There is, however, a key difference: Tony Blair is nearing the legislated end to his reign next year, and George W. Bush will be fighting for re-election in 2004. Will the scandal die with Tony Blair in Britain? Will the Democrats seize the opportunity to expose a conspiracy of the highest order in an attempt to dethrone Herr Bush? This will be a mere political gurgle until the campaigning begins in earnest next year.

-Ian.

——- http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cidW8&ncidW8&e=7&u=/nm/ 20030711/ts_nm/iraq_usa_weapons_dc

White House Ignored CIA Over Iraq Uranium Claim-CBS

2 hours, 27 minutes ago

Add Top Stories – Reuters to My Yahoo!

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The White House ignored a request by the CIA ( news -web sites ) to remove a statement in President Bush ( news -web sites )’s State of the Union address that Iraq ( news -web sites ) was seeking uranium from Africa for its nuclear weapons program, CBS Evening News reported on Thursday.

The White House acknowledged this week it had been a mistake to put the claim about Iraq seeking uranium from Africa in Bush’s January speech and that documents alleging a transaction between Iraq and Niger had been forged.

Critics have seized on the statement as a prime example of the Bush administration’s campaign to mislead the public by hyping the threat posed by Iraq to gain support for the war.

The CIA checked the parts Bush’s speech dealing with Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction for accuracy and CIA officials warned White House National Security Council staff that the intelligence was not strong enough to flatly state that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Africa, CBS News said.

White House officials argued that since a paper issued by the British government contained the assertion, if it was attributed to Britain it would be factually accurate, CBS said. CIA officials dropped their objections, CBS said.

A CIA spokesman declined comment on the CBS report, which was sourced to senior Bush administration officials. A White House spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment.

In a related development, the CIA told British intelligence last year that the American intelligence agency did not have high confidence in reports that Iraq had tried to acquire uranium from Africa, a U.S. official told Reuters.

“We had concerns about the veracity of the story and we shared those concerns with them but in the end they thought that their information was solid and they went with it,” the U.S. official said on condition of anonymity.

DOCUMENTS FORGED

British intelligence decided the information they had was solid and included it in a report issued in September 2002, the official said.

The CIA shared its concerns shortly before the British report was issued and before the American intelligence agency had seen the Niger documents, which now have been determined to be forgeries.

“We had no idea they were forgeries, we didn’t get the documents until much later,” the U.S. official said. “We weren’t sure it was true, didn’t have high confidence of it being accurate for a variety of reasons,” the official said.

The Washington Post first reported the CIA’s unsuccessful effort to persuade Britain to drop the Iraq uranium claim. The British government rejected the U.S. suggestion, saying it had separate intelligence unavailable to the United States, the newspaper reported.

Bush delivered the following line in his State of the Union speech in January: “The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed in the 1990s that Saddam Hussein ( news -web sites ) had an advanced nuclear weapons development program, had a design for a nuclear weapon and was working on five different methods of enriching uranium for a bomb. The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”

The Italian intelligence service circulated reports about the Niger documents — not the documents themselves — to other Western intelligence services in early 2002, and that was apparently how the British and U.S. intelligence services learned of them, U.S. government sources have said.

Since invading U.S. forces ousted Saddam from power in April, no biological or chemical weapons have been found, nor evidence that Iraq and restarted its nuclear weapons program.

Halliburton: All In The Family* April 27, 2003

After dropping more than 28,000 bombs on Iraq, the United States has now begun the business of rebuilding the country.

And it promises to be quite a business. With at least $60 billion to be spent over the next three years, the Iraqi people won’t be the only ones benefiting. The companies that land the biggest contracts to do the work will cash in big-time.

Given all the taxpayer money involved, you might think the process for awarding those contracts would be open and competitive. Well, so far, it has been none of the above. And the early winners in the sweepstakes to rebuild Iraq have one thing in common: lots of very close friends in very high places, *correspondent Steve Kroft* reports.

One is Halliburton, the Houston-based energy services and construction giant whose former CEO, Dick Cheney, is now vice president of the United States.

Even before the first shots were fired in Iraq, the Pentagon had secretly awarded Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root a two-year, no-bid contract to put out oil well fires and to handle other unspecified duties involving war damage to the country’s petroleum industry. It is worth up to $7 billion.

But Robert Andersen, chief counsel for the Army Corps of Engineers, says that oil field damage was much less than anticipated and Halliburton will end up collecting only a small fraction of that $7 billion. But he can’t say how small a fraction or exactly what the contract covers because the mission and the contract are considered classified information.

Under normal circumstances, the Army Corps of Engineers would have been required to put the oil fire contract out for competitive bidding. But in times of emergency, when national security is involved, the government is allowed to bypass normal procedures and award contracts to a single company, without competition.

And that’s exactly what happened with Halliburton.

“We are the only company in the United States that had the kind of systems in place, people in place, contracts in place, to do that kind of thing,” says Chuck Dominy, Halliburton’s vice president for government affairs and its chief lobbyist on Capitol Hill.

He says the Pentagon came to Halliburton because the company already had an existing contract with the Army to provide logistical support to U.S. troops all over the world.

“Let me put a face on Halliburton. It’s one of the world’s largest energy services companies, and it has a strong engineering and construction arm that goes with that” says Dominy.

“You’ll find us in 120 countries. We’ve got 83,000 people on our payroll, and we’re involved in a ton of different things for a lot of wonderful clients worldwide.”

“They had assets prepositioned,” says Anderson. “They had capability to reach out and get sub-contractors to do the various types of work that might be required in a hostile situation.”

“The procurement of this particular contract was done by career civil servants, and I know that it’s a perception that those at the very highest levels of the administration, Democrat and Republican, get involved in procurement issues. It can happen. But for the very most part, the procurement system is designed to keep those judgments with the career public servants.”

But is political influence not unknown in the process? In this particular case, Anderson says, it was legally justified and prudent.

But not everyone thought it was prudent. Bob Grace is president of GSM Consulting, a small company in Amarillo, Texas, that has fought oil well fires all over the world. Grace worked for the Kuwait government after the first Gulf War and was in charge of firefighting strategy for the huge Bergan Oil Field, which had more than 300 fires. Last September, when it looked like there might be another Gulf war and more oil well fires, he and a lot of his friends in the industry began contacting the Pentagon and their congressmen.

“All we were trying to find out was, who do we present our credentials to,” says Grace. “We just want to be able to go to somebody and say, ‘Hey, here’s who we are, and here’s what we’ve done, and here’s what we do.’”

“They basically told us that there wasn’t going to be any oil well fires.” Grace showed /*60 Minutes */a letter from the Department of Defense saying: “The department is aware of a broad range of well firefighting capabilities and techniques available. However, we believe it is too early to speculate what might happen in the event that war breaks out in the region.”

It was dated Dec. 30, 2002, more than a month after the Army Corps of Engineers began talking to Halliburton about putting out oil well fires in Iraq.

“You just feel like you’re beating your head against the wall,” says Grace. However, Andersen says the Pentagon had a very good reason for putting out that message.

“The mission at that time was classified, and what we were doing to assess the possible damage and to prepare for it was classified,” says Andersen. “Communications with the public had to be made with that in mind.”

“I can accept confidentiality in terms of war plans and all that. But to have secrecy about Saddam Hussein blowing up oil wells, to me, is stupid,” says Grace. “I mean the guy’s blown up a thousand of them. So why would that be a revelation to anybody?”

But Grace says the whole point of competitive bidding is to save the taxpayers money. He believes they are getting a raw deal. “From what I’ve read in the papers, they’re charging $50,000 a day for a five-man team. I know there are guys that are equally as well-qualified as the guys that are over there that’ll do it for half that.”

Grace and his friends are no match for Halliburton when it comes to landing government business. Last year alone, Halliburton and its Brown & Root subsidiary delivered $1.3 billion worth of services to the U.S. government. Much of it was for work the U.S. military used to do itself.

“You help build base camps. You provide goods, laundry, power, sewage, all the kinds of things that keep an army in place in a field operation,” says Dominy.

“Young soldiers have said to me, ‘If I go to war, I want to go to war with Brown & Root.’”

And they have, in places like Afghanistan, Rwanda, Somalia, Kosovo and now Iraq.

“It’s a sweetheart contract,” says Charles Lewis, executive director of the Center For Public Integrity, a non-profit organization that investigates corruption and abuse of power by government and corporations. “There’s no other word for it.”

Lewis says the trend towards privatizing the military began during the first Bush administration when Dick Cheney was secretary of defense. In 1992, the Pentagon, under Cheney, commissioned the Halliburton subsidiary Brown & Root to do a classified study on whether it was a good idea to have private contractors do more of the military’s work.

“Of course, they said it’s a terrific idea, and over the next eight years, Kellogg, Brown & Root and another company got 2,700 contracts worth billions of dollars,” says Lewis.

“So they helped to design the architecture for privatizing a lot of what happens today in the Pentagon when we have military engagements. And two years later, when he leaves the department of defense, Cheney is CEO of Halliburton. Thank you very much. It’s a nice arrangement for all concerned.”

During the five years that Cheney was at Halliburton, the company nearly doubled the value of its federal contracts, and the vice president became a very rich man.

Lewis is not saying that Cheney did anything illegal. But he doesn’t believe for a minute that this was all just a coincidence.

“Why would a defense secretary, former chief of staff to a president, and former member of congress with no business experience ever in his life, not for a day, why would he become the CEO of a multibillion dollar oil services company,” asks Lewis

“Well, it could be related to government contracts. He was brought in to raise their government contract profile. And he did. And they ended up with billions of dollars in new contracts because they had a former defense secretary at the helm.”

Cheney, Lewis says, may be an honorable and brilliant man, but “as George Washington Plunkett once said, ‘I saw my … seen my opportunities and I took them.”

Both Halliburton and the Pentagon believe Lewis is insulting not only the vice president but thousands of professional civil servants who evaluate and award defense contracts based strictly on merit.

But does the fact that Cheney used to run Halliburton have any effect at all on the company getting government contracts?

“Zero,” says Dominy. “I will guarantee you that. Absolutely zero impact.”

“In fact, I wish I could embed [critics] in the department of defense contracting system for a week or so. Once they’d done that, they’d have religion just like I do, about how the system cannot be influenced.” Dominy has been with Halliburton for seven years. Before that, he was former three-star Army general. One of his last military assignments was as a commander at the Army Corps of Engineers.

And now, the Army Corps of Engineers is also the government agency that awards contracts to companies like Halliburton.

Asked if his expertise in that area had anything to do with his employment at Halliburton, Dominy replies, “None.”

But Lewis isn’t surprised at all.

“Of course, he’s from the Army Corps. And of course, he’s a general,” says Lewis. “I’m sure he and no one else at Halliburton sees the slightest thing that might look strange about that, or a little cozy maybe.”

Lewis says the best example of these cozy relationships is the defense policy board, a group of high-powered civilians who advise the secretary of defense on major policy issues – like whether or not to invade Iraq. Its 30 members are a Who’s Who of former senior government and military officials.

There’s nothing wrong with that, but as the Center For Public Integrity recently discovered, nine of them have ties to corporations and private companies that have won more than $76 billion in defense contracts. And that’s just in the last two years.

“This is not about the revolving door, people going in and out,” says Lewis. “There is no door. There’s no wall. I can’t tell where one stops and the other starts. I’m dead serious.”

“They have classified clearances, they go to classified meetings and they’re with companies getting billions of dollars in classified contracts. And their disclosures about their activities are classified. Well, isn’t that what they did when they were inside the government? What’s the difference, except they’re in the private sector.”

Richard Perle resigned as chairman of the defense policy board last month after it was disclosed that he had financial ties to several companies doing business with the Pentagon.

But Perle still sits on the board, along with former CIA director James Woolsey, who works for the consulting firm of Booz, Allen, Hamilton. The firm did nearly $700 million dollars in business with the Pentagon last year.

Another board member, retired four-star general Jack Sheehan, is now a senior vice president at the Bechtel corporation, which just won a $680 million contract to rebuild the infrastructure in Iraq.

That contract was awarded by the State Department, which used to be run by George Schultz, who sits on Bechtel’s board of directors.

“I’m not saying that it’s illegal. These guys wrote the laws. They set up the system for themselves. Of course it’s legal,” says Lewis.

“It just looks like hell. It looks like you have folks feeding at the trough. And they may be doing it in red white and blue and we may be all singing the “Star Spangled Banner,” but they’re doing quite well.”

© MMIII, CBS Worldwide Inc. All Rights Reserved.

-Ian.

—- http://www1.iraqwar.ru/iraq-read_article.php?articleId”11&lang=en

The Real But Unspoken Reasons For The Iraq War – OIL U$ Dollar vs. Euro 08.04.2003 [12:37]

