Ron Paul criticizes Republicans for war support.

It is no wonder that Ron Paul has his avid loyal supporters. Here is a politician who always speaks his mind rather than says what he thinks everyone wants to hear. He represents principled conservatives of a libertarian type who refuse to applaud U.S. imperial foreign policy. This is in contrast to many on the liberal side of the political spectrum who speak softly almost in whispers when it comes to calling Obama out on his hawkish foreign policy. This is from Raw Story.

Ron Paul chastises at GOP conference: Conservatives ‘like the empire’

By Andrew McLemore

Texas Rep. Ron Paul proved once again Saturday that his politics continue to divide the Republican Party.

He was met with both disapproval and applause during the Southern Republican Leadership Conference for describing conservatives as hypocritical when they call for a return to Constitutional values while supporting foreign wars.

"The conservatives and the liberals, they both like to spend," Paul said, according to Think Progress. "Conservatives spend money on different things. They like embassies, and they like occupation. They like the empire. They like to be in 135 countries and 700 bases.

"Don’t you think it’s rather conservative to say, ‘Oh it’s good to follow the Constitution. Oh, except for war. Let the President go to war anytime they want.’ We can do better with peace than with war."

While most of the other speakers at the event used plenty of rhetoric for "easy applause," as Washington Post reporter David Weigel put it, Paul stuck to the outrage over American foreign policy that has defined his platform.

Wanted: Any enemy with oil

It is good to see that there are still some out there in America that take a quite jaundiced view of the US role on the global stage. This person is not some leftist radical intellectual writing from the ivory tower but a farmer. He manages to say a lot and back it up in a short article. This is from this newspaper. I don't think that it is just any enemy with oil only ones without nuclear deterrents. Russia isn't about to be invaded.


Wanted: Any enemy with oil





By Greg Rendahl

.
As the United States increasingly threatens war against Iran, let’s look at some of the relevant facts.

Iran’s nuclear ambitions are worrisome, but legal. They do support the economic underdogs, their fellow Shia in Lebanon, through Hezbollah and they support the downtrodden Palestinians when almost no one else does.

In July the British foreign secretary, David Miliband, said there was no evidence of Iranian involvement in violence in Iraq. Iran has not invaded another nation in more than 250 years.

In contrast, America has invaded many countries. To name but a few, we invaded Mexico (1846, 1914), Cuba (1898), Hawaii (1898), the Philippines (1899), Morocco (1904), Panama (1904, 1989), Dominican Republic, Haiti and Nicaragua (many times), Vietnam, Cambodia, Grenada, etc. Why do we invade so many other nations? Is it to bring

freedom and democracy to their people?

Two recent examples prove that this is not the case.

When Venezuela’s popular and democratically elected leader was removed temporarily in a military coup in 2002, Bush immediately recognized the coup leaders as the new government.

When Hamas won the last elections in Palestine, the United States refused to accept the democratic view of that nation.

Also, don’t forget, we destroyed democracy in Iran in 1953 because the Iranians wanted greater control of their oil.

Do we care about democracy in Saudi Arabia or Egypt, for instance? Apparently not, and isn’t it interesting that these two nations produced the hijackers who attacked us on Sept.11, 2001?

These hijackers then gave our neo-conservatives their fondest wish — a chance to whip up frenzy over al-Qaeda, Islamic terrorists and all related boogiemen.

By the way, isn’t it funny that America’s leaders quit flying on commercial aircraft in the summer of 2001 and that America was so incredibly unprepared for the Sept. 11 attacks?

For the neo-cons, their other great accomplishment has been to clamp down on freedom in America with their Patriot acts, free-speech-zones, targeting opposition with the word “traitor,” and mutating the Department of Justice into the Department of Detention.

Iran’s president, who has very limited power in their nation, plays to his rather small base of followers with his tough talk against the United States and Israel. Bush and Cheney play to their small base of followers, but let’s not leave out most other Republicans and a large number of Democrats who push to see their corporate sponsors gain a measure of control over Iran’s vast energy wealth.

Alan Greenspan and former CENTCOM commander Gen. John Abizaid both have said Iraq was basically about oil. Were Iraq and Afghanistan “stepping stones” to surround Iran and assume a degree of control over this energy-rich area?

It appears that “peak oil” is basically here now. If America continues current policies, we will look for one “evil leader” after another who has meaningful energy resources or good pipeline routes.

The goal is continued corporate domination with wealth moving from you and I to compliant oil-rich nations, and the corporate interests involved with oil production and war-related industries.

Rendahl is a farmer who subscribes to the idea that politics and prostitution are the oldest professions.
.

Obstructing the war on Iran

This is an interesting article that ranges over much more than the possible attack on Iran. I am always happy to find an article reflecting a viewpoint outside of the mainstream. This article has a wealth of detail. Of course now France has a new president who seems to click with Bush its policy may change. Akleh has an interesting take on part of the new arms deal with Gulf states.


Obstructing the War on Iran



By: Dr. Elias Akleh





Many military officials, political analysts, and strategy study groups anticipated the war against Iran to be launched at the beginning of 2007, sometime between mid January and late April, when weather conditions would be ideal for aerial sorties and naval invasion. The signs were apparent with the heavy naval traffic in the Arabian Gulf, and the number of the conducted war games on both sides.

Yet, we are now in August and war did not start. Did the Bush administration cancel its war plans after all the aggressive war-mongering rhetoric and threats, and after spending millions of Dollars sending American nuclear aircraft carriers with their battle groups to the gulf? Did Cheney’s fiery threats and promises to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities lose their flames? Or maybe Israel and its AIPAC had stopped pressuring the Administration to hit Iran’s nuclear facilities observing the statement of Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on 28th February 2007 that Israel can deal with Iranian nuclear threat alone if necessary. “We can face the country (Iran) even if we’re left to face them one-on-one”, he stated.

The decision to attack (nuke) Iran was not cancelled but obstructed.

Iran is different than Iraq. It is a larger country and has more natural resources than Iraq. Although the US had imposed economical sanctions on Iran since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, and had pushed Iraqi Saddam Hussain into an eight-year war against Iran to exhaust the country, the Iranians grew more independent and industrious instead.

The economic sanction was not unanimous and many countries continued trading with Iran. Many European and Asian countries were dependent on Iranian oil and gas supplies for their own energy. They also had the large Iranian consumer market for their own goods. The sanctions against Iran were in effect sanctions against these other countries, which were in competition against American companies for consumer markets. European countries, led by France, had always been in economical and political competition against the US since its independence. This competition is apparent in France’s positions towards American policies in the Middle East. France opposed American invasions of Afghanistan and of Iraq. The French President, Jacques Chirac, stated in March 2003 “Iraq today does not represent an immediate threat that justifies an immediate war.” This drew a lot of opposition: the American administration dubbed France “Old Europe” and tried to change the name of the “French fries” to “freedom fries” in an attempt to belittle France. France feels it is loosing its footage in the Middle East due to American aggressive policies that is why it is keeping close contact with the Lebanese to counter the American meddling in Lebanon. Recently France had entered into agreement to build a peaceful nuclear reactor in Libya in an attempt to gain footage there.

Iran Sanction Act, expected to be passed by the congress, is calling for American disinvestment in any foreign energy company that invest more than $20 million in Iran. This Act is facing a fierce opposition from European countries such as France, Germany and UK, among others, who had sent their diplomats to lobby against the Act on Capitol Hills. The Act would hurt major European energy companies such as French Total, Royal Dutch Shell and Repsol of Spain. The latter two are involved in $10 billion investment to produce Iran’s liquefied natural gas. American divestment in such companies would adversely affect American public sector pension funds especially Calpers and Calstrs; giant California pension plans. Sanctions against Iran hurt the US itself more than anybody else.

Iran’s eight-year war with Iraq had really strengthened the Iranian military, who bought more advanced weaponry mainly from US competitor Russia, and who started building their own military equipments such as armored tanks, navy vessels, submarines, un-manned drones and missiles. Iran had also re-started its nuclear program under the supervision and help of Russia. This infuriated the American administration, who launched a political campaign to stop Iran’s nuclear ambitions accusing them of manufacturing nuclear bombs.

The real reason of the conflict is not the bomb itself for the US, itself, is building more nuclear bombs – tactical bombs-, and Israel, Pakistan, India, and North Korea, all non-members of the NPT, had built their own nuclear bombs but the US did not send its nuclear carriers to their shores. Instead the US is turning its eyes away from the Israeli bombs, has effective control of Pakistani bomb through controlling the Pakistani leader Perves Musharraf, gained control over Indian nuclear facilities after entering recently into agreement to supply India with nuclear fuel, and finally has neutralized North Korean nuclear facilities through negotiations and economical bribes. The real reason of the conflict is the competition for exclusive monopoly of the perceived future energy resources (nuclear fuel) to rake in money, and to indirectly control other countries.

