The Neocons Lay Their Plans - AAWFrance .org

The Power of Nightmares

2006-10-19T01:30:00.000+02:00

by Katrina vanden Heuvel
The Nation
January 26, 2005

Last week, the BBC re-broadcast a provocative documentary series which challenges the idea that al-Qaeda is the center of a uniquely powerful, unified and well-organized international terrorist conspiracy.

"The attacks on September 11th," according to the film's director Adam Curtis--one of Britain's leading documentary filmmakers--"were not the expression of a confident and growing movement. They were acts of desperation by a small group frustrated by their failure which they blamed on the power of America. It is also important," Curtis adds, "to realize that many within the Islamist movement were against this strategy." (This view accords with those held by terrorism experts--like Peter Bergen--who argue that al-Qaeda is largely a spent force that has changed from a tight-knit organization capable of carrying out 9/11 to more of an ideological threat with loose networks in many nations.)

The film also challenges other accepted articles of faith in the so-called war on terror, and documents that much of what we have been told about a centralized, international terrorist threat "is a fantasy that has been exaggerated and distorted by politicans. It is a dark illusion that has spread unquestioned through governments around the world, the security services and the international media."

The series does not claim that terrorism poses no threat, nor does it challenge the idea that radical Islamism has led to gruesome violence throughout the world. "The bombs in Madrid and Bali showed clearly the seriousness of the threat--but they are not evidence of a new and overwhelming threat unlike any we have experienced before. And above all they do not--in the words of the British government--'threaten the life of the nation'."

First broadcast in Great Britain last November, The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear has yet to air on this side of the Atlantic. Why is it that no television outlet in the United States has yet to broadcast this critically-acclaimed film?

In a recent e-mail interview, Curtis told me he "is very keen" that the documentary be shown in the US, and that he is "talking to some people at the moment " However, he added, "I think the networks won't show it because they are frightened by possible reactions. I think this is very wrong. The reaction in Britain has been extraordinary with the overwhelming majority praising the BBC for its confidence in putting the series out.

Even the Archbishop of Canterbury, Curtis says, "quoted the films approvingly in his Christmas address to the nation. I think we were pushing at an already open door--and I suspect the same is true for America. There is a lurking feeling in many peoples' minds that this state of fear doesn't quite add up--and I have received hundreds of e-mails from people in the US asking to see the series since Robert Scheer published a column about the film in the Los Angeles Times on January 11. I am sure it will be shown somewhere."

I also asked Curtis what he thought Americans could learn from the film. His reply:

"The United States is the most powerful, confident and in many ways, the freest civilization ever in the history of the world. It is extraordinary that it has become so paralyzed by the fear of radical Islamist terrorism--it really is a lion quaking in the face of a mouse. Radical Islamists do represent a serious threat and will use terror against civilians, but when you look at them historically, as the series does, you come to see that they are not some new force with a unique power to bring the strongest nation in the world to its knees.

Yet America has become trapped by that fear--riven by nightmare visions of 'sleeper cells' in its midst for which there is little or no evidence. The series attempts to explain why this strange state of affairs has come about and it argues that politicians have found in fear a way of restoring their power. In a populist consumerist age where their authority and legitimacy has declined dramatically politicians have simply discovered in the War on Terror a way of making themselves indispensable to their populations again by promising to protect us from something that only they can see."

Curtis has promised to send me a copy of the documentary. But millions of Americans deserve to see a film that offers a rigorously documented and credible counter to the conventional narrative of a "war on terror."

If you agree, write HBO and ask why it isn't showing this BBC documentary. You can also call on PBS stations to be true to their missions by asking them to air The Power of Nightmares.

The Peter Principle and the Neocon Coup

2006-10-19T01:29:00.000+02:00

The Peter Principle and the Neocon Coup

by Robert Scheer
The Los Angeles Times
November 16, 2004

Robert Scheer is an author and journalist with over 30 years experience. His books include "Thinking Tuna Fish, Talking Death: Essays on the Pornography of Power"; "With Enough Shovels: Reagan, Bush and Nuclear War" and "America After Nixon: The Age of Multinationals."

The bloodletting has begun.

I'm not referring to the latest attempt to reconquer Iraq, but rather the wholesale political revenge campaign being waged by the hard-liners in the Bush administration against anybody and everybody inside the government who challenged the way the second Persian Gulf war in a decade was marketed and run.

Out: Secretary of State Colin Powell, whose political epitaph should now read, "You break it, you own it" for his prescient but unwanted warning to the president on the danger of imperial overreach in Iraq.

Out: Top CIA officials who dared challenge, behind the scenes, the White House's unprecedented exploitation of raw intelligence data in order to sell a war to a Congress and a public hungry for revenge after 9/11.

Out: Veteran CIA counterterrorism expert and Osama bin Laden hunter Michael Scheuer, better known as the best-selling author "Anonymous," whose balanced and devastating critiques of the Iraq war, the CIA and the way President Bush is handling the war on terror have been a welcome counterpoint to the "it's true if we say it's true" idiocy of the White House PR machine.

Meanwhile, incompetence begat by ideological blindness has been rewarded. The neoconservatives who created the ongoing Iraq mess have more than survived the failure of their impossibly rosy scenarios for a peaceful and democratic Iraq under U.S. rule. In fact, despite calls for their resignations - from the former head of the U.S. Central Command, Gen. Anthony Zinni, among others - the neocon gang is thriving. They have not been held responsible for the "16 words" about yellowcake, the rise and fall of Ahmad Chalabi, the Abu Ghraib scandal, the post-invasion looting of Iraq's munitions stores and the disastrous elimination of the Iraqi armed forces.

As of today, the neocons on Zinni's list of losers - Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul D. Wolfowitz; the vice president's chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby; National Security Council staffer Elliott Abrams; Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld - are all still employed even as Bush's new director of central intelligence, Porter J. Goss, is eviscerating the CIA's leadership.

This is the culmination of a three-year campaign by the president's men to scapegoat the CIA for the fact that 9/11 occurred on Bush's watch.

So far, half a dozen of the nation's top spymasters have been forced out abruptly - a strange way to handle things at a time when Bin Laden and Al Qaeda are still seeking to attack the U.S. Ironically, this all comes as Goss is suppressing a lengthy study, prepared for Congress by the CIA's inspector general, that, according to an intelligence official who has read it, names individuals in the government responsible for failures that paved the way for the 9/11 attacks.

Thus Bush, with Goss as his hatchet man, is having it both ways: He can be seen to be cleaning house at the CIA - when he is simply punishing independent voices - while denying Congress access to an independent audit of actual intelligence failures.

We should remember that as flawed as its performance was under former Director George J. Tenet, the CIA at least sometimes tried to be a counterweight to the fraudulent claims of Rumsfeld's and Dick Cheney's neoconservative staffs. All of the nation's traditional intelligence centers were bypassed by a rogue operation based in Feith's Office of Special Plans. Feith was given broad access to raw intelligence streams - the better to cherry-pick factoids and fabrications that found their way into even the president's crucial prewar State of the Union address.

Now, by successfully discarding those who won't buy into the administration's ideological fantasies of remaking the world in our image, the neoconservatives have consolidated control of the United States' vast military power.

With the ravaging of the CIA and the ousting of Powell - instead of the more-deserving Rumsfeld - the coup of the neoconservatives is complete. They have achieved a remarkable political victory by failing upward.

NAOMI KLEIN talks about the NeoCons

2006-10-19T01:28:00.000+02:00

Naomi Klein on the NeoCons

From Saturday's Globe and Mail
December 20, 2003

Contrary to all predictions, the heavy doors of Old Europe weren't slammed in James Baker's face as he asked forgiveness for Iraq's foreign debt. France and Germany appear to have signed on, and Russia is softening its line.

Just last week, there was virtual consensus that Mr. Baker's Drop the Debt Tour had been maliciously sabotaged by deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, whose move to shut out non-coalition partners from $18.6-billion (U.S.) in Iraq reconstruction contracts seemed designed to make Mr. Baker look like a hypocrite.

Only now it turns out that Mr. Wolfowitz may not have been undermining Mr. Baker at all, but rather acting as his enforcer. He showed up with a big stick - the threat of economic exclusion from Iraq's potential $500-billion reconstruction - just when Mr. Baker was about to speak softly.

Mr. Baker hardly needed Mr. Wolfowitz to make his mission look hypocritical; one can scarcely imagine an act more rife with historical ironies than James Baker impersonating Bono on Iraq's debt. The Iraqi people "should not be saddled with the debt of a brutal regime that was more interested in using funds to build palaces and build torture chambers and brutalize the Iraqi people," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan.

No argument here. But when I heard about Mr. Baker's "noble mission," as George W. Bush described it, I couldn't help thinking about an underreported story from earlier this month. On Dec. 4, The Miami Herald published excerpts from a declassified State Department document. It is the transcript of a meeting held on Oct. 7, 1976, between Henry Kissinger, then-secretary of state under president Gerald Ford, and Argentina's foreign minister under the military dictatorship, navy admiral Cesar Augusto Guzzetti.

It was the height of Argentina's dirty war, a campaign to destroy the so-called Marxist threat in Argentina by systematically torturing and killing not only armed guerrillas, but also union organizers, student activists and their families and sympathizers. By the end of the dictatorship, about 30,000 people had been "disappeared."

At the time of the Kissinger-Guzzetti meeting at the Waldorf Astoria in New York, much of Argentina's left had been erased, and news of bodies washing up on the banks of the Rio de la Plata was drawing urgent calls for economic sanctions against the junta. The Kissinger-Guzzetti transcript reveals that Washington not only knew about the disappearances, it approved of them. Mr. Guzzetti reports to Mr. Kissinger on "the very good results in the last four months. The terrorist organizations have been dismantled." After discussing the international outcry, Mr. Kissinger states, "Look, our basic attitude is that we would like you to succeed. I have an old-fashioned view that friends ought to be supported. What is not understood in the United States is that you have a civil war. We read about human-rights problems but not the context. The quicker you succeed, the better."

Here is where Mr. Baker's present-day mission becomes relevant. Mr. Kissinger quickly moves on to the topic of loans, encouraging Mr. Guzzetti to apply for as much foreign assistance as possible - and fast, before Argentina's "human-rights problem" ties the hands of the U.S. administration. Mr. Kissinger instructs the minister, "Proceed with your Export-Import Bank requests. We would like your economic program to succeed and will do our best to help you."

The World Bank estimates that roughly $10-billion of the money borrowed by the generals went to military purchases, used to build the prison camps from which thousands never re-emerged, and to buy hardware for the Falklands War. It also went into numbered Swiss bank accounts, a sum impossible to track because the generals destroyed all records relating to the loans on their way out the door.

