"Sir Arthur C. B. E. Wholeflaffers A.S.A." <nospam@newsranger.com> wrote in
message news:qKT7b.19546$cJ5.2657@www.newsranger.com...
This War On Terrorism Is Bogus: The 9/11 Attacks Gave The US An Ideal
Pretext To
Use Force To Secure Its Global Domination By Michael Meacher The Guardian
Sep.
6, 2003
Massive attention has now been given - and rightly so - to the reasons why
Britain went to war against Iraq. But far too little attention has focused
on
why the US went to war, and that throws light on British motives too. The
conventional explanation is that after the Twin Towers were hit,
retaliation
against al-Qaida bases in Afghanistan was a natural first step in
launching a
global war against terrorism. Then, because Saddam Hussein was alleged by
the US
and UK governments to retain weapons of mass destruction, the war could be
extended to Iraq as well. However this theory does not fit all the facts.
The
truth may be a great deal murkier.
We now know that a blueprint for the creation of a global Pax Americana
was
drawn up for Dick Cheney (now vice-president), Donald Rumsfeld (defence
secretary), Paul Wolfowitz (Rumsfeld�s deputy), Jeb Bush (George Bush�s
younger
brother) and Lewis Libby (Cheney�s chief of staff). The document, entitled
Rebuilding America�s Defences, was written in September 2000 by the
neoconservative think tank, Project for the New American Century (PNAC).
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 PNAC blueprint supports an earlier document attributed to Wolfowitz
and
Libby which said the US must "discourage advanced industrial nations from
challenging our leadership or even aspiring to a larger regional or global
role". It refers to key allies such as the UK as "the most effective and
efficient means of exercising American global leadership". It describes
peacekeeping missions as "demanding American political leadership rather
than
that of the UN". It says "even should Saddam pass from the scene", US
bases in
Saudi Arabia and Kuwait will remain permanently... as "Iran may well prove
as
large a threat to US interests as Iraq has". It spotlights China for
"regime
change", saying "it is time to increase the presence of American forces in
SE
Asia".
The document also calls for the creation of "US space forces" to dominate
space,
and the total control of cyberspace to prevent "enemies" using the
internet
against the US. It also hints that the US may consider developing
biological
weapons "that can target specific genotypes [and] may transform biological
warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool".
Finally - written a year before 9/11 - it pinpoints North Korea, Syria and
Iran
as dangerous regimes, and says their existence justifies the creation of a
"worldwide command and control system". This is a blueprint for US world
domination. But before it is dismissed as an agenda for rightwing
fantasists, it
is clear it provides a much better explanation of what actually happened
before,
during and after 9/11 than the global war on terrorism thesis. This can be
seen
in several ways.
First, it is clear the US authorities did little or nothing to pre-empt
the
events of 9/11. It is known that at least 11 countries provided advance
warning
to the US of the 9/11 attacks. Two senior Mossad experts were sent to
Washington
in August 2001 to alert the CIA and FBI to a cell of 200 terrorists said
to be
preparing a big operation (Daily Telegraph, September 16 2001). The list
they
provided included the names of four of the 9/11 hijackers, none of whom
was
arrested.
It had been known as early as 1996 that there were plans to hit Washington
targets with aeroplanes. Then in 1999 a US national intelligence council
report
noted that "al-Qaida suicide bombers could crash-land an aircraft packed
with
high explosives into the Pentagon, the headquarters of the CIA, or the
White
House".
Fifteen of the 9/11 hijackers obtained their visas in Saudi Arabia.
Michael
Springman, the former head of the American visa bureau in Jeddah, has
stated
that since 1987 the CIA had been illicitly issuing visas to unqualified
applicants from the Middle East and bringing them to the US for training
in
terrorism for the Afghan war in collaboration with Bin Laden (BBC,
November 6
2001). It seems this operation continued after the Afghan war for other
purposes. It is also reported that five of the hijackers received training
at
secure US military installations in the 1990s (Newsweek, September 15
2001).