American violations of international law and invasion of Iraq gave a warning to all the countries of the world that US intends to take advantage of the global unipolar power situation to expand its influence over the global vital natural resources especially oil in order to subjugate the rest of the world. Countries, especially Iran, started forming economical and political alliances to counter the global bully – USA. The European Union invited Eastern Bloc states, separated now from Soviet Union, to join in. Russia, Iran, Venezuela, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Egypt, Libya, Indonesia, Malaysia, Bolivia, Brunei, and Tobago had launched a Gas OPEC in April 9th 2007 to counter American control over Oil OPEC. Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), an Asian regional organization to enhance security, economic and cultural cooperation, was launched by China and Russia and encompasses central Asian states such as Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Iran has applied to enter this organization as a member to gain more support.

India, Russia, and China had entered into a trilateral cooperation agreement in February 2007 intended to promote international harmony and understanding. No doubt that the cooperation of these three Asian big powers is intended to counter the American influence in the region. Both China and Russia are allies of Iran, involved in extensive military cooperation agreements. They are major actors in Central Asian oil and have significant strategic and economic interests in Central Asia and the Caspian Sea basin.

The Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been a very busy President. He traveled to many countries to build bilateral relations and to gain political support. He visited the US to explain his country’s position concerning its nuclear program. He visited Venezuela and formed alliance with Chavez. He attended the Non-Aligned Movement Summit in Cuba in September 2006. He visited Sudan in February 2007 and met with President Omar Al-Bashir in an attempt to improve political relations and criticized the West for meddling with Sudanese affairs in Darfur. He visited Gulf States including Saudi Arabia last March explaining that Iran has no conflict with them, yet advising them to expel the American military bases in their countries. He warned that in case of American war against Iran his country would strike these military bases that might result in some collateral damages to their countries. This visit led Kuwait to announce that it would not allow its country to be used as a launching pad for a war against Iran. Ahmadinejad had also visited Belarus last May to improve bilateral cooperation between the two countries. Monday, August 6th, Ahmadinejad visited Algeria, who had always stood against isolating Iran, to strengthen bilateral relations. Iran has also offered to share peaceful nuclear technology with Algeria; a clear statement that Iran has become a nuclear country, and a challenge to other nuclear technology exporting countries. Nicaragua has also singed an agreement with Iran on August 8th to export food stuff to Iran for Iranian help to build hydraulic power plants. Ahmadinejad’s visitations are clear proof of American failure to isolate Iran.

Iran has robust military capabilities as was demonstrated during August 2006 war games. Participating in the war games of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) with Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, Iran had demonstrated large scale military capabilities. Iran has Russian sophisticated early warning radar stations, anti aircraft missile launchers, stealth long range Fajr and Shahab missile bases that could hit Israel, cruise missile sites scattered along Iranian borders, submarines and missile launching speed boats that could easily sink an aircraft carrier and block the Strait of Hormuz, and atop of all that Iran has 14 military airfields housing sophisticated Russian as well as Iranian air fighters. It was also revealed that Iran has produced pilotless stealth drones with a range of 700km that are undetected by radars. Iran is adding to its air power 250 advanced long-range Russian made Sukhoi-30 multi mode fighter jets that could function as air patrol, air defense, ground attack, and air-to-air combat.

The most feared and effective Iranian weapon is the carrier destroying supersonic Russian-built SS-N-27B missile, know to American military as the sizzler. This missile has the potential of performing high defensive maneuvers including sharp-angled dodges. This missile could not be detected until it hits its target. The American navy has no assurances that its Aegis system is capable of detecting, tracking and intercepting this sizzler.

Iran is capable of defending itself and would inflict large casualties on its attackers.

On the other side the American/Israeli position is getting weaker. Bush’s lies to attack Iraq were exposed, atrocities perpetrated by American soldiers against Iraqis filled foreign media, CIA’s illegal renditions and tortures became well known around the world, and the Israeli murders of Palestinian civilians, the destruction of their homes, the usurpation of their land, and Israeli violations of Palestinian human rights and their intent to wipe Palestinians off existence are being globally recognized and opposed by so many nations and political organizations. The world no longer trust the US nor Israel.

Americans themselves had lost confidence in their administration and in their decisions. The US army is having trouble meeting their recruiting goals, so it is offering $20,000 bonus to new and prior recruits, who would ship out to Iraq and Afghanistan within 30 days after training. The Administration finds it very expensive to replace cheap regular soldiers with the very expensive “Blackwater” professional mercenaries.

Arab governments allied with the US, such as Egypt, Jordan, and the Gulf States are afraid that war on Iran would engulf and consume their countries and results in their loss of leaderships. US ambassador to the UN, Zalmay Khalilzad, had accused Saudi Arabia and other Iraqi neighboring countries (CNN interview Sunday 7/29) of destabilizing Iraq and opening their borders to terrorists to enter Iraq. Iraqi officials had also accused Saudi Arabia of funding Sunni fighters in Iraq. Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates needed to exercise arms twisting during their visits to Egypt and Saudi Arabia (end of July) to put these governments back in line.

The Administration is still having trouble drawing and implementing plans to create an emergency oil reserve in case Iran closes the Straits of Hormuz. Oil prices are swinging up and down every week.

The neoconservative Bush administration, and its supporting military complex, considers war on Iran as the fuse that will explode the whole Middle Eastern region into a state of “constructive chaos” that would allow them to implement their “New Middle East” plans. Unlike the war on Iraq, which was merely a testing experiment, the war on Iran, as was discovered lately, needs thorough planning due to anticipated long lasting effects on global economy, and reshaping of global political structures especially in the Middle Eastern region.

Although Iran is a member of the NPT and it keeps emphasizing that its nuclear program is peaceful and had offered international monitoring of its nuclear facilities, there is still fear that Iran might one day develop a bomb. Such bomb would tip the power balance in the Middle East and become a deterrent to Israeli aggression and expansion, and might force Israel to accept a peace treaty with the Arabs. It could also form an obstacle to the American expansion in the Middle East and South East Asia. The French foreign minister Dominique de Villepin, at the time, stated that Iran wants to have the bomb as a self-defense deterrent weapon, while French President, Jacques Chirac, stated that “nuclear Iran does not pose any threat on world peace”. He, later, was pressured to withdraw this statement. Israeli officials, on the other hand, keep threatening to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities if the US does not do it.

Continuously threatening to strike Iran, Cheney keeps urging Bush to directly confront Iran by launching air strikes against alleged Iranian terrorist training camps. Despite Afghan President, Hamid Karzai’s declaration during his interview on CNN Sunday August 8th that “So far, Iran has been a helper (in the fight against terrorism)”, President Bush keeps threatening Iran of consequences of “… transporting, delivering EFPs (explosively formed penetrators), highly sophisticated IEDs (improvised explosive devices) that kill Americans in Iraq”. Bush ignores the fact that the British Independent had revealed on March 5th 2006 that these alleged Iranian explosive devices were initially created by the British Security Services in the early 1990s, and that when the military provided reporters with pictures of theses explosives they had names, specifications and manufacturing dates in English not in Farsi.

The Administration is spreading fear of expanding nuclear Iran in the Gulf States. To allegedly counter and contain the growing power of Iran in oil Gulf region the Administration is seeking a congressional approval of an arm sale package to the Gulf States; Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and UAE, totaling to $20 billions. This sale would include advanced weaponry such as advanced satellite-guided bombs, upgrades to fighter planes, and new naval vessels.

These advanced weapons would be stored in the desert for the use of the American military if and when a 911 or a Gulf of Tonken similar attack happens against an American base or naval vessel in the Gulf. Then the Administration would claim it its duty to retaliate against Iran in self-defense. Such a scenario might take place at the end of Bush’s presidency, when his administration would start the war and leave the mess to the next administration to clean up.

* Dr. Elias Akleh is an Arab writer of Palestinian descent, born in the town of Beit-Jala. Currently he lives in the US.

Brzezinski on the War on Terror

I am surprised to find Brzezinski outlining such a critical analyses of US policy. In the past I have associated him with right-wing policies and fervent anti-communist policies. He seems always to have been a rather pragmatic realist right-winger though and I suppose the excesses of Bush and the neo-con ideology are anathema to him.

Terrorized by 'War on Terror'

How a Three-Word Mantra Has Undermined America

By Zbigniew Brzezinski

03/25/07 "Washington Post' -- -- The "war on terror" has created a culture of fear in America. The Bush administration's elevation of these three words into a national mantra since the horrific events of 9/11 has had a pernicious impact on American democracy, on America's psyche and on U.S. standing in the world. Using this phrase has actually undermined our ability to effectively confront the real challenges we face from fanatics who may use terrorism against us.

