In the night a child cried for his mother. She came into his room and sat by his bed. “Mom, I had a bad dream.” A quiet plea from her son.
She tenderly stroked his forehead, “That’s okay honey. It was just a dream.”
The little boy looked up at his mother with fearful eyes, “Mom, I dreamt that no one believed that the Neo-Conservatives are real. That nobody believed me when I told them so.”
The boy’s mother sighed as she looked down at her son. “Billy, how many times have I told you that the neo-conservatives are the most real threat to America since the Civil War?”
The boy nodded sheepishly. “I know mom.” Then he looked up hopefully, “Tell me again.”
His mother smiled and smoothed down his blankets. “All right, but you promise me you’ll try to go back to sleep, okay?”
The boy nestled down in his bed with a big smile. “Okay,” he whispered, and he closed his eyes.
“All right then,” she said. She looked down at her beautiful little boy as she began to tell him this story….
The student protests of the 1960’s seeded neo-conservatism, according to a Reagan era documentary produced by the conservative John M. Olin Foundation.
These mostly young Jewish liberal intellectuals saw the chaos of their times and saw that nothing good was coming from the sit-ins and riots.
They were supporters of change, but not supporters of anarchy.
In the pages of Commentary magazine the neo-conservative philosophy began to coalesce.
These men, and Jeanne Kirkpatrick, saw the Republican Party as the political strength which they could infuse with their own vision for America’s future and build into a mighty force for global change.
Coming from European Jewry which had survived the Holocaust and had witnessed the terrifying descent into sadism which totalitarianism spreads like a cloak over a disabused liberal society, the young neo-conservatives abandoned their liberal Marxist leftist ways and started to see the world in a vastly different manner.
Into this maelstrom of political philosophy came Leo Strauss. A German émigré, he had witnessed the bleak frost of fascism strangle the heart of Europe.
As a professor at the University of Chicago Strauss laid out his ideas in his famous work
“Natural Right and History.” This book lies at the centre of the neo-conservative movement.
It calls for a panoptic vigilance to be placed upon democracy. Strauss’s fear for democracy was that when weakened it became a sucking black hole into which fascism would rise triumphant.
To achieve this over-watching protection of democracy Strauss taught that the purpose of Freedom’s guardians must be to deter society from becoming slothful, indolent, liberal, weak.
The plan was simple. Strauss broke society down into three groups. At the bottom were the “vulgar masses.” The people. The lazy wall-eyed mouth breathing masses who can be rallied to any cause, or allowed to sink into a torpor of football and game shows.
At the top are the “noble gentlemen;” the figureheads of state. The noble gentlemen don’t have to be capable of actual leadership. They just have to smile and nod and deliver heart felt speeches which will affect the vulgar masses to rally to the flag.
The third group are the “Wise Men” who pull the strings and make the state function. They are the power behind the throne, and only they know what the true mission is all about.
They know that because of their intellectual superiority they will be looked on with suspicion by the vulgar masses. As a result the wise men must always stay in the shadows. The noble gentlemen can do all the talking, and waving, and baby kissing.
The goal of Leo Strauss was to dismantle the United States Constitution and Bill of Rights.
A liberal democracy is open to the infection of fascism, and therefore to safeguard against that possibility, liberal democracy must be itself transformed into something more capable of defending itself.
So, to sum up, in order to combat fascism, one must create a sort of counter-fascism. But, the counter-fascism of the wise men, in their own minds at least, was a “good’ form of fascism, because the wise men truly believed that they knew what was best for the vulgar masses.
The wise men knew that they could never actually tell the vulgar masses the true nature of their plans, for to do so would end the experiment. Therefore they couched their agenda in terms that the vulgar masses could understand. Patriotism. Freedom. Liberty. The Flag.
All meaningless intangibles. You can’t pay the rent with Freedom.
Leo Strauss was the Milli-Vanilli of post war philosophy. His ideas were cobbled together from his own bizarre and crackpot interpretations of Plato; a liberal dose of Machiavelli; all set to a simple repeating drum track of bashing the liberal philosophers.
His call was simple. The vulgar masses are lazy and indolent; their lives little better than the course of animals. Strauss believed that the vulgar masses, like the subjects in Plato’s Cave, should be focussed on the shadows projected by the men holding the secrets of the fire.
Perpetual war was the easiest way to attain this goal. Fear of the unknown. Anxiety. Terror.
Of course, none of this is anything new. Leaders have manipulated the will of their subjects since the first caveman stood on a boulder and said, “A vote for Ug is a vote for peace.”
I wrote to Noam Chomsky about Leo Strauss; his reply was straightforward. Evil is as evil does. If it wasn’t Strauss there’d be something else. There’s nothing new about any of this. True enough.
President Eisenhower broke with tradition and actually spoke some truth to the American people when he warned of the “influence, whether sought or unsought of the military-industrial complex.”
(The slaughter of millions of Vietnamese did nothing to stop that country meeting it’s Wilsonian dream of self-determination. Today John Kerry is pilloried by the fascists for his testimony before Congress. But, couldn’t he do the very same today? Sit down and read the Taguba report from Abu Ghraib prison?)
The election of Ronald Reagan saw the neo-conservatives take power in a big way. Reagan is best described as a bored old man who spent his days reading his fan mail in the Oval Office, and was famously disengaged from the operations of the Executive. A perfect “noble gentleman.” His vice-president, a transplanted Texas oil man, probably ran the show.
The neo-conservatives pushed for war and weapons. There was a war on drugs. A total failure. There were death squads in El Salvador, and CIA backed guerrillas in Nicaragua. Tens of thousands of people died at the hands of the neo-conservatives operating within the Reagan administration.
The eighties saw Reagan define ketchup as a vegetable, and the deliberate suppression of AIDS research and awareness. It also saw the bankrupting of America in the largest explosion of defense spending in history. It was sold a strategic game of chicken with the Soviets. The Soviets we were told, were ready to strike. The Soviets were an evil empire bent on eating babies from Vladivostok to Kabul. The Soviet Union was actually in economic collapse starting in the 1960’s)
The CIA, beginning with Carter, but really ramping under Reagan, funnelled over $5 billion dollars into the Afghan rebels who had fled the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan into neighbouring Pakistan.
While the neo-cons battled the Soviets in Afghanistan, and with their point man in Honduras, John Negroponte, providing safe haven to death squads such as Battalion 316, the other branch of the neo-cons under Oliver North and John Poindexter were selling advanced American missiles to Iranian terrorists in order to secure the release of American hostages in Lebanon. “We don’t negotiate with terrorists!” Unless it can be done secretly, of course. The arms for hostages scandal also involved Israel as a middle broker for the trans-shipment of the weapons.
This dark episode in American modern history is known as the Iran-Contra Affair. In order to keep from Congress, and the American people, the secret wars being fought in Central America, the CIA and the neo-cons bypassed the usual methods of acquiring tax-dollar provided funding, and used the money from the missile sales to Iran to fund the wars in Central America.
In 1986 the World Court found the United States guilty of unlawful use of force by mining the waters off Nicaragua. Noam Chomsky interprets “unlawful use of force” as terrorism.
At the same time, Donald Rumsfeld was visiting Saddam Hussein to give America’s blessing ( and helicopters, and chemical weapons technology, and satellite imagery) to Mr. Hussein’s dead-end war against Iran.