We do know this: Under the dictatorship, Argentina's external debt ballooned from $7.7-billion in 1975 to $46-billion in 1982. Ever since, the country has been caught in an escalating crisis, borrowing billions to pay interest on that original, illegitimate debt, which today is only slightly higher than that held by Iraq's foreign creditors: $141-billion. The Kissinger transcript proves that the U.S. knowingly gave both money and high-level political encouragement to the generals' murderous campaign. Yet despite its irrefutable complicity in Argentina's tragedy, the United States has consistently opposed all attempts to cancel the country's debt.

Argentina's case is not exceptional. For decades, the U.S. government has used its power in the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to block campaigns to cancel debts accumulated under apartheid in South Africa, the Ferdinand Marcos kleptocracy in the Philippines, the brutally corrupt Duvalier regime in Haiti, the long military dictatorship that sent Brazil's debt spiralling from $5.7-billion in 1964 to $104-billion in 1985. The list goes on. The U.S. position has been that wiping out the debts would lead to dangerous precedents (and, of course, would rob Washington of the leverage it needs to push for investor-friendly economic reforms). So why now is Mr. Bush so concerned that "The future of the Iraqi people should not be mortgaged to the enormous burden of debt?" Because it is taking money away from "reconstruction," money that could be going to Halliburton, Bechtel, Exxon and Boeing. It has become popular to claim that the White House has been hijacked by neo-conservatives, men so in love with free-market dogma that they cannot see reason or pragmatism. I'm not convinced. If there's one thing last week's diplomatic dustups make clear, it's that the underlying ideology of the Bush White House isn't neo-conservatism, it's old-fashioned greed.

While neo-cons worship abstract free-market rules, there is really only one rule that appears to matter to the Bush clan: If it helps our friends get even richer, do it.

Seen through this lens, the seemingly erratic behaviour coming out of Washington makes a lot more sense. Sure, Mr. Wolfowitz's contract-hogging openly flouts the free-market principles of competition and government non-intervention. But like Mr. Baker's jubilee, it does have a direct benefit for the firms closest to the Bush administration. Not only are they buying a debt-free Iraq, but they won't have to compete for the deals with European corporate rivals. The entire reconstruction project defies neo-con tenets. It has sent this year's U.S. deficit to a cartoonish $500-billion, much of it handed out in no-bid contracts, creating the kind of monopoly in which Halliburton may have been able to overcharge an estimated $61-million for imported gasoline in Iraq.

Those looking for ideology in the White House should consider this: For the men who rule our world, rules are for other people. The truly powerful feed ideology to the masses like fast food while they dine on the most rarified delicacy of all: impunity.

America's War for Global Domination

2006-10-19T01:27:00.000+02:00

America's War for Global Domination

by Michel Chossudovsky
Centre for Research on Globalization
December 15, 2003

is the author of No Logo

We are the juncture of the most serious crisis in modern history.

The Bush Administration has embarked upon a military adventure which threatens the future of humanity.

The wars on Afghanistan and Iraq are part of a broader military agenda, which was launched at the end of the Cold War. The ongoing war agenda is a continuation of the 1991 Gulf War and the NATO led wars on Yugoslavia (1991-2001).

The post Cold War period has also been marked by numerous US covert intelligence operations within the former Soviet Union, which were instrumental in triggering civil wars in several of the former republics including Chechnya (within the Russian Federation), Georgia and Azerbaijan. In the latter, these covert operations were launched with a view to securing strategic control over oil and gas pipeline corridors.

US military and intelligence operations in the post Cold War era were led in close coordination with the "free market reforms" imposed under IMF guidance in Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union and the Balkans, which resulted in the destabilization of national economies and the impoverishment of millions of people.

The World Bank sponsored privatization programmes in these countries enabled Western capital to acquire ownership and gain control of a large share of the economy of the former Eastern block countries. This process is also at the basis of the strategic mergers and/or takeovers of the former Soviet oil and gas industry by powerful Western conglomerates, through financial manipulation and corrupt political practices.

In other words, what is at stake in the US led war is the recolonization of a vast region extending from the Balkans into Central Asia.

The deployment of America's war machine purports to enlarge America's economic sphere of influence. The U.S. has established a permanent military presence not only in Iraq and Afghanistan, it has military bases in several of the former Soviet republics on China's Western frontier. In turn, since 1999, there has been a military buildup in the South China Sea.

War and Globalization go hand in hand. Militarization supports the conquest of new economic frontiers and the worldwide imposition of "free market" system.

The Next Phase of the War

The Bush administration has already identified Syria as the next stage of "the road map to war". The bombing of presumed 'terrorist bases' in Syria by the Israeli Air Force in October was intended to provide a justification for subsequent pre-emptive military interventions. Ariel Sharon launched the attacks with the approval of Donald Rumsfeld. (See Gordon Thomas, Global Outlook, No. 6, Winter 2004)

This planned extension of the war into Syria has serious implications. It means that Israel becomes a major military actor in the US-led war, as well as an 'official' member of the Anglo-American coalition.

The Pentagon views 'territorial control' over Syria, which constitutes a land bridge between Israel and occupied Iraq, as 'strategic' from a military and economic standpoint. It also constitutes a means of controlling the Iraqi border and curbing the flow of volunteer fighters, who are traveling to Baghdad to join the Iraqi resistance movement.

This enlargement of the theater of war is consistent with Ariel Sharon's plan to build a 'Greater Israel' "on the ruins of Palestinian nationalism". While Israel seeks to extend its territorial domain towards the Euphrates River, with designated areas of Jewish settlement in the Syrian heartland, Palestinians are imprisoned in Gaza and the West Bank behind an 'Apartheid Wall'.

In the meantime, the US Congress has tightened the economic sanctions on Libya and Iran. As well, Washington is hinting at the need for a 'regime change' in Saudi Arabia. Political pressures are building up in Turkey.

So, the war could indeed spill over into a much broader region extending from the Eastern Mediterranean to the Indian sub-continent and China's Western frontier.

The "Pre-emptive" Use of Nuclear Weapons

Washington has adopted a first strike "pre-emptive" nuclear policy, which has now received congressional approval. Nuclear weapons are no longer a weapon of last resort as during the cold War era.

The US, Britain and Israel have a coordinated nuclear weapons policy. Israeli nuclear warheads are pointed at major cities in the Middle East. The governments of all three countries have stated quite openly, prior to the war on Iraq, that they are prepared to use nuclear weapons "if they are attacked" with so-called "weapons of mass destruction." Israel is the fifth nuclear power in the World. Its nuclear arsenal is more advanced than that of Britain.

Barely a few weeks following the entry of the US Marines into Baghdad, the US Senate Armed Services Committee gave the green light to the Pentagon to develop a new tactical nuclear bomb, to be used in conventional war theaters, "with a yield [of up to] six times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb".

Following the Senate decision, the Pentagon redefined the details of its nuclear agenda in a secret meeting with senior executives from the nuclear industry and the military industrial complex held at Central Command Headquarters at the Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska. The meeting was held on August 6, the day the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, 58 years ago.

The new nuclear policy explicitly involves the large defense contractors in decision-making. It is tantamount to the "privatization" of nuclear war. Corporations not only reap multibillion dollar profits from the production of nuclear bombs, they also have a direct voice in setting the agenda regarding the use and deployment of nuclear weapons.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon has unleashed a major propaganda and public relations campaign with a view to upholding the use nuclear weapons for the "defense of the American Homeland."

Fully endorsed by the US Congress, the mini-nukes are considered to be "safe for civilians".

This new generation of nuclear weapons is slated to be used in the next phase of this war, in "conventional war theatres" (e.g. in the Middle East and Central Asia) alongside conventional weapons.

In December 2003, the US Congress allocated $6.3 billion solely for 2004, to develop this new generation of "defensive" nuclear weapons.

The overall annual defense budget is of the order of 400 billion dollars, roughly of the same order of magnitude as the entire Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the Russian Federation.

While there is no firm evidence of the use of mini-nukes in the Iraqi and Afghan war theatres, tests conducted by Canada's Uranium Medical Research Center (UMRC), in Afghanistan confirm that recorded toxic radiation was not attributable to 'heavy metal' depleted uranium ammunition (DU), but to another unidentified form of uranium contamination:

"some form of uranium weapon had been used (...) The results were astounding: the donors presented concentrations of toxic and radioactive uranium isotopes between 100 and 400 times greater than in the Gulf War veterans tested in 1999." www.umrc.net

The Planning of War

The war on Iraq has been in the planning stages at least since the mid-1990s.

A 1995 National Security document of the Clinton administration stated quite clearly that the objective of the war is oil. "to protect the United States' uninterrupted, secure U.S. access to oil.

In September 2000, a few months before the accession of George W. Bush to the White House, the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) published its blueprint for global domination under the title: "Rebuilding America's Defenses."

The PNAC is a neo-conservative think tank linked to the Defense-Intelligence establishment, the Republican Party and the powerful Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) which plays a behind-the-scenes role in the formulation of US foreign policy.

The PNAC's declared objective is quite simple - to:

"Fight and decisively win in multiple, simultaneous theater wars".

This statement indicates that the US plans to be involved simultaneously in several war theaters in different regions of the World.

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney had commissioned the PNAC blueprint prior to the presidential elections.

The PNAC outlines a roadmap of conquest. It calls for "the direct imposition of U.S. "forward bases" throughout Central Asia and the Middle East "with a view to ensuring economic domination of the world, while strangling any potential "rival" or any viable alternative to America's vision of a 'free market' economy" (See Chris Floyd, Bush's Crusade for empire, Global Outlook, No. 6, 2003)

The Role of "Massive Casualty Producing Events"

The PNAC blueprint also outlines a consistent framework of war propaganda. One year before 9/11, the PNAC called for "some catastrophic and catalyzing event, like a new Pearl Harbor," which would serve to galvanize US public opinion in support of a war agenda. (See http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/NAC304A.html )

The PNAC architects seem to have anticipated with cynical accuracy, the use of the September 11 attacks as "a war pretext incident."

The PNAC's reference to a "catastrophic and catalyzing event" echoes a similar statement by David Rockefeller to the United Nations Business Council in 1994:

"We are on the verge of global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis and the nations will accept the New World Order."

Similarly, in the words Zbigniew Brzezinski in his book, The Grand Chessboard:.

"…it may find it more difficult to fashion a consensus [in America] on foreign policy issues, except in the circumstances of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat."

Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was National Security Adviser to President Jimmy Carter was one of the key architects of the Al Qaeda network, created by the CIA at the onslaught of the Soviet Afghan war (1979-1989).

The "catastrophic and catalyzing event" as stated by the PNAC is an integral part of US military-intelligence planning. General Franks, who led the military campaign into Iraq, pointed recently (October 2003) to the role of a "massive casualty-producing event" to muster support for the imposition of military rule in America. (See General Tommy Franks calls for Repeal of US Constitution, November 2003, http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/EDW311A.html ).

