http://www.cam.net.uk/home/nimmann/peace/why.htm
From: "Elizabeth Carr-Allen" Robert Bowman flew 101 combat missions in Vietnam. He is
presently (1998) bishop of the United Catholic Church in Melbourne Beach, FL.
Originally printed in The National Catholic Reporter, Oct. 2, 1998. The
"Security" Charade - by Robert Bowman If deceptions about
terrorism go unchallenged, then the threat will continue until it destroys us. The truth is that none of our thousands of nuclear weapons
can protect us from these threats. No Star Wars system no matter how technically
advanced, no matter how many trillions of dollars are poured into it, can
protect us from a nuclear weapon delivered in a sailboat or a Cessna or a
suitcase or a Ryder rental truck. Not one weapon in our vast arsenal, not a
penny of the $270 billion a year we spend on so-called defense can defend
against a terrorist bomb. That is a military fact.
As a retired lieutenant colonel and a frequent lecturer on
national security issues, I have often quoted Psalm 33: "A king is not
saved by his mighty army. A warrior is not saved by his great strength."
The obvious reaction is, "Then what can we do?" Is there nothing we
can do to provide security for our people?"
There is. But to understand it requires that we know the
truth about the threat. President Clinton did not tell the American people the
truth about why we are the targets of terrorism when he explained why we bombed
Afghanistan and Sudan. He said that we are a target because we stand for
democracy, freedom, and human rights in the world. Nonsense!
We are the target of terrorists because, in much of the
world, our government stands for dictatorship, bondage, and human exploitation.
We are the target of terrorists because we are hated. And we are hated because
our government has done hateful things.
In how many countries have agents of our government deposed
popularly elected leaders and replaced them with puppet military dictators who
were willing to sell out their own people to American multinational
corporations?
We did it in Iran when the US Marines and the CIA deposed
Mossadegh because he wanted to nationalize the oil industry. We replaced him
with the Shah and armed, trained, and paid his hated Savak National Guard, which
enslaved and brutalized the people of Iran, all to protect the financial
interests of our oil companies. Is it any wonder that there are people in Iran
who hate us?
We did it in Chile. We did it in Vietnam. More recently, we
tried to do it in Iraq. And, of course, how many times have we done it in
Nicaragua and all the other banana republics of Latin America? Time after time
we have ousted popular leaders who wanted the riches of the land to be shared by
the people who worked it. We replaced them with murderous tyrants who would sell
out their own people so the wealth of the land could be taken out by the likes
of Domino Sugar, Folgers, and Chiquita Banana.
In country after country, our government has thwarted
democracy, stifled freedom, and trampled human rights. That's why it is hated
around the world. And that's why we're the target of terrorists.
People in Canada enjoy democracy, freedom, and human rights.
So do the people of Norway and Sweden. Have you heard of Canadian embassies
being bombed? Or Norwegian, or Swedish?
We are not hated because we practice democracy, value
freedom, or uphold human rights. We are hated because our government denies
these things to people in Third World countries whose resources are coveted by
our multinational corporations. That hatred we have sown has come back to haunt
us in the form of terrorism and in the future, nuclear terrorism.
Once the truth about why the threat exists is understood, the
solution becomes obvious. We must change our ways. Getting rid of our nuclear
weapons unilaterally if necessary will enhance our security. Drastically
altering our foreign policy will ensure it.
Instead of sending our sons and daughters around the world to
kill Arabs so we can have the oil under their sand, we should send them to
rebuild their infrastructure, supply clean water, and feed starving children.
Instead of continuing to kill hundreds of Iraqui children every day with our
sanctions, we should help Iraquis rebuild their electric power plants, their
water treatment facilities, their hospitals, and all the things we have
destroyed and prevented them from rebuilding.
Instead of training terrorists and death squads, we should
close the School of the Americas [Ft. Benning, GA.]. Instead of supporting
insurrection, destabilization, assassination, and terror around the world, we
should abolish the CIA and give money to relief agencies.
In short, we should do good instead of evil. Who would
try to stop us? Who would hate us? Who would want to bomb us? That is the truth
the American people need to hear.
Date: Sun, 11 Nov 2001 - From: Richard Did you know that in 1986 the World Court convicted America
of being a war criminal for its crimes committed in Nicaragua in '83 and '84?
They insisted that America face the music, and the American government refused.
And the only reason that no one could enforce the decision that the World Court
came to is because America is currently the foremost superpower in the world. If
that wasn't the case though, maybe America would have been bombed, and some of
the people in other countries would have felt that we deserved it, just like
many Americans now feel that it's unfortunate but necessary that innocent
Afghani civilians are killed in the current bombings if it means that maybe bin
Laden and the Taliban will be killed in the process.
