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| Brook |
Posted
on 07-Apr-03 09:18 AM
- The following opinion contains all ingredients that make an interesting read: well substantiated facts, contextual relevance, a fair bit of extrapolation and a guarded degree of cynicism. Nevertheless, in an apparent attempt to demystify what Operation Iraqi Freedon truly is all about (primarily to the American public), from the point of view of those at the receiving end of this alleged Repulican-conspiracy of ignominous proportions, the message seems to be clear: acts of terrorism or any other unorthodox modes of defense for that matter, are justified in what bin Laden, and others that have taken his path labelled jihad.
Blood Money
By William Rivers Pitt t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Thursday 27 February 2003
"In the counsels of Government, we must guard against the
acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought,
by the Military Industrial Complex. The potential for the disastrous
rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist. We must never let
the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic
processes." - President Dwight Eisenhower, January 1961.
George W. Bush gave a speech Wednesday night before the
Godfather of conservative Washington think tanks, the American
Enterprise Institute. In his speech, Bush quantified his coming war
with Iraq as part of a larger struggle to bring pro-western
governments into power in the Middle East. Couched in hopeful
language describing peace and freedom for all, the speech was in
fact the closest articulation of the actual plan for Iraq that has yet
been heard from the administration.
In a previous truthout article from February 21, the ideological
connections between an extremist right-wing Washington think tank
and the foreign policy aspirations of the Bush administration were
detailed.
The Project for a New American Century, or PNAC, is a group
founded in 1997 that has been agitating since its inception for a
war with Iraq. PNAC was the driving force behind the drafting and
passage of the Iraqi Liberation Act, a bill that painted a veneer of
legality over the ultimate designs behind such a conflict. The
names of every prominent PNAC member were on a letter
delivered to President Clinton in 1998 which castigated him for not
implementing the Act by driving troops into Baghdad.
PNAC has funneled millions of taxpayer dollars to a Hussein
opposition group called the Iraqi National Congress, and to Iraq's
heir-apparent, Ahmed Chalabi, despite the fact that Chalabi was
sentenced in absentia by a Jordanian court to 22 years in prison on
31 counts of bank fraud. Chalabi and the INC have, over the years,
gathered support for their cause by promising oil contracts to
anyone that would help to put them in power in Iraq.
Most recently, PNAC created a new group called The Committee
for the Liberation of Iraq. Staffed entirely by PNAC members, The
Committee has set out to "educate" Americans via cable news
connections about the need for war in Iraq. This group met recently
with National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice regarding the
ways and means of this education.
Who is PNAC? Its members include:
* Vice President Dick Cheney, one of the PNAC founders, who
served as Secretary of Defense for Bush Sr.;
* I. Lewis Libby, Cheney's top national security assistant;
* Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, also a founding member,
along with four of his chief aides including;
* Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, arguably the
ideological father of the group;
* Eliot Abrams, prominent member of Bush's National Security
Council, who was pardoned by Bush Sr. in the Iran/Contra scandal;
* John Bolton, who serves as Undersecretary for Arms Control and
International Security in the Bush administration;
* Richard Perle, former Reagan administration official and present
chairman of the powerful Defense Policy Board;
* Randy Scheunemann, President of the Committee for the
Liberation of Iraq, who was Trent Lott's national security aide and
who served as an advisor to Rumsfeld on Iraq in 2001;
* Bruce Jackson, Chairman of PNAC, a position he took after
serving for years as vice president of weapons manufacturer
Lockheed-Martin, and who also headed the Republican Party
Platform subcommittee for National Security and Foreign Policy
during the 2000 campaign. His section of the 2000 GOP Platform
explicitly called for the removal of Saddam Hussein;
* William Kristol, noted conservative writer for the Weekly
Standard, a magazine owned along with the Fox News Network by
conservative media mogul Ruppert Murdoch.
The Project for the New American Century seeks to establish what
they call 'Pax Americana' across the globe. Essentially, their goal is
to transform America, the sole remaining superpower, into a
planetary empire by force of arms. A report released by PNAC in
September of 2000 entitled 'Rebuilding America's Defenses'
codifies this plan, which requires a massive increase in defense
spending and the fighting of several major theater wars in order to
establish American dominance. The first has been achieved in
Bush's new budget plan, which calls for the exact dollar amount to
be spent on defense that was requested by PNAC in 2000.
Arrangements are underway for the fighting of the wars.
The men from PNAC are in a perfect position to see their foreign
policy schemes, hatched in 1997, brought into reality. They control
the White House, the Pentagon and Defense Department, by way
of this the armed forces and intelligence communities, and have at
their feet a Republican-dominated Congress that will rubber-stamp
virtually everything on their wish list.