The Reagan era ended with dreams of Star Wars. A missile defense shield to protect only American air space from nuclear assault. Never mind that a nuclear cloud of fallout would encircle the world and extinguish all life, even in America, anyway. Never mind that since the 1940’s Rand analysts had scoffed at the idea of attempting to guarantee a solid one hundred percent interception success rate. Never mind that the nuclear stalemate was predicated on the notion of Mutually Assured Destruction. Never mind. Missile Defense makes good sense, especially to those companies that make the missiles.
In 1990 American diplomats responding to instructions from President George H. W. Bush gave Saddam the green light to attack Kuwait. Kuwait, like all the “countries” of the Gulf is a made-up country with made-up borders. Made-up by the British and French following the Sykes-Picot agreement signed in 1915. Two whole years before Uncle Sam realised that the war in Europe was something not to miss out on and sent the doughboys to France to fight the Hun.
Saddam gobbled up Kuwait with hardly a burp. And that would have been that, except George H. W. Bush told the American people that Saddam was amassing his armor along the border with Saudi Arabia. The press demanded to see the satellite images that proved this. They were told, “No. Those pictures are classified.” In fact, the pictures were seen by analysts who are on the record stating that there was no Iraqi armor build-up along the Saudi border.
Then the American people were given a taste of Iraqi sub-human cruelty when the TV screens were filled with images of a tearful young woman describing how she saw Iraqi storm troopers looting the maternity hospital in downtown Kuwait City. Through her tears she courageously told her eye witness account of how the beasts of Baghdad actually ripped babies out of incubators and dashed the infants onto the hard tiled floors. Monsters! Animals! Revenge!
Of course, as we know now, the story was fake. It was a creation of the Rendon Group. A high-placed, even higher-priced spin-center that ran the war for the Pentagon. They even landed in Kuwait City just ahead of advancing US and Coalition Forces to hand out little American flags to the children so the TV cameras would get their Victory shots.
During the “war” against Saddam Israel was terrified that it was going to be attacked with chemical weapons. The United States provided Israel with a security blanket of the new, and at that time, untested Raytheon Patriot Missile System.
This Patriot missile was a true wonder of the rocket age. After the war it’s success rate was praised by President Bush as being one hundred percent. A full one hundred percent.
Yes, but…. Failure. One hundred percent total failure.
How was it that it’s complete failure was sold to the American people as a complete success? How was that accomplished? By saying that the Patriot missile made “successful intercepts” of Saddam’s scuds.
The definition of a “successful intercept” turned out to be an imaginary three-dimensional box floating in space. If both the scud and the patriot both happened to pass through this box, at some time, it was counted as a successful intercept. The horrible reality of the abysmal failure of the Patriot was kept from everyone. Especially the Israeli public. Saddam’s scuds were not factory fresh, and even then they’re a cheaply made rocket. As they fall to earth they tend to fall apart. Nose cone. Rocket engine. Different bits and bobs. And for every bit that fell off a descending scud, a Patriot missile would be launched to “intercept” it.
Experts say that the majority of casualties and damage inflicted on Israel by Saddam’s scuds was actually done by Patriot missiles falling to earth and exploding.
Anyway, never being one to let facts get in the way, George H. W. Bush gave a speech at the Raytheon plant to thank the workers who built the Patriot missile.
As the Gulf War wound down George H. W. Bush sent out the word to the Shia in the south of Iraq to rise up and destroy Saddam.
They did. Rise up at any rate.
There was a problem. Saddam had been allowed by the Americans to keep possession of his attack helicopters, and he still had his elite Republican Guard forces.
Why did America stand by and allow Saddam to brutally exterminate the Shia rebellion?
Because it was better for the US to continue to deal with a weakened Saddam that they knew, than to deal with a possible Iranian style hard-line theocracy that they didn’t want to know. One Iran was plenty.
After the Gulf War the United States didn’t leave the Gulf. The US Navy had bases in Bahrain for years, but now the US army and Air Force would station thousands of troops in Saudi Arabia.
Without United Nations endorsement the United States unilaterally imposed “no fly zones” over Iraq. On paper they were to protect the Kurds in the North, and the Shia in the South.
For the next twelve years the US, Britain, and France flew over Iraq in an openly belligerent fashion. Any time Iraqi air defenses locked on to a trespassing plane the US pilots would destroy the Iraqi installation. This low-intensity conflict went on for over a decade.
Immediately after the end of the first gulf war the UN sent in investigation teams to survey the damage caused by the massive US aerial bombardment. Their report states that pre-war Iraq enjoyed a parity with other Mediterranean countries. It was an advanced industrialized state. Following the war the UN investigators reported that the bombing had reduced Iraq to a pre-industrial state, from which it would take years to recover.
The question remains, if the mission was to push Saddam’s army out of Kuwait, why was it necessary to return Iraq to a “pre-industrial state” in order to accomplish that goal?
The UN set up a strict sanctions regime known as the “Oil for food programme.” Iraq sold oil, and in return the UN allowed food and humanitarian supplies into the country. This was an effort to control Saddam’s desire to possess weapons of mass destruction.
The UN inspectors dismantled Saddam’s WMD mechanism. They destroyed the stockpiles, they destroyed the feed stocks. They destroyed the factories.
In 1998, under Bill Clinton, the CIA was using the UN weapons inspections programme as a way to spy on Iraq’s military and governmental infrastructure.
When the Iraqi’s discovered that the CIA was spying on them from within the UNSCOM inspection process Bill Clinton ordered the inspectors out. Then Bill Clinton launched Operation Desert Fox which struck all the targets that the CIA spies had targeted. These were not WMD related sites. They were government and military buildings and installations.
The neo-conservatives had the nineties to plan their bid for power. In 1996 Richard Perle led a team that wrote for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu a policy paper titled “A Clean Break: new strategies for securing the realm.”
Working with Perle on this paper were Douglas Feith, along with David and Meyrav Wurmser.
The Clean Break document called for an end to negotiations with the Palestinians, and instead suggested a more muscular policy in dealing with Arafat and the Palestinian Authority. It also called for the removal of Saddam Hussein as a direct Israeli strategic goal. Through the elimination of Saddam a strategic “hinge” would be created to isolate Iran on one side, and to put pressure on Syria from the other side.
In 1998, in small rented offices from the right-wing think-tank The American Enterprise Institute, a coterie of neo-cons assembled to sign the declaration of principles for something called “The Project for a New American Century.”
It took it’s name from an essay written in 1941 by TIME LIFE magazine publisher Henry Luce. Luce was far right wing in his strategic view of American foreign policy, and he saw America’s role as the servant of the Almighty to bring light into the dark places, and bring civilization to the savages.
Built from the Wilsonian ideals expressed at Versailles that all nations should be free to determine their own course, Luce felt that these backwater nations could only benefit from Uncle Sam’s beneficent guiding hand pushing them forward into modernity.
On the surface it sounded like a noble goal. There’s that gal in a wheelchair, I’ll rush over and open the door for her. She looks up and says, “I can open it myself thanks.” What a bitch. Or, is she? It all depends on your point of view. People want to be free. Free to do things by themselves.
Luce had written his testament for LIFE magazine and his essay was titled, “The American Century.”
Almost sixty years later the neo-conservatives revived this paternalistic-colonialist manifesto and gave it new life. Signing the statement of principles were men like Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Perle, Jeb Bush, William Kristol, Francis Fukayama, even Dan Quayle.
