Beyond the sorrows of empire: THE UGLY UGLY TRUTH [View All]

[Beam Me Up]

Over two thousand slain American servicemen and women, tens of thousands more maimed and wounded physically and mentally, untold tens of thousands of Iraqi and Afghani dead. This is the so called "War on Terror" the 'war' we are told will not end in our lifetimes.

How can their be healing of our nation, healing of our human world, how can their be forgiveness for a sick, irrational, illegal and IMMORAL 'war' without TRUTH, ACCOUNTABILITY AND JUSTICE?

In truth what is happening in Iraq and Afganistan and throughout the Middle East is not a 'war' on terrorism or anything else. What it is IS A BARBERIC ACT OF OPPRESSION by the perpetrators of an American Empire who have thrown upon it a thin and sardonic veneer of "democratic liberation". The entire Republican administration, much of the Congress, much of the press and electronic meda, and many otherwise intelligent American citizens ARE GUILTY OF WAR CRIMES AND COMPLICIT IN CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY.

I want to talk about how ugly and deep this sinister plot goes because the fact of the matter is, the events of 9/11, which pResident Bush called "the Pearl Harbor of the 21st Century," is at the core of our current international and domestic policies.

More than any other event or 'authoritative statement', it was--and I dare say continues to be--the events of 9/11 which propelled this country into 'war' in Afghanistan and Iraq. NEVER MIND that the alleged perpetrator of those attacks, Osama bin Laden--or anyone closely associated with him--has never been captured or questioned. NEVER MIND that there was no more evidence presented to back up this Oficial Conspiracy Theory than there was to back up the assertion that Iraq harbored terrorists or that it was involved in the 9/11 attack or that it held weapons of mass destruction that were an imminent threat to the United States--all of which have subsequently proven to be false.

THE EVENTS OF 9/11 WERE A CALCULATED PSYCHOLOGICAL OPERATION AIMED AT THE HEART AND CONCIENCE OF THE AMERICA PEOPLE, and by extension the people of the world. It is not only the families of those who were killed or injured in the events of that day who are victims of 9/11, IT IS ALL OF US. Each and every one of us and many people around the world suffered grief and horror on that day as they, thanks to the 'miracle' of global communications, witnessed repeatedly a traumatic spectacle like no other seen before. Moreover, in quick succession, as we tried to understand what was happening, how it could have happened and who could be responsible, our grief and horror were turned to a kind of seething rage as we were told that this was done to us by "Islamic Fundamentalists" who "hate us for our freedoms."

It is now becoming increasingly clear, however--as, indeed, it was to a few of us even on that day--that THE EVENTS THAT TOOK PLACE ON 9/11 WERE COMPLETELY ORCHISTRATED FROM WITHIN THE US GOVERNMENT AND MILITARY BY A SMALL HIGHLY PLACED CABAL. They did it. They did it not only for oil, not only for unimaginable wealth and power, they did it to create the social conditions necessary to implement the ultimate weaponization of space.

Who are "they"? We can name three prime suspects: Vice President Richard Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and (then) head of NORAD, General Ralph E. Eberhart. The events of 9/11 could not have unfolded as they did without at the very least their foreknowledge and consent. If there is, indeed, a "secret government" operating parallel with our Constitutional government, these three men must be a part of it.

To fully grasp the significance of this, I highly recommend that everyone on DU at least read the transcript of the talk given by David Ray Griffin entitled 9/11 and the American Empire: How Should Religious People Respond? Whether you regard yourself as "religious" or not, I'm sure you regard yourself as a person of moral, humane values, in which case I believe the information and perspective provided by Dr. Griffin in this talk are essential to our understanding of the world we live in today. He clearly defines his three terms, "religious people," "the American Empire" and "9/11" and emphasizes that those of us who value human life and try to live our lives according to moral principals will have different perspectives on "the American Empire"--and the "full spectrum dominance" outlined by PNAC's Rebuilding America's Defenses( www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3249.htm).

This speech, by the way, was broadcast on C-Span on April 30th of this year and can be downloaded from various web sites such as from this page in a variety of video formats and also via BitTorrent from from this page. However, a better quality version, enhanced with informative graphics, can be acquired from the Muslim-Jewish-Chrisitian Aliance for 9/11 Truth (MUCHA-NET) http://www.mujca.com , who sponsored this presentation, for a small donation of $20. I highly recommend it.

But to put some "meat on the table" in this post, I offer you the following information which I believe helps us to better grasp the political reality that has formed around us since 9/11:

In his biograhy on the Airforce web site, we find the following:

General Eberhart entered the Air Force in 1968 as a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy. His staff experience includes serving as Executive Officer to the Air Force Chief of Staff at Headquarters U.S. Air Force; Deputy Chief of Staff for Inspection, Safety and Security, Headquarters Tactical Air Command; Director for Programs and Evaluation, Headquarters U.S. Air Force; Director of Force Structure, Resources and Assessment, the Joint Staff; and Deputy Chief of Staff for Plans and Operations, Headquarters U.S. Air Force. The general has also served as Vice Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force, Commander, Air Combat Command, Commander, Air Force Space Command, and as Commander in Chief, U.S. Space Command.