Franks identifies the precise scenario whereby military rule will be established:

"a terrorist, massive, casualty-producing event [will occur] somewhere in the Western world - it may be in the United States of America - that causes our population to question our own Constitution and to begin to militarize our country in order to avoid a repeat of another mass, casualty-producing event." (Ibid)

This statement from an individual, who was actively involved in military and intelligence planning at the highest levels, suggests that the "militarisation of our country" is an ongoing operational assumption. It is part of the broader "Washington consensus". It identifies the Bush administration's "roadmap" of war and "Homeland Defense." Needless to say, it is also an integral part of the neoliberal agenda.

The "terrorist massive casualty-producing event" is presented by General Franks as a crucial political turning point. The resulting crisis and social turmoil are intended to facilitate a major shift in US political, social and institutional structures.

General Franks' statement reflects a consensus within the US Military as to how events ought to unfold. The "war on terrorism" is to provide a justification for repealing the Rule of Law, ultimately with a view to "preserving civil liberties."

Franks' interview suggests that an Al Qaeda sponsored terrorist attack will be used as a "trigger mechanism" for a military coup d'état in America. The PNAC's "Pearl Harbor type event" would be used as a justification for declaring a State of emergency, leading to the establishment of a military government.

In many regards, the militarisation of civilian State institutions in the US is already functional under the facade of a bogus democracy.

War Propaganda

In the wake of the September attacks on the World Trade Center, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld created to the Office of Strategic Influence (OSI), or "Office of Disinformation" as it was labeled by its critics:

"The Department of Defense said they needed to do this, and they were going to actually plant stories that were false in foreign countries -- as an effort to influence public opinion across the world. (Interview with Steve Adubato, Fox News, 26 December 2002.)

And, all of a sudden, the OSI was formally disbanded following political pressures and "troublesome" media stories that "its purpose was to deliberately lie to advance American interests." (Air Force Magazine, January 2003, italics added) "Rumsfeld backed off and said this is embarrassing." (Adubato, op. cit. italics added) Yet despite this apparent about-turn, the Pentagon's Orwellian disinformation campaign remains functionally intact: "[T]he secretary of defense is not being particularly candid here. Disinformation in military propaganda is part of war."(Ibid)

Rumsfeld later confirmed in a press interview that while the OSI no longer exists in name, the "Office's intended functions are being carried out". (Quoted in Federation of American Scientists (FAS) Secrecy News, http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/secrecy/2002/11/112702.html , Rumsfeld's press interview can be consulted at: http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2002/11/dod111802.html ).

A number of government agencies and intelligence units --with links to the Pentagon-remain actively involved in various components of the propaganda campaign. Realities are turned upside down. Acts of war are heralded as "humanitarian interventions" geared towards "regime change" and "the restoration of democracy". Military occupation and the killing of civilians are presented as "peace-keeping". The derogation of civil liberties --in the context of the so-called "anti-terrorist legislation"-- is portrayed as a means to providing "domestic security" and upholding civil liberties.

The Central Role of Al Qaeda in Bush's National Security Doctrine

Spelled out in the National Security Strategy (NSS), the preemptive "defensive war" doctrine and the "war on terrorism" against Al Qaeda constitute the two essential building blocks of the Pentagon's propaganda campaign.

The objective is to present "preemptive military action" --meaning war as an act of "self-defense" against two categories of enemies, "rogue States" and "Islamic terrorists":

"The war against terrorists of global reach is a global enterprise of uncertain duration. …America will act against such emerging threats before they are fully formed.

…Rogue states and terrorists do not seek to attack us using conventional means. They know such attacks would fail. Instead, they rely on acts of terror and, potentially, the use of weapons of mass destruction (…)

The targets of these attacks are our military forces and our civilian population, in direct violation of one of the principal norms of the law of warfare. As was demonstrated by the losses on September 11, 2001, mass civilian casualties is the specific objective of terrorists and these losses would be exponentially more severe if terrorists acquired and used weapons of mass destruction.

The United States has long maintained the option of preemptive actions to counter a sufficient threat to our national security. The greater the threat, the greater is the risk of inaction- and the more compelling the case for taking anticipatory action to defend ourselves, (…). To forestall or prevent such hostile acts by our adversaries, the United States will, if necessary, act preemptively."12 (National Security Strategy, White House, 2002, http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.html )

To justify pre-emptive military actions, the National Security Doctrine requires the "fabrication" of a terrorist threat, --ie. "an outside enemy." It also needs to link these terrorist threats to "State sponsorship" by the so-called "rogue states."

But it also means that the various "massive casualty-producing events" allegedly by Al Qaeda (the fabricated enemy) are part of the National Security agenda.

In the months building up to the invasion of Iraq, covert 'dirty tricks' operations were launched to produce misleading intelligence pertaining to both Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) and Al Qaeda, which was then fed into the news chain.

In the wake of the war, while the WMD threat has been toned down, Al Qaeda threats to 'the Homeland' continue to be repeated ad nauseam in official statements, commented on network TV and pasted on a daily basis across the news tabloids.

And underlying these manipulated realties, "Osama bin Laden" terrorist occurrences are being upheld as a justification for the next phase of this war. The latter hinges in a very direct way:

1) the effectiveness of the Pentagon-CIA propaganda campaign, which is fed into the news chain.

2) The actual occurrence of "massive casualty producing events" as outlined in the PNAC

What this means is that actual ("massive casualty producing") terrorist events are part and parcel of military planning.

Actual Terrorist Attacks

In other words, to be "effective" the fear and disinformation campaign cannot solely rely on unsubstantiated "warnings" of future attacks, it also requires "real" terrorist occurrences or "incidents", which provide credibility to the Washington's war plans. These terrorist events are used to justify the implementation of "emergency measures" as well as "retaliatory military actions". They are required, in the present context, to create the illusion of "an outside enemy" that is threatening the American Homeland.

The triggering of "war pretext incidents" is part of the Pentagon's assumptions. In fact it is an integral part of US military history.(See Richard Sanders, War Pretext Incidents, How to Start a War, Global Outlook, published in two parts, Issues 2 and 3, 2002-2003).

In 1962, the Joint Chiefs of Staff had envisaged a secret plan entitled "Operation Northwoods", to deliberately trigger civilian casualties to justify the invasion of Cuba:

"We could blow up a U.S. ship in Guantanamo Bay and blame Cuba," "We could develop a Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington" "casualty lists in U.S. newspapers would cause a helpful wave of national indignation." (See the declassified Top Secret 1962 document titled "Justification for U.S. Military Intervention in Cuba"16 (See Operation Northwoods at http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/NOR111A.html ).

There is no evidence that the Pentagon or the CIA played a direct role in recent terrorist attacks, including those in Indonesia (2002), India (2001), Turkey (2003) and Saudi Arabia (2003).

According to the reports, the attacks were undertaken by organizations (or cells of these organizations), which operate quite independently, with a certain degree of autonomy. This independence is in the very nature of a covert intelligence operation. The "intelligence asset" is not in direct contact with its covert sponsors. It is not necessarily cognizant of the role it plays on behalf of its intelligence sponsors.

The fundamental question is who is behind them? Through what sources are they being financed? What is the underlying network of ties?

For instance, in the case of the 2002 Bali bomb attack, the alleged terrorist organization Jemaah Islamiah had links to Indonesia's military intelligence (BIN), which in turn has links to the CIA and Australian intelligence.

The December 2001 terrorist attacks on the Indian Parliament --which contributed to pushing India and Pakistan to the brink of war-- were allegedly conducted by two Pakistan-based rebel groups, Lashkar-e-Taiba ("Army of the Pure") and Jaish-e-Muhammad ("Army of Mohammed"), both of which according to the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) are supported by Pakistan's ISI. (Council on Foreign Relations at http://www.terrorismanswers.com/groups/harakat2.html , Washington 2002).

What the CFR fails to acknowledge is the crucial relationship between the ISI and the CIA and the fact that the ISI continues to support Lashkar, Jaish and the militant Jammu and Kashmir Hizbul Mujahideen (JKHM), while also collaborating with the CIA. (For further details see Michel Chossudovsky, Fabricating an Enemy, March 2003, http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO301B.html )

A 2002 classified outbrief drafted to guide the Pentagon "calls for the creation of a so-called 'Proactive, Pre-emptive Operations Group' (P2OG), to launch secret operations aimed at "stimulating reactions" among terrorists and states possessing weapons of mass destruction -- that is, for instance, prodding terrorist cells into action and exposing themselves to 'quick-response' attacks by U.S. forces." (William Arkin, The Secret War, The Los Angeles Times, 27 October 2002)

The P2OG initiative is nothing new. It essentially extends an existing apparatus of covert operations. Amply documented, the CIA has supported terrorist groups since the Cold War era. This "prodding of terrorist cells" under covert intelligence operations often requires the infiltration and training of the radical groups linked to Al Qaeda.

In this regard, covert support by the US military and intelligence apparatus has been channeled to various Islamic terrorist organizations through a complex network of intermediaries and intelligence proxies. In the course of the 1990s, agencies of the US government have collaborated with Al Qaeda in a number of covert operations, as confirmed by a 1997 report of the Republican Party Committee of the US Congress. (See US Congress, 16 January 1997, http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/DCH109A.html ). In fact during the war in Bosnia US weapons inspectors were working with Al Qaeda operatives, bringing in large amounts of weapons for the Bosnian Muslim Army.

In other words, the Clinton Administration was "harboring terrorists". Moreover, official statements and intelligence reports confirm links between US military-intelligence units and Al Qaeda operatives, as occurred in Bosnia (mid 1990s), Kosovo (1998-99) and Macedonia (2001).(See See Michel Chossudovsky, War and Globalisation, The Truth behind September 11, Global Outlook, 2003, Chapter 3, http://globalresearch.ca/globaloutlook/truth911.html )

The Bush Administration and NATO had links to Al Qaeda in Macedonia. And this happened barely a few weeks before September 11, 2001, Senior U.S. military advisers from a private mercenary outfit on contract to the Pentagon, were fighting alongside Mujahideen in the terrorist attacks on the Macedonian Security forces. This is documented by the Macedonian press and statements made by the Macedonian authorities. (See Michel Chossudovsky, op cit). The U.S. government and the Islamic Militant Network were working hand in glove in supporting and financing the National Liberation Army (NLA), which was involved in the terrorist attacks in Macedonia.

In other words, the US military was collaborating directly with Al Qaeda barely a few weeks before 9/11.

Al Qaeda and Pakistan's Military Intelligence (ISI)

It is indeed revealing that in virtually all post 9/11 terrorist occurrences, the terrorist organization is reported (by the media and in official statements) as having "ties to Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda". This in itself is a crucial piece of information. Of course, the fact that Al Qaeda is a creation of the CIA is neither mentioned in the press reports nor is it considered relevant to an understanding of these terrorist occurrences.

The ties of these terrorist organizations (particularly those in Asia) to Pakistan's military intelligence (ISI) is acknowledged in a few cases by official sources and press dispatches. Confirmed by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), some of these groups are said to have links to Pakistan's ISI, without identifying the nature of these links. Needless to say, this information is crucial in identifying the sponsors of these terrorist attacks. In other words, the ISI is said to support these terrorist organizations, while at same time maintaining close ties to the CIA.