The damage these three words have done -- a classic self-inflicted wound -- is infinitely greater than any wild dreams entertained by the fanatical perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks when they were plotting against us in distant Afghan caves. The phrase itself is meaningless. It defines neither a geographic context nor our presumed enemies. Terrorism is not an enemy but a technique of warfare -- political intimidation through the killing of unarmed non-combatants.

But the little secret here may be that the vagueness of the phrase was deliberately (or instinctively) calculated by its sponsors. Constant reference to a "war on terror" did accomplish one major objective: It stimulated the emergence of a culture of fear. Fear obscures reason, intensifies emotions and makes it easier for demagogic politicians to mobilize the public on behalf of the policies they want to pursue. The war of choice in Iraq could never have gained the congressional support it got without the psychological linkage between the shock of 9/11 and the postulated existence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Support for President Bush in the 2004 elections was also mobilized in part by the notion that "a nation at war" does not change its commander in chief in midstream. The sense of a pervasive but otherwise imprecise danger was thus channeled in a politically expedient direction by the mobilizing appeal of being "at war."

To justify the "war on terror," the administration has lately crafted a false historical narrative that could even become a self-fulfilling prophecy. By claiming that its war is similar to earlier U.S. struggles against Nazism and then Stalinism (while ignoring the fact that both Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia were first-rate military powers, a status al-Qaeda neither has nor can achieve), the administration could be preparing the case for war with Iran. Such war would then plunge America into a protracted conflict spanning Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and perhaps also Pakistan.

The culture of fear is like a genie that has been let out of its bottle. It acquires a life of its own -- and can become demoralizing. America today is not the self-confident and determined nation that responded to Pearl Harbor; nor is it the America that heard from its leader, at another moment of crisis, the powerful words "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself"; nor is it the calm America that waged the Cold War with quiet persistence despite the knowledge that a real war could be initiated abruptly within minutes and prompt the death of 100 million Americans within just a few hours. We are now divided, uncertain and potentially very susceptible to panic in the event of another terrorist act in the United States itself.

That is the result of five years of almost continuous national brainwashing on the subject of terror, quite unlike the more muted reactions of several other nations (Britain, Spain, Italy, Germany, Japan, to mention just a few) that also have suffered painful terrorist acts. In his latest justification for his war in Iraq, President Bush even claims absurdly that he has to continue waging it lest al-Qaeda cross the Atlantic to launch a war of terror here in the United States.

Such fear-mongering, reinforced by security entrepreneurs, the mass media and the entertainment industry, generates its own momentum. The terror entrepreneurs, usually described as experts on terrorism, are necessarily engaged in competition to justify their existence. Hence their task is to convince the public that it faces new threats. That puts a premium on the presentation of credible scenarios of ever-more-horrifying acts of violence, sometimes even with blueprints for their implementation.

That America has become insecure and more paranoid is hardly debatable. A recent study reported that in 2003, Congress identified 160 sites as potentially important national targets for would-be terrorists. With lobbyists weighing in, by the end of that year the list had grown to 1,849; by the end of 2004, to 28,360; by 2005, to 77,769. The national database of possible targets now has some 300,000 items in it, including the Sears Tower in Chicago and an Illinois Apple and Pork Festival.

Just last week, here in Washington, on my way to visit a journalistic office, I had to pass through one of the absurd "security checks" that have proliferated in almost all the privately owned office buildings in this capital -- and in New York City. A uniformed guard required me to fill out a form, show an I.D. and in this case explain in writing the purpose of my visit. Would a visiting terrorist indicate in writing that the purpose is "to blow up the building"? Would the guard be able to arrest such a self-confessing, would-be suicide bomber? To make matters more absurd, large department stores, with their crowds of shoppers, do not have any comparable procedures. Nor do concert halls or movie theaters. Yet such "security" procedures have become routine, wasting hundreds of millions of dollars and further contributing to a siege mentality.

Government at every level has stimulated the paranoia. Consider, for example, the electronic billboards over interstate highways urging motorists to "Report Suspicious Activity" (drivers in turbans?). Some mass media have made their own contribution. The cable channels and some print media have found that horror scenarios attract audiences, while terror "experts" as "consultants" provide authenticity for the apocalyptic visions fed to the American public. Hence the proliferation of programs with bearded "terrorists" as the central villains. Their general effect is to reinforce the sense of the unknown but lurking danger that is said to increasingly threaten the lives of all Americans.

The entertainment industry has also jumped into the act. Hence the TV serials and films in which the evil characters have recognizable Arab features, sometimes highlighted by religious gestures, that exploit public anxiety and stimulate Islamophobia. Arab facial stereotypes, particularly in newspaper cartoons, have at times been rendered in a manner sadly reminiscent of the Nazi anti-Semitic campaigns. Lately, even some college student organizations have become involved in such propagation, apparently oblivious to the menacing connection between the stimulation of racial and religious hatreds and the unleashing of the unprecedented crimes of the Holocaust.

The atmosphere generated by the "war on terror" has encouraged legal and political harassment of Arab Americans (generally loyal Americans) for conduct that has not been unique to them. A case in point is the reported harassment of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) for its attempts to emulate, not very successfully, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Some House Republicans recently described CAIR members as "terrorist apologists" who should not be allowed to use a Capitol meeting room for a panel discussion.

Social discrimination, for example toward Muslim air travelers, has also been its unintended byproduct. Not surprisingly, animus toward the United States even among Muslims otherwise not particularly concerned with the Middle East has intensified, while America's reputation as a leader in fostering constructive interracial and interreligious relations has suffered egregiously.

The record is even more troubling in the general area of civil rights. The culture of fear has bred intolerance, suspicion of foreigners and the adoption of legal procedures that undermine fundamental notions of justice. Innocent until proven guilty has been diluted if not undone, with some -- even U.S. citizens -- incarcerated for lengthy periods of time without effective and prompt access to due process. There is no known, hard evidence that such excess has prevented significant acts of terrorism, and convictions for would-be terrorists of any kind have been few and far between. Someday Americans will be as ashamed of this record as they now have become of the earlier instances in U.S. history of panic by the many prompting intolerance against the few.

In the meantime, the "war on terror" has gravely damaged the United States internationally. For Muslims, the similarity between the rough treatment of Iraqi civilians by the U.S. military and of the Palestinians by the Israelis has prompted a widespread sense of hostility toward the United States in general. It's not the "war on terror" that angers Muslims watching the news on television, it's the victimization of Arab civilians. And the resentment is not limited to Muslims. A recent BBC poll of 28,000 people in 27 countries that sought respondents' assessments of the role of states in international affairs resulted in Israel, Iran and the United States being rated (in that order) as the states with "the most negative influence on the world." Alas, for some that is the new axis of evil!

The events of 9/11 could have resulted in a truly global solidarity against extremism and terrorism. A global alliance of moderates, including Muslim ones, engaged in a deliberate campaign both to extirpate the specific terrorist networks and to terminate the political conflicts that spawn terrorism would have been more productive than a demagogically proclaimed and largely solitary U.S. "war on terror" against "Islamo-fascism." Only a confidently determined and reasonable America can promote genuine international security which then leaves no political space for terrorism.

Where is the U.S. leader ready to say, "Enough of this hysteria, stop this paranoia"? Even in the face of future terrorist attacks, the likelihood of which cannot be denied, let us show some sense. Let us be true to our traditions.

Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter, is the author most recently of "Second Chance: Three Presidents and the Crisis of American Superpower" (Basic Books).

Democrats vs Republicans: Similar basic ideas on foreign policy

This article is copied from a post to the Pen-L list but the poster did not seem to indicate where the original article came from. Anyway I thought it was an interesting article. As a Canadian I find it rather weird that many Americans seem to think that the Democrats and Republicans are vastly different. The Democrats might be more progressive on domestic issues but even that seems to be overstressed. But on foreign policy the basic aims of the two seem to be little different as this article points out.


It's Uphill for the Democrats
They Need a Global Strategy, Not Just Tactics for Iraq

By Tony Smith
Sunday, March 11, 2007; B01

The Democrats' victory last November obviously reflected popular
sentiment
against the war in Iraq, but nothing seems obvious now as Democrats try
to
exploit their new majority status in Congress.

Iraq had flustered the congressional Democrats because Democrats don't
have
an agreed position on what America's role in the world should be. They
want
to change the Bush administration's policy in Iraq without discussing
the
underlying ideas that produced it. And although they now cast
themselves as
alternatives to President Bush, the fact is that prevailing Democratic
doctrine is not that different from the Bush-Cheney doctrine.

Many Democrats, including senators who voted to authorize the war in
Iraq,
embraced the idea of muscular foreign policy based on American global
supremacy and the presumed right to intervene to promote democracy or
to
defend key U.S. interests long before 9/11, and they have not changed
course since. Even those who have shifted against the war have avoided
doctrinal questions.