Summary Although completely suppressed in the U.S. media, the answer to the Iraq enigma is simple yet shocking – it an an oil CURRENCY war. The Real Reason for this upcoming war is this administration’s goal of preventing further OPEC momentum towards the euro as an oil transaction currency standard. However, in order to pre-empt OPEC, they need to gain geo-strategic control of Iraq along with its 2nd largest proven oil reserves. This lengthy essay will discuss the macroeconomics of the “petro-dollar” and the unpublicized but real threat to U.S. economic hegemony from the euro as an alternative oil transaction currency. THE REAL REASONS FOR THE UPCOMING WAR IN IRAQ A Macroeconomic and Geostrategic Analysis of the Unspoken Truth By W. Clark wrc92 [at] aol [dot] com “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, it expects what never was and never will be … The People cannot be safe without information. When the press is free, and every man is able to read, all is safe.” Those words by Thomas Jefferson embody the unfortunate state of affairs that have beset our nation. As our government prepares to go to war with Iraq, our country seems unable to answer even the most basic questions about this war. First, why is there virtually no international support to topple Saddam? If Iraq’s WMD program truly possessed the threat level that President Bush has repeatedly purported, why is there no international coalition to militarily disarm Saddam? Secondly, despite over 300 unfettered U.N inspections to date, there has been no evidence reported of a reconstituted Iraqi WMD program. Third, and despite Bush’s rhetoric, the CIA has not found any links between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda. To the contrary, some analysts believe it is far more likely Al Qaeda might acquire an unsecured former Soviet Union Weapon(s) of Mass Destruction, or potentially from sympathizers within a destabilized Pakistan. Moreover, immediately following Congress’s vote on the Iraq Resolution, we suddenly became aware of North Korea’s nuclear program violations. Kim Jong Il is processing uranium in order to produce nuclear weapons this year. President Bush has not provided a rationale answer as to why Saddam’s seemingly dormant WMD program possesses a more imminent threat that North Korea’s active program? Strangely, Donald Rumsfeld suggested that if Saddam were “exiled” we could avoid an Iraq war? Confused yet? Well, I’m going to give their game away – the core driver for toppling Saddam is actually the euro currency, the â,. Although completely suppressed in the U.S. media, the answer to the Iraq enigma is simple yet shocking. The upcoming war in Iraq war is mostly about how the ruling class at Langley and the Bush oligarchy view hydrocarbons at the geo-strategic level, and the overarching macroeconomic threats to the U.S. dollar from the euro. The Real Reason for this upcoming war is this administration’s goal of preventing further OPEC momentum towards the euro as an oil transaction currency standard. However, in order to pre-empt OPEC, they need to gain geo-strategic control of Iraq along with its 2nd largest proven oil reserves. This lengthy essay will discuss the macroeconomics of the “petro-dollar” and the unpublicized but real threat to U.S. economic hegemony from the euro as an alternative oil transaction currency. The following is how an astute and anonymous friend alluded to the unspoken truth about this upcoming war with Iraq… “The Federal Reserve’s greatest nightmare is that OPEC will switch its international transactions from a dollar standard to a euro standard. Iraq actually made this switch in Nov. 2000 (when the euro was worth around 80 cents), and has actually made off like a bandit considering the dollar’s steady depreciation against the euro.” (Note: the dollar declined 15% against the euro in 2002.) “The real reason the Bush administration wants a puppet government in Iraq – or more importantly, the reason why the corporate-military-industrial network conglomerate wants a puppet government in Iraq – is so that it will revert back to a dollar standard and stay that way.” (While also hoping to veto any wider OPEC momentum towards the euro, especially from Iran – the 2nd largest OPEC producer who is actively discussing a switch to euros for its oil exports). Furthermore, despite Saudi Arabia being our ‘client state,’ the Saudi regime appears increasingly weak/ threatened from massive civil unrest. Some analysts believe a “Saudi Revolution” might be plausible in the aftermath of an unpopular U.S. invasion of Iraq (ie. Iran circa 1979) (1). Undoubtedly, the Bush administration is acutely aware of these risks. Hence, the neo conservative framework entails a large and permanent military presence in the Persian Gulf region in a post Saddam era, just in case we need to surround and grab Saudi’s oil fields in the event of a coup by an anti-western group. But first back to Iraq. “Saddam sealed his fate when he decided to switch to the euro in late 2000 (and later converted his $10 billion reserve fund at the U.N. to euros) – at that point, another manufactured Gulf War become inevitable under Bush II. Only the most extreme circumstances could possibly stop that now and I strongly doubt anything can – short of Saddam getting replaced with a pliant regime.” Big Picture Perspective: Everything else aside from the reserve currency and the Saudi/Iran oil issues (i.e. domestic political issues and international criticism) is peripheral and of marginal consequence to this administration. Further, the dollar-euro threat is powerful enough that they’ll rather risk much of the economic backlash in the short-term to stave off the long-term dollar crash of an OPEC transaction standard change from dollars to euros. All of this fits into the broader Great Game that encompasses Russia, India, China.” This information about Iraq’s oil currency is censored by the U.S. media as well as the Bush administration & Federal Reserve as the truth could potentially curtail both investor and consumer confidence, reduce consumer borrowing/ spending, create political pressure to form a new energy policy that slowly weans us off middle-eastern oil, and of course stop our march towards war in Iraq. This quasi “state secret” can be found on a Radio Free Europe article discussing Saddam’s switch for his oil sales from dollars to the euros on Nov. 6, 2000 (2). “Baghdad’s switch from the dollar to the euro for oil trading is intended to rebuke Washington’s hard-line on sanctions and encourage Europeans to challenge it. But the political message will cost Iraq millions in lost revenue. RFE/RL correspondent Charles Recknagel looks at what Baghdad will gain and lose, and the impact of the decision to go with the European currency.” At the time of the switch many analysts were surprised that Saddam was willing to give up millions in oil revenue for what appeared to be a political statement. However, contrary to one of the main points of this November 2000 article, the steady depreciation of the dollar versus the euro since late 2001 means that Iraq has profited handsomely from the switch in their reserve and transaction currencies. The euro has gained roughly 17% against the dollar in that time, which also applies to the $10 billion in Iraq’s U.N. “oil for food” reserve fund that was previously held in dollars has also gained that same percent value since the switch. What would happen if OPEC made a sudden switch to euros, as opposed to a gradual transition? “Otherwise, the effect of an OPEC switch to the euro would be that oil-consuming nations would have to flush dollars out of their (central bank) reserve funds and replace these with euros. The dollar would crash anywhere from 20-40% in value and the consequences would be those one could expect from any currency collapse and massive inflation (think Argentina currency crisis, for example). You’d have foreign funds stream out of the U.S. stock markets and dollar denominated assets, there’d surely be a run on the banks much like the 1930s, the current account deficit would become unserviceable, the budget deficit would go into default, and so on. Your basic 3rd world economic crisis scenario. The United States economy is intimately tied to the dollar’s role as reserve currency. This doesn’t mean that the U.S. couldn’t function otherwise, but that the transition would have to be gradual to avoid such dislocations (and the ultimate result of this would probably be the U.S. and the E.U. switching roles in the global economy).” In the aftermath of toppling Saddam it is clear the U.S. will keep a large and permanent military force in the Persian Gulf. Indeed, there is no “exit strategy” in Iraq, as the military will be needed to protect the newly installed Iraqi regime, and perhaps send a message to other OPEC producers that they might receive “regime change” if they too move to euros for their oil exportsâ¤. Another underreported story from this summer regarding the other OPEC ‘Axis of Evil’ country and their interest in the selling oil in euros, Iran. (3) “Iran’s proposal to receive payments for crude oil sales to Europe in euros instead of U.S. dollars is based primarily on economics, Iranian and industry sources said. But politics are still likely to be a factor in any decision, they said, as Iran uses the opportunity to hit back at the U.S. government, which recently labeled it part of an “axis of evil.” The proposal, which is now being reviewed by the Central Bank of Iran, is likely to be approved if presented to the country’s parliament, a parliamentary representative said.”There is a very good chance MPs will agree to this idea …now that the euro is stronger, it is more logical,” the parliamentary representative said.” More over, and perhaps most telling, during 2002 the majority of reserve funds in Iran’s central bank have been shifted to euros. It appears imminent that Iran intends to switch to euros for their oil currency (4) “More than half of the country’s assets in the Forex Reserve Fund have been converted to euro, a member of the Parliament Development Commission, Mohammad Abasspour announced. He noted that higher parity rate of euro against the US dollar will give the Asian countries, particularly oil exporters, a chance to usher in a new chapter in ties with European Union’s member countries. He said that the United States dominates other countries through its currency, noting that given the superiority of the dollar against other hard currencies, the US monopolizes global trade. The lawmaker expressed hope that the competition between euro and dollar would eliminate the monopoly in global trade.” Indeed, after toppling Saddam, this administration may decide that Iran is the next target in the “war on terror.” Iran’s interest in switching to the euro as their standard transaction currency for oil exports is well documented. Perhaps this recent MSNBC article illustrates the objectives of the neo conservatives (5). “While still wrangling over how to overthrow Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, the Bush administration is already looking for other targets. President Bush has called for the ouster of Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat. Now some in the administration⤔and allies at D.C. think tanks⤔are eyeing Iran and even Saudi Arabia. As one senior British official put it: “Everyone wants to go to Baghdad. Real men want to go to Tehran.” Aside from these political risks regarding Saudi Arabia and Iran, another risk factor isactually Japan. Perhaps the biggest gamble in a protracted Iraq war may be Japan’s weak economy (6). If the war creates prolonged oil high prices ($45 per barrel over several months), or a short but massive oil price spike ($80 to $100 per barrel), some analysts believe Japan’s fragile economy would collapse. Japan is quite hypersensitive to oil prices, and if its banks default, the collapse of the second largest economy would set in motion a sequence of events that would prove devastating to the U.S. economy. Indeed, Japan’s fall in an Iraq war could create the economic dislocations that begin in the Pacific Rim but quickly spread to Europe and Russia. The Russian government lacks the controls to thwart a disorderly run on the dollar, and such an event could ultimately force and OPEC switch to euros. Additionally, other risks might arise if the Iraq war goes poorly or becomes prolonged, as it is possible that civil unrest may unfold in Kuwait or other OPEC members including Venezuela, as the latter may switch to euros just as Saddam did in November 2000. Thereby fostering the very situation this administration is trying to prevent, another OPEC member switching to euros as their oil transaction currency. Incidentally, the final “Axis of Evil” country, North Korea, recently decided to officially drop the dollar and begin using euros for trade, effective Dec. 7, 2002 (7). Unlike the OPEC-producers, their switch will have negligible economic impact, but it illustrates the geopolitical fallout of the President Bush’s harsh rhetoric. Much more troubling is North Korea’s recent action following the oil embargo of their country. They are in dire need of oil and food; and in an act of desperation they have re-activated their pre-1994 nuclear program. Processing uranium appears to be taking place at a rapid pace, and it appears their strategy is to prompt negotiations with the U.S. regarding food and oil. The CIA estimates that North Korea could produce 4-6 nuclear weapons by the second half of 2003. Ironically, this crisis over North Korea’s nuclear program further confirms the fraudulent premise for which this war with Saddam was entirely contrived. Unfortunately, neo conservatives such as George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Pearle fail to grasp that Newton’s Law applies equally to both physics and the geo-political sphere as well: “For every action there is an equal but opposite reaction.” During the 1990s the world viewed the U.S. as a rather self-absorbed but essentially benevolent superpower. Military actions in Iraq (90-91′ & 98′), Serbia and Kosovo (99′) were undertaken with both U.N. and NATO cooperation and thus afforded international legitimacy. President Clinton also worked to reduce tensions in Northern Ireland and attempted to negotiate a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. However, in both the pre and post 9/11 intervals, the “America first” policies of the Bush administration, with its unwillingness to honor International Treaties, along with their aggressive militarisation of foreign policy, has significantly damaged our reputation abroad. Following 9/11, it appears that President Bush’s “warmongering rhetoric” has created global tensions – as we are now viewed as a belligerent superpower willing to apply unilateral military force without U.N. approval.Lamentably, the tremendous amount of international sympathy that we witnessed in the immediate aftermath of the September 11th tragedy has been replaced with fear and anger at our government. This administration’s bellicosity haschanged the worldview, and “anti-Americanism” is proliferating even among our closest allies (8). Even more alarming, and completely unreported in the U.S media, are some monetary shifts in the reserve funds of foreign governments away from the dollar with movements towards the euro (China, Venezuela, some OPEC producers and last week Russia flushed some of their dollars for euros) (9). It appears that the world community may lack faith in the Bush administration’s economic policies, and along with OPEC, seems poised to respond with economic retribution if the U.S. government is regarded as an uncontrollable and dangerous superpower. The plausibility of abandoning the dollar standard for the euro is growing. An interesting U.K. article outlines the dynamics and the potential outcomes (‘Beyond Bush’s Unilateralism: Another Bi-Polar World or A New Era of Win-Win?’)(10) “The most likely end to US hegemony may come about through a combination of high oil prices (brought about by US foreign policies toward the Middle East) and deeper devaluation of the US dollar (expected by many economists). Some elements of this scenario: 1) US global over-reach in the “war on terrorism” already leading to deficits as far as the eye can see — combined with historically-high US trade deficits – lead to a further run on the dollar. This and the stock market doldrums make the US less attractive to the world’s capital. 2) More developing countries follow the lead of Venezuela and China in diversifying their currency reserves away from dollars and balanced with euros. Such a shift in dollar-euro holdings in Latin America and Asia could keep the dollar and euro close to parity. 3) OPEC could act on some of its internal discussions and decide (after concerted buying of euros in the open market) to announce at a future meeting in Vienna that OPEC’s oil will be re-denominated in euros, or even a new oil-backed currency of their own. A US attack on Iraq sends oil to â,40 per barrel. 4) The Bush Administration’s efforts to control the domestic political agenda backfires. Damage over the intelligence failures prior to 9/11 and warnings of imminent new terrorist attacks precipitate a further stock market slide. 5) All efforts by Democrats and the 57% of the US public to shift energy policy toward renewables, efficiency, standards, higher gas taxes, etc. are blocked by the Bush Administration and its fossil fuel industry supporters. Thus, the USA remains vulnerable to energy supply and price shocks. 6) The EU recognizes its own economic and political power as the euro rises further and becomes the world’s other reserve currency. The G-8 pegs the euro and dollar into a trading band — removing these two powerful currencies from speculators trading screens (a “win-win” for everyone!). Tony Blair persuades Brits of this larger reason for the UK to join the euro. 7) Developing countries lacking dollars or “hard” currencies follow Venezuela’s lead and begin bartering their undervalued commodities directly with each other in computerized swaps and counter trade deals. President Chavez has inked 13 such country barter deals on its oil, e.g., with Cuba in exchange for Cuban health paramedics who are setting up clinics in rural Venezuelan villages. “The result of this scenario? The USA could no longer run its huge current account trade deficits or continue to wage open-ended global war on terrorism or evil. The USA ceases pursuing unilateralist policies. A new US administration begins to return to its multilateralist tradition, ceases its obstruction and rejoins the UN and pursues more realistic international cooperation.” As for the events currently taking place in Venezuela, items #2 and #7 on the above list may allude to why the Bush administration quickly endorsed the failed military-led coup of Hugo Chavez in April 2002. Although the coup collapsed after 2 days, various reports suggest the CIA and a rather embarrassed Bush administration approved and may have been actively involved with the civilian/military coup plotters. (11) “George W. Bush’s administration was the failed coup’s primary loser, underscoring its bankrupt hemispheric policy. Now it is slowly filtering out that in recent months White Houseofficials met with key coup figures, including Carmona. Although the administration insists that it explicitly objected to any extra-constitutional action to remove Chavez, comments by senior U.S. officials did little to convey this.” “The CIA’s role in a 1971 Chilean strike could have served as the working model for generating economic and social instability in order to topple Chavez. In the truckers’ strike of that year, the agency secretly orchestrated and financed the artificial prolongation of a contrived work stoppage in order to economically asphyxiate the leftist Salvador Allende government.” “This scenario would have had CIA operatives acting in liaison with the Venezuelan military, as well as with opposition business and labor leaders, to convert a relatively minor afternoon-long work stoppage by senior management into a nearly successful coup de grace.” Interestingly, according to an article by Michael Ruppert, Venezuelan’s ambassador Francisco Mieres-Lopez apparently floated the idea of switching to the euro as their oil currency standard approximately one year before the failed coup attempt… Furthermore, there is evidence that the CIA is still active in its attempts to overthrow the democratically elected Chavez administration. In fact, this past December a Uruguayan government official recently exposed the ongoing covert CIA operations in Venezuela (12): “Uruguayan EP-FA congressman Jose Bayardi says he has information that far-reaching plan have been put into place by the CIA and other North American intelligence agencies tooverthrow Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Frias” “Bayardi says he has received copies of top-secret communications between the Bush administration in Washington and the government of Uruguay requesting the latter’s cooperation to support white collar executives and trade union activists to “break down levels of intransigence within the Chavez Frias administration” Venezuela is the fourth largest producer of oil, and the corporate elites whose political power runs unfettered in the Bush/Cheney oligarchy appear interested in privatizing Venezuela’s oil industry. Furthermore, the establishment might be concerned that Chavez’s “barter deals” with 12 Latin American countries and Cuba are effectively cutting the U.S. dollar out of the vital oil transaction currency cycle. Commodities are being traded among these countries in exchange for Venezuela’s oil, thereby reducing reliance on fiat dollars. If these unique oil transactions proliferate, they could create more devaluation pressure on the dollar. Continuing attempts by the CIA to remove Hugo Chavez appear likely. The U.S. economy has acquired several problems, including as our record-high trade account deficit (almost 5% of GDP), $6.3 trillion dollar deficit (55% of GDP), and the recent return to annual budget deficits in the hundreds of billions. These are factors that would devalue the currency of any nation under the “old rules.” Why is the dollar still strong despite these structural flaws? Well, the elites understand that the strength of the dollar does not merely rest on our economic output per se. The dollar posses two unique advantages relative to all other hard currencies. The reality is that the strength of the dollar since 1945 rests on being the international reserve currency and thus fiat currency for global oil transactions (ie. “petro-dollar”). The U.S. prints hundreds of billions of these fiat petro-dollars, which are then used by nation states to purchase oil/energy from OPEC producers (except Iraq, to some degree Venezuela, and perhaps Iran in the near future). These petro-dollars are then re-cycled from OPEC back into the U.S. via Treasury Bills or other dollar-denominated assets such as U.S. stocks, real estate, etc. The “old rules” for valuation of our currency and economic power were based on our flexible market, free flow of trade goods, high per worker productivity, manufacturing output/trade surpluses, government oversight of accounting methodologies (ie. SEC), developed infrastructure, education system, and of course total cash flow and profitability. While many of these factors remain present, over the last two decades we have diluted some of these “safe harbor” fundamentals. Despite imbalances and some structural problems that are escalating within the U.S. economy, the dollar as the fiat oil currency created “new rules”. The following exerts from an Asia Times article discusses the virtues of our fiat oil currency and dollar hegemony (or vices from the perspective of developing nations, whose debt is denominated in dollars). (13) “Ever since 1971, when US president Richard Nixon took the dollar off the gold standard (at $35 per ounce) that had been agreed to at the Bretton Woods Conference