WEBCommentary Guest

Author: Eugene Narrett, PhD
Date:  October 1, 2007

Topic category:  Other/General

Acronyms and global Re-structuring in Afghanistan: a model for the future?

An acronym is a neologism, a new word formed of the first letters or groups or letters of several words. For example, UNESCO is the acronym of the “United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization” whose first Director, Sir Julian Huxley wrote an important book, UNESCO, its Purpose and Philosophy (Washington, 1947).

Huxley believed fervently in evolution and the ability to foster it socially by applying “the thesis, antithesis, synthesis of Hegelian philosophy and the Marxist reconciliation of opposites based on it.” He wrote that “dialectical materialism was the first radical attempt at an evolutionary philosophy” (ibid). Sir Julian’s grandfather, publicist Thomas Henry Huxley was instrumental in turning Darwin’s theory of evolution into a dogma and a zeal for evolution as a model for globalization lived on in the first head of UNESCO.

Sir Julian argued that the Hegelian-Marxist dialectic of fusion by conflict “must be a mass philosophy, a mass creed” that uses the media to “overcome the resistance of millions to desirable change” which for him meant “international education as a function of a world society” (ibid. 29). He ardently believed the Hegelian-Marxist model could be used to “resolve in a higher synthesis America and Russia, capitalism and communism, individualism and collectivism.” He stated that “the task before UNESCO is to help the emergence of a single world culture” and that dialectical conflict guided by the media provided “the mechanisms for world unification” (op. cit. 11).

The Great Depression and the “Alphabet Soup” of Federal Agencies familiarized us with acronyms for vast government agencies that would “help” and even save us from poverty. For sixty years, the United Nations has continued this process of bureaucratic gigantism and media promotion, “techniques of persuasion, information and true propaganda” as Huxley wrote (op. cit. 60).

The War on Terror is becoming an example of this conflict, synthesis and unification; we have watched it happens domestically for decades from the “New Deal,” “Great Society,” Fair Deal and their niche group successors for feminists and “minorities.” Sure we’re containing Russia and others but our institutions, in law, media, academia, and even sport are so permeated with Leninist terms and categories of thought that the global melding many championed is advancing in our regional alliances and enterprise zones.

WUFA is one of the growing mass of stealth groups and acronyms that more and more circumscribe our thoughts, discourse and deeds. WUFA stands for the “World Federation of United Nations Associations” one of which is UNA-USA: the United Nations Association of the United States of America. They publish the Global Citizen a magazine for school teachers and students that is carrying forward Julian Huxley’s mission. They also offer a text, the Economies of Globalization “that can be used as a full-length, standards-based curriculum unit in high school classrooms” (www.unausa.org).

The EU has its own RBIT (“rapid border intervention teams”). I got thinking about acronyms and global citizens [sic] when I decided to check how many nations had troops in Afghanistan.

I found out, but first I learned about ISAF, UNAMA, UNSC, NAC, SCR and PRT and the links that bind them. They’re building something in Afghanistan that has a lot to do with Huxley’s vision as articulated by Kofi Anan when he stated that “the Security Council is the Managing Committee of our fledgling global security state” (12-11-06).

Some decades ago our diplomatic and intelligence services used the Taliban and Mujahideen to drive the Russians out of Afghanistan, the center of “the World Island” as Halford Mackinder termed the Eastern Hemisphere. Then UBL began to help Western leaders “overcome the resistance of millions to desirable change” by going in the age-old way of jihad. So our leaders have been building new relationships and management structures under the rubric of OPE, “Operation Enduring Freedom” initiated at meetings in Germany in fall 2001 and resulting in UNSC (UN Security Council resolutions 1368 and 1373. Bonn is noteworthy as a center of NATO action because of the rising profile of Germany within and beyond the EU as a partner for America and power in its own right.

The “ISAF operates in Afghanistan under a UN mandate and will continue to operate according to current and future UN Security Council (UNSC) resolutions” it says at www.nato.int/issues/afghanistan (July 2007). UNSC Resolution 1510 “opened the way to a wider role for ISAF to support the government of Afghanistan beyond Kabul.”

Mr. Anan’s quote on the “global security state” is embodied in the ISAF, “International Security Assistance Force” that “works closely with the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan” (UNAMA). This is coordinated by NAC, the North Atlantic Council which is “NATO’s highest decision-making body” that operates from SHAPE in Mons, Belgium. So the “world community’s” enforcement arm is NATO directed by NAC; conversely, the UNSC legitimizes the operations of SHAPE – NATO.

If Putin and company are not yet intimidated they ought to be. An ongoing lesson is being passed to Iran, China and everyone who’s paying attention including, hopefully, citizens of America that still care about accountable government in this Republic.

Hikmet Cetin of Turkey is the SCR, “Senior Civilian Representative” for NATO in Afghanistan and he liaises closely with them, the UNSC and locals. Since the days before WW I, Turkey was the geographic, political and military path for Germany to extend its influence to the Middle East for example, in the Berlin to Baghdad railway.

So the NAC directs NATO which gets its imprimatur from UNSC for the deployment of ISAF in the center of the world island. Hopefully, this will cause freedom to endure.

In addition to 15,000 American troops and 7500 British, the web site above noted that thirty-six NATO nations and nine partner nations have troops in Afghanistan via ISAF which has 34,000 personnel in all. One fourth of the troops are Germans. About an eighth are Canadians. Other states with significant forces in ISAF are Turkey, France, Belgium, Spain, Italy, the UK, Norway and the Netherlands. The site notes the “German-led establishment of the first NATO PRT (“provincial reconstruction team”), one of many now re-organizing Afghanistan for enduring freedom. Hopefully such means are not needed for freedom to endure in NAC nations whose peoples have many concerns about “international education,” “world society” and regional groupings denoted by an alphabet-soup of private-public partnerships managed by globe-spanning law firms and investors.

It's a small world after all.

Eugene Narrett, PhD


Biography - Eugene Narrett, PhD

Eugene Narrett has been writing and teaching in the greater Boston area since 1979. He has published extesnively on American politics and culture and on the history and geopolitics of the Middle East. His two most recent books on these topics are Israel and the Endtimes: Writings on the Logic and Surface Turbulence of History (2006, Authorhouse.com) and WW III: the War on the Jews and the Rise of the World Security State (2007, www.lightcatcherbooks.com.


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