Links to a Collection of Articles (January 24, 2004)
"I pain for our democratic process when I find individuals
not angered at being deceived."
USAF Colonel (Ret.) Sam Gardiner
After the wonderful performance of USA President George
W. Bush in giving his 2004 State of the Union address I
watched the DVD "Uncovered: The Whole Truth about the
Iraq War." That was quite a Gestalt-switch of some
sorts. The State of the Union address provided a fair dose
of glowing, self-congratulatory, patriotic rhetoric. The
DVD provided a sober assessment of the deceptions, lies
and manipulations of President Bush and his associates Rumsfeld,
Cheney, Powell and Rice. Very poignant were the moments
when statements by Bush in his 2003 State of the Union address
were contrasted with the analyses of high-level CIA, Foreign
Service and military experts.
Find below another batch of articles. On top of the list
is the DVD just mentioned. Buy it and share it with your
friends. It will save you a lot of dry reading and studying.
This is not a collection of rantings of some radical anti-war
ideologues. These are the government experts the Bush administration
willfully ignored.
Included are the perspectives from the three main political
positions: Conservative (Buchanan), Liberal (Meachan) and
Libertarian (Hornberger). The remarkable thing here is how
much these views overlap, even while their differences will
provide some necessary nuances and depth to the whole picture.
The article by Meachan, who was Blair's environment minister,
is a most economic, exhaustive and factual display of the
case against the invasion of Iraq and casts quite some doubt
on the official version of the events of 9/11, which, BTW,
will be subject of a later batch of articles.
Though the exposés of the closely knit cabal of
so-called 'neo-conservatives' and their influence on American
foreign policy, should be well known by now to anyone doing
some independent reading, this issue made it to the number
one spot on Project Censored's Top Ten list of underreported
stories. For those who want an even deeper assessment of
this group and its roots in Trotskyite socialism should
read Trifkovic's article in which the writer argues that
these neo-cons are not so much 'redesigned Trotskyites'
but have more in common with Stalinism and German National
Socialism. The United States for them, according to Trifkovic,
is merely "the host organism for the exercise of their
Will to Power."
Finding historical precedents for America's imperial adventure,
and possibly learning from them, is what Chalmers Johnson
is up to in his book length study The Sorrows of Empire.
The well-documented precedent is the story of how the Roman
Republic devolved into an empire.
Some military intellectuals also came out with strong indictments
of the military policies of the Bush administration. Dr.
Jeffrey Record analyses the sloppy strategic thinking behind
the global war on terrorism (GWOT) and concludes that it
resulted in an "unnecessary preventive war of choice"
diverting attention and resources away from battling al-Qaeda.
Col. Sam Gardiner presents 50 propaganda stories, which
were concocted by the administration in order to promote
its policy of invading Iraq. Rumsfeld called it "strategic
influence," not in order to change the behavior of
Hussein and his government, but to manipulate the mind-set
of the American people.
Another, very recent, perspective should be added and that's
one coming from Stratfor,
an organization selling geo-political and economic intelligence.
As there is no link to the full article a little summary
with key quotes will have to do instead. In their Stratfor
Weekly of 21 January 2004, titled "Beyond Iraq,"
the writer, without any hint of outrage or moral indignation,
presents the analysis that the two main strategic reasons
for invading Iraq do indeed have a connection with the global
war on terrorism, but, paradoxically, nothing with the Iraqi
regime itself. "First, the United States had to establish
its ability to carry out extensive military operations to
the conclusion, despite casualties" and second "Iraq
-- bordering on Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, Turkey
and Iran -- was the single most strategic country in the
region, and a base from which to exert intense pressure
throughout the region." The absence of any mention
of alleged Iraqi WMDs, links with Al-Qaeda or non-compliance
with U.N. resolutions might be taken as a silent admittance
of their strategic non-relevance, even non-existence. Just
to make himself clear the writer paraphrases his point,
indeed worth repeating: "By invading, occupying and
pacifying Iraq, the United States would be able to reverse
the perception of American weakness. In addition, U.S. forces
based in the Iraqi pivot, would force fundamental reconsiderations
of national strategies in Saudi Arabia, Iran and Syria --
and in other countries also."
Is there a perspective to tie together all these different
analyses, facts and conjectures? A fruitful working hypothesis
might be the following: The United States of America, since
its foundation, and initially by example, has been a clear
and present danger to all forces of repression, intolerance,
autocracy, militarism, fundamentalism, etc, etc. As no cabal
in charge of the levers of state power has ever succeeded
in militarily defeating the USA-not the British Empire,
Spanish Empire, militaristic Japan, fascist Germany or Soviet
Russia--the second best strategy is infiltration and deception
and bring down this experiment of self-governance without
a shot. How? Well, either by dissolving it into a supra-national
body like the United Nations, or by pushing it into imperial
over-stretch and make it spend itself into moral, social,
political, financial and, most priced, constitutional bankruptcy.