The PNAC crowd tried to influence Clinton. They re-animated the hysteria of the Cold War era “Committee on the Present Danger” by shrieking that Saddam Hussein was a threat to the region and must be dealt with.
Clinton gave them Desert Fox.
As we almost remember from the election of 2000, amidst allegations of massive voter fraud in Florida, and the failed bid to have an official recount, the Supreme Court of the United States voted along party lines and selected George W. Bush to be President.
He was absent from Washington for most of his first year in office. His popularity ratings were collapsing faster than investor confidence in any company Bush had ever helmed.
The playboy coke user, the AWOL Air National Guardsman, the hard drinking wastrel, son of a former president, brother of a current governor, was tailor made by Leo Strauss. The perfect “noble gentleman” who was incapable of independent thought, yet could be counted on to deliver to the K-Mart class speeches and swagger more Bonanza than Beltway. More Pentacostal than Presidential.
The intelligence service of Pakistan is called the ISI. It is extremely powerful. It had also been supported by the CIA since the Muhajadin days of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
Pakistan is a weak powerless country when compared with it’s mighty neighbour to the South.
Two border provinces between India and Pakistan have been in the middle of a tug of war since 1947. The ISI began funding religious schools, called Madrassahs, to teach young Pakistanis to kill. The schools did not teach them math, or geography. It taught them a fanatical version of Islam which focussed their mouldable little minds on some basic ideas. Dying in war against the enemy would be martyrdom and would ensure entry into paradise, and the enemy is anyone who isn’t Islamic.
Similar to the control Hitler exercised over the Hitler Youth, the young men of the Pakistani Madrassahs enlisted in various Muhajadin forces to fight the Indian army in Jumma and Kashmir.
By using these proxy fighters the Pakistani government could claim plausible deniability.
The ISI also created the Taliban who were then injected into post-Soviet Afghanistan.
The success of the Taliban ensured Islamabad that they had a friend on at least one border.
The world of high stakes geo-politics, specifically in South Asia, has been called since Kipling “The Great Game,” or by Zbigniew Brezinski, the Grand Chessboard.
Anyone who has played chess understands the allusion. In chess the objective is quite clear: the capture of the opposing king. To accomplish this goal, however, requires great skill and cunning.
Traps must be laid to lure enemy pieces out and then take them. Defences must be built to protect weaker pieces from attack. Feints, sacrifices, threats, and repositioning all factor.
In the real world, the same rules apply. Machiavelli laid out the ground rules for successful governance. Everything that faces the people is charade. Everything behind the curtain is reality.
A false flag operation, for example, is a covert operation by which a proxy is used to commit an act which benefits the control nation without revealing that the control nation is involved. One such false flag operation was the assassination of Austrian Arch-Duke Ferdinand in 1914 which led to the First World War. The Black Hand gang was a group of tuberculin Bosnian anarchists in their early twenties. Their group was infiltrated by a Servian intelligence officer posing as a fellow Bosnian anarchist. He provided the group with the weapons and motivation to commit the attack on the Arch-Duke and his wife when they came to visit Sarajevo.
Another example is the all but forgotten 1954 Lavon Affair. Israeli agents working in Egypt planted bombs in several buildings, including a United States diplomatic facility, and left evidence behind implicating Arabs as the culprits. The ruse would have worked, had not one of the bombs detonated prematurely, allowing the Egyptians to capture and identify one of the bombers, which in turn led to the round up of an Israeli spy ring. Some of the spies were from Israel, while others were recruited from the local Jewish population in Egypt. This was Israel’s first international incident.
In 1967 during the Six Day War unmarked Israeli aircraft attacked the unarmed USS Liberty off the coast of Israel. Although dozens of the crew were killed by the sustained aerial and naval attack by Israeli forces enough men survived to get an SOS call to the US fleet.
There has never been a formal investigation to ascertain why Israel attacked the Liberty, but all facts point to an attempt by Israel to jump-start America’s entry into the 6 Day War on Israel’s side through this false flag operation.
During 2001 the FBI had over 70 open cases on Al Qa’ida activities in the United States.
There has been no explanation given as to why the FBI didn’t apprehend all these known terrorists before 911.
Even when the Presidential Daily Briefing of August 6th was titled “Bin Laden determined to strike inside United States” nothing was done.
In the mid-nineties Philippines police stumbled upon a major Al Qa’ida plot called Operation Bojinka. A Servo-Croat word for “big explosion” Bojinka was a plot to blow up a dozen trans-pacific airliners with carefully planted explosives. The Philippines police discovered that a second stage of Bojinka was to involve flying planes into buildings, including nuclear power plants.
(The public is always told that nuclear plants are safe, because after all, the walls of the reactor have to be strong enough to contain the radioactive energy within. That is true. But, if one is to attack an armoured opponent, one does not strike where the armour is thickest. The weak point on a nuclear power plant is it’s cooling system. The cooling plant, which provides the water to control the reactor core temperature, is typically housed in a separate facility adjacent to the reactor.)
The Philippines police handed the Al Qa’ida agents over to the FBI. On 911 these same Philippines Police officers could not believe what they were seeing. “It was Bojinka. They knew for years.”
No good A&E biography is worth it’s salt unless it throws in a reference, no matter how tangentially, to Adolph Hitler. I would remiss in my efforts if I did not attempt an emulation of that proud tradition.
Adolph Hitler tried to rise to power on the fury and grievances of millions of unemployed Germans. He promised every German worker a car which Hitler had personally had a hand in designing: a Volkswagen. He spoke of traditional German values. He said that he valued the German farmer and rancher. He wanted more living space for his new vision of a Greater Germany that could return to it’s simple wholesome roots. It was so nice, his dream. However, besides promising the Germans a dreamlike vision of a pastoral Wagnerian future he also had to find a focus for all the fury and rage that was out there in the hearts of the vulgar masses.
He blamed everything on the Jews. Anti-Semitism wasn’t something that Hitler invented, but he certainly rose to power in a time when suspicion of Jews, and outright hatred of Jews was not only widespread, but tacitly condoned by many western nations.
I would argue that anti-Islamism has been on the rise in the United States for the past twenty years. My first notation of it in popular culture was Back to the Future where the time travelling de Lorean is threatened by a mob of fanatical Moslems in a Volkswagen microbus.
The Hitler plan as proposed to the public differed greatly from his own vision of the future, but he was too canny a manipulator to ever let the German public in on his own diabolical plans. Yet, no matter what he did to dupe the German voters into electing him the National Socialist German Workers Party began to slip in the polls. Election after election was held. The NSDPer’s with their street armies of brownshirts threatened and bullied their way into first a coalition, and then into complete control of the German Reichstag. This was all done within the framework of the Weimar Republic’s post war constitution. Hitler was smart to play the game by the rules, but did not hesitate for one moment to break the rules when he knew he could get away with it.
As chancellor Hitler needed to cross one more Rubicon. He needed total power. Similar to when an American President is granted war powers by Congress.
Hitler needed to get rid of the aged President Hindenburg and condense the office of Chancellor and President into one new title: Der Fuehrer.
Blaming the Jews for all of Germany’s ills played well into ancient prejudice, but the Jews weren’t rioting in the streets, or threatening the political stability of the nation. The Communists on the other hand, were a threat. Or, at least, they could be made to be perceived by the public as a threat.
