globalization are at the core of this century's epochal war. 

Meet the Competition

Jeffrey Ake, the CEO of Equipment Express, has become a poster-boy for this conflict.  His visit to Iraq --to manage his company's water and cooking oil bottling operation --placed him squarely the cross-hairs of his guerrilla competitors. 

The problem is that these new competitors don't play by the Queensbury Rules of American business. 

The CEO as an Objective of War

CEO kidnapping isn't new.  It is common practice in Brazil, Mexico, etc.  The difference in Iraq is the motive.  In Iraq, it isn't purely financial gain.  It is being used as a way to unravel the fledgeling Iraqi government.

Here's why.  America's second largest ally in Iraq isn't the UK.  Not even close.  Corporations like Halliburton provide almost as many trigger pullers and engineers as the US Army.  They are the battalions of foot soldiers in Thomas Barnett's sys-admin force -- connecting Iraq to the US and the world.