Both long-term policies, of dissolving sovereignty and of
empire building, are pursued with single-minded determination
by foreign-affiliated families, think tanks, semi-secret
societies and their members in the seats of power of the
US Government.
It is a very complex and multi-generational story with
many shadings and subtleties, startling and confusing at
first sight, but consistent when seen over time and from
a distance. There are many doors providing access, if you
are diligent enough to proceed, to the same grand narrative.
Watergate, the JFK assassination, the Free World support
of Communism and Fascism, Pearl Harbor, the Federal Reserve
System, the trans-national corporations, the failing war
on drugs, the suppression of cancer cures, etc. These are
some of the stories finding their way as sub-plots into
the larger one, but only when you keep asking the three
classic questions after motive, means and opportunity and
pursue them in a wider context. In the final analysis all
the intelligent, good-willed citizens of this world provide
the greatest opportunity for these cabals to go their way,
as the people are apparently "not angered at being
deceived" again and again.
P.S.: Latest news as of Januari 23, 2004: "David Kay,
who led the American effort to find banned weapons in Iraq,
said Friday after stepping down from his post that he has
concluded that Iraq had no stockpiles of chemical and biological
weapons at the start of the war last year." (NYT, 1/23/04)
[See also: First, second
and third collection of articles
regarding War and Truth]
====================================
Title: "Uncovered: The Whole Truth about the Iraq War"
(DVD/Video)
Producer/Director: Robert Greenwald
URL: http://www.truthuncovered.com/
transcript/index.cfm (transcript)
Excerpt: "Iraq, and we have very good intelligence
on this, was not part of the picture of terrorism before
we invaded. Saddam Hussein and bin Laden were enemies. Bin
Laden considered and said that Saddam Hussein was the socialist
infidel. These were very different kinds of individuals
competing for power in their own way. And Saddam Hussein
made very sure that Al-Qaeda couldn't function in Iraq,
that terrorists couldn't function, except for the small
northeastern quadrant of the country where there was an
extremist group. But he had no control over that. It was
near the Iranian border." Mel Goodman, 20 year Senior
CIA Analyst.
====================================
Title: "Bush's New Morally Bankrupt PR Campaign on
Terrorism and Iraq"
Author: Jacob J. Hornberger (founder and president of The
Future of Freedom Foundation)
Source: The Future of Freedom Foundation
URL: http://www.fff.org/comment/com0310e.asp
Excerpt: "The Bush administration is at it once again
- engaging in a new
public-relations campaign to scare the American people half
to death with the possibility of terrorist attacks with
weapons of mass destruction and to garner support for its
invasion and continued occupation of Iraq, which has not
only cost the lives of thousands of Iraqis and hundreds
of Americans but which now has also become an economic black
hole that threatens the economic security of our nation
by sucking hundreds of billions of dollars out of the pockets
of the American people."
====================================
Title: "This War on Terrorism is Bogus"
Author: Michael Meacher MP (environment minister in Blair's
cabinet from May 1997 to June 2003)
Source: The Guardian (Saturday September 6, 2003)
URL: http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/comment/
0,12956,1036687,00.html
Excerpt: "The plan shows Bush's cabinet intended to
take military control of the Gulf region whether or not
Saddam Hussein was in power. It says '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.'
… The conclusion of all this analysis must surely be
that the 'global war on terrorism' has the hallmarks of
a political myth propagated to pave the way for a wholly
different agenda - the US goal of world hegemony, built
around securing by force command over the oil supplies required
to drive the whole project."
====================================
Title: "Whose War?"
Author: Patrick J. Buchanan
Source: The American Conservative (March 24, 2003)
URL: http://www.amconmag.com/03_24_03/cover.html
Excerpt: "We charge that a cabal of polemicists and
public officials seek to ensnare our country in a series
of wars that are not in America's interests. We charge them
with colluding with Israel to ignite those wars and destroy
the Oslo Accords. We charge them with deliberately damaging
U.S. relations with every state in the Arab world that defies
Israel or supports the Palestinian people's right to a homeland
of their own. We charge that they have alienated friends
and allies all over the Islamic and Western world through
their arrogance, hubris, and bellicosity."
====================================
Title: "Neocoservatism: Where Trotsky Meets Stalin
And Hitler"
Author: Srdja Trifkovic
Source: Chronicles Magazine
URL: http://www.mail-archive.com/
ctrl@listserv.aol.com/msg107326.html
Excerpt: "Blanket depictions of neoconservatives as
redesigned Trotskyites need to be corrected in favor of
a more nuanced analysis. In several important respects the
neoconservative world outlook has diverged from the Trotskyite
one and acquired some striking similarities with Stalinism
and German National Socialism. Today's neoconservatives
share with Stalin and Hitler an ideology of nationalist
socialism and internationalist imperialism. The similarities
deserve closer scrutiny and may contribute to a better understanding
of the most influential group in the U.S. foreign policy-making
community."