Shortly after Hitler became Chancellor his propaganda minister and close confidante Paul Goebbels wrote in his diary that it would be necessary to create a situation by which it could be seen that the “natural order” had been broken. That it would then be necessary to re-establish order. And to do that would bring about total power.
The secret of the counter-revolutionary is to create an incident by which the public can be panicked into believing that the leadership elite is acting in their best interests to restore order.
Unfortunately for the NSDP leadership elite, the Communists weren’t doing anything. So, to hurry things up a bit the NSDP burnt down the German Reichstag parliament buildings. A Dutch Communist was found outside with matches in his hand and Hitler called for his immediate lynching. The Dutch Communist was a complete half-wit who had no idea of what was going on.
Within a short period of time, in order to restore calm and order, Hitler became President and Chancellor. He passed a series of emergency laws which allowed for complete surveillance of all German citizens. Letters could be opened, phones could be tapped, people would disappear off the street. He told a British journalist that he wanted more than anything to lift the emergency laws, but until the threats were dealt with, regretfully, the laws must stay.
Hitler set about purging all his enemies and then sat back and looked at what he had done.
The German media was now totally controlled by NSDP editors. Every newspaper, from the highbrow to the lowbrow carried the same message. Listening to foreign radio became a crime punishable by death. And the State Police had it’s name shortened by an efficient postal worker to just the first syllables of both words, Gestapo.
In the summer of 1939 Germany under Hitler had undergone a massive transformation. NSDP swastika banners hung from every building. When Hitler would appear at public appearances pretty young women would be put in the front row. Camera operators were given instructions to shoot low and high up at the outstretched right hands as the maidens shrieked “Victory! Hail!” because it made the fabric of their blouses tighten over their firm Aryan breasts. The camera created the cult of the leader. Then, as the summer wore on the German papers began to run headlines such as, “Poland greatest threat to Peace.” “Poland threat to Europe.” Poland, with it’s army still mounted on horses, was quite shocked to find out that they were a threat to Europe.
In the early morning of September 1st 1939 a group of German prison inmates were driven to the Polish border. They were told to dress in Polish Army uniforms. They were told to move near a German border observation post. And then they were all shot to death.
International journalists were driven with all haste to the scene. Photographs were taken. Stories were told. Brave German border guards surprised by Polish raiders. Polish perfidy!
By night fall the German mechanized battalions were on their way to Warsaw.
So much for Hitler. What about Bush?
911. A day that is frozen in time for so many people. And, as was seen at the recent Republican National Convention, frozen in time for Bush as well.
The effect of 911 was to deliver a catalytic shock that allowed for the swift passage of the PATRIOT Act, and the granting to the President of war powers. He had it all.
The neo-conservatives had it all.
Richard Perle was the chair of the civilian Pentagon Defense Policy Board, a hot bed coterie of neo-conservatives. Buried in the Pentagon reporting to Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz was Douglas Feith, the new under-secretary of Defense for Policy. Over at the State Department was deputy-secretary David Wurmser. The three top drafters of the 1996 policy paper for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu now occupied top slots in the administration.
The war in Afghanistan was taking care of business, but as an Act 1 to what would follow it quickly was forgotten. Osama morphed into Saddam and Al Qa’ida magically transformed into Iraq.
There are many reasons for the invasion of Iraq. This story focuses primarily on the neo-conservative agenda. However, I must mention the other key reasons that satisfied the goals of men like Dick Cheney.
The UN Oil for Food programme was quite successful. Too successful. Two concurrent UN administrators of the Oil for Food programme resigned in disgust from the programme over the slow genocide being performed on the Iraqi people. The United States refused to allow billions of dollars of oil industry improvement into Iraq. In 2000 Iraq struck a deal with the UN to allow it’s oil sales to be conducted in Euros and not American dollars. The US dollar is a fiat currency. There is nothing to back it up. If oil producers went off the US dollar the US dollar would become worthless.
Lastly, the international community was weary of keeping the sanctions against Iraq. If the sanctions were to be lifted and Iraq was allowed to let in foreign investment the United States and Great Britain could count on being left out.
It was imperative that these problems be taken care of as soon as possible.
Immediately after the invasion Bush signed an order putting Iraqi oil sales back on the US dollar. And of course, thanks to the no-bid contracts awarded by the White House, Halliburton and other companies with men and women in the White House got all the jobs.
The argument has been made that the war was not about oil. If the US had wanted the oil the US would have just bought the Iraqi oil. The fact is the US was buying Iraqi oil. As much as 80% of Basra light liftings and high percentages from the other oil producing areas of the country. How can that be? Because, according to the US Department of Energy, the Iraqi oil was sold to middlemen who then flipped it to international buyers, primarily the United States. So, all the while the United States was railing against the evil of Saddam, US oil companies were more than happy to buy up the excellent quality Iraqi oil.
Within the Pentagon Douglas Feith created the Office of Special Plans which created the fake intelligence which was piped directly to Dick Cheney, a transplanted Texas oil man.
Israeli agents working with the Pentagon slipped secrets to the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) regarding American dispositions towards Iran. Israel sees Iran as a total enemy. And no doubt the feeling is mutual.
The current FBI investigation into Israeli spies was been blown by a leak to the media, and now the Attorney General is stepping in to see if he can squash the investigation.
As for the war in Iraq? It fitted in perfectly with the neo-conservative vision. When planning for the post-war occupation was taking place at the State Department the neo-conservative ensured that not one of the recommendations made would be enacted.
The neo-conservatives guaranteed that the mission in Iraq would fail.
Why? It accomplished many tasks. It gets the American army in the Gulf doing something.
It feeds the unending war which the Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex needs.
The war, and the threat of terror at home, elevates the lives of the vulgar masses. It makes their lives worth living again. Also, as Hitler so ably noted, to control a population one must constantly walk a balance of conflicting messages. Have one senior official say that terror attacks are imminent, then have another official say that everything is fine. Too much terror makes the people dull. It slackens the will. It is necessary to mix it up, or as the CIA calls it in interrogation techniques “Low-threat high-fear switch.” Hitler discovered that this technique is the ideal way to completely control a population. After a while people don’t know whether they are coming or going, and in that state of confusion, it is easy to plant any ideas you want in their minds.
Next, it is necessary to fuel anti-American sentiment in the Islamic world. During the Cold War it was easy to portray the Soviet Union as a powerful enemy. However, in today’s Global War on Terror, the enemy is stateless and is underarmed. Therefore it is important to fuel the insurgency in Iraq. As is being reported recently the insurgency is not getting weaker, it’s getting stronger. The fighters are getting experienced. They are learning. They are adapting. And they will be taking what they learn from Iraq to the ends of the Islamic world.
That will guarantee an endless supply of jihadists and terrorists to last for the next hundred years.
Is this the America that Benjamin Franklin and Samuel Adams worked to build? A nation controlled by shadowy ideologues who support far-right fascistic principles?
Former USAF Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski worked in the Pentagon in the same area as Douglas Feith’s Office of Special Plans. She had no knowledge of what a neo-conservative was until she met these men and started over hearing their conversations and finding out what their true goal appeared to be. In short she says, it’s no wonder these fellows stay in the shadows, because their values are not American values, their goals aren’t American goals, and if the American public found out the truth about these characters they’d be strung up.
The mother looked down at her little boy. He was fast asleep. She smiled sadly to herself.
“The neo-conservatives do exist Billy,” she whispered. She left the room, pausing at the door to look back at her son.