Instructive leads prior to 9/11 were not followed up. French Moroccan
flight
student Zacarias Moussaoui (now thought to be the 20th hijacker) was
arrested in
August 2001 after an instructor reported he showed a suspicious interest
in
learning how to steer large airliners. When US agents learned from French
intelligence he had radical Islamist ties, they sought a warrant to search
his
computer, which contained clues to the September 11 mission (Times,
November 3
2001). But they were turned down by the FBI. One agent wrote, a month
before
9/11, that Moussaoui might be planning to crash into the Twin Towers
(Newsweek,
May 20 2002).
All of this makes it all the more astonishing - on the war on terrorism
perspective - that there was such slow reaction on September 11 itself.
The
first hijacking was suspected at not later than 8.20am, and the last
hijacked
aircraft crashed in Pennsylvania at 10.06am. Not a single fighter plane
was
scrambled to investigate from the US Andrews airforce base, just 10 miles
from
Washington DC, until after the third plane had hit the Pentagon at 9.38
am. Why
not? There were standard FAA intercept procedures for hijacked aircraft
before
9/11. Between September 2000 and June 2001 the US military launched
fighter
aircraft on 67 occasions to chase suspicious aircraft (AP, August 13
2002). It
is a US legal requirement that once an aircraft has moved significantly
off its
flight plan, fighter planes are sent up to investigate.
Was this inaction simply the result of key people disregarding, or being
ignorant of, the evidence? Or could US air security operations have been
deliberately stood down on September 11? If so, why, and on whose
authority? The
former US federal crimes prosecutor, John Loftus, has said: "The
information
provided by European intelligence services prior to 9/11 was so extensive
that
it is no longer possible for either the CIA or FBI to assert a defence of
incompetence."
Nor is the US response after 9/11 any better. No serious attempt has ever
been
made to catch Bin Laden. In late September and early October 2001, leaders
of
Pakistan�s two Islamist parties negotiated Bin Laden�s extradition to
Pakistan
to stand trial for 9/11. However, a US official said, significantly, that
"casting our objectives too narrowly" risked "a premature collapse of the
international effort if by some lucky chance Mr Bin Laden was captured".
The US
chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, General Myers, went so far as to
say that
"the goal has never been to get Bin Laden" (AP, April 5 2002). The
whistleblowing FBI agent Robert Wright told ABC News (December 19 2002)
that FBI
headquarters wanted no arrests. And in November 2001 the US airforce
complained
it had had al-Qaida and Taliban leaders in its sights as many as 10 times
over
the previous six weeks, but had been unable to attack because they did not
receive permission quickly enough (Time Magazine, May 13 2002). None of
this
assembled evidence, all of which comes from sources already in the public
domain, is compatible with the idea of a real, determined war on
terrorism.
The catalogue of evidence does, however, fall into place when set against
the
PNAC blueprint. From this it seems that the so-called "war on terrorism"
is
being used largely as bogus cover for achieving wider US strategic
geopolitical
objectives. Indeed Tony Blair himself hinted at this when he said to the
Commons
liaison committee: "To be truthful about it, there was no way we could
have got
the public consent to have suddenly launched a campaign on Afghanistan but
for
what happened on September 11" (Times, July 17 2002). Similarly Rumsfeld
was so
determined to obtain a rationale for an attack on Iraq that on 10 separate
occasions he asked the CIA to find evidence linking Iraq to 9/11; the CIA
repeatedly came back empty-handed (Time Magazine, May 13 2002).
In fact, 9/11 offered an extremely convenient pretext to put the PNAC plan
into
action. The evidence again is quite clear that plans for military action
against
Afghanistan and Iraq were in hand well before 9/11. A report prepared for
the US
government from the Baker Institute of Public Policy stated in April 2001
that
"the US remains a prisoner of its energy dilemma. Iraq remains a
destabilising
influence to... the flow of oil to international markets from the Middle
East".
Submitted to Vice-President Cheney�s energy task group, the report
recommended
that because this was an unacceptable risk to the US, "military
intervention"
was necessary (Sunday Herald, October 6 2002).
Similar evidence exists in regard to Afghanistan. The BBC reported
(September 18
2001) that Niaz Niak, a former Pakistan foreign secretary, was told by
senior
American officials at a meeting in Berlin in mid-July 2001 that "military
action
against Afghanistan would go ahead by the middle of October". Until July
2001
the US government saw the Taliban regime as a source of stability in
Central
Asia that would enable the construction of hydrocarbon pipelines from the
oil
and gas fields in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, through
Afghanistan and
Pakistan, to the Indian Ocean. But, confronted with the Taliban�s refusal
to
accept US conditions, the US representatives told them "either you accept
our
offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you under a carpet of bombs" (Inter
Press
Service, November 15 2001).