You can find out more about America being convicted by the
World Court for its war crimes in Nicaragua at: www.icj-cij.org/icjwww/idecisions/isummaries/inussummary860627.htm
from TARGETS (www.targets.org)
- Independent monthly paper on international affairs
You may not agree on the political view or the direct and
sometimes polemic way of speech of Srgt. Stan Goff - judge yourself. I added
headlines and moved his facts and questions about the atrocities on Sep 11 into
the file planes.htm
- 13 Oct '01 - Ralph Nimmann.
To put this in perspective we have to go back not to
September 11th, but to last year or further.
A man of limited intelligence, George W. Bush, with nothing
more than his name and the behind-the-scenes pressure of his powerful father-a
former President, ex-director of Central Intelligence, and an oil man-is
systematically constructed as a candidate, at tremendous cost. Across the
country, subtle and not-so-subtle mechanisms are put into place to disfranchise
a significant fraction of the Democrat's African-American voter base. This
doesn't come out until Florida becomes a battleground for Electoral College
votes, and the magnitude of the story has been suppressed by the corporate media
to this day. In a decision so lacking in legitimacy, the Supreme Court will
neither by-line the author of the decision nor allow the decision to ever be
used as a precedent, Bush v. Gore awards the presidency of the United States to
a man who loses the popular vote in Florida and loses the national popular vote
by over 600,000.
This de facto regime then organizes a very interesting
cabinet. The Vice President is an oil executive and the former Secretary of
Defense. The National Security Advisor is a director on the board of a
transnational oil corporation and a Russia scholar. The Secretary of State is a
man with no diplomatic experience whatsoever, and the former Chair of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff. The other interesting appointment is Donald Rumsfeld as
Secretary of Defense. Rumsfeld is the former CEO of Searle Pharmaceuticals. He
and Cheney were featured as speakers at the May, 2000, Russian-American Business
Leaders Forum. So the consistent currents in this cabinet are petroleum, the
former Soviet Union, and the military.
Based on the record of Daddy Bush, in all his guises, and the
general trajectory of US foreign policy as far back as the Carter
Administration, I feel I can reasonably conclude that Middle Eastern and South
Asian fossil fuels are one of their major preoccupations. Not just because this
klavern has some very direct financial interests in fossil fuel, but because
they surely know that worldwide oil production is peaking as we speak, and will
soon begin a permanent and precipitous decline that will completely change the
character of civilization as we know it within 20 years. Even the left seems to
be in deep denial about this, but the math is available. And, no, alternative
energies and energy technologies will not save us. All the alternatives in the
world can not begin to provide more than a tiny fraction of the energy base now
provided by oil. This makes it more than a resource, and the drive to control
what's left more than an economic competition.
I further conclude that the economic colonization of the
former Soviet Union is probably high on that agenda, and in fact has a powerful
synergy with the issue of petroleum. Russia not only holds vast untapped
resources that beckon to imperialism in crisis, it remains a credible military
and nuclear challenger in the region.
We have not one, but three members of the Bush de facto
cabinet with military credentials, which makes the cabinet look quite a lot like
a military General Staff. All this way before September 11th.
Then there's the subject of the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization. NATO might have expected consignment to the dustbin of the Cold
War after the Eastern Bloc shattered in 1991. Peace dividend and all that. But
it didn't. It expanded directly into the former states of the Eastern Bloc
toward the former Soviet Union, and contributed significant forces to the
devastation of Iraq-a key country in the world oil market, over which control
translates into the ability to manipulate oil prices.
NATO is a military formation, and the United States exerts
the controlling interest in it. It seemed like a form without a function, but it
remedied that pretty quickly.
Then when Yugoslavia refused to play ball with the
International Monetary Fund, the US and Germany began a systematic campaign of
destabilization there, even using some of the veterans of Afghanistan in that
campaign. NATO became the military arm of that agenda-the break-up of Yugoslavia
into compliant statelets, the further containment of the former Soviet Union,
and the future pipeline easement for Caspain Sea oil to Western European markets
through Kosovo.
You see, this is important to understand, and people-even
those against the war talk-are tending to overlook the significance of it. NATO
is not a guarantor of international law, and it is not a humanitarian
organization. It is a military alliance with one very dominant partner. And it
can no longer claim to be a defensive alliance against European socialists. It
is an instrument of military aggression.