Moonlight falling through the window brushed a silver glow across the boys face as he slept. He was far away.
She tenderly stroked his forehead, “That’s okay honey. It was just a dream.”
The little boy looked up at his mother with fearful eyes, “Mom, I dreamt that no one believed that the Neo-Conservatives are real. That nobody believed me when I told them so.”
The boy’s mother sighed as she looked down at her son. “Billy, how many times have I told you that the neo-conservatives are the most real threat to America since the Civil War?”
The boy nodded sheepishly. “I know mom.” Then he looked up hopefully, “Tell me again.”
His mother smiled and smoothed down his blankets. “All right, but you promise me you’ll try to go back to sleep, okay?”
The boy nestled down in his bed with a big smile. “Okay,” he whispered, and he closed his eyes.
“All right then,” she said. She looked down at her beautiful little boy as she began to tell him this story….
The student protests of the 1960’s seeded neo-conservatism, according to a Reagan era documentary produced by the conservative John M. Olin Foundation.
These mostly young Jewish liberal intellectuals saw the chaos of their times and saw that nothing good was coming from the sit-ins and riots.
They were supporters of change, but not supporters of anarchy.
In the pages of Commentary magazine the neo-conservative philosophy began to coalesce.
These men, and Jeanne Kirkpatrick, saw the Republican Party as the political strength which they could infuse with their own vision for America’s future and build into a mighty force for global change.
Coming from European Jewry which had survived the Holocaust and had witnessed the terrifying descent into sadism which totalitarianism spreads like a cloak over a disabused liberal society, the young neo-conservatives abandoned their liberal Marxist leftist ways and started to see the world in a vastly different manner.
Into this maelstrom of political philosophy came Leo Strauss. A German émigré, he had witnessed the bleak frost of fascism strangle the heart of Europe.
As a professor at the University of Chicago Strauss laid out his ideas in his famous work
“Natural Right and History.” This book lies at the centre of the neo-conservative movement.
It calls for a panoptic vigilance to be placed upon democracy. Strauss’s fear for democracy was that when weakened it became a sucking black hole into which fascism would rise triumphant.
To achieve this over-watching protection of democracy Strauss taught that the purpose of Freedom’s guardians must be to deter society from becoming slothful, indolent, liberal, weak.
The plan was simple. Strauss broke society down into three groups. At the bottom were the “vulgar masses.” The people. The lazy wall-eyed mouth breathing masses who can be rallied to any cause, or allowed to sink into a torpor of football and game shows.
At the top are the “noble gentlemen;” the figureheads of state. The noble gentlemen don’t have to be capable of actual leadership. They just have to smile and nod and deliver heart felt speeches which will affect the vulgar masses to rally to the flag.
The third group are the “Wise Men” who pull the strings and make the state function. They are the power behind the throne, and only they know what the true mission is all about.
They know that because of their intellectual superiority they will be looked on with suspicion by the vulgar masses. As a result the wise men must always stay in the shadows. The noble gentlemen can do all the talking, and waving, and baby kissing.
The goal of Leo Strauss was to dismantle the United States Constitution and Bill of Rights.
A liberal democracy is open to the infection of fascism, and therefore to safeguard against that possibility, liberal democracy must be itself transformed into something more capable of defending itself.
So, to sum up, in order to combat fascism, one must create a sort of counter-fascism. But, the counter-fascism of the wise men, in their own minds at least, was a “good’ form of fascism, because the wise men truly believed that they knew what was best for the vulgar masses.
The wise men knew that they could never actually tell the vulgar masses the true nature of their plans, for to do so would end the experiment. Therefore they couched their agenda in terms that the vulgar masses could understand. Patriotism. Freedom. Liberty. The Flag.
All meaningless intangibles. You can’t pay the rent with Freedom.
Leo Strauss was the Milli-Vanilli of post war philosophy. His ideas were cobbled together from his own bizarre and crackpot interpretations of Plato; a liberal dose of Machiavelli; all set to a simple repeating drum track of bashing the liberal philosophers.
His call was simple. The vulgar masses are lazy and indolent; their lives little better than the course of animals. Strauss believed that the vulgar masses, like the subjects in Plato’s Cave, should be focussed on the shadows projected by the men holding the secrets of the fire.
Perpetual war was the easiest way to attain this goal. Fear of the unknown. Anxiety. Terror.
Of course, none of this is anything new. Leaders have manipulated the will of their subjects since the first caveman stood on a boulder and said, “A vote for Ug is a vote for peace.”
I wrote to Noam Chomsky about Leo Strauss; his reply was straightforward. Evil is as evil does. If it wasn’t Strauss there’d be something else. There’s nothing new about any of this. True enough.
President Eisenhower broke with tradition and actually spoke some truth to the American people when he warned of the “influence, whether sought or unsought of the military-industrial complex.”
(The slaughter of millions of Vietnamese did nothing to stop that country meeting it’s Wilsonian dream of self-determination. Today John Kerry is pilloried by the fascists for his testimony before Congress. But, couldn’t he do the very same today? Sit down and read the Taguba report from Abu Ghraib prison?)
The election of Ronald Reagan saw the neo-conservatives take power in a big way. Reagan is best described as a bored old man who spent his days reading his fan mail in the Oval Office, and was famously disengaged from the operations of the Executive. A perfect “noble gentleman.” His vice-president, a transplanted Texas oil man, probably ran the show.
The neo-conservatives pushed for war and weapons. There was a war on drugs. A total failure. There were death squads in El Salvador, and CIA backed guerrillas in Nicaragua. Tens of thousands of people died at the hands of the neo-conservatives operating within the Reagan administration.
The eighties saw Reagan define ketchup as a vegetable, and the deliberate suppression of AIDS research and awareness. It also saw the bankrupting of America in the largest explosion of defense spending in history. It was sold a strategic game of chicken with the Soviets. The Soviets we were told, were ready to strike. The Soviets were an evil empire bent on eating babies from Vladivostok to Kabul. The Soviet Union was actually in economic collapse starting in the 1960’s)
The CIA, beginning with Carter, but really ramping under Reagan, funnelled over $5 billion dollars into the Afghan rebels who had fled the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan into neighbouring Pakistan.
While the neo-cons battled the Soviets in Afghanistan, and with their point man in Honduras, John Negroponte, providing safe haven to death squads such as Battalion 316, the other branch of the neo-cons under Oliver North and John Poindexter were selling advanced American missiles to Iranian terrorists in order to secure the release of American hostages in Lebanon. “We don’t negotiate with terrorists!” Unless it can be done secretly, of course. The arms for hostages scandal also involved Israel as a middle broker for the trans-shipment of the weapons.
This dark episode in American modern history is known as the Iran-Contra Affair. In order to keep from Congress, and the American people, the secret wars being fought in Central America, the CIA and the neo-cons bypassed the usual methods of acquiring tax-dollar provided funding, and used the money from the missile sales to Iran to fund the wars in Central America.
In 1986 the World Court found the United States guilty of unlawful use of force by mining the waters off Nicaragua. Noam Chomsky interprets “unlawful use of force” as terrorism.
At the same time, Donald Rumsfeld was visiting Saddam Hussein to give America’s blessing ( and helicopters, and chemical weapons technology, and satellite imagery) to Mr. Hussein’s dead-end war against Iran.