at the end of World War II, the dollar has been a global monetary instrument that the United States, and only the United States, can produce by fiat. The dollar, now a fiat currency, is at a 16-year trade-weighted high despite record US current-account deficits and the status of the US as the leading debtor nation. The US national debt as of April 4 was $6.021 trillion against a gross domestic product (GDP) of $9 trillion.” “World trade is now a game in which the US produces dollars and the rest of the world produces things that dollars can buy. The world’s interlinked economies no longer trade to capture a comparative advantage; they compete in exports to capture needed dollars to service dollar-denominated foreign debts and to accumulate dollar reserves to sustain the exchange value of their domestic currencies.To prevent speculative and manipulative attacks on their currencies, the world’s central banks must acquire and hold dollar reserves in corresponding amounts to their currencies in circulation. The higher the market pressure to devalue a particular currency, the more dollar reserves its central bank must hold. This creates a built-in support for a strong dollar that in turn forces the world’s central banks to acquire and hold more dollar reserves, making it stronger. This phenomenon is known as dollar hegemony, which is created by the geopolitically constructed peculiarity that critical commodities, most notably oil, are denominated in dollars. Everyone accepts dollars because dollars can buy oil. The recycling of petro-dollars is the price the US has extracted from oil-producing countries for US tolerance of the oil-exporting cartel since 1973.” “By definition, dollar reserves must be invested in US assets, creating a capital-accounts surplus for the US economy. Even after a year of sharp correction, US stock valuation is still at a 25-year high and trading at a 56 percent premium compared with emerging markets.””The US capital-account surplus in turn finances the US trade deficit. Moreover, any asset, regardless of location, that is denominated in dollars is a US asset in essence. When oil is denominated in dollars through US state action and the dollar is a fiat currency,the US essentially owns the world’s oil for free. And the more the US prints greenbacks, the higher the price of US assets will rise. Thus a strong-dollar policy gives the US a double win.” This unique geo-political agreement with Saudi Arabia has worked to our favor for the past 30 years, as this arrangement has raised the entire asset value of all dollar denominated assets/properties, and allowed the Federal Reserve to create a truly massive debt and credit expansion (or ‘credit bubble’ in the view of some economists). These current structural imbalances in the U.S. economy are sustainable as long as: 1)Nations continue to demand and purchase oil for their energy/survival needs 2)The fiat reserve currency for global oil transactions remain the U.S. dollar (and dollar only) These underlying factors, along with the “safe harbor” reputation of U.S. investments afforded by the dollar’s reserve currency status propelled the U.S. to economic and military hegemony in the post-World War II period. However, the introduction of the euro is a significant new factor, and appears to be the primary threat to U.S. economic hegemony. More over, in December 2002 ten additional countries were approved for full membership into the E.U. In 2004 this will result in an aggregate GDP of $9.6 trillion and 450 million people, directly competing with the U.S. economy ($10.5 trillion GDP, 280 million people). Especially interesting is a speech given by Mr Javad Yarjani, the Head of OPEC’s Petroleum Market Analysis Department, in a visit to Spain (April 2002). He speech dealt entirely on the subject of OPEC oil transaction currency standard with respect to both the dollar and the euro. The following exerts from this OPEC executive provide insights into the conditions that would create momentum for an OPEC currency switch to the euro. Indeed, his candid analysis warrants careful consideration given that two of the requisite variables he outlines for the switch have taken place since this speech in early 2002. These vital stories are discussed in the European media, but have been censored by our own mass media (14) “The question that comes to mind is whether the euro will establish itself in world financial markets, thus challenging the supremacy of the US dollar, and consequently trigger a change in the dollar’s dominance in oil markets. As we all know, the mighty dollar has reigned supreme since 1945, and in the last few years has even gained more ground with the economic dominance of the United States, a situation that may not change in the near future. By the late 90s, more than four-fifths of all foreign exchange transactions, and half of all world exports, were denominated in dollars. In addition, the US currency accounts for about two thirds of all official exchange reserves. The world’s dependency on US dollars to pay for trade has seen countries bound to dollar reserves, which are disproportionably higher than America’s share in global output. The share of the dollar in the denomination of world trade is also much higher than the share of the US in world trade. Having said that, it is worthwhile to note that in the long run the euro is not at such a disadvantage versus the dollar when one compares the relative sizes of the economies involved, especially given the EU enlargement plans. Moreover, the Euro-zone has a bigger share of global trade than the US and while the US has a huge current account deficit, the euro area has a more, or balanced, external accounts position. One of the more compelling arguments for keeping oil pricing and payments in dollars has been that the US remains a large importer of oil, despite being a substantial crude producer itself. However, looking at the statistics of crude oil exports, one notes that the Euro-zone is an even larger importer of oil and petroleum products than the US.” “From the EU’s point of view, it is clear that Europe would prefer to see payments for oil shift from the dollar to the euro, which effectively removed the currency risk. It would also increase demand for the euro and thus help raise its value. Moreover, since oil is such an important commodity in global trade, in term of value, if pricing were to shift to the euro, it could provide a boost to the global acceptability of the single currency. There is also very strong trade links between OPEC Member Countries (MCs) and the Euro-zone, with more than 45 percent of total merchandise imports of OPEC MCs coming from the countries of the Euro-zone, while OPEC MCs are main suppliers of oil and crude oil products to Europe.” “Of major importance to the ultimate success of the euro, in terms of the oil pricing, will be if Europe’s two major oil producers ⤔ the United Kingdom and Norway join the single currency. Naturally, the future integration of these two countries into the Euro-zone and Europe will be important considering they are the region’s two major oil producers in the North Sea, which is home to the international crude oil benchmark, Brent. This might create a momentum to shift the oil pricing system to euros.” “In the short-term, OPEC MCs, with possibly a few exceptions, are expected to continue to accept payment in dollars. Nevertheless, I believe that OPEC will not discount entirely the possibility of adopting euro pricing and payments in the future. The Organization, like many other financial houses at present, is also assessing how the euro will settle into its life as a new currency. The critical question for market players is the overall value and stability of the euro, and whether other countries within the Union will adopt the single currency.” Should the euro challenge the dollar in strength, which essentially could include it in the denomination of the oil bill, it could be that a system may emerge which benefits more countries in the long-term. Perhaps with increased European integration and a strong European economy, this may become a reality. Time may be on your side. I wish the euro every success.” Based on this important speech, momentum for OPEC to consider switching to the euro will grow once the E.U. expands in May 2004 to 450 million people with the inclusion of 10 additional member states. The aggregate GDP will increase from $7 trillion to $9.6 trillion. This enlarged E.U. will be an oil consuming purchasing population 33% larger than the U.S., and over half of OPEC crude oil will be sold to the EU as of mid-2004. This does not include other potential entrants such as the U.K., Norway, Denmark and Sweden. I should note that since this speech the euro has been trading at parity or above the dollar since late 2002, and analysts predict the dollar will continue its downward trending in 2003 relative to the euro. Further, if or when the U.K. adopts the euro currency, that development could provide critical motivation for OPEC to the make the transition to euros. It appears the final two pivotal items that would create the OPEC transition to euros will be based on if and when Norway’s Brent crude is re-dominated in euros, and when the U.K. adopts the euro. Regarding the later, Tony Blair is lobbying heavily for the U.K. to adopt the euro, and their adoption would seem imminent within this decade. Again, I offer the following information from my astute acquaintance who analyzes these matters very carefully regarding the euro: “The pivotal vote will probably be Sweden, where approval this next autumn of adopting the euro also would give momentum to the Danish government’s strong desire to follow suit. Polls in Denmark now indicate that the euro would pass with a comfortable margin and Norwegian polls show a growing majority in favor of EU membership. Indeed, with Norway having already integrated most EU economic directives through the EEA partnership and with their strongly appreciated currency, their accession to the euro would not only be effortless, but of great economic benefit. As go the Swedes, so probably will go the Danes & Norwegians. It’s the British who are the real obstacle to building momentum for the euro as international transaction & reserve currency. So long as the United Kingdom remains apart from the euro, reducing exchange rate costs between the euro and the British pound remains their obvious priority. British adoption (a near-given in the long run) would mount significant pressure toward repegging the Brent crude benchmark – which is traded on the International Petroleum Exchange in London – and the Norwegians would certainly have no objection whatsoever that I can think of, whether or not they join the European Union.” Finally, the maneuvers toward reducing the global dominance of the dollar are already well underway and have only reason to accelerate so far as I can see. An OPEC pricing shift would seem rather unlikely prior 2004 – barring political motivations (ie. motivations of OPEC members) or a disorderly collapse of the dollar (ie. prolonged high oil prices due to Iraq war causes Japanese bank collapse)- but appears quite viable to take place before the end of the decade.” In otherwords, around 2005, from an economic and monetary perspectivem, it will be logical for OPEC to switch to the euro for oil pricing. Of course that will devalue the dollar, and hurt the US economy unless it begins making some structual changes – or use its massive military power to force events upon the OPEC states… Facing these potentialities, I hypothesize that President Bush intends to topple Saddam in 2003 in a pre-emptive attempt to initiate massive Iraqi oil production in far excess of OPEC quotas, to reduce global oil prices, and thereby dismantle OPEC’sprice controls. The end-goal of the neo-conservatives is incredibly bold yet simple in purpose, to use the “war on terror” as the premise to finally dissolve OPEC’s decision-making process, thus ultimately preventing the cartel’s inevitable switch to pricing oil in euros. How would the Bush administration break-up the OPEC cartel’s price controls in a post-Saddam Iraq? First, the newly installed regime (apparently a U.S. General for the first several months) will convert Iraq back to the dollar standard. Next, with the U.S. military protecting the oil fields, the Bush junta will undertake the necessary steps to rapidly increase production of Iraq oil, quintupling Iraq’s current output – and well beyond OPEC’s 2 million barrel per day quota. Dr. Nayyer Ali offers a succinct analysis of how Iraq’s underutilized oil reserves will not be a “profit-maker” for the U.S. government, but it will serve as the crucial economic instrument used by the Bush junta to leverage and hopefully dissolve OPEC’s price controls, thus causing the neo conservative’s long sought goal of collapsing the OPEC cartel (15): “Despite this vast pool of oil, Iraq has never produced at a level proportionate to the reserve base. Since the Gulf War, Iraq’s production has been limited by sanctions and allowed sales under the oil for food program (by which Iraq has sold 60 billion dollars worth of oil over the last 5 years) and what else can be smuggled out. This amounts to less than 1 billion barrels per year. If Iraq were reintegrated into the world economy, it could allow massive investment in its oil sector and boost output to 2.5 billion barrels per year, or about 7 million barrels a day. Total world oil production is about 75 million barrels, and OPEC combined produces about 25 million barrels. What would be the consequences of this? There are two obvious things. First would be the collapse of OPEC, whose strategy of limiting production to maximize price will have finally reached its limit. An Iraq that can produce that much oil will want to do so, and will not allow OPEC to limit it to 2 million barrels per day. If Iraq busts its quota, then who in OPEC will give up 5 million barrels of production? No one could afford to, and OPEC would die. This would lead to the second major consequence, which is a collapse in the price of oil to the 10-dollar range per barrel. The world currently uses 25 billion barrels per year, so a 15-dollar drop will save oil-consuming nations 375 billion dollars in crude oil costs every year.” “The Iraq war is not a moneymaker. But it could be an OPEC breaker. That however is a long-term outcome that will require Iraq to be successfully reconstituted into a functioning state in which massive oil sector investment can take place.” The American people are largely oblivious to the economic risks regarding President Bush’s upcoming war. Not only is Japan’s economy at grave risk from a spike in oil prices, but additional risks relate to Iran and Venezuela as well, either of whom could move to the euros, thus providing further momentum for OPEC to act on their “internal discussions” and switch to the euro as the fiat currency for oil. The Bush administration believes that by toppling Saddam they will remove the juggernaut, thus allowing the US to control Iraqi’s huge oil reserves, and finally break-up and dissolve the 10 remaining countries in OPEC. This last issue is undoubtedly a significant gamble even in the best-case scenario of a quick and relatively painless war that topples Saddam and leaves Iraq’s oil fields intact. Undoubtedly, the OPEC cartel could feel threatened by the Bush junta’s stated goal of breaking-up OPEC’s price controls ($22-$28 per barrel). Perhaps the Bush administration’s ambitious goal of flooding the oil market with Iraqi crude may work, but I have doubts. Will OPEC simply tolerate quota-busting Iraqi oil production, thus delivering to them a lesson in self-inflicted hara-kiri (suicide)? Contrarily, OPEC could meet in Vienna and in an act of self-preservation re-denominate the oil currency to the euro. Such a decision by would mark the end of U.S. dollar hegemony, and thus the end of our precarious economic superpower status. Again, I offer the astute analysis of my expert friend regarding the colossal gamble this administration is about to undertake: “One of the dirty little secrets of today’s international order is that the rest of the globe could topple the United States from its hegemonic status whenever they so choose with a concerted abandonment of the dollar standard. This is America’s preeminent, inescapable Achilles Heel for now and the foreseeable future. That such a course hasn’t been pursued to date bears more relation to the fact that other Westernized, highly developed nations haven’t any interest to undergo the great disruptions which would follow – but it could assuredly take place in the event that the consensus view coalesces of the United States as any sort of ‘rogue’nation. In other words, if the dangers of American global hegemony are ever perceived as a greater liability than the dangers of toppling the international order (or, alternately, if an ‘every man for himself’ crisis as discussed above spirals out of control and forces their hand). The Bush administration and the neo conservative movement has set out on a multiple-front course to ensure that this cannot take place, in brief by a graduated assertion of military hegemony atop the existent economic hegemony. The paradox I’ve illustrated with this one narrow scenario is that the quixotic course itself may very well bring about the feared outcome that it means to preempt. We shall see!” Under this administration we have returned to massive deficit spending, and the lack of strong SEC enforcement has further eroded investor confidence. Regrettably, the flawed economic and tax policies and of the Bush administration may be exacerbating the weakness of the dollar, if not outright accelerating some countries to diversify their central bank reserve funds with euros as an alternative to the dollar. >From a foreign policy perspective, the terminations of numerous international treaties and disdain for international cooperation via the UN and NATO have angered even our closest allies. Lastly, and despite President Bush’s attempt to use the threat of applying military force to OPEC producers who may wish to switch to the euro for their oil payments, it appears their belligerent neo conservative policies may paradoxically bring about the dire outcome they hope to prevent – an OPEC currency switch to euros. The American people are not aware of such information due to the U.S. mass media, which has been reduced to a handful of consumption/entertainment and profit-oriented conglomerates that filter the flow of information in the U.S. Indeed, the Internet provides the only source of unfiltered “real news.” Synopsis: It would appear that any attempt by OPEC member states in the Middle East or Latin America to transition to the euro as their oil transaction currency standard shall be met with either overt U.S. military actions or covert U.S. intelligence agency interventions. Under the guise of the perpetual “war on terror” the Bush administration is manipulating the American people about the unspoken but very real macroeconomic reasons for this upcoming war with Iraq. This war in Iraq will have nothing to with any threat from Saddam’s old WMD program. This war will be over the global currency of oil. Sadly, the U.S. has become largely ignorant and complacent. Too many of us are willing to be ruled by fear and lies, rather than by persuasion and truth. Will we allow our government to initiate the dangerous “pre-emptive doctrine” by waging an unpopular war in Iraq, while we refuse to acknowledge that Saddam does not pose an imminent threat to the United States? We seem unable to address the structural weakness of our economy due to massive debt manipulation, unaffordable 2001 tax cuts, massive current account deficits, trade deficits, corporate accounting abuses, unsustainable credit expansion, near zero personal savings, record personal indebtedness, and our dependence and over consumption of cheap Middle Eastern oil. How much longer can we reliably import our oil from middle eastern states that dislike or despise us because of our biased foreign policy towards Israel? Lastly, we must bear in mind Jefferson’s insistence that a free press is our best, and perhaps only mechanism to protect democracy, and part of today’s dilemma lies within the U.S. media conglomerates that have failed to inform the People. Regardless of whatever Dr. Blix finds or doesn’t find in Iraq regarding WMD, it appears that President Bush is determined to pursue his “pre-emptive” imperialist war to secure a large portion of the earth’s remaining hydrocarbons, and then use Iraq’s underutilized oil to destroy the OPEC cartel. Will this gamble work? Undeniably our nation may suffer not only from economic retribution, but also from increased Al-Qaeda sponsored terrorism as well. Will we stand idle and watch CNN, as our government becomes an international pariah by discarding International Law as it wages a unilateral war in Iraq? Is it morally defensible to deploy our brave but naÃve young soldiers around the globe to enforce U.S. dollar hegemony for global oil transactions – via the barrel of their guns? Will we allow imperialist conquest in the Middle East to feed our excessive energy consumption, while ignoring the duplicitous overthrowing of a democratically elected government in Latin America? Shall we accept the grave price of an unjust war over the currency of oil? We must not stand silent and watchour country become a ‘rogue’ superpower, relying on brute force, thereby forcing the industrialized nations or OPEC to abandon the dollar standard – thus with the mere stroke of a pen – slay the U.S. Empire? Informed citizens believe this administration is pushing us towards that dire outcome. Remaining silent is not only misguided, but false patriotism. This need not be our fate. When will we demand that our government begin the long and difficult journey towards energy conservation, the development of renewable energy sources, and sustained balanced budgets to allow real deficit reduction? When will we repeal of the unaffordable 2001 tax cuts to create a balanced budget, enforce corporate accounting laws, and substantially reinvest in our manufacturing and export sectors to move our economy from a trade account deficit position back into a trade account surplus position? Undoubtedly, we must make these and many more painful structural changes to our economy if we are to restore our “safe harbor” investment status. Ultimately we will have to make sacrifices by reducing our excessive energy consumption that we have become accustomed to as a society. It is imperative that our government also begins economic and monetary reforms immediately. We must adopt our economy to accommodate the inevitable competition to the dollar from the euro as an alternative international reserve currency and oil transaction currency. The Bush administration’s seemingly entrenched political ideology appears quite incompatible with these necessary economic reforms. Ultimately We the People must demand a new and more responsible administration. We need leaders who are willing to return balanced, conservative fiscal policies, and to our traditions of engaging in multilateral foreign policies while seeking broad international cooperation. It has been said that all wars are fought over resources or ideology/religion. It appears that this administration may soon add “currency wars” as a third paradigm. I fear that the world community will not tolerate a U.S. Empire that uses its military power to conquer sovereign nations who decide to sell their oil products in euros instead of dollars. Likewise, if President Bush pursues an essentially unilateral war against Iraq, I suspect the historians will not be kind to his administration. Their agenda is clear to the world community, but when will U.S. patriots become cognizant of their modus operandi? “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” “The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” – Joseph Goebbels, German Minister of Propaganda, 1933-1945 END OF ESSAY