NATO is the organization that is now going to thrust further
along the 40th parallel from the Balkans through the Southern Asian Republics of
the former Soviet Union. The US military has already taken control of a base in
Uzbekistan. No one is talking about how what we are doing seems to be a very
logical extension of a strategy that was already in motion, and has been in
motion for two decades. Once we recognize the pattern of activity designed to
simultaneously consolidate control over Middle Eastern and South Asian oil, and
contain and colonize the former Soviet Union, Afghanistan is exactly where they
need to go to pursue that agenda.
Afghanistan borders Iran, India, and even China but, more
importantly, the Central Asian Republics of the former Soviet Union, Uzbekistan,
Turkmenistan and Tajikistan. These border Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan borders Russia.
Turkmenistan sits on the Southeastern quadrant of the Caspian Sea, whose oil the
Bush Administration dearly covets. Afghanistan is necessary for two things: as a
base of operations to begin the process of destabilizing, breaking off, and
establishing control over the South Asian Republics, which will begin within the
next 18-24 months in my opinion, and constructing a pipeline through
Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan to deliver petroleum to the Asian
market.
The BBC was recently told by Niaz Naik, a Pakistani Foreign
Secretary, that senior American officials were warning them as early as mid-July
that military action for mid-October was being planned for Afghanistan. In 1996,
the Department of Energy was issuing reports on the desirability of a pipeline
through Afghanistan, and in 1998, Unocal testified before the House Subcommittee
on Asia and the Pacific that this pipeline was crucial to transport Caspian
Basin oil to the Indian Ocean.
Given this evidence that a military operation to secure at
least a portion of Afghanistan has been on the table, possibly as early as five
years ago, I can't help but conclude that the actions we are seeing put into
motion now are part of a pre-September 11th agenda. I'm absolutely sure of that,
in fact. The planning alone for operations, of this scale, that are now taking
shape, would take many months. And we are seeing them take shape in mere weeks.
It defies common sense. This administration is lying about
this whole thing being a "reaction" to September 11th. That leads me,
in short order, to be very suspicious of their yet-to-be-provided evidence that
someone in Afghanistan is responsible. It's just too damn convenient. Which also
leads me to wonder-just for the sake of knowing-what actually did happen on
September 11th, and who actually is responsible. [See more at U.S.
Policy Towards Taliban Influenced by Oil]
ConclusionsCertainly, the Bush de facto administration was
facing a confluence of crises from which they were temporarily rescued by this
event. Whether they played a sinister role or not, there is little doubt that
they have at the very least opportunistically pounced on this attack to overcome
their lack of legitimacy, to shift the blame for the encroaching recession from
capitalism to the September 11th terror attack, to legitimize their pre-existing
foreign policy agenda, and to establish and consolidate repressive measures
domestically and silence dissent. In many ways, September 11th pulled the Bush
cookies out of the fire.
And given them the green light to begin constructing a
long-term scenario within which to establish fascistic control measures at home
and abroad as a citadel for the ruling class in the catastrophic conjuncture
that we are entering based on the end of oil.
This elephant in the living room is being studiously ignored.
In fact, the domestic repression has already begun, officially and unofficially.
It's kind of a latter day McCarthyism. I participated in a teach-in at Chapel
Hill, North Carolina, on the 17th of September, and though not a single person
on the panel excused or justified the attacks, and every person there offered
either condolences and prayers for the victims, we were excoriated within two
days as "enemies of America." Yesterday an op-ed called for my
deportation (to where, one can only guess). Now Herr Ashcroft is fast tracking
the biggest abrogation of US civil liberties since the so-called anti-terrorism
legislation after the Oklahoma City bombing-which by the way hasn't resulted in
anti-terrorism but in the acceleration of the application of the racist death
penalty.
The FBI has defined terrorist groups not by whether any given
group has ever acted as terrorists, but by their beliefs. Some socialists and! !
anti-globalization groups have already been identified by name as terrorist
groups, even though there is not a single shred of evidence that they have ever
participated in any criminal activity. It reminds me of the Smith Act that was
finally declared unconstitutional, but only after a hell of a lot of people
served a hell of a long time in jail for the crime of thinking.
I think this also points to yet another huge problems that
the Bush regime was facing. Worldwide resistance to the whole so-called
neoliberal agenda, which is a prettied up term for debt-leverage imperialism.
While debt and the threat of sanctions has been used to coerce nations in the
periphery, we have to understand that the final guarantor of compliance remains
military action. For a global economic agenda, there is always a corresponding
political and military agenda.