September 11

While Colin Powell --without supporting evidence-pointed in his February 2003 UN address to "the sinister nexus between Iraq and the Al Qaeda terrorist network", official documents, press and intelligence reports confirm that successive US administrations have supported and abetted the Islamic militant network. This relationship is an established fact, corroborated by numerous studies, acknowledged by Washington's mainstream think tanks.

Both Colin Powell and his Deputy Richard Armitage, who in the months leading up to the war casually accused Baghdad and other foreign governments of "harboring" Al Qaeda, played a direct role, at different points in their careers, in supporting terrorist organizations.

Both men were implicated --operating behind the scenes-- in the Irangate Contra scandal during the Reagan Administration, which involved the illegal sale of weapons to Iran to finance the Nicaraguan Contra paramilitary army and the Afghan Mujahideen. (For further details, see Michel Chossudovsky, Expose the Links between Al Qaeda and the Bush Administration, http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO303D.html )

Moreover, both Richard Armitage and Colin Powell played a role in the 9/11 cover-up. The investigations and research conducted in the last two years, including official documents, testimonies and intelligence reports, indicate that September 11 was an carefully planned intelligence operation, rather than a act conducted by a terrorist organization. (For further details, see Centre for Research on Globalization, 24 Key articles, September 2003)

The FBI confirmed in a report made public late September 2001 the role of Pakistan's Military Intelligence. According to the report, the alleged 9-11 ring leader, Mohammed Atta, had been financed from sources out of Pakistan. A subsequent intelligence report confirmed that the then head of the ISI General Mahmoud Ahmad had transferred money to Mohammed Atta. (See Michel Chossudovsky, War and Globalization, op.cit.)

Moreover, press reports and official statements confirm that the head of the ISI, was an official visit to the US from the 4th to 13th of September 2001. In other words, the head of Pakistan's ISI, who allegedly transferred money to the terrorists also had a close personal relationship with a number of senior Bush Administration officials, including Colin Powell, CIA Director George Tenet and Deputy Secretary Richard Armitage, whom he met in the course of his visit to Washington. (Ibid)

The Antiwar Movement

A cohesive antiwar movement cannot be based solely on the mobilization of antiwar sentiment. It must ultimately unseat the war criminals and question their right to rule.

A necessary condition for bringing down the rulers is to weaken and eventually dismantle their propaganda campaign.

The momentum of the large anti-war rallies in the US, the European Union and around the world, should lay the foundations of a permanent network composed of tens of thousands of local level anti-war committees in neighborhoods, work places, parishes, schools, universities, etc. It is ultimately through this network that the legitimacy of those who "rule in our name" will be challenged.

To shunt the Bush Administration's war plans and disable its propaganda machine, we must reach out to our fellow citizens across the land, in the US, Europe and around the world, to the millions of ordinary people who have been misled on the causes and consequences of this war.

This also implies fully uncovering the lies behind the "war on terrorism" and revealing the political complicity of the Bush administration in the events of 9/11.

September 11 is a hoax. It's the biggest lie in US history.

Needless to say, the use of "massive casualty producing events" as pretext to wage war is a criminal act. In the words of Andreas van Buelow, former German Minister of Technology and author of The CIA and September 11:

"If what I say is right, the whole US government should end up behind bars."

Yet it is not sufficient to remove George W. Bush or Tony Blair, who are mere puppets. We must also address the role of the global banks, corporations and financial institutions, which indelibly stand behind the military and political actors.

Increasingly, the military-intelligence establishment (rather than the State Department, the White House and the US Congress) is calling the shots on US foreign policy. Meanwhile, the Texas oil giants, the defense contractors, Wall Street and the powerful media giants, operating discreetly behind the scenes, are pulling the strings. If politicians become a source of major embarrassment, they can themselves be discredited by the media, discarded and a new team of political puppets can be brought to office.

Criminalization of the State

The "Criminalization of the State", is when war criminals legitimately occupy positions of authority, which enable them to decide "who are the criminals", when in fact they are criminals.

In the US, both Republicans and Democrats share the same war agenda and there are war criminals in both parties. Both parties are complicit in the 9/11 cover-up and the resultant quest for world domination. All the evidence points to what is best described as "the criminalisation of the State", which includes the Judiciary and the bipartisan corridors of the US Congress. .

Under the war agenda, high ranking officials of the Bush administration, members of the military, the US Congress and the Judiciary have been granted the authority not only to commit criminal acts, but also to designate those in the antiwar movement who are opposed to these criminal acts as "enemies of the State."

More generally, the US military and security apparatus endorses and supports dominant economic and financial interests - i.e. the build-up, as well as the exercise, of military might enforces "free trade". The Pentagon is an arm of Wall Street; NATO coordinates its military operations with the World Bank and the IMF's policy interventions, and vice versa. Consistently, the security and defense bodies of the Western military alliance, together with the various civilian governmental and intergovernmental bureaucracies (e.g. IMF, World Bank, WTO) share a common understanding, ideological consensus and commitment to the New World Order.

To reverse the tide of war, military bases must be closed down, the war machine (namely the production of advanced weapons systems like WMDs) must be stopped and the burgeoning police state must be dismantled. More generally we must reverse the "free market" reforms, dismantle the institutions of global capitalism and disarm financial markets.

The struggle must be broad-based and democratic encompassing all sectors of society at all levels, in all countries, uniting in a major thrust: workers, farmers, independent producers, small businesses, professionals, artists, civil servants, members of the clergy, students and intellectuals.

The antiwar and anti-globalisation movements must be integrated into a single worldwide movement. People must be united across sectors, "single issue" groups must join hands in a common and collective understanding on how the New World Order destroys and impoverishes.

The globalization of this struggle is fundamental, requiring a degree of solidarity and internationalism unprecedented in world history. This global economic system feeds on social divisiveness between and within countries. Unity of purpose and worldwide coordination among diverse groups and social movements is crucial. A major thrust is required which brings together social movements in all major regions of the world in a common pursuit and commitment to the elimination of poverty and a lasting world peace.

The Project for a New American Empire

2006-10-19T01:26:00.000+02:00

The Project for a New American Empire

Who are these guys? And why do they think they can rule the world?

by Duane Shank**

A British magazine called them "the weird men behind George W. Bush's war."

Their Project has led to countless conspiracy theories. Their principles are

now the governing foreign and military policy of the Bush administration-a

plan combining U.S. military forces based around the world with a doctrine

of pre-emptive war and the development of new nuclear weapons.

Who are they, the creators of the "Project for the New American Century"?

What is the "Project," and why is it cause for concern? The people behind it

are now prominent players in the Bush administration (see "Powers That Be,"

at left), and some of them-most notably, Vice-President Richard Cheney and

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld-are household names. And their plan is for

nothing less than securing U.S. global domination for decades to come-and

that's according to their own testimony.

The roots of the Project-both ideological and the people identified with

it-are in the Reagan administration. Combining an aggressive foreign policy

with a then-unprecedented military buildup, they helped lead the invasions

of Panama and Grenada, counter-insurgency wars in Central America, the Cold

War showdown with the Soviet Union, and the arming of Iraq as a counter to

radical Islamists in Iran.

In 1989, the Soviet Union finally imploded-and with it ended the bipolar

world that had existed since World War II. The United States remained as the

lone superpower.

Neoconservative intellectuals, inside and outside the administration of

George Bush I, began plotting how to continue that situation into the

future.

After the first Gulf war, Paul Wolfowitz, then undersecretary of defense for

policy, drafted a defense planning document that laid out the core ideas of

what was to become the Project for the New American Century's vision. It was

a strategy of maintaining and strengthening unchallenged U.S. military

superiority against a potential future superpower rival and against unrest

around the world, through pre-emption rather than containment and unilateral

military action rather than multilateral internationalism. Bush Sr.

administration officials rejected it as too radical.

Bill Clinton's foreign policy emphasized multilateralism, involving the

United States in peacekeeping missions in Somalia and Bosnia. In response,

the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) emerged in June 1997. Its

founding "Statement of Principles" was released by a who's who of former

Reagan administration and conservative think tank intellectuals. After

criticizing the Clinton administration for "incoherent policies,"

"squandering the opportunity," and "inconstant leadership," they presented

their alternative.

"American foreign and defense policy is adrift," the statement said. "...As

the 20th century draws to a close, the United States stands as the world's

preeminent power.. Does the United States have the resolve to shape a new

century favorable to American principles and interests?" The statement ended

by calling for "a Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity."

>From the beginning, the Project was obsessed with Iraq. In a January 1998

letter to President Clinton, PNAC wrote, "We urge you.to turn your

administration's attention to implementing a strategy for removing Saddam's

regime from power." The letter was signed by, among others, Donald Rumsfeld,

Paul Wolfowitz, John Bolton, Elliott Abrams, and Richard Armitage.

In September 2000, the Project released its grand plan for the future in a

report titled "Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces, and

Resources for a New Century." The report begins with the premise that "The

United States is the world's only superpower, combining preeminent military

power, global technological leadership, and the world's largest economy..

America's grand strategy should aim to preserve and extend this advantageous

position as far into the future as possible.. Yet no moment in international

politics can be frozen in time; even a global Pax Americana will not

preserve itself."

The report recommends new missions for the U.S. armed forces, including a

dominant nuclear capability with a new generation of nuclear weapons,

sufficient combat forces to fight and win multiple major wars, and forces

for "constabulary duties" around the world with American rather than U.N.

leadership. It asserts that "The presence of American forces in critical

regions around the world is the visible expression of the extent of

America's status as a superpower" and proposes "a network of 'deployment

bases' or 'forward operating bases' to increase the reach of current and

future forces."

Specifically citing the Persian Gulf, the report notes that "the United

States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional

security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate

justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the

Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.. Over the long

term, Iran may well prove as large a threat to U.S. interests in the Gulf as

Iraq has."

Concluding with the importance of transforming the U.S. military for new

challenges, it provocatively notes that "the failure to prepare for

tomorrow's challenges will ensure that the current Pax Americana comes to an

early end."

This vision of American empire received little attention in fall 2000 and

was largely dismissed as the work of hard-liners. The report itself admitted

that the process of accomplishing this transformation was "likely to be a

long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event-like a new Pearl

Harbor."

FEW OF THE Project's participants had supported George W. Bush in his run

for the presidency, fearing that with his lack of foreign policy experience,

he would be shaped by the moderate Republicans who had dominated his

father's administration. But Richard Cheney, one of the Project's founders,

was named vice president and placed in charge of the transition. Suddenly

Project participants were in key foreign and military policy positions.

They immediately began to implement their strategic plan-withdrawing from

the anti-ballistic missile treaty, increasing military spending, and

beginning a missile defense program. But by the end of summer 2001, the

administration was in trouble. The president's approval rating had sunk to

51 percent, the Democrats had regained control of the Senate with the switch

of Sen. James Jeffords, and the economy was entering a recession.