But without a coherent alternative to the Bush doctrine, with its
confidence in America's military preeminence and the global appeal of
"free
market democracy," the Democrats' midterm victory may not be repeated
in
November 2008. Or, if the Democrats do win in 2008, they could remain
staked to a vision of a Pax Americana strikingly reminiscent of Bush's.

Democratic adherents to what might be called the "neoliberal" position
are
well organized and well positioned. Their credo was enunciated just
nine
years ago by Madeleine Albright, then President Bill Clinton's
secretary of
state: "If we have to use force, it is because we are America. We are
the
indispensable nation. We stand tall and we see further into the
future."
She was speaking of Bosnia at the time, but her remark had much wider
implications.

Since 1992, the ascendant Democratic faction in foreign policy debates
has
been the thinkers associated with the Democratic Leadership Council
(DLC)
and its think tank, the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI). Since 2003,
the
PPI has issued repeated broadsides damning Bush's handling of the Iraq
war,
but it has never condemned the invasion. It has criticized Bush's
failure
to achieve U.S. domination of the Middle East, arguing that Democrats
could
do it better.

Consider a volume published last spring and edited by Will Marshall,
president of the PPI since 1989. The book, "With All Our Might: A
Progressive Strategy for Defeating Jihadism and Defending Liberty,"
contains essays by 19 liberal Democrats.

"Make no mistake," write Marshall and Jeremy Rosner in their
introduction,
"we are committed to preserving America's military preeminence. We
recognize that a strong military undergirds U.S. global leadership."
Recalling a Democratic "tradition of muscular liberalism," they insist
that
"Progressives and Democrats must not give up the promotion of democracy
and
human rights abroad just because President Bush has paid it lip
service.
Advancing democracy -- in practice, not just in rhetoric -- is
fundamentally the Democrats' legacy, the Democrats' cause, and the
Democrats' responsibility."

In the volume, a Muslim American calls on us to prevail in the "cosmic
war"
with terrorism by winning "The Struggle for Islam's Soul." Stephen
Solarz
worries about Pakistan; Anne-Marie Slaughter would "Reinvent the U.N."
Larry Diamond and Michael McFaul defend "Seeding Liberal Democracy."
Kenneth Pollack, whose 2002 book, "The Threatening Storm: The Case for
Invading Iraq," was as influential as any single writing in urging the
invasion of Iraq, presents "A Grand Strategy for the Middle East."

"For better or worse, whether you supported the war or not, it is all
about
Iraq now," writes Pollack. The goal of this Democrat who helped bring
us
Iraq? "The end state that America's grand strategy toward the Middle
East
must envision is a new liberal order to replace a status quo marked by
political repression, economic stagnation and cultural conflict." His
problem with the Bush administration? "It has not made transformation
its
highest goal. . . . Iran and Syria's rogue regimes seem to be the only
exceptions. The administration insists on democratic change there in a
manner it eschews for Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and other allies. . . . The
right grand strategy would make transformation of our friends and our
foes
alike our agenda's foremost issue."

This is not a fringe group. Many prominent Democrats are PPI stalwarts,
including Sens. Joseph R. Biden Jr., Evan Bayh, Thomas R. Carper and
Hillary Rodham Clinton. Rep. Rahm Emanuel, chairman of the Democratic
Congressional Campaign Committee, published a book last year, "The
Plan:
Big Ideas for America," co-authored by Bruce Reed, editor of the PPI's
magazine Blueprint and president of the DLC.

Emanuel and Reed salute Marshall's "outstanding anthology" for its
"refreshingly hardnosed and intelligent new approach . . . which
breathes
new life into the Democratic vision of Franklin Roosevelt, Harry
Truman,
and John Kennedy." Not a word in their book appears hostile to the idea
of
invading Iraq. Instead, the authors fault Bush for allowing a "troop
gap"
to develop (they favor increasing the Army by 100,000 and expanding the
Marines and Special Forces) and for failing to "enlist our allies in a
common mission." The message once again is that Democrats could do it
better.

In fact, these neoliberals are nearly indistinguishable from the
better-known neoconservatives. The neocons' think tank, the Project for
the
New American Century (PNAC), often salutes individuals within the PPI,
and
PPI members such as Marshall signed PNAC petitions endorsing the Iraq
invasion. Weeks after "With All Our Might" appeared, the Weekly
Standard,
virtually the PNAC house organ, gave it a thumbs-up review. And why
not?
The PPI and PNAC are tweedledum and tweedledee.

Sources for many of the critical elements of the Bush doctrine can be
found
in the emergence of neoliberal thought during the 1990s, after the end
of
the Cold War. In think tanks, universities and government offices,
left-leaning intellectuals, many close to the Democratic Party,
formulated
concepts to bring to fruition the age-old dream of Democratic President
Woodrow Wilson "to make the world safe for democracy." These neolibs
advocated the global expansion of "market democracy." They presented
empirical, theoretical, even philosophical arguments to support the
idea of
the United States as the indispensable nation. Albright's self-assured
declaration descended directly from traditional Wilsonianism.

Talking in the refined language of the social sciences about
"democratic
peace theory," neolibs such as Bruce Russett at Yale maintained that a
world of democracies would mean the end of war. Neolibs such as Larry
Diamond at Stanford also posited the "universal appeal of democracy,"
suggesting that "regime change" leading to "the democratic transition"
was
a manageable undertaking. Anne-Marie Slaughter at Princeton asserted
that
"rogue states" guilty of systematic human-rights abuses or that built
weapons of mass destruction had only "conditional sovereignty" and were
legally open to attack. These views were echoed in the columns of
Thomas
Friedman of the New York Times. Here was the intellectual substance of
much
of the Bush doctrine, coming from non-Republicans.

Dealing with Serbia in the 1990s cemented the neocon-neolib entente. By
Sept. 11, 2001, these two groups had converged as a single ideological
family. They agreed that American nationalism was best expressed in
world
affairs as a progressive imperialism. The rallying call for armed
action
would be promoting human rights and democratic government among peoples
who
resisted American hegemony.

And so we may appreciate the Democrats' difficulty in their search for
an
exit strategy not only from Iraq but also from the temptations of a
superpower.

Ironically, the neolibs are more powerful today in the Democratic Party
than the neocons are among Republicans. Senior Republicans such as
Brent
Scowcroft, James A. Baker III and the late Gerald R. Ford seem more
skeptical about an American bid for world supremacy than do comparable
senior Democrats. "I can understand the theory of wanting to free
people,"
Ford told Bob Woodward in 2004. But the former president doubted
"whether
you can detach that from the obligation number one of what's in our
national interest. And I just don't think we should go hellfire
damnation
around the globe freeing people, unless it is directly related to our
national security."

There is a precedent for the Democrats' dilemma as 2008 approaches.
When
Richard M. Nixon ran for president 40 years ago, he, too, needed to
formulate a policy that distinguished him from the unpopular war in
Vietnam
prosecuted by an unpopular Democratic administration. He promised that
"a
new leadership will end the war," hinting that he had a secret plan to
do
so. But it turned out that Nixon's "new leadership" was as committed to
prevailing in Southeast Asia as Lyndon B. Johnson had been.

The early positions of the 2008 Democratic presidential candidates
illustrate their party's problem. The front-runner, Hillary Clinton,
has
not moved from her traditional support of the DLC's basic position --
she
criticizes the conduct of the war, but not the idea of the war. Former
senator John Edwards and Sen. Barack Obama are more outspoken; both
call
the war a serious mistake, but neither has articulated a vision for a
more
modest U.S. role in the world generally.

It isn't easy to offer a true alternative. The challenges to world
order
are many, as are the influential special interests in this country that
want an aggressive policy: globalizing corporations, the
military-industrial complex, the pro-Israel lobbies, those who covet
Middle
Eastern oil. The nationalist conviction that we are indeed "the
indispensable nation" will continue to tempt our leaders to overplay
their
hand. The danger lies in believing that our power is beyond challenge,
that
the righteousness of our goals is beyond question and that the real
task is
not to reformulate our role in the world so much as to assert more
effectively a global American peace.

tony.smith@tufts.edu

Tony Smith, a political science professor at Tufts University, is

the author of "A Pact With the Devil: Washington's Bid for World
Supremacy
and the Betrayal of the American Promise" (Routledge).

--

The PNAC Project for a New American Century

Here is an article on the PNAC. The PNAC has its own website and is an excellent source for key documents that help one understand the aims of the neo-conservatives associated with the Bush government. Many of the key people in the government are also associated with the PNAC.






.

The Project for the New American Century.