Given this background, it is not surprising that some have seen the US
failure
to avert the 9/11 attacks as creating an invaluable pretext for attacking
Afghanistan in a war that had clearly already been well planned in
advance.
There is a possible precedent for this. The US national archives reveal
that
President Roosevelt used exactly this approach in relation to Pearl Harbor
on
December 7 1941. Some advance warning of the attacks was received, but the
information never reached the US fleet. The ensuing national outrage
persuaded a
reluctant US public to join the second world war. Similarly the PNAC
blueprint
of September 2000 states that the process of transforming the US into
"tomorrow�s dominant force" is likely to be a long one in the absence of
"some
catastrophic and catalyzing event - like a new Pearl Harbor". The 9/11
attacks
allowed the US to press the "go" button for a strategy in accordance with
the
PNAC agenda which it would otherwise have been politically impossible to
implement.
The overriding motivation for this political smokescreen is that the US
and the
UK are beginning to run out of secure hydrocarbon energy supplies. By 2010
the
Muslim world will control as much as 60% of the world�s oil production
and, even
more importantly, 95% of remaining global oil export capacity. As demand
is
increasing, so supply is decreasing, continually since the 1960s.
This is leading to increasing dependence on foreign oil supplies for both
the US
and the UK. The US, which in 1990 produced domestically 57% of its total
energy
demand, is predicted to produce only 39% of its needs by 2010. A DTI
minister
has admitted that the UK could be facing "severe" gas shortages by 2005.
The UK
government has confirmed that 70% of our electricity will come from gas by
2020,
and 90% of that will be imported. In that context it should be noted that
Iraq
has 110 trillion cubic feet of gas reserves in addition to its oil.
A report from the commission on America�s national interests in July 2000
noted
that the most promising new source of world supplies was the Caspian
region, and
this would relieve US dependence on Saudi Arabia. To diversify supply
routes
from the Caspian, one pipeline would run westward via Azerbaijan and
Georgia to
the Turkish port of Ceyhan. Another would extend eastwards through
Afghanistan
and Pakistan and terminate near the Indian border. This would rescue Enron
�s
beleaguered power plant at Dabhol on India�s west coast, in which Enron
had sunk
$3bn investment and whose economic survival was dependent on access to
cheap
gas.
Nor has the UK been disinterested in this scramble for the remaining world
supplies of hydrocarbons, and this may partly explain British
participation in
US military actions. Lord Browne, chief executive of BP, warned Washington
not
to carve up Iraq for its own oil companies in the aftermath of war
(Guardian,
October 30 2002). And when a British foreign minister met Gadaffi in his
desert
tent in August 2002, it was said that "the UK does not want to lose out to
other
European nations already jostling for advantage when it comes to
potentially
lucrative oil contracts" with Libya (BBC Online, August 10 2002).
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. Is
collusion in this myth and junior participation in this project really a
proper
aspiration for British foreign policy? If there was ever need to justify a
more
objective British stance, driven by our own independent goals, this whole
depressing saga surely provides all the evidence needed for a radical
change of
course.
Michael Meacher MP was environment minister from May 1997 to June 2003
meacherm@parliament.uk Guardian Unlimited � Guardian Newspapers Limited
2003
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/comment/0,12956,1036687,00.html
- - - - -
Bush Cries Help: Just Say No By Glen Yeadon
I have never believed the official Bush story on 9-11. Then one may ask
which
one as the Bush administration has issued several contradictory versions
of what
really happened. However, now a former member of the poodle�s cabinet
Michael
Meacher has came forth charging Bush with outright treason in allowing
9-11 to
take place after receiving ample forewarning. Meacher continues with his
charges
of Bush sabotaging the efforts to bring to justice those responsible.
I would like to say that I feel satisfied and vindicated by Meacher�s
charges.