The Reagan era ended with dreams of Star Wars. A missile defense shield to protect only American air space from nuclear assault. Never mind that a nuclear cloud of fallout would encircle the world and extinguish all life, even in America, anyway. Never mind that since the 1940’s Rand analysts had scoffed at the idea of attempting to guarantee a solid one hundred percent interception success rate. Never mind that the nuclear stalemate was predicated on the notion of Mutually Assured Destruction. Never mind. Missile Defense makes good sense, especially to those companies that make the missiles.
In 1990 American diplomats responding to instructions from President George H. W. Bush gave Saddam the green light to attack Kuwait. Kuwait, like all the “countries” of the Gulf is a made-up country with made-up borders. Made-up by the British and French following the Sykes-Picot agreement signed in 1915. Two whole years before Uncle Sam realised that the war in Europe was something not to miss out on and sent the doughboys to France to fight the Hun.
Saddam gobbled up Kuwait with hardly a burp. And that would have been that, except George H. W. Bush told the American people that Saddam was amassing his armor along the border with Saudi Arabia. The press demanded to see the satellite images that proved this. They were told, “No. Those pictures are classified.” In fact, the pictures were seen by analysts who are on the record stating that there was no Iraqi armor build-up along the Saudi border.
Then the American people were given a taste of Iraqi sub-human cruelty when the TV screens were filled with images of a tearful young woman describing how she saw Iraqi storm troopers looting the maternity hospital in downtown Kuwait City. Through her tears she courageously told her eye witness account of how the beasts of Baghdad actually ripped babies out of incubators and dashed the infants onto the hard tiled floors. Monsters! Animals! Revenge!
Of course, as we know now, the story was fake. It was a creation of the Rendon Group. A high-placed, even higher-priced spin-center that ran the war for the Pentagon. They even landed in Kuwait City just ahead of advancing US and Coalition Forces to hand out little American flags to the children so the TV cameras would get their Victory shots.
During the “war” against Saddam Israel was terrified that it was going to be attacked with chemical weapons. The United States provided Israel with a security blanket of the new, and at that time, untested Raytheon Patriot Missile System.
This Patriot missile was a true wonder of the rocket age. After the war it’s success rate was praised by President Bush as being one hundred percent. A full one hundred percent.
Yes, but…. Failure. One hundred percent total failure.
How was it that it’s complete failure was sold to the American people as a complete success? How was that accomplished? By saying that the Patriot missile made “successful intercepts” of Saddam’s scuds.
The definition of a “successful intercept” turned out to be an imaginary three-dimensional box floating in space. If both the scud and the patriot both happened to pass through this box, at some time, it was counted as a successful intercept. The horrible reality of the abysmal failure of the Patriot was kept from everyone. Especially the Israeli public. Saddam’s scuds were not factory fresh, and even then they’re a cheaply made rocket. As they fall to earth they tend to fall apart. Nose cone. Rocket engine. Different bits and bobs. And for every bit that fell off a descending scud, a Patriot missile would be launched to “intercept” it.
Experts say that the majority of casualties and damage inflicted on Israel by Saddam’s scuds was actually done by Patriot missiles falling to earth and exploding.
Anyway, never being one to let facts get in the way, George H. W. Bush gave a speech at the Raytheon plant to thank the workers who built the Patriot missile.
As the Gulf War wound down George H. W. Bush sent out the word to the Shia in the south of Iraq to rise up and destroy Saddam.
They did. Rise up at any rate.
There was a problem. Saddam had been allowed by the Americans to keep possession of his attack helicopters, and he still had his elite Republican Guard forces.
Why did America stand by and allow Saddam to brutally exterminate the Shia rebellion?
Because it was better for the US to continue to deal with a weakened Saddam that they knew, than to deal with a possible Iranian style hard-line theocracy that they didn’t want to know. One Iran was plenty.
After the Gulf War the United States didn’t leave the Gulf. The US Navy had bases in Bahrain for years, but now the US army and Air Force would station thousands of troops in Saudi Arabia.
Without United Nations endorsement the United States unilaterally imposed “no fly zones” over Iraq. On paper they were to protect the Kurds in the North, and the Shia in the South.
For the next twelve years the US, Britain, and France flew over Iraq in an openly belligerent fashion. Any time Iraqi air defenses locked on to a trespassing plane the US pilots would destroy the Iraqi installation. This low-intensity conflict went on for over a decade.
Immediately after the end of the first gulf war the UN sent in investigation teams to survey the damage caused by the massive US aerial bombardment. Their report states that pre-war Iraq enjoyed a parity with other Mediterranean countries. It was an advanced industrialized state. Following the war the UN investigators reported that the bombing had reduced Iraq to a pre-industrial state, from which it would take years to recover.
The question remains, if the mission was to push Saddam’s army out of Kuwait, why was it necessary to return Iraq to a “pre-industrial state” in order to accomplish that goal?
The UN set up a strict sanctions regime known as the “Oil for food programme.” Iraq sold oil, and in return the UN allowed food and humanitarian supplies into the country. This was an effort to control Saddam’s desire to possess weapons of mass destruction.
The UN inspectors dismantled Saddam’s WMD mechanism. They destroyed the stockpiles, they destroyed the feed stocks. They destroyed the factories.
In 1998, under Bill Clinton, the CIA was using the UN weapons inspections programme as a way to spy on Iraq’s military and governmental infrastructure.
When the Iraqi’s discovered that the CIA was spying on them from within the UNSCOM inspection process Bill Clinton ordered the inspectors out. Then Bill Clinton launched Operation Desert Fox which struck all the targets that the CIA spies had targeted. These were not WMD related sites. They were government and military buildings and installations.
The neo-conservatives had the nineties to plan their bid for power. In 1996 Richard Perle led a team that wrote for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu a policy paper titled “A Clean Break: new strategies for securing the realm.”
Working with Perle on this paper were Douglas Feith, along with David and Meyrav Wurmser.
The Clean Break document called for an end to negotiations with the Palestinians, and instead suggested a more muscular policy in dealing with Arafat and the Palestinian Authority. It also called for the removal of Saddam Hussein as a direct Israeli strategic goal. Through the elimination of Saddam a strategic “hinge” would be created to isolate Iran on one side, and to put pressure on Syria from the other side.
In 1998, in small rented offices from the right-wing think-tank The American Enterprise Institute, a coterie of neo-cons assembled to sign the declaration of principles for something called “The Project for a New American Century.”
It took it’s name from an essay written in 1941 by TIME LIFE magazine publisher Henry Luce. Luce was far right wing in his strategic view of American foreign policy, and he saw America’s role as the servant of the Almighty to bring light into the dark places, and bring civilization to the savages.
Built from the Wilsonian ideals expressed at Versailles that all nations should be free to determine their own course, Luce felt that these backwater nations could only benefit from Uncle Sam’s beneficent guiding hand pushing them forward into modernity.
On the surface it sounded like a noble goal. There’s that gal in a wheelchair, I’ll rush over and open the door for her. She looks up and says, “I can open it myself thanks.” What a bitch. Or, is she? It all depends on your point of view. People want to be free. Free to do things by themselves.
Luce had written his testament for LIFE magazine and his essay was titled, “The American Century.”
Almost sixty years later the neo-conservatives revived this paternalistic-colonialist manifesto and gave it new life. Signing the statement of principles were men like Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Perle, Jeb Bush, William Kristol, Francis Fukayama, even Dan Quayle.