The People versus the Powerful is the oldest story in human history. At no
point in history have the Powerful wielded so much control. At no point in
history has the active and informed involvement of the People, all of them,
been more absolutely required.

William Rivers Pitt: 02/25/03

The Project for the New American Century, or PNAC, is a Washington-based
think tank created in 1997. Above all else, PNAC desires and demands one
thing: The establishment of a global American empire to bend the will of
all nations. They chafe at the idea that the United States, the last
remaining superpower, does not do more by way of economic and military
force to bring the rest of the world under the umbrella of a new
socio-economic Pax Americana.

The fundamental essence of PNAC's ideology can be found in a White Paper
produced in September of 2000 entitled "Rebuilding America's Defenses:
Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century." In it, PNAC outlines
what is required of America to create the global empire they envision.
According to PNAC, America must:
* Reposition permanently based forces to Southern Europe, Southeast Asia
and the Middle East;
* Modernize U.S. forces, including enhancing our fighter aircraft,
submarine and surface fleet capabilities;
* Develop and deploy a global missile defense system, and develop a
strategic dominance of space;
* Control the "International Commons" of cyberspace;
* Increase defense spending to a minimum of 3.8 percent of gross domestic
product, up from the 3 percent currently spent.


Most ominously, this PNAC document described four "Core Missions" for the
American military. The two central requirements are for American forces to
"fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars," and
to "perform the 'constabulary' duties associated with shaping the security
environment in critical regions." Note well that PNAC does not want America
to be prepared to fight simultaneous major wars. That is old school. In
order to bring this plan to fruition, the military must fight these wars
one way or the other to establish American dominance for all to see.

Why is this important? After all, wacky think tanks are a cottage industry
in Washington, DC. They are a dime a dozen. In what way does PNAC stand
above the other groups that would set American foreign policy if they could?
Two events brought PNAC into the mainstream of American government: the
disputed election of George W. Bush, and the attacks of September 11th.
When Bush assumed the Presidency, the men who created and nurtured the
imperial dreams of PNAC became the men who run the Pentagon, the Defense
Department and the White House. When the Towers came down, these men saw,
at long last, their chance to turn their White Papers into substantive
policy.

Vice President Dick Cheney is a founding member of PNAC, along with Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Defense Policy Board chairman Richard Perle.
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz is the ideological father of the
group. Bruce Jackson, a PNAC director, served as a Pentagon official for
Ronald Reagan before leaving government service to take a leading position
with the weapons manufacturer Lockheed Martin.


PNAC is staffed by men who previously served with groups like Friends of
the Democratic Center in Central America, which supported America's bloody
gamesmanship in Nicaragua and El Salvador, and with groups like The
Committee for the Present Danger, which spent years advocating that a
nuclear war with the Soviet Union was "winnable."


PNAC has recently given birth to a new group, The Committee for the
Liberation of Iraq, which met with National Security Advisor Condoleezza
Rice in order to formulate a plan to "educate" the American populace about
the need for war in Iraq. CLI has funneled millions of taxpayer dollars to
support the Iraqi National Congress and the Iraqi heir presumptive, Ahmed
Chalabi. Chalabi was sentenced in absentia by a Jordanian court in 1992 to
22 years in prison for bank fraud after the collapse of Petra Bank, which
he founded in 1977. Chalabi has not set foot in Iraq since 1956, but his
Enron-like business credentials apparently make him a good match for the
Bush administration's plans.


PNAC's "Rebuilding America's Defenses" report is the institutionalization
of plans and ideologies that have been formulated for decades by the men
currently running American government. The PNAC Statement of Principles is
signed by Cheney, Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld, as well as by Eliot Abrams, Jeb
Bush, Bush's special envoy to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad, and many
others. William Kristol, famed conservative writer for the Weekly Standard,
is also a co-founder of the group. The Weekly Standard is owned by Ruppert
Murdoch, who also owns international media giant Fox News.


The desire for these freshly empowered PNAC men to extend American hegemony
by force of arms across the globe has been there since day one of the Bush
administration, and is in no small part a central reason for the Florida
electoral battle in 2000. Note that while many have said that Gore and Bush
are ideologically identical, Mr. Gore had no ties whatsoever to the fellows
at PNAC. George W. Bush had to win that election by any means necessary,
and PNAC signatory Jeb Bush was in the perfect position to ensure the rise
to prominence of his fellow imperialists. Desire for such action, however,
is by no means translatable into workable policy. Americans enjoy their
comforts, but don't cotton to the idea of being some sort of Neo-Rome.

On September 11th, the fellows from PNAC saw a door of opportunity open
wide before them, and stormed right through it.


Bush released on September 20th 2001 the "National Security Strategy of the
United States of America." It is an ideological match to PNAC's "Rebuilding
America's Defenses" report issued a year earlier. In many places, it uses
exactly the same language to describe America's new place in the world.

Recall that PNAC demanded an increase in defense spending to at least 3.8%
of GDP. Bush's proposed budget for next year asks for $379 billion in
defense spending, almost exactly 3.8% of GDP.


In August of 2002, Defense Policy Board chairman and PNAC member Richard
Perle heard a policy briefing from a think tank associated with the Rand
Corporation. According to the Washington Post and The Nation, the final
slide of this presentation described "Iraq as the tactical pivot, Saudi
Arabia as the strategic pivot, and Egypt as the prize" in a war that would
purportedly be about ridding the world of Saddam Hussein's weapons. Bush
has deployed massive forces into the Mideast region, while simultaneously
engaging American forces in the Philippines and playing nuclear chicken
with North Korea. Somewhere in all this lurks at least one of the "major
theater wars" desired by the September 2000 PNAC report.


Iraq is but the beginning, a pretense for a wider conflict. Donald Kagan, a
central member of PNAC, sees America establishing permanent military bases
in Iraq after the war. This is purportedly a measure to defend the peace in
the Middle East, and to make sure the oil flows. The nations in that
region, however, will see this for what it is: a jump-off point for
American forces to invade any nation in that region they choose to. The
American people, anxiously awaiting some sort of exit plan after America
defeats Iraq, will see too late that no exit is planned.


All of the horses are traveling together at speed here. The defense
contractors who sup on American tax revenue will be handsomely paid for
arming this new American empire. The corporations that own the news media
will sell this eternal war at a profit, as viewership goes through the
stratosphere when there is combat to be shown. Those within the
administration who believe that the defense of Israel is contingent upon
laying waste to every possible aggressor in the region will have their
dreams fulfilled. The PNAC men who wish for a global Pax Americana at
gunpoint will see their plans unfold. Through it all, the bankrollers from
the WTO and the IMF will be able to dictate financial terms to the entire
planet. This last aspect of the plan is pivotal, and is best described in
the newly revised version of Greg Palast's masterpiece, "The Best Democracy
Money Can Buy."


There will be adverse side effects. The siege mentality average Americans
are suffering as they smother behind yards of plastic sheeting and duct
tape will increase by orders of magnitude as our aggressions bring forth
new terrorist attacks against the homeland. These attacks will require the
implementation of the newly drafted Patriot Act II, an augmentation of the
previous Act that has profoundly sharper teeth. The sun will set on the
Constitution and Bill of Rights.

The American economy will be ravaged by the need for increased defense
spending, and by the aforementioned "constabulary" duties in Iraq,
Afghanistan and elsewhere. Former allies will turn on us. Germany, France
and the other nations resisting this Iraq war are fully aware of this game
plan. They are not acting out of cowardice or because they love Saddam
Hussein, but because they mean to resist this rising American empire, lest
they face economic and military serfdom at the hands of George W. Bush.
Richard Perle has already stated that France is no longer an American ally.

As the eagle spreads its wings, our rhetoric and their resistance will
become more agitated and dangerous.


Many people, of course, will die. They will die from war and from want,
from famine and disease. At home, the social fabric will be torn in ways
that make the Reagan nightmares of crack addiction, homelessness and AIDS
seem tame by comparison.


This is the price to be paid for empire, and the men of PNAC who now
control the fate and future of America are more than willing to pay it. For
them, the benefits far outweigh the liabilities.


The plan was running smoothly until those two icebergs collided. Millions
and millions of ordinary people are making it very difficult for Bush's
international allies to keep to the script. PNAC may have designs for the
control of the "International Commons" of the Internet, but for now it is
the staging ground for a movement that would see empire take a back seat to
a wise peace, human rights, equal protection under the law, and the
preponderance of a justice that will, if properly applied, do away forever
with the anger and hatred that gives birth to terrorism in the first place.
Tommaso Palladini of Milan perhaps said it best as he marched with his
countrymen in Rome. "You fight terrorism," he said, "by creating more
justice in the world."