I emphasize the "Commander in Chief, U.S. Space Command" because, as Dr. Griffin points out in his speech:

Fully Facing the Truth about the American Empire

To be sure, as Chomsky, Falk, and Chalmers Johnson illustrate, strong portrayals of American imperialism as far from benign can be drawn without any suggestion that the Bush administration arranged 9/11. These portrayals can be drawn from publicly available documents.

One such document is the "National Security Strategy of the United States of America," published by the Bush administration in September of 2002. David North says, not unfairly, that this document "asserts as the guiding policy of the United States the right to use military force . . . against any country it believes to be, or it believes may at some point become, a threat to American interests." "No other country in modern history," adds North, "has asserted such a sweeping claim to . . . world domination." (1: see Notes below)

Another such document, called "Vision for 2020," was published in February of 1997 by the US Space Command. The mission statement at the head of this document reads: "U.S. Space Command--dominating the space dimension of military operations to protect US interests and investment."(2) There is no mention of democracy and human rights. In the body of the document, in fact, we find this amazingly candid statement: "The globalization of the world economy . . . will continue with a widening between 'haves' and 'have-nots.'" The point of this statement is that as the domination of the world economy by the United States and its allies increases, the world's poor will get still poorer, making the 'have-nots' hate America all the more. We will need, therefore, the power to keep them in line.

The United States can do this---and this is the document's main message--through "Full Spectrum Dominance," which will involve merging "space superiority with land, sea, and air superiority." Dominance in space will include, the document frankly says, the power "to deny others the use of space."

By speaking only of the Space Command's effort to develop a "missile defense system," the Pentagon and the White House like to suggest that its purpose is purely defensive. But the goal includes weaponizing space so as to give US forces, in the words of a more recent document, a "prompt global strike capability, whether nuclear or non-nuclear, (that) will allow the US to rapidly and accurately strike distant . . . targets." (3) The fact that the U.S. Space Command's program is an aggressive one is announced in the logo of one of its divisions: "In Your Face from Outer space."(4)

Simply from these and other documents, taken in conjunction with the actions of the Bush administration and the US military, we can see through the claim that the US project of creating the first truly global empire is a benevolent or at least benign enterprise. However, we can fully grasp the extent to which this project is propelled by fanaticism based on a deeply perverted value system only when we realize that the terrorist attacks of 9/11 were orchestrated by our own leaders--and that they did this to provide the justification, the fear, and the funding for the so-called war on terror, which would be used as a pretext for enlarging the empire.

I will illustrate this point with one of the most brazen examples of the use of 9/11 to get funding. Shortly before the current Bush administration took office, a document entitled Rebuilding America's Defenses was published by an organization called the Project for the New American Century, founding members of which included Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, and Donald Rumsfeld. This document focused primarily on getting more tax money allocated for the technological transformation of the US military, with the centerpiece of this technological transformation being the US Space Command's project to weaponize and thereby control space. Because this transformation of the US military will be very expensive, the document said, it will probably proceed very slowly--unless America suffers "some catastrophic and catalyzing event--like a new Pearl Harbor."(5) It is interesting that on the night of 9/11, President Bush reportedly wrote in his diary, "The Pearl Harbor of the 21st century took place today."(6)

In any case, earlier that evening, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld was on message. We might assume that he would have been disoriented by the fact that the Pentagon had just, on his watch, suffered an unprecedented attack. Instead, he was ready to use the attacks to obtain more money for the US Space Command. In front of television cameras, Rumsfeld berated Senator Carl Levin, then chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, saying:

Senator Levin, you and other Democrats in Congress have voiced fear that you simply don't have enough money for the large increase in defense that the Pentagon is seeking, especially for missile defense. . . . Does this sort of thing convince you that an emergency exists in this country to increase defense spending . . . ?(7)

This strategy worked. Congress immediately appropriated an additional $40 billion for the Pentagon. Since then, furthermore, the president has gotten every additional appropriation he has sought for the so-called war on terror.

My emphasis above.

As for Cheney and Rumsfeld, it is commonly known that on the morning of 9/11 Vice President Richard Cheney was in the White House Situation Room and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld was in the Pentagon. What is less commonly known is that Cheney and Rumsfeld have been deeply immersed in the National Security infrastructure of the United States for most of their political careers. Here are a few excerpts from an article by James Mann originally published in The Atlantic, March 2004, entitled "The Armagedon Plan":

Rumsfeld and Cheney were principal actors in one of the most highly classified programs of the Reagan Administration. Under it U.S. officials furtively carried out detailed planning exercises for keeping the federal government running during and after a nuclear war with the Soviet Union.