Then came Sept. 11, the type of catastrophe the Project had posed as

necessary for the realization of its agenda. For them, it was the best thing

that could have happened.

The Project lost no time. Only days after 9/11, it released a letter arguing

that "even if evidence does not link Iraq directly to the attack, any

strategy aiming at the eradication of terrorism and its sponsors must

include a determined effort to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq."

That determined effort culminated in the war this spring. The real rationale

ultimately was not weapons of mass destruction, oil, human rights

violations, or any of the other reasons given publicly. It was, as had been

written two years earlier, the desire for a permanent role in the

strategically important Gulf region.

President Bush's 2002 State of the Union speech declared that "Our war on

terror is well begun, but it is only begun." He singled out Iraq, Iran, and

North Korea as "an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world."

In June, the president signaled his support for a pre-emptive war strategy,

saying that the United States is "ready for pre-emptive action when

necessary to defend our liberty and to defend our lives." By the end of the

year, this was the official policy of the administration, outlined in two

White House planning documents.

The strategy makes pre-emptive war official policy against "rogue states"

with the alleged potential to develop weapons of mass destruction. "To

forestall or prevent such hostile acts by our adversaries," the White House

documents say, "the United States will, if necessary, act pre-emptively." To

fight those countries the administration accuses of attaining (or even

seeking) weapons of mass destruction, the planning documents threaten its

own mass destruction: the possible first use of U.S. nuclear weapons.

Admitting that this is a "fundamental change from the past," the White House

documents state that U.S. military forces will use "pre-emptive measures"

against such states, including "the full range of operational

capabilities"-which many read as code for nuclear strikes. Indeed, this

year's defense authorization bill includes new, low-yield nuclear weapons,

including the "bunker buster."

The real or exaggerated fear of terrorism is being used to drive the

militarization of U.S. foreign policy. There are now U.S. troops in 130

countries around the world, permanent bases in 40, and a growing number of

others providing basing rights. The Wall Street Journal recently described

it as "one of the biggest shifts in U.S. military thinking in the past 50

years," and noted that the new strategy is "pushing U.S. forces into far

more remote and dangerous corners of the world." Defense Secretary Rumsfeld,

architect of the strategy, is "preparing U.S. forces for a future that could

involve lots of small, dirty fights in remote and dangerous places."

HOW DID A GROUP of little-known intellectuals gain the power to control an

administration? Partly by capitalizing on fear, with the American people

kept constantly on edge by color-coded terror warnings. Partly by keeping

the focus on one piece at a time-Afghanistan, Iraq, and now Iran. And partly

by their arrogant belief that there is ultimately no force that can defeat

them. It is the same hubris that always accompanies empire-a desire to

dominate the world through military power.

But there is an alternative to empire and endless war. The plan of the

Project for the New American Century must be countered with a vision that

insists militarization and pre-emptive war is not the path to real security.

We must advance the vision of a world where international institutions are

strengthened rather than destroyed, where global poverty is seriously

addressed, where all countries, including the United States, are disarming

their weapons of mass destruction, and where human rights are taken

seriously. People of faith and goodwill in this country and around the world

stood up by the millions to oppose the war against Iraq. We must now

continue that opposition-through doing justice, loving compassion, and

walking with God in the struggle.

* Powers That Be

Key participants in the Project for the New American Century and their

current positions in the Bush administration:

· Richard Cheney, Vice-President

· Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense

· Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense

· Peter Rodman, Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security

Affairs

· Richard Armitage, Deputy Secretary of State

· John Bolton, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International

Security

· Elliot Abrams, Senior Director for Near East, Southwest Asian, and North

African Affairs, National Security Council

· James Woolsey, former Director of Central Intelligence; member Defense

Policy Board

· Lewis Libby, Chief of Staff, Office of the Vice-President

**Duane Shank is issues and policy adviser for Sojourners.

Sojourners - September-October 2003

https://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=magazine.article&issue=soj0309&article

=030911

NeoCons Ignored in the Media

2006-10-19T01:25:00.000+02:00

NeoCons Ignored in the Media

>From the San Francisco Bay Guardian:

September 10, 2003

Censored!

Neocons' plans for global domination top the annual list of stories ignored

or downplayed by the mainstream media.

By Camille T. Taiara

IF THERE'S ONE influence that has shaped worldwide political events over the

past year, it's the extent to which the Bush administration has exploited

the events of Sept. 11, 2001, to solidify its military and economic control

of the world at the expense of democracy, true justice, and the environment.

But George W. Bush hasn't simply been responding to world events. The agenda

his administration has followed fits perfectly with a clearly defined plan

that's been in place for more than a decade.

The neoconservative blueprint for United States military domination is

hardly a secret. A group called the Project for a New American Century a

think tank founded by hawks who are now in prominent jobs in the White House

released a version of it three years ago. The document is shocking in its

candor: it asserts that the United States should be moving unilaterally to

assert military control around the globe, and that all that's necessary to

jump-start the effort is a "new Pearl Harbor."

Yet none of the major news media in this country have reported on this

document or on the fact that Bush is so closely following its script.

That's the biggest "censored" story in the nation last year, according to

Sonoma State University's Project Censored, a 27-year-old program dedicated

to shining some light on the shortcomings of the major news media.

Researchers at Sonoma State meticulously combed through news reports from

2002 and the first quarter of 2003 to find stories that didn't get the media

attention they deserved. This year's big stories include the attack on civil

liberties at home, Donald Rumsfeld's plan to provoke terrorists, and

treaty-busting by the United States.

In many cases, these stories got little or no play or else were presented

piecemeal, without any attempt to put the information in context.

"The stories this year reflect a clear danger to democracy and governmental

transparency in the U.S. and the corporate media's failure to alert the

public to these important issues," Project Censored director Peter Phillips

told the Bay Guardian. "The magnitude of total global domination has to be

the most important story we've uncovered in a quarter century."

What follows is the Bay Guardian's rundown of Project Censored's top 10

censored or underreported stories for last year:

1. The neoconservative plan for global dominance

"Terror: A question of when, not if" read the front-page headline of the

Sept. 7, 2002, San Francisco Chronicle. Americans, it argued, will just have

to get used to the fact that we're now engaged in a "perpetual war."

Later that day Bush went on TV to ask the nation for another $87 billion for

the fight against terrorism. But the concept of "perpetual war," and the

military strategy that comes with it of unilateralism, preemptive strikes,

and a "forward presence" in key regions throughout the globe is nothing

new. The Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon simply

provided the perfect rationale to implement existing plans.

Back in the early 1990s, hawks in Bush Sr.'s administration notably,

then-Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, with the help of General Colin Powell

and Paul Wolfowitz (at the time, Joint Chiefs of Staff chair and

Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, respectively) drew up a plan that

was virtually identical to the National Security Strategy unveiled in

September 2002.

Their blueprint first spelled out in a classified internal policy

statement in 1992 titled "Defense Planning Guidance" (later repeated in

Cheney's "Defense Strategy for the 1990s," formally released in January of

1993) called for the United States to assert its military superiority to

prevent the emergence of a new superpower rival.

It called for the United States to diversify its military presence

throughout the world, offered a policy of preemption, argued nuclear program

while discouraging those of other countries, and foresaw the need for the

United States to act alone, if need be, to protect its interests and those

of its allies. Sound familiar?

Yet the neocons knew they faced a hard sell as Bill Clinton took office.

"Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces, and Resources," a report

released by the Project for the New American Century in 2000, stated that

the United States needed a catastrophe "a new Pearl Harbor," as the

authors called it to jump-start the neocons' blueprint for

all-encompassing military and economic world dominance. (PNAC was founded by

none other than Cheney, Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Donald Rumsfeld, and other

former Reagan and Bush administration hawks.)

Then came the attacks of Sept. 11 just nine months after the Bush

administration took office. The events of that day provided the perfect

excuse for Cheney and company to finally see their plans to fruition.

Top on their list of targets was Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Within 24 hours of

the planes hitting the World Trade Center and Pentagon and without so much

as an inkling of evidence as to who had carried out the attacks Attorney

General John Ashcroft was already calling for war on Iraq, according to a

report by Bob Woodward in the Washington Post.

Indeed, the neocons have had the Persian Gulf in their crosshairs for 30

years now. Ever since the oil crisis of 1976 and the Gulf states'

nationalization of their petroleum industries in the years that preceded it,

the United States began building up forces in the region primarily in

Saudi Arabia and strengthening relationships with regional dictatorships.

The reasons seem simple: the region holds two-thirds of the world's oil.

"Control over the Persian Gulf translates into control over Europe, Japan,

and China," Hampshire College professor and Resource Wars author Michael

Klare told Mother Jones. "It's having our hand on the spigot."

Project Censored's sources: David Armstrong, Harper's Magazine, October

2002; Robert Dreyfuss, Mother Jones, March 2003; John Pilger,

pilger.carlton.com, 12/12/02.

2. Homeland security threatens civil liberties

The year 2002 ought to be remembered as the year when Big Brother came of

age. As the Pentagon waged unending war abroad in the name of battling

terrorism, the Bush administration pursued a parallel, wholesale war on

dissent at home, fusing foreign intelligence operations with domestic

security.

Agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation were granted sweeping

powers to spy on U.S. citizens. Civil liberties took the greatest hit in the

last 30 years as the feds consistently slashed away at our basic

constitutional rights including the right to privacy, to any semblance of

a fair trial in cases broadly defined as terrorism-related, and to the

freedoms of speech, association, and assembly.

The Bush administration undertook all this and much more by means of the USA

PATRIOT Act, executive orders, and the newly created Department of Homeland

Security.

On Oct. 1, 2002, the government established the Northern Command a branch

of the U.S. armed forces empowered to coordinate military "assistance" to

domestic law enforcement agencies. That was just the latest in a push to

allow the federal government to use the U.S. military against its own

citizens in the event of mass civil unrest. (That trend wasn't without

precedent: an anonymous Justice Department official reportedly told the

Seattle Weekly, in late December 1999, that the feds had deployed an elite

U.S. Army strike force by the name of the Delta Force, to infiltrate the

now-infamous anti-World Trade Organization demonstrations in that city weeks

earlier.)

Yet media coverage of such measures was piecemeal at best and failed to

shed light on the sordid details and ominous repercussions that accompanied

them.

But it gets worse: The administration is pushing the Domestic Security

Enhancement Act of 2003, dubbed Patriot Act II. Now that there's opposition,

the administration is trying to sneak major provisions through as riders in

other congressional bills.

"The second Patriot Act is a mirror image of powers that Julius Caesar and

Adolf Hitler gave themselves," Alex Jones wrote on www.rense.com.

Frank Morales, Global Outlook, Winter 2003; Alex Jones, www.rense.com,

2/11/03 and Global Outlook, Vol. 4; Charles Lewis and Adam Mayle, Center for

Public Integrity, 2/7/03.

3. U.S. illegally removes pages from Iraq U.N. report

Bush administration insiders often take extreme measures to protect their

own including those who supplied Saddam Hussein's regime with weapons of

mass destruction and training on how to use them.