+

Background Information on Hydrocarbons To understand hydrocarbons and how we got to this desperate place in Iraq, I have listed four articles in the Reference Section from Michael Ruppert’s controversial website: ‘From the Wilderness.’ Although some of Ruppert’s articles are overwrought from time to time, their research detailing the issues of hydrocarbons, and the interplay between energy and the Bush junta’s perpetual “war on terror” is quite informative. Other than the core driver of the dollar versus euro currency threat, the other issue related to the upcoming war with Iraq appears related to the Caspian Sea region. Since the mid-late 1990s the Caspian Sea region of Central Asiawas thought to hold approx. 200 billion barrels of untapped oil (the later would be comparable to Saudi Arabia’s reserve base)(16). Based on an early feasibility study by Enron, the easiest and cheapest way to bring this oil to market would be a pipeline from Kazakhstan, through Afghanistan to the Pakistan border at Malta. In 1998 then CEO of Halliburton, Dick Cheney, expressed much interest in building that pipeline. In fact, these oil reserves were a *central* component of Vice President Cheney’s energy plan released in May 2001. According to his report, the U.S. will import 90% of its oil by 2020, and thus tapping into the reserves in the Caspian Sea region was viewed as a strategic goal that would help meet our growing energy demand, and also reduce our dependence on oil from the Middle East (17). According to the French book, The Forbidden Truth (18), the Bush administration ignored the U.N. sanctions that had been imposed upon the Taliban and entered into negotiations with the supposedly ‘rogue regime’ from February 2, 2001 to August 6, 2001. According to this book, the Taliban were apparently not very cooperative based on the statements of Pakistan’s former ambassador, Mr. Naik. He reports that the U.S. threatened a “military option” in the summer of 2001 if the Taliban did not acquiesce to our demands. Fortuitous for the Bush administration and Cheney’s energy plan, Bin Laden delivered to us 9/11. The pre-positioned U.S. military; along with the CIA providing cash to the Northern Alliance leaders, led the invasion of Afghanistan and the Taliban were routed. The pro-western Karzai government was ushered in. The pipeline project was now back on track in early 2002, well, sort… After three exploratory wells were built and analyzed, it was reported that the Caspian region holds only approximately 10 to 20 billion barrels of oil (although it does have a lot of natural gas) (16). The oil is also of poor quality, with high sulfur content. Subsequently, several major companies have now dropped their plans for the pipeline citing the massive project was no longer profitable. Unfortunately, this recent realization about the Caspian Sea region has serious implications for the U.S., India, China, Asia and Europe, as the amount of available hydrocarbons for industrialized and developing nations has been decreased downward by 20%. (Globalestimates reduced from 1.2 trillion to approx. 1 trillion) (18, 19). The Bush administration quickly turned its attention to a known quantity, Iraq, with it proven reserves totaling 11% of the world’s oil reserves. Our greatest nemesis, Bin Laden, was quickly replaced with our new public enemy #1, Saddam Hussein… For those who would like to review the impact of depleting hydrocarbon reserves from the geo-political perspective, and the potential ramifications to how this may ultimately create an erosion of our civil liberties and democratic processes, retired U.S. Special Forces officer Stan Goff offers a sobering analysis in his essay: ‘The Infinite War and Its Roots’ (20). Likewise, for those who wish to review the unspeakable evidence surrounding the September 11th tragedy, the controversial essay “The Enemy Within” by the famous American writer Gore Vidal offers a thorough introduction. Although published in Italy and a major UK newspaper, The Observer, you will not read Gore Vidal’s controversial essay in the U.S. media. Note: Gore Vidal’s latest book, ‘Dreaming War’ features this as the opening essay (21). Finally, ‘The War on Freedom” by British political scientist Nafeez Ahmed asks disconcerting questions about the 9/11 tragedy (22). FOOTNOTES (1)London, Heidi Kingstone, ‘Middle East: Trouble in the House of Saud’ (January 13, 2003) http://www.jrep.com/Mideast/Article-0.html (2)Recknagel, Charles, ‘Iraq: Baghdad Moves to Euro’ (November 1, 2000) http://www.rferl.org/nca/features/2000/11/01112000160846.asp (3)Gutman, Roy & Barry, John, Beyond Baghdad: Expanding Target List: Washington looks at overhauling the Islamic and Arab world (August 11, 2002) http://www.unansweredquestions.net/timeline/2002/newsweek081102.html (4)’Economics Drive Iran Euro Oil Plan, Politics Also Key’ (August 2002) http://www.iranexpert.com/2002/economicsdriveiraneurooil23august.htm (5)’Forex Fund Shifting to Euro,’ Iran Financial News, (August 25, 2002) http://www.payvand.com/news/02/aug/1080.html (6)Costello, Tom, ‘Japan’s Economy at Risk of Collapse’ (December 11, 2002) http://www.msnbc.com/news/845708.asp?0cl=cR (7) Gluck, Caroline, ‘North Korea embraces the euro’ (December 1, 2002) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/2531833.stm (8) ‘What the World Thinks in 2002 : How Global Publics View: Their Lives, Their Countries, The World, America’ (2002) http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID5 (9) ‘Euro continues to extend its global influence’ (January 7, 2002) http://www.europartnership.com/news/02jan07.htm (10) Henderson, Hazel, ‘Beyond Bush’s Unilateralism: Another Bi-Polar World or A New Era of Win-Win?’ (June 2002) http://www.hazelhenderson.com/Bush’s%20unilateralism.htm (11) Birms, Larry & Volberding, Alex, ‘U.S. is the Primary Loser in Failed Venezuelan Coup,’ Newsday (April 21, 2002) http://www.coha.org/COHA%20_in%20_the_news/ Articles%202002/newsday_04_21_02_us__venezuela.htm (12) ‘USA intelligence agencies revealed in plot to oust Venezuela’s President,’ (Dec 12, 2002) http://www.vheadline.com/0212/14248.asp (link now dead) (13) Liu, Henry C K, ‘US Dollar hegemony has got to go,’ (Asia Times, April 11, 2002) http://www.atimes.com/global-econ/DD11Dj01.html (14) ‘The Choice of Currency for the Denomination of the Oil Bill,’ Speech given by Javad Yarjani, Head of OPEC’s Marketing Analysis Department (April, 2002) http://www.opec.org/NewsInfo/Speeches/sp2002/spAraqueSpainApr14.htm (15) Dr. Ali, Nayyer, ‘Iraq and Oil,’ (December 13, 2002) http://www.pakistanlink.com/nayyer/12132002.html (16) Pfeiffer, Dale, ‘Much Ado about Nothing — Whither the Caspian Riches? ‘ (December 5, 2002) http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/120502_caspian.html (17) Ruppert, Michael, ‘The Unseen Conflict,’ (October 18, 2002) http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/101802_the_unseen.html (18) Jean Charles-Briscard & Guillaume Dasquie, ‘The Forbidden Truth: U.S.-Taliban Secret Oil Diplomacy, Saudi Arabia and the Failed Search for bin Laden’, Nation Books, 2002. (19) Ruppert, Michael, ‘Colin Campbell on Oil.'(October 23, 2002) http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/102302_campbell.html (20) Golf, Stan, ‘The Infinite War and its Roots,’ http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/082702_infinite_war.html (21) Vidal, Gore, ‘Dreaming War: Blood for Oil & the Cheney-Bush Junta,’ Nation Books, 2002. His essay, ‘The Enemy Within’ was first printed in the UK’s Observer (Oct 27, 2002) http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/EnemyWithin.html (22) Ahmed, Nafeez, ‘The War on Freedom: How and Why America was Attacked, September 11, 2001’, Tree of Life Publications, 2002.

FIRST: MILITARY SUPPLIES Who Sold What to Iraq? The U.S. aims to hunt down companies that supplied Saddam. FORTUNE Sunday, March 30, 2003 By Nelson D. Schwartz

When the first wave of American soldiers swept out of the desert and headed north toward Baghdad, the Iraqis weren’t the only ones who experienced shock and awe. In the thick of battle, U.S. commanders discovered that the Iraqi army was able to jam the global-positioning systems the military uses to pinpoint everything from cruise missile attacks to the location of troops on the ground. “It was a technological preemptive strike,” says a senior military source.

It was also a prime example of how private companies violated the embargo that the U.S. and the United Nations imposed on Iraq more than a decade ago. Russian firms supplied the jammers to Iraq in the past few years–they didn’t exist during the first Gulf war–prompting a personal protest from President Bush to Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

The news about the GPS-blocking devices is just the beginning of what’s likely to be a series of revelations detailing how companies–including American ones–helped supply Saddam Hussein’s war machine during the past decade. That’s because in addition to searching for weapons of mass destruction, U.S. forces are scouring Iraq for evidence of who sold what to Saddam. Military sources have told FORTUNE that special teams are already on the ground, sifting through files to determine where Iraq got everything from rocket parts to fiber-optic technology.

Despite both U.S. laws and UN sanctions that prohibited all but a handful of commercial dealings with Baghdad, there have been persistent reports that companies from Russia, France, and China, among others, were breaking the embargo. And when the evidence in Iraq is analyzed, says a top Washington official who deals with trade policy, it’s likely that at least a few U.S. companies will face fines or perhaps even criminal prosecution. “The fact that American companies have broken the embargo with Iran suggests that there will be some leads in Iraq,” adds the government official, who spoke with FORTUNE on condition of anonymity. “Those of us in law enforcement certainly contemplate that things will be found in Iraq.”

Probing the byzantine web of deals that kept technology flowing to Iraq is a complex job. It’s likely to involve teams from the Treasury, State, and Commerce departments, as well as the Pentagon and the CIA. For now the main task is locating the forbidden goods–and their paper trail. Sources say units made up of both military personnel and representatives of the CIA and other agencies have been trained to operate in volatile areas inside Iraq, taking inventory of contraband items and poring over records.

Similar task forces operated after the U.S. invasion of Panama in 1989 and NATO’s intervention in the Balkans in the mid-1990s, but this time the job is much bigger. Because of Iraq’s oil riches, Saddam had a far easier time of evading the embargo than did former dictators like Manuel Noriega and Slobodan Milosevic. Fixing blame can be tough, however. Business transactions with embargoed nations are usually conducted through intermediaries, with China and the United Arab Emirates as common transshipment points.

To further complicate matters, U.S. companies might innocently sell something to a Chinese buyer, only to learn later that it ended up in Iraq. For example, says Kelly Motz of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, China’s giant Huawei Technologies is believed to have supplied Saddam’s army with sophisticated communications hardware even as it was doing business with the likes of IBM, Motorola, Hewlett Packard, and Qualcomm. “These companies might have thought they were just selling telecom equipment into an emerging Asian market,” says Motz. “However, it’s been known since early 2001 that Huawei has had dealings with Iraq. So any deals that might have been done since then are questionable.”

If it turns out that companies intentionally evaded the ban, government officials say they are loaded for bear. “We won’t tolerate the breaking of the embargo,” says Richard Newcomb, director of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. “If there’s a knowing violation, we would prosecute to the full extent of the law.” In 2001, the Commerce Department hit McDonnell Douglas, a unit of Boeing, with a $2.12 million fine for improperly selling machine tools to China. Fines for dealing with Iraq are likely to be larger. And if evidence turns up that a particular firm knowingly sold items like night-vision goggles or gas masks to Iraq, federal agencies might impose what they call the “death penalty”–a total ban on all exports by the guilty firm. Criminal charges for executives are also a distinct possibility.

It’s going to take time to determine just who did business with Iraq. But the military, for one, seems eager to shine a light in some otherwise dark corners. “We will have everything at our disposal,” says Maj. Max Blumenfeld, an officer with Army’s V Corps in Kuwait. Documenting Iraq’s deals, he says, “will justify this operation and show the world what we’ve been saying all along about Saddam Hussein and his efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction.” It could also cause a lot of companies to wish they’d never done business with Baghdad.

DITORIAL MONDAY, MARCH 24, 2003

Racial Tension and Anti-Americanism

By KELLY COOK

Not since the O.J. Simpson murder trial has the country been this divided. In 1994, the infamous case separated U.S. citizens between racial lines with most Whites holding steadfast that Simpson was as guilty as sin, while most Blacks believed Simpson to be innocent.

I remember my seventh-grade science class being interrupted when the verdict was rendered. It was one of those life-altering moments when you remember where you were and what you were doing at the time — our parents have Kennedy’s assassination and we have O.J.’s “not guilty” verdict. It was a tense time, as it seemed everyone from disc jockeys to housewives was talking about the case.

And now that the United States is at war with Iraq, the country is again split. This time however, the divide is not racial but political with 71% of the country in support of the Bush administration’s decision to go to war and 29% (mostly liberals) in opposition, according to The Washington Post. While liberals rally and protest and conservatives take the ‘blame France’ approach, the world’s perception of the United States continues to worsen.

People have good reason to be perturbed with the United States. Military occupations in Latin American countries allowed the U.S. to secure lucrative investments while the countries suffered thousands of deaths and devastation. The U.S. also armed Iraq and provided Saddam Hussein the money to purchase weapons of mass destruction. There are also numerous examples of the CIA installing dictators and assassinating leaders in Southeast Asian and Latin American countries. These are only a few of the atrocities that have been committed in the name America.

Besides being partly responsible for the maiming of millions, there is another reason for anti-Americanism throughout the world. Simply stated, most people in the United States do not care about the lives of people (particularly non-Whites) around the world. The hierarchy of life is based both on geographic and racial boundaries. What people don’t discuss is the underlying racial tension behind anti-Americanism — we always say it’s the U.S. versus Iraq, but we never say it’s the Whites versus the Arabs. Terrorism stems from economic inequality, but what is seldom acknowledged is that this discrepancy is largely the result of centuries of White people exploiting people of color through institutions such as Colonialism and slavery. And let’s face it, people perceive the United States as a White country. This is largely due to our media and pop culture — the lack of racial diversity is visible in everything from primetime TV to our string of White, male presidents.

In the media, as well as in people’s minds, there is a higher value placed on the lives of White Americans in this country than any other people. White people, especially when they’re pretty and wealthy, make headlines far more often than people of color. The kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart (a pretty White girl from a wealthy family) has saturated the media, while hundreds of non-White, poor children who were kidnapped or murdered during the same time period were never mentioned in national media.

The treatment of minorities in the United States is a microcosm of the way this nation treats the rest of the world. During the Smart kidnapping, the 1,900 people who drowned in the Senegal ferry disaster barely made the U.S. papers. This is only a small fraction of the international news that is ignored by the U.S. media.

This apathy is not a recent development. No one cared when Black kids were being shot in inner city schools during the 1980s. It wasn’t until White suburban kids started shooting up the schools that the country took notice. HIV/AIDS was a crisIs when it was a largely gay, White male problem. Celebrities held dozens of benefits to raise money for research. However, now that Black females are the group most affected by AIDS in the United States, there is hardly a whimper about the disease among celebrities (with the exception of Bono) or other citizens.

Globally, the amount of deaths claimed in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks occur daily around the world in places like Israel and Northern Ireland. Furthermore, AIDS is still killing millions in Africa yet the crises fails to reach U.S. airwaves.

When it comes to accountability on an individual level, U.S. citizens are reluctant to donate money to people in need. According to the 2001 Generosity Index, 72% of U.S. citizens do not donate any portion of their income to charity. But far more damning than statistics is the overt dislike shown toward the United States.

The racial and geographic superiority complex of the United States is to blame for widespread anti-Americanism. Terrorism is a racial issue as much as it is a political or economic one. In reality, the United States is a wealthy, White country while the rest of the world (except for Western Europe) is populated by impoverished people of color. The United States is perceived as the White oppressor. People, specifically people of color, are sick and tired of being devalued. And when people are constantly oppressed, they tend to rebel or react positively when they regard something to be a victory against their oppressors — hence the cheering after Sept. 11.

The reaction of many Blacks after the O.J. Simpson verdict is another prime example of an oppressed people choosing to perceive the loss of innocent life as a victory. Whether or not O.J. did it was irrelevant (though we all know the man’s guilty). Blacks cheered because Simpson’s acquittal symbolized a blow to their oppressors. After years of receiving the message that Blacks didn’t matter, a message reinforced by events like the acquittal of the police officers responsible for the beating of Rodney King, many Blacks found some joy — however sick and irrational — in Simpson’s verdict.

With the growing anti-American sentiment around the world, the fear of terrorist retaliation for the war in Iraq is very real. The killing of the innocent is inexcusable and I do not condone terrorism in any way, and it is unfortunate that people resort to and support these extreme measures. Last Wednesday, the State Department issued a warning to U.S. citizens abroad of possible terrorist attacks. Let’s hope the State Department won’t have to issue a warning to citizens here in the U.S. If they do, perhaps the best preventative measure would be to start valuing the lives of all people regardless of race or nationality.