The People versus the Powerful is the oldest story in human history. At no
point in history have the Powerful wielded so much control. At no point in
history has the active and informed involvement of the People, all of them,
been more absolutely required. The tide can be stopped, and the men who
desire empire by the sword can be thwarted. It has already begun, but it
must not cease. These are men of will, and they do not intend to fail.

William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times bestselling author of two books -
"War On Iraq" (with Scott Ritter) available now from Context Books, and
"The Greatest Sedition is Silence," available in May 2003 from Pluto Press.
He teaches high school in Boston, MA.
Scott Lowery contributed research to this report.









--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Criminalization of US Foreign Policy: Michel Chossudovsky

Photos accompanying the article are deleted. If you want to view them go to the Global Research website

The Criminalization of US Foreign Policy
From the Truman Doctrine to the Neo-Conservatives


By Michel Chossudovsky

Global Research, February 5, 2007



1. The contemporary context

The World is at the crossroads of the most serious crisis in modern history. The US has embarked on a military adventure, "a long war", which threatens the future of humanity.

At no point since the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6th, 1945, has humanity been closer to the unthinkable, a nuclear holocaust which could potentially spread, in terms of radioactive fallout, over a large part of the Middle East.

There is mounting evidence that the Bush Administration, in liaison with Israel and NATO, is planning the launching of a nuclear war against Iran, ironically, in retaliation for Tehran's nonexistent nuclear weapons program. The US-Israeli military operation is said to be in "an advanced state of readiness".

If such a plan were to be launched, the war would escalate and eventually engulf the entire Middle-East Central Asian region.

The war could extend beyond the region, as some analysts have suggested, ultimately leading us into a World War III scenario.

The US-led naval deployment (involving a massive deployment of military hardware) is taking place in two distinct theaters: the Persian Gulf and the Eastern Mediterranean.

The militarization of the Eastern Mediterranean is broadly under the jurisdiction of NATO in liaison with Israel. Directed against Syria, it is conducted under the façade of a UN "peace-keeping" mission. In this context, the Israeli led war on Lebanon last Summer, which was conducive to countless atrocities and the destruction of an entire country, must be viewed as a stage of the broader US sponsored military road-map.







2. Naval Buildup in the Persian Gulf and the Eastern Mediterranean

The naval armada in the Persian Gulf is largely under US command, with the participation of Canada.



USS Enterprise Strike Group



USS Eisenhower

The naval buildup is coordinated with the air attacks. The planning of aerial bombings of Iran started in mid-2004, pursuant to the formulation of CONPLAN 8022 in early 2004. In May 2004, National Security Presidential Directive NSPD 35 entitled Nuclear Weapons Deployment Authorization was issued.



While its contents remain classified, the presumption is that NSPD 35 pertains to the stockpiling and deployment of tactical nuclear weapons in the Middle East war theater in compliance with CONPLAN 8022.

In recent developments, there are reports that Washington is planning to launch air attacks from military bases in Romania and Bulgaria. "American forces could be using their two USAF bases in Bulgaria and one at Romania's Black Sea coast to launch an attack on Iran in April [2007]," according to the Bulgarian news agency Novinite.

3. The Ultimate War Crime: Using Nuclear Weapons in a Conventional War theater

Despite Pentagon statements, which describe tactical nuclear weapons as "safe for the surrounding civilian population", the use of nukes in a conventional war theater directed against Iran would trigger the ultimate war crime: a nuclear holocaust. The resulting radioactive contamination, which threatens future generations, would by no means be limited to the Middle East.




4. The "War on Terrorism": Pretext to Wage War

In 2005, Vice President Dick Cheney is reported to have instructed USSTRATCOM to draw up a contingency plan "to be employed in response to another 9/11-type terrorist attack on the United States". Mass casualty producing events, involving the death of civilians are being used to galvanize public opinion in support of a military agenda. The deaths of civilian are used to justify preemptive actions to defend the American homeland against an alleged outside enemy, who are identified as "Islamic terrorists".


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mass Casualty Producing Events

"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." General Tommy Franks,

"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." (David Rockefeller)

"As America becomes an increasingly multicultural society, it may find it more difficult to fashion a consensus on foreign policy issues, except in the circumstances of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat." (Zbigniew Brzezinski in the Grand Chessboard)


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The presumption was that if such a 9/11 type event involving the deaths of civilians (mass casualty producing event) were to take place, Iran would, according to Cheney, be behind it, thereby providing a pretext for punitive bombings, much in the same way as the US sponsored attacks on Afghanistan in October 2001, allegedly in retribution for the alleged support of the Taliban government to the 9/11 terrorists

More recently, several analysts have focussed on the creation of a "Gulf of Tonkin incident", which would be used by the Bush administration as a pretext to wage war on Iran

5. The Real Objective Of This War Is Oil

The oil lies in Muslim lands. The objective is to take possession of the oil, transform countries into territories and redraw the map of the Middle East

War builds a fake "humanitarian agenda". Throughout history, vilification of the enemy has been applied time and again with a view to ultimately justifying war and war crimes.

Demonization of the enemy serves geopolitical and economic objectives. Likewise, the campaign against "Islamic terrorism" (which is supported covertly by US intelligence) supports the conquest of oil wealth. The term "Islamo-fascism," serves to degrade the policies, institutions, values and social fabric of Muslim countries, while also upholding the tenets of "Western democracy" and the "free market" as the only alternative for these countries.

The US led war in the broader Middle East Central Asian region consists in gaining control over more than sixty percent of the world's reserves of oil and natural gas. The Anglo-American oil giants also seek to gain control over oil and gas pipeline routes out of the region.







Muslim countries including Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Yemen, Libya, Nigeria, Algeria, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, possess between 66.2 and 75.9 percent of total oil reserves, depending on the source and methodology of the estimate.

In contrast, the United States of America has barely 2 percent of total oil reserves. Western countries including its major oil producers ( Canada, the US, Norway, the UK, Denmark and Australia) control approximately 4 percent of total oil reserves. (In the alternative estimate of the Oil and Gas Journal which includes Canada's oil sands, this percentage would be of the the order of 16.5%.

The largest share of the World's oil reserves lies in a region extending (North) from the tip of Yemen to the Caspian sea basin and (East) from the Eastern Mediterranean coastline to the Persian Gulf. This broader Middle East- Central Asian region, which is the theater of the US-led "war on terrorism" encompasses according to the estimates of World Oil, more than sixty percent of the World's oil reserves. (See table below).

Iraq has five times more oil than the United States.

Muslim countries possess at least 16 times more oil than the Western countries.

The major non-Muslim oil reserve countries are Venezuela, Russia, Mexico, China and Brazil. (See table)

The victims of war crimes are vilified Demonization is applied to an enemy, which possesses three quarters of the world's oil reserves. "Axis of evil", "rogue States", "failed nations", "Islamic terrorists": demonization and vilification are the ideological pillars of America's "war on terror". They serve as a casus belli for waging the battle for oil.

The Battle for Oil requires the demonization of those who possess the oil. The enemy is characterized as evil, with a view to justifying military action including the mass killing of civilians. The Middle East Central Asian region is heavily militarized. (See map). The oil fields are encircled: NATO war ships stationed in the Eastern Mediterranean (as part of a UN "peace keeping" operation), US Carrier Strike Groups and Destroyer Squadrons in the Persian Gulf and the Arabian deployed as part of the "war on terrorism".


6. Historical Background: From Hiroshima to the Preemptive Warfare Doctrine

What are the historical roots of this military agenda? What is the balance sheet of US sponsored war crimes extending from 1945 to the present?


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

WHO ARE THE WAR CRIMINALS: BUSH IS NOT THE ONLY WAR CRIMINAL ON THE BLOCK




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

US war crimes and atrocities should be seen as the direct consequence of a foreign policy and military agenda, which supports US corporate interests, including the oil giants, the Wall Street financial establishment and the big six defense contractors.

The Middle East war is the culmination of a history of US sponsored military interventions.

The bombing of Hiroshima was the initial landmark leading to the formulation of a "preemptive" nuclear doctrine, where nukes are to be used in the conventional war theater.

There is a continuum: the bombing of Hiroshima was presented to public opinion as "safe for civilians" because Hiroshima was identified in President Truman’s August 9, 1945 radio address as "a military base".

"The World will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima a military base. That was because we wished in this first attack to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of civilians.."

(President Harry S. Truman in a radio speech to the Nation, August 9, 1945, Listen to Excerpt of his speech, By going through Truman’s diary, one has the distinct impression that he firmly believed that Hiroshima was a military target. Was he briefed on the consequences of the atom bomb?(President Harry S. Truman, Diary, July 25, 1945).