Even as Bush urged military action against Iraq for the country's failure to

divulge details of its alleged chemical, biological, and nuclear arsenal,

the U.S. government covertly removed 8,000 of the 11,800 pages of the

weapons declaration the Iraqi government had submitted to the United Nations

Security Council and the International Atomic Energy Agency.

But the Iraqis released copies of the full report to key media outlets in

Europe. It turns out that the missing pages may have contained damning

details on 24 U.S.-based corporations, various federal departments and

nuclear weapons labs, and several high-ranking members of the Reagan and

Bush administrations that, from 1983 until 1990, helped supply Hussein with

botulinum toxins, anthrax, gas gangrene bacteria, the makings for nuclear

weapons, and associated instruction. Among those implicated: Eastman Kodak,

Dupont, Honeywell, Hewlett-Packard, Bechtel, the U.S. Department of Energy

and Department of Agriculture, the Livermore, Los Alamos, and Sandia nuclear

weapons labs, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfield.

Michael I. Niman, The Humanist and ArtVoice, March/April 2003.

4. Rumsfield's plan to provoke terrorists

Buried deep in one of its Sunday issues late last October, the Los Angeles

Times published a story by military analyst William Arkin about a slew of

secret armies the Pentagon had been creating around the world. One such

force caught the eye of Moscow Times columnist and regular CounterPunch

contributor Chris Floyd, who picked up on the tip and ran with it.

"According to a classified document prepared for Rumsfeld by his Defense

Science Board, the new organization the 'Proactive, Preemptive Operations

Group (dubbed the "Pee-Twos")' will carry out secret missions designed to

'stimulate reactions' among terrorist groups, provoking them into committing

violent acts which would then expose them to 'counterattack' by U.S.

forces," Floyd wrote.

In short, the alleged document seemed to show that the Pentagon was gearing

up to actively instigate terrorist acts, despite the risk to innocent

civilians. "The Pee-Twos will thus come in handy whenever the Regime hankers

to add a little oil-laden real estate or a new military base to the Empire's

burgeoning portfolio," Floyd continued. "Just find a nest of violent

malcontents, stir 'em with a stick, and presto: instant 'justification' for

whatever level of intervention/conquest/rapine you might desire." Or, he

proffers, just make them up after the fact.

Chris Floyd, CounterPunch, 11/1/02.

5. The effort to make unions disappear

What better way to make those pesky unions disappear than by branding them a

threat to national security? That's precisely what the neocons in the White

House and on Capitol Hill have been doing in a blatant move to break some

of the country's most powerful labor syndicates. And, so far, they've gotten

away with it.

Bush certainly not known as a stalwart of workers' rights invoked his

war on terrorism rhetoric in early October 2002 to force striking

International Longshore and Warehouse Union dock workers in Oakland back on

the job, thereby undermining the future of the ILWU's West Coast labor

agreement.

"Some $300 billion worth of cargo equivalent to 30 percent of U.S. gross

domestic product passes through ILWU members' hands each year," Lee Sustar

wrote in Z Magazine. (The ILWU is also renowned as one of the nation's most

progressive unions having shut down ports up and down the Pacific coast in

solidarity with Mumia Abu-Jamal and, later, the anti-WTO protesters in

Seattle during the '90s.)

Then, when the Bush administration created the Department of Homeland

Security, its Secretary Tom Ridge invoked similar reasoning to argue that

the department's employees be exempted from civil service regulations

governing pay scales, hiring and promotion practices, bans on

discrimination, whistle-blower protections, and last but not least

collective bargaining rights. The formation of the DHS accounted for the

largest restructuring of U.S. government since 1947 and brought together

more than 100 executive agencies under one roof equaling a total of

180,000 workers.

Immigrant workers also took a big hit. The federalization of airport

screeners caused thousands of noncitizens to lose their jobs. Others were

swept up by Immigration and Naturalization Service raids targeting not only

baggage screeners but also other airport workers, including food servers.

Lee Sustar, Z Magazine, 9/20/02; David Bacon, War Times, October-November

2002; Anne-Marie Cusac, The Progressive, February 2003; Robert L. Borosage,

The American Prospect, March 2003.

6. Closing access to information technology

All the stories that make up this year's Project Censored winners were

gleaned from alternative and international media sources. Likewise,

progressives quickly learned to seek out sources like CommonDreams.org,

truthout.org, and the U.K. Independent's Web site for the real news on the

latest war on Iraq. The Internet has functioned as the single most important

medium for accessing these kinds of information. But if the big

communications companies get their way, the Web could be compromised as a

democratic source of alternative news and perspectives. Soon, what we get

from the Web could be a carbon copy of what we already get from corporate

TV, cable, radio, and newspapers.

For several years now, businesses that provide access to the Web cable,

telephone, and (more recently) satellite companies have been working to

cash in on their control over distribution.

Unlike the companies controlling the telephone lines (which by law must

grant access to any company that wants to use them) the Federal

Communications Commission opted, in spring 2002, to grant cable companies

full control over who could use their cable networks and under what terms.

Cable companies can now manage the speed at which different sites pop up,

block out any content they choose, and even deny sites and ISPs access to

their lines altogether. Of course, the telephone companies have since been

lobbying for the same exclusive rights over DSL.

The telephone and cable lines are controlled by monopolies in most U.S.

cities and towns. (Comcast, now the world's largest cable company, exerts

sole control over cable lines serving almost one third of U.S. households

including San Francisco.) Without any open-access laws to preserve

competition, those monopolies are sure to hike up their rates, making it

more difficult for small businesses and nonprofits to stay online.

The thousands of ISPs currently available could dwindle down to just two or

three for any given region, as broadband distributors like AOL Time Warner

favor their own companies' ISPs over others. Customers might be forced to

pay more for a wider variety of sites, and companies could block whatever

sites they chose to.

Of course, the largest media conglomerates have already been merging with

the companies that provide Internet access to the vast majority of U.S.

households and that stand to gain handsomely from such a deal. So, is it any

wonder they've blacked out the story?

Arthur Stamoulis, Dollars and Sense, September 2002.

7. Treaty busting by the United States

Even as the Bush administration publicly demanded that terrorists be brought

to justice and that Iraq, Iran, and North Korea, and others dismantle their

(in Iraq's case, alleged) nuclear weapons programs, it consistently worked

to undermine hard-fought international agreements including numerous

treaties and the international court system meant to do just that.

Bush has resuscitated the Reagan-era missile defense program, pursued the

development of a "Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator" bomb and other small-size

nuclear weapons for use in its military campaigns abroad, declared its

intent to create bio-warfare-agent facilities at Lawrence Livermore and Los

Alamos labs, adopted a policy of preemptive military strikes, waged an

illegal war against Iraq, and actually voted to authorize a U.S. military

attack on the International Criminal Court in The Hague should the ICC dare

try any American for war crimes.

In fact, the United States has now "either blatantly violated or gradually

subverted" at least nine multilateral treaties on which it is a signatory,

Project Censored found. These include the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty,

the Chemical Weapons Commission, the Biological Weapons Convention, the

Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, the Treaty

Banning Antipersonnel Mines, the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, the U.N.

Convention on Climate Change, and the Rome Statute of the ICC.

All these action have been taken in the name of national security. Yet,

"this unprecedented rejection of and rapid retreat from global treaties ...

will render these treaties and conventions invalid without the support and

participation of the world's foremost superpower," wrote Project Censored's

authors.

Marylia Kelly and Nicole Deller, Connections, June 2002; John B. Anderson,

The Nation, April 2002; Eamon Martin, Ashville Global Report, June 20-26,

2002; John Valleau, Global Outlook, Summer 2002.

8. U.S. and British forces continue use of depleted uranium weapons despite

massive evidence of negative health effects

Former Sergeant First Class Carol Picou will never be the same after serving

in the first Gulf War. On the frontlines with a mobile medical unit, "I

noticed that all the bodies that were on the highways and the tanks and all

the armament that was damaged was burnt," the veteran nurse told Hustler

magazine last spring. "It was actually literally black, and I thought the

Iraqi people were black-skinned. It amazed me that they were burnt that bad

that we would have used some type of armament that would actually melt

these people into their vehicles."

Picou began experiencing serious health effects almost immediately. Back in

the United States, her muscles were deteriorating. She permanently lost

control of her bowels. She suffered from 104-degree fevers, and her skin

would break open and bleed. Rather than take care of Picou, who had served

in the armed forces since 1978, the Army medically discharged her against

her wishes in 1995.

"More than 9,600 of the relatively young Operation Desert Storm veterans

have died since serving in Iraq, a statistical anomaly" wrote Dan

Kapelovitz, the reporter who interviewed Picou. Of those still living, more

than a third upward of 236,000 have filed Gulf War Syndrome-related

claims with the Veteran's Administration.

Research overwhelmingly suggests these ailments and deaths were caused by

depleted uranium, a metal the military uses in much of its hardware that is

so dense it can pierce through steel-armored tanks. But this radioactive

material has a half-life of 4.5 billion years, according to renowned

scientist Helen Caldicott. In Iraq incidences of cancer, childhood leukemia,

and rare mutations in newborns have skyrocketed.

A study conducted by the U.S. Army in 1990, at least six months before the

first Gulf War, shows the U.S. government knew what the effects would be.

Nonetheless, the Americans and Brits dropped anywhere between 300 to 800

tons of the stuff on Iraq over the four-day assault. They've done nothing to

clean up the radioactive mess left behind.

"In effect, George Bush Sr. used weapons of mass destruction on his own

people," Kapelovitz continued.

But it didn't end there. The United States has since used depleted uranium

weapons in Kosovo, Bosnia, Afghanistan, and again during its most recent

assault on Iraq a fact that was reported in the European media but not

widely in the United States.

Dan Kaplevitz, Hustler Magazine, June 2003; Reese Erlich, Children of War,

March 2003.

9. In Afghanistan: poverty, women's rights, and civil disruption worse than

ever

Rather than allow the international community to supply sufficient security

forces to safeguard Afghan citizens from brutal warlords and thereby

create the foundation necessary for democracy and reconstruction the

United States has instead financed and armed regional warlords in its effort

to root out the last remaining al-Qaeda forces.

As a result, by October 2002 a year after the U.S. embarked on its

campaign to "liberate" that war-torn Central Asian country private armies

were estimated to be 700,000 strong. (The International Security Assistance

Force, in contrast, consists of a scant 5,000 troops only enough to

provide meager protection for Kabul, Afghanistan's capital.)

The practice has, in effect, strengthened the nation's endemic system of

military feudalism. The heroin trade has skyrocketed. Life expectancy is a

mere 46 years with more than one in four children not making it to their

fifth birthday. Only 10 percent of those who survived had access to an

education. In many regions the constraints placed on women's basic liberties

have reverted to those imposed by the Taliban. Per capita average yearly

income was only $280. And the basic infrastructure needed to reintroduce law

and order like a working justice system, banking institutions, a national

army remained a pipe dream.