Kelly Cook is a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences. She can be contacted at kfc5 [at] cornell [dot] edu. Color Outside The Lines appears Mondays. Copyright © 2003 by The Cornell Daily Sun, Inc. All rights reserved.

Also, if you have no idea what I’m talking about, check this:

http://www.howstuffworks.com/stinger.htm

-Ian.

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Ian Andrew Bell
> Date: Fri Nov 29, 2002 2:49:47 PM US/Pacific
> To: fork [at] xent [dot] com
> Subject: Re: The air industry’s worst nightmare
>
> On Friday, November 29, 2002, at 08:42 AM, Tom wrote:
>
>> The question then is asked, are we thankfull for bad training or
>> faulty
>> equipment?
>
> Well, both.
>
> The Battery/Coolant Units (BCUs) on the guidance systems of Stinger
> shoulder-fired missiles only have a half-life of about 10 years. They
> contain liquid Argon, which super-cools the seeker head on the missile
> prior to launch in order to make it sensitive to heat (the Stinger is
> a heat-seeking missile which can approach a target at any aspect). As
> such, most of the original set that were provided by the CIA for the
> Afghan war have either been used, or have had the Argon contained
> inside the BCU go flat, like the can of spray paint in your garage.
>
> Even if you could find pure liquid Argon at the 7-11 in Peshawar you’d
> still have to disassemble the Stinger, including removing the missile
> from the sheath. None of this is easy to accomplish, of course,
> because General Dynamics designed the missile system and intends to
> make a lot of money performing maintenance on them. Among other
> things, if you pull the missile out from its protective sheath you’ll
> probably damage the seeker head, which makes the missile useless.
>
> The Stinger’s effect on Us is largely based on its mythology. Most
> historians acknowledge the Stinger as having been the single most
> effective technology in kicking the Soviets out from the Afghan
> conflict. And the arrival of these in the theatre of war definitely
> led to the turning point for the Afghan rebels, rendering Soviet
> aircraft (especially their helicopters) operationally ineffective.
>
> On a slow moving commercial airliner at a few hundred feet altitude,
> no Stinger with a functioning guidance system would ever miss.
>
> The reason the Stingers missed the El Al flight may be because the
> homing system was bypassed and the missile fired directly. The bad
> guys probably just pointed the rocket sheath at the plane, crossed the
> wires, and prayed. Or worse, they probably fired the missile with no
> Argon super-cooling the seeker head. You might as well take an RPG to
> the end of the runway and practice your deflection shooting. You can
> probably buy those in Dallas at the local gun shop.
>
> -Ian.
>
>

———–

-Ian.

—- http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0133/ridgeway.php

Mondo Washington by James Ridgeway with Ariston-Lizabeth Anderson and Sandra Bisin Manhattan’s Milosevic How You Can Do What the Government Won’t: Arrest Henry Kissinger August 15 – 21, 2001

You might have to be crazy. Or at least foolhardy. But you could try to bring Henry Kissinger to justice for crimes against humanity. Consider, though, what happened to the last people to talk even jokingly about plans for a citizen’s arrest of the real-life model for Dr. Strangelove.

It happened 30 years ago, when Kissinger was at his Strangelovian heights. A group of anti-war protesters sought to raise the spirits of that estimable Catholic priest Phil Berrigan, then in prison for destroying draft records. The group got drunk one night, as Daniel Ellsberg recalls, and dashed off a letter to Berrigan humorously suggesting they nab Kissinger for war crimes in Vietnam. Prison authorities intercepted the mail and the FBI swooped down, charging the writers with conspiracy to kidnap the secretary of state. Dubbed the Harrisburg 6, the friends soon found themselves in a knock-down drag-out to stay out of jail.

Fast-forward to this year, when Christopher Hitchens’s compact indictment, The Trial of Henry Kissinger, flares across the front cover of Harper’s and clings to a lower-tier spot among Amazon.com’s top-100 books. Hitchens builds a case against Nixon’s man for atrocities around the globe, from East Timor and Cambodia to South America and Washington, D.C. He shows just how frighteningly small the world of Kissinger has become, as one foreign government after another tries to get its hands on him, in the same way world courts have tracked down Augusto Pinochet and Slobodan Milosevic. Chile. France. Argentina. Slowly, they’re closing in.

Suddenly, the Harrisburg 6 seem less like relics of a forgotten era and more like prophets of an age to come. Here in the U.S., where the official response has been cold silence, there is renewed behind-the-scenes preparation for legal action against Kissinger. And some are again calling for a citizen’s arrest, lobbying for the public to do what the government won’t.

But could an average person really collar Manhattan’s Milosevic? “It would surely be possible to do so, and to end up quickly in jail or a mental institution,” says the noted linguist and political dissident Noam Chomsky. “A 17th-century English popular poet wrote that laws are like spider webs: ‘Lesser flies are quickly ta’en, while the great break out again.’ Not 100 percent true, of course, but a strong tendency, for reasons too obvious to discuss.”

Some suggest Kissinger, now an aging Manhattanite, is just too cuddly. “After all, he’s the darling of the establishment,” says the historian Howard Zinn. “These are all people who have had dinner with him. They don’t want to say they’ve had a war criminal for dinner.”

Others question why Hitchens—or his readers—would bother with busting Kissinger. “He was very much a No. 2 man, subordinate to Richard Nixon,” recalls Ellsberg, of Pentagon Papers fame. “It’s absurd to say he’s the principal architect. Of course he’s deserving of trial. But some people imagine that Nixon didn’t have the wit to think up those crimes on his own, and that’s quite mistaken. Kissinger was simply a very loyal, opportunist subordinate.”

Nonetheless, there is a growing movement to put him in the dock as the perp—or at least a witness—in crimes against humanity. The old Harvard professor has to watch his step. Though he still moves freely about the streets of New York, this “war criminal” had to slip out of Paris in May when French police tried to serve him with a court summons. Activists from the East Timor Action Network have repeatedly sought to question Kissinger during his book tours, but again the former secretary of state either didn’t answer or disappeared. Demonstrators have also hounded him at speeches around the country. This month, an Argentine judge ordered Kissinger to testify in a human rights trial concerning a plan by Latin American governments to kidnap and kill leftists during the 1970s.

And in July, a judge in Chile sent questions to Kissinger as a witness in a suit brought by Joyce Horman, the widow of Charles Horman, a young journalist killed during the Pinochet coup. Not amused, an administration source told the London Telegraph, “It is unjust and ridiculous that a distinguished servant of this country should be harassed by foreign courts in this way.”

Kissinger, who didn’t respond to Voice questions, shows some signs of knowing the heat is on. In his mounting campaign to protect his image, he recently agreed to release 10,000 pages of his papers kept under seal at the Library of Congress. Such goodwill gestures may not be enough to save the self-styled Dr. K. from a citizen’s arrest, in which he could legally be plucked off the sidewalk and deposited at a nearby precinct station for booking.

He keeps a fairly low profile these days, but he’s hardly invisible. Though it’s not listed on the midtown building’s marquee, the office for Kissinger Associates is located at 350 Park Avenue, on the 26th floor. Anyone can enter the lobby, passing a security guard and concierge unchallenged. Kissinger’s own receptionist sits behind a glass window. The spartan room contains a dark wooden table, upon which rest a white phone and an ashtray, a single couch and two armchairs, and a security camera mounted in one corner. The receptionist politely tells a visitor Kissinger is not in. Not expected. Who knows when he might drop in.

Don’t think you can just hang around and wait for him to show up. A citizen’s arrest is not so easy. While the laws differ from state to state, they generally allow for anyone who witnesses a felony, or knows which person committed one, to make an immediate arrest. That can include a “reasonable” amount of physical force. It would also normally involve some participation from the cops.

Back down on Park Avenue, across from Kissinger’s office, police officer John Vanasco explains the procedure. “We take the person and process the paperwork,” he says. “If it is a crime, we take the person in custody, but we need probable cause proving that the crime was committed.”

In the case of someone accused of being a war criminal, Vanasco says, city cops refer the matter to federal agencies, then hold the suspect for them.

A spokesperson for the NYPD puts it slightly differently. “Citizen’s arrest has nothing to do with us,” he says. “You make the arrest on your own. We do nothing more than transport the person. We are not making the arrest. We are not involved in this.”

Kissinger also keeps a home in Litchfield County, Connecticut, where state police say citizen’s arrests are not allowed. If you tried to capture him en route, you’d get to deal with the New York State police. “It’s all based on what the citizen says,” a spokesperson reports. “They may sign paperwork, but they don’t go out and physically arrest someone. It’s not like it is in the movies. It doesn’t happen a lot.”

The legal details of a citizen’s arrest are downright confusing. “It’s a tricky issue,” says Norman Siegel, former director of the New York Civil Liberties Union and current candidate for public advocate. For misdemeanors, he says, cops usually just write the accused a ticket. Felonies are another matter. When approaching a person you intend to pick up, you’re supposed to explain that you’re about to make an arrest, and tell the suspect why. That’s when the situation can turn ugly. What if the person tries to run away while you’re calling the cops from your cell phone? “Do you tackle them?” asks Siegel. “Cuff them?” The tables could quickly turn, and you’d be the one violating the law.

And if cops have reason to doubt the merit of accusations, they don’t have to follow through with the arrest. “A citizen’s arrest doesn’t really work,” says attorney Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights, who has tried to nail various war criminals, from the contras to Haiti’s Tonton Macoutes. “They have to be committing a felony in front of you.”

Still, despite all the hassles, citizen’s arrests are used in New York City. The unarmed New York Guardian Angels make about two a year. “Basically every citizen has the right to make a citizen’s arrest,” says Mark Moore. “You physically restrain a person and hold them until the local cops come. We’re trained in restraint holds, arm bars, and different locks.”

Since Hitchens and others go after Kissinger for war crimes against civilian populations—like killing 200,000 Timorese, one third of the population—one might think the big human rights organizations would weigh in on this subject. But when it comes to Dr. K., these groups tread lightly.

Alistair Hodgett, Amnesty International’s American media director, says his agency can do little until the government declassifies reams of information. Even then, Amnesty wouldn’t necessarily take aim at Kissinger. “We would put the emphasis with the U.S. government to look at significant information,” Hodgett says. “I don’t believe or suggest that that’s likely to occur.”

The Lawyers Committee for Human Rights likewise barely dips a toe in the water. “The international justice system shouldn’t be about any one case,” says Raj Purohit. “If there is someone who has solid evidence, then he [Kissinger] should be held accountable.”

As for a citizen’s arrest of Kissinger, Purohit says, “That’s not something we would support. When it comes to these most serious crimes there has got to be a proper [order] from a tribunal or indictment. I think under any of these tribunals none of these would apply to Kissinger.”

Human Rights Watch is similarly reluctant to style Kissinger in prison stripes. “If Henry Kissinger signed off on bombing targets in Cambodia and Laos knowing that they included civilian areas, as accounts have suggested, then he could be charged with war crimes, by his victims or by the victims’ families,” says Reed Brody, an attorney who has gone around the world prosecuting human rights crimes. “But I think that it’s difficult not to confuse legal, political, moral, historical responsibility on the one hand, and criminal liability on another.”

Despite such gloomy prognoses, there are other hopes. Ratner thinks you could bring a civil action in Washington against Kissinger on behalf of the children of General René Schneider, the Chilean general who was shot during the Pinochet coup. And it might be possible to file a racketeering complaint in New York arguing that Kissinger and others conspired using the interstate communications—i.e, phones, faxes, etc.—to murder American citizens.

Another country could order him brought to trial on their soil. “Under the extradition laws, we do not have any exceptions for American nationals,” argues Alfred Rubin, a professor of international law at Tufts University. “The U.S. has extradition treaties with many countries, including Spain, and we do not except American nationals from their operation. If any countries in Europe or elsewhere would like to extradite Henry Kissinger, they can bring a case right now in an American court—and I’ll bet you that Henry Kissinger knows all about that.”

Finally, it is conceivable that the widow of Charles Horman, the young journalist who was killed in the Pinochet coup and was made famous by the film Missing, could bring a suit under the civil rights statutes on grounds that Kissinger and others conspired to deprive her husband of his rights. Since the conspiracy took place in the U.S., the suit might have standing in federal court.

Kissinger also might be prosecuted under the Alien Tort Claims Act. There has been considerable talk among lawyers about bringing such a suit on behalf of Chilean parties. Here the prospects are dicey, save for an opening granted by the courts to sue CIA officials for torture in Guatemala. In another case, lawyers argued in a Miami federal court that contra leaders conspired in Miami to kill Ben Linder, a young American engineer in Nicaragua.

The Chilean judge sitting on a case against Pinochet is asking Kissinger to come as a witness. Georgia Democratic representative Cynthia McKinney recently wrote Secretary of State Colin Powell, asking for help in persuading Kissinger to take the stand. She said Milosevic’s arrest should allow the public to concentrate on Kissinger now; if she desires, McKinney is in the position to open a forum on the subject.

But heading to Chile to testify would place Dr. K. in the position of discussing—in public and under oath—decisions he’d just as soon forget. Still, Horman’s widow thinks he should do what’s right. “I don’t see why Henry Kissinger would not want to answer the questions,” says Joyce Horman. “He’s not a defendant in our case; he’s a witness. Considering that he has said several times that he has no knowledge of the death of Charles Horman, he should have no reason not to answer these questions.”

One of the strongest calls for an investigation into Kissinger stems from the violence in East Timor, where he stands accused of supporting Indonesia’s 1975 bloody occupation of the recently freed Portuguese colony. In 1999 East Timor once again exploded into violence, which U.S. troops attempted to quell. A subsequent human rights commission proposed that the UN itself set up a war crimes tribunal.

The U.S.-based East Timor Action Network would like the tribunal to extend back to the original invasion. It could become a tool to find out what actually happened, and a mechanism for trying Kissinger. “I believe a criminal case can be made against him,” says John Miller, a spokesman for the group. “One country invaded another. He aided and abetted genocide. He provided a political go-ahead and was instrumental in continuing the flow of U.S. weapons.” As for supporting a citizen’s arrest, Miller says that would depend on how it was done. “We are not into assaulting people,” he says. “It would be mostly as a way of furthering public education.”

No doubt Kissinger is a disappearing symbol of the Cold War in general and Indochina specifically. During a recent forum sponsored by Harper’s magazine at the National Press Club in Washington, a group including journalists and former government professionals questioned why Kissinger should be singled out when an entire administration ought to take the blame.

“These were not unique actions,” said Scott Armstrong, whose National Security Archive has consistently dug up and published America’s dirty laundry. “They were not covert. They were not Oliver North-type government out of control. These were deliberate manipulations of the levers of power. And Henry Kissinger was—is—very much in the loop. He defined the loop. And [Hitchens’s] indictment is of an entire administration. And those who served with him, above him, across the Potomac, and even in Congress bear similar measures of responsibility.”

In a Voice interview Noam Chomsky seconds that idea. “Kissinger observes, correctly, that he was conducting the foreign policy of the U.S.,” he says. “The U.S. is a powerful state, overwhelmingly powerful, in fact. It follows that its leadership can make mistakes, but it cannot commit crimes in the technical Orwellian sense. Only enemies, or those who are weak and defenseless, can commit crimes in the literal sense. Accordingly, it is inconceivable that there would be an effort to bring Kissinger to trial.

“And even if it were done, he could correctly plead selective prosecution,” Chomsky adds. “After all, it was the Kennedy administration that escalated the war against South Vietnam from Latin America-style terror to outright aggression, and the Johnson administration that escalated the attack sharply, also extending it to the rest of Indochina.”

Roger Morris, best known for his scathing biography of Bill Clinton, worked under Kissinger in the National Security Council during the Nixon era. At the Press Club forum, Morris said he personally worked on a covert effort (unknown to either the secretary of defense or state) to reach a peace agreement in Vietnam. “There was on the table in the early spring of 1970 a negotiated withdrawal of American forces by the end of 1970,” he said. “That was interrupted by the dementia, not, alas, of Henry Kissinger, but of the man he worked for—Richard Nixon—and the ensuing Cambodian invasion. And you know the sequel: Several thousand Americans died in the years that followed as a result.” He concluded, “Henry’s transgressions would not have been possible without the active intellectual and substantive support of his aides.”

Moreover, there’s the whole question of what international law is intended to accomplish. “International law does not involve personal crimes,” argued Rubin, the Tufts professor. “I would emphasize that immorality is not illegality, and illegality is not personal criminal liability.”

But a court hearing could do more for a nation than punish its most visible villains. “I think it would be good to have a trial,” says Zinn, the historian. “I wouldn’t want to put him in jail. I don’t want to put any of these people in jail. I don’t believe in that. I think it should be more like the truth commission in South Africa. Hold them up to the world, shame them, and ban them from dinner parties.”