The first step towards the establishment of this Pax Americana is,
and has always been, the removal of Saddam Hussein and the
establishment of an American protectorate in Iraq. The purpose of
this is threefold: 1) To acquire control of the oilheads so as to fund
the entire enterprise; 2) To fire a warning shot across the bows of
every leader in the Middle East; 3) To establish in Iraq a military
staging area for the eventual invasion and overthrow of several
Middle Eastern regimes, including some that are allies of the
United States.
|
| Brook |
Posted
on 07-Apr-03 09:19 AM
Another PNAC signatory, author Norman Podhoretz, quantified this
aspect of the grand plan in the September 2002 issue of his
journal, 'Commentary'. In it, Podhoretz notes that the regimes, "that
richly deserve to be overthrown and replaced, are not confined to
the three singled-out members of the axis of evil. At a minimum, the
axis should extend to Syria and Lebanon and Libya, as well as
'friends' of America like the Saudi royal family and Egypt's Hosni
Mubarak, along with the Palestinian Authority, whether headed by
Arafat or one of his henchmen." At bottom, for Podhoretz, this
action is about "the long-overdue internal reform and modernization
of Islam."
This casts Bush's speech to AEI on Wednesday in a completely
different light.
Weapons of mass destruction are a smokescreen. Paeans to the
idea of Iraqi liberation and democratization are cynical in their
inception. At the end of the day, this is not even about oil. The drive
behind this war is ideological in nature, a crusade to 'reform' the
religion of Islam as it exists in both government and society within
the Middle East. Once this is accomplished, the road to empire will
be open, ten lanes wide and steppin' out over the line.
At the end of the day, however, ideology is only good for bull
sessions in the board room and the bar. Something has to grease
the skids, to make the whole thing worthwhile to those involved,
and entice those outside the loop to get into the game.
Thus, the payout.
It is well known by now that Dick Cheney, before becoming Vice
President, served as chairman and chief executive of the Dallas-
based petroleum corporation Halliburton. During his tenure,
according to oil industry executives and United Nations records,
Halliburton did a brisk $73 million in business with Saddam
Hussein's Iraq. While working face-to-face with Hussein, Cheney
and Halliburton were also moving into position to capitalize upon
Hussein's removal from power. In October of 1995, the same month
Cheney was made CEO of Halliburton, that company announced a
deal that would put it first in line should war break out in Iraq. Their
job: To take control of burning oil wells, put out the fires, and
prepare them for service.
Another corporation that stands to do well by a war in Iraq is Brown
& Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton. Ostensibly, Brown & Root is in
the construction business, and thus has won a share of the $900
million government contract for the rebuilding of post-war Iraqi
bridges, roads and other basic infrastructure. This is but the tip of
the financial iceberg, as the oil wells will also have to be repaired
after parent-company Halliburton puts out the fires.
More ominously is Brown & Root's stock in trade: the building of
permanent American military bases. There are twelve permanent
U.S. bases in Kosovo today, all built and maintained by Brown &
Root for a multi-billion dollar profit. If anyone should wonder why
the administration has not offered an exit strategy to the Iraq war
plans, the presence of Brown & Root should answer them
succinctly. We do not plan on exiting. In all likelihood, Brown &
Root is in Iraq to build permanent bases there, from which attacks
upon other Middle Eastern nations can be staged and managed.
Again, this casts Bush's speech on Wednesday in a new light.
Being at the center of the action is nothing new for Halliburton and
Brown & Root. The two companies have worked closely with
governments in Algeria, Angola, Bosnia, Burma, Croatia, Haiti,
Nigeria, Rwanda, and Somalia during the worst chapters in those
nation's histories. Many environmental and human rights groups
claim that Cheney, Halliburton and Brown & Root were, in fact,
centrally involved in these fiascos. More recently, Brown & Root
was contracted by the Defense Department to build cells for
detainees in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The bill for that one project
came to $300 million.
Cheney became involved with PNAC officially in 1997, while still
profiting from deals between Halliburton and Hussein. One year
later, Cheney and PNAC began actively and publicly agitating for
war on Iraq. They have not stopped to this very day.
Another company with a vested interest in both war on Iraq and
massively increased defense spending is the Carlyle Group.