In short, thanks to American policies, Afghanis are more forsaken than ever.

Yet, as far as the mainstream U.S. media are concerned, Afghanis' worst fear

has come true: Afghanistan has once again dropped off the corporate media's

radar and, with it, that of the American public.

Ahmed Rashid, The Nation, 10/14/02; Pranjal Tiwari, Left Turn,

February-March 2003; Jan Goodwin, The Nation, 4/29/02; Scott Carrier, with a

photo essay by Chien-Min Chung, Mother Jones, July-August 2002.

10. Africa faces new threat of new colonialism

Many Americans are now at least marginally aware of recent neoliberal

economic programs such as the Free Trade Area of the Americas and Plan

Colombia. But how many have heard of the New Partnership for Africa's

Development a plan being forwarded by the world's most powerful

industrialized nations?

NEPAD was launched at the G8 meeting in June 2002 presumably to help

combat poverty in Africa by encouraging outside investment. Curiously

enough, the architects of the program didn't bother to consult with

representatives of a single African nation while drawing up their plans.

Critics fear the program is just another bid by more powerful nations to

exploit the continent's last remaining natural resources at the expense of

Africans themselves.

First-world meddling has already wrought havoc on Africa. During the cold

war, the United States alone injected $1.5 billion worth of weaponry and

training into the continent now the most war-torn in the world. From 1991

to 1995 the U.S. increased its military contributions to 50 out of Africa's

53 nations. Millions have died from war, displacement, disease, and

starvation as a result.

Meanwhile, structural adjustment programs force-fed to African nations by

the IMF, World Bank, and G8 in the name of development have only resulted in

the continent's foreign debt rising by a whopping 500 percent over the past

20 years. More of the same isn't likely to help.

Michelle Robidoux, Left Turn, July-August 2002; Asad Ismi, Briarpatch, Vol.

32, No. 1 (excerpted from the CCPA Monitor, October 2002); Tewolde Berhan

Gebre Egziabher, New Internationalist, January-February 2003. Project

Censored awards ceremony and book-release party, with keynote speaker

Cynthia McKinney, MC Larry Bensky, and progressive journalists and

intellectuals, takes place Oct. 4, 6 p.m., Jewish Cultural Center, 200 San

Pedro, San Rafael. $25. (707) 664-3373, www.projectcensored.org. E-mail

Camille T. Taiara at camilleTK@sfbg.com. Runners-up

Project Censored's other picks for 2002

11. U.S. implicated in Taliban massacre Kendra Sarvadi, Asheville Global

Report; Adam Porter, In These Times.

12. Bush administration behind failed military coup in Venezuela Duncan

Campbell and Greg Palast, The London Guardian; Joe Taglieri, Global Outlook;

Karen Talbot, People's Weekly World; Jon Beasley-Murray, NACLA Report on the

Americas.

13. Corporate personhood challenged Thom Hartmann, CommonDreams and Impact

Press; Thom Hartmann, Wild Matters; Jim Hightower, The Hightower Lowdown.

14. Unwanted refugees a global problem Daniel Swift, In These Times; Charles

Bowden, Mother Jones; Bill Frelick, Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.

15. U.S. military' war on the earth Bob Feldman, Dollars and Sense; David S.

Mann and Glenn Milner, Washington Free Press; John Passacantando, Wild

Matters.

16. Plan Puebla-Panama and the FTAA Miguel Pickard, CorpWatch.org; Timi

Gerson, Public Citizen's Trade Watch; Tom Hansen and Jason Wallach,

Labornotes; Rachel Coen, Asheville Global Report and Extra!

17. Clear Channel monopoly draws criticism Jeff Perlstein, MediaFile.

18. Charter forest proposal threatens access to public lands Kristin

Robison, Earth First! Journal; Jon Margolis, American Prospect.

19. U.S. dollar vs. the euro: another reason for the invasion of Iraq

William Clark, The Sierra Times; Cóilín Nunan, FEASTA; William Greider, The

Nation.

20. Pentagon increases private military contracts Nelson D. Schwartz,

Fortune; Pratap Chatterjee, CorpWatch.org; Antony Barnett, The London

Observer.

21. Third world austerity policies: coming soon to a city near you Greg

Palast, Harper's Magazine; Michael Parenti, Covert Action Quarterly;

Gabriella Bocagrande, The Texas Observer.

22. Welfare reform up for reauthorization but still no safety net Barbara

Ehrenreich and Frances Fox Piven, Mother Jones; Neil deMause, In These

Times; Dave Hage, The American Prospect; Heather Boushey, Dollars and Sense.

23. Argentina crisis sparks cooperative growth Lisa Garrigues, Yes!

Magazine; Leif Utne, Utne Magazine.

24. U.S. aid to Israel fuels repressive occupation in Palestine John

Steinbach, Covert Action Quarterly; Matt Bowles, Left Turn; Bob Wing, War

Times.

25. Convicted corporations receive perks instead of punishment Emad Mekay,

Asheville Global Report; Ken Silverstein, Mother Jones.

Paul Krugman on the Radical Right

2006-10-19T01:24:00.000+02:00

Paul Krugman on the Radical Right

June 13, 2003

Some Crazy Guy

By PAUL KRUGMAN
NY TIMES
professor of economics at Princeton

Last year I tried to illustrate just how far to the right America's ruling party has moved by quoting some of Representative Tom DeLay's past remarks. I got some puzzling responses. "Who cares what some crazy guy in Congress says?" wrote one liberal economist, chiding me for being alarmist.

Some crazy guy? Public images are funny things. Newt Gingrich became a famous symbol of Republican radicalism. By contrast, most people know little about Mr. DeLay, the House majority leader. Yet Mr. DeLay is more radical ( and more powerful ) than Mr. Gingrich ever was.

Maybe Mr. DeLay's public profile will be raised by his success yesterday in sabotaging tax credits for 12 million children. Those tax credits would cost only $3.5 billion. But Mr. DeLay has embedded the credits in an $82 billion tax cut package. That is, he wants to extort $22 in tax cuts (in the face of record budget deficits) for every dollar given to poor children.

But the really important stories about Mr. DeLay, a central figure in the impeachment of Bill Clinton, involve his continuing drive to give his party a permanent lock on power.

Consider the case of Westar Energy, whose chief executive was indicted for fraud. The subsequent investigation turned up e-mail in which executives described being solicited by Republican politicians for donations to groups linked to Mr. DeLay, in return for a legislative "seat at the table." The provision Westar wanted was duly inserted into an energy bill. (Republican leaders deny that there was any quid pro quo.)

There's every reason to believe that the Westar case is unusual only in the fact that the transaction came to light. Under Mr. DeLay's leadership, Republicans have established a huge fund-raising advantage, based not just on promises ó special interests have always been able to buy favorable policies, but never so brazenly ó but also on threats. Mr. DeLay pioneered the "K Street strategy," which ó in a radical break with tradition ó punishes lobbying firms that try to maintain good relations with both parties.

Then there's the Texas redistricting story.

Normally states redraw Congressional districts once a decade: Texas redistricted after the 2000 census. But under Mr. DeLay's leadership, Texas Republicans are trying to increase their advantage in seats with a second redistricting. This in itself is an unprecedented power grab.

But it gets worse. Texas Democrats responded with a parliamentary maneuver, walking out to deprive the state Legislature of a quorum. In response, hundreds of state law enforcement officers were diverted from crime-fighting to search for the missing Democrats ó assisted, yes, by the Department of Homeland Security.

A telling anecdote: When an employee tried to stop Mr. DeLay from smoking a cigar on government property, the majority leader shouted, "I am the federal government." Not quite, not yet, but he's getting there.

So what will Mr. DeLay and his associates do with their lock on power, once it is firmly established? They will push through a radical right-wing agenda. For example, expect to see much less environmental protection: Mr. DeLay has described the Environmental Protection Agency as "the Gestapo."

Above all, expect to see the wall between church and state come tumbling down. Mr. DeLay has said that he went into politics to promote a "biblical worldview," and that he pursued President Clinton because he didn't share that view. Where would this worldview be put into effect? How about the schools: after the Columbine school shootings, Mr. DeLay called a press conference in which he attributed the tragedy to the fact that students are taught the theory of evolution.

There's no point in getting mad at Mr. DeLay and his clique: they are what they are. I do, however, get angry at moderates, liberals and traditional conservatives who avert their eyes, pretending that current disputes are just politics as usual. They aren't ó what we're looking at here is a radical power play, which if it succeeds will transform our country. Yet it's considered uncool to point that out.

Many of those who minimize the threat the radical right now poses to America as we know it would hate to live in the country Mr. DeLay wants to create. Yet by playing down the seriousness of the challenge, they help bring his vision closer to reality.

Pro-Israel Hawks and the Second Gulf War

2006-10-18T01:40:00.000+02:00

Pro Israel Hawks in Washington

Joel Beinin

(Joel Beinin, a contributing editor of Middle East Report, is a professor of Middle East history at Stanford University.)

April 6, 2003

On the eve of the Second Gulf War, Rep. James Moran (D-VA) told a meeting of his constituents that "if it were not for the strong support of the Jewish community for this war with Iraq, we would not be doing this." Leaders of the organized Jewish community of greater Washington, along with several of Moran's fellow Congressional Democrats, seized upon these remarks and forced the representative to issue a rather pathetic retraction. Though this incident had no practical policy implications, the brief media furor that followed Moran's comment enacted yet again the drama of US-Middle East relations as both the conservative elements of the Jewish community and many critics of US support for Israel, including many Arabs and Muslims, understand it. For the first group, it is necessary to maintain constant vigilance lest anti-Semitism and anti-Israel sentiment, which they tend to consider nearly indistinguishable, run amok and undermine the security of both Israel and American Jews. For the second group, Moran's quick apology demonstrated once more the power of the Zionist lobby over not only US Middle East policy, but also what can be said in public about that policy.

Both these understandings are wrong. They are advanced in large part to promote the power of particular kinds of leaders in domestic politics and to obscure differences within the Arab and Jewish communities. Organizations like the B'nai B'rith Anti-Discrimination Committee want to strengthen the notion that any criticism of Israel is a form of anti-Semitism. Many Arab-American leaders have been reluctant to point out the extent to which Arab regimes have collaborated with the United States and Israel in blocking democracy and economic development in the Arab world, and in fueling a regional arms race. Right-wing critics of Israel, like Patrick Buchanan, appeal to old-fashioned faith in American moral purity when they ascribe all malign aspects of US Middle East policy to the corrupting influence of the pro-Israel lobby.

It is undoubtedly true that a group of neo-conservative true believers linked to Israel's Likud Party have become extremely influential in shaping George W. Bush's Middle East policy. But it is not the case that Israel and its Jewish supporters in the second Bush administration have somehow hijacked US Middle East policy to promote a war with Iraq. Many of those involved in pushing for an attack on Iraq are not Jewish -– most prominently Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. The link between the most hawkish elements of the pro-Israel lobby and the second Bush administration is based on a confluence of interests and ideology, not ethnicity.