There may be no tracking down of every powerful figure who has ever broken the rules. Trace it right back through history, says former White House candidate Ralph Nader. “Do you know any president who hasn’t violated international law dozens of times?” Nader says. “If Kissinger is a war criminal, what about Clinton, who killed citizens in Iraq? You can’t pick one person out. It doesn’t have credibility. International law is known primarily for violating it. Is there anything the U.S. won’t do abroad in violation of international law?”

For now, the way Kissinger’s world keeps shrinking may have to be punishment enough—at least until someone takes action. “Maybe if he makes a mistake and travels abroad where he doesn’t expect to be apprehended, then that country could arrest and try him,” concludes Zinn. “He doesn’t want to set foot in France because he’s afraid of that. I think that’s a very nice little punishment that doesn’t allow him to see Paris ever again. Apprehending him in the U.S., with the judicial system and friends—even so-called critics? Nothing is going to happen to him unless someone makes a citizen’s arrest.”

Harms and the Man

An indictment of Henry Kissinger for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes would include (but not be confined to) the following.

VIETNAM: Kissinger scuttled peace talks in 1968, paving the way for Richard Nixon’s victory in the presidential race. Half the battle deaths in Vietnam took place between 1968 and 1972, not to mention the millions of civilians throughout Indochina who were killed.

CAMBODIA: Kissinger persuaded Nixon to widen the war with massive bombing of Cambodia and Laos. No one had suggested we go to war with either of these countries. By conservative estimates, the U.S. killed 600,000 civilians in Cambodia and another 350,000 in Laos.

BANGLADESH: Using weapons supplied by the U.S., General Yahya Khan overthrew the democratically elected government and murdered at least half a million civilians in 1971. In the White House, the National Security Council wanted to condemn these actions. Kissinger refused. Amid the killing, Kissinger thanked Khan for his “delicacy and tact.”

CHILE: Kissinger helped to plan the 1973 U.S.-backed overthrow of the democratically elected Salvador Allende and the assassination of General René Schneider. Right-wing general Augusto Pinochet then took over. Moderates fled for their lives. Hit men, financed by the CIA, tracked down Allende supporters and killed them. These attacks included the car bombing of Allende’s foreign minister, Orlando Letelier, and an aide, Ronni Moffitt, at Sheridan Circle in downtown Washington.

EAST TIMOR: In 1975 President Ford and Secretary of State Kissinger met with Indonesia’s corrupt strongman Suharto. Kissinger told reporters the U.S. wouldn’t recognize the tiny country of East Timor, which had recently won independence from the Dutch. Within hours Suharto launched an invasion, killing, by some estimates, 200,000 civilians.

———–

US intelligence: seeing what it wants to see in Iraq Pat M. Holt

WASHINGTON – The CIA and Defense Department are at it again. As usual, this is about their different approaches to the analysis of intelligence. CIA analysts tend to call it like they see it. Defense analysts tend to call it like they want to see it, or sometimes more to the point, how they want Congress and the public to see it. The subject this time is Iraq.

Dissatisfied with what the CIA is telling the White House, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has set up his own unit to analyze reports from the CIA and other agencies. He is relying on this process for justification of his bellicose policy toward Iraq – something he thinks he is not getting from the CIA. Rumsfeld starts with a policy and looks for intelligence to support it. The CIA (most of the time anyway) stays with what it thinks the intelligence shows and leaves it to policymakers to come up with answers on what to do about it.

It is typical of presidents to want the CIA to report what they want to hear. When Lyndon Johnson sent troops to intervene in the Dominican Republic in 1965, he said publicly it was to prevent a communist takeover. When the CIA reported that it could find no communists, he went to the FBI, which found plenty.

During the first Bush administration, when CIA director William Webster told the House Armed Services Committee that the collapse of Soviet and Warsaw Pact military power was irreversible, Dick Cheney, then secretary of defense, now vice president, complained that such statements made it more difficult for him to persuade Congress to approve the defense budget.

With respect to Iraq, there is evidence that Saddam Hussein has used poison gas against Kurds, but not that he is likely to make unprovoked attacks using chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear weapons. President Bush has nonetheless said that the danger of such use demands there be no delay in removing Mr. Hussein from power. When asked for evidence, the White House pleads that it must protect intelligence sources and methods. Frequently, this is more an excuse than a reason for not saying out loud what the government knows or thinks it knows. The United States does acquire some intelligence from sources or with methods that should not be publicly known.

For example, we might have bribed a foreign official or broken a foreign code. If the intelligence is disclosed, the foreign government will recognize the source and take steps to ensure that we cannot use it again. Maybe it executes the person who told us; maybe it changes the code. This is what is meant by protecting sources and methods.

Sometimes, however, there is no such intelligence; there are no secrets being protected. What is happening is that a government official (sometimes the president himself) has made an assertion that is unsupported by evidence.

During the cold war, Defense and CIA consistently differed in their estimates of Soviet military strength. Whenever this happened, liberals accused Defense analysts of inflating intelligence estimates; conservatives accused the CIA of minimizing them. Finally, it was agreed that outside experts would be brought in to provide independent judgments. They were organized into Team A and Team B, one examining Defense data and methodology, the other that of the CIA. The Senate Intelligence Committee made its own review and reported that the exercise was inconclusive. When the end of the cold war opened Soviet files to some extent, it was found that both Defense and CIA had overestimated Soviet military spending, Defense more so.

Aside from the different approaches to intelligence by Defense and CIA, there are other reasons for this deep-seated rivalry. One is money. The director of the CIA is charged by law with coordinating the government’s intelligence work, but most of the money (an estimated 80 percent) is concealed in the Defense Department appropriation. In addition, a great deal of the actual collection and analysis of intelligence is done by the Defense Department. This includes the operation of spy satellites as well as the tactical intelligence of the armed forces.

It should be said that interpreting intelligence (what do hundreds, perhaps thousands, of reports, some of them conflicting, mean, if anything?) is no simple task. The question of bias applies alike to the analyst and the policymaker to whom he reports. Does either or both have an ax to grind? The informed observer can never be sure. He can only identify with experience some telltale signs to look for.

• Pat M. Holt is former chief of staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

———–

When George W Bush arrived in the White House, it was hardly surprising that he looked after Enron – the company had been looking after him for years. In the final extract of his book, Robert Bryce describes how the firm bought its way into Washington’s corridors of power

Wednesday November 6, 2002 The Guardian

Pipe Dreams Buy Pipe Dreams at Amazon.co.uk

Surely it’s just a coincidence. What else would explain why Enron Oil and Gas, a subsidiary of Enron Corp, would have been in business with George W Bush back in 1986? Bush the Younger was many things, including the eldest son of the vice president of the United States. A successful oilman he was not. Bush’s forays into the energy business had been nothing short of disastrous. In 1984, Bush had no choice but to merge his faltering firm, Bush Exploration Company, with another company, Spectrum 7. But by mid-1986, Bush had done his magic on the privately owned Spectrum 7. The company wasn’t producing much energy of any kind, and Bush was actively trying to sell again. Despite Spectrum 7’s lousy record, it somehow got into business with Enron Oil and Gas. And on October 16, 1986, Enron Oil and Gas announced that it had completed a well a few miles outside of Midland, Texas, that was producing 24,000 cubic feet of natural gas and 411 barrels of oil per day. Enron owned 52% of the well; 10% belonged to Spectrum 7.

Now, the oil and gas business is full of speculators, and wells are often drilled with multiple investors with varying backgrounds. But the early Bush-Enron connection points out just how small the energy business is. Lay’s ties to George W Bush go back to 1980, when Bush made his first bid for the White House. Bush, who had recently served as director of the Central Intelligence Agency, needed campaign funds after his surprise win in the Iowa caucuses. So Lay, who had probably met Bush through mutual friends in the energy business in Houston, gave money to Bush’s campaign. Though Bush didn’t win, Ronald Reagan made him vice president. Bush went on to chair the panel that pushed Reagan’s task force on deregulation. One of Reagan’s biggest moves in deregulation involved the lifting of federal controls on natural gas markets, a move that Lay had long favoured.

When the elder Bush got to the White House, he didn’t forget Lay. Bush rewarded Lay during his presidency with one of the most coveted perks of being a presidential pal, a sleep-over at the White House.

When Bush the Younger decided to run for governor of Texas in fall 1993, one of his first stops on the campaign trail was Houston. During his visit, George W Bush asked Lay to be the finance chairman of his campaign in Harris County, which includes Houston. Lay didn’t take the job. He preferred to give George W Bush a $12,500 (£8,000 at today’s rates) cheque and work behind the scenes. In his stead, Bush’s campaign in the county was headed by Lay’s second in command at Enron, Rich Kinder. In all, Lay, Kinder, and other Enron executives donated $146,500 to George W Bush, almost seven times more than the amount they gave to the incumbent candidate, Democrat Ann Richards. The donations by the execs, combined with money from Enron’s political action committee, made the Houston company Bush’s biggest campaign contributor.

After George W Bush defeated Richards, Enron gave $50,000 to Bush’s inaugural committee. Lay began lobbying Bush almost immediately. In December 1994, before Bush moved into the Governor’s mansion in downtown Austin, Lay began sending him regular letters on energy policy, tax issues, lawsuit reform and other matters. That month, Lay asked Bush to appoint Pat Wood, who supported the deregulation of electric utilities, to the state’s public utility commission. Bush complied with Lay’s request. And later on, Bush would appoint Wood – again at Lay’s recommendation – to the federal energy regulatory commission.

And while Lay maintained close ties to the Bush family throughout George W Bush’s stint as governor of Texas, those connections would be even more valuable to him and to Enron if Bush the Younger could throw the Democrats out of the White House. In December 1999, while Bush was pounding the campaign trail, Lay again wrote to his friend, addressing it to “George and Laura” [Bush’s wife]. “Linda and I are so proud of both of you and look forward to seeing both of you in the White House.”

Lay had been one of Bush’s first “pioneers”, each of whom pledged to raise $100,000 for Bush. He had also made Enron’s fleet of aircraft available to his campaign. The Bush campaign used Enron’s jets to fly to different events on eight different occasions – more than any other corporation. During the 2000 election cycle, Lay contributed more than $275,000 to the Republican National Committee. Enron’s total donations to the party exceeded $1.1million. When the outcome of the election was in doubt after the polls closed in November 2000, Lay and his wife, Linda, gave $10,000 to help finance the Bush campaign’s Florida operation during the recount after the election.

After Bush prevailed in the election (thanks to assistance by the US supreme court) Ken and Linda Lay gave another $100,000 to help finance Bush’s inaugural gala. In all, Enron and its top execs kicked in $300,000 for the inauguration festivities. Naturally enough, the day after the inauguration, Lay went to a private lunch party at the White House, where he got to schmooze with the new president one on one. A few weeks later, Lay had dinner with the president.

It wasn’t long before Enron’s bet on George W Bush was paying off in more important ways, too. Although the California energy crisis was raging throughout his first few months in office in 2001, the president refused – for nearly six months – to consider the possibility that the golden state’s power markets were being manipulated. In some parts of the state, electricity rates had gone from $30 per megawatt hour to an alarming $1,500 per megawatt hour. Rolling blackouts – and threats of blackouts – had the state in a near constant uproar. By the time Bush had spent about 180 days in the White House, the state of California had spent nearly $8 billion buying power on the open market just to keep the lights on.

Despite the crisis, Dianne Feinstein, a senator from California – the most populous state in the union – couldn’t get an appointment with Bush. The White House had plenty of time for Enron, though. On April 17 2001, Vice President Cheney had a private meeting with Enron chairman Ken Lay. During the meeting, Lay offered suggestions for Cheney’s energy task force and lobbied Cheney against price caps in California. Cheney quickly adopted Lay’s argument. The day after his meeting with Lay, Cheney mocked the idea of price caps. He told the Los Angeles Times that caps would only provide “short-term political relief for the politicians.” In late May, Bush visited California and, like Cheney, attacked the idea that price caps – something the California governor, Gray Davis, and Feinstein had been begging for – might help the state restore order to its electricity system.

Bush and Cheney were wrong. Enron and several other power companies had been manipulating the California energy market for months and collecting huge revenues for their efforts. Using strategies with colourful names like Death Star, Get Shorty, Fat Boy, and Ricochet, Enron had apparently figured out ways to play the state’s power system and drive up prices. Finally, on June 18 2001, after weeks of rising intrigue, the federal energy regulatory commission approved limited price caps for California. The move quickly settled the state’s power markets.

Enron’s connections in the White House went much further than George W Bush. The new president’s chief economic adviser, Larry Lindsey, was on Enron’s payroll before going to the White House, earning $100,000 in consulting fees from the Houston company. Marc Racicot, the former governor of Montana, lobbied for Enron before Bush named him to lead the Republican national committee. Robert Zoellick, Bush’s choice for US trade representative, served on an Enron advisory council. Thomas White, Bush’s secretary of the army, was the vice chairman of Enron Energy Services, a money-losing charade of a company. Nevertheless, when White left Enron, he owned more than $25 million in the company’s stock. Bush’s chief strategist and political guru, Karl Rove, owned more than $100,000 of Enron stock when Bush took office.

Bush’s White House provided Lay and Enron with unprecedented access. In addition to the meeting with Lay, Enron officials met with Cheney’s task force (the national energy policy development group) five times and talked to it by phone on at least six other occasions about the measure. Their effort shows. The national energy policy development group’s final report – Reliable, Affordable and Environmentally Sound Energy for America’s Future – released in mid-May 2001, contains a number of provisions very favourable to Enron. For instance, the report recommends the creation of a national electricity grid, a move that could allow Enron to trade electric power more readily in all regions of the country.

The report says permitting for gas pipelines should be expedited, a factor that would help Enron, already one of the largest pipeline companies in the world, build more capacity more quickly. The report talks about the California crisis, the need for energy efficiency, increased domestic natural gas production and, of course, India. Didn’t you know that the cost of butane in Bombay is critical to soccer moms in Seattle? Cheney’s group recommended that “the president direct the secretaries of state and energy to work with India’s ministry of petroleum and natural gas to help India maximise its domestic oil and gas production”.

Not only could Lay get Bush’s ear on appointments, he could get federal reports to mention countries like India, where Enron, with the Dabhol electricity and liquefied natural gas project (also mentioned in Cheney’s report), was a major investor.

To be fair, the energy report also discusses America’s growing reliance on energy from Mexico and Canada. But the state department, which participated in the writing of the energy report, didn’t add the India section; the White House did. Ken Lay’s money on George W Bush had been well spent.

———–

Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. – Ben Franklin (1706-1790) Historical Review of Constitution and Government of Pennsylvania.

On 27 October 2002

The Observer, London

The ENEMY WITHIN by Gore Vidal

On 24 August, 1814, things looked very dark for freedom1s land. That was the day the British captured Washington DC and set fire to the Capitol and the White House. President Madison took refuge in the nearby Virginia woods where he waited patiently for the notoriously short attention span of the Brits to kick in, which it did. They moved on and what might have been a Day of Utter Darkness turned out to be something of a bonanza for the DC building trades and up-market realtors.

One year after 9/11, we still don’t know by whom we were struck that infamous Tuesday, or for what true purpose. But it is fairly plain to many civil libertarians that 9/11 put paid not only to much of our fragile Bill of Rights but also to our once-envied system of government which had taken a mortal blow the previous year when the Supreme Court did a little dance in 5/4 time and replaced a popularly elected president with the oil and gas Cheney-Bush junta.

Meanwhile, our more and more unaccountable government is pursuing all sorts of games around the world that we the spear- carriers (formerly the people) will never learn of. Even so, we have been getting some answers to the question: why weren1t we warned in advance of 9/11? Apparently, we were, repeatedly; for the better part of a year, we were told there would be unfriendly visitors to our skies some time in September 2001, but the government neither informed nor protected us despite Mayday warnings from Presidents Putin and Mubarak, from Mossad and even from elements of our own FBI. A joint panel of congressional intelligence committees reported (19 September 2002, New York Times) that as early as 1996, Pakistani terrorist Abdul Hakim Murad confessed to federal agents that he was learning to fly in order to crash a plane into CIA HQ.

Only CIA director George Tenet seemed to take the various threats seriously. In December 1998, he wrote to his deputies that “we are at war” with Osama bin Laden. So impressed was the FBI by his warnings that by 20 September 2001, “the FBI still had only one analyst assigned full time to al-Qaeda”.

From a briefing prepared for Bush at the beginning of July 2001: “We believe that OBL (Osama bin Laden) will launch a significant terrorist attack against US and/or Israeli interests in the coming weeks. The attack will be spectacular and designed to inflict mass casualties against US facilities or interests. Attack preparations have been made. Attack will occur with little or no warning.” And so it came to pass; yet Condoleezza Rice, the National Security Advisor, says she never suspected that this meant anything more than the kidnapping of planes.