Nevertheless, I feel no comfort or satisfaction in being vindicated by
someone
high on the inside. As Meacher details in his charges the Bush regime is
willingly to risk charges of treason in order to follow a right wing
extremist
plan for America to dominate the world hereafter. A new world order based
on
corporate fascism and enforced with great brutality by the United States
military. The spoils will go a few hundred of the world�s richest people
while
the remainder of the world�s population suffers in abject poverty.
Getting straight to the point is the refusal by France, Germany and Russia
to
approve of the Bush regime�s request to the UN�s Security Council to pass
a
resolution ordering UN troops in Iraq. At the risk of being called
cynical, I
wholeheartedly agree with those three nations. Its far better to keep the
tyrant
bogged down in Iraq than to have other countries send their young men to
Iraq
for cannon fodder. If other nations agree to send troops to Iraq this will
free
up American troops. Troops that the Bush regime will use in another war
somewhere in the world.
Now before anyone calls me a traitor; I regard myself as patriotic as the
next
person but I am not one of those god damn flag waving storm troopers you
see
everyplace Bush visits. I am on the other side of the fence out of view of
the
cameras protesting. Nor do I relish trading lives. However, when it comes
to a
few hundred additional lives lost in Iraq or a few thousand more lives
lost in
Korea or somewhere else, I will take the devil�s choice of the lower
number.
There is no good choice here soldiers will die either way.
The document that Meacher was referring is entitled Rebuilding America�s
Defenses. The document was drawn up by the ultra conservative think tank;
Project for the New American Century chaired by William Kristol. The
document
was drawn up for drawn up for Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul
Wolfowitz, Jeb
Bush and Lewis Libby. All of which with the exception of brother Jeb are
part of
the current regime. Briefly, the document called for large increases in
defense
spending including nuclear weapons and the repositioning of America�s
military
forces to respond to regions judged critical such as Southeast Asia and
Southeast Europe. The document specifically names North Korea, Iraq, Iran
and
Libya as enemies of the United States.
Moreover, the document Meacher referred to was written in September 2000
over a
year before 9-11 indicating that the decision to invade Iraq was made at
least a
year before 9-11. Documents from Cheney�s energy task force indicate that
new
bids for Iraqi oil fields were asked for six months before 9-11 confirming
that
the decision to invade Iraq was made before 9-11.
Perhaps the best summation of the type of thinking that went into this
document
is the following quotation from the document.
"And advanced forms of biological warfare that can "target" specific
genotypes
may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically
useful tool."
In other words, the authors of this document are stating for the whole
world
that genocide is a useful political tool. Rather than employ nasty
concentration
camps as Hitler these authors are urging the development of a pathogen
that
would only attack the targeted race and that could be released from a
distance.
Thus affording this group a plausible means of denial while allowing them
to
keep their hand clean from the actual killings. If the reader is somewhat
shocked by that revelation, he should recall that the Bush family has had
a long
history of being associated with eugenics. Prescott Bush was a leader in
the
eugenic movement in America during the 1920s and 1930s. Moreover, Prescott
lost
his first race for congress over his past views of eugenics. The reader is
also
reminded that the Nuremberg Laws handed down by the Nazis setting the
stage for
the Holocaust came from America. Additionally George Bush senior has
worked hard
in the eugenics movement behind the scenes. He specifically targeted the
third
world. Junior is now following in his grandfather�s and father�s
footsteps.
What Meacher has seen rise out of the ashes of 9-11 like a giant Phoenix
is the
birth of the Fourth Reich.
Meacher now sees that the document, Rebuilding America�s Defenses is a
blueprint
for future military adventurism by the Bush regime just as Mein Kamf
served as a
blueprint for the Nazi era.
If France, Germany and Russia should capitulate and send troops to Iraq
then the
whole world has sat on its collective ass for the last 70 years and
forgotten
the lesson of Munich. If the Bush regime is successful at securing UN
troops to
use as canon folder in Iraq then there will be other wars. Wars in which
the
death tolls will climb into the hundreds of thousands. Wars using nuclear
weapons. Wars that may spread into a global conflict that could end
humanity, as
we know it.
This is the lesson of Munich---one cannot negotiate with a madman. If
anyone
doubts that perhaps, they should ask an elderly Czech or Pole they have
some
firsthand experience in the matter.
Up to this time, the Bush regime of mad dog extremists has done nothing to
indicate that they believe in democracy. This is the regime that stole the
2000
election confirming its contempt for the democratic process and of anyone
opposed to them.