THE LOBBY'S INFLUENCE

The pro-Israel lobby, whose principal Jewish component is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), became a significant force in shaping public opinion and US Middle East policy after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. Its power was simultaneously enabled and enhanced by Israel's emergence as a regional surrogate for US military power in the Middle East in the terms outlined by the 1969 Nixon Doctrine. In the 1970s and 1980s, the lobby was able to unseat representatives and senators who could not be counted on to support Israel without qualification, such as Sen. Charles Percy (R-IL), Rep. Paul Findley (R-OH) and Rep. Pete McCloskey (R-CA). In 2002, the pro-Israel lobby successfully targeted African-American representatives Earl Hilliard (D-AL) and Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) for defeat in Democratic primaries. Hilliard and McKinney were both vulnerable for reasons unrelated to Israel. McKinney, for instance, was defeated in part because the open primary allowed Republicans angered over her comments about the September 11 attacks to cross over and vote against her in the Democratic primary. Nonetheless, their defeat enhanced the impression that the pro-Israel lobby wields great power in electoral politics.

The establishment of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) in 1985 greatly expanded the lobby's influence over policy as well. WINEP's founding director, Martin Indyk, had previously been research director of AIPAC which, then as now, focuses much of its efforts on Congress. Indyk developed WINEP into a highly effective think tank devoted to maintaining and strengthening the US-Israel alliance through advocacy in the media and lobbying the executive branch.

On the eve of the 1988 presidential elections, with the first Palestinian intifada underway, WINEP made its bid to become a major player in US Middle East policy discussions by issuing a report entitled "Building for Peace: An American Strategy for the Middle East." The report urged the incoming administration to "resist pressures for a procedural breakthrough [on Palestinian-Israeli peace issues] until conditions have ripened." Six members of the study group responsible for the report joined the first Bush administration, which adopted this stalemate recipe not to change until change was unavoidable. Hence, the US acceded to Israel's refusal to negotiate with the Palestine Liberation Organization despite the PLO's recognition of Israel at the November 1988 session of the Palestine National Council.

After the 1991 Gulf War, the first Bush administration felt obliged to offer a reward to its Arab wartime allies by making an effort to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict. It convened a one-day international conference at Madrid in October followed by eleven sessions of bilateral Palestinian-Israeli negotiations in Washington. These talks were fruitless, in part because Israel still refused to negotiate with Palestinians who were official representatives of the PLO. Then, as now, Israel preferred to choose the Palestinians with whom it would negotiate.

When Israel became serious about attempting to reach an agreement with the Palestinians, it circumvented the US-sponsored negotiations in Washington (and the pro-Israel lobby) and spoke directly to representatives of the PLO in Oslo. The result was the 1993 Oslo Declaration of Principles. Thus, the adoption of WINEP's policy recommendation to "resist pressures for a procedural breakthrough" by both the Bush and Clinton administrations delayed the start of meaningful Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, contributed to the demonization of the PLO and multiplied the casualty rate of the first Palestinian intifada.

Despite what might reasonably be judged as a major policy failure, WINEP's influence grew, especially in the mass media. Its associates, especially deputy director Patrick Clawson, director for policy and planning Robert Satloff and senior fellow Michael Eisenstadt, appear frequently on television and radio talk shows as commentators on Middle East issues. Its board of advisors includes Mortimer Zuckerman, editor-in-chief of U.S. News & World Report, and Martin Peretz, editor-in-chief of The New Republic.

"DUAL CONTAINMENT"

WINEP's advocacy extended to matters far beyond the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Well before most Americans took note of radical Islam as a potential threat to their security, for instance, WINEP and its associates were promoting the notion that Israel is a reliable US ally against the spread of Islamism. After Israel expelled over 400 alleged Palestinian Islamist activists from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in December 1992, Israeli television Middle East analyst and WINEP associate Ehud Yaari wrote an op-ed in the New York Times summarizing his Hebrew television report of a vast US-based conspiracy to fund Hamas. WINEP's 1992 annual Soref Symposium -- "Islam and the US: Challenges for the Nineties" –- focused on whether or not Islam was a danger to the United States. At that event, Martin Indyk argued that the US ought not to encourage democracy in countries that were friendly to Washington, like Jordan and Egypt, and that political participation should be limited to secular parties. This recommendation seemed like a formula for ensuring that Islamist forces would forsake legal political action and engage in armed struggle -– precisely what happened in Egypt from 1992 to 1997.

The Clinton administration was even more thoroughly colonized by WINEP associates than its predecessor. Eleven signatories of the final report of WINEP's 1992 commission on US-Israeli relations, "Enduring Partnership," joined the Clinton administration. Among them were National Security Advisor Anthony Lake, UN Ambassador and later Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Undersecretary of Commerce Stuart Eisenstat and the late Les Aspin, Clinton's first secretary of defense. Shortly after assuming office in 1993, the Clinton administration announced a policy of "dual containment" aimed at isolating Iran and Iraq. The principal formulator and spokesperson for that policy was Martin Indyk, in his new role as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Near East and South Asian Affairs at the National Security Council. "Dual containment" was the forerunner of George W. Bush's "axis of evil" policy.

HAWKS ASCENDANT

In the current Bush administration, however, WINEP's influence has been outflanked on the right by individuals linked to more monolithically neo-conservative and hawkish think tanks like the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) and the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), established in 1997 and chaired by William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard. Before they entered the administration, JINSA's board of advisors included Cheney, Undersecretary of State John Bolton and Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith. Richard Perle, recently compelled to resign from the chairmanship of the quasi-governmental Defense Policy Board under a cloud of scandal, still serves on the board of JINSA. PNAC affiliates include Cheney and his chief of staff Lewis Libby, Rumsfeld and his deputy Paul Wolfowitz, Bolton, special envoy to "Free Iraqis" Zalmay Khalilzad, Secretary of State Colin Powell's deputy Richard Armitage and Elliott Abrams, a rehabilitated Iran-contra criminal who now serves as National Security Council adviser for the Middle East. JINSA and PNAC, along with a similar think tank called the Center for Security Policy, combine WINEP's vocal advocacy for the US-Israeli alliance with calls for greatly increased US defense spending and unapologetic US intervention abroad.

Where WINEP and AIPAC tend to hew to the line of whichever Israeli government is in power, JINSA associates align themselves with the territorial ambitions of the Israeli right. As early as July 8, 1996, Perle, Feith and a special assistant to John Bolton named David Wurmser sought to make common cause with the Likud Party for a war against Iraq. Perle presented a position paper prepared in consultation with Feith, Bolton, Wurmser and others to newly elected Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The paper, written under the auspices of the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies based in Washington and Jerusalem and entitled "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm," advocated that Israel repudiate the Oslo accords and seek permanent annexation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Even more provocatively, it urged Israel to support Jordan in advocating restoration of the Hashemite monarchy in Iraq and the elimination of the regime of Saddam Hussein -- "an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right."

The "Clean Break" paper appealed to the Likud's general strategic vision. A preemptive war against Iraq would legitimate the principle of using force to solve diplomatic and political problems, which Israel has done on several occasions, most grandly in the wars of 1956, 1967 and 1982. Two days after receiving a copy of the "Clean Break" paper, Netanyahu delivered an address to a joint session of Congress embracing several of its propositions. The Wall Street Journal published excerpts from the paper the same day and editorially endorsed it on July 11.

For its part, on January 26, 1998, PNAC sent a letter to President Bill Clinton urging that he launch a war against Iraq. The signatories included Kristol, Cheney, Libby, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Bolton, Perle, Abrams, Khalilzad and Armitage. Unhappy that Clinton did not take their advice, the same group repeated their proposals in letters to Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and Senate majority leader Trent Lott on May 29, 1998. The result of efforts by PNAC and others was the passage of the Iraq Liberation Act of November 1998, which announced the switch in US Iraq policy from disarmament to regime change. This legislation was adopted weeks before Clinton ordered the UNSCOM inspectors out of Iraq and launched Operation Desert Fox –- four days of intensive bombing.

OPPORTUNITY

Soon after the September 11 attacks, Perle convened a two-day seminar of the Defense Policy Board. The consensus of those attending was that removing Saddam Hussein from power should be an objective in the US war on terrorism despite the lack of any evidence linking Iraq to the attacks or to al-Qaeda. The Defense Policy Board then sent former CIA director and JINSA board member James Woolsey to London to gather evidence linking Iraq to the terrorist attacks. He announced that Muhammad Atta, alleged ringleader of the September 11 hijackers, had met with an Iraqi intelligence agent, Ahmad al-Ani, in Prague. That claim has been repeatedly disputed by Czech domestic intelligence officials, but it has contributed significantly to the widespread belief among Americans that Iraq was behind the destruction of the World Trade Center.

On September 20, 2001, Perle and several other Defense Policy Board members sent an open letter to Bush. "Even if evidence does not link Iraq directly to the [September 11] attack, any strategy aiming at the eradication of terrorism and its sponsors must include a determined effort to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq," they wrote. "Failure to undertake such an effort will constitute an early and perhaps decisive surrender in the war on international terrorism."

CONFLUENCE OF INTERESTS

Perle also sits on the advisory board of WINEP, the more established pro-Israel think tank in Washington (as did Wolfowitz before he entered government). While JINSA and PNAC urged action in Iraq, WINEP continued to counsel inaction on the Israeli-Palestinian front. In the spring of 2002, Robert Satloff, WINEP's director of policy and planning, co-chaired a 52-member group of "experts" and members of Congress who concurred with the Bush administration position "that circumstances were not ripe for high-level efforts to restart the peace negotiations, and that the most urgent task was to prevent a regional war while fighting terrorism and weapons proliferation." The advice, once again, was not to change until change is unavoidable –- a policy which allows Israel to assert its overwhelming military advantage and to continue to create facts on the ground, especially settlements, which will make peace all the more difficult to achieve in the future.

The interests of the pro-Israel lobby and the attack-Iraq caucus of the second Bush administration have converged, and are to a significant degree represented by the same people. That is not to say that the interests they are pursuing overlap completely. For the neo-conservatives operating under the patronage of Cheney and Rumsfeld, the immediate interests are demonstrating that the overwhelming military power of the US can and will be efficaciously deployed to make and unmake regimes and guarantee access to oil. Destroying the Iraqi regime and installing a long-term US military presence in the Persian Gulf of even greater magnitude than now exists will remove the present limited threat to US oil interests in the region. It would reduce the need to conciliate the Saudis or the Russians or to develop alternative sources of energy. With the Second Gulf War, the neo-conservatives aim to establish the principle, in the extraordinarily hubristic words of President George H. W. Bush after the 1991 Gulf war, that "what we say goes." This agenda is far broader than that of the traditional pro-Israel lobby, although Ariel Sharon and his supporters are amenable to it and will seek to exploit it for Israel's purposes to the maximum extent possible.