Happily, somewhere over the Beltway, there is Europe-recently declared anti-semitic by the US media because most of Europe wants no war with Iraq and the junta does, for reasons we may now begin to understand thanks to European and Asian investigators with their relatively free media.

On the subject, “how and why America was attacked on 11 September 2001”, the best, most balanced report, thus far is by Nafeez Mossadeq Ahmed… Yes, yes, I know he is one of Them. But they often know things that we don1t-particularly about what we are up to. A political scientist, Ahmed is executive director of the Institute for Policy Research and Development “a think-tank dedicated to the protection of human rights, justice and peace” in Brighton. His book, The War on Freedom, has just been published in the US by a small, but reputable publisher.

Ahmed provides a background for our ongoing war against Afghanistan, a view that in no way coincides with what the administration has told us. He has drawn on many sources, most tellingly on American whistle-blowers who are beginning to come forth and bear witness ? like those FBI agents who warned their superiors that al-Qaeda was planning a kamikaze strike against New York and Washington only to be told that if they went public with these warnings under the National Security Act. Several of these agents have engaged David P. Schippers, chief investigative counsel for the US House Judiciary Committee, to represent them in court. That majestic Schippers managed the successful impeachment of President Clinton in the House of Representatives. He may, if the Iraqi war should go wrong, be obliged to perform the same high service for Bush, who allowed the American people to go unwarned about an imminent attack upon two of our cities as preemption of a planned military strike by the US against the Taliban.

The Guardian (26 September 2001) reported that in July 2001, a group of interested parties met in a Berlin hotel to listen to a former State Department official, Lee Coldren, as he passed on a message from the Bush administration that “the United States was so disgusted with the Taliban that they might be considering some military action the chilling quality of this private warning was that it came-according to one of those present, the Pakistani diplomat Niaz Naik-accompanied by specific details of how Bush would succeed…” Four days earlier, the guardian had reported that “Osama bin Laden and the Taliban received threats of possible American military action against them two months before the terrorist assaults on New York and Washington… (which) raises the possibility that bin Laden was launching a pre-emptive strike in response to what he saw as US threats.” A replay of the ‘day of infamy’ in the Pacific 62 years earlier?

Why the US needed a Eurasian adventure

On 9 September 2001, Bush was presented with a draft of a national security presidential directive outlining a global campaign of military, diplomatic and intelligence action targeting al-Qaeda, buttressed by the threat of war. According to NBC News: ‘President Bush’ was expected to sign detailed plans for a worldwide war against al-Qaeda but did not have a chance before the terrorist attacks… The directive, as described to NBC News, was essentially the same war plan as the one put into action after 11 September. The administration most likely was able to respond so quickly… because it simply had to pull the plans “off the shelf”.”

Finally, BBC News, 18 September 2001: “Niaz Naik, a former Pakistani foreign secretary, “was told by senior American officials in mid-July that military action against Afghanistan would go ahead by the middle of October. It was Naik1s view that Washington would not drop its war for Afghanistan even if bin Laden were to be surrendered immediately by the Taliban.”

Was Afghanistan then turned to rubble in order to avenge the 3,000 Americans slaughtered by Osama? Hardly. The administration is convinced that Americans are so simple minded that they can deal with no scenario more complex than the venerable lone, crazed killer (this time with zombie helpers) who does evil just for the fun of it ’cause he hates us, ’cause we’re rich ‘n and free ‘n he’s not, Osama was chosen on aesthetic grounds to be the frightening logo for our long-contemplated invasion and conquest of Afghanistan, planning for which had been “contingency” some years before 9/11 and, again, from 20 December 2000, when Clinton1s outgoing team devised a plan to strike at al-Qaeda in retaliation for the assault on the warship Cole. Clinton1s National Security Adviser, Sandy Berger, personally briefed his successor on the plan but Rice, still very much in her role as a director of Chevron-Texaco, with special duties regarding Pakistan and Uzbekistan, now denies any such briefing. A year and a half later (12 August 2002), fearless Time magazine reported this odd memory lapse.

Osama, if it was he and not a nation, simply provided the necessary shock to put in train a war of conquest. But conquest of what? What is there in dismal in dry sandy Afghanistan worth conquering? Zbigniew Brzezinski tells us exactly what in a 1997 Council on Foreign Relations study called The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperitives.

The Polish-born Brzezinski was the hawkish National Security Adviser to President Carter. In The Grand Chessboard, Brzezinski gives a little history lesson. “Ever sense the continents started interacting politically, some 500 years ago, Eurasia has been the centre of world power.” Eurasia is all the territory east of Germany. This means Russia, the Middle East, China, and parts of India. Brzezinski acknowledges that Russia and China, bordering oil rich central Asia, are the two main powers threatening US hegemony in that area.

He takes it for granted that the US must exert control over the former Soviet Republics of Central Asia, know to those who love them as “the Stans”: Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikstan and Kyrgyzstan all ‘of importance from the standpoint of security and historical ambitions to at least three of their most immediate and most powerful neighbors-Russia, Turkey and Iran, with China signaling’. Brzezinski notes how the world’s energy consumption keeps increasing; hence, who controls Caspian oil/gas will control the world economy. Brzezinski then, reflexively, goes into the standard American rationalization for empire. We want nothing, ever, for ourselves, only to keep bad people from getting good things with which to hurt good people. It follows that Americas primary interest is to help ensure that no single (other) power comes to control the geopolitical space and that the global community has unhindered financial and economic access to it.”

Brzezinski is quite aware that American leaders are wonderfully ignorant of history and geography so he really lays it on, stopping just short of invoking politically incorrect manifest destiny. He reminds the Council just how big Eurasia is. Seventy-five percent of the worlds population is Eurasian. If I have done the sums right, that means weve only got control, to date, of a mere 25 percent of the world1s folks. More! Eurasia accounts for 60% of the worlds GNP and three-fourths of the world1s known energy resources.”

Brzezinskis master plan for our globe has obviously been accepted by the Cheney-Bush junta. Corporate America, long over-excited by Eurasian mineral wealth, has been aboard from the beginning.

Ahmed sums up: Brzezinski clearly envisaged that the establishment, consolidation and expansion of US military hegemony over Eurasia through Central Asia would require the unprecedented open-ended militarisation of foreign policy, coupled with an unprecedented manufacture of domestic support and consensus on this militarisation campaign.

Afghanistan is the gateway of all these riches. Will we fight to seize them? It should never be forgotten that the American people in either of the twentieth century1s world wars but President Wilson maneuvered us into the first while Roosevelt maneuvered the Japanese into striking the first blow at Pearl Harbor, causing us to enter the second as the result of a massive external attack. Brzezinski understands all this and, in 1997, he is thinking ahead-as well as backward. “Moreover, as America becomes an increasingly multicultural society, it may find it more difficult to fashion a consensus on foreign policy issues, except in the circumstance of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat.” Thus was the symbolic gun produced that belched black smoke over Manhattan and the Pentagon.

Since the Iran-Iraq wars, Islam has been demonised as a Satanic terrorist cult that encourages suicide attacks – contrary, it should be noted, to the Islamic religion. Osama has been portrayed, accurately, it would seem, as an Islamic zealot. In order to bring this evil-doer to justice (“dead or alive”), Afghanistan, the object of the exercise, was made safe not only for democracy but for Union oil of California whose proposed pipeline from Turkmenistan to Afghanistan to Pakistan and the Indian Ocean port of Karachi, had been abandoned under the Taliban1s chaotic regime. Currently, the pipeline is a go-project thanks to the junta’s installation of a Unocal employee (John J. Maresca) as US envoy to the newly born democracy whose president, Hamid Karzai, is also, according to Le Monde, a former employee of a Unocal subsidiary. Conspiracy? Coincidence!

Once Afghanistan looked to be within the fold, the junta, which had managed to pull off a complex diplomatic-military caper, abruptly replaced Osama, the personification of evil, with Saddam. This has been hard to explain since there is nothing to connect Iraq with 9/11. Happily, “evidence” is now being invented, but it is uphill work, not helped by stories in the press about the vast oil wealth of Iraq which must ? for the sake of the free world- be reassigned to us and European Consortiums.

As Brzezinski foretold, “a truly and massive and widely perceived direct external threat made it possible for the president to do a war dance before congress. “A long war!” he shouted with glee. Then he named and incoherent axis of evil to be fought. Although Congress did not give him the FDR Special-a declaration of war-he did get permission to go after Osama who may now be skulking in Iraq.

Bush and the dog that did not bark

Post – 9/11, the American media were filled with pre-emptory denunciations of unpatriotic conspiracy theorists, who not only are always with us but are usually easy for the media to discredit since it is an article of faith that there are no conspiracies in American life. Yet, a year or so ago, who would have thought that the most corporate America had been conspiring with accountants to cook their books since ? well, at least the bright dawn of the age of Reagen and deregulation. Ironically, less that a year after the massive danger from without, we were confronted with an even greater enemy from within: Golden Calf Capitalism. Transparency? One fears that greater transparency will only reveal armies of maggots at work beneath the skin of a culture that needs a bit of a lie-down in order to collect itself before taking its next giant step which is to conquer Eurasia, a potentially fatal adventure not only for our frazzled institutions but for us the presently living.

Complicity. The behavior of President George W. Bush on 11 September certainly gives rise to all sorts of not unnatural suspicions. I can think of no other modern chief of state who would continue to pose for warm pictures of himself listening to a young girl telling stories about her pet goat while hijacked planes were into three famous buildings.

Constitutionally, Bush is not only chief of state, he is commander-in-chief of the armed forces. Normally, a commander in such a crisis would go straight to headquarters and direct operations while receiving the latest intelligence.

This is what Bush actually did-or did not do-according to Stan Goff, a retired US Army veteran who has taught military science and doctrine at West Point. Goff writes, in The So-called Evidence is a Farce: “I have no idea why people arent asking some very specific questions about the actions of Bush and company on the day of the attacks. Four planes get hijacked and deviate from their plan, all the while on FAA radar.”

Goff, incidentally, like the other astonished military experts, cannot fathom why the government’s automatic ‘standard order of procedure in the event of a hijacking’ was not followed. Once a plane has deviated from its flight-plan, fighter planes are sent up to find out why. That is law and does not require presidential approval, which only needs to be given if there is a decision to shoot down a plane. Goff spells it out: The planes were hijacked between 7:45 and 8:10 am. Who is notified? This is an event already that is unprecedented. But the President is not notified and going to a Florida elementary school to hear children read.

By around 8:15 am it should be very apparent that something is terribly wrong. The President is glad-handing teachers. By 8:45 when American Airlines Flight 11 crashes into the North Tower, Bush is settling in with children for his photo op. Four planes have obviously been hijacked simultaneously and one has just dived into the twin towers, and still no one notifies the nominal Commander-in-Chief. ‘No one has apparently scrambled (sent aloft) Air Force interceptors either. At 9:03, Flight 175 crashes into the South Tower. At 9:05 Andrew Card, the Chief of Staff whispers to Bush (who) ‘briefly turns sombre’ according to reporters. Does he cancel the school visit and convene an emergency meeting? No. He resumes listening to second graders… and continues the banality even as American Airlines Flight 77 conducts an unscheduled point turn over Ohio and heads in the direction of Washington DC.

‘Has he instructed Card to scramble the Air Force? No. An excruciating 25 minutes later, he finally deigns to give a public statement telling the United States what they have already figured out ? that there1s been an attack on the World Trade Centre. There1s a hijacked plane bee-lining to Washington, but has the Air Force been scrambled to defend anything yet? No.

At 9:35, this plane conducts another turn, 360 degree over the Pentagon, all the while being tracked by radar, and the Pentagon is not evacuated, and there are still no fast-movers from the Air Force in the sky over Alexandria and DC. Now the real kicker: a pilot they want us to believe was trained at a Florida puddle-jumper school Piper Cubs and Cessnas, conducts a well-controlled downward spiral descending the last 7,000 feet in two-and-a-half minutes, brings the plane in so low and flat that it clips the electrical wires from across the street from the Pentagon, and flies it with pinpoint accuracy into the side of the building at 460 knots.

When the theory about learning to fly this well at the puddle-jumper school began to lose ground, it was added that they received further training on a flight simulator. This is like saying you prepared your teenager for her first drive on the freeway at rush hour by buying her a video driving game There is a story being constructed about these events.

There is indeed and the more it is added to the darker it becomes. The nonchalance of General Richard B. Myers, acting Joint Chief of Staff, is as puzzling as the Presidents campaigning-as-usual act. Meyers was at the Capitol chatting with Senator Max Cleland. A sergeant, writing later in the AFPS (American Forces Press Service) describes Myers at the Capitol. While in an outer office, he said, he saw a television report that a plane had hit the World Trade Centre. “They thought it was a small plane or something like that,” Myers said. So the two men went ahead with the office call.

Whatever Myers and Cleland had to say to each other (more funds for the military?) must have been riveting because, during their chat, the AFPS reports, the second tower was hit by another jet. “nobody informed us of that,” Myers said. “But when we came out, that was obvious. Then, right at that time, somebody said the Pentagon had been hit.” Finally, somebody thrust a cellphone in Myers hand and, as if by magic, the commanding general of Norad ? our Airspace Command ? was on the line just as the hijackers mission had been successfully completed except for the failed one in Pennsylvania. In later testimony to the Senate Armed Forces Committee, Myers says he thinks that, as of his cellphone talk with Norad, the decision was at that point to start launching aircraft, It was 9:40 AM. One hour and 20 minutes after air controllers knew that Flight 11 had been hijacked; 50 minutes after the North Tower was struck.

This statement would have been quite enough in our old serious army/air force to launch a number of courts martial with an impeachment or two thrown in. First, Myers claims to be uninformed until the third strike. But the Pentagon had been overseeing the hijacked planes from at least the moment of the strike at the first tower: yet not until the third strike, at the Pentagon, was the decision made to get the fighter planes up. Finally, this one is the dog that did not bark. By law, the fighters should have been up at around 8:15. If they had, all the hijacked planes might have been diverted or shot down. I don1t think Goff is being unduly picky when he wonders who and what kept the Air Force from following its normal procedure instead of waiting an hour and 20 minutes until the damage was done and only then launching the fighters. Obviously, somebody had ordered the Air Force to make no move to intercept those hijackings until… what?

On 21 January 2002, the Canadian media analyst Barry Zwicker summed up on CBS-TV: That morning no interceptors responded in a timely fashion to the highest alert situation. This includes the Andrews squadrons which are 12 miles from the White House Whatever the explanation for the huge failure, there have been no reports, to my knowledge, of reprimands. This further weakens the “Incompetence Theory”. Incompetence usually earns reprimands. This causes me to ask whether there were “stand down” orders.?? On 29 August 2002, the BBC reports that on 9/11 there were only four-fighters on ready status in the north-eastern US. Conspiracy? Coincidence? Error?

It is interesting how often in our history, when disaster strikes, incompetence is considered a better alibi than well, yes, there are worse things. After Pearl Harbor, Congress moved to find out why Hawaiis two military commanders, General Short and Admiral Kimmel, had not anticipated the Japanese attack. But President Roosevelt pre-empted that investigation with one of his own. Short and Kimmel were broken for incompetence. The truth is still obscured to this day.

The medias weapons of mass distraction

BUT PEARL HARBOR has been much studied. 11 September, it is plain, is never going to be investigated if Bush has anything to say about it. In January 2002, CNN reported that Bush personally asked Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle to limit the Congressional investigation into the events of 11 September The request was made at a private meeting with Congressional leaders Sources said Bush initiated the conversation He asked that only the House and Senate intelligence committees look into the potential breakdowns among federal agencies that could have allowed the terrorist attacks to occur, rather than a broader inquiry Tuesdays discussion followed a rare call from Vice President Dick Cheney last Friday to make the same request

The excuse given, according to Daschle, was that resources and personnel would be taken away from the war on terrorism in the event of a wider inquiry. So for reasons that we must never know, those breakdowns are to be the goat. That they were more likely to be not break- but stand-downs is not for us to pry. Certainly the one-hour 20-minute failure to put fighter planes in the air could not have been due to a breakdown throughout the entire Air Force along the East Coast. Mandatory standard operating procedure had been told to cease and desist.

Meanwhile, the media were assigned their familiar task of inciting public opinion against bin Laden, still not the proven mastermind. These media blitzes often resemble the magicians classic gesture of distraction: as you watch the rippling bright colours of his silk handkerchief in one hand, he is planting the rabbit in your pocket with the other. We were quickly assured that Osamas enormous family with its enormous wealth had broken with him, as had the royal family of his native Saudi Arabia. The CIA swore, hand on heart, that Osama had not worked for them in the war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Finally, the rumour that Bush family had in any way profited by its long involvement with bin Laden family was ? what else? ? simply partisan bad taste.