The PNAC crowd tried to influence Clinton. They re-animated the hysteria of the Cold War era “Committee on the Present Danger” by shrieking that Saddam Hussein was a threat to the region and must be dealt with.
Clinton gave them Desert Fox.
As we almost remember from the election of 2000, amidst allegations of massive voter fraud in Florida, and the failed bid to have an official recount, the Supreme Court of the United States voted along party lines and selected George W. Bush to be President.
He was absent from Washington for most of his first year in office. His popularity ratings were collapsing faster than investor confidence in any company Bush had ever helmed.
The playboy coke user, the AWOL Air National Guardsman, the hard drinking wastrel, son of a former president, brother of a current governor, was tailor made by Leo Strauss. The perfect “noble gentleman” who was incapable of independent thought, yet could be counted on to deliver to the K-Mart class speeches and swagger more Bonanza than Beltway. More Pentacostal than Presidential.
The intelligence service of Pakistan is called the ISI. It is extremely powerful. It had also been supported by the CIA since the Muhajadin days of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
Pakistan is a weak powerless country when compared with it’s mighty neighbour to the South.
Two border provinces between India and Pakistan have been in the middle of a tug of war since 1947. The ISI began funding religious schools, called Madrassahs, to teach young Pakistanis to kill. The schools did not teach them math, or geography. It taught them a fanatical version of Islam which focussed their mouldable little minds on some basic ideas. Dying in war against the enemy would be martyrdom and would ensure entry into paradise, and the enemy is anyone who isn’t Islamic.
Similar to the control Hitler exercised over the Hitler Youth, the young men of the Pakistani Madrassahs enlisted in various Muhajadin forces to fight the Indian army in Jumma and Kashmir.
By using these proxy fighters the Pakistani government could claim plausible deniability.
The ISI also created the Taliban who were then injected into post-Soviet Afghanistan.
The success of the Taliban ensured Islamabad that they had a friend on at least one border.
The world of high stakes geo-politics, specifically in South Asia, has been called since Kipling “The Great Game,” or by Zbigniew Brezinski, the Grand Chessboard.
Anyone who has played chess understands the allusion. In chess the objective is quite clear: the capture of the opposing king. To accomplish this goal, however, requires great skill and cunning.
Traps must be laid to lure enemy pieces out and then take them. Defences must be built to protect weaker pieces from attack. Feints, sacrifices, threats, and repositioning all factor.
In the real world, the same rules apply. Machiavelli laid out the ground rules for successful governance. Everything that faces the people is charade. Everything behind the curtain is reality.
A false flag operation, for example, is a covert operation by which a proxy is used to commit an act which benefits the control nation without revealing that the control nation is involved. One such false flag operation was the assassination of Austrian Arch-Duke Ferdinand in 1914 which led to the First World War. The Black Hand gang was a group of tuberculin Bosnian anarchists in their early twenties. Their group was infiltrated by a Servian intelligence officer posing as a fellow Bosnian anarchist. He provided the group with the weapons and motivation to commit the attack on the Arch-Duke and his wife when they came to visit Sarajevo.
Another example is the all but forgotten 1954 Lavon Affair. Israeli agents working in Egypt planted bombs in several buildings, including a United States diplomatic facility, and left evidence behind implicating Arabs as the culprits. The ruse would have worked, had not one of the bombs detonated prematurely, allowing the Egyptians to capture and identify one of the bombers, which in turn led to the round up of an Israeli spy ring. Some of the spies were from Israel, while others were recruited from the local Jewish population in Egypt. This was Israel’s first international incident.
In 1967 during the Six Day War unmarked Israeli aircraft attacked the unarmed USS Liberty off the coast of Israel. Although dozens of the crew were killed by the sustained aerial and naval attack by Israeli forces enough men survived to get an SOS call to the US fleet.
There has never been a formal investigation to ascertain why Israel attacked the Liberty, but all facts point to an attempt by Israel to jump-start America’s entry into the 6 Day War on Israel’s side through this false flag operation.
During 2001 the FBI had over 70 open cases on Al Qa’ida activities in the United States.
There has been no explanation given as to why the FBI didn’t apprehend all these known terrorists before 911.
Even when the Presidential Daily Briefing of August 6th was titled “Bin Laden determined to strike inside United States” nothing was done.
In the mid-nineties Philippines police stumbled upon a major Al Qa’ida plot called Operation Bojinka. A Servo-Croat word for “big explosion” Bojinka was a plot to blow up a dozen trans-pacific airliners with carefully planted explosives. The Philippines police discovered that a second stage of Bojinka was to involve flying planes into buildings, including nuclear power plants.
(The public is always told that nuclear plants are safe, because after all, the walls of the reactor have to be strong enough to contain the radioactive energy within. That is true. But, if one is to attack an armoured opponent, one does not strike where the armour is thickest. The weak point on a nuclear power plant is it’s cooling system. The cooling plant, which provides the water to control the reactor core temperature, is typically housed in a separate facility adjacent to the reactor.)
The Philippines police handed the Al Qa’ida agents over to the FBI. On 911 these same Philippines Police officers could not believe what they were seeing. “It was Bojinka. They knew for years.”
No good A&E biography is worth it’s salt unless it throws in a reference, no matter how tangentially, to Adolph Hitler. I would remiss in my efforts if I did not attempt an emulation of that proud tradition.
Adolph Hitler tried to rise to power on the fury and grievances of millions of unemployed Germans. He promised every German worker a car which Hitler had personally had a hand in designing: a Volkswagen. He spoke of traditional German values. He said that he valued the German farmer and rancher. He wanted more living space for his new vision of a Greater Germany that could return to it’s simple wholesome roots. It was so nice, his dream. However, besides promising the Germans a dreamlike vision of a pastoral Wagnerian future he also had to find a focus for all the fury and rage that was out there in the hearts of the vulgar masses.
He blamed everything on the Jews. Anti-Semitism wasn’t something that Hitler invented, but he certainly rose to power in a time when suspicion of Jews, and outright hatred of Jews was not only widespread, but tacitly condoned by many western nations.
I would argue that anti-Islamism has been on the rise in the United States for the past twenty years. My first notation of it in popular culture was Back to the Future where the time travelling de Lorean is threatened by a mob of fanatical Moslems in a Volkswagen microbus.
The Hitler plan as proposed to the public differed greatly from his own vision of the future, but he was too canny a manipulator to ever let the German public in on his own diabolical plans. Yet, no matter what he did to dupe the German voters into electing him the National Socialist German Workers Party began to slip in the polls. Election after election was held. The NSDPer’s with their street armies of brownshirts threatened and bullied their way into first a coalition, and then into complete control of the German Reichstag. This was all done within the framework of the Weimar Republic’s post war constitution. Hitler was smart to play the game by the rules, but did not hesitate for one moment to break the rules when he knew he could get away with it.
As chancellor Hitler needed to cross one more Rubicon. He needed total power. Similar to when an American President is granted war powers by Congress.
Hitler needed to get rid of the aged President Hindenburg and condense the office of Chancellor and President into one new title: Der Fuehrer.
Blaming the Jews for all of Germany’s ills played well into ancient prejudice, but the Jews weren’t rioting in the streets, or threatening the political stability of the nation. The Communists on the other hand, were a threat. Or, at least, they could be made to be perceived by the public as a threat.
Shortly after Hitler became Chancellor his propaganda minister and close confidante Paul Goebbels wrote in his diary that it would be necessary to create a situation by which it could be seen that the “natural order” had been broken. That it would then be necessary to re-establish order. And to do that would bring about total power.