The focal point of these actions in the short term is
Southern Asia, but they have already scripted this as a worldwide and protracted
fight against terrorism. It's far better than drug wars as a rationalization,
and the drug war thing was being discredited in any case. Leftists are regaining
power and popularity in Venezuela, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Colombia,
the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Brazil, and Argentina. Cuba has gained immense
prestige over the last few years. The empire is beginning to unravel. We can
hardly justify intervention in these places by saying they are not towing the
economic line by allowing the absolute domination of their societies by
transnational corporations. That exposes the agenda. So we simply claim they are
supporting terrorism.
It's for all these reasons I say the left has missed the boat
on this one, by allowing them to get away with rushing past the question of who
did what on September 11th. If the official story is a lie, and I think the
circumstantial case is strong enough to stay with this question, then we really
do need to know what happened. And we need to understand concretely what the
motives of this administration are.
And we need to understand more than just their immediate
motives, but where the larger social forces that underwrite our situation right
now are headed. I do not think this administration is engaged in the
deliberative process of a political grouping that is on top of their game. They
are putting together some very deliberative technical solutions in response to a
larger situation that it slipping rapidly out of their control. Like clear
cutting. There's a very smart technology being employed to do a very dumb thing.
What they are responding to is not September 11th, but the
beginning of a permanent and precipitous decline in worldwide oil production,
the beginning of a deep and protracted worldwide recession, and the unraveling
of the empire. This brings me to a point about what all this means for
Americans' security, which they are perfectly justified to worry about. The
actions being prepared by this administration will not only not enhance our
security, it will significantly degrade it. Military action against many groups
across the globe, which is what the administration is telling us quite openly
they are planning to do, will put a lot of backs against the wall. That can't be
very secure.
The concept of war being touted here is a violation of the
principles of war on several counts, and will inevitably lead to military
catastrophes, if you're inclined to view this from a position of moral and
political neutrality.
And the people who are now in possession of half the world's
remaining oil reserves are subject to destabilization for which we can't even
pretend to predict the consequences-but loss of access to critical energy
supplies is certainly within the realm of possibility. Worst of all, we will be
destabilizing Pakistan, a nuclear power in an active conflict with its neighbor,
and we will be provoking Russia, another nuclear power. The security stakes
don't get any higher, and Americans can ill afford to ignore nukes.
And I think that this domestic agenda is a tremendous threat
to the security of anyone who is critical of the government or their corporate
financiers, and we already know that the real threats are against populations
that can easily be scapegoated as the domestic crisis deepens. There is a very
real threat right now of creeping fascism in this country, and that phenomenon
requires its domestic enemies. Historically those enemies have included
leftists, trade unionists, and racially and nationally oppressed sectors. This
whole "state of emergency" mentality is already being used to quiet
the public discourses of anti-racism, of feminism, of environmentalism, and of
both socialism and anarchism. And while there is token resistance by officials
to anti-Muslim xenophobia, the stereotypical images have saturated the media,
and the government is already beginning to openly re-instate racial profiling.
It is only a short step from there to go after other groups. We have long b! !
een prepared by the ideologies of overt and covert racism, and racism as both
institution and corresponding psychology in the United States is nearly
intractable.
It's for all these reason, I say emphatically that we can not
accept anything from this administration; not their policies nor their bullshit
stories. What they are doing is very, very dangerous, and the time to fight back
against them, openly, is right now, before they can consolidate their power and
their agenda. Once they have done that, our job becomes much more difficult.
The left, if it has the capacity to self-organize out of its
oblivion, needs to understand its critical roles here. We have to play the role
of credible, hard-working, and non-sectarian partners in a broader
peace-movement. We have to study, synthesize, and describe our current
historical conjuncture. And we have to prepare leadership for the decisive
conflict that will emerge to first defeat fascism then take political power.
Rosa Luxemburg's words are truer than ever right now. We are
not faced with a choice between socialism and capitalism, but socialism or
barbarism. And what we can least afford are denial and timidity.
Stan Goff
Strongly recommend, for anyone who wants to find further
background material on the issues herein check out the websites at TARGETS - Independent monthly paper on international affairs
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America convicted of being a war criminal in 1986
Understanding the political background of Sept. 11th
By Former Special Forces Srgt. Stan GoffAbout
the Author Srgt. Stan Goff
We Need to
Question Official StatementsUnderstanding Geoge W Bush
Understanding Bush's Cabinet
Understanding NATO
As Always: The Oil - and early US plans for military action
September
11, 2001: Unbelievable Story of Passivity
US Global and Inner Politics after 11 September
[ More critical thoughts about America
- the End of Freedom ]
Security
Political Opposition to the Current US Policy
Further information and links
www.dieoff.org - www.emperors-clothes.com
and www.globalcircle.com.