This is the same regime that has unilaterally decided to violate every
treaty
the country has signed in regards to the nuclear issue. They have openly
called
for the development of new nuclear weapons such as bunker busters. They
are hell
bent or resuming nuclear testing. Finally, they have funded the production
of
plutonium for the production of more devices for bombs. Furthermore, in a
dangerous game of fool�s folly this regime has developed a new aggressive
policy
towards North Korea. The policy is deliberately designed to provoke North
Korea
into war. The mindset of this fascist regime towards negotiations is
clearly
indicated in the case of North Korea.
The Bush junta appointed a mad dog extremist, John R. Bolton to head up
talks
with the North Koreans.
Bolton�s appointment demonstrates clearly that this regime has no
intention of
negotiating in good faith. The Koreans banned him from the talks. With
North
Korea�s ability to launch and attack against the west coast, such a
deliberate
provocative stance leaves west coast residents as mere pawns in a game of
nuclear brinkmanship.
There is no question that this junta is deliberately trying to provoke a
war
with North Korea.
Considering Bush has little chance of gaining a single electoral vote from
any
west coast state and that his popularity ratings are sinking faster than
the
Titanic it is very probable given this regime�s past record that Bush
would
deliberately provoke an attack on the west coast in an effort to declare
martial
law and to cancel the upcoming election.
Nor is Korea the only example of the Bush regime lack of good faith in
negotiations. Before the Iraqi invasion the Bush junta sought support from
the
United Nations.
Once it was clear that the United Nations� support was not forthcoming,
the
administration started demonizing the UN. They called the UN irrelevant
and
ineffectual. For France�s refusal to send troops to Iraq, acting like
spoiled
three year old brats with a dirty diaper they demonized France and started
calling French Fries freedom fries. Germany�s refusal to send troops was
met
with even more vindictive response---ordering the CIA to undermine the
current
German government.
This is the same regime that opposed the world court and pressured Belgium
to
reverse its war crimes legislation.
From Iraq, there are numerous reports of civilians being killed with no
reports
being filed of the incidents. There are also reports from Iraq of
reporters
being deliberately targeted and killed for what they know and have seen.
There
are numerous reports on prisoners being mistreated.
Also from Iraq there is a report of a tank equipped with a plasma weapon
that
can reduce a bus to a spot of molten metal in seconds. From Afghanistan,
there
are reports of the wholesale murder of thousands of prisoners apparently
with
the explicit approval of the US forces present at the slaughter. Camp
X-Ray
violates all the standards of the Geneva Convention. Even England has
protested
the treatment of their citizens held there.
Domestically more freedoms and liberties have been lost under this regime
than
in the 200 plus years of the existence of the nation.
Our freedoms and liberties are not under attack by a foreign foe or
terrorist
group, they are being brutally assaulted by the current regime of Bush.
The
attorney general has violated a court ordered gag rule to prejudice a case
in
their favor stemming from 9-11. Major union strikes have been met with
threats
from this administration to curtail the strike and to use military
personnel as
replacement workers.
Political opponents find themselves on the no fly list at airports. Even
the
slightest refusal to go along with this regime is met with vindictive
measures.
Such as the case of the former ambassador that revealed the Nigeria
uranium
story was a hoax. The administration exposed his wife as a CIA agent.
Reports
suggest this was the work of Carl Rove. A very recent report claims Rove
holds a
dual citizenship and that his name really is Rover the grandson of Carl
Rover, a
Nazi who believed that the Nazis were not brutal enough.
When the leaders of Europe and the UN meet to discuss sending troops to
Iraq
they must remember that the hands of the clock have been turned back to
Munich
1938.
It is understood that behind the scenes the leaders of Europe are facing
extreme
pressure and are being offered incredible bribes to comply with the
request.
However, they must realize they are dealing with a madman and a regime
full of
lunatics that are willing to risk nuclear war for their own personal gain.
As
long as the Bush junta stays bogged down in a Vietnam quagmire of its own
making, the safer the world will be. Domestic pressure is already mounting
for
his removal. If Europe says yes to the troop request then Europe will soon
face
a more agonizing decision and a new war. Just ask a Czech or Pole. Europe
must
say no.
I see.