But Bush Jrs involvement goes back at least to 1979 when his first failed attempt to become a player in the big Texas oil league brought him together with one James Bath of Houston, a family friend, who gave Bush Jr. $50,000 for a 5 per cent stake in Bushs firm Arbusto Energy. At this time, according to Wayne Madsen (In These Times ? Institute for Public Affairs No. 25), Bath was the sole US business representative for Salem bin Laden, head of the family and a brother (one of 17) to Osama bin Laden In a statement issued shortly after the 11 September attacks, the White House vehemently denied the connection, insisting that Bath invested his own money, not Salem bin Ladens in Arbusto. In conflicting statements, Bush at first denied ever knowing Bath, then acknowledged his stake in Arbusto and that he was aware Bath represented Saudi interests after several reincarnations, Arbusto emerged in 1986 as Harken Energy Corporation.

Behind the junior Bush is the senior Bush, gainfully employed by the Carlyle Group which has ownership in at least 164 companies worldwide, inspiring admiration in that staunch friend to the wealthy, the Wall Street Journal, which noted, as early as 27 September 2001, If the US boosts defence spending in its quest to stop Osama bin Ladens alleged terrorist activities, there may be one unexpected beneficiary: bin Ladens family is an investor in a fund established by Carlyle Group, a well connected Washington merchant bank specialising in buyouts of defence and aerospace companies Osama is one of more than 50 children of Mohammed bin Laden, who built the familys $5 billion business.

But Bush pere et fils, in pursuit of wealth and office, are beyond shame or, one cannot help but think, good sense. There is a suggestion that they are blocking investigation of the bin Laden connection with terrorism. Agence France Press reported on 4 November 2001: FBI agents probing relatives of Saudi-born terror suspect Osama were told to back off soon after George W. Bush became president According to BBC TVs News-night (6 Nov 2001), just days after the hijackers took off from Boston aiming for the Twin Towers, a special charter flight out of the same airport whisked 11 members of Osamas family off to Saudi Arabia. That did not concern the White House, whose official line is that the bin Ladens are above suspicion. Above the Law (Green Press, 14 February 2002) sums up: We had what looked like the biggest failure of the intelligence community since Pearl Harbor but what we are learning now is it wasnt a failure, it was a directive. True? False? Bush Jr will be under oath during the impeachment interrogation. Will we hear What is a directive? What is is?

Although the US had, for some years, fingered Osama as a master-mind terrorist, no serious attempt had been made pre-9/11 to bring him to justice dead or alive, innocent or guilty, as Texan law of the jungle requires. Clintons plan to act was given to Condoleezza Rice by Sandy Berger, you will recall, but she says she does not.

As far back as March 1996 when Osama was in Sudan, Major General Elfatih Erwa, Sudanese Minister for Defense, offered to extradite him. According to the Washington Post (3 October 2001), “Erwa said he would happily keep close watch on bin Laden for the United States. But if that would not suffice, the government was prepared to place him in custody and hand him over (US officials) said, “just ask him to leave the country. Just dont let him go to Somalia”, where he had once been given credit for the successful al-Qaeda attack on American forces in 93 that killed 18 Rangers.” Erwa said in an interview, “We said he will go to Afghanistan, and they (US officials) said, “Let him.”

In 1996 Sudan expelled Osama and 3,000 of his associates. Two years later the Clinton administration, in the great American tradition of never having to say thank you for Sudans offer to hand over Osama, proceeded to missile-attack Sudans al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory on the grounds that Sudan was harboring bin Laden terrorists who were making chemical and biological weapons when the factory was simply making vaccines for the UN.

Four years later, John ONeill, a much admired FBI agent complained in the Irish Times a month before the attacks, “The US State Department-and behind it the off lobby who make up President Bushs entourage ? blocked attempts to prove bin Ladens guilt. The US ambassador to Yemen forbade ONeill (and his FBI team) from entering Yemen in August 2001. ONeill resigned in frustration and took on a new job as head of security at the World Trade Centre. He died in the 11 September attack.” Obviously, Osama has enjoyed bipartisan American support since his enlistment in the CIA1s war to drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan. But by 9/11 there was no Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, indeed there was no Soviet Union.

A World Made Safe for Peace and Pipelines

I watched Bush and Cheney on CNN when the Axis of Evil speech was given and the long war proclaimed. Iraq, Iran and North Korea were fingered as enemies to be clobbered because they might or might not be harboring terrorists who might or might not destroy us in the night. So we must strike first whenever it pleases us. Thus, we declared “war on terrorism” ? an abstract noun which cannot be a war at all as you need a country for that. Of course, there was innocent Afghanistan, which was leveled from a great height, but then whats collateral damage ? like an entire country ? when youre targeting the personification of all evil according to Time and the NY Times and the networks?

As it proved, the conquest of Afghanistan had nothing to do with Osama. He was simply a pretext for replacing the Taliban with a relatively stable government that would allow Union Oil of California to lay its pipeline for the profit of, among others, the Cheney-Bush junta.

Background? All right. The headquarters of Unocal are, as might be expected, in Texas. In December 1997, Taliban representatives were invited to Sugarland, Texas. At that time, Unocal had already begun training Afghan men in pipeline construction, with US government approval. BBC News, (4 December 1997): A spokesperson for the company Unocal said the Taliban were expected to spend several days at the companys (Texas) Headquarters a BBC regional correspondent says the proposal to build a pipeline across Afghanistan is part of an international scramble to profit from developing the rich energy resources of the Caspian Sea. The Inter Press Service (IPS) reported: some Western businesses are warming up to the Taliban despite the movements institutionalization of terror, massacres, abductions and impoverishment. CNN (6 October 1996): The United States wants good ties (with the Taliban) but cant openly seek them while women are being oppressed.

The Taliban, rather better organized than rumoured, hired for PR one Leila Helms, a niece of Richard Helms, former Director of the CIA. In October 1996, the Frankfurter Rundschau reported that Unocal has been given the go ahead from the new holders of power in Kabul to build a pipeline from Turkmenistan via Afghanistan to Pakistan This was a real coup for Unocal as well as other candidates for pipelines, including Condoleezzas old employer Chevron. Although the Taliban was already notorious for its imaginative crimes against the human race, the Wall Street Journal, scenting big bucks, fearlessly announced: “Like them or not, the Taliban are the players most capable of achieving peace in Afghanistan at this moment in history.” The NY Times (26 May 1997) leapt aboard the pipeline juggernaut. The Clinton administration has taken the view that a Taliban victory would act as counterweight to Iran and would offer the possibility of new trade routes that could weaken Russian and Iranian influence in the region.

But by 1999, it was clear that the Taliban could never provide us the security we would need to protect our fragile pipelines. The arrival of Osama as warrior for Allah on the scene refocused, as it were, the bidding. New alliances were now being made. The Bush administration soon buys the idea of an invasion of Afghanistan, Frederick Starr, head of the Central Asia Institute at Johns Hopkins University, wrote in the Washington Post (19 December, 2000): The US has quietly begun to align itself with those in the Russian government calling for military action against Afghanistan and has toyed with the idea of a new raid to wipe out bin Laden.

Although with much fanfare we went forth to wreak our vengeance on the crazed sadistic religious zealot who slaughtered 3,000 American citizens, once that war was under way, Osama was dropped as irrelevant and so we are back to the Unocal pipeline, now a go-project. In the light of what we know today, it is unlikely that the junta was ever going to capture Osama alive: he has tales to tell. One Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld1s best number now is: “Where is he? Somewhere? Here? There? Somewhere? Who knows?” And we get his best twinkle. He must also be delighted ? and amazed ? that the media have bought the absurd story that Osama, If alive, would still be in Afghanistan, underground, waiting to be flushed out instead of in a comfortable mansion in Osama-loving Jakarta, 2,000 miles to the East and easily accessible by the Flying Carpet One.

Many commentators of a certain age have noted how Hitlerian our junta sounds as it threatens first one country for harbouring terrorists and then another. It is true that Hitler liked to pretend to be the injured ? or threatened ? party before he struck. But he had many great predecessors not lest Imperial Rome. Stephen Gowans War in Afghanistan : A $28 Billion Racket quotes Joseph Schumpeter who, “in 1919, described ancient Rome in a way that sounds eerily like the United States in 2001: “There was no corner of the known world where some interest was not alleged to be in danger or under actual attack. If the interests were not Roman, they were those of Romes allies; and if Rome had no allies, the allies would be invented The fight was always invested with an aura of legality. Rome was always being attacked by evil-minded neighbors.” We have only outdone the Romans in turning metaphors such as the war on terrorism, or poverty, or Aids into actual wars on targets we appear, often, to pick at random in order to maintain turbulence in foreign lands.

As of 1 August 2002, trial balloons were going up all over Washington DC to get world opinion used to the idea the Bush of Afghanistan had gained a title as mighty as his fathers Bush of the Persian Gulf and Junior was now eager to add Iraq-Babylon to his diadem. These various balloons fell upon Europe and the Arab world like so many lead weights. But something new has been added since the classic Roman Hitlerian mantra, they are threatening us, we must attack first. Now everyone is more or less out in the open. The International Herald Tribune wrote in August 2002: The leaks began in earnest on 5 July, when the New York Times described a tentative Pentagon plan that it said called for an invasion by a US force of up to 250,000 that would attack Iraq from the north, south and west. On 10 July, the Times said that Jordan might be used as a base for the invasion. The Washington Post reported, 28 July, that “many senior US military officers contend that Saddam Hussein poses no immediate threat” And the status quo should be maintained. Incidentally, this is the sort of debate that the founding fathers intended the Congress, not the military bureaucrats, to conduct in the name of we the people. But that sort of debate has, for a long time, been denied us.

One refreshing note is now being struck in a fashion unthinkable in imperial Rome: the cheerful admission that we habitually resort to provocation. The Tribune continues: Donald Rumsfeld has threatened to jail anyone found to have been behind the leaks. But a retired army general, Fred Woerner, tends to see a method behind the leaks. “We may already be executing a plan,” he said recently. “Are we involved in a preliminary psychological dimension of causing Iraq to do something to justify a US attack or make concessions? Somebody knows. That is plain.

Elsewhere in this interesting edition of the Herald Tribune wise William Pfaff writes: A second Washington debate is whether to make an unprovoked attack on Iran to destroy a nuclear power reactor being built with Russian assistance, under inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency, within the terms of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty of which Iran is a signatory No other government would support such an action, other than Israil’ (which) would do so not because it expected to be attacked by Iran but because it, not unjustifiably, opposes any nuclear capacity in the hands of any Islamic government.

Suspect states and the tom-toms of revenge

Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. As the parent of armies, war encourages debts and taxes, the known instrument for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the executive is extended and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, or the people Thus, James Madison warned us at the dawn of our republic.

Post 9/11, thanks to the domination of the few, Congress and the media are silent while the executives, through propaganda and skewed polls, seduces the public mind as hitherto unthinkable centres of power like Homeland Defence (a new Cabinet post to be placed on top of the Defence Department) are being constructed and 4 percent of the country has recently been invited to join Tips, a civilian spy system to report on anyone who looks suspicious or who objects to what the executive is doing at home or abroad?

Although every nation knows how ? if it has the means and the will ? to protect itself from thugs of the sort that brought us 9/11, war is not an option. Wars are for nations not rootless gangs. You put a price on their heads and hunt them down. In recent years, Italy has been doing just that with the Sicilian Mafia; and no one has yet suggested bombing Palermo.

But the Cheney-Bush junta wants a war in order to dominate Afghanistan, build a pipeline, gain control of the oil of Eurasias Stans for their business associates as well as to do as much damage to Iraq and Iran on the grounds that one day those evil countries may carpet our fields of amber, grain with anthrax or something.

The media, never much good at analysis, are more and more breathless and incoherent. On CNN, even the stolid Jim Clancy started to hyperventilate when an Indian academic tried to explain how Iraq was once our ally and friend in its war against our Satanic enemy Iran. None of that conspiracy stuff snarled Clancy. Apparently, conspiracy stuff is now shorthand for unspeakable truth.

As of August, at least among economists, a censensus was growing that, considering our vast national debt (we borrow $2 billion a day to keep the government going) and a tax base seriously reduced by the junta in order to benefit the 1 per cent who own most of the national wealth, there is no way that we could ever find the billions needed to destroy Iraq in a long war or even a short one, with most of Europe lined up against us. Germany and Japan paid for the Gulf War, reluctantly ? with Japan, at the last moment, irritably quarreling over the exchange rate at the time of the contract. Now Germanys Schroder has said no. Japan is mute.

But the tom-toms keep beating revenge; and the fact that most of the world is opposed to our war seems only to bring hectic roses to the cheeks of the Bush administration (Bush Snr of the Carlyle Group, Bush Jnr formerly of Harken, Cheney, formerly of Halliburton, Rice, formerly of Chevron, Rumsfeld, formerly of Occidental). If ever an administration should recluse itself in matters dealing with energy, it is the current junta. But this is unlike any administration in our history. Their hearts are plainly elsewhere, making money, far from our mock Roman temples, while we, alas, are left only with their heads, dreaming of war, preferably against weak peripheral states.

Mohammed Heikel is a brilliant Egyptian journalist-observer, and sometime Foreign Minister, On 10 October 2001, he said to the Guardian: Bin Laden does not have the capabilities for an operation of this magnitude. When I hear Bush talking about al-Qaeda as if it were Nazi Germany or the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, I laugh because I know what is there. Bin Laden has been under surveillance for years: every telephone call was monitored and al-Qaeda has been penetrated by US intelligence, Pakistani intelligence, Saudi intelligence, Egyptian intelligence. They could not have kept secret an operation that required such a degree of organization and sophistication.

The former president of Germanys domestic intelligence service, Eckehardt Werthebach ( American Free Press, 4 December 2001) spells it out. The 9/11 attacks required years of planning while their scale indicates that they were a product of state-organized actions. There it is. Perhaps, after all, Bush Jnr was right to call it a war. But which state attacked us?

Will the suspects please line up. Saudi Arabia? No, no. Why we are paying you $50 million a year for training the royal bodyguard on our own holy if arid soil. True the kingdom contains many wealthy well-educated enemies but Bush Snr and Jnr exchange a knowing look. Egypt? No way. Dead broke despite US baksheesh. Syria? No funds. Iran? Too proud to bother with a parvenu state like the US. Israel? Sharon is capable of anything. But he lacks the guts and the grace of the true kamikaze. Anyway, Sharon was not in charge when this operation began with the planting of sleepers around the US flight schools 5 or 6 years ago. The United States? Elements of corporate America would undeniably prosper from a massive external attack that would make it possible for us to go to war whenever the President sees fit while suspending civil liberties. (The 342 pages of the USA Patriot Act were plainly prepared before 9/11.) Bush Snr and Jnr are giggling now. Why? Because Clinton was president back then. As the former president leaves the line of suspects, he says, more in anger than in sorrow: “When we left the White House we had a plan for an all-out war on al-Queda. We turned it over to this administration and they did nothing. Why Biting his lip, he goes. The Bushes no longer giggle. Pakistan breaks down: I did it! I confess! I couldnt help myself. Save me. I am an evil-doer!

Apparently, Pakistan did do it ? or some of it. We must now go back to 1979 when the largest covert operation in history of the CIA was launched in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Central Asia specialist Ahmed Rashid wrote (Foreign Affairs, November-December 1999): With the active encouragement of the CIA and Pakistans ISI (Inter Services Intelligence) who wanted to turn the Afghan jihad into a global war, waged by all Muslim states against the Soviet Union, some 35,000 Muslim radicals, from 40 Islamic countries joined Afghanistans fight between 1982 and 92 more than 100,000 foreign Muslim radicals were directly influenced by the Afghanistan jihad. The CIA covertly trained and sponsored these warriors.

In March 1985, President Reagan issued National Security Decision Directive 166, increasing military aid while CIA specialists met with the ISI counterparts near Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Janes Defence Weekly (14 September 2001) gives the best overview: The trainers were mainly from Pakistans ISI agency who learnt their craft from American Green Beret commandos and Navy Seals in various US training establishments. This explains the reluctance of the administration to explain why so many unqualified persons, over so long a time, got visas to visit our hospitable shores. While in Pakistan, mass training of Afghan (zealots) was subsequently conducted by the Pakistan army under the supervision of the elite Special Services In 1988, with US knowledge, bin Laden created al-Qaeda (The Base); a conglomerate of quasi-independent Islamic terrorist cells spread across 26 or so countries. Washington turned a blind eye to al-Qaeda.

When Mohammed Attas plane struck the World Trade Centres North Tower, George W. Bush and the child at the Florida elementary school were discussing her goat. By coincidence, our word tragedy comes from the Greek: for goat tragos plus oide for song. Goat-song. It is highly suitable that this lament, sung in ancient satyr plays, should have been heard again at the exact moment when we were struck by fire from heaven, and a tragedy whose end is nowhere in sight began for us.

Copyright Gore Vidal

www.karalla.com eme [at] karalla [dot] com 212 860 8900

———–