====================================
Title: "US Plan for Global Domination Tops Project
Censored's Annual List"
Author: Kari Lydersen
Source: AlterNet, September 17, 2003
URL: http://www.alternet.org/story/16784/
Excerpt: "Most of the stories on Project Censored's
Top Ten relate to the US's war on terrorism and the invasion
of Iraq. On the one hand, this emphasis indicates how the
issue dominates the news, but on the other, how few news
consumers really understand very little about how it happened
and why. Taken together, these stories paint a chilling
picture of a long-ranging plan to dominate huge sections
of the globe militarily and economically, and to silence
dissent, curb civil liberties and undermine workers' rights
in the course of it."
====================================
Title: "Review of Chalmers Johnson's The Sorrows of
Empire"
Author: Stanley Kutler (author of The Wars of Watergate)
Source: History News Network (taken over from Los Angeles
Times)
URL: http://hnn.us/articles/3015.html
Excerpt: "Johnson has given us a polemic, but one
soundly grounded in an impressive array of facts and data.
The costs of empire are our sorrow, he contends. He anticipates
a state of perpetual war, involving more military expenditures
and overseas expansion, and presidents who will continue
to eclipse or ignore Congress. He documents a growing system
of propaganda, disinformation and glorification of war and
military power. Finally, he fears economic bankruptcy as
the president underwrites these adventures with a congressional
blank check while neglecting growing problems of education,
health care and a decaying physical infrastructure.
The Sorrows of Empire offers a powerful indictment
of current U.S. military and foreign policy. It also provides
an occasion to consider the constitutional values of our
republic. A national frenzy erupted when Bill Clinton lied
under oath about his sexual encounters. The media obsessed
on the subject. His enemies passionately exalted the Holy
Writ of the Constitution with religious-like devotion. Their
silence now is deafening. Loyalty to the flag and the president
seems more important, but these are not mandated constitutional
principles. Would that these erstwhile defenders of constitutional
faith and purity had expressed similar fervor in defense
of the Constitution during the last two years."
====================================
Title: "Bounding the Global War on Terrorism"
Author: Dr. Jeffrey Record (professor in the Department
of Strategy and International Security at the US Air Force's
Air War College)
Source: Strategic Studies Institute (December 2003)
URL: http://www.carlisle.army.mil/ssi/pubs/
2003/bounding/bounding.htm
Excerpt: "In the wake of the September 11, 2001, al-Qaeda
terrorist attacks on the United States, the US Government
declared a global war on terrorism (GWOT). The nature and
parameters of that war, however, remain frustratingly unclear.
The administration has postulated a multiplicity of enemies,
including rogue states; weapons of mass destruction (WMD)
proliferators; terrorist organizations of global, regional,
and national scope; and terrorism itself. It also seems
to have conflated them into a monolithic threat, and in
so doing has subordinated strategic clarity to the moral
clarity it strives for in foreign policy and may have set
the United States on a course of open-ended and gratuitous
conflict with states and nonstate entities that pose no
serious threat to the United States.
Of particular concern has been the conflation of al-Qaeda
and Saddam Hussein's Iraq as a single, undifferentiated
terrorist threat. This was a strategic error of the first
order because it ignored critical differences between the
two in character, threat level, and susceptibility to US
deterrence and military action.
The result has been an unnecessary preventive war of choice
against a deterred Iraq that has created a new front in
the Middle East for Islamic terrorism and diverted attention
and resources away from securing the American homeland against
further assault by an undeterrable al-Qaeda. The war against
Iraq was not integral to the Global War on Terrorism, but
rather a detour from it."
====================================
Title: "America's Ministry of Propaganda Exposed"
Author: Gar Smith
Source: The-Edge (November 7, 2003)
URL: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=79
Excerpt: "In mid-October, the former ambassador [Joseph
Wilson] began passing copies of an embarrassing internal
report to reporters across the US. The-Edge has received
copies of this document.
The 56-page investigation was assembled by USAF Colonel
(Ret.) Sam Gardiner. 'Truth from These Podia: Summary of
a Study of Strategic Influence, Perception Management, Strategic
Information Warfare and Strategic Psychological Operations
in Gulf II' [for links see below] identifies more than 50
stories about the Iraq war that were faked by government
propaganda artists in a covert campaign to 'market' the
military invasion of Iraq.
Gardiner has credentials. He has taught at the National
War College, the Air War College and the Naval Warfare College
and was a visiting scholar at the Swedish Defense College.
According to Gardiner, 'It was not bad intelligence' that
lead to the quagmire in Iraq, 'It was an orchestrated effort
[that] began before the war' that was designed to mislead
the public and the world. Gardiner's research lead him to
conclude that the US and Britain had conspired at the highest
levels to plant 'stories of strategic influence' that were
known to be false.' "
Complete text of "Truth from These Podia: Summary
of a Study of Strategic Influence, Perception Management,
Strategic Information Warfare and Strategic Psychological
Operations in Gulf II" (In 6 parts) by USAF Colonel
(Ret.) Sam Gardiner:
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Sam_Gardiner
[See also: First, second
and third collection of articles
regarding War and Truth]
|