Similarly, the use of nukes against Iran is presented as an act of self-defense, which according to the Pentagon, will minimize the risk of "collateral damage" and protect the lives of civilians.Prior the invasion of Iraq, the use of tactical nuclear weapons had been contemplated as a means to assassinate Saddam Hussein:

"If Saddam was arguably the highest value target in Iraq, then a good case could be made for using a nuclear weapon like the B61-11 to assure killing him and decapitating the regime" (.Defense News, December 8, 2003).

More generally, mini-nukes are considered safe to be used in a conventional war theater:

"What's needed now is something that can threaten a bunker tunneled under 300 meters of granite without killing the surrounding civilian population." (Pentagon Official quoted in Michel Chossudovsky, 2006, http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=20060217&articleId=1988

These statements, which reflect US nuclear doctrine promote according to Federation of American Scientists (FAS) "the illusion that nuclear weapons could be used in ways which minimize their ‘collateral damage’, making them acceptable tools to be used like conventional weapons." (See http://www.fas.org/faspir/2001 / click v54nl, italics added)


7. America’s Wars of the "Post War Era"

What is referred euphemistically as the "post war era" is in fact a period of continuous war and militarization. Since the end of the Second World War, this "long war" seeks to establish US hegemony worldwide.

This period is marked by a succession of US sponsored theater wars (Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Yugoslavia), various forms of military interventions including low intensity conflicts, "civil wars" (The Congo, Angola, Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan) military coups, US sponsored death squadrons and massacres (Chile, Guatemala, Honduras, Argentina, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines), covert wars led by US intelligence , etc.

This entire period (1945- present) has been marked by a succession of US sponsored wars and military-intelligence interventions in all major regions of the World (see map below).



Accounting for these various operations, the United States has attacked, directly or indirectly, some 44 countries in different regions of the developing world, since August 1945, a number of them many times (Eric Waddell, 2003):

"The avowed objective of these military interventions has been to effect ‘regime change’. The cloaks of "human rights" and of "democracy were invariably evoked to justify what were unilateral and illegal acts." (Eric Waddell, 2003)

The foreign policy underpinnings of what is now referred to by Bush officials as the "long war" are to be found in what is known as the "Truman Doctrine", first formulated by foreign policy adviser George F. Kennan in a 1948 in State Department brief.

What this 1948 document conveys is continuity in US foreign policy, from "Containment" to "Pre-emptive" War. It states in polite terms that the US should seek economic and strategic dominance through military means:

Furthermore, we have about 50% of the world's wealth but only 6.3% of its population. This disparity is particularly great as between ourselves and the peoples of Asia. In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security. To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives. We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford today the luxury of altruism and world-benefaction. (…)

In the face of this situation we would be better off to dispense now with a number of the concepts which have underlined our thinking with regard to the Far East. We should dispense with the aspiration to "be liked" or to be regarded as the repository of a high-minded international altruism. We should stop putting ourselves in the position of being our brothers' keeper and refrain from offering moral and ideological advice. We should cease to talk about vague and—for the Far East—unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better (George f. Kennan, 1948 State Department Brief)

8. Destroying Internationalism

The planned disintegration of the United Nations system as an independent and influential international body has been on the drawing board of US foreign policy since the inception of the United Nations in 1946. Its planned demise was an integral part of the Truman doctrine as defined in 1948. From the very inception of the UN, Washington has sought on the one hand to control it to its advantage, while also seeking to weakening and ultimately destroy the UN system. The outgoing Secretary General Kofi Annan became a tool of US foreign policy.

In the words of George Kennan:

"Occasionally, it [the United Nations] has served a useful purpose. But by and large it has created more problems than it has solved, and has led to a considerable dispersal of our diplomatic effort. And in our efforts to use the UN majority for major political purposes we are playing with a dangerous weapon which may some day turn against us. This is a situation which warrants most careful study and foresight on our part. (George Kennan, 1948)

In our efforts to use the UN majority for major political purposes we are playing with a dangerous weapon which may some day turn against us. This is a situation which warrants most careful study and foresight on our part. (George Kennan, 1948)

Although officially committed to the "international community", Washington has largely played lip service to the United Nations. In recent years it has sought to undermine it as an institution. Since Gulf War I, the UN has largely acted as a rubber stamp. It has closed its eyes to US war crimes, it has implemented so-called peacekeeping operations on behalf of the Anglo-American invaders, in violation of the UN Charter.

9. From the Truman Doctrine to the Neo-Conservatives

The Neo-conservative agenda under the Bush administration should be viewed as the culmination of a (bipartisan) "Post War" foreign policy framework, which provides the basis for the planning of the contemporary wars and atrocities including the setting up of torture chambers, concentration camps and the extensive use of prohibited weapons directed against civilians.

From Korea, Vietnam and Afghanistan, to the CIA sponsored military coups in Latin America and Southeast Asia, the objective has been to ensure US military hegemony and global economic domination, as initially formulated under the "Truman Doctrine". Despite significant policy differences, successive Democratic and Republican administrations, from Harry Truman to George W. Bush have carried out this global military agenda.

10. US War Crimes and Atrocities

This entire "post war period" is marked by extensive war crimes resulting in the death of more than ten million people. This figure does not include those who perished as a result of poverty, starvation and disease.

What we are dealing with is a criminal US foreign policy agenda. Criminalization does not pertain to one or more heads of State. It pertains to the entire State system, it’s various civilian and military institutions as well as the powerful corporate interests behind the formulation of US foreign policy, the Washington think tanks, the creditor institutions which finance the military machine.

War crimes are the result of the criminalization of the US State and foreign policy apparatus. We are dealing specifically with individual war criminals, but with a process involving decision makers acting at different level, with a mandate to carry out war crimes, following established guidelines and procedures.

What distinguishes the Bush administration in relation to historical record of US sponsored crimes and atrocities, is that the concentration camps, targeted assassinations and torture chambers are now openly considered as legitimate forms of intervention, which sustain "the global war on terrorism" and support the spread of Western democracy.








11. Mechanisms of US Intervention

US sponsored crimes are not limited to the casualties of war and the physical destruction of the nation’s infrastructure.

Countries are destroyed, often transformed into territories, sovereignty is foregone, national institutions collapse, the national economy is destroyed through the imposition of "free market" reforms, unemployment becomes rampant, social services are dismantled, wages collapse, and people are impoverished.

In turn, the nation’s assets and natural resources are transferred into the hands of foreign investors through a privatization programme imposed by the invading forces.

12. The Perdana Initiative: Reversing the Tide of War

The Perdana Initiative to Criminalize War seeks to break the consensus.

Once that consensus is broken, the shaky legitimacy of the "Global War on Terrorism" collapses like a deck of cards. The War criminals in high office do not have a leg to stand on.

To reverse the tide of war requires a massive campaign of networking and outreach to inform people across the land, nationally and internationally, in neighborhoods, workplaces, parishes, mosques, schools, universities, municipalities, on the dangers of a US sponsored war which contemplates the use of nuclear weapons. The message should be loud and clear: It is not Iran which is a threat to global security but the United States of America and Israel.

Debate and discussion must also take place within the Military and Intelligence community, particularly with regard to the use of tactical nuclear weapons, within the corridors of the US Congress, in municipalities and at all levels of government. Ultimately, the legitimacy of the political and military actors in high office must be challenged.

There seems to be a reluctance by members of Congress to exercise their powers under the US Constitution, with a view to preventing the unthinkable: the onslaught of a US sponsored nuclear war. The consequences of this inaction could be devastating. Once the decision is taken at the political level, it will be very difficult to turn the clock backwards.

Moreover, the antiwar movement has not addressed the US sponsored nuclear threat on Iran in a consistent way, in part due to divisions within its ranks, in part due to lack of information. Moreover, a significant sector of the antiwar movement considers that the "threat of Islamic terrorism" is real. "We are against the war, but we support the war on terrorism." This ambivalent stance ultimately serves to reinforce the legitimacy of the US national security doctrine which is predicated on waging the "Global War on Terrorism" (GWOT).

At this juncture, with the popularity of the Bush-Cheney regime at an all time low, a real opportunity exists to initiate an impeachment process, which could contribute to temporarily stalling the military agenda.

The corporate media also bear a heavy responsibility for the cover-up of US sponsored war crimes. Until recently these war preparations involving the use of nuclear weapons have been scarcely covered by the corporate media. The latter must also be forcefully challenged for their biased coverage of the Middle East war.

What is needed is to break the conspiracy of silence, expose the media lies and distortions, confront the criminal nature of the US Administration and of those governments which support it, its war agenda as well as its so-called "Homeland Security agenda" which has already defined the contours of a police State.

In response to the Perdana initaitve to criminalize war, it is essential to bring the US-Israeli war project to the forefront of political debate, particularly in North America, Western Europe and Israel. Political and military leaders who are opposed to the war must take a firm stance, from within their respective institutions. Citizens must take a stance individually and collectively against war.