/snip/

There things stood until September 11, 2001, when Cheney and Rumsfeld suddenly began to act out parts of a script they had rehearsed years before. Operating from the underground shelter beneath the White House, called the Presidential Emergency Operations Center, Cheney told Bush to delay a planned flight back from Florida to Washington. At the Pentagon, Rumsfeld instructed a reluctant Wolfowitz to get out of town to the safety of one of the underground bunkers, which had been built to survive nuclear attack. Cheney also ordered House Speaker Dennis Hastert, other congressional leaders, and several Cabinet members (including Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman and Interior Secretary Gale Norton) evacuated to one of these secure facilities away from the capital. Explaining these actions a few days later, Cheney vaguely told NBC's Tim Russert, "We did a lot of planning during the Cold War with respect to the possibility of a nuclear incident." He did not mention the Reagan Administration program or the secret drills in which he and Rumsfeld had regularly practiced running the country.

In other words, during the Regan Administration, Cheney and Rumsfeld were part of a plan to insure continuity of government even in the event of a catastrophic nuclear Òfirst strikeÓ against the United States. The Regan administration established a chain of succession and layers of extremely secure chains of command and communication within and between the military and government and placed Cheny and Rumsfeld at its head. Here they practiced Òfirst strikeÓ war game scenarios for many years--just as they were practicing on the day of 9/11.

Moreover, as recently as yesterday, October 25, 2005, Lawrence B. Wilkerson, who served as chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, wrote in a Los Angeles Times OP ED:

IN PRESIDENT BUSH'S first term, some of the most important decisions about U.S. national security Ñ including vital decisions about postwar Iraq Ñ were made by a secretive, little-known cabal. It was made up of a very small group of people led by Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

When I first discussed this group in a speech last week at the New America Foundation in Washington, my comments caused a significant stir because I had been chief of staff to then-Secretary of State Colin Powell between 2002 and 2005.

But it's absolutely true. I believe that the decisions of this cabal were sometimes made with the full and witting support of the president and sometimes with something less. More often than not, then-national security advisor Condoleezza Rice was simply steamrolled by this cabal.

Repeatedly we, even on the left, have been told that the real, underlying reason for the war on terror is for the oil. This is no doubt true given that if America is to have economic primacy in the world, it must secure global petrochemical resources. But now we see there is another, deeper and far more sinister implication of the so called "war on terror" and that is to gain once and for all supreme and absolute military superiority through the wepaonization of space. Space is the ultimate "high ground" and with the United States government now poised to use first strike nuclear capability against any nation it deems as even a potential threat to our "national interests," whether they be economic or otherwise, we see the full ugliness and brutality of what has formed around us since 9/11.

Dr. Griffin's call is a call to all human beings of conscience to educate themselves and one another about the American Imperial Strategy and its consequences. Because, as we must see, WHAT IT REPRESENTS IS A FAILURE OF MORAL LEADERSHIP AND VISION. Moreover, this failure is not only an American failure, it is a human one. We have all been deceived. We are all victims. And now, as the bindings of illusion begin to fall away around us we must find the courage and moral convictions necessary to build a new VISION for what is humanly possible: A world of intelligent human beings which can use its resources to create a just world that values moral integrity.

Thank you for reading.

Beam Me Up


Notes (from Griffin's foot notes):

1) David North, ÒAmericaÕs Drive for World Domination,Ó in Bacevich, ed., The Imperial Tense, 66-77, at 66.

2) This document, which was signed in February 1997 by then USAF Commander in Chief Howell M. Estes III, was at one time available at www.spacecom.af.mil/usspace . This website is, however, no longer functional. Also, although the US military has a website devoted to "Joint Vision Historical Documents" (www.dtic.mil/jointvision/history.htm), the February 1997 document is not included. There is a document from May of that year entitled ÒConcept for Future Joint Operations,Ó which is subtitled "Expanding Joint Vision 2010." The website also has that previous document (Joint Vision 2010), which was published during the tenure of General John Shalikashvili as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (1993 to 1997). But it is as if the document from February 1997 never existed; perhaps it was later deemed too candid. However, at this writing it could still be found on the website of Peace Action Maine (http://www.peaceactionme.org/v-intro.html). And it was discussed in Jack Hitt, ÒThe Next Battlefield May Be in Outer Space,Ó The New York Times Magazine, August 5, 2001.

3) Air Force Space Command, ÒStrategic Master Plan FY06 and Beyond,Ó October 1, 2003 (www.peterson.af.mil/hqafspc/Library/Library.asp).

4) Quoted in Hitt, ÒThe Next Battlefield May Be in Outer Space.Ó

5) Rebuilding America's Defenses

6) This according to the Washington Post, Jan. 27, 2002

7) Department of Defense News Briefing on Pentagon Attack, quoted in The New Pearl Harbor, 100.

edit: punctuation