The secret of the counter-revolutionary is to create an incident by which the public can be panicked into believing that the leadership elite is acting in their best interests to restore order.
Unfortunately for the NSDP leadership elite, the Communists weren’t doing anything. So, to hurry things up a bit the NSDP burnt down the German Reichstag parliament buildings. A Dutch Communist was found outside with matches in his hand and Hitler called for his immediate lynching. The Dutch Communist was a complete half-wit who had no idea of what was going on.
Within a short period of time, in order to restore calm and order, Hitler became President and Chancellor. He passed a series of emergency laws which allowed for complete surveillance of all German citizens. Letters could be opened, phones could be tapped, people would disappear off the street. He told a British journalist that he wanted more than anything to lift the emergency laws, but until the threats were dealt with, regretfully, the laws must stay.
Hitler set about purging all his enemies and then sat back and looked at what he had done.
The German media was now totally controlled by NSDP editors. Every newspaper, from the highbrow to the lowbrow carried the same message. Listening to foreign radio became a crime punishable by death. And the State Police had it’s name shortened by an efficient postal worker to just the first syllables of both words, Gestapo.
In the summer of 1939 Germany under Hitler had undergone a massive transformation. NSDP swastika banners hung from every building. When Hitler would appear at public appearances pretty young women would be put in the front row. Camera operators were given instructions to shoot low and high up at the outstretched right hands as the maidens shrieked “Victory! Hail!” because it made the fabric of their blouses tighten over their firm Aryan breasts. The camera created the cult of the leader. Then, as the summer wore on the German papers began to run headlines such as, “Poland greatest threat to Peace.” “Poland threat to Europe.” Poland, with it’s army still mounted on horses, was quite shocked to find out that they were a threat to Europe.
In the early morning of September 1st 1939 a group of German prison inmates were driven to the Polish border. They were told to dress in Polish Army uniforms. They were told to move near a German border observation post. And then they were all shot to death.
International journalists were driven with all haste to the scene. Photographs were taken. Stories were told. Brave German border guards surprised by Polish raiders. Polish perfidy!
By night fall the German mechanized battalions were on their way to Warsaw.
So much for Hitler. What about Bush?
911. A day that is frozen in time for so many people. And, as was seen at the recent Republican National Convention, frozen in time for Bush as well.
The effect of 911 was to deliver a catalytic shock that allowed for the swift passage of the PATRIOT Act, and the granting to the President of war powers. He had it all.
The neo-conservatives had it all.
Richard Perle was the chair of the civilian Pentagon Defense Policy Board, a hot bed coterie of neo-conservatives. Buried in the Pentagon reporting to Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz was Douglas Feith, the new under-secretary of Defense for Policy. Over at the State Department was deputy-secretary David Wurmser. The three top drafters of the 1996 policy paper for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu now occupied top slots in the administration.
The war in Afghanistan was taking care of business, but as an Act 1 to what would follow it quickly was forgotten. Osama morphed into Saddam and Al Qa’ida magically transformed into Iraq.
There are many reasons for the invasion of Iraq. This story focuses primarily on the neo-conservative agenda. However, I must mention the other key reasons that satisfied the goals of men like Dick Cheney.
The UN Oil for Food programme was quite successful. Too successful. Two concurrent UN administrators of the Oil for Food programme resigned in disgust from the programme over the slow genocide being performed on the Iraqi people. The United States refused to allow billions of dollars of oil industry improvement into Iraq. In 2000 Iraq struck a deal with the UN to allow it’s oil sales to be conducted in Euros and not American dollars. The US dollar is a fiat currency. There is nothing to back it up. If oil producers went off the US dollar the US dollar would become worthless.
Lastly, the international community was weary of keeping the sanctions against Iraq. If the sanctions were to be lifted and Iraq was allowed to let in foreign investment the United States and Great Britain could count on being left out.
It was imperative that these problems be taken care of as soon as possible.
Immediately after the invasion Bush signed an order putting Iraqi oil sales back on the US dollar. And of course, thanks to the no-bid contracts awarded by the White House, Halliburton and other companies with men and women in the White House got all the jobs.
The argument has been made that the war was not about oil. If the US had wanted the oil the US would have just bought the Iraqi oil. The fact is the US was buying Iraqi oil. As much as 80% of Basra light liftings and high percentages from the other oil producing areas of the country. How can that be? Because, according to the US Department of Energy, the Iraqi oil was sold to middlemen who then flipped it to international buyers, primarily the United States. So, all the while the United States was railing against the evil of Saddam, US oil companies were more than happy to buy up the excellent quality Iraqi oil.
Within the Pentagon Douglas Feith created the Office of Special Plans which created the fake intelligence which was piped directly to Dick Cheney, a transplanted Texas oil man.
Israeli agents working with the Pentagon slipped secrets to the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) regarding American dispositions towards Iran. Israel sees Iran as a total enemy. And no doubt the feeling is mutual.
The current FBI investigation into Israeli spies was been blown by a leak to the media, and now the Attorney General is stepping in to see if he can squash the investigation.
As for the war in Iraq? It fitted in perfectly with the neo-conservative vision. When planning for the post-war occupation was taking place at the State Department the neo-conservative ensured that not one of the recommendations made would be enacted.
The neo-conservatives guaranteed that the mission in Iraq would fail.
Why? It accomplished many tasks. It gets the American army in the Gulf doing something.
It feeds the unending war which the Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex needs.
The war, and the threat of terror at home, elevates the lives of the vulgar masses. It makes their lives worth living again. Also, as Hitler so ably noted, to control a population one must constantly walk a balance of conflicting messages. Have one senior official say that terror attacks are imminent, then have another official say that everything is fine. Too much terror makes the people dull. It slackens the will. It is necessary to mix it up, or as the CIA calls it in interrogation techniques “Low-threat high-fear switch.” Hitler discovered that this technique is the ideal way to completely control a population. After a while people don’t know whether they are coming or going, and in that state of confusion, it is easy to plant any ideas you want in their minds.
Next, it is necessary to fuel anti-American sentiment in the Islamic world. During the Cold War it was easy to portray the Soviet Union as a powerful enemy. However, in today’s Global War on Terror, the enemy is stateless and is underarmed. Therefore it is important to fuel the insurgency in Iraq. As is being reported recently the insurgency is not getting weaker, it’s getting stronger. The fighters are getting experienced. They are learning. They are adapting. And they will be taking what they learn from Iraq to the ends of the Islamic world.
That will guarantee an endless supply of jihadists and terrorists to last for the next hundred years.
Is this the America that Benjamin Franklin and Samuel Adams worked to build? A nation controlled by shadowy ideologues who support far-right fascistic principles?
Former USAF Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski worked in the Pentagon in the same area as Douglas Feith’s Office of Special Plans. She had no knowledge of what a neo-conservative was until she met these men and started over hearing their conversations and finding out what their true goal appeared to be. In short she says, it’s no wonder these fellows stay in the shadows, because their values are not American values, their goals aren’t American goals, and if the American public found out the truth about these characters they’d be strung up.
The mother looked down at her little boy. He was fast asleep. She smiled sadly to herself.
“The neo-conservatives do exist Billy,” she whispered. She left the room, pausing at the door to look back at her son.
Moonlight falling through the window brushed a silver glow across the boys face as he slept. He was far away.
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