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ANNEX

A1 Categorization, Nature of US Intervention (44 countries)

CASUALTIES ARE NOT LIMITED TO KILLINGS IN THE WAR THEATER OR OTHER MILITARY-TYPE OPERATIONS,

WE MUST ALSO ASSESS THE BROAD ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND INSTITUIONAL MECHANISMS AS WELL AS THE ENVIRONMENTAL CONSEQUENCES OF WAR AND ECONOMIC COLLAPSE

With regard to military and covert intelligence or other command type operations, we may distinguish between:

TW Theater War

MC US Instigated Military Coup

CW US Sponsored Civil War

MP Military policing

CO, Covert Intelligence operation, proxy armies, death squadrons,


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Countries

Afghanistan TW CW MC CO, Angola CW CO, Argentina MC CO, Bangladesh MC, Bolivia MC, Bosnia TW CW, Brazil MC CO, Cambodia TW CW CO, Chile MC CO, Colombia CW CO, Congo TW CW, Dominican Republic MC MP CO, El Salvador CW, MC CO, Eritrea CW, Ethiopia CW , Guatemala MC CO, Grenada MP, Haiti MC MP CO, Honduras MC MP CO, Indonesia MC CO, Iran MC, Iraq MC TW CO, Japan TW , Laos TW CW, Lebanon TW CW CO MP, Liberia, CW, Macedonia MP, CW CO, Mozambique CW CO, Nicaragua CW CO, Nigeria CW CO,North Korea TW CW, Pakistan MC CO, Palestine CW CO, Panama MC MP, Philippines MC MP CO, Rwanda CW CO, Serbia CW CO, Somalia CW MP CO, Sierra Leone CW, South Korea CW TW CO, Sudan CW MP CO, Thailand MC CO, Uruguay MC CO, Venezuela MC, Vietnam TW MC CW, Zimbabwe CW

Historical examples of US sponsored war crimes

SELECTED COUNTRY CASES

Korea (1950-1953)

North Korea lost nearly a third its population of 8 - 9 million people during the 37-month long "hot" war, 1950 - 1953, an unprecedented percentage of suffered by any nation as a result of an armed conflict. General Lemay in charge of US operations in Korea candidly acknowledges that the US killed up to 20 percent of North Korea's population over that three period of intensive bombings’

Vietnam (1954-1975)

According to Vietnamese sources, civilian casualties resulting from the Vietnam War were of the order of 4 million. Out of a population of 38 million during the period 1954-1975, Vietnamese casualties represent a 12-13% of the entire population

Indonesia

While Indonesia was not invaded by US forces, it experienced according to a CIA report, "one of the worst mass murders of the twentieth century." Ironically it was the CIA which instigated this plan.

"The 300-page CIA text fails to acknowledge the direct role of the US in the massacres It essentially "blames the victims of the killings -- the supporters of the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI) -- for their own deaths… The hundreds of thousands of people shot, stabbed, bludgeoned, or starved to death were labeled perpetrators, or would-be perpetrators of atrocities, just as culpable for the murder of the army generals as the handful of people who were truly guilty."

The Congo (1998-2000)

The Congo (1998-2000) and The Sudan were US sponsored "civil wars". Two years of war in the Congo (1998-2000) caused the deaths of an estimated 3.8 million people, mostly from starvation and disease.

Sudan

Two million deaths resulted from Sudan's 18-year "civil war", which is tied into securing control over oil reserves.

Nigeria-Biafra

One million people also died during the US sponsored Nigeria-Biafra conflict of the late 1960s, which was also linked to oil interests.

Rwanda (1994-1995)

Between 500,000 and a million people died as a result of the Rwandan "civil war" and genocide. Recent reports confirm that the US and Britain played a key role in triggering the ethnic massacres.


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Mikhail Gorbachev on World Events, US policy

Gorbachev seems overly optimistic although overall the article is quite interesting and perceptive. There seems to be a trend toward more negative reporting about Russia as compared to a while ago when Bush and Putin were buddies and Bush looked into Putin's soul and saw that it was good!

History is not preordained: a new cold war can be avertedUS military arrogance has led to a global crisis. But there is still time to change course and build a democratic world order By Mikhail Gorbachev01/18/07 "The Guardian" -- -- A watershed in international relations has occurred in recent months. Indeed, the past year may well have seen the end of an entire era in world affairs - the post-cold war period of unilateralism and missed opportunities.When the cold war ended, avenues opened up for progress toward a better world. Major powers, particularly the United States, the Soviet Union and China, were working constructively together in the United Nations security council. International conflicts, including those in Angola, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Cambodia, were brought to an end. Nuclear and conventional arms control agreements were concluded, and democratic changes were under way in dozens of countries in Asia, Latin America and central and eastern Europe.The Charter of Paris for a New Europe, signed in 1990, marked the beginning of a process that was expected to lead to a new, peaceful and democratic world order. But the movement in that direction soon stalled. The break-up of the Soviet Union was followed by changes in the political elites of the United States and other countries. The Charter of Paris was forgotten. Instead of moving towards a new security architecture, it was decided to rely on the tools inherited from the cold war. The United States - and the west as a whole - succumbed to the "winner's complex".Europe was shaken by the tragedies in the Balkans. Waves of instability swept through the former Yugoslavia, the Middle East and Africa as the struggles for spheres of influence, resources and markets gathered momentum.Nato's promise to evolve into a primarily political organisation was not kept. Instead, it moved to increase its membership and expand its zone of operations. A new arms race is now under way. The problems of nuclear weapons and non-proliferation have taken on a new urgency, with the original members of the nuclear club bearing much of the blame for it.There is a real danger of a new division of the world; the possibility of a new cold war is being widely discussed. Without regard for the security council or for the opinion of other countries, including its partners and allies, the United States invaded Iraq with disastrous consequences. The arrogance of military power has led to a grave crisis - and to a decline of the United States' role and influence.Another consequence of unilateralist policies and attempts to claim exclusive leadership is that most international institutions have not been able to address effectively the new century's global challenges - the environmental crisis and the problem of poverty. The unprecedented scale of international terrorism and the proliferation of ethnic and religious conflicts are disturbing signs of troubles to come.Americans have also felt the effects of the administration's flawed foreign policies. In November the voters made their verdict known, delivering a defeat for the Republicans in the midterm elections. Yet that is a challenge to the entire US political establishment, for Democrats as well as Republicans. There is a need for a correction in the superpower's policies. Is the administration of George Bush capable of such a correction?Both in the United States and elsewhere, the prevailing view is often negative. The administration gives ample reason for this view, because it seems to prefer the inertia of the old course. It would appear that all the Bush administration wants is to persuade the world that it is still firmly in the saddle. The president's recent statements and the plans being discussed in his administration are cut from the old cloth.The Republican leadership clearly wants to leave to the next president a legacy that would tie him to its policies and make a change of course impossible. If so it is not just a tactical blunder but a recipe for an even greater disaster.And yet I think the possibility of change is still there. The administration and Congress still have the time to forge it. They should begin with the Middle East. Not only should America start pulling itself out of the Iraqi quagmire, but it also needs to return to a constructive policy in the region. It is essential that the Middle East peace process be resumed, along with a serious dialogue with Iraq's neighbours.If America's leaders have the foresight and the courage to look at the world as it really is, they would choose dialogue and cooperation rather than force. What is needed is not a worldwide web of military presence and intervention, but a restraint and a willingness to solve problems by political means.After all, the world has changed dramatically even when compared to the early 1990s. It has become even more interconnected and interdependent. New giants - China, India and Brazil - have entered the world arena, and their views can no longer be ignored. Europe is uniting, and its economic and political influence is bound to grow.Although the Islamic world is finding it difficult to adapt to new realities, its adjustment will continue and this great civilisation will insist on being treated with respect. Finally, the democratic transition of Russia (as well as the other former Soviet republics), for all its considerable problems, is bringing a new, strong player to the international scene.During the 1990s, which were a difficult time for my country, I said that Russia's troubles would pass, that it would rise to its feet and forge ahead. This is what is happening now.Russia's resurgence, its insistence on protecting its interests, and its ability to play a proper role in the world, are not to everyone's liking. Strangely enough, when Russia was mired in crisis, the west applauded it; today Russia is accused of rejecting democracy and of having imperial ambitions.Still, there are no real reasons to fear Russia. My country is facing many problems. Learning new ways and building democratic institutions is indeed hard work. But Russia will never go back. The most difficult part of the road is already behind us.I have always said that in this day and age we cannot afford to be pessimists. There are many reasons to be concerned and even alarmed. But history is not preordained. A new division of the world, a new confrontation, is not inevitable. A democratic world order is not mere rhetoric. It can be built.Mikhail Gorbachev is former president of the Soviet Union - presidentgorbachev@nytimes.com