Carlyle, a private global investment firm with more than $12.5
billion in capital under management, was formed in 1987. Its
interests are spread across 164 companies, including
telecommunications firms and defense contractors. It is staffed at
the highest levels by former members of the Reagan and Bush Sr.
administrations. Former President George H. W. Bush is himself
employed by Carlyle as a senior advisor, as is long-time Bush
family advisor and former Secretary of State James Baker III.
|
| Brook |
Posted
on 07-Apr-03 09:20 AM
One company acquired by Carlyle is United Defense, a weapons
manufacturer based in Arlington, VA. United Defense provides the
Defense Department with combat vehicle systems, fire support,
combat support vehicle systems, weapons delivery systems,
amphibious assault vehicles, combat support services and naval
armaments. Specifically, United Defense manufactures the Bradley
Fighting Vehicle, the M113 armored personnel carrier, the M88A2
Recovery Vehicle, the Grizzly, the M9 ACE, the Composite
Armored Vehicle, the M6 Linebacker, the M7 BFIST, the Armored
Gun System, the M4 Command and Control Vehicle, the Battle
Command Vehicle, the Paladin, the Crusader, and Electric
Gun/Pulse Power weapons technology.
In other words, everything a growing Defense Department, a war in
Iraq, and a burgeoning American military empire needs.
Ironically, one group that won't profit from Carlyle's involvement in
American military buildup is the family of Osama bin Laden. The
bin Laden family fortune was amassed by Mohammed bin Laden,
father of Osama, who built a multi-billion dollar construction empire
through contracts with the Saudi government. The Saudi BinLaden
Group, as this company is called, was heavily invested in Carlyle
for years. Specifically, they were invested in Carlyle's Partners II
Fund, which includes in that portfolio United Defense and other
weapons manufacturers.
This relationship was described in a September 27, 2001 article in
the Wall Street Journal entitled 'Bin Laden Family Could Profit
From Jump in Defense Spending Due to Ties to US Bank.' The
'bank' in question was the Carlyle Group. A follow-up article
published by the Journal on September 28 entitled ' Bin Laden
Family Has Intricate Ties With Washington - Saudi Clan Has Had
Access To Influential Republicans ' further describes the
relationship. In October of 2001, Saudi BinLaden and Carlyle
severed their relationship by mutual agreement. The timing is
auspicious.
There are a number of depths to be plumbed in all of this. The
Bush administration has claimed all along that this war with Iraq is
about Saddam Hussein's connections to terrorism and weapons of
mass destruction, though through it all they have roundly failed to
establish any basis for either accusation. On Wednesday, Bush
went further to claim that the war is about liberating the Iraqi people
and bringing democracy to the Middle East. This ignores cultural
realities on the ground in Iraq and throughout the region that,
salted with decades of deep mistrust for American motives, make
such a democracy movement brought at the point of the sword
utterly impossible to achieve.
This movement, cloaked in democracy, is in fact a PNAC-inspired
push for an American global empire. It behooves Americans to
understand that there is a great difference between being the
citizen of a constitutional democracy and being a citizen of an
empire. The establishment of an empire requires some significant
sacrifices.
Essential social, medical, educational and retirement services will
have to be gutted so that those funds can be directed towards a
necessary military buildup. Actions taken abroad to establish the
preeminence of American power, most specifically in the Middle
East, will bring a torrent of terrorist attacks to the home front. Such
attacks will bring about the final suspension of constitutional rights
and the rule of habeas corpus, as we will find ourselves under
martial law. In the end, however, this may be inevitable. An empire
cannot function with the slow, cumbersome machine of a
constitutional democracy on its back. Empires must be ruled with
speed and ruthlessness, in a manner utterly antithetical to the way
in which America has been governed for 227 years.
And yes, of course, a great many people will die.
It would be one thing if all of this was based purely on the ideology
of our leaders. It is another thing altogether to consider the
incredible profit motive behind it all. The President, his father, the
Vice President, a whole host of powerful government officials,
along with stockholders and executives from Halliburton and
Carlyle, stand to make a mint off this war. Long-time corporate
sponsors from the defense, construction and petroleum industries
will likewise profit enormously.
Critics of the Bush administration like to bandy about the word
"fascist" when speaking of George. The image that word conjures is
of Nazi stormtroopers marching in unison towards Hitler's Final
Solution. This does not at all fit. It is better, in this matter, to view
the Bush administration through the eyes of Benito Mussolini.
Mussolini, dubbed 'the father of Fascism,' defined the word in a far
more pertinent fashion. "Fascism," said Mussolini, "should more
properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and
corporate power."
Boycott the French, the Germans, and the other 114 nations who
stand against this Iraq war all you wish. France and Germany do
not oppose Bush because they are cowards, or because they enjoy
the existence of Saddam Hussein. France and Germany stand
against the Bush administration because they intend to stop this
Pax Americana in its tracks if they can. They have seen militant
fascism up close and personal before, and wish never to see it
again.
Would that we Americans could be so wise.
-------
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.
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